Abadawn
Encyclopedia
Abadawn is a performing hip hop
artist that is signed to Canadian indie label Camobear Records. His music has been featured on College
and internet
radio
. He has also worked with and performed with artists from Rhymesayers Entertainment
, Black Clover Records, Strange Famous Records
, Doomtree
, Oldominion and many more.
artist currently living in Portland, OR. Though his main genre is hip hop
his style borrows heavily from the genres of rock
, punk
and alternative
. His current live act "The Kill Party" is an energetic performance backed by David Mann on Bass and Chase Pingree on Drums. His career in rap music started as a young teenager living in Santa Rosa, CA. It was here that he started freestyling and writing
and was introduced to underground hip hop
artists such as Living Legends
, Atmosphere
, Aesop Rock
and Sage Francis
. It wasn't until he moved to Seattle, WA in his mid-teens that he started independently releasing his recordings to the public.
In 2007 Seattle's The Stranger
hip-hop columnist Larry Mizell Jr. compared Abadawn's recordings to that of Buck 65
of Strange Famous Records
and Cool Calm Pete
of Def Jux Records. More recently Casey Jarman of Portland's Willamette Week
gave Abadawn a nod as "the entire scene's little brother" and featured him on the Local Cut He was also featured as artist of the week on Fear The Future Radio and was interviewed twice by the iconoclastic Artist First Radio Network.
Abadawn's first solo full-length LP
"Good Villain" was independently released through Elephant Memories on October 14, 2008 and featured Kansas City, MO and Rhymesayers Entertainment
artist Mac Lethal
as well as Los Angeles, CA based emcee/singer Ariano. In 2010 the albums digital rights were signed over to Canadian hip hop
artist Josh Martinez
's label Camobear Records to which the emcee now calls home.
In 2008 he was a part of Seattle's annual Noise For The Needy festival which was headlined by the highly praised New York
rapper Talib Kweli
in an effort to collect funds to feed local homeless families. For two years in a row he has also performed at the annual Kingston, WA Sk8Rollick, and has contributed to other benefits such as Toys For Tots
and Mercy Corps
. He was also a part of the Save Darfur Tour which boasted performances from The Visionaries
, Freestyle of The Arsonists, Sleep
of Oldominion, Grayskul
, Alexipharmic, Immortal Technique
and OneBeLo also known as OneManArmy of Binary Star
.
Deadication, 2011 - self-released
Good Villain, 2008 - Camobear Records/Elephant Memories
EP's
Unfamiliar Ceilings, 2007 - Earwig Ink (self-released)
Kindergarten Dropout, 2005 - Violent Art Records
Earwig Romance, 2004 - Earwig Ink (self-released)
Live Albums
Live from the End of the Universe, 2010 (digital only)
Mixtapes
Steal Gas Buy Music Vol. 3, 2009 (digital only)
Steal Gas Buy Music Vol. 2, 2009 (digital only)
Steal Gas Buy Music Vol. 1, 2009 (digital only)
Spare Change Mixtape, 2005 (self-released)
Tour Exclusive Releases
Palmgreaser: Tour Sampler, 2011 (self-released)
Footnotes: A Collection, 2010 (self-released)
Albums featured on
"Redemption Rd." by Sarx & Rusty Crates (2007)
"Run" by Alexipharmic (2006)
"Newspeak" by Newspeak (2006)
"Arriving One Second Too Late" by Explicit (2005)
"Chapter Wun" by Despite Rhythm (2004)
Compilations featured on
2010 Label Sampler - Camobear Records (2010)
Phase One - Vinyl Fluid Records (2009)
Northwest Compilation Vol. 1 - Superhappywax Records (2006)
Audio Arsenal Vol. 1 - Violent Art Records (2005)
Summer Compilation '04 - Tactikz of Tongue (2004)
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
artist that is signed to Canadian indie label Camobear Records. His music has been featured on College
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
and internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
. He has also worked with and performed with artists from Rhymesayers Entertainment
Rhymesayers Entertainment
Rhymesayers Entertainment is an independent hip hop record label based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, co-founded in 1995 by Sean Daley, Anthony Davis, Brent Sayers and Musab Saad....
, Black Clover Records, Strange Famous Records
Strange Famous Records
Strange Famous Records is an underground hip-hop music label based in Providence, Rhode Island, started by Sage Francis. Artists on its roster include B...
, Doomtree
Doomtree
Doomtree is a hip hop collective based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Members of Doomtree bring various bases of knowledge and musical backgrounds together to create alternative-influenced rap and hip-hop music. Nearly as prominent as the influence of hip-hop in their music is that of punk, and their...
