Bazaar Royale

Word on the street is Bazaar Royale may be the next big rapper to watch. Currently on DMX's Bloodline Records, Bazaar is shocking everybody with his sure attitude and new genre he's coined "aggresive soul."
Formerly Christopher Sheppard, Bazaar grew up in group homes and on the streets, where he started his rapping career, and aims to inspire kids with hardscrabble lives.
Bazaar prefers to be called a vocal stylist rather than a rapper, and DMX claims there's no one else like him in hip-hop. His single "What's It All For?" appears on the "Cradle 2 the Grave" soundtrack - but if you want to check out the full album, you may have to wait till Christmas. - Ocala Star-Banner (July 16,2003)

"I was a child with behavioral problems," says Bazaar Royale, more reluctantly than arrogantly. "But now it's starting to be the opposite." A ward of the state since the age of seven, Bazaar hopped from one residential treatment center to the next. Now 27, he's pushing back against an institution he finds just as unforgiving: the music business. "The songs I write all pertain to what this business is doing to me. It's trying to tame me and make me plain." Bazaar cries out in his husky, deep-blues singing voice, "but I won't be defined by no other man." Music ran deep in Bazaar's family: in the late seventies, his mother was a backup singer for Phyllis Hyman and Luther Vandross. But while she was chasing her muse, Bazaar was having his own thrust upon him. "I got my style from kicking at that door and screaming at these fucking adults at the top of my lungs!" No surprise, then, that his dark, peculiar sing-rapping appealed to hip-hop rager DMX. The eccentric talent has since recorded over 400 songs. "I might write ten joints off one emotion," Bazaar says, "Because I know that I want to be more." - America Magazine

If Bazaar Royale were to be psychoanalyzed he would be diagnosed as bi-polar with mildly schizophrenia tendencies while some of his survival tactics would also merit a partial kleptomaniac diagnosis. Oh yeah, he's a rapper too, well actually he's not that either, but more one that later.
The Bloodline Records signee's words are often insightful but at times blatantly contradictory. He exudes loads of confidence while managing to remain sincere and grounded. One of his goals is to put the 'show' back in showbiz and if his boisterous personality is any gauge, his debut (started for a early 2003 release) will surely be able to accomplish that feat.
How over the top is this dude? Upon arriving at Bloodline's offices to audition for a record deal he was instructed to begin his performance. Rather than immediately complying he told the roomful of staff this was 'his shit' and he would start when he was good and ready. An awkward 10 minutes of blank stares and silence ensued. Already strange looks probably turned to concerns for safety as Bazaar proceeded to leap onto the conference room table and perform at the top of his lungs (think Ol' Dirty Bastard meets Kurt Kobain). Odd looks and frowns turned to head nods and he left the offices with a deal and 5,000 dollars in his pockets. Bloodline hasn't had open auditions since.
Where you from?
New York City
Any borough you rep more than the other?
I'm from every borough...I rep me.
How did you get Bazaar Royale?
My life that I've lived and live is tre bazaar.
And royale -- I'm royalty because I'm a son of God just like you or anybody else. I just choose to acknowledge the fact that I am.
How long you been rhyming?
I'm a vocal stylist! I ain't a rapper, rappers are liars. Or most of them anyway. Ya know what I'm saying, they be lying about shit (laughing). I'm a rock star that lives the rap lifestyle.
Explain that...
I'm not from the trailer park, I'm not from the suburbs, I'm not from 'Cuckaconga'. I'm from New York City. Ward of the state. Raised by the state...been in every group home and mental institution you can think of in New York City. The paperwork is real. I don't really know how to explain it or define it. If I did, it would probably be fake...something that was made up because it was a design to go along with it. My shit is authentic and it is just me and there is no way to explain it other than it's self explanatory.
How would you categorize your style?
I don't categorize myself. It's going to be a new category. This right here is crazy man. It's aggressive soul. It's Jim Morrison, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Curtis Mayfield, Madonna...you know what I'm sayin'? This shit is not the ordinary. That's why I always tell people all the time, escape the ordinary. I'm not a rapper, I'm a vocal stylist.
If you don't rap, what is it you do?
I shock motherfuckas. I rock motherfuckas. I feed people energy. Sometimes I walk into fucking rooms and when I leave, I leave everybody in the room drained. That hasn't always worked to my benefit in my life.
Who do you listen to?
I like Curtis Mayfield, Bob Marley, Sam Cook, Donnie Hathaway, Willie Hutch, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Hendrix. I don't give a fuck about these people out here today. I don't need to be in a party with them. I don't need to be on a song with them.
Do you even listen to hip hop?
Yeah, I do listen, I have a top five list. I won't tell you in the order that the list goes but I'll tell the five motherfuckas I listen to: Ol Dirty Bastard, DMX, Eminem, Reggie Noble, Busta Rhymes. In terms of group, my all time favorite group is M.O.P. Them niggas is so underrated. All the artists you mention are very emotional... - Frank Magazine

