About Me
Quote (spelled with the symbols question mark, om, crucifix) is an element seldom seen in the hip hop industry, with lyrics chock full of metaphorical imagery and versatile rhythmic patterns covering a wide array of topics such as spirituality, social commentary, emotional recollections of personal experiences, and hip hops trademark ego-tripping rap. Producing his own beats, Quote has been referred to by peers in the industry as non-commercial, self-sufficient, a backpack/underground writer, and even "the smartest rapper in Dub-V (West Virginia)".
Born as Stephen Howard, Quote jumped into life in May of 1983 at the U.S. Army Base Ft. Campbell on the Kentucky and Tennessee border where Jimi Hendrix had trained as a paratrooper. It was here that he learned his first important life lesson. One afternoon at the age of 4, Stephen was playing outside where he found a group of older kids all rolling down a steep grass hill near his home. In an attempt to fit in and impress the others, Stephen also rolled down the hill. As he reached the bottom of the hill, he rolled head-first into a jagged rock and lacerated his forehead. It was at this time that he decided that he would not do anything simply for the sake of acceptance and being cool.
At age 5, his parents divorced and Stephen and his mother moved in with his grandparents in Cross Lanes, WV, where his parents had been raised. As time passed on, his fathers service at Ft. Campbell had been completed and he, as well, moved back to Cross Lanes. It was in this timeframe that Stephen became fascinated with drumming and rhythm while attending practices and performances of his fathers bagpipe marching band, the Kanawha Valley Pipes & Drums Band.
At age 11, Stephen and his mother moved to Morgantown, WV when she found new work. Between not having a stable family situation, due to multiple divorces and the long hours his mother worked, and the troubles of being the new kid and somewhat of a social outcast for his freethinking attitude, Stephen soon found a place to call home in the Morgantown punk scene throughout junior high and high school. It was here that he found an emotional release through music and a brotherhood, which he had not yet felt, in the mosh pit mentality of if someone falls down, help them back up. During this time, he began writing lyrics and practicing drums for a few hardcore band projects that never truly developed due to the lack of dedication displayed by bandmates.
Through the remainder of high school, Stephen continued writing poetry in various forms, including free-verse, haiku, beat poetry, poetic prose and assorted lyrical structures. It was also during this time that Stephen developed a passion for skin drumming and the religious beliefs that some African cultures have based around the idea that the human soul is displayed in the rhythms the individual creates when drumming.
When his high school education was completed, Stephen began attending West Virginia University in Morgantown where he studied Art Education and Creative Writing. It was here that he learned to truly craft his arts by using every individual element of his medium to express the overall emotion/meaning being expressed. Also at WVU, he developed an understanding and love for the Postmodernist movement, which is simply explained as the idea that everything has already been done (every idea has already been thought, every emotion has already been felt, every medium of expression has already been used, etc.) and that the only possibility that is left for originality is to break down what already exists and to take from those elements to recreate them in a new fashion.
It was during this time that Stephen became an avid underground hip hop listener. In hip hop he found the essence of everything that he loved about art, music and writing: a means of truly personal self-expression, soulful rhythms, a brotherhood mentality, and Postmodernism in the form of sound sampling from existing music all in a medium which isnt elitist in the way that many museum and concert hall arts are. Through hip hop, Stephen, also, developed his philosophy on life: all material and spiritual existence plays to the melody and rhythm of the universal being the one song and the individual is to act as an emcee and freestyle his/her life on that rhythm in a means which makes him/her one with the universe and on beat with the time and heartbeat that he/she is given. Thus, Stephens writing began to take the form of hip hop lyrics.
It was during this time that Stephen withdrew from college do to experimentation with various psychoactive substances and an overall disenchantment with the worker/consumer mentality of todays society and its monetary definitions of success. In short, he felt that the path through school and into the workforce that most take was not the path that he should walk to achieve success in his personal life goals. Working minimal hours simply for the sake of survival and removing many of the commodities of American life from his daily routine, Stephen began living a simplified lifestyle reflective of Transcendentalist writers such as Thoreau.
It was during this time, in late 2004, that Stephen became serious about being a hip hop artist and took on the alias Quote. He began sculpting his lyrical poetry into song structure as well as teaching himself the process of beat production for the sake of being an entirely self-sufficient artist. In these early stages, he also wrote lyrics for a few songs with the Morgantown funk rock band The Slow Boys, with whom he has performed.
Since, Quote has performed various shows in the Morgantown area including Hip Hop Open Mics, house parties and bar performances which he has booked with acts such as Meuwl, The Slow Boys, OHW, Hate Ashbury, The Flying Hellfish, The Premature Ejaculators, Ace Beanz, and other Ill League emcees. In February of 2006, Quote independently released a free demo EP, which he entitled "Starter Fuel & Filament" to symbolize the start of a good idea.
Then, in March 2007 he released his first solo full length "Brainstorms" through Ill League Ent. Following up with an 8 track single for the song "Purity".
This past February, Quote released "Take Warning: the Mixtape" on the Ill League label featuring himself as well as appearances by Profit Money, CFX, Jcart, D-why, Haven Write, and Stabone.
Quote is currently involved as an emcee and producer with Ill League Entertainment along with other West Virginia hip hop artists and has various projects in progress such as "Fresh Heir", his next solo release, a collab project with Monolith, producing for Haven Write's upcoming release, and a number of mixtape projects.
