Brother Reade

Perhaps a mismatched pair, especially in appearance — a heavy-set, bully-looking guy and a scrawny, nerdy type with thick glasses — rapper Jimmy "Jael" Jamz (aka Major Jamz) and DJ/producer Bobby Evans (aka Kill You Me You) comprise the hip-hop group Brother Reade. In their first musical outing, Jael (born James Joliff) and Evans (born Erin Garcia) took part in a high school punk band in their hometown, Winston-Salem, NC. Evans moved out to Los Angeles for college, later encouraging Jael to follow. Based in L.A., they named the group after Jael's autistic brother and soon began to record together. Always multi-layered and original, Evans' Company Flow-esque productions at times have a straightforward fluidity with dark overtones, but other times are off-the-wall, characterized by oblique rhythms. Jael usually keeps up, but tends to remain steadfast with his b-boy, and sometimes heavy-handed, flow. Amid their many low-key, unofficial releases, Brother Reade issued The Illustrated Guide to: 9 to 5 EP for the Warner Bros.-affiliated Record Collection in 2005. Local press and arts magazines started to label them as promising up-and-comers. URB magazine even featured them in their Next 1000 series.