Before discovering Brooklyn as an urban epicenter of culture, color and synchronized chaos and where I currently call home, I was born in Washington DC and lived in the surrounding metropolitan area. I began my journey in the ’80s where I listened to Jazz and experimented on the piano in the household while listening and banging my knuckles on any surface with a an echo to Go-Go music that I heard in the streets.
I was captivated by Go-Go music (Syncopated, abstract rhythms held together by an underscore of bass drum, snare drum, hi-hat mixed with vicious conga drums accented with raw vocals of call and response). It was during this time I was introduced to Hip-Hop Culture and the spread of Graffiti art. The fluid movements and visual writing styles that was emerging on surfaces captivated me along with the raw twisted sounds I was seeing take shape in unorthodox colors. It was this fusion of audio/visual assault that thrust my thinking in new directions.
This was my genesis of visually capturing sound and movement in aggressive forms and shapes.
I chose the name One9 to symbolize this balance.
