Emcee Drunken Monk....Ghost Flow
Ghost Flow featuring emcee Drunken MOnk.
MOnk during performance at 1015 Folsom in San Francisco in 2013.
Emcee Drunken MOnk aka J. Gray is a bay area rapper who is originally from Louisiana but produced hiphop, rap and collaborated with bay area/Oakland artist while living in Berkeley, and Oakland from the years 2012 to present. MOnk was also studying at the Berkeley Community Jazz School prior to producing his first two albums Rude Boy and Ghost Flow and had been involved in the Bay area Jazz scene for close to a decade prior to moving there to pursue music endeavors. Gray's efforts also produced the first recordings combining British Grime music via the Family Tree collective of Britain with the southern trap style of hiphop with collaborations from multiple Oakland artist such as the young east oakland group Hipster Gang(aka TBM aka 5 Boys), TBT, and Nittlz.The album was produced under the indie label New Age Lions Music LLC. Prior to moving to the Bay Gray resided in the state of Montana where he still works part time in the health care industry and where he studied music at Montana State University in Billings Montana.
Early Life[]
Gray grew up in north louisiana and is the oldest son of the late Jimmy Gray Sr. who was a decorated war veteran who received a presidential citation for actions performed in the vietnam war and who was also the first african american peace officer in the town of Vivian Louisiana where Gray grew up. Gray attributes his rap name Drunken MOnk to his father's early influences in teaching him eastern martial arts via a martial arts academy he started when Gray was very young. He won awards at state poetry contest at the age of 13 and went on to study piano performance at Caddo Parish High School, a well known school of the arts in Shreveport Louisiana. After attending college at the University of Louisiana in Monroe Louisiana he went on to study chemistry at Tennessee State Univiersity and also studied at Meharry Medical College and holds a doctorate level degree. After leaving Tn. Gray moved to New Orleans Louisiana where he was involved in the spoken word poetry scene in the late 90's. He went on to study piano performance at Mt. State University and afterwards at the Jazz School in Berkeley California in the year 2011 when he started collaborating with bay area artist on works of hiphop, triphop, and jazzhop. His album Ghost Flow included the first features from west coast artist and southern artist collaborating with UK artist of the Family Tree collective from the Grime scene which is an underground music founded in London in the early 2000's as a development of UK garage, drum and bass, hiphop, and dancehall . This was released on the independent label New Age Lions Music. The song Lion_O feat UK artist Merky Ace made the top 100 in 2013 on the independent music Fiercebark charts. As of 2014 he still resided and worked in the bay area in the city of Oakland california.
Discography
Nashville Sessions ( acousitic jazz music)
Rude Boy
Ghost Flow
References