OOW-WEE
THE HIP-HOP ROCK ‘N’ ROLL KING
Oow-Wee first got a little bit of national exposure when he appeared in the September 2004 issue of The Source magazine with Walter “King Tut” Johnson and when he appeared in the F.E.D.S Magazine (Vol. 4, Issue 14) with his uncle David Hyatt, the gentleman that discovered R. Kelly & the Public Announcement and signed them to his own label TavDash Records.
However, Oow-Wee is not new to the entertainment industry. He is the cousin of Andre “Dr. Dre” Young and has had the privilege of witnessing the struggles the legendary producer endured before becoming a household name. Equipped with the influence of Dr. Dre, he put out his first record in 1991 at age 13 in an effort to put Inglewood, CA on the map with a group called the Loon-E-Binn. After the record created a mild buzz in the streets; from that moment Oow-Wee was officially born.
Growing up in the rough streets of Inglewood, CA was no easy task. At age 9 Oow-Wee became a member of the infamous Inglewood Family Blood Gang. He felt that the gravitational pull of his gangbanging and street hustling was greater than his musical aspirations. In 1992, Oow-Wee was sentenced to 6 months in the Camp Rocky Juvenile Facility after being charged and convicted of with the possession of crack-cocaine for sale.
It was there at Camp Rocky he picked up the guitar after reading about Bob Marley, George Jackson, Huey P. Newton, and Malcolm X and his musical revolution was ignited. At age 14 Oow-Wee decided to master the guitar and create a revolutionary Hip-Hop and Rock ‘n’ Roll sound for the street versus just being the “run of the mill rapper.” It was from this particular point in his life he began the creation of a new genre of music he dubbed “Ghetto Metal”.
Oow-Wee continued to go in and out of jail but during his brief periods on the streets he was seeking management and sought the counsel of Carlos “Buddha” Garcia. Buddha at the time was managing the Gap Band, but in the past he had managed Billy Preston, Janis Joplin, and Sly & the Family Stone. Since Oow-Wee expressed his desire to be a rocker, Buddha introduced him to the legendary rocker Sly Stone. Oow-Wee knew his fate was sealed after Stone showed him a couple of licks on the guitar. He knew he had to create his own rock sound. But what really took the cake was when Buddha let Oow-Wee become the road manager for the Gap Band in order to expose him to the inner workings of the music industry. After seeing Charlie Wilson work a band he knew he would never be on stage with just two turntables and a mic.
On the road with the Gap Band, Oow-Wee bonded with their guitarist Jimi Macon and expressed a desire to create a Hip-Hop and Rock ‘n’ Roll sound. When they got off the road Macon and Oow-Wee hit the studio and in 1994 the first “Ghetto Metal” songs were created and recorded.
Oow-Wee’s life really began to change after meeting Will Smith’s first wife, Sheree Zampino. “I mean she had just divorced Will Smith and she had all this money and she just poured it all on me and totally messed my head up” says Oow-Wee. Zampino and Oow-Wee started living together and they decided to get married. Zampino not only fell in love with Oow-Wee but with his sound “Ghetto Metal”. She helped him start his own record company Oow-Wee Entertainment. Oow-Wee wants the world to know who Zampino is because she was the first to endorse and believe in “Ghetto Metal” and he is eternally grateful to her.
However things became tragic when Oow-Wee was arrested for armed bank robbery and was handed a 9 year sentence in a federal prison. “Everyone around me couldn’t believe I robbed a bank seeing that I had everything. I had a house in the Woodland Hills, a Benz, a Lexus Truck, I was engaged to be married to Will Smith’s ex-wife and I wasn’t even famous yet. I just did not love and appreciate myself” says Oow-Wee.
During his prison stint, Oow-Wee channeled all the pain from losing everything he had on the street into the guitar and the result is what you are going to hear on his debut album The Ghetto Metal Years. The title of his album represents the time he spent in prison formulating and composing the first Hip-Hop Rock ‘n’ Roll sound for the street. Nevertheless, doing time proved very fruitful for Oow-Wee. It was in an Atlanta U.S.P. where he met Mutlulu Shakur, the late Tupac Shakur’s stepfather, who gave him the name Sun-Ra Shakur after hearing him play the guitar. “Mutlulu told me that I was a musical revolutionary and that I would invade, revolutionize and change the face of rock music. But every revolutionary had to have a name. He gave me the name Sun-Ra Shakur because it means the son of God is faithful to the struggle”--Oow-Wee.
During his incarceration he met Walter “King Tut” Johnson who introduced him to David Hyatt. But to Tut’s surprise, Hyatt already knew Oow-Wee because he is Oow-Wee’s uncle. After Hyatt heard his nephew perform for his fellow inmates and cause mass hysteria in the compound he crowned Oow-Wee the King of Hip-Hop Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Oow-Wee is not only on a mission to introduce “Ghetto Metal” but includes working with Charles Fisher and Russell Simmons through their Hip-Hop Summit Youth Council, Inc., F.E.D.S magazine and the independent label Pariah Records which he founded with his partner Toni Serrano to help curb gang violence by introducing the true meaning of the Bloods Gang. He wants to remove the negative stigma that has been placed on the Bloods as just mere gang bangers when initially they were revolutionaries who protected their communities from racism and police brutality.
Oow-Wee feels that the guitar saved his life. He plans to work with VH1’s program Save the Music in order to encourage youths to learn how to play an instrument, read and write music. This will be a part of his mission to be used as a universal channel to uplift and encourage love, peace, self-empowerment and flow into the world.
Oow-Wee is determined to make his mark into musical history. He proclaims that he is the Godfather of “Ghetto Metal” and through “Ghetto Metal” he will restore the originality of showmanship and integrity which lacks in music today. This is the main reason that he is a pariah and why he and Toni Serrano started Pariah Records. “See anybody can follow trends and be a follower but there are only a handful of pariahs. Pariah means outcast, a non conformist, a revolutionary. So therefore we at Pariah Records are outcasting ourselves musically from the lack of creativity and conceptualization that’s going on in the music by bringing you the first rock sound under the Hip-Hop Rock ‘n’ Roll’s umbrella. That’s “Ghetto Metal!”
© P.O.G. Entertainment/EMI Records
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