Alex Asher Daniel (born May 14, 1973) is an American contemporary artist and composer. He uses a broad variety of materials including painting,

sound installations Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary time-based medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBell ...

, photography, drawing and film. A Los Angeles native, he has since lived and worked between London, New York City, and the Bay Area.

Personal life

Born and raised in

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commerci ...

, Daniel received his

Bachelor of Fine Arts A Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) is a standard undergraduate degree for students pursuing a professional education in the visual arts, Fine art, or performing arts. In some instances, it is also called a Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA). Background ...

degree from the

California College of the Arts The California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996, it opened a second campus in ...

in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...

, and was a fixture in the

Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

underground Hip-Hop Underground hip hop (also known as underground rap or simply underground) traditionally refers to hip hop music that is outside the general mainstream canon or counter-cultural in nature, usually with a heavy emphasis on emotion, lyricism, and/or ...

scene in the 1990s. In college Daniel was inspired to dive deeper into his studies of

mysticism Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute (philosophy), Absolute, but may refer to any kind of Religious ecstasy, ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or Spirituality, spiritual meani ...

and the

esoteric Western esotericism, also known as the Western mystery tradition, is a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas and currents are united since they are largely distinct both from orthod ...

by his then English teacher

beat poet The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-World War II era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by members o ...

Michael McClure Michael McClure (October 20, 1932 – May 4, 2020) was an American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving to San Francisco as a young man, he found fame as one of the five poets (including Allen Ginsberg) who read at the famo ...

Career

As a visual artist Daniel has worked primarily in painting, portraiture, drawing, and collage. Inspired by nature, mysticism and the human form, Daniel's work explores meaning within the unseen space around his subjects and their relationship between the inner and outer world. As a

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better r ...

ist Daniel works specifically from live sittings spending time assessing the aura of the individual subject and incorporating the colors into his work. His works reside in numerous collections worldwide including the

Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded in 1962 and opened in 1968, it is part of the Smithsonian Institution. Its collections focus on images of American artists, politicians, scientists ...

and has painted notable figures in contemporary culture including

Lenny Kravitz Leonard Albert Kravitz (born May 26, 1964) is an American singer, musician, songwriter, record producer, and actor. His debut album ''Let Love Rule (Lenny Kravitz album), Let Love Rule'' (1989) was characterized by a blend of Rock music, rock ...

Charles Rangel Charles Bernard Rangel ( ; June 11, 1930 – May 26, 2025) was an American politician who served as United States House of Representatives, U.S. representative for districts in New York City for 46 years. A member of the Democratic Party (Unite ...

Jon Batiste Jonathan Michael Batiste (born November 11, 1986) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, composer, bandleader, and television personality. He has recorded and performed with artists including Alicia Keys, Stevie Wonder, Prince (musician), ...

Tarana Burke Tarana Burke (born September 12, 1973) is an American activist from New York City, who started the MeToo movement. In 2006, Burke began Me Too as a youth program for junior and high school students with the goal of addressing the rampant sexual ...

Phylicia Rashad Phylicia Rashad ( ) ( Ayers-Allen; born June 19, 1948) is an American actress. She was most recently dean of the College of Fine Arts at Howard University before her three-year contract ended in May 2024. Known for her roles on stage and scree ...

, and Dame Miriam Rothschild. As a music producer and composer he has collaborated and worked in various genres including

Ambient Ambient or ambiance or ambience may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Ambiancé'', an unreleased experimental film * ''Ambient'' (novel), a novel by Jack Womack Music and sound * Ambience (sound recording), also known as atmospheres or backgr ...

Rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...

, R&B and

Electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mos ...

and remixed work for artists such as

Maxwell Maxwell may refer to: People * Maxwell (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name ** James Clerk Maxwell, mathematician and physicist * Justice Maxwell (disambiguation) * Maxwell baronets, in the Baronetage of N ...

, Warpaint, and

UNKLE Unkle (often stylised as U.N.K.L.E. or UNKLE, occasionally known as UNKLE Sounds) is a British musical outfit founded in 1992 by James Lavelle. Originally categorised as trip hop, the group once included producer DJ Shadow and have employed a ...

