LAMONTIZ

Lamontiz aka Kid Crab, the smooth-voiced yet fiery rapster who once helped Paul Hardcastle to No. 1 on the Billboards International Contemporary Jazz charts has released a new solo effort, WORLDWIDE HUSTLE. The disc is Crab at his thoughtful and outspoken best, lyrically reviewing his life-to-date while serving up pounding textures and rhythms from a world-wide group of hit making producers including Paul Hardcastle. Rounding it out, Crab hits it with hommies Strick, COO COO CAL, A-G-2-A-KE, ...

Lamontiz aka Kid Crab, the smooth-voiced yet fiery rapster who once helped Paul Hardcastle to No. 1 on the Billboards International Contemporary Jazz charts has released a new solo effort, WORLDWIDE HUSTLE. The disc is Crab at his thoughtful and outspoken best, lyrically reviewing his life-to-date while serving up pounding textures and rhythms from a world-wide group of hit making producers including Paul Hardcastle. Rounding it out, Crab hits it with hommies Strick, COO COO CAL, A-G-2-A-KE, Action Blue and Baby Drew to name a few. Adding to the buzz of WORLDWIDE HUSTLE, Kid Crab and Jay Roll of GroundHawg Distribution have shot and released two videos. They are now showing at myspace.com/kidcrab powered by youtube.com. Milwaukee-born Kid Crab began his hip hop career in the mid 80's winning first place in a midwest regional talent contest. Joining forces with Speech and Strick, the trio of teenagers rapped, recorded and toured the midwest as FRESH WALKING FAMILY. But changes pulled them apart with Speech joining Arrested Development and Strick signing to Tommy Boy Records. With a family on the way, Crab chose a steady income with the Milwaukee Police Department, taking a 9 year hiatus from recording and PUBLIC performances. However he kept his ear to the street and continued writing in his spare time. In 1999 he resurfaced with a topical single called WUTZ GOIN' ON, spirited by his troubled and visible departure from the MPD. In 2000 Crab had his first nationwide radio hit - PLENTY MAN ENUF - an answer song to Toni Braxton's Wasn't Man Enough. When the money didn't roll in, Kid Crab rolled on - literally - to truck driving school and a different kind of 'touring the country'. With long hours on the open road, Crabs' radio was always blasting. Sometime in 2002, on a lonesome highway somewhere in Nebraska, Paul Hardcastle's smooth jazz sounds grabbed the Crab. Within weeks the Crabby-one had written, recorded and mixed a complete hip hop treatment to a Hardcastle track and had inked a deal as contributing artist to Hardcastle's upcoming JAZZMASTERS 4 CD. In 2003 that disc reached No. 4 on the Billboards International Contemporary Jazz charts. It remained on the charts over six months strong, helped in part by Crab's auto-biographical contribution "IF YOU KNEW", a rap about growing up in Milwaukee. In 2005 a new CD, HARDCASTLE 4 made it to the top of the International Contemporary Jazz charts, holding the Billboards No. 1 position for several weeks and spurred on by another Crab-Hardcastle collaboration, SMOOTH JAZZ IS BUMPIN'. Now in 2007 with the release of WORLDWIDE HUSTLE, Kid Crab is taking it to the next level with a couple sophisticated smoothies from the hit-making duo Crab/Hardcastle plus plenty of thumpers and raw jumpers from 88Keys, J-Billa and L.O.G.O. to name a few. Lyrically, the CD chronicles Crabs' metamorphisis from a hard core player image to a more mainstream yet still challenging personality. Into the CD, Crab's social conscience emerges and in the end he's coaching an up and comer to steer away from the negative aspects of the hip-hop lifestyle. Evolution of an artist? Doesn't matter. The CD bumps & thumps and gets hot & sweaty. The Mil-town gets it's props and with England's Paul Hardcastle to Milwaukee's 88 Keys producing, the CD is truly a WORLDWIDE HUSTLE. .. ..