Doze

This article is about Doze the Musician. For Doze as synonym of Sleep, see sleep.
Or see wiktionary:doze.
Doze
Background information
Birth name Giancarlo
Also known as Doze
Born Geneva, CH
Labels United Vibez
Associated acts MadInk, Grim City, Triba, World Wide Connects

Doze, born Giancarlo in 1991 in Geneva, Switzerland, is an Hip-Hop singer and producer coming from the expanding Geneva musical scene.

Biography

Debut

Born in Geneva from Italian parents, Doze grew up with music. Since his youngest age, his father, who released a rock album (Wot's Up) with the Wot?, and played several gigs in the Geneva region, educated him in a musical environnement introducing him to various instruments and to music in general.7 At the age of 12, Doze started playing piano and guitar, before discovering Hip-Hop at the age of 14. He started producing hip-hop beats and then he started rapping on them in Italian, then in French and finally in English. By the age of 16 he had already released 6 auto-produced, recorded and mixed songs with the participation of local rappers like NJ and Mister H.7 He also participated at the local "Café Cabaret" gigs at the Lycée International de Ferney Voltaire where he graduated in sciences in 2009. In 2010, Doze studied composition at the Brighton Institute of Modern Music in Brighton where platinum selling band The Kooks1 graduated a few years before. 7 He has collaborated with famous artists like Charly-B and Morad from the Scred Connexion.2

Career

In 2008, at the age of 16, Doze started collaborating with local reggae artist Triba (Singer of Mikmash) on reggae songs like More Love or Burning System.7

In the same period, the two young singers played at the Regg'Ain Fest3 in Segny organised by Success Prod, with Buddha Monk from Wu-Tang Clan, where became friends with famous singer Charly-B who produced and sang on a hit-tune released in 2009: War n' Killing.

Doze arrived second at the World-Wide ReggaeEurope Contest in 2009 with the song War n' Killing.4

By 2010, Doze had created its own original style: a mixture of old school jazzy hip-hop and heavy new school production and started calling himself a "New Old School HipHopper".

His collaboration with labels Success Prod and Sickboys Prod brought Doze to play gigs alongside great names like Blacko from Sniper, Afu-Ra, Buddha Monk from Wu-Tang Clan, the Scred Connexion, Charly-B, Aya Waska, Blue Eyes, Kya Bamba, Tiwony, Sergent Garcia, Daddy Mory and Big Red from Raggasonic and plenty of others...2, 5

The 23 April 2011 Doze founded the United Vibez label and released his first French album Manipulation Mentale with collaboration from Morad from famous rap band the Scred Connexion and ZinZin from BlediYouth. The 13 track album is totally composed, recorded and mixed by Doze in his own studio, mastered by famous sound engineer Julien Coutois who worked with artists such as Sizzla and Orel San. 4, 6

The 22 March 2012, at the Artiphys Festival at the polytechnic school of Lausanne – EPFL – the United Vibez label released "Positive Violence", a morally & politically engaged old-school hip-hop album entirely produced by Doze & interpreted by Doze & MadInk & various artists from Geneva's Hip-Hop scene. The selling of the album allowed the humanitarian association "Habite ta Terre", which Doze is part of, to bring hundreds of vaccines in Senegal. This action signed the beginning of Doze's political & humanitarian actions.

Encounter with Morad from the Scred Connexion

Morad is a famous French rapper "de cité" from Paris. He is member of the Scred Connection from Bezbar together with rappers Haroun, Mokless and Koma. Doze invited him to feature on the Zen Masters Project, so they recorded a song in a recording studio in Geneva when they met at the Step-By Straight festival in Gex . As the Zen Masters Project was not released, the song "Tu Nous Baises Pas" was re-arranged and is now featured on the Manipulation Mentale album. 8

Discography

Doze & MadInk – Positive Violence

Mixtapes

Albums

Filmography

In 2011 Doze was introduced to the film industry by Thibaut Vignal, and together they started to work as freelancers in France & Switzerland.

As Music Composer

Short Films:

As Sound Designer

Short Films:

As Lights Technician

Short Films:

Major Shows

Notes and references

1.^ BIMM Website
2.^ Doze's Official Website
3.^ AIN Gigs Agenda
4.^ Reggae Europe official website
5.^ Pays de Gex info Blog
6.^ Biography of Julien Courtois
7.^ Interview of DOZE on RapFact Radio
8.^ Scred Connexion info page

External links