Breez Evahflowin 2008 —-—-——- Happy belated New Years (very belated) to all of you and thanks for checkin me out. I’ve been physically away from the scene for quite some time. I’ve been online since 97 reaching out to heads all over the world through 88hiphop.com and koolout.com. Myspace changed it all. All this ‘have a lot of friends and succeed in music’ shit is weird to me. I am thankful to have a friends list, if you’re on it wasn’t because I downloaded a program that sent you and obnoxious ego-laced e-mail that said ADD ME. Outside of the MC battles I’ve pretty much tried to keep the music grind grounded in humility. Never tried to make a collab happen under unnatural circumstances, never paid someone for a verse to get ahead unless I was gettin some profit also, never did a mixtape nor hired a DJ to shout me out like we fam, when we not, nor ever will be…that’s not me. For some, especially the children of the 80’s they grew up with that, which is just how things work and I must be some kind of idiot for doing things like that. “No wonder he aint never get on!” says the kid who’s about to put 5000 dollars into DJ (fill in the blank’s) hand for a super slim shot at being the next disposable superstar. Before 30 I was a lot like that at least in dreams and aspirations, but I maintained my integrity. I tried to find a way into the limelight on my own terms but found the continual need to compromise overwhelming. So overwhelming that I responded by become super independent, despising and waging war against anything that resembled a mainstream set-up. I would only trust working with start-ups for fear of giving up control. The problem with that was the lack of a promotional budget, driving me to continually showcase my battle skill for attention to sell records. MC Battling in a lot of ways is like major league pitching. You’re never as good as your first few years. After a while the batters adjust to your style, and once they have your number CRACK out of the park. As momentum slowed and buzz faded, I sacrificed close relations and friendships in a fanatical pursuit to maintain whatever status I had achieved. I used to joke about some MC’s on the scene and how hip hop drove them crazy, but I didn’t want to believe it could happen to me, but it did… kinda. By late 2005 I was literally a hermit, living in the mountains of NC with my woman and our dogs. Although I hadn’t officially retired or anything silly like that I was taking a break from things, a long one. On a side note: can you imagine Miles Davis Retiring? Elton John? Any of the living Beatles? What a pathetic excuse for a music genre outside of pop that age limits your ability to create! I seriously don’t get it. But I do get that an MC is just what I am not just what I do. I became one through practicing the art of reciting the spoken word to rhythmic patterns for over a decade. It’s an ancient and revered oral tradition and I am a modern day practitioner of it. Maybe it was the trees/greenery, the fresh air the solitude but something along those lines clicked, and I just went with it. I started getting tracks in my e-mail from Davey Tree, Dirt E. Dutch, Noah D, Wally What and Burt Fox that offered an inspiration I had never felt before. I also took on the massive project of catalogue my 13-year personal history of music, and broadcasting it freely through johnhenryradio.com. It was personal tragedy that brought me back home to New York in October of 2007. I had just lost my only parent to a horribly fast and effective brain cancer called a Glioblastoma type IV. She was Diagnosed a day after Christmas 2006. Within under a year from that initial diagnosis she had deteriorated to a near vegetative state before passing from this world. I dealt with this for the most part from a distance, traveling back and forth to NY. The Troublemakers LP and the upcoming BreezDeezTreez and Yes You projects were what kept me sane between visits. Troublemakers is my first full length LP ever. I have always wanted to release a full length but never really had a collection of songs that I felt would mesh together well enough to compete with any of my all times favs. Dirt E. Dutch came through with a skilled consistency and great sound bites to tie it all together. I know this being the pick and choose era most of you who are into our sound wont be buying the entire album. That’s cool with me, all I’d ask is that you listen to it start to finish at least once so that you can share in the experience. The full album is available on the Troublemakers myspace page. Thanks again for checkin me out and for reading this far. If you want the standard industry bio and what not I’ve transferred it over to my blog on myspace. I’ve had it up there for 3 years now and as impressive as some of it may be, none of what I did then, feels as good as what I’m doing now. I hope this letter finds you content doing whatever it is you’re doing.

Peace & Respect, Breez