The Union

The Union was formed of two solo emcees, Knowledge and Verbs, around January of 2005 at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. The two happened to be in a class together that semester, and each soon found out that the other loved hip-hop and emceeing as much as he did. Soon an alliance was formed, to create hip-hop that is fresh and entertaining most of all, but that also enlightens its listener's and would make the fathers of hip-hop proud. They began spitting on downloaded instrumentals, only recently finding beatmakers who produced quality wares for a price befitting their meager budget. The most prolific of these beatmakers was Nicky Diamond, whose work was so great that he was added as the third member of The Union.

The name was decided upon before the addition of Nicky Diamond, and in brief signifies the two emcees differences, and what this group means. It is the union of two emcees into one group, two different styles, two different kinds of emcess, and two hometowns(Verbs is from Newark, New Jersey while Knowledge hails from Cleveland, Ohio).

As for styles, Knowledge has a penchant for sprinkling facts throughout verses, along with much wordplay, and multi-syllabic rhymes. Meanwhile Verbs loves to deliver puns, double-meanings, crass humor, and metaphors in his battle-bred tone. Together, their music is best described as a mixture of soulful hip-hop like Outkast and the raw, b-boy music of today's underground and the old school. Influences include Redman, Blackstar, The Roots, Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap(especially), Rakim, A Trible Called Quest(especially), MF Doom, and The Wu-Tang Clan, among many others.

The things that seperate them from the myriad of other hip-hop acts out there include the tenacity in their vocal performance, their choice of beats which doesn't follow the current trend of slower, southern-type instrumentals, their engaging rhyme-styles that avoid simplicity for catchiness' sake, and their choice of subject matter which varies from social commentary to love songs to straight-up bragaddacio.

They've performed at various open mic and hip-hop events around the Baltimore area, including The Haven, Symone's Cafe, and at their own Morgan State University open mic events. They've featured at K Productions, The Yabba Pot, and Upper Deck. Each time they've performed, they've gotten compliments from those in audience for both their performance energy and quality of music.