who knew i kicked it with a future Newsboy back in ‘93
the funny things you find out when cleaning out for moving.
in 1993 i attended a “national christian rap conference” in gary indiana, hosted by a one “Silver C”.
one of my grandest memories of the conference was sitting in a van, and listening to some warped out stuff from a cat from Detroit, named “evangelist m.c.” — some hard rock hip hop stuff.x we drove up to chicago with i believe “lady j”, and these cats from a group S.L.U.G.G.E.R.S. (of which one was a nice writer, btw) and walked on lake shore–it my very first time in chicago “on my own”, actually.
this guy, pierre de mayo, had some folk with him, among them, a “jeff franlanstein” (as it was printed in the address list we received, and i still have, 12 years later. word processing wasn’t prevalent in 93, so the list contains a bit of misspellings, and hand written entries on top of it. it worked though for the most part).
i have particularly fond memories of this cat. first off, he was real cool peoples, a bit nerdy, and had this keyboard–i believe it was a Korg O1/W (i remember trying to remember it so i could get one after i got back) — light years ahead of anything i had seen at the time (i had brought this little roland joint that did only beats–couldn’t hold a candle). it had the ill sounds!
my second grandest memory is connected with him. one night, at our hotel, we did this joint, i remember it completely, musically, called “toe jam”. this guy jeff just wouldn’t stop on the keyboard, it was blaring some of the nicest live hip hop i had heard at that time, while all the rappers did their thing doing freestyles and what not. i recorded it, and still have this tape to this day, somewhere in the dusty recesses of my cassette cases. i listened to it at least 100 times after the conference, it was so ill (and i’m the only one who has that recording, to my recollection)
at any rate, we talked, and he told me about the keyboard, and after the conference i was inspired to get *something* like it, if not it…i ended up buying an 88 key AKAI sampling keyboard from a friend dumping his at the time.
well, how this relates to cleaning up–i decided to do some googling to see if any of these cats are even still doing something (myself–i was just an observer who made beats in my spare time, now i’m involved in a record label, and have done a little something here and there, but writing software is my thing). with a name like “Jeff Franlanstein” i’m sure to find him somewhere. besides, he’s a nerd, he *has* to have a blog or something.
Google comes up with “do you mean, Jeff Frankenstein?” well, given the amount of typos on that list, i’m going for it.
Turns out, all this talk about “The Newsboys” in the results, and this guys name, so i’m thinking “this isn’t the cat”. but a quick click on “images”, shows me this guy who definitely looks quite a bit like i remember this guy (you must understand, if i like you, it’s unlikely that i will have forgotten your face)…no way though that he’s in the flippen Newsboys though.
went to another page, peeped the bio. this has to be the guy.
i don’t follow the Newsboys, but i know that they are pretty dang huge, and for that i’m very happy for this dude Jeff that he’s doing what i believe he was born to do (don’t hold me to that though just my opinion!) and *very* happy to have kicked it with him back in the day, and recognized game.
if anyone else who attended this conf back in the day (i did catch up with some cats from “Sons of God” a little bit back…also the dude (i’m sure the owner…name was “Marky Rage” back then) from Lion of Zion entertainment was there)
holla at a brother.
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