Soce, the elemental wizard
Encyclopedia
Soce, the elemental wizard (born Andrew Singer) is a New York City
-based rapper and producer
and one of the rap scene’s openly
gay
MCs.
, piano
, guitar
and bass
. During his performances, he typically dons a wizard’s cap.
Soce is a graduate of Yale University
and Phillips Exeter Academy
. He is Jewish.
, San Francisco, Florida
and Brazil
, and Soce floats has been screened in at a festival in LA.
Music videos for his singles "I Am (So Gay)" and "They Call Me" (both directed by Liam Ahern) have recently begun circulating the web.
, Indianapolis
, Iowa City, Dubuque
, Minneapolis, Mountain View
, San Diego and Los Angeles
. He appeared on MTV
, VH1
, here!, Logo
, WNYC
, and Sirius Satellite Radio
, (Howard Stern, OutQ
, Raw Dog Comedy
and Shade 45
). He performers and reviews shows for NYC comedy blog The Apiary and also City Scoops, writes a blog for outhiphop.com, reviews videogames for WayTooHip Radio, co-hosted a monthly Math Bee at Chelsea Market
with comedian Jen Dziura and co-hosts a monthly stand-up comedy show at The PIT
(formerly a weekly show in East Village at Cellar 58) with Abbi Crutchfield called Positively Awesome.
He produces music for many other performers, including the track "Lick It" by God-des and She
, which they performed live on the season finale of The L Word
and produced "The Whole World" by MF Grimm--which appears on Grimm's 2006 album American Hunger
, in addition to "U & U", "Karma" and "Sick" by QBoy
, which features soce contributing a guest verse. He produced the music for the music video "Hold Tight" by Rob Cantrell
and the intro to "EZ Heeb" plus the entirety of "Booty Shake" by Athens Boys Choir
.
Bigg Nugg released a CD single and a music video of his collaboration with Soce, entitled "I Remember".
In 2007, Soce co-hosted NYC's gay pride parade, along with fellow gay artist Sandra Grace. Soce and Sandra co-hosted the gay pride parade again in 2008, and he did it again in 2009, this time with Sybil Bruncheon.
In 2008, Soce competed in the Sirius Shade 45 gay hip hop competition and won by audience vote.
In 2009, Soce was nominated for two OutMusic Awards; one for hip hop and one for production.
In 2010 and 2011, Soce has been co-hosting a traveling music documentary video produced by Scion. The other co-hosts are Prince Paul and Mr. Dead.
Soce has created a video series called Math Problems in which he asks a special guest a few math questions that they then answer correctly. Each episode contains the following four aspects: 1) Discussion of math. 2) Silly dancing at the beginning. 3) One awkward touch. 4) The intro dancing always takes place in a doorway. Featured guests so far have included Ophira Eisenberg
, Prince Paul, Myq Kaplan
, Jessica Delfino
and Corn Mo
.
Fish" (a collaborative track features 3-bar guest verses by Prince Cat-Eyez, Lester Greene, Humility's Hand, Tim'm West
, Amnesia Sparkles, FoxxJazell, Mistamaker, Tori Fixx
, Wayne Latham, JFP, Delacruz and Chewy).
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
-based rapper and producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
and one of the rap scene’s openly
Coming out
Coming out is a figure of speech for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people's disclosure of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity....
gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
MCs.
About Soce
In addition to rapping onstage, Soce plays the violinViolin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
, piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
and bass
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
. During his performances, he typically dons a wizard’s cap.
Soce is a graduate of Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
and Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy is a private secondary school located in Exeter, New Hampshire, in the United States.Exeter is noted for its application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking...
. He is Jewish.
Videos and Flash Featurettes
Soce has four flash featurettes: Sad and Lonely, RPG Interlude, Internet Treasure Quest and The Shortest Adventure Game You'll Ever Play. Sad and Lonely was screened at film festivals in Minneapolis, Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, San Francisco, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, and Soce floats has been screened in at a festival in LA.
Music videos for his singles "I Am (So Gay)" and "They Call Me" (both directed by Liam Ahern) have recently begun circulating the web.
Appearances
Soce had a US tour, where he did shows in ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Indianapolis
Indianapolis
Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...
, Iowa City, Dubuque
Dubuque
-Places:United States* Dubuque, Iowa* Dubuque County, Iowa* Dubuque, Kansas* East Dubuque, Illinois* University of Dubuque* USS Dubuque-Surnames:* Julien Dubuque, a French Canadian who arrived near what now is known as Dubuque, Iowa...
, Minneapolis, Mountain View
Mountain View, California
-Downtown:Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south...
, San Diego and Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. He appeared on MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
, VH1
VH1
VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...
, here!, Logo
Logo (TV channel)
Logo is an American digital cable television channel owned by Viacom's MTV Networks division. Launched in June 2005, the channel's programs are geared towards the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community...
, WNYC
WNYC
WNYC is a set of call letters shared by a pair of co-owned, non-profit, public radio stations located in New York City.WNYC broadcasts on the AM band at 820 kHz, and WNYC-FM is at 93.9 MHz. Both stations are members of National Public Radio and carry distinct, but similar news/talk programs...
