About Me
Born June 1st 1973, in Lagos, NigeriaGrew up in South London, moved to Cologne in 1988.As far back as I can remember, I'd always been mucking around with Dad's Vinyl Collection....y'know the kind of Stuff I mean....Crusaders, James Brown, Miles davis, Bob james, Fatback.....all that good, good shit...... (I SWEAR it wasn't me who scratched the first issue J.B.'s Monorail album!!)....uuuhh...where was I ?? Oh yeah....so one day, Dad came in with a little stack of new Records...nearly fell over himself, trying to get to the Stereo....so he says to my Mom: "Hey, listen to this crazy new Stuff those Yanks are doing now!!", and puts on (guess what?) ..."Rappers Delite"...!!! So him & my Mom are giggling about the music, until they notice lil' Justin doing the Robot, and popping and locking, and stuff. My mom goes: "Look at what HE'S doing !!" Dad: "That looks just like what the guys on the album cover are doing !! How did you know about this ??". And I'm all: " Nyaahh!! That ain't NEW, Dad !! I#ll show you some NEW stuff!!" So I run to my room and get the hissy, crackly cassette tape that my best friend Segun Russell (R.I.P) had copied for me from a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a Bambaataa Mixtape!!! That was the day I understood I had found MY OWN Music....MY OWN Culture...with all its different Forms of Expression, completely new, but with deepest Roots in all the other types of music I love to this very day!! Something for the Future....Something fthe older Cats (especially Dad) just didn't UNDERSTAND...and we didn't even WANT them to !!So...after doing a couple of local shows & jams as a Rapper in Cologne between 1988 and 1989...(remember Exponential Enjoyment Posse ?? ok let me drop some names...Ade Odukoya from BANTU, Mola Adebisi, Götz Gottschalk....sorry Guys...LOL) , I hooked up with 2 other Guys for a Rap Crew called F.E.W.D (Freedom, Equality, Wisdom or Death) around 1991/1992.....we did some work with HEADRUSH. (Roe !!..... You KNOW whose idea that name was, don't you???)...and released two tracks on the 1992 sampler "Joining Forces Vol. 1":
Track 3. "Retaliation" & Track 5. "Mr. Brown". Unfortunately, Germany wasn't quite ready for real Rap Music yet, so this Project was rather short lived, also due to the lifestyles of some of its members. Yameen ??So... seeking even wider musical horizons, dabbling in House Music and Jungle for a while, I hustled hard, until in 1994 I could finally afford decks and a mixer...best investment I EVER made in my entire Life. After about a year, I had a pretty nice rotation at several bars, clubs, partys and events in Cologne and elsewhere, playing mainly Hiphop, but also R&B, Funk, Dancehall or House, depending on the venue.Around 1996 or so, i hooked up with Rev Ruff from Brixton, and started up a Soundsystem called "THE MAJOR DAMAGE CREW".... We started off in a really shitty little bar in cologne (can't remember the name), until we got kicked out, because we were always pumping the music too loud. But our (at that time) unusual mix of reggae/dancehall and Hiphop/R&B, switching up the style every 20 minutes, had already caused a bit of a stir in Cologne. So we bought a big old Brewery truck, which you could open up on one side and use as a little stage, loaded it up with Equipment, Beer, Records, a generator, and Rev Ruff's rather large P.A. That way, we spent the next couple of summers shaking up the city with illegal, VERY LOUD, ninja-style surprise Partys in the City parks, and all over the place...never got busted either...hahaha !! Soon joined by a couple of other "Usual Suspects" (Mr. Beakz, MC Scandalous, Tigerbone, Chestnut), we also started spending the Winters with a (free) weekly Monday night bash at a tiny place called "Stereo Wonderland", which was always so packed out, that you couldn't see a thing through all the ganj-smoke...LOL !!! After 2 years there, we moved the thing to the "MTC" Club, which was bigger, and quickly turned into one of Cologne's grittiest club nights. We called it "CAN u MANAGE THE DAMAGE ??"..... featuring guest djs, freestyling sessions with rappers & singers, open mic sessions, as well as showcases by Newcomer DJs (roughly pulled from the decks if they were crap...haha!)
Between 2002 and 2004, we also ran a Recording studio (MD Music), which also included facilities for DJ-Remixes and mixtape Recording, as well as Dubplate cutting on an Original Neumann Lathe.
Although the Major Damage Crew & Soundsystem has now been inactive since 2004, with some members moving on to different countries, others busy with their own jobs, families or careers, everyone is still more or less in Touch, and Major Damage Music as a business still goes on, now based in the netherlands, doing Audio Mastering, and Master/Dubplate Cutting. Everyone is still heavily involved in Music.....so watch out...we just might be back, sooner than you think !!!!As for me ?? I'm still around, doing my thing.....doing my shows here and there !!! Wanna book me ?? Drop me a line !
