Seel Fresh

On "Nickel Pimp," Chicago's Seel Fresh explains "the art of gettin' over." Even though Dug Infinite provides the slow, sparse, slamming beat, the b-side's "Generation Lost" wins. The offbeat piano track by Mind has serious nod factor, Noble's scratches are tight, and Seel's frustrated flow fits perfectly. Fo' shickel, my nickel.
Reviewed by Ross Hogg • May 6 2004 - Xlr8r magazine

On "Nickel Pimp," Chicago's Seel Fresh explains "the art of gettin' over." Even though Dug Infinite provides the slow, sparse, slamming beat, the b-side's "Generation Lost" wins. The offbeat piano track by Mind has serious nod factor, Noble's scratches are tight, and Seel's frustrated flow fits perfectly. Fo' shickel, my nickel.
Reviewed by Ross Hogg • May 6 2004 - Xlr8r magazine

Music supplants graffiti in Seel Fresh approach
Chicago Sun-Times, Sep 26, 2005 by David Jakubiak

DJ P, Mac Lethal, Approach, Archetype, Seel Fresh

*5 p.m. Tuesday

*Fireside Bowl, 2646 W. Fullerton

uTickets, $8 (all-ages show)

*(773) 486-2700

Seel Fresh moved around as a child. A lot. "All throughout Chicagoland," he says. "But mostly around the South Side."

He starts rattling off neighborhoods: McKinley Park, Bridgeport, Brighton Park, South Loop, Evergreen Park.

But as he moved from neighborhood to neighborhood, there were constants: his love of writing, his desire to make visual art, his competitive nature. So, it may not be clear if it was hip-hop that seduced him, or if it was the other way around. But naturally, the two got together.

"I started writing rhymes," he says. But around the same time, it was another of the so-called elements of hip-hop that offered him notoriety.

The name "Seel," he says, "dates back to the early 1990s when I was doing a lot of graffiti. I would write Seel all over the place." Soon he was hanging with a crew of graffiti artists that, in addition to making graffiti "bombing runs," also put together CDs and tapes of their own music. On this point, Seel wants to clarify something.

"People think that all graffiti artists are hip-hop. But that's not true. I'd say that maybe 60 percent of the people who are actually doing graffiti are into hip-hop, but that leaves a whole lot of people who aren't."

He wants to make another point, as well.
"Around 1995, I started recording more because I was getting into a little bit of trouble and the people I was hanging around with didn't want to see me get sent away. I saw that rapping was something artistic that I could put my energy into and not get in trouble. So, I just started going the other way with it -- especially when I saw that I could get paid for doing music. Graffiti was costing me money in court, lawyers, fines, and I realized I could make music and make money, not get hurt and get a similar notoriety by rapping."

But there were facets of the graffiti game that Seel maintains in his approach to being an MC. For example, he says, you need to constantly switch your effect on the microphone.

"I might do one song that sounds Dirty South and then do nerd rap and then do some street rap. I never want to do the same thing. If you were doing graffiti and writing the same letters all of the time, it would get boring."

This also applies to the topics he raps about.

"I was doing battles for a while and a lot of people started to think that I was a battle MC. [In fact, thousands saw him battle at this summer's Roc the Mic show at the Tweeter Center.] But now I'm hardly ever battling, I'm focusing on writing."

As an MC, you also need to appear ubiquitous.

"Someone may not catch your show at Metro or The Note, but they might see you at Fireside Bowl, or they may have caught you at the battle at the Tweeter Center. So, you need to always be dope. Someone might not see your [graffiti] work at Armitage or Addison, but they do see it at Cermak-Chinatown or on the Blue Line."

Ultimately, he says, success in either rapping or graffiti lies on the individual.

"You can hate and complain and say you get no love, but you need to be out there. You need to do something. In the end, it falls on you," he says.

Seel is working on a CD, which he will release early next year. It will contain production by The Molemen and others, he says.

And, he adds, the art will be dope.

David Jakubiak is a local free-lance writer.

