Hieroglyphics, also known as the Hieroglyphics Crew and Hiero, is an American underground hip hop collective based in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

. The collective was founded in the early- 1990s by

rapper Rapping (also rhyming, spitting, emceeing or MCing) is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular". It is performed or chanted, usually over a backing beat or musical accompaniment. The ...

Del the Funky Homosapien. The collective is currently composed of

rappers Rapping (also rhyming, spitting, emceeing or MCing) is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular". It is performed or chanted, usually over a backing beat or musical accompaniment. The ...

Del the Funky Homosapien, Casual,

Pep Love Pep Love is a hip-hop music, hip hop artist and a member of the Oakland, California-based hip hop musical collective, collective Hieroglyphics (band), Hieroglyphics. Personal life Born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, Pep Love relocated wit ...

, producer/manager

Domino Dominoes is a family of tile-based games played with gaming pieces, commonly known as dominoes. Each domino is a rectangular tile, usually with a line dividing its face into two square ''ends''. Each end is marked with a number of spots (also c ...

DJ Toure Hieroglyphics, also known as the Hieroglyphics Crew and Hiero, is an American underground hip hop collective based in Oakland, California. The collective was founded in the early-1990s by rapper Del the Funky Homosapien. The collective is current ...

, and the four individual members of the rap group

Souls of Mischief Souls of Mischief is a hip hop group from Oakland, California, that is also part of the hip hop collective Hieroglyphics. The Souls of Mischief formed in 1991 and is composed of rappers A-Plus, Opio, Phesto, and Tajai. History East Oakland ...

Phesto Damani Thompson, known by the stage names, Phesto and Phesto Dee (born April 29, 1974), is an American rapper and producer. He is one of the founding four members of the Oakland, California-based underground hip hop group Souls of Mischief, a ...

, A-Plus,

Opio Souls of Mischief is a hip hop group from Oakland, California, that is also part of the hip hop collective Hieroglyphics. The Souls of Mischief formed in 1991 and is composed of rappers A-Plus, Opio, Phesto, and Tajai. History East Oakland ...

, and

Tajai Tajai Massey, known by the stage name Tajai (born April 21, 1975), is an American rapper and producer. He is one of the four founding members of the Oakland, California-based underground hip hop group Souls of Mischief and, with Souls of Misch ...

. Since their inception, Hieroglyphics have found a following largely through their live concerts,

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...

s ("Hierocasts"), and promotion through their website. The collective uses a three-eyed, straight-lipped face

logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wo ...

that figures prominently on their

albums An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records col ...

, website, stickers, and clothing.

History

As a collective, the Hieroglyphics have released three studio albums: ''

3rd Eye Vision ''3rd Eye Vision'' is the first studio album by American hip hop collective Hieroglyphics. It was released by Hieroglyphics Imperium Recordings on March 24, 1998. It peaked at number 26 on the ''Billboard'' Heatseekers Albums chart, as well as num ...

'' in

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

, '' Full Circle'' in 2003, and ''

The Kitchen The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was foun ...

'' in 2013. In 2005, the collective released a live

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

and accompanying CD of the Hiero's 2003 ''

Full Circle Tour Full may refer to: * People with the surname Full, including: ** Mr. Full (given name unknown), acting Governor of List of colonial heads of German Cameroon, German Cameroon, 1913 to 1914 * A property in the mathematical field of topology; see Full ...

''. The collective has also released five compilation albums: ''Hiero B-Sides'' and ''Hiero Oldies Vol. I'' in

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

, ''Hiero Oldies Vol. II'' in

, ''The Building'' in 2004, ''

The Corner ''The Corner'' is a 2000 HBO drama television miniseries based on the nonfiction book '' The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood'' (1997) by David Simon and Ed Burns, and adapted for television by David Simon and David Mi ...

'' in 2005, and most recently, ''

Over Time Overtime is the amount of time someone works beyond normal working hours. The term is also used for the pay received for this time. Normal hours may be determined in several ways: *by custom (what is considered healthy or reasonable by society), ...

'', in March 2007. Individual members of the collective have also released albums of their own, either through solo projects or outside group projects.

Logo

The collective's

third eye The third eye (also called the mind's eye or inner eye) is a mystical invisible eye, usually depicted as located on the forehead, which provides perception beyond ordinary sight. In Hinduism, the third eye refers to the ajna (or brow) chakra. In ...

logo is the

Mayan numeral The Mayan numeral system was the system to represent numbers and calendar dates in the Maya civilization. It was a vigesimal (base-20) positional numeral system. The numerals are made up of three symbols; zero (a shell), one (a dot) and fiv ...

for 8. Created by Del the Funky Homosapien, the son of an abstract artist, it has been used to promote the collective on their album covers, website, stickers, clothing, and other promotional materials. In a

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

interview with ''

SF Weekly ''SF Weekly'' was a free alternative weekly newspaper founded in the 1970s in San Francisco, California. It was distributed every Thursday, and was published by the San Francisco Print Media Company. The paper has won national journalism awards ...

'', Del commented: The ''Clerks'' comic in question was drawn by

underground comic Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books that are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, ...

artist

Jim Mahfood Jim Mahfood (born March 29, 1975), a.k.a. Food One, is an American comic book creator. Apart from his creator-owned comic book series ''Grrl Scouts'' and his comic strip ''Stupid Comics'' (which appears weekly in the ''Phoenix New Times'') he al ...

who has worked various rap and hip hop items into his work over his career. In an interview with ''halftimeonline.net'' in 2004, Mahfood mentioned Del and the Hieroglyphics by name:

Discography

Studio albums

Live albums

Compilation albums

Singles

As featured artist

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hieroglyphics Musical collectives Alternative hip hop groups Hip hop groups from California Hip hop collectives Musical groups established in 1995 Musical groups from Oakland, California