Hip-Hop
Gio Giovanni has a rich background in music, a passion of his since he was a kid. Gio grew up in Detroit, where he studied guitar and became a Hip Hop DJ. He took classes that incorporated music theory into the art of DJing and worked part time as a DJ when he moved to Nashville in 2006. With the...
Jimmy Edwards grew up in a musical family. His father was a singer in a rock band and Jimmy began playing drums by the time he was five and later picked up the guitar. After serving in the United States Air Force, Jimmy was hired to work in the loading dock at Marshall Music in Lancing, Michigan....
Neal Pogue has a special touch when it comes to being a recording engineer. Perhaps his talents and skills can be traced back to childhood when he began playing the drums. He was trained at Sound Mastering Recordings in Los Angeles and gained the attention of Randy Jackson who asked Neal to serve...
Keith LeBlanc was one of the first drummers who used his funk music background to create beats that helped popularize hip-hop music. Keith was there in the beginning and while working for Sugar Hill Records worked with many of the pioneers of hip-hop including The Sugar Hill Gang, Grandmaster Flash...
Jamal Batiste grew up in a very musical family and when he saw his brother’s drum kit at 3 years old, he fell in love. Raised in New Orleans he was surrounded by what he calls the gumbo of music, playing all styles and in many different settings. Throughout his career he has played alongside groups...
Dennis Chambers has always had music in his life and started playing professional gigs before he was ten years old! He joined the group Parliament-Funkadelic in 1978 and is considered to be one of the best funk drummers out there. Dennis has a playing style that is unmatched which makes him a great...
DJ Babu enjoys his journey teaching the artform of turntablism, a term he is credited for coining. Since buying his first set of mismatched turntables when he was seventeen, Babu has accomplished a lot, including wining the ITF World Team DJ battle title, producing one of the most popular battle...
DJ Chris The Glove remembers when he was a kid listening to Grandmaster Flash’s The Wheels of Steel on repeat trying to figure out what he was hearing and how he could replicate that sound. Chris first became well known for his 1984 appearance in the classic hip-hop movie Breakin’ and for producing...
DJ Ralph M still remembers a Halloween party he attended in 1982, where he was first introduced to hip-hop and break dancing. He was fascinated by the turntable and his dream was to become a Mixmaster on KDAY, a famous Los Angeles radio station. When he was thirteen, he received that opportunity...
DJ Aladdin’s musical career began in the late 1970s with a wooden turntable from his uncle and another from his aunt as well as a mixer from Radio Shack. He watched as Hip-Hop exploded in New York and wanted to bring his own unique sounds to his audiences in his neighborhood of Compton, near Los...