Sivion | |
---|---|
Birth name | Gary James Watson |
Also known as | Vision |
Born | Oklahoma City, Oklahoma | May 11, 1972
Origin | Dallas, Texas |
Genres | Christian hip hop |
Occupation(s) | Singer, songwriter, author, rapper, poet |
Instrument(s) | Vocals, Saxophone, Flute |
Years active | 1990–present |
Labels | Illect |
Website | illect |
Gary James Watson (born May 11, 1972), who goes by the stage name Sivion, formerly Vision, is an American Christian hip hop musician and member of the hip hop supergroup collective Deepspace5. He was also a member of the duo Phat K.A.T.S., which he formed with his brother, who goes by the name Wushu. He has released four studio albums, Spring of the Songbird (2006), Mood Enhancement (2006), Butterfly Sessions with Dert (2010), and Group Therapy (2013), as well as additional live and remix albums and an EP.
Watson was born Gary James Watson, [1] on May 11, [2] 1972, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, with his twin brother, Terry Edward Watson, who is also a Christian rapper, going by the name Wushu. He grew up splitting time in Dallas, Texas and Gaithersburg, Maryland, as his father's side of the family is from Maryland and his mother's side is from Texas. He went to University of Miami while his twin brother stayed closer to home attending University of North Texas. [3] [4]
Watson states that he started taking hip hop music seriously as a career in 1990. He formed the project Phat K.A.T.S. with his brother, himself going by the name Vision and his brother by the name Wushu. Watson eventually changed his name to Sivion, as he discovered that there were several other hip hop artists with the moniker "Vision". [5] Watson explains that he decided on the name Sivion after he misspelled his original stage name in an email to his brother. [6] Watson joined the Christian hip hop collective Deepspace5 during the recording session for The Night We Called It a Day. He started his solo music recording career in 2005, with the studio album Mood Enhancement, released through Illect Recordings. [7] [8] A second album, Spring Of The Songbird, released the following year (2006) through Braille's Hip Hop IS Music. [6] He partnered with Dert for the 2010 album Butterfly Sessions, [9] and a fourth studio album, Group Therapy , was released on October 15, 2013, from Illect Recordings. [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] He is part of the hip hop duo, Phat K.A.T.S., with his twin brother, Terry.
Studio albums
Extended plays
Live albums
Remix albums
Slum Village is an American hip hop group from Detroit, Michigan. The group was formerly composed of the rappers Baatin (1974–2009), T3, and rapper / producer J Dilla (1974–2006). J Dilla left in 2001 to pursue a solo career with MCA Records. Elzhi joined in his absence, after which Baatin also left due to health complications.
Deepspace5 is an underground hip hop supergroup formed in 1997 and currently composed of Beat Rabbi, Manwell?, Freddie Bruno, Listener, Mars ILL, Playdough, Sintax.the.Terrific, Sivion, and Sev Statik. Deepspace5 also previously included Illtripp and The Recon. Since its formation, the collective has sold over 100,000 copies of its recordings, and has performed with KRS-One, Atmosphere, and MF Doom, among others.
Welcome 2 Detroit is the debut studio album by American hip hop recording artist J Dilla, released on February 26, 2001. The album followed his group Slum Village's critically acclaimed Fantastic, Vol. 2, and kicked off BBE's "Beat Generation" series.
Sittin' on Chrome is the second and final studio album by American hip hop group Masta Ace Incorporated and the third album by Brooklyn-based rapper Masta Ace. It was released on May 2, 1995, through Delicious Vinyl. Recording sessions took place at Firehouse Studios in Brooklyn. Production was handled by Masta Ace under his producer moniker 'Ase One', as well as the Bluez Brothas, Louie "Phat Kat" Vega and Uneek, with Orlando Aguillen serving as executive producer. It peaked at number 69 on the Billboard 200 and number 19 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums in the United States.
