| rdfs:comment | - Birth name: Jimi C. Dright, Jr. Origin: Berkeley, CA Genres: Jazz, Hip Hop, Funk, Rock, R&B Years active: 1987 to present Labels: Warner Brothers (Tommy Boy, Qwest), Blues Interactions (P-Vine), EMI (Higher Octave) Associated acts: Digital Underground, Tupac Shakur, Dave Hollister, Saafir, George Clinton, Benny Green Website: ChopmasterJ.com Digital Underground was soon joined by the young Tupac Shakur, who came to the group asking for work and who began working as Jimi's roadie. Jimi produced the earliest recordings of Tupac, who was then with a band called Strictly Dope.
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| abstract | - Birth name: Jimi C. Dright, Jr. Origin: Berkeley, CA Genres: Jazz, Hip Hop, Funk, Rock, R&B Years active: 1987 to present Labels: Warner Brothers (Tommy Boy, Qwest), Blues Interactions (P-Vine), EMI (Higher Octave) Associated acts: Digital Underground, Tupac Shakur, Dave Hollister, Saafir, George Clinton, Benny Green Website: ChopmasterJ.com Chopmaster J, born Jimi Dright, is the son of a jazz saxophone player, Jimmy Dright senior (AKA "Mr. Wonderful"), who had played with Sonny Simmons and Joe Henderson. Jimi grew up playing jazz drums, participating in the music programs of the Berkeley schools along with a number of musicians that later attained success, including Rodney Franklin, Benny Green, and Steve Bernstein. Jimi was an organizer of musicians from an early age, starting a number of groups and producing concerts while attending Berkeley High School. Out of high school Jimi studied music business and learned the ins and outs of music contracts. In 1986 he started a production company, Network One. In 1987 he produced and recorded a Jazz album, Mr. Wonderful, with his father and a hand-selected group of jazz musicians. He also produced a number of bands in genres ranging from jazz to Hip Hop. It was in the context of the hip hop movement that Jimi became known as Chopmaster J. Chopmaster J met Shock G at Music Unlimited in San Leandro when Shock worked there selling keybards. When Chopmaster purchased some recording equipment, Shock offered to show how to use the equipment in exchange for using it to collaborate on some songs. In this way Digital Underground was born. Chopmaster worked hard to promote Digital Underground, sending demos to music business contacts, eventually landing a contract with Tommy Boy records. Digital Underground gained some success with Underwater Rimes, a single that reached the top 10 in Holland. Digital Underground was soon joined by the young Tupac Shakur, who came to the group asking for work and who began working as Jimi's roadie. Jimi produced the earliest recordings of Tupac, who was then with a band called Strictly Dope. Chopmaster J left the underground in 1991 over differences in the direction of the group, after the release of their album "Sons of the P." He founded Force One Network, which featured the then undiscovered R&B vocalist Dave Hollister. The first Force One Network album, "The MME Experience - Program One," was recorded for Quincy Jones' Qwest Records. The song "Spirit (Does Anyone Care?)" was featured on the platinum selling Boyz in the Hood album. In 1991, at the peak of Chopmaster J's success, a fire destroyed Jimi's residence. Jimi suffered devastating losses of content and memorabilia, including forty of his dad's fantasy recordings, Masters from Force One Network, momentos from Digital Underground's world tours, and masters of the first 150 songs he had done with his keyboard player Will (Fat's Jr.) Waller. FORCE ONE NETWORK AND PRODUCTION OF DIVERSE ACTS (1992-1996) Force One Network released a second album in mid 1992, and toured in 1993, 1994, and 1995. In 1993 Chopmaster J got busy with a number of simultaneous production projects, including Black Folk (Folk Rock), Othello's Revenge (Heavy Metal), United State (Funk) and Shadow Puppets (Rock). Chopmaster J produced and played drums with all of these groups, playing in clubs around the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1996, Chopmaster J did production on the "Nothing But the Bass" and "Nothing but the Drums" series of albums for Blues Interaction in Japan. Chopmaster J produced was the first person to produce Narada Michael Walden In the late 1990s, Chopmaster J licensed various recordings internationally including the work of Force One Network, through his own label, Herb 'N Soul Media. In 1996, Chopmaster J discovered that some recordings that he had thought burned up in the 1991 fire had instead ended up in the basement of his mother's house: these included the earliest recordings of Tupac Shakur. He went about trying to release these while Tupac was still alive, but this took time and the first recordings were released posthumously. In 2001, Chopmaster J came to terms with Afeni Shakur and the Tupac estate. Chopmaster J still has unreleased material from his early work with Tupac. Chopmaster J is currently working under the alter ego Big Brutha Soul. Big Brutha Soul was an identity that first surfaced on the Force One Network album in 1992. Big Brutha has performed extensively around the world, leading a 12-piece band that has performed with Charlie Wilson (of the Gap Band), Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, and members of the group Toto. Big Brutha is a self-proclaimed urban hippie soul icon. The name references simultaneously the Orwellian concept of Big Brother and the concept of elder mentor, as Chopmaster J has been to he various artists he has brought forward including Shock G, Tupac Shakur, and Dave Hollister. Big Brutha is currently producing a recording that includes George Clinton performing on nine of its songs. Big Brutha's alter ego, Dred Sullivan, is an insightful social commentator/entertainer, expected to surface online in 2008.
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