Artist Profile

The Genie 2

The Genie is an avant-garde guitarist, performer, and musical pioneer who first exploded onto the music scene in the summer of 2002 in Montreal Canada. Creating a totally new performance art which he dubbed scratch guitar, The Genie blends blues, hip hop, reggae, drum n’ bass, middle eastern rhythms, bossa nova, and jazz via slide guitar, live-sampling, beat boxing, and unconventional syncopation to create a visually stunning, unique, and soulful performance. The Genie’s performances and debut CD, Rebel Music, recorded in Montreal in 2002, has made thousands of fans as he has brought his craft to audiences in Canada, California, Hawaii, and Latin America.

Born in Los Angeles but raised in San Francisco, The Genie (né Luis Monterrosa) began playing guitar in 1988 influenced by the hard rock scene popular at the time and over the years his influences expanded to hip hop, reggae, and electronic music. By the time he was in college he began playing in a roots reggae band and spent several years composing songs and gigging around the Bay Area. After graduating from San Francisco State University with a degree in International Relations he began experimenting with his music while traveling to various parts of the world including Brazil and Palestine. In 2002 he began a Master’s program in Latin American Studies at UC Berkeley. That winter he traveled to Porto Alegre, Brazil to attend the World Social Forum where he met a Canadian friend named Octavio who invited him to Montreal telling him he could try his luck playing guitar in the Metro, Montreal’s subway where many musicians perform for money. Figuring he had nothing to lose and hoping to pick up French, that summer he traveled to Montreal for two months.

While there he dedicated himself fulltime to his musical craft, dragging his gear through the Metro, making whatever money he could from pleased onlookers. Before long he began making many fans and friends as he was accepted like never before by this new audience. One thing led to another and within a month he was playing a show for a thousand people at the venerated Club Soda at the Montreal DMC Championships, the internationally renowned turntable competition. Overnight he made hundreds of hardcore fans and met his future producer and great friend DJ Horg, who offered to produce his album. Seeing the prospect of his dream coming true he decided to go for it.

This was complicated however since he was technically still a graduate student at UC Berkeley and had received a grant to travel to Colombia to do field research on the consequences of the armed conflicted on the displaced populations, just days after he was scheduled to return to San Francisco. He proceeded with his trip to Colombia and began a journey of exploring the intense realities of the Colombian war while using the opportunity to bring his music to audiences literally worlds apart. Returning to San Francisco, exhausted, his mind was overwhelmed by the shocking realities he found on the streets of Bogotá, his memories of Palestine still vivid, the completely unexpected twist of his musical fate in Montreal, and now his pending Master’s program, he had a very difficult decision to make. Seeing his shot of finally making his childhood dream a reality he decided to drop out of school and concentrate on returning to Montreal to record his CD which he completed in November.

Since that time he has released his debut CD, Rebel Music, in Montreal and San Francisco and has lived a dual life in both cities, bringing his performance to hundreds of audiences, making thousands of new fans. After years of doing his music full-time his scratch guitar style has greatly evolved and has received wide recognition and acclaim and he is now recognized as musical pioneer and innovator.

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