Copyright The Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
- Chicago Sun Times

Music supplants graffiti in Seel Fresh approach
Chicago Sun-Times, Sep 26, 2005 by David Jakubiak

DJ P, Mac Lethal, Approach, Archetype, Seel Fresh

*5 p.m. Tuesday

*Fireside Bowl, 2646 W. Fullerton

uTickets, $8 (all-ages show)

*(773) 486-2700

Seel Fresh moved around as a child. A lot. "All throughout Chicagoland," he says. "But mostly around the South Side."

He starts rattling off neighborhoods: McKinley Park, Bridgeport, Brighton Park, South Loop, Evergreen Park.

But as he moved from neighborhood to neighborhood, there were constants: his love of writing, his desire to make visual art, his competitive nature. So, it may not be clear if it was hip-hop that seduced him, or if it was the other way around. But naturally, the two got together.

"I started writing rhymes," he says. But around the same time, it was another of the so-called elements of hip-hop that offered him notoriety.

The name "Seel," he says, "dates back to the early 1990s when I was doing a lot of graffiti. I would write Seel all over the place." Soon he was hanging with a crew of graffiti artists that, in addition to making graffiti "bombing runs," also put together CDs and tapes of their own music. On this point, Seel wants to clarify something.

"People think that all graffiti artists are hip-hop. But that's not true. I'd say that maybe 60 percent of the people who are actually doing graffiti are into hip-hop, but that leaves a whole lot of people who aren't."

He wants to make another point, as well.
"Around 1995, I started recording more because I was getting into a little bit of trouble and the people I was hanging around with didn't want to see me get sent away. I saw that rapping was something artistic that I could put my energy into and not get in trouble. So, I just started going the other way with it -- especially when I saw that I could get paid for doing music. Graffiti was costing me money in court, lawyers, fines, and I realized I could make music and make money, not get hurt and get a similar notoriety by rapping."

But there were facets of the graffiti game that Seel maintains in his approach to being an MC. For example, he says, you need to constantly switch your effect on the microphone.

"I might do one song that sounds Dirty South and then do nerd rap and then do some street rap. I never want to do the same thing. If you were doing graffiti and writing the same letters all of the time, it would get boring."

This also applies to the topics he raps about.

"I was doing battles for a while and a lot of people started to think that I was a battle MC. [In fact, thousands saw him battle at this summer's Roc the Mic show at the Tweeter Center.] But now I'm hardly ever battling, I'm focusing on writing."

As an MC, you also need to appear ubiquitous.

"Someone may not catch your show at Metro or The Note, but they might see you at Fireside Bowl, or they may have caught you at the battle at the Tweeter Center. So, you need to always be dope. Someone might not see your [graffiti] work at Armitage or Addison, but they do see it at Cermak-Chinatown or on the Blue Line."

Ultimately, he says, success in either rapping or graffiti lies on the individual.

"You can hate and complain and say you get no love, but you need to be out there. You need to do something. In the end, it falls on you," he says.

Seel is working on a CD, which he will release early next year. It will contain production by The Molemen and others, he says.

And, he adds, the art will be dope.

David Jakubiak is a local free-lance writer.

Copyright The Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
- Chicago Sun Times

By: Daryl Stoneage
I'm liking what I hear so far from Chicago's Seel Fresh. He has a real old-school flow going on that seems to match the beat perfectly. I think if he rhymed any faster it would just lose the entire effect. Production's tight, lyrics are dope. I wanna hear some more from this cat, so be on the look out. Did I just say cat? Apparently I'm Dennis Miller all of a sudden! - www.undergroundhiphop.com

By: Daryl Stoneage
I'm liking what I hear so far from Chicago's Seel Fresh. He has a real old-school flow going on that seems to match the beat perfectly. I think if he rhymed any faster it would just lose the entire effect. Production's tight, lyrics are dope. I wanna hear some more from this cat, so be on the look out. Did I just say cat? Apparently I'm Dennis Miller all of a sudden! - www.undergroundhiphop.com

Artists strive to create complete memory of their late friend
Chicago Sun-Times, Aug 19, 2005 by David Jakubiak

Peter Berry Memorial Scholarship Benefit, with Seel Fresh, Babble, Matlock, I.L. and more

*10 p.m. Saturday

*Morseland, 1218 W. Morse

*Tickets, $10 (21-over show)

*(773) 764-8900

No one knows exactly what happened on the CTA Red Line tracks between Morse and Jarvis late at night on Aug. 16, 2004, but by the morning the word had started to spread.

