width="425" height="350">
>
Born sometime in the late 70s, somewhere in Florida while his mother was on tour with his fathers band, one could say Mic was destined to do something musical. Watching his father, a drummer and percussionist go from recording session to tour after tour he learned early on the dedication it takes to make it in music. In Mics case, yes, "Poppa was a rollin stone".
At age seven his father gave him his first guitar. With that and an old Hammond B3 organ in the living room Mic began his musical journey. He listened to albums on vinyl and as he remembers "8 Track Cassette" from artists like Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Donny Hathaway, Sly and The Family Stone and Heatwave. With his mothers record collection and his fathers musician friends and recording buddies to help him, he honed his ear learning the fundamentals of as many instruments and sounds as he could. To date Mic can play anything with strings, keys or a drum skin to beat on. His biggest musical awakening was yet to come.
One day while walking past his older sisters room he heard what he thought was the beginning of Led Zeppelins "When the Levy Breaks", but soon realized it sounded bigger and even more sinister. After the intro drum break he heard an angry young man shouting his rhyme over the best part of this classic track, with all sorts of other "things" happening in the music. Mic recalls, "I just heard Bonhams drums bangin out the boombox, with James Browns horns blasting away over it,and this guy was yelling , rhyming,didnt know what he was saying because the door was closed, but I knew he was mad, I knew he was speaking the truth, and I wanted to hear more." This was the first time Mic Paradise heard Run DMCs "Raising Hell". That was the beginning of the story.
Narrowly graduating high school and almost not surviving his teenage years, Mic saw it was time for a change. He moved to The Caribbean to be closer to his current musical mistress, Reggae. Calling Red Hook, St. Thomas USVI his home base, he traveled all over the islands listening and learning. This is where he also learned about Rastafari and more about the culture than any best of Bob Marley CD ever could. After a while the mainland called him home.
Following his first year in college for audio engineering Mic realized two things, one, he knew more about recording than his college professors and two, his gangster persona was catching up with him. Mic was "wanted" for some small legal problems with big price tags. He found himself south of the border hustling up lawyer money to come home. He succeeded in doing this by connecting with some of Houston, Texas local rappers. This crew put Mic on the business of music. He saw homegrown, local artists go platinum in their own states alone and they controlled every aspect of their art. Seeing true "pimps" of the music game, Mic returned to the East Coast with his own vision of an artist controlled label.
In 1998, fellow hip hop artist and friend, Half Cast suggested Mic move to Philadelphia where a fresh and new scene was developing. Mic moved right away and quickly networked with most of Phillys booming hip hop scene. This quickly turned into a relationship with one of the scenes top acts, Schoolz of Thought. Whose co-founder, Scratch, had recently joined The Roots. This was what Mic calls "the mass exodus to Illadelph" in 2000 where 1000s of MCs, DJs, Producers and musicians moved to Philly to try to "make it" in the new scene. They came, they went some of them blew up on Phillys name and moved to L.A. and went "Hollywood", most just faded away into obscurity.
Mic Paradise is still in the trenches in Philly and still develops local artists. Being released worldwide with groups like Schoolz of Thought and most recently Intense, he looks forward to bigger and better projects and artists. He is a producer of music in an industry of people who just "make beats". Enigmatic he may be, no you wont see him at EVERY open mic night, over exposing himself, and no, he doesnt give away tracks for demos.and yes, he will be "a no-show if you got no dough", but he still has what matters most. SKILLS.
MySpace Codes from MySpaceForum !
CLICK BANNER!!!!!
