With Phoenix Da Icefire making his Cardiff debut on May 4th, we thought we would tell you a little bit about him...
Paul J Nelson better known as Phoenix Da Icefire (born Sept 1st1987) in south east london, he is 1/2 of Higher heights records alongside fellow CEO & founder Dwain thompson. Paul Nelson is best summerised as a British rapper,Song Writer, Actor, Consultant & all around Business man.
Paul "phoenix da icefire" Nelson grew up in east london with his mother angela & his late father john nelson who passed away from cancer late 2002. at a very tender age he was exposed to the harsh realities of an adult life, growing up from a background of not having much pushed him to seek a creative means of enjoying and expressing himself, before he could write music Paul used to draw in order to vent fustration and express complex emotion at that time was bottled up. being a whitness to the murder of his close friend and neighbour at the age of 12 added to reality of life and death for him.
angela nelson the mother of paul aka phoenix was his first musical influence as she used to be in a choir "london community gospel choir" in her early 20's, after singing live on choice fm radio she was given contacts to a major record label who was very much interested in signing her but due to having given birth to her second and third son she never forfilled the dream of becoming a singer.
Phoenix started off in the garage scene under the allius of SWIFTLY alongside felow mc's such as P-Money, Little dee, Firmer dee aka Funky dee, AKS & Blacks in a crew called the FATAL ASSASINS. he originally got into the garage scene after being moved from lewisham to deptford through whitness protection, it was at that time he chose to express his anger and fustration. the up tempo pace of garage allowed him to voice his perspective of the streets from the inside looking out. he made the transition to rap after his close friend at school and mentor MINISTER REBEL taught him the ways of nuwapo, he branched off with fellow garage member AKS who is now apart of MIDAS TOUCH the golden collective comprised of three members, Akin whilholm "AKS" & Jason hayles "J DA EXODUS" who got together late 2006.
he was first introduced to dwain thopson (the other half of higher heights records) by his play leader at the time "Jackie", she noticed his glowing talent and with that decided to introduce paul to her nephew dwain who was music producer at the time. it was in 2008 that they decided to come together as a record label and release "ANATHEMA" from a group called TRIPLE DARKNESS which debuted May 19th 2008.
Phoenix dropped his mixtape "BAPTISM UNDER FIRE" 2009 which received great apprasall and recognition from fellow mc's in the game, the mixtape was hosted by M9 from TRIPLE DARKNESS and hosted by HIGHER HEIGHTS dj Leo rhodes "DJ ROAST", it was in his own words the greatest display of his versitality and creativity to date, the launch party was held in the carhaart store 7th December. artists such as Cappo & endemic, IRS & Triple darkness performed on the night which set in stone the arrival of Phoenix da icefire into the hip ho scene.
Since then Phoenix has been finishing off his album he had been working on since late 2007, the album which will be released late 2010 is titled "THE QUANTUM LEAP" which he feels will launch him further nto the scene aswell as breaking the average stereotypical sound of 90's hip hop, the album is entirely produced by CHEMO, who is a renouwned beatsmith for UK hip hop, he has worked with Joe budden, Lowkey, Triple darkness, Kashmere, Verb T, Fliptricks, Jehst, Mikal parkinson, scandal & Manage just to name a few. The album that Phoenix will release this year features the cream of the crop for UK hip hop, names such as KLASHNEKOFF, KEITH MURRAY, RUSTEE JUXX, LIL ETO, KYZA SMIRNOFF & SCRIBBLAH DAN GOUGH from TERRA FIRMA, TRIPLE DARKNESS, 9 PLANETS, JAH MIRIKLE, DJ TRIPLE & YASINE have all come down and featured on the album in order to secure its success for 2010.
you can follow Phoenix on facebook: www.facebook.com/phoenix.daicefire
and check out his website: www.phoenixdaicefire.com/