, and Sirius Satellite Radio
Sirius Satellite Radio
Sirius Satellite Radio is a satellite radio service operating in North America, owned by Sirius XM Radio.Headquartered in New York City, with smaller studios in Los Angeles and Memphis, Sirius was officially launched on July 1, 2002 and currently provides 69 streams of music and 65 streams of...
, (Howard Stern, OutQ
SIRIUS OutQ
OutQ is a news, talk and entertainment channel on Sirius XM Radio, geared for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender audiences. The channel is available to Sirius and XM subscribers in both the United States and Canada....
, Raw Dog Comedy
Raw Dog
Raw Dog is an uncensored comedy station on Sirius Satellite Radio XM Satellite Radio channel 99, replacing XM Comedy on channnel 150 on November 12, 2008. Raw Dog plays uncensored Comedy Programming and Stand-Up from various comedians...
and Shade 45
Shade 45
Shade 45 is Eminem's uncensored Hip-Hop/Rap-heavy urban contemporary channel. Eminem Brings On-Air show hosts. It debuted with a hip hop format in 2004, changing to its current incarnation when it was added to XM channel 66...
). He performers and reviews shows for NYC comedy blog The Apiary and also City Scoops, writes a blog for outhiphop.com, reviews videogames for WayTooHip Radio, co-hosted a monthly Math Bee at Chelsea Market
Chelsea Market
thumb|267px|The Ninth Avenue entrance to Chelsea MarketChelsea Market is an enclosed urban food court, shopping mall, office building and television production facility located in the Chelsea neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan, in New York City...
with comedian Jen Dziura and co-hosts a monthly stand-up comedy show at The PIT
Peoples Improv Theater
The Peoples Improv Theater, or The P.I.T., was established in New York City in 2002 by Ali Reza Farahnakian. Currently located at 123 East 24th Street near Madison Square Park, The PIT's shows include improvisational comedy, sketch comedy, and other forms of theater, all working together to raise...
(formerly a weekly show in East Village at Cellar 58) with Abbi Crutchfield called Positively Awesome.
He produces music for many other performers, including the track "Lick It" by God-des and She
God-Des and She
God-Des and She are a hip-hop/pop/soul duo from the Midwest.Since they appeared on the Showtime hit series The L Word in 2006, they have sold more than 30,000 albums and toured the world....
, which they performed live on the season finale of The L Word
The L Word
The L Word is an American co-production television drama series originally shown on Showtime portraying the lives of a group of lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people and their friends, family and lovers in the trendy Greater Los Angeles, California city of West Hollywood...
and produced "The Whole World" by MF Grimm--which appears on Grimm's 2006 album American Hunger
American Hunger
American Hunger is a triple album released on CD. It was released in 2006 by Manhattan, New York rap artist MF Grimm. It is also the first triple album in hip-hop history...
, in addition to "U & U", "Karma" and "Sick" by QBoy
QBoy
QBoy is a UK-based rapper, producer, DJ, writer and presenter. One of the original few out rappers in hip-hop circa 2001 that became pioneers of the new sub-genre colloquially known as "homo hop"...
, which features soce contributing a guest verse. He produced the music for the music video "Hold Tight" by Rob Cantrell
Rob Cantrell
Rob Cantrell is an American comedian based in Brooklyn, New York.Comedian Rob Cantrell first gained national attention as a Top 10 Finalist on the very first season of NBC's Last Comic Standing....
and the intro to "EZ Heeb" plus the entirety of "Booty Shake" by Athens Boys Choir
Athens Boys Choir
Athens Boys Choir is a transgender spoken word performer based in Athens, Georgia. Athens Boys Choir signed with Daemon Records in 2004 and subsequently released the debut album Rhapsody in T...
.
Bigg Nugg released a CD single and a music video of his collaboration with Soce, entitled "I Remember".
In 2007, Soce co-hosted NYC's gay pride parade, along with fellow gay artist Sandra Grace. Soce and Sandra co-hosted the gay pride parade again in 2008, and he did it again in 2009, this time with Sybil Bruncheon.
In 2008, Soce competed in the Sirius Shade 45 gay hip hop competition and won by audience vote.
In 2009, Soce was nominated for two OutMusic Awards; one for hip hop and one for production.
In 2010 and 2011, Soce has been co-hosting a traveling music documentary video produced by Scion. The other co-hosts are Prince Paul and Mr. Dead.
Soce has created a video series called Math Problems in which he asks a special guest a few math questions that they then answer correctly. Each episode contains the following four aspects: 1) Discussion of math. 2) Silly dancing at the beginning. 3) One awkward touch. 4) The intro dancing always takes place in a doorway. Featured guests so far have included Ophira Eisenberg
Ophira Eisenberg
Ophira Eisenberg is a Canadian comedian, writer, and actress. She is from Calgary, Canada. Eisenberg now lives in New York City.She has made guest appearances on comedy programs including Comedy Central’s Premium Blend and Fresh Faces of Comedy, as well as VH-1's Best Week Ever and All Access, the...
