Paul J Nelson better known as Phoenix Da Icefire (born September 1, 1987) in South East London, he is 1/2 of Higher Heights records, alongside fellow CEO & founder Dwain Thompson. Paul Nelson is best summerised as a British rapper, song writer, actor, consultant & all around business man. Paul "Phoenix Da Icefire" Nelson grew up in East London with his mother Angela & his late father John Nelson, who passed away from cancer late 2002. At a very tender age he was exposed to the harsh realities of an adult life, growing up from a background of not having much pushed him to seek a creative means of enjoying and expressing himself, before he could write music Paul used to draw in order to vent frustration and express complex emotion at that time was bottled up. Being a witness to the murder of his close friend and neighbor at the age of 12 added to reality of life and death for him. Angela Nelson, the mother of Paul aka Phoenix, was his first musical influence, as she used to be in a choir "London Community Gospel Choir" in her early 20's, after singing live on choice fm radio she was given contacts to a major record label who was very much interested in signing her but due to having given birth to her second and third son she never fulfilled the dream of becoming a singer. Phoenix started off in the garage scene under the alias of Swiftly, alongside fellow MC's such as P-Money, Little Dee, Firmer Dee aka Funky Dee, AKS & Blacks in a crew called the Fatal Assassins. He originally got into the garage scene after being moved from Lewisham to Deptford through witness protection, it was at that time he chose to express his anger and frustration. the up tempo pace of garage allowed him to voice his perspective of the streets from the inside looking out. he made the transition to rap after his close friend at school and mentor Minister Rebel taught him the ways of nuwapo, he branched off with fellow garage member AKS who is now apart of Midas Touch, the golden collective comprised of three members, Akin Whilholm "AKS" & Jason Hayles "J Da Exodus" who got together late 2006. He was first introduced to Dwain Thompson (the other half of higher heights records) by his play leader at the time "Jackie", she noticed his glowing talent and with that decided to introduce Paul to her nephew Dwain who was music producer at the time. It was in 2008 that they decided to come together as a record label and release "Anathena" from a group called Triple Darkness, which debuted May 19, 2008. Phoenix dropped his mixtape "Baptism Under Fire" in 2009, which received great appraisal and recognition from fellow MC's in the game, the mixtape was hosted by M9 from Triple Darkness, and hosted by Higher Heights DJ Leo Rhodes "DJ Roast," it was in his own words the greatest display of his versatility and creativity to date, the launch party was held in the carhaart store on December 7. Artists such as Cappo & Endemic, IRS & Triple Darkness performed on the night which set in stone the arrival of Phoenix Da Icefire into the hip-hop scene. Since then Phoenix has been finishing off his album he had been working on since late 2007, the album which was released in 2012, titled The Quantum Leap, which he feels will launch him further into the scene as well as breaking the average stereotypical sound of 90's hip-hop, the album is entirely produced by Chemo, who is a renowned beatsmith for UK hip-hop, he has worked with Joe Budden, Lowkey, Triple Darkness, Kashmere, Verb T, Fliptricks, Jehst, Mikal Parkinson, Ccandal & Manage, just to name a few. The album by Phoenix features the cream of the crop for UK hip-hop, names such as Klashnekoff, Keith Murray, Rustee Juxx, Lil Eto, Kyza Smirnoff & Scribblah Dan Gough from Terra Firma, Triple Darkness, 9 Planets, Jah Mirikle, DJ Triple & Yasine have all come down and featured on the album in order to secure its success for 2012. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.