Phelan Barreiro, Curtis Boyd, Steve Johnson, Blackberry Studios, Todd Boyd,
Etkilendikleri
In no certain order:
KRS-ONE
PUBLIC ENEMY
NAUGHTY BY NATURE
RUN DMC
ONYX
DEAD PREZ
NWA
SNOOP DOGG
TUPAC
ICE CUBE
BIGGIE
BONE THUGZ N HARMONY
BUSTA RHYMES
WU TANG
LUDACRIS
TWISTA
DAVID BANNER
OUTKAST
TRIBE CALLED QUEST
DIGITAL UNDERGROUND
JAY Z
NAS
SLIPKNOT
PANTERA
METALLICA
SLAYER
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE
MOZART
BACH
BEETHOVEN
MICHAEL JACKSON
EARTH WIND AND FIRE
producers:
TIMBALAND
DR.DRE
CAZ LAMAR (with whom I am currently working)
MELMAN
LIL JON
KANYE WEST
THE NEPTUNES
RZA
PAUL REUBEN
TEDDY RILEY
QUINCY JONES
SWIZZ BEATS
DJ PAUL
HEATMAKERS
DIDDY
KID CAPRI
JERMAINE DUPRI
SHOCKA ZULU
DJ PREMIERE
CRYSTAL METHOD
PRODIGY
ROBOT KOCH
BENNY BENNASSI
check these videos to see how we rock....
CYNIKLETHAL@THEHIPHOPBUFFETSERIES VOL2
Phelan “CYNIK LETHAL” Barreiro is a producer/rapper/host/DJ from the City of Steel, Pittsburgh, Pa. With a moniker that means “Deadly Philosopher”, he has rocked stages from the middle of the hood, to the most upscale nightclubs, college campuses, even bars in another country. People can’t seem to get enough of his high-energy delivery, cutting-edge rhythmical styling, and hard-hitting beats...
Born in 1984 as the bastard son of a coke-hustling drummer and a revolutionary-minded wild child, Phelan (pronounced "felon") grew up with what has been described as an uncanny intuition for all things musical. His mother would testify that while he was in the womb, she played Jimmy Hendrix and Mozart through headphones to him, and she speculates that that is why he could sing before he could talk. She made sure Phelan was always enrolled into every music program available to him even at the early age of 4, as his family moved around the east coast due to her hectic work life. It was at the tender age of 6, while living in New Jersey, that he discovered his love of hiphop, via the music of Kris Kross and En Vogue (who I argue is definitely RnB, but he says the production was more hiphop influenced, so I give it to him). He used to watch hiphop videos on MTV and study the rhythms of producers like Kid Capri, DJ Premiere, Terminator X, Jermaine Dupri, and Rick Reuben, and at that young of an age, Phelan decided what he wanted to do with his life.....
His family eventually moved back to Pittsburgh in 1993, to an urban neighborhood known as Mt. Oliver. During that time in Pittsburgh history, there was constant gang and drug violence throughout the area Phelan lived in and the city at large, and he was constantly exposed to the scenes of urban assaults, police harassment, and drug culture. Seeing so much violence and death while growing up, his music was heavily influenced by the reality he encountered on a daily basis in school and on the streets, as well as a long turbulent period in his home life. Being from a racially mixed background, he was exposed to different perceptions of the issues he dealt with every day, such as race identity, violence in the community, sex, and religious affiliation. He came to the conclusion, along this line of thought, that since he was both white and black, he would combine rap music with heavy metal, drawing from the bands his parents had exposed him to, such as Metallica, to identify himself with. He felt that heavy metal was the same as hardcore rap, and when fused in a certain way, the most hardcore of all music could be made, and that would be the proper reflection of his turmoil.
Throughout his school days, Phelan was determined to perfect the sound, and he began to follow heavier-sounding bands such as Slipknot, Korn, and Rage Against The Machine, while maintaining his love for hiphop via KRS-One, Naughty by Nature, and Public Enemy. He joined several metal bands as a singer and composer, though none of them seemed to be able to recreate the sound he kept hearing in his head...
While peers of his dropped out of school, he remained focused on deepening his relationship with music while it seemed the world tore itself apart around him, using it as a type of therapy to embrace and overcome his surroundings and perceivedly doomed lot in life. He and a friend would meet downtown after work in Market Square and, drumming on industrial-sized garbage cans with sawed-up broomsticks, throw street shows with jazz bands and rappers. He attended hiphop shows and freestyle battles regularly, gaining rep as a formidable beatboxer.
