Ithaka (musician)

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ITHAKA (real name Darin Pappas): VOCALIST. SCULPTOR. WRITER. PHOTOGRAPHER. An offspring of Southern California's multi-cultural diversity, hip hop vocalist and visual artist, ITHAKA, was spawned on a wide spectrum of suburban and urban influences-both personally and artistically. As a teenager, Los Angeles provided him constant contact with people from different countries and a wide range of economic classes. This motivated him to bridge the gaps. He found he related to people from all over, from multitudes of social realities, often befriending foreigners and scouring their brains for information about the 'outside'. This eventually inspired his own life-long ambition of global travel and adventure, becoming the fundamental fuel for his four ground-breaking hip hop albums, numerous photography/sculpture exhibits and short stories. Perhaps some of his most daring work can be heard on the album SOMEWHERE SOUTH OF SOMALIA which he wrote on location during a two-month solo mission deep into East Africa.

In addition to his native Los Angeles, he has also lived in Lisbon, Tokyo, Athens- and is presently grounded in Rio de Janeiro where he is recording a new album with producer, Tito Gomes. "EM DIRECAO ITHAKA" (On The Way To Ithaka), a documentary about the life of the artist, directed by SUSANNA LIRA, won the BEST SCRIPT/IDEA AWARD at the 2006 Brazilian FATU film festival. ALBUMS: THE RAVENSHARK CHRONICLES (COMING 2007), FUSE WITH ME-Ithaka vs Cartell 70 (2005), RECORDED IN RIO (2004), SOMEWHERE SOUTH OF SOMALIA (2001), STELLAFLY (1997), FLOWERS AND THE COLOR OF PAINT (1995-considered one of the most influencial 'Portuguese' albums of the 1990's by Jornal Publico:Dec 18, 1999). His old school hip hop classic, ESCAPE FROM THE CITY OF ANGELS was featured in the soundtrack for Columbia Films, "THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS" (directed by Antoine Fuqua & starring Oscar winning actors, Chow Yung Fat & Mira Sorvino). In the mid-'90s while living in Europe, he wrote the lyrics and vocalized one of the biggest export dance hits in Portuguese history; Underground Sound of Lisbon's, "SO GET UP" (reaching #8 on BILLBOARD's UK Indy Dance chart. In addition to contributing to sound tracks of several surf films (most notably, the award-winning Timmy Turner's SECOND THOUGHTS) his music has most recently appeared on the #1 rated xbox-360 basketball game, NBA 2K7. He regularly publishes his short surf-fiction stories in the American quarterly, WATER. His sculpture work is currently being shown at MIS (the Museum of Image and Sound) in Sao Paulo, Brazil.