Peter Berry, 22, known to some as an art student and a member of the U.S. Army Reserves, to others as the graffiti writer King Kaiser (or just Kiser or even Kyser), and known to thousands of others only by the vandalism he'd created, was dead.

A mother who had pleaded with her son to stop doing graffiti had lost him. A crew of graffiti writers had lost one of their most well- known friends. Chicago's hip-hop community had lost one of its own. And the letters pages of the city's papers flared with emotions sparked by graffiti.

Now, a year later, Berry's family and friends are working to ensure his legacy is one that supports the arts -- the legal arts -- and that the memory of Berry is one of a young artist on the rise, rather than of a clandestine vandal who thrived in the shadows.

On Saturday night, several Chicago performers -- some of whom grew up in the Evanston hip-hop circles that attracted Berry at a young age, some who did graffiti with him and some who just believe his memory holds something positive -- will give a concert to benefit the Peter Berry Memorial Scholarship.

The scholarship, started by Berry's mother, Cinda Cason, is given each spring to the Student's Choice Award winner of the American Academy of Art spring show.

"We all know that Peter was a graffiti artist," Cason says, adding that this was a point of contention between the two. "But I want his friends and everyone to know he followed his dream to the academy. He went with that extreme confidence he had. He was fearless with his art."

Seel Fresh, a Chicago rapper who says he did graffiti with Berry and refers to his fallen friend as "Kaiser," says this fearlessness and confidence is what made Berry a "king" of Chicago graffiti.

"Kaiser," he says using Berry's graffiti name, "never did anything little. Everything he did, he did big. He wouldn't do 2- foot [pieces]; he'd do 7-foot [pieces]."

Seel says that Berry had unrelenting creativity in style and in his vision, adding, "He'd do things that no one else would even imagine doing and he had styles that no one else had."

Beyond graffiti, Seel Fresh says, Berry endeared himself to his friends with his commitment and selflessness.

"Before he died, I had just started recording my album," Seel Fresh says. "I played him just a few songs and he told me he wanted to do all of the promotion for it, he wanted to be my street team. He said, 'We'll do this [promotion] unlike what has ever done before.' Now when I work on my music, it's like I'm keeping a promise to Kaiser."

Cason says this provides just a glimpse of who her son really was.

"The most amazing thing about Peter was that at his age he was absolutely authentic," she says. "He had a passion for life."

And, she added, he was dedicated to his art.

"I remember I asked him to take a day off before Thanksgiving, and before I could finish he said, 'No,' he didn't want to miss school," Cason says. "He wanted that discipline the academy was giving him. It was like it was harnessing that creativity."

David Jakubiak is a local free-lance writer.

Copyright The Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.

- Chicago Sun Times

Artists strive to create complete memory of their late friend
Chicago Sun-Times, Aug 19, 2005 by David Jakubiak

Peter Berry Memorial Scholarship Benefit, with Seel Fresh, Babble, Matlock, I.L. and more

*10 p.m. Saturday

*Morseland, 1218 W. Morse

*Tickets, $10 (21-over show)

*(773) 764-8900

No one knows exactly what happened on the CTA Red Line tracks between Morse and Jarvis late at night on Aug. 16, 2004, but by the morning the word had started to spread.

Peter Berry, 22, known to some as an art student and a member of the U.S. Army Reserves, to others as the graffiti writer King Kaiser (or just Kiser or even Kyser), and known to thousands of others only by the vandalism he'd created, was dead.

A mother who had pleaded with her son to stop doing graffiti had lost him. A crew of graffiti writers had lost one of their most well- known friends. Chicago's hip-hop community had lost one of its own. And the letters pages of the city's papers flared with emotions sparked by graffiti.

