About

Born and reared in Detroit, Michigan, once home to the famed Motown Records, Sebastian McLaren was more enthralled with the sounds of James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Parliament/Funkadelic, and Sly and the Family Stone than anything the mean streets of Detroit had to offer. Starting out on trumpet, Sebastian...
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Born and reared in Detroit, Michigan, once home to the famed Motown Records, Sebastian McLaren was more enthralled with the sounds of James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Parliament/Funkadelic, and Sly and the Family Stone than anything the mean streets of Detroit had to offer. Starting out on trumpet, Sebastian eventually progressed to the piano, and finally to the two instruments which have become synonymous with his signature sound, the bass guitar and drums. After stints in a number of jazz fusion, funk, and reggae bands, Sebastian’s college years saw him move away from composing and creating music all together. However, his interest in music never waned and after graduating he became intrigued by the art of manipulating sounds and creating music using direct-drive turntables and a DJ mixer, a phenomenon referred to as “turntablism.” In 2007 after years of floating around in the underground Hip Hop and Breakbeat music scenes, Sebastian McLaren, now called “The Illjazztic One,” because of his constant habit of placing phrases of jazz instrumentation over hip hop beats, began working with Mutant Soundz, a Detroit based electronic music label with United Kingdom ties. It was that opportunity which paved the way for the formation of his own music production house, Dynamic Beats Abound, forging an eventual partnership with Soulful Child Records where he currently provides musical direction for a number of their mainstay recording artists.
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