In person, Self-Jupiter is the sort of person to attract your attention. His daunting size could make the average offensive lineman look “regular-sized”. Still, he is likely to be sitting there with a peaceful smile on his face, then your line of vision moves to his eyes…and you can’t quite decipher the meaning; Is he in deep thought? Is something troubling him? Has he just had an epiphany? Or is something of a more grim nature at work? Likely, any combination of these factors could be taking place at any given moment, who’s to say? However, rest assured, that the mind of Self-Jupiter is constantly at work.

Many people first heard Self-Jupiter on Freestyle Fellowship’s “To Whom May Concern”, particularly on his solo offering, “Jupiter’s Journey”. This track is a perfect entry-level understanding of his mind in action; it’s abstract without lacking definition, it reveals his love for exerting control over use of the English language and it subtlety hints at his fascination with that which is often beyond human comprehension or comfort. In fact, the title itself is fitting. It’s initiating the paving of a pathway to a world of wonder and wordplay that would soon come…

On “Inner City Griots” it was as if he finally had the well-needed outlet to unleash the lingering thoughts that had been amassing intensely in his mind. Self-Jupiter displayed an intriguing and engaging talent of scripting colorful wordplay, but placing it behind an outer-layer of tinted imagery. In other words, you might find yourself in a feel-good moment from his playful approach, but suddenly realize you’re dancing along to tales of civil rights, the Klu Klux Klan and being advised that it is “Fun to f**k with people in the night”, as is the case on “Bullies Of The Block”. His verse on “Heavyweights” alerts you to his gift of free association word linkage that requires repeated listens to piece together the intended connections. The B-Side track, “Pure Thought” taps into his poetic nature, allowing him to build on the simple root word, “Hello”, that is bent into a greeting that is a touch more haunting than usual.

All of those moments are critical pieces to his development, but it’s on “Way Cool” where he unveils what is perhaps his finest lyrical talent, gripping tales of suspense and horror with a smidgen of humor and plenty of shocking imagery, such as “Juggling jars full of souls.”

This is a chamber he would later delve deeper into, “When The Sun Took A Day Off And The Moon Stood Still” w/Aceyalone on Omid’s “Beneath The Surface” immediately comes to mind. Upon hearing that song I hoped he might tread similar territory in the future and was grim-fully pleased with his eventual offerings that lead to the “Hard Hat Area” solo outing. “Hard Hat Area” was a profound statement that Self-Jupiter was only improving as a writer and still developing a musical character that was every bit as poetic as it was ghastly, as witnessed on songs such as “It Was On This Night”. Through out the album, the self-proclaimed “6.2 Warlock” delivers an abundance of quotes that are forever burned into my memory; “If you see me in a fight with a bear, don’t help me, help the bear” or “(Most of these Rappers) wouldn’t blink if the eyelids were the triggers that unleashed holocaust on all their enemies”, to highlight just a couple.

His latest project, “The Kleenrz”, virtually picks up where much of those aforementioned songs left off. On “The Kleenrz” Self-Jupiter exercises the finest inventiveness of his eerily creative mind. It’s filled with descriptive stories of despair, aguish, adventure, self-reflection and filth, all finely scripted with bardic prose, ripe with abundant use of verbal wit.