Cleezyana Jones

Twenty-seven year old rap upstart Cleezyana Jones (Joby Clark) has been through more ups and downs in life then a made for TV movie. One would assume being raised in Oklahoma that his suburban life was one of ease. However, in his instance, this couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Cleezy grew up poor, living with his parents, sometimes in other relatives houses, until the money situation was right. Eventually his family bettered their situation and began their new lives. They were in fact the All American family. All that was missing was the white picket fence.
Fast forward his life to Christmas Eve of 98. His 11 year old sister is diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma (a malignant form of bone cancer). Upon hearing this news, his family had packed up and moved to Ft. Worth Texas where they had lived in the Ronald McDonald house. Cleezy would then be sent to live with his aunt and uncle some 5 hours away from his parents. The distance and time apart had taken a toll on his relationship with his parents, his sister had eventually passed from the cancer a year later. His parents came home with broken souls, a million dollar debt and nothing to show for it. He and his family had once again hit rock bottom. He felt his happiness and life slipping further and further away and wondered if he in fact could make it past this point in his life. At age 5 Cleezy had made it threw his best friend (his uncle) committing suicide, could he make it over the hump one more time?
As if things couldn’t get any worse. His dad had developed an addiction to his sick little sister’s pain pills during their stint in Texas. The family life was that of constant sadness and fighting. Things had finally reached their breaking point. Cleezy bagged up his own father’s clothes, and threw him out of his own house. Cleezy wouldn’t hear from his father for months. When he returned he was clean and sober. He had checked himself into rehab after being thrown out of the house. However, the constant bickering and the loss of her daughter had taken a toll on Cleezy’s mother. She broke down and eventually had several suicide attempts earning her several stays in and out of mental hospitals. Eventually his mother would pass in 2007 from a fatal heart attack. His father was now all that he had left. The loss of his mother and sister, family addiction, depression, and suicide attempts had worn him down. He really felt like this time he was at the end of his rope. Still he felt he had to be the strong one in the family, “the others had broken down because they were weak”, he thought. “I can’t be weak, I have to be the one standing when the dust finally clears, I will not fall like the rest”.
So he did the only logical thing he could, he went to college. It would be during this time that he would catch the bug, the bug known as hip-hop. During college, Cleezy would frequently skip class to attend freestyle sessions, even performing in front of the entire college on a few occasions. This is also where he would meet his future partner in rhyme Thomas “Taylormade” Taylor. After many bad contracts and recording deals falling through Cleezy and Taylormade finally came to the agreement that two heads were better than one.
Having left college Cleezy would continue to perfect his craft eventually building his own studio piece by piece. He continued teaching himself everything he could about music through networking and reading articles. Eventually he began to record on a serious project writing and engineering his own music. Now some 4 albums, thousands of miles traveled, numerous shows, and seven years since the journey began, Cleezy can finally start to see the progress that he’s made. In 2005 Cleezy linked up with Texas rapper Taylormade to release “Can’t Be Denied” Which sold an impressive 500 plus units in the Oklahoma City metro area alone. In 2006 the duo released “Can’t Be Denied: Headed 2 Spring Break”, which done an impressive 300+ units in a little over a week’s time. By the time the duo had finished pushing the project it had sold over a thousand units in Oklahoma and Texas. Cleezy is currently doing live shows in Oklahoma City on a monthly basis with promoter Daddy Warbuckss. They are already booking shows for the 2011 summer both in and out of the state of Oklahoma. Cleezy is also currently in the studio working on his first solo album titled “The Cleezyana Effect” which is set for a February 2011 release. “I’ve done a lot of albums, collaboration mix tapes, and things of that nature. I see this as my first legit introduction to the world. I’m getting old. I feel like it’s all or nothing. If I’m going to make a better life for my kids then the time is now.” A track from the forthcoming album entitled “Imma Moon Man”, produced by Wyshmaster (who’s production credits include Nelly, Chingy, The Game, and Tech N9ne just to name a few), leaked to Itunes and Myspace garnering an impressive 700,000+ myspace plays in a matter of a month. Cleez