Urban Umpires

Last updated
Urban Umpires
Also known asUmpires
Origin Bay Area, California, US
Brooklyn, New York, US
GenresHip hop
Trip hop
Downtempo
Latin hip hop
World hip hop
House
Glitch IDM
Dancehall
Bhangra
Years active 2004-present
LabelsUrban Umpires Hall of Fame Studios/Hall of Flames Studios
Associated actsDAE Recordings, The Solution, Various Blends, Hieroglyphics, Santero, Souls of Mischief, Brisk 1, DJ Premier, Rasco, Planet Asia, Bored Stiff, Bash Bros, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Dilated Peoples, Defari, Superstar Quamallah, Lunar Heights, Freddie Foxxx, King Solomon, The Greens Crew, Tha Fruitbat, Chocolate Sound, G Wizski
Website UrbanUmpires.com
Members Just Jay (founder, CEO, MC, producer)
DJ CrushDelight aka 2am (VP)
RasCue (VP of Operations)
Prince Poetry (Organized Confusion)
Frizz B (Bola; producer, MC)
Marc Stretch (Foreign Legion)
Cold Showda (Chosen Few)
Grand da Visitor (Homliss Derilex)
Amad Jamal aka Tom Bradley
DJ Coope D’ville
Brisk-1 (producer)
Turbin (MC)
Mo Jo Swagger

Urban Umpires is a domestic private stock corporation working mainly in the realm of multimedia. It was founded in 2004 by Just Jay, who initiated Urban Umpires as a collection of entrepreneurs, DJs, producers, MCs, graffiti artists, videographers, instrumental artists, graphic designers, and the like, several years before its incorporation.

Contents

Members

Urban Umpires is most widely known[ citation needed ] for its private hip hop organization, whose members have included:

Umpires:

Senior Umpires:

The Junior Umpires membership list is currently private. The only publicly known members are:

Structure

Urban Umpires Incorporated was established in 2006, but the Urban Umpires Organization itself dates back several years earlier, as Urban Umpires' structure is twofold.

There are members of the organization (Umpires) currently acting as CEO and VP, as well as some who sit on the board of directors of the corporation. However, the Umpires themselves are not all involved in the corporate aspect of Urban Umpires. The subsect – or original defining body – of Urban Umpires is the Umpires Organization.

The Umpires Organization consists of select Umpires who represent Urban Umpires' interests in Urban Umpires Inc. Unofficially, Urban Umpires also includes a select group of Urban Umpires affiliates, including Hieroglyphics, DAE Recordings, Marcus Aurelius, Chocolate Sound, The Solution, Santero, Tha Fruitbat, Cali Agents (Rasco and Planet Asia), Adisa Banjoko, Dilated Peoples, and Freddie Foxxx.[ citation needed ]

Radio

Urban Umpires established itself in radio with small independent online radio broadcaster btr in 2006. Urban Umpires' hip hop mix show The Third Rail's debut made it the seventh show airing on the station's seven-day rotation at the time.

By early 2007 Urban Umpires was the largest single content provider to the broadcaster, with a total of eight original multi-genre shows, as well as artist interviews and video content. In mid-2007, Urban Umpires provided 10% of the station's total music programming content, and Umpire Just Jay was officially titled the station's Urban Platform Programming Director.[ citation needed ]

Urban Platform:

At its peak the eight-show platform's audience reached over 40 million listeners weekly.[ citation needed ]

The original show, The Third Rail, aired 120 episodes, and the proceeding shows aired nearly 100 apiece. Afrika Bambatta, RZA from Wu Tang, Money B of Digital Underground, the Notorious Vic Black from the Gang Starr Foundation (who after over 20 years in the game made his DJing debut on The Third Rail) and countless others guest hosted, were interviewed for, and supported the platform of shows.

In early 2008 Just Jay collaborated with MC Opio (Souls of Mischief/Hieroglyphics) on the artist's Vultures Wisdom Vol.1 DVD via video content fabrication and production. The album was hailed as the year's hip hop standard for indie progressive urban videography and lyrical content.

Urban Umpires and MySpace both released authorized sneak peeks of the album. Myspace then released the cut version. Urban Umpires released the uncut vocal and unreleased tracks along with a personal artist interview with Opio.

The Umpires, the artists played on the platform of shows, and affiliates invested in the platform parted with the station in late 2008. The music library, the rights to play content of the library, and the entirety of the urban platform's related audio, visual and written content, remained property of Urban Umpires Inc.

Urban Umpires has moved the platform to MadMixRadio.com, which was scheduled to launch in the summer of 2010.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

Dilated Peoples American hip hop band

Dilated Peoples is an American hip hop group from Los Angeles, California. They achieved notability in the underground hip hop community, although they have had little mainstream success in the US, with the exception of the song "This Way", a 2004 collaboration with Kanye West, Xzibit, Chali 2na and John Legend appearing in the music video. They reached the Top 40 of the UK Singles Chart with two tracks, "This Way" and "Worst Comes to Worst." Their members include DJ Babu (producer/DJ), Evidence (MC/producer) and Rakaa (MC). The group also received a publicity spike after their songs were featured in the 2003 video games Need for Speed: Underground and NBA Street Vol. 2.

Souls of Mischief is a hip hop group from Oakland, California, that is also part of the hip hop collective Hieroglyphics. The Souls of Mischief formed in 1991 and is composed of rappers A-Plus, Opio, Phesto, and Tajai.

Irish hip hop is the response to the hip hop cultural movement that originated in New York City in the 1970s which, at that time, was most popular in the borough of The Bronx. In the 1980s, breakdancing and graffiti were the first elements of hip hop culture to preface the Irish hip hop movement, which had started to emerge in Ireland.