A new voice in rock is rising from New York and it's coming from, of all places, the hip-hop world. Usually when the marriage of guitars and rhyming unite, what comes out the other end is cadence-heavy rap-rock, but singer/rapper Bazaar Royale puts a new spin on the unlikely merger, dubbing it "aggressive soul."
It's an appropriate summation. Sure, Bazaar barks out gruff and streetwise lyrics, but it's atypical influences like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and the Doors that inform his soulful style, which is unlike anything the genre has heard before.
Born Bazaar Royale had a troubled upbringing as a child and was sent to mental institutions as a teen. But when he did live at home, music was a big part of the former choirboy's life, thanks in part to the influence of his mother, a former backup singer for Luther Vandross.
Bazaar might have been homeless, but that didn't stifle his ambitious, jump-without-looking approach. Outside a hotel in Times Square, Bazaar spotted Donald "DeVante Swing" DeGrate and bluntly accosted the Jodeci singer and his posse, getting in their faces and proclaiming, "Yo, I'm the greatest sh-- since G-strings."
His cocky and brash "watch me" attitude won over DeVante, and three days later he was part of Da Bassment collective, which featured Missy Elliott, Timbaland and Ginuwine. "I was having the time of my life," he said. "I wasn't sleeping on the street anymore. I was riding around in Lamborghini jeeps, in Ferraris, in Diablos. It was all good for me."
However, his brashness got the better of him. As Missy and Ginuwine left and blew up, the confident Bazaar dreamed of blowing up just as big. With DeVante's blessing, he set out on his own to get a record deal and came back a week later with a contract at Sony that Bazaar said was "better than Jodeci's."
But his good fortune dried up and the deal would be short-lived. Soon, the thing he feared the most became a reality. "I ain't have no money, no place to live again. The one thing I dreaded, it happened again."
From there the destitute Bazaar took to rapping on street corners and entering as many open mic nights as he could. By chance his demo found its way into the hands of a man called Beef, who was so excited that he tracked down the address-free Bazaar and became his manager.
Defeated and wary from his earlier experiences with the music industry, Bazaar gave his new manager an ultimatum. "I said, 'Yo, I'm gonna get on MTV or CNN. You have one month. I'd rather sing in the train stations or in the park than in front of those fake, phony people who just want to suck me dry like vampires and leave me for dead.' "
"I did the most obnoxious thing I could do," he recalled with a smile. "I jumped on the table, kicked over the phone and did my show."
While the label heads were impressed, th ere was one more man he had to sell himself to. "My final audition was for DMX in a pool hall at three o'clock in the morning way out in the Bronx," he said. "I did my thing for him, and next thing I know X flew me to L.A., and then that's the story."
But if Bazaar's braggadocio doesn't sell you, just take it from DMX's solid endorsement. "There's nobody like him in hip-hop. ... He has the qualities of a star," X said matter-of-factly. "As soon as I heard him, I noticed that he had a different sound. He is bizarre."
With the cut "What's It All For" on the "Cradle 2 the Grave" soundtrack, a Lyricist Lounge tour slot under his belt and a debut album on the way, Bazaar Royale knows it's all about leaving a legacy.
"I would like children to ... use me as a shining example of no matter what you been through, if you continue to be yourself ... the doors will open up and give you everything you need." - MTV.com