emcee - producer - photographer - filmmaker

El*A*Kwents, a well-versed emcee, producer and entrepreneur, is a spiritual revolutionary with in-depth, well-researched poetry, containing many enigmatic facets of perception and intellect. Projecting a visionary aura--INsite Magazine (Gainesville, Florida) proclaims, “El*A*Kwents is clearly an artist with a message, which deserves respect”. Wielding a “great voice” and “rather pleasant” flow, as stated by RapReviews.com, El*A*Kwents performs with the tenacity and ruthlessness of a Samurai warrior, unleashing a flurry of exacting and lethal, lyrical blows over sinister and melodic beats.

Smashing mics up and down the east coast, El*A*Kwents has performed at over 300 shows and open mics since 2001. He toured the Northeast with super-group After.Words in 2009, launching out of Pennsylvania, including stops in New York City, Washington D.C., and Buffalo. Gracing stages such as the legendary Middle East in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and opening up for grass-roots and Orlando-underground cornerstone, Solillaquists of Sound in Gainesville, Florida, El*A*Kwents has been the originator and facilitator of many notable enterprises such as the Last Days Project, Por Amor (Central Pennsylvania's first, outdoor Hip Hop festival in collaboration with Sky's the Limit Production), the worldwide, Hip Hop compilation series, Global Alliance of Insurgent Artists, and SpiritualHipHop.info.

It is all the culmination of a personal dilemma stemming from his youth; was it going to be conformity within the corporate world for material gains or noncompliance and art, accumulating spiritual merit and harmony between the tangible and intangible? Before Hip Hop struck El, it was a more-or-less unconscious decision to participate in the homogeneous, culture of Americanism; it was about sports, movies, television, school, and girls. At the age of 18, El*A*Kwents began reflecting back on his experiences of childhood realizing that adults did not have answers for his probing questions. He now understood that if he wanted to find the answers to his questions, he had to set out to rediscover self-evident truths through experience. This was the beginning of a journey of a man who saw desolation in the faces of his peers--adults, children, friends, family and strangers alike. It was a path folded inward toward the soul-of-man and away from the barren outer world of so-called civil society. Articulating thoughts, forming lyrics, and cooking up sounds of banging drums and eclectic instruments, was just what the doctor ordered.

The turn of the century, 1999 to be exact, marked his first trials of writing, lyricism, and poetry. By the year 2000, El*A*Kwents was dabbling with recording early attempts over other people's beats and beginning to compose his own, as well. After another year of experimenting and honing his craft he officially had his first experience with emceeing, performing at local open mics and shows. In the wake of his new passion he released a full-length, pressed album, with a high school acquaintance (Absolute Proof). By 2004, he debuted his first solo album, Lucid with the help of veteran engineer Rob Pride, who has worked with the legendary band Aerosmith and reggae artist Mighty Mystic. The rest of the first decade of the 21st century brought El*A*Kwents to Boston, Florida, and Pennsylvania, working with many independent artists, labels, venues, and entrepreneurs. In 2008 and 2010, he masterminded two EP's, REX-84 and Transformative Traits. A slew of collaborations, compilations, singles, and unreleased tracks were composed and released via the internet and DIY CD's during those interspersed years of the late 2000's. In 2015, the newest work from El*A*Kwents, A Human Becoming [LP] was independently released.  Thus, a Hip Hop creator was born and marches on, empowered with thought, spirit, speech, music and conscious-awareness of the here and now.

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