Basehead

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For the electronic musician also known as Basehead, see Dan Gardopée

Basehead (known in Europe as dc Basehead) is a hip hop group headed by Michael Ivey, a native of Maryland, United States. Playing a cut-and-paste combination of rap, R&B, reggae, rock and funk, the Basehead sound has been loosely categorized as both "slacker rap" and "intelligent hip-hop".

[edit] Biography

The group chiefly comprises mainman Michael Ivey (b. 5 February 1968, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; vocals, guitar, writer, producer), who is joined (originally for touring purposes only) by DJ Unique (b. Paul Howard), guitarist Keith Lofton (b. 9 May 1967, Washington, USA), drummer Brian Hendrix (b. 29 July 1968, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA) and bass player Bill Conway (b. 29 November 1967, Washington, USA).
A student of film at Howard University, Ivey recorded Basehead's debut album, Play With Toys (1992, 1992 in music), on his basic home set-up with minimal help from Hendrix and Howard. Originally released by the small independent concern Emigre in 1991, the album became a critical success, garnering attention in both the USA and Europe, and subsequently became a college radio hit.
Ivey assembled a band (primarily utilizing his touring band's abilities) and released the follow up album Not in Kansas Anymore in 1993 to a mixed response.
The following year, Ivey released the debut album by his collective B.Y.O.B. project on Rykodisc, but by this time he had begun to fall foul of the critics. The Christian-influenced Faith album followed in 1996, with In The Name Of Jesus appearing in 1998. 2002 marked a partial return to form with dc, which retained Ivey's religious slant but delivered a significantly more listener friendly experience.