Bio
Kid Crab, the smooth-voiced yet fiery rapster who helped Paul Hardcastle to
No. 1 on the Billboards International Contemporary Jazz charts has released
a new solo effort, WORLDWIDE HUSTLE. The disc is Crab at his thoughtful and
outspoken best, lyrically reviewing his life-to-date while serving up
pounding textures and rhythms from a world-wide group of producers
including Paul Hardcastle and Alicia Keys. Rounding it out, Crab hits it
with hommies Strick, COO COO CAL, A-G-2-A-KE, Action Blue and Baby Drew to
name a few. Adding to the buzz of WORLDWIDE HUSTLE, Kid Crab and Jay Roll
of GroundHawg Distribution have shot and released two videos. They are now
showing at myspace.com/kidcrab powered by youtube.com. Milwaukee-born Kid
Crab began his hip hop career in the mid 80's winning first place in a
midwest regional talent contest. Joining forces with Speech and Strick, the
trio of teenagers rapped, recorded and toured the midwest as FRESH WALKING
FAMILY. But changes pulled them apart with Speech joining Arrested
Development and Strick signing to Tommy Boy Records. With a family on the
way, Crab chose a steady income with the Milwaukee Police Department,
taking a 9 year hiatus from recording and PUBLIC performances. However he
kept his ear to the street and continued writing in his spare time. In 1999
he resurfaced with a topical single called WUTZ GOIN' ON, spirited by his
troubled and visible departure from the MPD. In 2000 Crab had his first
nationwide radio hit - PLENTY MAN ENUF - an answer song to Toni Braxton's
Wasn't Man Enough. When the money didn't roll in, Kid Crab rolled on -
literally - to truck driving school and a different kind of 'touring the
country'. With long hours on the open road, Crabs' radio was always
blasting. Sometime in 2002, on a lonesome highway somewhere in Nebraska,
Paul Hardcastle's smooth jazz sounds grabbed the Crab. Within weeks the
Crabby-one had written, recorded and mixed a complete hip hop treatment to
a Hardcastle track and had inked a deal as contributing artist to
Hardcastle's upcoming JAZZMASTERS 4 CD. In 2003 that disc reached No. 4 on
the Billboards International Contemporary Jazz charts. It remained on the
charts over six months strong, helped in part by Crab's auto-biographical
contribution "IF YOU KNEW", a rap about growing up in Milwaukee. In 2005 a
new CD, HARDCASTLE 4 made it to the top of the International Contemporary
Jazz charts, holding the Billboards No. 1 position for several weeks and
spurred on by another Crab-Hardcastle collaboration, SMOOTH JAZZ IS
BUMPIN'. Now in 2007 with the release of WORLDWIDE HUSTLE, Kid Crab is
taking it to the next level with a couple sophisticated smoothies from the
hit-making duo Crab/Hardcastle plus plenty of thumpers and raw jumpers from
88Keys, J-Billa, L.O.G.O., G.T., Alicia Keys, Doug Mayhem and Kerry
'Krucial' Brothers. Lyrically, the CD chronicles Crabs' metamorphisis from
a hard core player image to a more mainstream yet still challenging
personality. Into the CD, Crab's social conscience emerges and in the end
he's coaching an up and comer to steer away from the negative aspects of
the hip-hop lifestyle. Evolution of an artist? Doesn't matter. The CD bumps
