Greg L. Hines
Born: Newark, New Jersey

Early on, it was evident Greg enjoyed entertaining. He would do “Shows” for his family, perfectly imitating cartoon characters such as Donald Duck and making sound effects. In grammar school he participated in choir and many school plays. At home he was exposed to a wide variety of music by his aunts and uncles. They listened to every thing from Elton John to Otis Redding, Parliament Funkadelics to the Beatles. He was first exposed to musical instruments like the violin, guitar and turntable by his cousins.
In the early days of Hip-Hop Greg Beat Boxed, Pop Locked, Break danced and dabbled in Graffiti art and DJing. Greg was influenced by artists such as Run-Dmc and The Beastie Boys for their hybrid of Rock and Rap. He was also heavily influenced by Prince for his blending of musical styles, the marriage of visuals with music and the fact that he produced, wrote, performed and sometimes played all his own instruments. Classical music and Ethnic music of all styles were also very influential to Greg. He started blending Hip-Hop with Ethnic styles and Classical years before it was heard on main stream radio. At an early age he saw multiculturalism as a cure for many of the worlds ills, long before it was a “Corporate Catch phrase”.
His first original song involved five human beat boxes “orchestrated” and mixed with original sound effects he recorded with a tape deck. Greg’s other “Love” (because music came before eating and second only to God and Grandma) was writing short stories and poetry. This lead him to meet world famous poets Sonya Sanchez, Gwendolyn Brookes, Maya Angelou and Amiri Baraka. He also had the experience of having Maya Angelou read one of his poems aloud. Still music called and Greg thought by turning his poems into lyrics, he could make them more kinetic. Click to read more.