Kelli Sae Heroine CD

AFAR is sonically complete--a five piece band including members with rock, jazz, gospel, and R&B backgrounds--and rightfully so. When you think of the music of hip-hop, you think of a confluence of genres. The ear recalls the rock guitar driven soundscapes of Rick-Rubin produced Run-DMC or Jay-Z sampling The Doors for "The Takeover." You savor the jazzy piano behind the best of A Tribe Called Quest or Common. The gospel sonics supporting Mary J. Blige. The R&B grooves of The Neptunes. Imagine all of these styles melding in one song, one band. That is AFAR music. The band has recently completed recording its eponymous CD, playing gigs throughout the country with AFAR lyricist Jahah, and even backing up other rappers, the way The Roots did for Jay-Z's Unplugged concert. Besides live music, AFAR combines two other concepts that are often woefully absent from hip-hop: unity and education. The five members conduct workshops at schools to teach children that in this era of electronic music, the source of it all is live instrumentation. And it gets no more basic, fundamental, nor utterly essential than AFAR. Indeed, AFAR is here to school all listeners on how real hip-hop music sounds. PIANO: DoronAFAR is the brainchild of jazz piano wunderkind Doron Johnson. His resume virtually guarantees him music industry success. Johnson graduated from the ultra-prestigious Berklee School of Music in an accelerated two years and earned a Masters in Jazz Pedagogy from the Boston Conservatory. Johnson went on to play piano alongside and for public figures such as Bill Clinton, Bill Cosby, and Michael Douglas as well as music legends like Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, B.B. King, and jazz greats Herbie Hancock (as the only pianist on his tour) and Wynton Marsalis, as a member of the famed Wynton Marsalis Septet..After apprenticing himself to the best in the business, Johnson decided it was time to helm his own band. "The number one thing I learned is that there is strength in numbers. I always relate it to a basketball team. You could have a superstar but need five members to make it work," he reasons.