From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eyedea (born Micheal Larsen in 1982, also known as Oliver Hart) is a well-known freestyle battle champion and underground rapper. His notable wins include the televised Blaze Battle sponsored by HBO (2000) and a victory at Scribble Jam (1999). He has appeared as a solo artist, and as the emcee half of the duo Eyedea & Abilities (along with longtime friend and collaborator DJ Abilities). His non-battle rhymes are generally philosophically or thematically based, and often tell a definite narrative. His song "Bottle Dreams" is a well known piece about a sexually abused violin prodigy who commits suicide.

For much of his youth, Eyedea lived with his mother in downtown St. Paul, MN. He attended Highland Park Senior High School, with interests including psychology, physics, and yoga. Favorite authors include James Joyce, and Finnegan's Wake is a favorite text of his.

First establishing himself as a battle emcee, Eyedea toured the circuit between 1997 and 2001, notably winning top prizes at Scribble Jam ‘99, the Rock Steady Anniversary 2000, and Blaze Battle Chicago 2000. He contributed a track to the anticon. compilation, Music for the Advancement of Hip Hop. Additionally, he toured extensively as second emcee for Atmosphere, with DJ Abilities sometimes filling in for Mr. Dibbs as tour DJ.

In 2001, he released First Born with his partner DJ Abilities (collectively, they were initially called the Sixth Sense, but they are now known as Eyedea & Abilities). In 2002, under his pen name "Oliver Hart", he released the self-produced The Many Faces of Oliver Hart. In 2004, he and Abilities reunited to release the self-titled album E&A (released March 23, 2004). All of Eyedea's releases have been on the Rhymesayers record label.

In addition to touring independently and with Rhymesayers labelmates, Eyedea and Abilities participated in the Def Jux-sponsored Who Killed the Robots? tour, titled by Eyedea.

As of 2006, Eyedea has temporarily abandoned hip-hop writing and battle rapping for a new rock music project entitled Carbon Carousel. There has been much debate on few online messageboards with regards to this new direction, consequently, Eyedea or Mike - as he's going by now, has addressed these criticisms via a blog entry on the group's MySpace page.

As well as performing with Carbon Carousel, Eyedea and others have started a group called Face Candy. They released an album full of freestyles over free jazz percussion entitled This is Where I Am.

He is signed to Rhymesayers Entertainment, and has been known to collaborate with Slug, Blueprint and Sage Francis.

• First Born (2001)
• The Many Faces of Oliver Hart (2002)
• E&A (2004)
• This Is Where We Were (2006) (By Face Candy)

• carbon carousel myspace page
• Eyedea at Discogs
• Rhymesayers Entertainment
• City Pages interview with Eyedea
• "E & A" Review
• Eyedea Freestyle