Essentially began my career as a performing artist doing Spoken Word at the age of 17 in Los Angeles, CA... Honolulu, Hi... with musicians where I was featured and open mike poetry in the beatnik and performing arts traditions, my influences at the time were William Burroughs, Lydia Lunch, and Lori Anderson. Shortly thereafter I was picked up by a punk rock band in Hawaii called "Poetic Justice" ... the band previously existed as a cover band under a different name, I was recruited because they were interested in producing some original material. We primarily played the college circuit and punk clubs in Waikiki and Manoa.
I moved to San Francisco right after my 19th birthday and returned to my roots as a poet, and a journalist, where my poetry was published in local papers including "The Tenderloin Times", "RockHEAD", and several notable underground punk and goth 'zines too numerous to mention. Since the scene was primarily associated with North Beach my credibility as an artist was challenged because I was involved in the Tenderloin/South of Market scene and therefore "from the wrong side of the tracks" ... however I gained some acceptance and the San Francisco Chronicle published an article about me when I was 20 hailing me as one of three promising upcoming beatnik poets.
I performed at numerous community functions and large festivals throughout San Francisco and Los Angeles with the alternative rock band Stagefright, a goth/reggae fusion band with a distinctive style most often compared to another local act Spearhead.
I really have to thank my friends in the African American community in the Fillmore for accepting me as a serious alternative artist with less than orthodox roots for mainstream hip-hop, my background being in spoken word and alternative rock. I met and networked with any number of local rap and hip hop artists between 1993 and the present... eventually gaining acceptance as a very lyrically talented lyrical poet with a political message, an unusually post-feminist perspective, and an active community member and support with roots in the Fillmore/Western-Addition that go deep.
In addition to the support I have recieved from 4Flavaz Entertainment, I thank Leila Steinberg and Assemblies In Motion, where I studied transforming spoken word into hip-hop for a year and a half in Los Angeles, California. Assemblies In Motion was formerly located in Marin, CA and also helped a very young Tupac Shakur who began his career in spoken word.
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