The Journey...

Jamal "Mystery" "Chef Genius" Brooks was born May 24, 1989 at Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn, NY. He was his mother's first and only child, and his father's second child of eight. His parents separated when he was young so he lived and grew up with his mother. His father was a drug dealer who was often in the streets. The only times Mystery spent with his father were during holidays, during the summer season, and during the elementary school winter vacations. Other male family members played the fatherly figure when Mystery's father wasn't around. It was Mystery's uncle who first put a mic in his hand at the tender age of four to record the DJ's slogan on his mixtape. Who would have thought that would have been an epic moment in Mystery's life?As a child Mystery was very shy to find friends. However he was very open around family members. Since his family consisted of 85% females, Mystery strongly bonded with the male family members who were around his age, Ramz and T.G. Since none of their fathers were around consistently they were able to identify with one another. Together, they shared many first experiences ranging from sex with girls, to theft, to drugs. They were a gang of three, and Mystery's character wouldn't be the same if it wasn't for them.Being the youngest of the trio, Mystery was often picked on and he cried a lot. In an attempt to toughen him up, Mystery's mother enrolled him in a karate school when he was only four years old. At the time he was the youngest member attending the school. At first Mystery was shy but the friendly environment quickly opened him up. He trained there for the next nine years and he learned self discipline, self confidence, and ofcourse self defense. He stopped training at the school shortly after he received his second degree black belt in order to pursue his other interests.One of Mystery's biggest role models was his father. Although mystery didn't see his father everyday of the year he respected him because he was a provider for his family and did the best thing he knew in order to provide. Some of the times Mystery spent with his father his father would cook kilos of cocaine into crack rock in the kitchen as Mystery watched cartoons in the living room. At the time, Mystery thought it was candy he was making and when he asked for some of the candy his father would simply say "this candy is not for you." Mystery's father spoiled him in almost every way. Mystery remembers seeing money piles taller than him in his father's home. At that time Mystery had no clue what struggling meant. He was fascinated by his father's new cars, houses, jewlery, and clothes. And whatever his father had mystery also had for himself as well. Mystery remembers the summer seasons he spent with his father and other siblings seeming endless because of all the traveling they did.All of that changed when Mystery was Ten years old. His father was caught in a warehouse full of marijuana and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. That's when the term struggle started to make sense in Mystery's life.Mystey's other biggest role model was his mother. Since he did live and grow up with his mother, she is 65% of the reason why mystery is the man he is today. She never learned how to ride a bike but was able to teach Mystery how to do it. She also did whatever it took to provide for him and showed him that he can have whatever he wants as long as he goes for it himself. She taught him how to think for himself. She made sure he did well in school and tried to keep him out of trouble. But since his father wasn't always around he had to learn somethings on his own.After Mystery's father was incarcerated, and he saw his mother struggle for the first time to pay bills and to get him the same things he was normally use to, Mystery needed a way to express his feelings. Around that time, Mystery's cousin Ramz was always freestyling on the spot and making up raps here and there over instumental mixtapes. It was also around this time when Mystery's other cousin T.G. was incarcerated on carjacking and assult charges at the age of 11. Ramz's reality freestyles at that young age took Mystery's mind of what was happening in his personal life and he felt relief from ramz's freestyling. Mystery never thought that he could freestyle off the top as well as ramz did. However he remembered his mother telling him he could do whatever as long as he puts his mind to it and that is when mystery first picked up a pen and opened a notebook to write raps. He never took it serious in the musician sense but always wrote raps to let out his anger and pain.About a two years later Mystery, along with Ramz, went to visit TG in jail. He was surprised and excited to find out that TG was also writing raps in jails. He listened to TG's lyrics and was amazed. He was inspired to do it for real. He felt that TG's raps were 100 times better than his and applied the motto "go hard or go home" to his lyrics. This is where his music journey officially began. Shortly after the visit to see TG, Ramz informed Mystery that his half brother Bizz was also rapping and recording himself. Mystery heard actual songs that Bizz was recording and they were instantly inspirational to him. Mystery was truly impressed and felt that he needed to get to Bizz's plataeu of actually recording songs. Mystery met up with Bizz and they did dozens of songs together. Ramz even did songs with them as well. Mystery learned how to record himself from doing songs with Bizz. Mystery went home, put Sony Acid Pro on his pc, installed the mic that came with the pc, and began recording song after song. Mystery became addicted to doing music but he was satisfied with doing it the way he did with the computer mic and software. All of mystery's friends slowly began to notice how much mystery was into music. Some of them, such as Chance, began joining him in the music creating process. Mystery inspired most of his friends to begin rapping and by the age of 14 Mystery had done an amatuer 10 song album and along with his group of friends, known as PBS, they did a amatuer 20 song mixtape. The following high school year would be a historic one.One day, while Mystery was in the lunchroom at school writing some lyrics with his headphones on, he was approached by a kid who noticed what he was doing. The kid wanted to hear him rap. Mystery refused to rap to him and the kid left disappointed. A couple days later the kid approached him again and asked him the same thing. This time mystery responded with a verse. The kid was truly impressed by mystery and introduced himself as Spizz and told him he also did music. A conversation about rap was sparked and that was the beginning of a strong music bond as well as a strong friendship. Spizz then told mystery about his music label, called Spaced Out Ent. and told him that he wanted Mystery to be a part of it. Mystery refused at first because he felt music was just a personal thing for himself. But after getting to know Spizz more and what he was about as well as his label, Mystery immediately joined spaced out ent. Spizz was responsible for getting mystery into an official studio where he first got insight to how songs by famous artists are done. Music became more of an addiction at that moment.Mystery was the only other recording artist on Spaced Out Ent besides Spizz, and it was only a matter of time till Mystery introduced Spizz to Bizz. A bond was instantly made and Bizz became the newest artist on Spaced Out Ent.At the official studio, the main engineer used cubase, which was much more difficult to pick up than Sony Acid Pro. Mystery began watching the engineer to learn what he knew. It was strictly hardwork and dedication. Mystery, along with Spizz, was paying for studio time at first. But after the engineer realized their dedication to the music he waived their fee and added Spaced Out Ent to his label's roster, Mercenary Records. Although Mystery was cool with recording there, he never felt comfortable recording with Mercenary Records. A few months later, after a few disagreements, Mercenary Records and Spaced out Ent parted ways. It was back to square one for them. Mystery went back to recording songs on his pc with his pc mic. After going to an official studio for a year and a half Mystery realized that the equipment that he had wouldn't satisfy his musical potential and needs anymore. Times were hard for him so he started off upgrading the pc mic he was using to a better pc mic. After a month or two he realized the mic's quality wouldn't be satisfying enough for him to make any more albums or mixtapes. He than began doing his research on how to build a personal studio and what equipment he needed. He began grinding in order to pay for the equipment and in the summer of 2007 mystery had an official studio in his home. Since then he has engineered and mastered Spizz "R3alTalk" The Belly Of The Beast, his own Unsolved Mystery, "G5's" New Mission Same Captain, and his collabo mixtape with "R3alTalk" Gotham Muzik. His hard work was recognized by Asqui Music Group and they gave him as well as the entire Spaced Out Ent an opportunity to shine in the industry. In his quest to perfect his musical sound, Chef Genius also enrolled in the Digital Media Arts Program at Touro College.