About YotMan

Yasiel Obed Taylor, rapper, song writer and producer was raised on the south side of Chicago. He began his musical journey while living in Los Angeles, California. He would travel to Venice Beach every Sunday during the early days of hip hop career to entertain people. Yot fell in love with hip hop. Breaking and rapping came easy to him. He learned to free-style, became really good at it and began entering neighborhood free-style battles.

Yot was influence by Run DMC, Grandmaster Flash, Fat Boys, Rakim, Slick Rick and a host of other rappers. In the mid-eighties Yot returned to Chicago, started a rap group and started rapping on WHPK, a local college radio station.

Yot made his way around the Chicago-Land area rapping and break dancing with his crew. He collaborated with Twister and Da Smart, home grown rappers out of Chicago. In the late-eighties he and a friend participated in a “Don’t Do Drugs” rap contest and won 2^nd place; the song was played on WGCI radio and became the DuSable High School anthem.

Yot learned some of his musical talent from his father and uncle, who are established jazz musicians, and is known for his aggressive energetic style of rap. In the early 1990’s, Yot moved to the Minnesota Twin Cities and recorded his first real album with Smooth Composition Recordings (SCR). This was a compilation project with the title song; “Yotman On The Rise.” This opened doors for radio play and gigs in the Twin City area. While attending school for recording engineering Yot was introduced to RL, T-Low and Tweet; the R&B group known as Next. At the time they would do gigs together and later went on to do some recordings together.

Yot has performed and opened for many artists such as the late great songstress Aaliah, Too Short, Common, James Grear and Company, Rance Allen, MGS, Crossmovement and many more.

In 1996 Yot connected with two producers, Roger Lear and Anthony Loffman, to record a maxi-single with “All Night” & “Huh What.” The recordings received good reviews and plenty of airplay from KMOJ. In 2001 Yot put his first full album, “Spiritual Warfare”, which again received plenty of airplay in Minneapolis – St. Paul, Atlanta, Oklahoma, and New York and beyond. In 2003 Yot put a third album out with a group of brothers who shared the same vision, entitled “Anointed Kings Alliance” which also received airplay.

Yot is now back at it again, polishing up his skills with a new sound and working with some fresh faces. His goal is to start a movement of music, to engage people on a spiritual journey and make music the way God gives it to him.