Born in Brooklyn as
Omar Jarel Gilyard, future producer/MC
Jneiro Jarel spent the early part of his childhood moving around the country due to his mother's job in the U.S. Army, before finally settling down in Houston, TX, in 1985. It was there that
Gilyard began performing, both as a solo artist and with his group the Slam Kids, which he started in 1994. In 1998 he decided to move to New York to further pursue his career and, officially changing his name to
Jneiro Jarel, began to gain some notoriety as a rapper, enough to get the attention of
Public Enemy producer
Hank Shocklee, who arranged for
Jarel to open for
Julie Dexter and
Lord Finesse. Eager to record his own material and unhappy with the progress with
Shocklee,
Jarel decided to work with independent labels instead, and in 2000 he released his album Section A on Orienj Recordings. In 2004 he moved to Philadelphia, where he worked with some of the city's most influential hip-hop artists (
Rich Medina and
King Britt) and began to develop himself more as a producer, collaborating with
Jazzanova and
Count Bass D, among others. In 2005
Jarel released three albums, Three Piece Puzzle, on Kindred Spirits,
Beat Journey, under the name
Dr. Who Dat?, and the DJ mix Houston We Got a Solution, both of which were issued by his own Label Who? (which also re-released a U.S. version of Three Piece Puzzle in collaboration with Rope-a-Dope). London-based Lex Records then reissued
Beat Journey in the summer of 2006. ~ Marisa Brown