ARTIST BIO

Born in San Antonio, Texas and raised in Pensacola, Florida, Shawn Enfinger has been rapping as Shadowyze (pro. shadow wise) since the late 1980s. Drawing from the richness of his Creek Indian, Irish, and Swedish heritage, Shadowyze brings his message to a wide and diverse audience. Shadowyze has opened for such national acts as Ice-T, Digital Underground, and Queen Latifah. In the summer of 1993, he toured with Platimum rap quartet 95South during their five city mini-tour of Alabama and Florida.

In 1998, a trip to Mexico inspired the breakthrough solo CD Murder in Our Backyard about the Mexican Military's brutal killings of Maya Indians in Southern Mexico. The CD gained exposure in several national publications such as Native Peoples, Word Up! rap magazine and Harvard University's Anthropology journal, Cultural Survival Quarterly. The album was also nominated for the Native American Music Awards in the Best Rap category.

Enfinger, who earned a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of West Florida, has experienced many harsh and heart-saddening conditions of poverty and injustice that indigenous people endure outside the US. He spent three months in the Yucatan and Chiapas, Mexico, Ecuador and Peru where he witnessed the atrocities firsthand.
In 2000 Shadowyze signed to the Grammy winning Native American (Indian) owned SOAR Records based in Albuequerque, New Mexico and released his second album, Spirit Warrior. The CD sold thousands of copies and was played on dozens of Native American reservation radio stations throughout the US and Canada. The album's lyrics concentrated on human rights issues and the struggles that very seldom have a voice: genocide; poverty; forced removal; present-day government abuse of reservations and mascots of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Like its predecessor, this album was nominated for Best Rap Album in the Native American Music Awards. Spirit Warrior received coverage in such national publications as The New York Times, Vibe, XXL, and Russell Simmons One World Hip-Hop Magazine.

Shadowyze venues cut a wide path, including several Indian reservations in the US, San Antonio College in Cusco, Peru, human rights rallies, and well known commercial venues. Appearances at human rights rallies includes Free Leonard Peltier in Washington, DC, and Close the School of the Americas military school in Fort Benning, Georgia. Shadowyze performed in the 2001 Montreux Jazz Fest in Switzerland which included such heavyweights as Sting, George Clinton, Jeff Beck, Run DMC, Everlast, and The Black Crowes, to name a few.

World of Illusions is Shawn's first on Back Bone Records. This latest album continues to shine a light on important issues that others might choose to ignore: the reasons behind religious wars; materialism; homelessness; corporate pollution and destruction of the environment; freedom; the connection to mythology that is behind it all and often overlooked. The music is diverse and offers the perfect combination of hard hitting, Dirty South, West Coast gangsta beats, as well as Funk and Techno. Lyrics are politically and culturally sharp enough to leave cut marks while the delivery is chameleon-like, blending with each bed of music like perfect puzzle pieces. The hooks are catchy, some chantlike and repetitive while others feature female R&B volcals that summon even the most timid wallhugger to the dancefloor.

Shadowyze is a tireless warrior for justice and equality for humanity and believes that music is a key component for doing this by bringing people together to have fun and maybe even learn something at the same time.

Discography

World of Illusions - Back Bone Records - 2002
Spirit Warrior - Warrior - 2001
Murder In Our Backyard - The Orchard - 2000

Website:

www.myspace.com/shadowyze