By the time he graduated high school, Phelan had learned how to play a wide variety of drums and instruments as well as various styles of singing in addition to rap. He felt as though he had a dynamic understanding of music, but had yet to figure out how to make it all come together in a studio....
In 2002, he made beats on drum machines and sold them to local rappers under the name he had earned in the graffiti underground while in high school: Cynik, based on a group of greek philosophers that constantly questioned and sought the true meaning of life.
While slangin' beats in the streets, he was discovered by a local studio in the south side of Pittsburgh and was quickly brought on board as an in-house producer. It was during his time at that studio that he produced his first demo for another artist. As he learned the inner workings of a studio and studied the music industry, he produced a wider variety of artists, and he began branching out from gangsta rap to R&B, soul, dancehall, reggaeton and rock. He also began working in different studios freelance throughout the city, gaining a reputation for his unique sound, which consisted of a blend of seemingly opposite genres of music. Artists often asked him for help when composing songs, eventually leading to his return to the stage in 2003, where he and an R&B artist he had produced performed together at a legendary venue (the now non-existant Crawford Grille) in the city’s Hill District. Even though as a singer and performer, Phelan had plenty of stage experience, being on-stage as a rap artist did something different for him and allowed him to express his innermost thoughts to large audiences, and he got a huge kick out of blowing people's minds with his content. After shows, the owner of the studio he worked in would describe Phelan's style and content to him as "lethal". Eventually, Phelan adopted the philosophy that the use and control of the mind was more lethal than the use of force, and thus, Cynik Lethal was born.
Cynik Lethal was addicted to the stage, doing as many shows as he possibly could, anywhere, anytime. Underground contests and events where he performed quickly became networking centers for him, eventually leading to his introduction to legendary producer Caz Lamar through a soul singer named Hutch Soulslinga that Cynik was submitting tracks to. Caz had worked with Dr. Dre, The MelMan, and Gerald Levert as well other Grammy-award winning artists, and he recognized Cynik's potential during their first meeting and agreed to co-produce his first solo project after running him through a gauntlet of tests. Cynik didn't want to put out music that would just sell, like much of what was on the radio, instead opting for higher substance and musical quality. They drew inspiration from symphonic composers like Beethoven and Mozart. Against all odds they released an EP called The Black History Project, which has sold exceedingly well in the underground (available in stores, on iTunes, Amazon.com, CDBaby, and damn near every major distributor of independent music online) and won CD of The Year at the 2008 Pittsburgh Hip Hop Awards .
Possessed of a sound mind, a unique perspective on life, and many allies, Cynik grows monthly as a force in his city, opening for national acts such as Bone Thugs N Harmony (twice), Immortal Technique, Fatlip formerly of the Pharcyde, and Wise Intelligent of The Poor Righteous Teachers (see Mr.Small's and The Shadow Lounge). He's also known for participating in many widely attended local events such as The City Paper's Sound Kitchen and JPB's Hip Hop Buffet. He's been featured on several local tv shows thus far: Dabuttonpusha's Ripple Effect, and Culture In Me, as well as The Joey Porter Show, and the much acclaimed Underground HipHop Video magazine, which he now hosts. After working as a host, he's discovered that while operating in "studio mode" he could still get exposure and reach new audiences by disguising himself as an everyman on TV. He has hosted parties for The Bud Light Party Cruise, UWeb TV.com's internet broadcast show Bottom Up, which features interviews with local and national artists rising from the bottom to the top(www.uwebTV.com, Devon Hammond), and is currently hosting events on the upcoming DVD "Best In It" for a multimedia team known as Promotional Push.
Ever faithful to the Pittsburgh Underground, and without a manager, he's been setting up and promoting his own shows with the help of his squad, who learned so much helping him push his CD that they started their own promotional company ( Underground Revolutionary Enterprises/ Promotions, aka U-REP). Their goal was to promote local underground acts to new audiences, such as their first charity event at Slippery Rock University, where Cynik Lethal in conjunction with Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity and several local acts he booked for the event, successfully raised over $3500 for the family of hospital-ridden 5-year-old Jordan Jack. After throwing this successful benefit, Cynik began throwing his own shows in one of the hottest nightclubs in the city. He would throw 4 of their top 10 live events of their first year, booking local hip hop acts (such as Eviction Notice and Hipnotik, hosted by JPB's DaButtonpusha), and even collaborating with metal bands (Shadow Jones), which drew crowds of hundreds, until he became disenfranchised with the blatant racism perpetuated by the owner of that very same club and removed himself from that situation (see www.jenesismagazine.com, June 08 issue).
