Eyedea

From Minnewiki

Eyedea (Mike Averill 1982 - 2010, also known as Oliver Hart) was a well-known freestyle battle champion and underground rapper. His notable wins included the televised Blaze Battle sponsored by HBO (2000) and a victory at Scribble Jam (1999). He appeared as a solo artist and as the emcee half of the duo Eyedea & Abilities (along with longtime friend and collaborator DJ Abilities). His non-battle rhymes were generally philosophically or theme thematically based, and often tell a definite narrative. His song "Bottle Dreams" is a piece about a sexually abused violin child prodigy who commits suicide.

For much of his youth, Eyedea lived with his mother in downtown Saint Paul. He attended Highland Park Senior High School.

First established as a battle emcee, Eyedea toured the circuit between 1997 and 2001, notably winning top prizes at Scribble Jam, the Rock Steady Anniversary 2000, and Blaze Battle Chicago 2000. He also toured extensively as second emcee for Atmosphere, with DJ Abilities sometimes filling in for Mr. Dibbs as tour DJ.

In 2001, he released First Born with his partner DJ Abilities (collectively, they were initially called the Sixth Sense, but they became known as Eyedea & Abilities). In 2002, under his pen name "Oliver Hart", he released the self-produced The Many Faces of Oliver Hart. In 2004, he and Abilities reunited to release the self-titled album E&A (released March 23 2004). All of Eyedea's releases were on the Rhymesayers Entertainment record label.

In addition to touring independently and with Rhymesayers labelmates, Eyedea and Abilities participated in the Def Jux-sponsored Who Killed the Robots? tour, titled by Eyedea.