About Abstract/Vision
Abstract Vision (government name: Fahad Rizvi) is a Staten Island based Hip-Hop artist of Pakistani-American descent. Born in Karachi in the Zia al-Haq 1980s, baby Vision saw little of his native land as his family immigrated to the United States at the tender age of one. Like many Pakistani-American families in the 1980s, Abstract Vision's family escaped the clamping, intolerant and increasingly fundamentalist regime of Generalissimo Zia as economic and social migrants to the United States.

Growing up in Staten Island a.k.a. Shaolin, as infamously coined by the legendary Wu-Tang Clan, Abstract Vision was blessed to grow up around Hip-Hop culture. Drawing upon influences such as Nas and the Wu, Abstract began dabbling in the MC element of the culture as early as age twelve. Passionate by nature, Abstract fell in love with the craft of rapping in both its spontaneous freestyle form and its more reflective written and composed variant. Taking it back to the origins of Hip-Hop, Abstract Vision sharpened his delivery and flow by participating in the intoxicating culture of ciphers while in High School. Always making sure to make his mark in any and all ciphers that he came across, it was here that young Abstract developed his lyrical techniques by getting into zones where he would almost always undoubtedly emerge victorious as the most skillful MC in the circle. But it wasn't only the cipher where Abstract Vision excelled as an artist.

Way beyond his years, Abstract Vision started working on albums with the little equipment he had growing up. Using a peanut microphone to work on some of his earliest tracks, Abstract Vision didn't let the limitations of his equipment prevent him from delivering raw and honest music. As early as age 13, Abstract Vision was writing music that reflected on the difficulties of growing up Muslim in America as he, like many of his peers, struggled to reconcile his identities.

Abstract Vision's first musical undertaking was with his cousin and co-rapper, Humanity. Together they formed a duo called Abstract Humanity who released a raw and fiercely political work called Politrix in 2002. Premiering at one of New York's first South-Asian Hip-Hop festivals, Livin' off the 7, these young and hungry MC's showed New York City the ferocity of their vision and frustrations with post 9-11 America. Abstract Vision, at the tender age of 15, performing before a sold-out crowd at the theater at Asia Society foreshadowed what was to be a gifted MC in blossom.

Continuing relentlessly and with a fierce devotion to the music, Abstract Vision wrote and wrote and wrote in the following years filling his bedroom with literally dozens of rhyme books which were manifestations of the trials and tribulations of his adolescence. Slowly, his delivery became that much sharper and his lyrical content that much more intelligent that at the age of 20 he was ready to release his first professional mix tape entitled Anxiety Attack – an absolutely innovative Hip-Hop work in both its musical landscapes and its lyrical wizardry.

As a solo Hip-Hop artist from the New York City Asian-American community, Abstract Vision is a product of the great culture of his native city where multiple worlds coalesce to give the world something entirely unique and artistically capturing. Now in his early 20s and the premier artist in the Ill Minds Inc. independent rap/clothing label, Abstract Vision sets his sights towards the most skillful artists in the game to build upon their footsteps and contribute something legendary to this already historic American cultural art form known as Hip-Hop music.

More Information: http://www.myspace.com/dentdentdent