. He has frequently worked in

musique concrete Musique is the French word for music. Musique may also refer to: Music *Musique (disco band), a 1970s studio band produced by Patrick Adams *Musique, a British dance act consisting of Moussa Clarke and Nick Hanson best known for their 2001 song ...

and

sound installation Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary time-based medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBell ...

using found sounds to compose works. In 2019 he released the

instrumental An instrumental or instrumental song is music without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through Semantic change, semantic widening, a broader sense of the word s ...

album ''Anima Mundi'' based on the five classical elements with proceeds of the album sales going to Winona Laduke's

Honor the Earth Honor the Earth is a non-profit organization dedicated to Indigenous peoples, Indigenous environmental justice. The organization's mission is to protect the lifeways and sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples around the globe. The organization is ded ...

for Indigenous

environmental justice Environmental justice is a social movement that addresses injustice that occurs when poor or marginalized communities are harmed by hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses from which they do not benefit. The movement has gene ...

. Daniel has produced tracks for various members of the hip hop collective

Hieroglyphics Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters.I ...

and released his 2021 album ''Book of Spells'' on the

Hieroglyphics Imperium Recordings Hieroglyphics Imperium Recordings is an Oakland, California-based, independent hip hop record label founded and owned by underground hip hop collective, the Hieroglyphics. The label was created by the collective in 1995 to publish and market the ...

label. In 2013 he composed the original score and executive produced the Shomari Smith documentary '' Til Infinity: The Souls of Mischief''. The film reflects on the 20-year anniversary of the band Souls of Mischief's debut album ''

93 'til Infinity ''93 'til Infinity'' is the debut studio album by American hip-hop group Souls of Mischief. It was released on September 28, 1993, on the Jive label. Composition The sound of ''93 'til Infinity'' is characteristic of the distinct style explored ...

'' and includes over 50 interviews with prominent MCs, DJs, and producers of the era. In 2021 he released his first full-length album, titled ''Book of Spells'', celebrating the power of nature and the

divine feminine A goddess is a female deity. In some faiths, a sacred female figure holds a central place in religious prayer and worship. For example, Shaktism (one of the three major Hindu sects), holds that the ultimate deity, the source of all reality, is ...

featuring an all female line-up of guest musicians. The album includes the single and video "Lover's Prayer" featuring Doris Pearson of the 1980s pop R&B band

Five Star Five Star (also styled as 5 Star) were a British Pop music, pop group, formed in 1983 and comprising siblings Stedman Pearson, Stedman, Lorraine, Denise Pearson, Denise, Doris, and Delroy Pearson. From 1985 to 1988, Five Star had four top-20 a ...

and remixes by

Stuart Matthewman Stuart Colin Matthewman (born 18 August 1960), also known as Cottonbelly, is an English songwriter, record producer and musician. He is best known as the guitarist and saxophonist of the band Sade. His work as a member of Sade has earned him fo ...

Sade Sade may refer to: People * Marquis de Sade (1740–1814), French aristocrat, writer, and libertine; namesake of the word ''sadism'' * Sade (singer) (born 1959, Helen Folasade Adu), British Nigerian musician and lead singer of the eponymous band * ...

Domino Dominoes is a family of tile-based games played with gaming pieces. Each domino is a rectangular tile, usually with a line dividing its face into two square ''ends''. Each end is marked with a number of spots (also called '' pips'' or ''dots'' ...

, and Breakbeat Lou. His self-produced remix and video "Dakini" (God's Eye Mix) features

Phesto Damani Thompson, known by the stage names, Phesto and Phesto Dee (born April 29, 1974), is an American rapper and producer. He is one of the founding four members of the Oakland, California-based underground hip hop group Souls of Mischief, and, ...

and

Tajai Tajai Massey, known mononymously as Tajai ( ; born April 21, 1975), is an American rapper and producer. He is one of the four founding members of the Oakland, California-based underground hip hop group Souls of Mischief and, with Souls of Mis ...

Souls of Mischief Souls of Mischief is a hip hop group from Oakland, California, that is also part of the hip hop collective Hieroglyphics. The Souls of Mischief formed in 1991 and is composed of rappers A-Plus, Opio, Phesto, and Tajai. History East Oakland ...

, and

Sunspot Jonz Corey Johnson, better known by his stage name Sunspot Jonz, is a rapper from Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous ...

of Living Legends.

Discography

Albums

EPs

Singles

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Daniel, Alex Asher Hip-hop groups from California Musical groups from Oakland, California American portrait artists American experimental composers American multimedia artists Ambient composers American male composers 21st-century American painters American contemporary artists American interdisciplinary artists Artists from Los Angeles 1973 births Living people