Beans

“The Ornette Coleman of this rap sh*t / The link between Suicide,Sun Ra and Bambaata…”
-Beans, from “I’ll Melt You”

Beans (aka Mr. Ballbeam) is out to shatter your silly notions of “next-level” hip-hop. He recently released the album Shock City Maverick on Warp Records, his second solo long-player since the disbandment of NYC’s legendary Anti-Pop Consortium, and a Molotov cocktail of chunky, psychedelic electro-hop and loquacious avant-rap narratives.

Bumping in your ride, burning up your iPod or rattling windows in your home system, Beans makes some of the most creative hip-hop you’ll ever hear, and this fly rhyme sayer drops some of the catchiest left field tongue/mind/body twisters you’ve ever heard.

On a steady upward progression since 2003’s extraordinary Tomorrow Right Now and the more succinct and warmly welcomed Now Soon Someday EP, Beans wraps up his own production work in complex wordplay, alternating between the playful and the completely extraterrestrial, twisting his way through metallic boom-bap nasty enough to make today’s platinum-pushing super producers blush. Witness the future-funk party starter “Down By Law”, the tweaked R&B roll of “Shards of Glass” or the mind-blowing rap lunacy of “Diamond Halo Grenade” and then see if the Shock City Maverick hasn’t melted the competition.

Since first dipping his well-pedicured toe into the solo artist pool with 2000’s “Nude Paper” 12-inch for James Lavelle’s lauded Mo’Wax label, Beans has since gone on to collaborate with DJ Shadow, Bill Laswell, Sly & Robbie, Prefuse 73, Terranova, Mike Ladd, Dani Siciliano, Dabrye, Ghislain Poirier, Aceyalone, and many others. He is currently working on an album with free jazz lions William Parker and Hamid Drake for Thirsty Ear Records, and has been asked by newly reunited punk rock heroes Gang of Four to remix one of their classics. Beans has recently performed at such celebrated festivals as Coachella, Sonar, Vegoose, CMJ, SXSW, Donau and Territoires Electronique, and was invited by the Mars Volta to perform at this year’s All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in the UK. He has spent the last year touring alongside The Rapture, Tortoise, Prefuse 73, The Unicorns, Mike Ladd, and Out Hud, and is the subject of an upcoming documentary by filmmaker Patrick Burns. His next release, ONLY, a collaboration with free jazz lions William Parker and Hamid Drake, drops Spring 2006 on Thirsty Ear Records.

ACCOLADES:
"Beans drops deft poetry with the fastest flow...those seeking hip-hop on a higher level need look no further." -ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

“A genuine star, Beans looks fantastic… a diminutive Isaac Hayes (with) wit and charisma to spare…too nifty to be confined to the margins of ‘genius rap’.” THE GUARDIAN

"One of modern hip-hop's most complex and interesting lyricists." –COMPLEX

"Tomorrow Right Now is a compelling and surprisingly concise package that makes most mainstream hip-hop somewhat lazy by comparison." -BILLBOARD

"Beans slaughters your rap idols, then chuckles, "wake up and smell the carcass. "- SPIN

“Shock City Maverick shines a light on the future.” – TIME OUT LONDON