Gabriel Teodros

Gabriel Teodros (born 1981), is a hip hop artist and a member of the groups Abyssinian Creole and CopperWire. He is of Ethiopian, Scottish, Irish & Native American descent, and was raised on Beacon Hill, Seattle, Washington. Teodros' music is determined by a social consciousness that tackles issues such as sexism, racism and homophobia, with constant references to his engagement towards the Third World issues due to his Ethiopian background. He was a catalyst in the surge of dynamic underground rap acts from the Pacific Northwest during the first decade of the 2000s.

Biography
Born and raised in Seattle, Washington to an Ethiopian mother and a father of Scottish, Irish and Native American descent. His parents met through anti-war organizing in the 1970s, and they split up around the time Gabriel was born. He stayed with his mother, where he met grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins as they first emigrated to the United States and all stayed in the same house.

His relationship with hip hop culture began at a young age within the South Seattle neighborhood of Beacon Hill. “''A lot of kids in my neighborhood were affected by gang culture. And I kind of had a death wish. I felt like, at an early age, that I wasn’t going to live to 21''” he said in an interview with Sheeko Magazine. He spent his high school years in Las Vegas, Nevada where as one out of approximately 30 students of color in a predominantly white school, something within him changed. “''It was the first time I understood that there was a system in place that wanted kids like me to want to die. And understanding that in high school made me want to live.''” he says in the same interview. The former breakdancer, graffiti writer and closet-emcee finally began to take his career path seriously at age 16, using hip hop to both understand and explain his world.

In 1999, Teodros returned to Seattle and began working with a live band called 500 Years. That same year, he met an MC named Khalil Crisis (better known as Khingz), from the group Maroon Colony. The 2 groups began sharing bills together all over Seattle and the 2 MC's also began working with a community organization called Youth Undoing Institutionalized Racism. In 2001, YUIR sent them to a conference in New Orleans, and it was there that Teodros and Khingz saw how much they had in common outside of music. They formed the group Abyssinian Creole to both represent their peoples and the bridges between them.

Also in 2001, Teodros released his first solo album entitled Sun To A Recycled Soul.

In 2005 Abyssinian Creole released their first album, entitled Sexy Beast, an album that gave expression to the post-1990s cosmopolitanism thriving in South Seattle. The albums featured guests included Moka Only, Geologic of Blue Scholars and Macklemore.

In the Spring of 2006, Teodros completed the entire Lovework album with producer Amos Miller, around the same time MassLine Media was being formed with Teodros, Blue Scholars & Common Market. Lovework had additional beat contributions from Sabzi of Blue Scholars, Moka Only, Kitone, and Specs One. It's sound was primarily influenced by Seattle veteran Vitamin D (who also mixed the record) and the late J Dilla. The album title, Lovework was inspired by bell hooks and her book All About Love: New Visions, where hooks insists that to truly know love, one must agree that love is a verb. She goes further to say to truly know love, one must work to undo every system of domination that stops people from truly loving. The title was also inspired by a quote from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet where Gibran says "Work is love made visible".

Also in 2006, Good Medicine was formed: a four-person group composed of Teodros, Khingz, Macklemore and Geologic of Blue Scholars. Good Medicine have headlined a handful of shows in the Seattle area but have never released any music as a group. Towards the end of that year, Teodros independently released a mix-tape/CD entitled Westlake: Class of 1999, which was a collection of his unreleased songs recorded in 4 different cities between the years 2002-2006.

The Lovework album was released February 27, 2007 on MassLine, to critical acclaim. The album topped the CMJ Hip Hop charts for 2 weeks and came in at #19 for the year 2007. This year Teodros was also named as one of URB Magazine's "Next 100".

In the Fall of 2009, after being deported from the London-Heathrow Airport and having to cancel a European tour, Teodros found himself in a Brooklyn, NY recording studio with Lovework producer Amos Miller. They spent 2 weeks together crafting a 12 track album produced using mostly GarageBand, a piano, and the recordings of actual birds. The end result was Air 2 A Bird's Crow Hill, released independently in the summer of 2010.

In December 2009, Teodros released GT's Ethiopium: A Jitter Generation Mixtape. This release shined a light on the realities of Ethiopia, touched on America’s own imperfections & stressed the importance of exploring one's own intelligence and spirituality. It was made completely using instrumentals from Oh No's Ethiopium, which was made completely using old-school and rare samples of Ethiopian music.

In 2011, Teodros (along with Meklit Hadero and Burntface) toured Ethiopia, and did 12 shows including the first Hip Hop shows to ever happen in the cities of Harar and Gondar. He recorded an album in Washington, DC inspired by the experience, that is still untitled, and unreleased.

In January 2012, Teodros released Colored People's Time Machine, his first full-length solo album since Lovework. Colored People's Time Machine was recorded in Seattle and Brooklyn, and is a multi-lingual, multi-genre album that featured vocal, instrumental, and production collaborations with 20 different artists. On it, he explored themes of love (Goodnight, a brief interlude on a long-distance relationship), cultural identity (Blossoms of Fire), personal identity (Alien Native, a biographical tale), the concept of home (Diaspora and Beit), loss (Ella Mable Bright, a tribute to his grandmother featuring Meklit Hadero), music (Colored People’s Time Machine, and Sun and Breeze, also featuring Meklit Hadero and Amos Miller), and the music industry (You A Star, on which he warns about the pitfalls of the industry and the danger of buying into the illusion of stardom). Other guests on the album include Mexico City's Bocafloja, Los Angeles emcee SKIM, and Palestinian wordsmith Sabreena Da Witch.