, Oldominion and many more.
Biography
Abadawn (born Justin David Sims in Mariposa, CA) is a Northwest hip hopNorthwest hip hop
Northwest hip hop is hip hop or rap music and dance that originates from the Pacific Northwest, encompassing major cities such as Seattle, Vancouver and Portland.-Musical style:...
artist currently living in Portland, OR. Though his main genre is hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
his style borrows heavily from the genres of rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
, punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
and alternative
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
. His current live act "The Kill Party" is an energetic performance backed by David Mann on Bass and Chase Pingree on Drums. His career in rap music started as a young teenager living in Santa Rosa, CA. It was here that he started freestyling and writing
Writing
Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as magnetic tape audio.Writing most likely...
and was introduced to underground hip hop
Underground hip hop
Underground hip hop is an umbrella term for hip hop music outside the general commercial canon. It is typically associated with independent artists, signed toindependent labels or no label at all....
artists such as Living Legends
Living Legends
Living Legends is a rap group composed of eight hip hop artists from California. Beginning in the early 1990s, the crew garnered a following by recording, promoting, and performing their music independently...
, Atmosphere
Atmosphere
An atmosphere is a layer of gases that may surround a material body of sufficient mass, and that is held in place by the gravity of the body. An atmosphere may be retained for a longer duration, if the gravity is high and the atmosphere's temperature is low...
, Aesop Rock
Aesop Rock
Ian Matthias Bavitz , better known by his stage name Aesop Rock, is an American hip hop artist and producer. He was at the forefront of the new wave of underground and alternative hip hop acts that emerged during the late 1990s and early 2000s. He was signed to El-P's Definitive Jux label until it...
and Sage Francis
Sage Francis
Paul "Sage" Francis is a hip-hop artist from Providence, Rhode Island.-Biography:Born Paul Francis in Miami, Florida, Sage Francis is a rapper/writer/performer from Providence, Rhode Island. He is the founder and CEO of the independent hip-hop record label Strange Famous Records...
. It wasn't until he moved to Seattle, WA in his mid-teens that he started independently releasing his recordings to the public.
In 2007 Seattle's The Stranger
The Stranger (newspaper)
The Stranger is an alternative weekly newspaper in Seattle, Washington, USA. It runs a blog known as Slog.-History:The Stranger was founded by Tim Keck, who had previously co-founded the satirical newspaper The Onion, and cartoonist James Sturm. Its first issue came out on September 23, 1991...
hip-hop columnist Larry Mizell Jr. compared Abadawn's recordings to that of Buck 65
Buck 65
Richard Terfry , who uses the stage name Buck 65, is a Canadian experimental artist, MC and turntablist. Underpinned by an extensive background in abstract hip hop, his more recent music has extensively incorporated blues, country, rock, folk and avant garde influences.Terfry is also a radio host,...
of Strange Famous Records
Strange Famous Records
Strange Famous Records is an underground hip-hop music label based in Providence, Rhode Island, started by Sage Francis. Artists on its roster include B...
and Cool Calm Pete
Cool Calm Pete
Cool Calm Pete is a Korean American rapper and producer with a sometimes hypnotically slow, lazy-sounding rapping style. Pete was born in Seoul, Korea and raised in Queens, New York. Pete is one of the three members of the hip-hop group Babbletron. Cool Calm Pete's debut solo album Lost was...
of Def Jux Records. More recently Casey Jarman of Portland's Willamette Week
Willamette Week
Willamette Week is an alternative weekly newspaper published in Portland, Oregon, United States. It features reports on local news, politics, sports, business and culture....
gave Abadawn a nod as "the entire scene's little brother" and featured him on the Local Cut He was also featured as artist of the week on Fear The Future Radio and was interviewed twice by the iconoclastic Artist First Radio Network.
Abadawn's first solo full-length LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
"Good Villain" was independently released through Elephant Memories on October 14, 2008 and featured Kansas City, MO and Rhymesayers Entertainment
Rhymesayers Entertainment
Rhymesayers Entertainment is an independent hip hop record label based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, co-founded in 1995 by Sean Daley, Anthony Davis, Brent Sayers and Musab Saad....
artist Mac Lethal
Mac Lethal
Mac Lethal is a rapper from Kansas City, MO of Irish descent.-Biography:Mac Lethal was born David McCleary Sheldon on July 25, 1981....
as well as Los Angeles, CA based emcee/singer Ariano. In 2010 the albums digital rights were signed over to Canadian hip hop
Canadian hip hop
The Canadian hip hop scene was first established in the 1980s. Through a variety of factors, it developed much more slowly than Canada's popular rock music scene, and apart from a short-lived burst of mainstream popularity from 1989 to 1991, it remained largely an underground phenomenon until the...
artist Josh Martinez
Josh Martinez
Josh Martinez , is a Canadian rapper, record producer and record label executive. In the early 2000s, Martinez started his own label, Camobear Records, to which fellow rap artist Moka Only is signed...