Since then, he's taken to doing positive things through music when the opportunity presents itself, such as the Sound Kitchen Anti-Violence Benefit, The Royal Tribe Hip Hop Arts Symposium, the Free Mumia Benefit, and the Pittsburgh Gathering (One Hood, Harry Belafonte, Fred hampton Jr.). He also spends time as a freelance producer at Blackberry Studios, a PHHA-nominated studio in the city's Lawrenceville neighborhood, where he sells beats and has begun expanding his musical talent into other fields, such as crafting video game soundtracks, theme music for TV, vocal work, and live band composition, with an eye into the future on movie soundtracks. His skills at production and love for various styles of hiphop and heavy metal have led him to develop a band, which consists of rotating musicians combining death metal licks with hardcore rap. He promises to feature the band on the new CD, his full-length release, "Amerikan Power", while submitting production for and collaborating with many other local and national artists (such as Lupe Fiasco), while his name stays fresh via his appearance on mixtapes, such as Omar Abdul's "get used to it" Steel City Mixtape, 96.1 KISS FM Dj Bonics and Nakturnal's mixtape "412: Who Knew?", as well as college radio stations throughout western Pennsylvania.........
The style of rap he reps is called Revolution Musik, which he describes as "a sledgehammer to the forehead" and that's where his passion lies, as is demonstrated by the nearly riot-like shows featuring his band and his former stage man Wreckless (of Naka Fitness and Entertainment, East Liberty) (see videos).....You can find clips of his latest music and videos at www.myspace.com/CYNIKLETHAL .
We asked Cynik what else he could possibly fit on his plate, to which we are not in the least bit astonished to find out he's been DJing at local clubs, spinning what he describes as "fuck music", and competing in beat battles, in which he is currently the champion in Pittsburgh after winning Weapons Of Mass Production 7. When asked about the dichotomy of making a certain style of music as an artist and playing the exact opposite to "large crowds of hot women", he merely replies casually,
"I'm on that ninja shit on the vampire shift, my man.... We don't hate, we assimilate."
Lethal, indeed
-J.Ferrari Promotional Push
FOR BOOKING INFO, PRODUCTION INFO AND MORE, SHOOT AN EMAIL TO CYNIKLETHAL@GMAIL.COM. WE DO NEGOTIATE AND WE DO BARTER.
THANK YOU to everyone who NOMINATED and VOTED for CYNIK LETHAL in the categories of BEST MALE ARTIST and CD of THE YEAR at THE PITTSBURGH HIPHOP AWARDS......THE BLACK HISTORY PROJECT WON CD OF THE YEAR AT THE 2008 PHHA'S!!!!! MUCH LOVE TO PITTSBURGH, I TRULY BELIEVE WE AS A CITY ARE CAPABLE OF AFFECTING A POSITIVE CHANGE THROUGHOUT THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AND THE WORLD... New shit is comin' for ya'll soon, be on the lookout for collabs with a lot of the hottest artists in the burgh and the WORLD, and Amerikan Power......read the newspapers, watch the news(and Underground HipHop Video Magazine, tuesdays at midnight, on Comcast The Great Rapist's PCTV21), see forces make moves, and CONQUER....
thanks for the friendship. A warm welcome to my circle of friends.
COOL STUFF !!
Best wishes for all your projects. You are always invited to listen to my beats. I got industry standard beats for sale. I produced beats for RASCO..s new album. I..m in the top 3 beat sellers out of 48296 producers.
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Check out our other pages,if you find time, if you would want to know more about us. The first ones on this page. Sinds you like this,you could request the other pages too and please read well before jumping to conclusion......
In the meanwhile, keep doing what you do best and stay yourself! You know allready.
Regards,
Bugz B,J.Blaze and Kane D Goreson, from Winners n sinners.
We are all winners and sinners, the balance is now, The key is gratitude. No fear,no keeps.
Hope that weekend been great! <:) Have a great week also!
yoyo long time no talk. what's up? thanks for feedback - helps more than you know. speed demon remix sounds great. movin to DC in few weeks. might swing through Pitt on way - I'll let you know
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