AMC

I suppose this will be the MC evolution of Kevin Beacham bio. To start off, I’ve loved music for as long as I can remember. More importantly I’ve always focused on the lyrics. From the days of listening to my parents play Earth Wind & Fire, Kool & The Gang, KC & The Sunshine Band, Rick James, Lou Rawls, Rose Royce, etc.. I was trying to learn every word to sing along. When I got my first rap record (Late ‘79/Early ‘80), courtesy of my Dad with “Rappers Delight”, I wasted no time learning all the words. From there I set out to find any similar style music, learning the words and “performing” them in the mirror was pretty standard. Eventually and naturally I started substituting my own words here and there and before you know it, I had my first rhyme. The first rhyme I ever completely wrote to say in public was to the theme of a popular “chant” and foot stomp people used to do at the high school basketball games back then circa ‘81. I was living in Stuttgart, Germany at the time (Pattonville Army Base) and there were two older guys who would rhyme all the time who I looked up to, Mike Young & McKintley Thompson. In ‘82 Steve White (a.k.a Romeo) moved to the Army Base from New York (Queens I think). He was the first guy me and most of us around met that was from New York, who had been to park jams, who was down with crews (I think he had some association with High Fidelity Crew in Queens), and all that. He took me under his wing and he wrote me a lil verse that became the first rhyme to get me some recognition.I started to take it more serious then and so I formed a crew with my best friend at the time, Rubens Matos. We were called the Devastating Two. We were only 12 at the time so of course we didn’t no much about anything so we just made a couple tapes with my Sharp Dual Cassette deck and a cheap mic. We used instrumentals from “The Ultimate Rap” (Nice & Nasty 3), “Rockin It” (Fearless Four), and “Magic’s Wand” (Whodini). Speaking of which, my original nickname turned rap name in ‘80/’81 was Mr Magic. I used it because my other love was basketball and my team at the time was The L.A. Lakers (Magic Johnson). However, when I heard about the famous New York Radio jock of the same name I knew I had to change it. The older folks around the way, parents included, would sometimes call me “Cool Breeze” because I was always trying to be the coolest thing breathing, particularly with the sun glasses in the pitch dark of night...ha. I decided to flip it to Coolie Cool.In ‘84 I moved to Fort Riley, Kansas and formed a new crew with some guys I was in the Youth Center Breaking Crew with (Fort Riley Breakin’ Patrol stand up! Ha), MC TNT (Eddy Barber) & MC Capri (Warren Curry) and later DJ Pill (our Mentor). We called ourselves The 3D Crew (a.k.a 3rd Dimension) and wrote a bunch of songs (about 3 albums worth) and did as many performances we could, mostly talent shows and battles which we always won our placed in the top 3 (OK, it was only like or 3 or 4 of them but I’m still proud...ha). In November of ‘85 I moved to North Chicago, IL.In a new place with no crew I started to do a lot of solo writing. I eventually got my hands on a Roland 505 so I made a bunch of home tapes and wrote about 3 albums worth of material (honestly about a album and a ½ is good probably...ha). At the time my style was more harmonizing and flowing. However, the first MC I met in North Chicago changed that. Everyone kept telling me that if I rapped I needed to meet Doc Rock of Fresh City (later Shakespeare of His Majesti). Finally one day after school we hooked up and traded rhymes. I rocked first doing some jingle to a commercial or something...ha. Then he spit the hardest rhyme I ever heard in my life! I can’t remember much but I know he said that his words, “Disinfect the air like Lysol”. I was stunned and inspired. I went home that night and wrote the best rhyme I ever had. From that point on I was as much as concentrated on the content of the words as the style.By The time ‘85/’86 came around the Old School names were fading out. Plus I was becoming very confident in my skills most notably for my excellent battle record so I started to call myself, “The Amazing MC Coolie”, but more often just A.M.C. That also made it cheaper and more practical to print on a shirt (charged per letter and the “old english” was already expensive...ha). Plus it gave me an opportunity to be “clever” with the fact that it also described what I did. I was “A MC” (yes, I know “an” MC is proper English...I was 14, give me a break...ha).In ‘86 I started to form my next crew, we would eventually be known as Wildstyle and we were pretty popular in the North Chicago/Waukegan, IL area from ‘87-‘90, for whatever that is worth. Lots of battles, performances and demos. You can peep the Wildstyle story, music, and all that here: www.myspace.com/wildstylecrew88In ‘90 the crew split up and I decided to stay solo because every time it seemed like some real progress was being made someone moved away or people couldn’t work together anymore. That’s the first time I officially recorded under AMC. A few of the tracks from this time period were done under the Wildstyle name because I was still working with DJ Madd Maxx. Eventually I started doing all my own production as well as writing. I recorded almost an albums worth of material and had about 25-30 songs total that I was working on.In ‘92 I came to the conclusion that “AMC” wouldn’t be very attention grabbing at the Camelot Mall Tape Stores (yes, I thought about the importance of that stuff...ha) so I wanted to come up with a “group” name even though I’d be the only MC. That’s when “Savage Intellect” (which was great because the “S” section seemed like a great place to be...ha) was born. I actually have 3 full albums done under Savage Intellect from ‘92-‘01; “101 Ways To Use An Ice Pick” (‘92), Journey Thru The Mental (‘94/’95), then I took a break from it all as far as MCing/writing and came back in ‘99-‘01 and wrote “Genesis Of Genius” [produced by myself, JEL, Molemen, Overflo, and one more undetermined producer]. In many ways those projects are me at my best. I have some of those tracks recorded but only a few and they’re mostly rough drafts/incomplete. I do have most of the instrumentals all complete though. It’s a dream of mine to go back and actually record those three albums if only for my own entertainment and enjoyment. I’ll eventually do a Savage Intellect page as well.After the “Genesis Of Genius” album I just never felt compelled to write again for some reason. I think I really was content with what I wrote and didn’t think I needed to write again. I’m sure a part of it is that by then I was convinced I wasn’t going to be living off rapping so part of the allure was gone.... However, even now at a time when anyone can and is making a “come back” to make new music I just don’t feel compelled to do that. I’d rather take this time to finally get all this music from over the years out there that only got some local shine wherever I was living at the time. I am still known to get pretty nice on the freestyle when driving around in my car...believe me, ha. As far as writing, my passion now lies in just my journalism and there are definitely plans for some books in my future.The music on this page will focus mainly on the ‘90-‘92 period (with maybe some earlier freestyles and solo stuff I have...I got tapes and tapes for days....).- AMC, rock on...