's label Camobear Records to which the emcee now calls home.
In 2008 he was a part of Seattle's annual Noise For The Needy festival which was headlined by the highly praised New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
rapper Talib Kweli
Talib Kweli
Talib Kweli Greene , better known as Talib Kweli, is an American hip-hop artist and poet from Brooklyn, New York. His first name in Arabic means "student" or "seeker" ; his in Swahili means "true"...
in an effort to collect funds to feed local homeless families. For two years in a row he has also performed at the annual Kingston, WA Sk8Rollick, and has contributed to other benefits such as Toys For Tots
Toys for Tots
Toys for Tots is a program run by the United States Marine Corps Reserve which donates toys to children whose parents cannot afford to buy them gifts for Christmas. The program was founded in 1947 by reservist Major William L...
and Mercy Corps
Mercy Corps
Mercy Corps is a global aid agency engaged in transitional environments that have experienced some sort of shock: natural disaster, economic collapse, or conflict. People working for it move as quickly as possible from bringing in food and supplies to enabling people to rebuild their economy with...
. He was also a part of the Save Darfur Tour which boasted performances from The Visionaries
The Visionaries
The Visionaries is an underground hip hop crew from Los Angeles, California. The crew formed in 1995, and have since released four full-length albums on Up Above Records. The crew's six members have collectively released over twenty solo and side projects...
, Freestyle of The Arsonists, Sleep
Sleep
Sleep is a naturally recurring state characterized by reduced or absent consciousness, relatively suspended sensory activity, and inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles. It is distinguished from quiet wakefulness by a decreased ability to react to stimuli, and is more easily reversible than...
of Oldominion, Grayskul
Grayskul
-Formation:In 2003 Onry Ozzborn and JFK, both members of the Pacific Northwest hip hop collective Oldominion, teamed up with bassist Rob Castro to form Grayskul. They recorded about 55 songs in eight months at ATB Studios; these would eventually become Creature, Thee Adventures! and Deadlivers...
, Alexipharmic, Immortal Technique
Immortal Technique
Felipe Andres Coronel , better known by the stage name Immortal Technique, is an American rapper of Afro-Peruvian descent as well as an urban activist. He was born in Lima, Peru and raised in Harlem, New York. Most of his lyrics focus on controversial issues in global politics...
and OneBeLo also known as OneManArmy of Binary Star
Binary star
A binary star is a star system consisting of two stars orbiting around their common center of mass. The brighter star is called the primary and the other is its companion star, comes, or secondary...
.
Discography
LP'sDeadication, 2011 - self-released
Good Villain, 2008 - Camobear Records/Elephant Memories
EP's
Unfamiliar Ceilings, 2007 - Earwig Ink (self-released)
Kindergarten Dropout, 2005 - Violent Art Records
Earwig Romance, 2004 - Earwig Ink (self-released)
Live Albums
Live from the End of the Universe, 2010 (digital only)
Mixtapes
Steal Gas Buy Music Vol. 3, 2009 (digital only)
Steal Gas Buy Music Vol. 2, 2009 (digital only)
Steal Gas Buy Music Vol. 1, 2009 (digital only)
Spare Change Mixtape, 2005 (self-released)
Tour Exclusive Releases
Palmgreaser: Tour Sampler, 2011 (self-released)
Footnotes: A Collection, 2010 (self-released)
Albums featured on
"Redemption Rd." by Sarx & Rusty Crates (2007)
"Run" by Alexipharmic (2006)
"Newspeak" by Newspeak (2006)
"Arriving One Second Too Late" by Explicit (2005)
"Chapter Wun" by Despite Rhythm (2004)
Compilations featured on
2010 Label Sampler - Camobear Records (2010)
Phase One - Vinyl Fluid Records (2009)
Northwest Compilation Vol. 1 - Superhappywax Records (2006)
Audio Arsenal Vol. 1 - Violent Art Records (2005)
Summer Compilation '04 - Tactikz of Tongue (2004)