Mr. Dead is an underground hip-hop artist hailing from Brooklyn, New York. Born as C. Davis, the passionate horror movie fan worked as an accomplished makeup artist not only on grade-B horror films, but also on music videos, including some by rap act Gravediggaz. While doing makeup at a Prince Paul video shoot, he was introduced to WordSound, New York's underground hip-hop and illbient label. Dead teamed up with Big Pat to form the duo Metabolics, who released their first album, The M-Virus, on WordSound in 1999. In 2001, he released his first full-fledged solo effort, a continuation of the Metabolics project called Metabolics, Vol. 2: Dawn of the Dead. The album featured various guest artists, most notably Prince Paul, Dan the Automator, Sensational, M. Sayyid (of Antipop Consortium), Big Pat, and WordSound head Spectre, plus some unknown MCs, such as Herc Boogie and the Vandal. While Dead's voice is gruff and his pieces are dark, with horror movie samples and eerie effects, his music is less abstract than that of many of his labelmates. Unfortunately, even though both albums earned critical praise, they were barely noticed by the record-buying public. Apart from his own albums, Mr. Dead has also made guest appearances on other WordSound albums, most notably on Spectre's The End (2000) and volumes two and three of the compilation series The Ill St. Presents Subterranean Hitz (1998 and 2000, respectively). ~ Christian Genzel