, Prince Paul, Myq Kaplan
Myq Kaplan
Myq Kaplan is an American stand-up comedian. Born Michael Kaplan in Livingston, New Jersey, he is based in Boston and New York City.-Education:...
, Jessica Delfino
Jessica Delfino
Jessica Delfino is a controversial singer, songwriter, and comedienne based in New York City. Her songs tend to ridicule taboos and typically include jokes about vaginas and other sexual or dark topics. In her act, she plays an assortment of instruments including guitar, flying V ukulele and a...
and Corn Mo
Corn Mo
Corn Mo is the stage name of Jon Cunningham, a Brooklyn-based musician. Corn Mo sings, plays the accordion, keyboards, and sometimes performs as a one man band. His music style is a mixture of circus music, glam rock, and humorous novelty songs. He is currently recording his third solo album, and...
.
Discography
- Dream de la Dream 2003
- I'm in My Own World 2004
- The Lemonade IncidentThe Lemonade IncidentThe Lemonade Incident is soce, the elemental wizard's follow-up to his debut album I'm in My Own World, released by Relevant Material Publishing .The Lemonade Incident features soce singing, rapping, playing violin, electric guitar and bass...
2005 - Master of Fine ArtsMaster of Fine ArtsA Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
2009
Life Lessons
Soce's upcoming album, Life Lessons, is planned for a 2011 release and features various songs he has released as singles and performed at live shows, including "The Mic" (a song about his love of his microwave oven), "Rob" (a gospel song) and "Too ManyFish" (a collaborative track features 3-bar guest verses by Prince Cat-Eyez, Lester Greene, Humility's Hand, Tim'm West
Deep Dickollective
Deep Dickollective was a black and queer hiphop group based in Oakland, California that helped launch the homohop genre of openly queer/LGBT artists including the PeaceOUT World Homo Hop Festival.-History:...
, Amnesia Sparkles, FoxxJazell, Mistamaker, Tori Fixx
Tori Fixx
Tori Fixx is one of the first openly gay hip hop artists, and also produces music for other noted queer performers. He is based in Minneapolis.-Career:In the mid-90s, he DJed at parties for Prince at Paisley Park Studios in Minnesota....
, Wayne Latham, JFP, Delacruz and Chewy).
2003
- "Passport to the Future" - End of the Weak
- "What You Thought It Was" - Access Immortal
- "Mi Corazon R&B Remix" - Julio Granados
- "Bronx" - PM US & Migs
- "You Don't Know" - PM US & Migs
- "Love Me" - PM US & Migs
- "Violence" - Keith Zarriello
- "Fight" - Chaz Neo
2005
- "Lick It" - God-des and SheGod-Des and SheGod-Des and She are a hip-hop/pop/soul duo from the Midwest.Since they appeared on the Showtime hit series The L Word in 2006, they have sold more than 30,000 albums and toured the world....
- "Dream Songs" - Brer Brian
- "By Your Side" - Brer Brian
2007
- "The Bunny" - Scotty the Blue Bunny
- "Wedding Flowers" - Po2.com (produced all of the music for this online flash game)
2008
- "Hold Tight" - Rob CantrellRob CantrellRob Cantrell is an American comedian based in Brooklyn, New York.Comedian Rob Cantrell first gained national attention as a Top 10 Finalist on the very first season of NBC's Last Comic Standing....
- "Special Needs" - Prince Cat-Eyez
- "Black and Blue" - The Vagilantes
2009
- "How to Rob Comics" - Miss CKC & TMC (recorded, mixed)
- "Summer Jam" - Miss CKC, TMC, Beena Steena (recorded, mixed, added drums)
- "DAMN (You Wish)" - Miss CKC, TMC, Beena Steena (recorded, mixed, added drums, record scratching)
- "Date an Asian" - Jen Kwok
- "U & U" - QBoyQBoyQBoy is a UK-based rapper, producer, DJ, writer and presenter. One of the original few out rappers in hip-hop circa 2001 that became pioneers of the new sub-genre colloquially known as "homo hop"...
- "Karma" - QBoyQBoyQBoy is a UK-based rapper, producer, DJ, writer and presenter. One of the original few out rappers in hip-hop circa 2001 that became pioneers of the new sub-genre colloquially known as "homo hop"...
- "Booty Shake" - Athens Boys ChoirAthens Boys ChoirAthens Boys Choir is a transgender spoken word performer based in Athens, Georgia. Athens Boys Choir signed with Daemon Records in 2004 and subsequently released the debut album Rhapsody in T...
- "EZ Heeb" - Athens Boys ChoirAthens Boys ChoirAthens Boys Choir is a transgender spoken word performer based in Athens, Georgia. Athens Boys Choir signed with Daemon Records in 2004 and subsequently released the debut album Rhapsody in T...
(intro only) - "Beer Belly" - Lester Greene
- "Hit the Bar" - Lester Greene featuring Amnesia Sparkles
- "Life is What You Make It" - Lester Greene
- "Most People Are Idiots" - Jeff Scott
- "Reclaim" - Jeff Scott