Short story
I be A to the L. I like tomato soup. I like Lord Finesse and other assorted Hiphop artists. I have very bad knees. I think midgets are great inventions.
Long story
A native of Northern Ireland, A to the L was brainwashed by Hiphop around 1984 starting as a regular fan, before moving onto success as a DJ, and later, as a bitter and twisted website scribe and general nose-thumbing Hiphop snob. Raised on old school artists like Run DMC, Spoonie Gee and Kurtis Blow, he quickly made the step from listener to DJ... at first through making pause tapes and mixtapes for a small crowd of likeminded friends on a regular tape deck, and then stepping up into the standard frustrated bedroom DJ position. For a long time, there were few other avenues to share his ideas - the Hiphop scene in Northern Ireland was extremely small. But gradually through both his own perseverance and the commercial explosion of Hiphop in general, A to the L started to make appearances in the DJ booth at several Belfast clubs.
Before long, warm-up slots turned into residencies, and small crowds turned into packed venues each week, due to his ability to break new music alongside classic Hiphop tracks while still keeping the dancefloor live. Long residencies in major Belfast clubs Skye and Thompsons resulted in a reasonably nice bank balance and a rise in exposure to the point where he was invited to become the resident mix show DJ on local radio station Cool FM's weekly Hiphop & Rn'B show. This in turn resulted in support DJ slots on the Irish stops of several stars' tours ranging from Justin Timberlake to the Beastie Boys amongst others.
Alongside this, he cultivated a love/hate relationship with writing about Hiphop - setting up Altrap.com in 1999 as a news and reviews site that promised to pull no punches when it came to informing fans of REAL opinions on artists and albums from all areas of the culture. It rapidly grew, earning praise and coverage in editions of URB, Vibe, Elemental, and Hip Hop Connection due to its brutally honest reviews and extensive interview archive.
In the summer of 2004, A to the L moved to Tallahassee, Florida for six months to lay the groundwork for a permanent move in 2005. During this short period of time, he DJed several times at Firestone in Orlando, and also began working more closely with record label Beezee70 and their main artist Jahah, churning out several remixes of his tracks, and producing artist mixtapes.
Now in Tallahassee permanently (and happily married to the multi-talented supermodel and DJ Miss Kini Carter) he continues to DJ at several local spots, and has had his mixes featured regularly on Thrill Da Playa's Ghetto Fabolous Live radio show - one of the most popular shows on (dearly departed) 100.7 The Beat. You can also find him holding down a once-a-month mixslot on Florida State University's WVFS 89.7 radio station on Saturday nights.
Altrap.com continues to grow (when he can be arsed to update it), and when its really crackin' can pull around 100,000 visitors per month to its pages, and its here where you'll be able to read his fervent scribblings, peep rubbish YouTube videos, worship at the altar of Eric Cantona, and pick up A to the L's unique brand of mix cds. (Look left.)
You have been marked on my profile map! Click tozoom-in.
