Onyx Ashanti –Digital Nomad, Inventor, Musician, Philosopher

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Asheran Mojomaster
Way too much time!
Way too much time!
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Joined: November 22, 2002, 8:56 pm
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Onyx Ashanti –Digital Nomad, Inventor, Musician, Philosopher

Post by Asheran Mojomaster »

Has anyone heard of Onyx Ashanti? He was on a few Ted Talks, and has invented a really awesome instrument \ nearly bionic suit that has been evolving over the years. Trips me out!

I interviewed him a bit ago on Coin Brief: http://coinbrief.net/onyx-ashanti-and-bitcoin/

Here is a bit about him, and Beatjazz
How did the idea of beatjazz arise?
beatjazz is an evolutionary construct of cultural and sonic exploration. i created it because i could not easily slot myself into existing genres and styles of “music”. at the time that the concatenation of the words “beat” and “jazz” occured, i was in one of my many transitional states. styles of music like drum and bass, acid jazz, early timbaland-era r&b, and broken beat had much of my attention at the time, in the mid 90′s.
i loved them all but i could not “be” them. i wanted to hybridize them into something that could express how much i loved them together and individually so i came up with the term beatjazz in 1998 and it became a lightening rod for my forward momentum. “beat” refers to the culture of electronic rhythm and “jazz” always meant improvisation to me, but also alluded to an investigation of harmony, melody and intent. this was at a time when i wasn’t very good at improv, so the term gave me something to work toward. now, it is a completely improvised form of sonic investigation. the term still acts as a lightening rod of important factors. it has taken on a more mathematical meaning as of late.
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