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Hip-Hop artist from Ann Arbor , MI . New songs free to stream or download. Add to your playlist now.

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J Berg and The Polo Poet

Ann Arbor , MI   USA
July 10, 2004
802 plays
7,530 views
With the popular music scene quickly becoming full of myriad platitudes and cliché artists, J Berg & The Polo Poet present music from an original perspective. Residing in the outer suburbs of Detroit, their music reflects their upper class lifestyle of privilege and propriety. Because of the ubiquity of superfluous platinum chains and artless lyrics within most of the rap genre, J Berg and The Polo Poet see themselves as outcasts. They do not fit the stereotypical image of rappers and therefore do not completely place themselves in the hip-hop category. Whichever way their music is categorized, their poetry represents their preparatory lives. Through this poetry, set to hip hop inspired instrumentals, J Berg & The Polo Poet strive to show that rap music can be more than a series of anecdotes regarding guns, sex, and drug trafficking. J Berg was born in New Jersey and subsequently moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. J Berg attended private schools where he experienced rigid rules and strict dress codes. He then moved to the suburbs of Michigan several years later, but not before picking up a classic Southern accent. This eventually mixed with Northern vernacular to produce his distinct vocal quality. J Bergs music preferences include Rap, C &W, and Rock. J Berg has had formal training on piano, guitar, and drums. His father works as an executive with a prominent Fortune 500 company and his mother arranges the family's many vacations. J Berg epitomizes the preppy lifestyle that he leads. The Polo Poet was born in Toledo "Glass City", Ohio. He resided there for a few short years before moving to the suburbs of Michigan for the remainder of his childhood. Polo was exposed to music at a very young age. As an infant in a crib he awoke to Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Tchaikovsky and other classical composers. Yet, his musical exposure became multifaceted as he experienced songs from a wide range of artists: Steely Dan, Buckwheat Zydeco, Bob Marley, Charlie Parker, Carlos Santana, and The Gap Band, among others. As Polo progressed through school, he acquired formal musical training. By the time he became a senior in high school, these influences had mixed with popular rap and coalesced into a strong musical foundation from which he could build his own music. The Polo Poet not only drew on his musical background to create his compositions on "Word For Word", but on his preppy lifestyle as well. In short, Polo's music is the product of a preppy upbringing and reflects it in every note. On "Word For Word", J Berg & The Polo Poet dismiss the typical urban style of crime, vulgarity, and the demeaning depiction of women. They posses a keen understanding that these subjects do not represent their values or lifestyle. They refuse to be called fake, and refuse to be seen as whites attempting to be "ghetto". All around them they see the squalid, elementary, and sometimes puerile vocabulary in other lyricist's crude use of the English language, and it disgusts them. On "Word For Word", they have used their upper class education to graphically depict their life inside suburbia. They strive to represent the educated ideals of the quintessential preparatory student. While they may agree with the academic tenets set out for them, they do not always follow the rigid rules that their preppy environment dictates. Whatever aspect of their privileged lives they choose to express, their delivery is always classy and succinct. J Berg & The Polo Poet convey their perspective on a life of propriety exactly how anything should be said: verbatim, or to use colloquial terminology, word for word.
Have you performed in front of an audience?
We play live, namely in suburbia, however when an urban oppurtunity arrises, we take full advantage of it.
Your musical influences
As stated in our biograpy, we are suburban preppy "rappers" who dont subscribe to the vulgarity and banality of rap music today. Its hard to effectively classify us due to the fact that we straddle musical barriers. In short, we create music and poetry for the residents of suburbia.
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Ann Arbor , MI   USA
July 10, 2004
802 plays
7,531 views