OMNI (RIP) and LuzeOne rocking in Bushwick in 2016

Timur A. Davis (aka Ezra), is a resident of Newark, New Jersey. He was born in 1974 to Clarence Girard and Bernetha Davis and initially raised in an apartment on 583 Park Avenue in Brooklyn, New York. As a young lad at the age of three, he was fascinated with seeing Urban Art (i.e.,Graffiti) on trains in New York. In the early 1970s, his mother Bernetha attended Pratt Institute for Visual Arts, later moving from Brooklyn to Newark, New Jersey.  She would always influence Timur and his siblings with Visual Arts, Philosophy, Metaphysics, and classic R&B music with the likes of Marvin Gaye, Donna Hathaway, Curtis Mayfield, the Beatles and many others.

 

In the late 1980s, Timur attended Arts High School, a magnet high school in Newark, New Jersey, studying Visual Arts under legendary instructors like Mrs. Thomas, Mr. K, Ms. Caldwell, and Mr. Carter. Many noted artists and musicians (such as Sarah Vaughn, Tisha Campbell, Savion Glover, and Michael B. Jordan) attended Arts High School. While attending the school, he befriended and was mentored by the late Jerry Gant (2 Nasty Nas), Manuel “Prins” Acevedo (TC5, NAM), Maliq “Ber1/Porn” Griffin (LTD),  Tarikh “ SoulOne” Bandele (BNS), Carl “Cire” Brown (CKS), and Kenoris “Des” Crisp (AWC) who lead their own graffiti “social groups”(or, crews) and taught him about the social culture of Hip- Hop and its tremendous impact on the youth in New York, New Jersey and throughout the world.

           

After completing high school, he attended Essex County College in Newark, NJ and received an Associates Degree in Liberal Arts (1994); Jersey City State College (now, New Jersey City University) in Jersey City, NJ and received a Bachelor of Arts in US History & African American Studies (1997); and Pratt Institute’s Graduate School of Information Library Science in Brooklyn, New York and received an MS in Information  & Library Sciences (2002). Timur has worked in the library profession for over twenty years, in public and academic libraries. He was a Research Analyst for such entertainment projects as: Tupac Shakur: Thug Angel: The Life of An Outlaw Documentary, and was producer for the documentary, Reflections of a Blessed Soul: Maya Angelou. Timur created Du-Funk Magazine an e-Digital magazine which depicts urban art and its cultural influence throughout the globe.