Now, a year later, Berry's family and friends are working to ensure his legacy is one that supports the arts -- the legal arts -- and that the memory of Berry is one of a young artist on the rise, rather than of a clandestine vandal who thrived in the shadows.

On Saturday night, several Chicago performers -- some of whom grew up in the Evanston hip-hop circles that attracted Berry at a young age, some who did graffiti with him and some who just believe his memory holds something positive -- will give a concert to benefit the Peter Berry Memorial Scholarship.

The scholarship, started by Berry's mother, Cinda Cason, is given each spring to the Student's Choice Award winner of the American Academy of Art spring show.

"We all know that Peter was a graffiti artist," Cason says, adding that this was a point of contention between the two. "But I want his friends and everyone to know he followed his dream to the academy. He went with that extreme confidence he had. He was fearless with his art."

Seel Fresh, a Chicago rapper who says he did graffiti with Berry and refers to his fallen friend as "Kaiser," says this fearlessness and confidence is what made Berry a "king" of Chicago graffiti.

"Kaiser," he says using Berry's graffiti name, "never did anything little. Everything he did, he did big. He wouldn't do 2- foot [pieces]; he'd do 7-foot [pieces]."

Seel says that Berry had unrelenting creativity in style and in his vision, adding, "He'd do things that no one else would even imagine doing and he had styles that no one else had."

Beyond graffiti, Seel Fresh says, Berry endeared himself to his friends with his commitment and selflessness.

"Before he died, I had just started recording my album," Seel Fresh says. "I played him just a few songs and he told me he wanted to do all of the promotion for it, he wanted to be my street team. He said, 'We'll do this [promotion] unlike what has ever done before.' Now when I work on my music, it's like I'm keeping a promise to Kaiser."

Cason says this provides just a glimpse of who her son really was.

"The most amazing thing about Peter was that at his age he was absolutely authentic," she says. "He had a passion for life."

And, she added, he was dedicated to his art.

"I remember I asked him to take a day off before Thanksgiving, and before I could finish he said, 'No,' he didn't want to miss school," Cason says. "He wanted that discipline the academy was giving him. It was like it was harnessing that creativity."

David Jakubiak is a local free-lance writer.

Copyright The Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.

- Chicago Sun Times

Coming up in the Hip Hop game via Graffiti aint a bad way to go about things when you might not look like the 'typical' MC (See Kid Acne). Gaining respect for your throw-ups must give one the required qualifications for making the transition from having your name known to getting your sound out there. Seel Fresh is one such cross-discipline artist who is doing his thing in Chicago right now.

Before this morning I'd never heard of him (and you can't blame me, I live in Yorkshire, UK!) but now, a few hours later, I'm sat in my chair making moves very similar to those Seel makes in his video for 'Drinkalot' (ya know, white boy Hip Hop dancing and gestures). Whilst I don't exactly agree with the man and his endorsement of mixing excessive amounts of alcohol I can't help but love the beat and his simple, fresh and fun flow. It's this type of music that enables me to massively enjoy a night out without drinking. Here's the video which was just released todayIf you're feeling this then you should check out his album 'Trife Life' which includes 'Nickelpimp', a song all about scrimping and saving and other more illegal ways of getting loose change, 'Midwest Monsters', a bluesy number which features Juice; a tune about where they're from and how they do and 'Gifted', a track that boasts Thirstin Howl III and Rack-Lo as guests on which they boast about how good they are. Classic rap fair then; criminal activity, money making, ego building, alcohol fueled party music but all done with a bit of a cheeky grin. - certifiedbanger.blogspot.com

Coming up in the Hip Hop game via Graffiti aint a bad way to go about things when you might not look like the 'typical' MC (See Kid Acne). Gaining respect for your throw-ups must give one the required qualifications for making the transition from having your name known to getting your sound out there. Seel Fresh is one such cross-discipline artist who is doing his thing in Chicago right now.

