Same Beef - Music

There Are At Least Three Artists With This Name * The First Is A Pakistani-American Rapper Roger David Punjabi راجر ڈیوڈ Better Known By His Stage Name Bohemia Is A Pakistani-American Rapper Singer Songwriter And Record Producer. Bohemia Was Born In Karachi Sindh And Received His Education In Peshawar Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. At The Age Of 13 He Moved To The United States With His Family. In His Early Teens Ra Short For Raja Arrived With His Family In America Settling In San Francisco’s Mission District. Within Their First Month On The Block Ra Witnessed A Young Man Get Murdered Over Five Dollars. The Killer Was The Man’s Brother In Law. This Would Be Ra’s First Lesson On Trusting Others In The Streets Of Pardes The Foreign Land . Although He Had Strong Knowledge And Passion For Writing Music He Made It A Second Priority And Began Hanging On The Street Corners To Run Drugs For Local Hustlers. The Streets Became A Priority To Ra But He Would Occasionally Play Keyboards At Local Desi Events. Through This Platform He Gained Recognition In The Desi Music Community. But What Struck People Most Was His Ability To Write Songs Or Poetry Mostly In Urdu And Punjabi. He Was Offered A Lucrative Job At A Sacramento Based Recording Studio And He Decided To Follow His Passion. Ra Packed His Bags And Left His Family Behind To Become A Full Time Musician. Along With A Crew Of Other Musicians Ra Was Now Spending His Days On The Road Playing Gigs Throughout The US And Canada Sleeping In Cars And On Recording Studio Floors. It Would Be Through This Experience That Ra Would Learn About Stage Presence. As The Youngest Member Of The Musical Family Ra Came To Consider Them His Older Brothers But As Certain Members Became Entangled In Hard Drugs The Crew Fell Apart.
It Was At This Point That Ra Still A Teenager Decided To Go His Separate Way. Again He Packed His Bags This Time To Join His Cousin In Oakland. Oakland CA. A City Known For Both It’s Abundance Of Independent Rap Labels And It’s Uncontrollable Murder Rate. Devastated By The Loss Of His Friend And Heavily Influenced By His Friends In Oakland Ra Began To Loose Focus On His Music And Indulge In Heavy Drugs Crime And Women. He Spent His Days Hanging In The Streets And Moving Drugs Across The 680 And 880 Interstate. Yet And Still Ra Would Be Delivered An Opportunity Which Would Draw Him Back To His True Passion. His Cousin Was Working On A West Oakland Recording Studio When He Introduced Him To A Young Hip Hop Producer Called Sha One. Sha Was In The Process Of Setting Up His Own Label. He Was Looking For An Artist Who Had A Strong Presence Both Live And On Record And He Saw This In Ra. He Flipped Out When He Heard Ra Reciting Something He’d Written In Punjabi And Asked Him To Rap It Over One Of His Beats. Ra Has Never Rapped Seriously Before But When He Did It Was As If He’d Found The Perfect Expressive Medium For His Writing. Over The Next Few Months Ra Wrote A Library Of Lyrics. This Would Become Arsenal For His Debut Album Vich Pardesan De In The Foreign Land – An Autobiographical Story Of His Life As A Desi Youngster Adopting To The Streets Of America. This Album Brought Forth Not Only A Voice For Young Desis Who Were Constantly Balancing Between Desi Culture And American Culture But A New Genre Of Music Desi Rap. * The Second Was A Female-Fronted Chicago Punk Band That Had A Local Hit In 1980 With The "Automatic Mind" / "Unconventional Boy" Single. It Had A Handful Of Later Releases Including A Sole LP 1981's Deviations. * The Third Was A Czech Jazz Rock / Progressive Rock Band From The 70's In Its Time Bohemia Was To Czechoslovakia What UK Was To The International Prog Scene - A Supergroup Formed By The Cream Of The Crop Czech Prog And Fusion Musicians. These Included Keyboardist Lesek Semelka Ex-Blue Effect Saxophonist Jan Kubik Ex-Flamengo Bassist Vladimir Kulhanek Ex-Flamengo Drummer Pavel Trnavsky Jazz Q And The 20 Year Old Guitar Prodigy Michal Pavlicek Ex-Expanze Later Prazsky Vyber & Stromboli . They Grouped Together In 1975. The Leading Figures In The Band And The Two Main Writers Were Semelka And Kubik. There Was Something Of A Personality Clash Between Them As Semelka Wanted The Band To Go In A Pop Direction They Also Sometimes Played As A Backup Band For Pop Acts While Kubik Had A More Prog-Oriented Vision. Perhaps This Is The Reason For Their Ephemeral Existence Yet In Their Measly Three Years They Released A Classic Of Czech Prog Rock Zrnko Pisku. By This Time The Line-Up Was Also Expanded By Keyboardists Michael Kocab And Jan Hala And Jiri Tomek On Percussion. This Early Association Of Kocab And Pavlicek Shows The Roots Of The 80's New Wave Legend Prazsky Vyber. read less