Dark Empire (DE) started their hip hop journey in 1994, after meeting at an mc battle in Sunset Park Brooklyn. Being introduced thru mutual friends, Amo & Felony found similarities in each others off beat , metaphoric styles while sparking the mics. In search of a partner Felony suggested they work on some new tracks & about a week later, Felony ran into Amo in the street, let him know he was feeling his lyrics so they started writing together the next day and never looked back.
Amo1 and Felony of Dark Empire
Now as a 2 man team they needed a name that represented them to the fullest ,after throwing a few suggestions in the air, Felony mentioned how is style was dark and underground, while Amo mentioned he was part of a growing empire on the streets known as 5MH (5o million hoods ) thus they put the two quotes together and came up with Dark Empire , which Felony broke down to an acronym , (Devastating, Actions, and Rugged Knowledg, Emulating Massive Poetry, Innovating, Rhymes Exact ). Amo later shortened the name to D.E. (Dark Empire, Deadly Entities, Derelict Entertainers).
With crazy mic skills and original flows these two emcees have both been rhyming since the mid 80's. Felony the vet of the squad grew up in the lower east side of manhattan in the Vladeck projects, better known in the area as "The Hill". inspired by the hip hop movies of his time ( wild style, beat street, & breakin’) Felony started cutting school and running the streets to break dance and hang out at the local park jams .thus forcing his parents to place him in various group homes across the city and it was in these homes that Felony started his mc career, penning his first verse to the Big Daddy Kane raw instrumental, but by the age of 18 he left the homes and hit the streets for a life of crime and hustling , which ultimately lead to an arrest for strong arm robbery. He was sentenced to do 6 months on Rikers Island and a year in the Hudson County Correctional Facility.
Being locked up with nothing to do but write, Felony who was going by the name Explicit Poet at the time hooked up with another lyricist by the name of K-Von , who happened to be down with one of Fels favorite mc’s, Kool G. Rap. K-von took to the explicit poet and put him under his wing, sharpening his skill and changing his name to Felony. Now close to release K-Von was putting together his own click called "Criminal K and the Rude Ones" which Fel was to be a part of when he got out, but when Fel got out of Hudson County he was hit with the news that K-Von was gunned down in Queens, shortly after Fel moved to Brooklyn and entered the mc battle where he met his partner.
Now as for Amo, he grew up in a very racially motivated part of Brooklyn known as Bensonhurst. With a Dark skin Puerto Rican father and a light skin Italian mother, there were many problems in the neighborhood while he was growing up. From racist cops who beat his pops on more than one occasion, to wise guys who thought they owned the streets, Amo grew up fending for himself and fighting for his respect. Being introduced to hip hop at the early age of 6 , Amo was already b-boying, writing graffiti and sneaking into parties by the age of 8.
On one particular night in 1984, Amo snuck into a jam at United Skates of America which at the time was a hot Brooklyn hip hop spot. Going almost unnoticed he ran past security and hide under the stage in the club..being under there for more than an hour Amo was drawn out by the sounds of African Bambaataa who was performing that night....upon coming out to an amped up crowd , Amo turned around for a front row view of the Soul Sonic Force performing "Play at Your Own Risk" and it was at that moment Amo decided he was gonna be an mc. But it wasn’t till 1989 when KRS-1 dropped "My Philosophy" that he decided he was gonna make rhyming a career.
Struggling to raise money to make a demo at the age of 16 , Amo started selling weed, acid and anything else to put some money in his pocket, so by the time he was in high school, where he met his future crew mates from 5MH, he was already cutting songs off of rap instrumentals and continued to do that till 94' when he met his partner Felony. Since then Dark Empire have put in a lot of work in learning the in and outs of the business, even more so when Amo met their producer and former member of the Pharcyde, T. Johnson a.k.a. Treez, who has had a his part in a hand full of tracks for artist from Xibit to Mike Gironimo .and after hearing DE flow he knew they had enough skills to make it in the industry. but when he found out DE had more than 50 songs written, Treez and Amo partnered to start their own independent label Team 5ive, Inc.
With a raw sound and gorilla tactics d.e. released their debut ep in 2004 titled " 5MH The Dark Empire Ep. " which they sold more than 1500 copies in 3 months, strictly from hitting the streets and working off consignment from the record shops. With songs like " d.r.u.g.s.", which is an original take on the selling and using of narcotics, to a graffiti dedicated joint called "rap definitions ", Amo and Felony are soon to be recognized as 2 dope mc’s... and with a crew that has already been written up in various magazines for their contribution to the graff and Hip Hop scene, Dark Empire and 5MH are definitely something to look out for in 2005. Check out their site: www.deadlyentities.com
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