Biography: Jon Kennedy

I’d like to introduce you to an artist who is climbing up the ranks of the music loving masses.... he goes by the name of Jon Kennedy.

Almost certainly one of the 3 most talented men in all of Stockport. Jon is a man on a musical mission. What the end result may be remains a bit of a mystery, not least to the man himself but rest assured it includes an enormous bag of breath-takingly beautiful tunes, copious rump-shakingly fine dancefloor corkers and a hatful of innovative ideas bordering on musical genius.
He’s certainly a talented chap.

Autumn 2002 Jon joined the Grand Central family. Bred a stone’s throw from GCHQ, his childhood in Stockport was characterized by exposure to new and interesting music, as a function of his parents’ enthusiasm for the pioneering artists of their day. Jon cites Peter Frampton, Electric Light Orchestra, David Essex and Geoff Wayne’s “War of the Worlds” (check out the H.G. Wells classic !) as early influences. His taste would in part be shaped also by his brother’s musical excavations, which brought him into contact with more guitar-centric bands like KISS and AC/DC

About Afroarts and Paul Murphy.
THE HISTORY of Afro Art starts in 1996 when Simone Beedle the wife and manager of Ashley Beedle the dj, remixer and producer as an outlet for his projects. The first release was the critically and publicly acclaimed hit "Universal Jones", a collaboration between disc jockey veteran Bob Jones and Ashley. Further releases followed from Ashley Beedle, Marden Hill and Urban Farmers amongst other acts. Life and the ’90s however, took its toll on couples and Ashley and Simone split up, resulting in the label being "put to bed" for a while. to re emerge a couple of years later with a smash Black Science Orchestra tune "Keep On Keepin’ On" featuring the vocals of Jenny De Vivo and the production skills of Marc Woolford. One of the labels biggest successes however was the next Black Science Orchestra production featuring an Allison David tune "Sunshine" again featuring the production skills of Souldrummers Marc Woolford. Another mix by Pete Heller released later that year became one of the most played records of that summer. Since then Ashley Beedle has departed to rejoin The X-Press 2 for their long awaited comeback album on Skint Records but before he left he drafted in his old friend and mentor Paul Murphy, one of the most influential and original dj’s of the 1980’s to oversee the label, and also released a final Black Science Orchestra E.P. featuring six strong tracks. Phil Ashers’ highly acclaimed mix of "Space and Time" by Marc Woolfords Souldrummers’ was the very first release under the new regime setting the very high standard that Afro Art has maintained since then with releases varying across all genres. Now Afro Art has an in house production team consisting of Marc Woolford, Luke Howard, Winston Hazel and Paul Murphy and all with highly acclaimed releases recently including SuPaFiX "Ghetto:New Yorkshire", Souldrummers "Medicine Man", Dance Freak "In Dub" and Paul Murphy and Marc Woolfords "Jazz Room". To be continued...