Before this morning I'd never heard of him (and you can't blame me, I live in Yorkshire, UK!) but now, a few hours later, I'm sat in my chair making moves very similar to those Seel makes in his video for 'Drinkalot' (ya know, white boy Hip Hop dancing and gestures). Whilst I don't exactly agree with the man and his endorsement of mixing excessive amounts of alcohol I can't help but love the beat and his simple, fresh and fun flow. It's this type of music that enables me to massively enjoy a night out without drinking. Here's the video which was just released todayIf you're feeling this then you should check out his album 'Trife Life' which includes 'Nickelpimp', a song all about scrimping and saving and other more illegal ways of getting loose change, 'Midwest Monsters', a bluesy number which features Juice; a tune about where they're from and how they do and 'Gifted', a track that boasts Thirstin Howl III and Rack-Lo as guests on which they boast about how good they are. Classic rap fair then; criminal activity, money making, ego building, alcohol fueled party music but all done with a bit of a cheeky grin. - certifiedbanger.blogspot.com

Look I'm posting hip hop! Seel Fresh is out of Chicago and became an all city graf all star before focusing on his music. The video was directed by Nick Castle and Austin Griffith and edited by Brazilionaire, who was the editor for Chicago hip hop duo Dude N’ Nem’s hit video “Watch My Feet”. Be sure to check out the video for "Nickel Pimp" as well. Both of which are on Trife Life which you can pick up from SeelFresh.com. - Fiftyonefiftyone.blogspot.com

Look I'm posting hip hop! Seel Fresh is out of Chicago and became an all city graf all star before focusing on his music. The video was directed by Nick Castle and Austin Griffith and edited by Brazilionaire, who was the editor for Chicago hip hop duo Dude N’ Nem’s hit video “Watch My Feet”. Be sure to check out the video for "Nickel Pimp" as well. Both of which are on Trife Life which you can pick up from SeelFresh.com. - Fiftyonefiftyone.blogspot.com

It is often rare to find an emcee in the hip hop world who not only raps, but who also has close ties to the world of graffiti. Seel Fresh, however, is one of those rarities. After doing pretty damn well for himself in Chicago's competitive graf scene, Fresh used his new-found notoriety to get his music out there. In '06, the world heard his debut album Trife Life and immediately wanted more- for good reason. His unique ability to take everyday situations (whether they be generously applying five-finger discounts to many products in many stores or drinking...a lot) and articulate them with flash and flair has definitely taken him far. Look out for his upcoming EP, Street Famous, due to come out in March. Fresh is part of his name for good reason. - URB MAGAZINE

It is often rare to find an emcee in the hip hop world who not only raps, but who also has close ties to the world of graffiti. Seel Fresh, however, is one of those rarities. After doing pretty damn well for himself in Chicago's competitive graf scene, Fresh used his new-found notoriety to get his music out there. In '06, the world heard his debut album Trife Life and immediately wanted more- for good reason. His unique ability to take everyday situations (whether they be generously applying five-finger discounts to many products in many stores or drinking...a lot) and articulate them with flash and flair has definitely taken him far. Look out for his upcoming EP, Street Famous, due to come out in March. Fresh is part of his name for good reason. - URB MAGAZINE

The Trife Life LP has been circulating the streets for over a year now but still serves as a solid representation of Seel Fresh, the “unemployed rapper kid� from the southwest side of Chicago. His personality pops on animated anthems about his inability to keep a job (“Employee of the Month�) and uncontrollable alcohol consumption (“Drinkalot�). Beyond just making upbeat joints about his vices, though, Seel ably breaks down his unstable persona on the funky Memo-produced cut “Psychosis.� Until Seel’s new album drops later this year, Trife Life remains worthy of rotation. - XLR8R Magazine

The Trife Life LP has been circulating the streets for over a year now but still serves as a solid representation of Seel Fresh, the “unemployed rapper kid� from the southwest side of Chicago. His personality pops on animated anthems about his inability to keep a job (“Employee of the Month�) and uncontrollable alcohol consumption (“Drinkalot�). Beyond just making upbeat joints about his vices, though, Seel ably breaks down his unstable persona on the funky Memo-produced cut “Psychosis.� Until Seel’s new album drops later this year, Trife Life remains worthy of rotation. - XLR8R Magazine