Craze 24

Craze 24 is set to become one of the most influential personalities of the UK hip hop scene.

Being the Founder, CEO, Managing Director AND debut artist of a fast growing record label would run most people into an early grave. This is exactly what Jay Miller, more commonly known as Craze 24, lives for…

Craze has been rapping/mcing now for about ten years. It was raga/ basement that first inspired him to pick up a microphone. He would listen to Shabba Ranks, Ninja Man and Buju Banton and sing along with them, captivated by their lyrics. Gradually Craze started to put his own rhythms together; at first in his head and then on little pieces of scrap paper you could find scattered around his room. As time passed Craze continued to develop his rhymes and begun experimenting further, laying them down on drum and bass/jungle as well as raga. You could find him in most raves; Roast, Voodoo Magic or One Nation, pushing his way to the front of a queue of MCs trying to test out their latest lyrics on the crowd.

Back in those days Craze would spend his spare time meeting up with his friends, plugging two mics into the karaoke machine and MC through the night. Craze would be on jungle, Poison Child (GX) and Mic Star (Road Runners) on rap instrumentals. This soon became the highlight of his week, getting joke while testing his skills, lyrics and projection. In no time he was spitting on hip hop instrumentals using a fake American accent. At that time all the rappers he listened to were American, there were no British rappers spitting with a British accent that had impressed Craze. The more he listened to rap; the lure of the culture grew stronger. Artists such as Wu Tang Clan, Death Squad, Biggy Smalls, Tupac and Mob Deep grabbed his attention. He saw how much money they were making from the relatively new rap industry and how much fun they were having while making it. This was when Craze decided he wanted to be a rapper.

Craze didn't want to wait around to get signed to a label only to give someone else the power to control his destiny, so whilst writing rhythms he took time away from jamming, having fun and going raving and started to study the music business - promotion, production, management, distribution etc.

In 1998 Craze 24 collaborated with a group of friends and put together a music management and promotions company called Generation Unknown Entertainments - GX. They were soon managing their first group: a garage group called Stone Cold GX and on the 3rd of February 2000 they launched a club night called X-RATED, a garage/R&B night held in south London. The pilot was a huge success and continued twice a month until summer 2002.

It was in 2002 that Craze decided it was time for him to stop rapping in the American accent and start rapping with his true British accent. So, whilst continuing to manage Stone Cold GX he put in the work to transform his Art form. When he thought he was ready he put out the first promotional CD (The Streets are Talking), which featured five tracks. This got a fantastic response from a number of major labels, the underground and uk hip hop/rap DJs.

By the summer of 2006, Craze had released 3 ground breaking music videos, performed at pharell's Album launch party, Competed in and won the Lord of the Mics under ground compeation, supported T-pain in the UK and was nominated for many awards including Channel U's Best of British.

In 2007 Craze supported Nas, The Game and Ghostface Killer three of his favourite American Hip hop artist on separate UK tours dates. He released his debut Ep along with His forth music video, Featured in the popular Channel 4 series Dub plate drama (performing as himself) and was championed in the Mother against gun campaign as a positive role model.

Now in 2008 Craze 24 has completed his debut Album Professionals, Recorded two Music video on 35m film (yet to be released) and supported Lil' Wayne on UK tour dates. With his mix tape 'You aint built like that' dropping before the eagerly anticipated Album, Professionals it is going to be impossible to ignore the dazzling talent of Craze 24.

A tip for all major record labels: ignore Jay Miller / Craze 24 at your peril.