Hiplife is a Ghanaian musical style that fuses Ghanaian culture and hip hop. Recorded predominantly in the Ghanaian Akan language, hiplife is rapidly gaining popularity in the 2010s throughout West Africa and abroad, especially in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada and Germany.

Hieroglyphics (group) American band

Hieroglyphics, also known as the Hieroglyphics Crew and Hiero, is an American underground hip hop collective based in Oakland, California. The collective was founded in the early-1990s by rapper Del the Funky Homosapien. The collective is currently composed of rappers Del the Funky Homosapien, Casual, Pep Love, producer/manager Domino, DJ Toure, and the four individual members of the rap group Souls of Mischief: Phesto, A-Plus, Opio, and Tajai.

NepHop is the Nepalese form of hip hop. Its major elements include alternative hip hop, avant-grade hip hop, breakbeat, free styling and DJing. Rap culture was introduced in Nepal through the electronic DJs mixing the classical Nepalese songs with the Western urban style in the early eighties. Later, it took the form of artists releasing songs with the commercial beats since the 1990s.

The World Famous Beat Junkies is an American hip hop crew of DJs specializing in Turntablism.

Camp Lo is an American hip hop duo, formed in 1995, which hails from The Bronx, New York. The duo consists of rappers Sonny Cheeba and Geechi Suede. The duo is perhaps best known for their 1997 hit "Luchini AKA This Is It".

<i>93 til Infinity</i> 1993 studio album by Souls of Mischief

93 'til Infinity is the debut studio album by Souls of Mischief. It was released on September 28, 1993 by Jive.

Hip hop Subculture including music, dance and graffiti

Hip hop or hip-hop is a culture and art movement that was created by African Americans, with heavy influence by Afro-Latino Americans and Caribbean Americans in the Bronx, New York City. The origin of the name is often disputed. It is also argued as to whether hip hop started in the South or West Bronx. While the term hip hop is often used to refer exclusively to hip hop music, hip hop is characterized by four key elements: "rapping", a rhythmic vocal rhyming style (orality); DJing, which is making music with record players and DJ mixers ; b-boying/b-girling/breakdancing (movement/dance); and graffiti. Other elements are: hip hop culture and historical knowledge of the movement (intellectual/philosophical); beatboxing, a percussive vocal style; street entrepreneurship; hip hop language; and hip hop fashion and style, among others. The fifth element, although debated, is commonly considered either street knowledge, hip hop fashion, or beatboxing.

Don Cannon American record producer and DJ from Pennsylvania

Donald Cannon is an American DJ, record producer, songwriter, and record executive. Cannon is a co-founder of the Atlantic Records imprint, Generation Now. He was also a member of the prominent Atlanta mixtape collective, Aphilliates Music Group, with his long-time collaborator and fellow Generation Now founder, DJ Drama. Over the course of his career, Cannon has produced tracks and albums for artists like Jeezy, Logic, Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Wayne, Ludacris, 50 Cent, and numerous others. He also served as the Vice President of A&R at Def Jam Recordings.

Slow (DJ) Musical artist

Slow or DJ Slow is a Finnish DJ and music producer. Slow is known for his nu-jazz style and for his production of commercial music for high-profile advertising projects for TV and cinema.

II Tone Committee a.k.a. Tones of Twice, are a Scottish hip hop group composed of Mistah Bohze, Defy, Sace and DJ Krash Slaughta. They emerged from the Glasgow Hip Hop scene of the late 80s.

<i>Over Time</i> (album) 2007 compilation album by Hieroglyphics

Over Time is the fifth compilation album released by the Oakland, California-based, underground hip hop collective, Hieroglyphics. The album was released on March 20, 2007 by the group's own independent record label, Hieroglyphics Imperium Recordings.

DJ Iroc Musical artist

Brian Angelo, better known as DJ Iroc, is an American DJ and Producer from The Bronx, New York, and co-founder of the DJ groups Amerika's Most Wanted DJs and Europe's Most Wanted DJs. DJ Iroc has performed on many world tours, including touring with Alicia Keys, and a former co-host of 5 radio shows on Jamz 96.3 FM.

Jaguar Skills is a British DJ who since 2002 has performed multi-genre, cut-n-paste style Djing mixes. The DJ has released hundreds of mixtapes through various outlets, including BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 1Xtra and has a weekly 10-minute mix on The Trevor Nelson Show.

Goom Radio

Goom Radio is a mobile Internet radio service. The Goom Radio Factory allows online broadcasters to create custom online radio brands. It is a free service, available world-wide. A Goom radio application can be downloaded for free on the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, BlackBerry, Nokia, and Android.

Indy Sagu Musical artist

Inderpal Singh Sagu, better known by his stage name Indy Sagu, is a British Sikh record producer, singer and DJ. Sagu has made a global name for himself as a leading Asian pioneer of fusion genre, his urbanized record production infuses the sounds and incorporates the elements, musical instruments, and hook lines of traditional bhangra with urban western sounds, primarily with a special emphasis on American hip hop.

Young Guru Musical artist

Gimel Androus Keaton, better known by his stage name Young Guru, is an American audio engineer, record producer, disc jockey, and record executive from Wilmington, Delaware. In 2019, Young Guru won a Grammy Award for Best Urban Contemporary Album for mixing the album Everything Is Love by The Carters. He has worked with many leading recording artists, most notably Jay-Z, and an April 2015 Wall Street Journal profile called him "the most famous and successful engineer in the history of hip-hop".

Mustard (record producer) American record producer from California

Dijon Isaiah McFarlane, known professionally as Mustard, is an American record producer, DJ, record executive, beatmaker, and songwriter. He is a frequent collaborator of fellow California-bred artists YG and Ty Dolla Sign; among various other records for the hip hop and R&B genres since his entrance into mainstream music with Tyga's 2011 single, "Rack City".

References