Slum Village is the fifth studio album by American hip hop group Slum Village. It was released on October 25, 2005, via Barak Records. The recording sessions took place at R.J. Rice Studios in Southfield, Michigan. The album was produced by B.R. Gunna, MoSS, and T3. It features guest appearances from Black Milk, Dwele, J Isaac, Melanie Rutherford, Phat Kat, and Que D.
David Frederick Washington, who goes by the stage name Freddie Bruno, is an American Christian hip hop musician and member of the hip hop collective, Deepspace5. He has released two noteworthy studio albums, The Ballpoint Composer in 2002 on Uprok Records, and Hold Music on Illect Recordings, in 2007.
Joseph T. Evans, known professionally as Sev Statik and Stu Dent, is a hip hop musician and promoter from Albany, New York. Active as a rapper since the early 1990s, he has performed and recorded both as a solo artist and as a member of the hip hop collectives Deepspace5 and Tunnel Rats. Evans has also been a member of various Albany-area hip hop groups, including All Bully, Master Plan, Body Language, currently fronts the rap rock band Goldtooth, and is active in Pitch Control Music, a musical collective and arts movement he co-founded in order to promote and develop hip hop in the Albany area. Evans is a freemason in East Greenbush, New York.
Too Phat was a Malaysian hip-hop duo, composed of rappers Joe Flizzow and Malique.
Rene Vasquez, known by the stage name Peace 586, is an American Christian hip hop producer and emcee. His career began in the late 1980s, and has continued until the present.
Tunnel Rats is a West Coast underground hip hop collective founded in 1993 in Whittier, California. Named after the tunnel rats in the Vietnam War, the mixed-gender, multi-racial collective consists of some seventeen individual members and incorporates four affiliated groups, LPG, Future Shock, Foundation, and New Breed, which have recorded both within Tunnel Rats and independently. Several members also formed two additional side-projects, Footsoldiers and The Resistance, which recorded one album in 2006 and collaborated with KRS-One. Pioneers in the Christian hip hop genre, Tunnel Rats often met with resistance from church leaders who disliked the collective's aggressive style and felt that Tunnel Rats praised their rapping skills more than glorifying God.
Tunnel Rats Present... Underground Rise, Volume 1: Sunrise/Sunset is a 2003 compilation album by Uprok Records in collaboration with underground hip hop collective Tunnel Rats. Around thirty-five rappers appear on the compilation, which features, in addition to the Tunnel Rats, numerous other underground hip hop artists and groups, Christian and non-Christian, including LA Symphony, LMNO and 2Mex of The Visionaries, Remnant, Mass Reality, Sekou the Misfit, and Deepspace5 members Playdough, manCHILD of Mars Ill, and Listener. Production was handled by Tunnel Rats members Dert, Donovan Luke Henry, Jermz and Raphi. Most of the album was recorded over a single weekend. CCM Magazine noted that on the song "One Voice", the entire Tunnel Rats and LA Symphony crews come together, with seventeen rappers appearing on the same track. Critics received the album well, noting that, it offered a diversity of musical styles and showcased the many talented artists in the underground and Christian hip hop scenes.
Tunnel Rats is the third studio album by West Coast underground Christian hip hop collective Tunnel Rats, released on March 3, 2004, through Uprok Records. Featuring several new members among the group's ranks, the album was well received by critics, with Christianity Today and Rapzilla considering it the best album so far by the group.
The Night We Called It a Day is the debut studio album by underground hip hop supergroup Deepspace5, released on January 8, 2002, through Uprok Records. It was recorded in Dallas, Texas.
Daniel Josev Brewer, who goes by the stage name Sintax the Terrific, sometimes stylized as Sintax.the.Terrific or simply Sintax, is an American Christian hip hop musician and a founding member of both The Pride and the supergroup collective, Deepspace5. Brewer is also a practicing attorney in Columbia, South Carolina. He has released three studio albums through Illect Recordings – Simple Moves (2003), Curb Appeal (2007), and Prince with a Thousand Enemies with DJ Kurfu (2011) – and two studio albums, Qoheleth with Beat Rabbi (2010) and The Last Unicorn with Sir Chamberlain (2015), independently. Brewer, originally under the moniker ipoetlaurate and later The Press Junket, runs a blog for which he writes articles and composes songs discussing current social and political events. He released three compilation albums containing these songs in 2011, 2012, and 2013.
