Album Notes

D1 was born in St. Louis, but was moved to Cali when he was a baby. He lives in Venice now. He grew up loving all music and sports. From the age of 9 he was writing and rapping, he never thought this would be his life’s direction. When he was 11, he was discovered by talent producer Chris Barnes. He performed with Irene Cara, Jim Belushi, Ryan Styles, Joel Murray, Clint Smith and Roger Clinton, President Clinton’s brother. D1 got a standing ovation. There was a whirlwind of offers from movie, TV and Warner’s record executive Rob Cavallo, and agent Marty Tudor. But he had to bow out, his heart was in sports.

He was a ranked basketball player with numerous scholarship offers. He put together the famed AAU traveling team Hype-Squad. His senior year he was diagnosed with kidney failure, cause unknown. This is when he started producing. Mostly bedridden for a year, he learned the basics of the Triton and MPC. But he had to give basketball one more try. He received a partial scholarship to prep MCI . He sat out most of the year due to his ongoing illness and a permanent hip injury. His senior project, a documentary and album of his music, was considered exemplary, and was used by the school as an example for future upcoming students working on their senior projects.

That same year he produced a demo for his Venice high school friend Conway. To show support for Conway they went to a Vegas talent show, but D1 was the one who got discovered by multi platinum executive producer and manager Damon Jones, (K-Ci and JoJo, Jon B, CeCe Peniston, the movie Basketball Realities) He then produced an album for Conway. This album convinced Motown Universal, and both were signed. On the new Motown album D1 produced the single “Monsta Flow”. The single dominated the air waves on the west coast. Monsta Flow shot to number 1 in Sweden and the top 10 in various European countries, The Sacramento Kings used the music portion from Monsta Flow for all of their home games that season. The Monsta Flow concept was then taken and used on the John Madden 2005 game.

D1 then had another single released to the airwaves called “Get Down” with artist Cairo. D1 has produced for Bad Azz, Young Soprano (who wrote and featured on Mack 10’s The Testimony) and UNI’s YO. He has also worked with Stacey Orrico. D1 has been called the producer’s producer. Like J Dilla, his personal favorite, he is known and respected by many producers but is not widely known to the public yet. In an interview with the producer J Classic, he stated that “D1 is the best young producer in the game, he’s a genius.”

Today D1 is spending time in the studio with close associate Tommy Costner who co- produced with Dr. Dre and EMINEM the multi platinum hit, The Real Slim Shady, Heat, with Dr. Dre and 50cent, and music for Master P’s movie I Got The Hookup.