Cut Chemist was born in Muscle Shoals, Alabama during the immediate post-Bellum period. At the age of eleven, Cut Chemist started cutting records in a "twelve-bar Blues form". Vaudeville pianist and song writer, Perry Bradford, helped to record Cut Chemist's first mixed tape and released a series of white-label albums on Okeh Records. It was at this time that Cut took notice of the Tin Pan Alley scene and started writing minstrel tunes. Shortly thereafter, he became friends with Boogie-Woogie personalities such as Marion Cook and James Reese. Cut's Boogie-Woogie record, "Cut Chemist Rag", instantly gave him notoriety in Europe.

Cut went from Tin Pan Alley to disk jockey-ing in Memphis, Tennessee on WDAS. It was there that Dave Clark, music's first "promo man", hipped Cut to a track called 'King Tim The Third", the first disco song to feature a rap. At this time Al Bell, the owner of Stax records, was becoming more and more politically active with his Soul Music Enforcement Crew (S.M.E.C.). With the combination of politically charged soul music, crossover disco/rap, and the invention of the "double throw switch" by Grandmaster Flash, Cut Chemist foresaw a new offspring of R&B, and this would later be coined, "drum and bass".

After DJ-ing in WDAS for the second phase of his career, Cut Chemist took his DJ set from the radio station to nearby parks and gymnasiums. It was at Silverlake Recreation Center that Cut met folk baladeer, Charlie Tuna. By "toasting" in a dancehall style popular in Jamaica, Cut and Charlie Tuna created the rap style known as "Mississippi Delta scatting". Much to their dismay, and beyond their control, this "Mississippi Delta scatting" style eventually mutated into what we know now as "Gangsta rap."

Leaving the gangster scene behind, Cut Chemist teamed up with song writer and arranger, Jesse Stone from the Atlantic staff. This brought Cut Chemist into his present phase of teen-oriented dance music. The influence of Stone's invention of using telephone books to create a thumping bass sound can be heard in Cut's most recent works, "Lesson 6- The Lecture" and "The Number Song Remix".

It must be strange for this 24 year-old Los Angeles hip hop DJ to realize he's actually becoming a star. Could it be that the longtime member of LA's hip hop underground is finally getting his props? With the almost simultaneous releases of Cut Chemist's track on Ubiquity's compilation, his track on the OM records compilation, his remix of DJ Shadow's "The Number Song", a project with DJ Mumbles and the first Jurassic 5 EP about to drop, he can't help to blow up and it's high time.

Cut Chemist is a senior art major at UCLA with a very busy schedule. Along with DJ Numark, Cut is the deejay and creative mad scientist behind the hip hop group, Jurassic 5. He also deejays with Latin funk band, Ozomatli, probably the freshest live band in LA (at least). When Cut Chemist isn't creating and re-creating in his lab or adding to his enormous record collection, he's working on a photography project, studying for midterms, or flying across the continent to deejay. Such is the life of a musician on the come-up.

Cut Chemist starting DJing at age eleven. His father took him to compete in his first battle at age twelve. He passed the preliminaries, but he got taken out by DJ Arabian Prince in the finals. It's twelve years later and Cut Chemist is demanding a rematch.

Cut spent his teenage years going to high school and quietly moonlighting as a deejay in the growing Los Angeles hip hop scene. Unity Committee was formed in 1987, when Cut Chemist hooked up with DJ Marvski and MC's Charlie Tuna and Mark Seven. In 1994, Unity Committee got together with Rebels of Rhythm, which included two MC's named Akil and Zaakir. Together, minus Marvski and plus Numark, this crew came to be Jurassic 5. It's three years later, and J5 are about to make some serious noise.

There's a lot of heads unhappy with the state of hip hop these days. Many artists seem to be caught in this comfortable rut, and all the while, MC's head to toe in Tommy Hilfiger are talkin' about "Keepin' it Real". Real expensive? Real shallow? Real played-out. So, while some complain, others are quietly working to solve the problem. When Jurassic 5 dropped their single. "Unified Rebellution" (sic) back in 1994, fools did doulble-takes. The combination of super-tight beats and four unique MC's with original old school flavor made for a single that was both progressive, and at the same time "going back to the essence."

Cut Chemist "keeps it real" by keeping it creative, keeping it innovative, and keeping it absolutely dope. For example, "Lesson 6- The Lecture" is like a journey into the vaults of Cut Chemist, a combination of breaks and beats, skillful cuts interjected with guiding vocal samples. It's a hip hop version of symphonic theme and variation, a demonstration of skill and knowledge and an experiment as well. Cut Chemist's "Layered Laird" is a slow, thoughtful, haunting piece of music, unlike anything he's done before. Cut Chemist's range is proof of his true talent. If you get to hear him deejay, he may play all soul 45's, he may play strictly hip hop circa 1986 or he may rock all electro cuts, and then he'll hit the dancefloor and spin on his head. (No joke! This fool can bust a move.)

With such a wide array of influences it's no wonder that Cut Chemist makes such amazing music, and why people have been saying he's dope for years, he's finally getting some serious props. When asked if his success has anything to do with the hip hop scene today, he replies, "Right now is the best time for hip hop because it can belong to anybody whereas, at one point it was RUN-DMC running things or Native Tongue crew. Now it could belong to [DJ] Shadow, Kool Keith, Cut Chemist, or DJ Anna all at the same time because now there are so many branches to hip hop."