On April 17, 2012, CopperWire's debut album Earthbound was released on Porto Franco Records. CopperWire is a group composed of Teodros, Meklit Hadero and Burntface. All three celebrate their Ethiopian ancestry on the album, but do so through the characters of galactic fugitives aboard a hijacked starship. Earthbound's story, as described in liner notes by award-winning science fiction author Nnedi Okorafor, casts CopperWire members as characters that journey to Earth in the year 2089 to learn what it means to be human. They include mad scientist Scholar Black (Burntface), alien-human hybrid Getazia (Gabriel Teodros) and interstellar telepath Ko Ai (Meklit Hadero). The album uses metaphors of intergalactic distances to talk about diaspora and cultural connection and disconnection. The album also uses sonified light curves (that is the sound of stars, processed through Fourier analysis into frequencies that can be heard by humans) courtesy of SETI Institute researcher & NASA Kepler Labs analyst Jon Jenkins.

Teodros' influences range from black feminist author bell hooks, to reggae artist Bob Marley, and hip hop groups like A Tribe Called Quest & Freestyle Fellowship.

He leads writing workshops with youth, has helped spearhead after-school programs, and organizes all-ages events. He was also a founding DJ for Zulu Radio on KBCS 91.3 FM.

He has performed alongside the likes of Lupe Fiasco, Black Star, K'naan, Zap Mama, Fishbone, KRS-One and The Coup to name a few.

Albums

 * CopperWire Earthbound (Porto Franco Records, 2012)
 * Gabriel Teodros Colored People's Time Machine (Fresh Chopped Beats/MADK Productions, 2012)
 * Air 2 A Bird Crow Hill (independent, 2010)
 * Gabriel Teodros Lovework (MassLine, 2007)
 * Gabriel Teodros Westlake: Class of 1999 (independent, 2006)
 * Abyssinian Creole Sexy Beast (MADK/Pangea, 2005)
 * Gabriel Teodros Sun To A Recycled Soul (independent, 2001)

EPs

 * Gabriel Teodros & DJ Ian Head The Lentil Soup EP (Everyday Beats, 2011)
 * Gabriel Teodros No Label (MassLine, 2007)
 * Abyssinian Creole Sexy Beast (MADK/Pangea, 2005)

Mixtapes

 * Gabriel Teodros GT's Ethiopium: A Jitter Generation Mixtape (independent, 2009)

Singles

 * The LivinYard Summer's Here / Society Of Summer (independent, 2009)
 * Gabriel Teodros Me & You featuring Silver Shadow D (independent, 2009)
 * DJ Ian Head Sippin Coffee / Nightsky with Abyssinian Creole, Opoetik & Evolve-One (Everyday Beats, 2008)

Guest appearances

 * Bocafloja Patologías del Invisible Incómodo "Agonia" featuring Gabriel Teodros & Hollis Wong-Wear (Quilomboarte, 2012)
 * Random Abiladeze Indubitably! "On My Feet" featuring Gabriel Teodros & Uptown Swuite (independent, 2011)
 * Sabreena Da Witch A Woman Under The Influence "Beit / Home" featuring Gabriel Teodros (SabreenaNow.com, 2010)
 * Various Artists 47N122W35N139E: Reunion On The I-5 "Pop Star Is Dead" - Gabriel Teodros (Vuestro Record/Shamrock, 2010)
 * Canary Sing Boss Ladies: A Mixtape "Raindrops" featuring Gabriel Teodros, Slay, Chev, One.Two (independent, 2010)
 * Suntonio Bandanaz Who Is Suntonio Bandanaz!?! "Meditate" featuring Gabriel Teodros & Khingz (Fresh Chopped Beats/MADK, 2009)
 * Big World Breaks 4 Those Lost... "Emerald City Step" featuring Yirim Seck, Khingz, B-Flat, Gabriel Teodros, okanomodé (independent, 2009)
 * Khingz From Slaveships To Spaceships "Boi Caimen At Adwa" featuring Gabriel Teodros (Fresh Chopped Beats/MADK, 2009)
 * Dollabin Styles You Can't Afford "Dreamz" featuring Gabriel Teodros (Everyday Beats, 2009)
 * The Kafa Beanz Andromeda: The Chronicles of Blackopia Volume 1 "Tizita" - Gabriel Teodros featuring B Sheba (Burntface Media, 2008)
 * DJ Ian Head Pieces "Sippin Coffee" featuring Gabriel Teodros & Khingz (Root70 Lounge, 2008)
 * Nam Exhale "Ghetto" featuring Gabriel Teodros & Toni Hill (independent, 2008)
 * DJ T-Bone Steak The Other Side Of The Moon "Stay Fly" - Abyssinian Creole, SistaHailStorm, Seiji (DMR, 2006)
 * Common Market Common Market "Every Last One (Cornerstone Remix)" featuring Geologic & Gabriel Teodros (MassLine, 2006)
 * Macklemore The Language of My World "Claiming The City" featuring Abyssinian Creole (independent, 2005)
 * ORB & So-Called Musicians Dirty Scientifix "Meet Me Halfway" featuring Abyssinian Creole, Castro, SistaHailStorm (CrateDiggers, 2005)
 * Moka Only Flood "Liquid Sunshine" featuring Gabriel T. (Battleaxe Records, 2002)

Videography

 * 2012: "Mind Power"
 * 2012: Bocafloja "Agonia" featuring Gabriel Teodros & Hollis Wong-Wear
 * 2012: CopperWire "Phone Home"
 * 2012: "Blossoms Of Fire"
 * 2011: "Computer Parlor"
 * 2010: Air 2 A Bird "Let's Ride"
 * 2008: "Tizita"
 * 2008: "Third World Wide"
 * 2007: "Don't Cry For Us" featuring Khingz & Toni Hill
 * 2007: "No Label (Esma Remix)"