The two people who inspired me the most musical were not what you would call big stars. One is my cousin Keenan “The Maestro” Foster. The second is my life long friend Anthony “Dav- Id K-os” Bryant.

Keenan is a couple of years older than me and I always looked up to him, and wanted to do whatever he was doing. He is a fantastic singer and talented producer. He has produced music for a lot of Oakland’s finest most notably Too Short, The Luniz, Askari X, D-Loc from the 415.

K-os I met in the first grade and he was just a different kind of kid who was always ahead of the trends, even if we didn’t know it at the time.

When we were in Jr. High he listened to music that none of us ever heard of.

K-os loved Hip Hop, but also embraced Punk, Ska, and Rock and Roll, but his favorite was The Funk. He always wanted to meet George Clinton, the founder and architect of P-Funk. His dreams would come true when he was work as an in house DJ for a large record store. George Clinton was coming by to do a meet and greet. K-os hooked it up so that Myself, and MD (our partner in our group at the time) “The Raw Material Cartel” could hang out inside before the store opened. Being the mouth piece that I am I chopped it up with George Clinton, telling him how K-os was probably one of his biggest fans. K-os was spinning some of George’s records, and cutting and Scratching in little bits and pieces of different types of music. George was intrigued to say the least.

Long story short he asked K-os to record with him. It was a dream come true.

If you ever heard the song “Mix Master Suite” you would be listening to Dav-id K-os.

George Clinton even did a little rap about us in the song.

We would even open for George Clinton when he did shows in the Bay Area.

K-os would tell us about artist before they were ever famous and he was uncanny in his ability to pick the next big thing. Fishbone, Nirvana, Public Enemy, Sade, and Whitney Houston were just a few of the artist he foresaw.

Of course I was inspired by other artist like Stevie Wonder, Prince, Kurtis Blow, Rick James, Whodini, and the Sugar Hill Gang, but “The Maestro”, and “Dav-Id K-os” remain my biggest inspirations.