Speak Life is the debut studio album by Albany, New York-based hip hop musician Sev Statik, released on November 9, 2002, through Uprok Records. While Sev Statik, real name Joseph Evans, had released a previous studio album, Altered State, in 2001 under the moniker "Stu Dent", Speak Life is considered his debut. Sev Statik had recently joined to the hip hop collective Tunnel Rats, and the release features several artists from that group. It also features Listener from Deepspace5, another collective of which Sev Statik is part. Speak Life marks the debut appearance of Propaganda, who would join Tunnel Rats the following year. The album garnered a mixed response from critics, receiving praise for its positive lyrics, East Coast sound and use of sampling, but criticized for its lack of innovation and inconsistency in overall quality.
Slow Burn is a studio album by Albany, New York hip hop musician Sev Statik, released on March 7, 2005 through his own independent label Pointman Music, in association with Pitch Control Music. While Sev Statik, real name Joseph Evans, had also released two albums under the name Stu Dent, Slow Burn is his second studio album under the Sev Statik moniker, following up on 2002's Speak Life. The album met with a mixed critical reception.
Nephilim: Act of God 1 is the second studio album by hip hop musician Stu Dent, released November 14, 2003 through Illect Recordings. Stu Dent is an alternate moniker for Albany, New York artist Sev Statik, real name Joseph Evans. Evans originally created the Stu Dent pseudonym in order to release the album Altered State in 2001 without breaking his contractual obligations with Tunnel Rats, a hip hop musical collective of which he is part. Nephilim follows up on Altered State and the 2002 Sev Statik release Speak Life. The album includes production from Beat Rabbi and Freddie Bruno, fellow members of Deepspace5, a group Evans co-founded, and production and a guest appearance by JB!!, also known as Dirty Moses, a member of All Bully, another group that Evans helped found. Nephilim met with a highly positive reception from critics.
Back to Dust is a studio album by Albany, New York-based rapper Sev Statik and Atlanta-based producer DJ Dust, originally released on October 9, 2007, through Rawkus Records. It was the fourth studio release by Sev Statik and the second studio release for DJ Dust. Back to Dust features numerous guest appearances, including Manchild and Playdough of Deepspace5, Theory Hazit, Supastition, LMNO of The Visionaries, and Raphi, Griffin, and Triune of Tunnel Rats. The album was selected by Rawkus for inclusion in its "Rawkus 50" promotional campaign, and was released as a digital download. A physical version of the album was released on July 7, 2008, through Braille's Hip Hop IS Music label. Back to Dust met with critical acclaim. In 2010, Theory Hazit released a remixed version of the album.
Group Therapy is the fourth studio album by Dallas-based Christian hip hop artist Sivion. It features guest appearances by 26 other artists, including Manchild, Sintax the Terrific, Ozay Moore, Sareem Poems, Propaganda, Jurny Big, Zane, Macho, DJ Aslan, and Shames Worthy. Released on October 15, 2013, through Illect Recordings, it was met with a mixed reception from critics.
Zane Marie Reynosa, known by the stage names Zane and Zane One as well as the names Zane Valdez and Zane Marie, is an American rapper and fashion accessory designer from Whittier, California. She joined the pioneering Christian underground hip hop collective Tunnel Rats in 1993, which was formed by her brother, Dax Reynosa, and recorded three studio albums and a compilation with the group. She also founded the band Saturday Night Freestyle. She has featured on numerous songs and in 2008 released a solo studio album, L.A. Woman. She was active for years as a battle rapper in the Los Angeles scene and was featured in the 2004 documentary The Battle for L.A.: Footsoldiers, Vol. 1, directed by Darren Doane. She also created a fashion line, Zane Marie Bags, specializing in vintage handbags, luggage, wallets, and rhyme books.
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