Joseph Edgar Foreman, better known by his stage name, "Afroman," will make his Williams-port debut 9 p.m. Jan. 26 at Synergy, 416 W. Third St. Foreman is an American rapper whose singles "Because I Got High" and "Crazy Rap" have brought him national attention. "Because I Got High" circulated around the Internet before becoming a hit worldwide. He was nominated for a Grammy award in 2002.
Influenced by rappers like Too Short, Big Daddy Kane and 2 Live Crew, his rap career began in the eighth grade. He made homemade tapes of his own songs and passed them out to his classmates. Foreman got his start as a performer at church where he played drums and eventually moved on to playing guitar.
His debut album, "My Fro-losophy," dropped in 1999.
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Joseph Edgar Foreman, better known by his stage name, “Afroman,” will make his Williamsport debut 9 p.m. Jan. 26 at Synergy, 416 W. Third St. For tickets, visit www.ticketweb.com, Synergy or www.synergywilliamsport.com.
After relocating to Hattiesburg, Miss., he met up with producer Tim Ramenofsky (aka "Headfridge").
Ramenofsky produced and released Afroman's second album "Because I Got High" in 2000 on T-Bones Records. It was distributed primarily through concerts and Napster before its title track was played on The Howard Stern Show. The "Because I Got High" song was based on Afroman's inability to clean up his room. The song lists a number of activities - cleaning his room, going to court, attending class - ignored in favor of "reefer madness." In late 2001, the song became a worldwide hit and was featured in the film "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back." Later in the decade, it appeared in "The Perfect Score" and "Disturbia."
Universal Records was paying attention to this Internet-driven artist and inked Afroman to a six-album deal. His first Universal album, "The Good Times," was a compilation of his first two LPs and a handful of new tracks. Afroman returned in 2004 with the double-disc "Afroholic The Even Better Times," although he did so independently. Free of Universal, he wrote, produced and recorded "Afroholic" and marketed it largely via the Internet (www.afromanmusic.com) and toured with a live band. The prolific Afroman followed that with a holiday album "Jobe Bells" later that year and then came "Drunk 'n' High" and "A Colt .45 Christmas" in 2006, followed up "Waiting to Inhale" as well as "Frobama: Head of State" in 2008 and 2009 respectively.
Afroman's upcoming appearance at Synergy comes on the heels of performances by Taproot, the Misfits DJ Class, Grammy Nominee Whitney Peyton and an appearance by the Philadelphia Eagles' LeSean McCoy at the venue.
