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Phill Stroman grew up in Connecticut (about half an hour from the Bronx, NY) and got interested in what would become Hip Hop music in the late 70s. He started rhyming, deejaying, and collecting records in 1983 after moving to Harrisburg and then Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Phill dabbled in music production, associated with Cutting Records (as part of Devastating Two), Easy Street (under the name Baritone Tiplove) and In Effect Records as Phill Most Chill.
Phill started a comic strip ("True Urban Funnies") for Rap Sheet magazine in the nineties, which soon led to him writing about and interviewing the Hip Hop stars of the day. An interview with Pete Rock featured a sidebar that focused on the records that Pete sampled, and this gave birth to Phill's infamous "Soulman's World Of Beats" column which included monthly beat-lists. Enthusiastic readers' response via letters from fans from all over the world lead to an ever growing network of diggers and a growing reputation for Phill. He left Rap Sheet after 3-4 years but continued to make a living out of his obsession: On the one hand he began selling beats out of his explosively grown collection to break collectors and producers at the Roosevelt Hotel and the Marc Ballroom Soul/Disco record convention in... Read More ... New York in 1995/96. On the other hand he started a legendary series of beat tapes, called "Archaeologists Classics" which reached no less than 100 volumes and which did not only feature dope music but also very good cover art work, often based on covers of records included in the mixes.
After he retired the beat tapes he released a series of Soulman World Of Beats mixes on tapes and CDs. These gained a previously unknown distribution through his website www.worldofbeats.com and his contributions to now defunct magazines Big Daddy and Grandslam. Phill later also contributed to Wax Poetics magazine and started a blog called "That Real Schitt" (which is no longer being updated but can still be found at www.thatrealschitt.com ).
The interest in "random rap" in the mid 2000's led to a rebirth of Phill's rap career. The extremely rare Phill Most Chill "On Tempo Jack" 12" released back in 1988 was discovered by Hip Hop vinyl collectors and in no time original copies were selling for very high prices on eBay and elsewhere. This led to the vinyl being reissued (minus the song "Out To Kill") by Traffic Entertainment. Not long after that the Diggers With Gratitude record label in the U.K. approached Phill about releasing some of his unreleased demos from that late 80's era. They ended up putting out "The Be Intelligent EP", the first DWG release, in 2006, and the "All Cuts Recorded Raw" lp in 2011.
During the 2000's due to this new interest in Phill Most Chill, Phill started releasing new music, beginning with the Phill Most The Soulman "The Lo-Fi Theory" EP on Puma Strut in 2005. Many releases were to follow on labels such as DWG, AE Productions, Nobody Buys Records, Project Blue Book, Breaking Bread and more. Most notable releases have been albums with DJ Format ("The Foremost") and Paul Nice ("The Fabreeze Brothers").
Phill is still making new music today and plans to release more Phill Most Chill rap records and Soulman mixes in 2016 and beyond.#
2022 sees the first single released by his new group with Bankrupt Europeans producer DJ Snafu and DJ Grazzhoppa on the srcatches. The first 45 is called Speak Easy / I'm On Vacation 808 Remix and dropped on Nobody Buys Records.
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