Del the Funkee Homopsapien
- Upper Terrace Stage
- September 13
- 08:00 PM
Hailing from Oakland, California, Del and his crew, the Hieroglyphics came out as a markedly non-gansta response to a burgeoning West Coast scene. After being put on at the tender age of 17 by his cousin Ice Cube, Del released two records on Elektra, I Wish My Brother George Was Here (1991) and No Need For Alarm (1993). Despite record sales in the hundreds of thousands, he recorded a third album, Future Development, which was never commercially released.
Having left Elektra, Del aligned himself closely to a few fellow rapper friends, Casual and Souls of Mischief, and issued his third release overall, 1998’s Future Development, for the same label as his friends, Hieroglyphics Records. 2000 saw the release of an all-new Del solo release, Both Sides of the Brain, as well as a self-titled debut release by a side project, Deltron 3030, which saw Del join forces with both the Automator and Kid Koala.
It took eight years for the rapper’s next solo full-length to come out, but in the interim Del kept himself busy with guest appearances, including on the Damon Albarn project Gorillaz’s self-titled debut, adding his recognizable vocals to the hit “Clint Eastwood,” a song that he also began incorporating in his live sets. In 2007 it was announced that the MC had been signed to Def Jux, who released the long-awaited (and very un-Def Jux-like) Eleventh Hour in March of 2008.
