Overlord X

Overlord X (born Benjamin Balogun, in Hackney) was one of the earliest British hip hop artists to receive national acclaim in the UK, with his most well known song still being his second single release, "14 Days in May" (Westside Records, 1988) about Edward Earl Johnson. He worked with DJ Sir Preme T as well as other members of the "X Posse". He runs a music and creative production company.

History Overlord X first began rapping at the age of 14, before which he practised DJing – something which helped him in his later career to produce and record his own music for his songs. He first came to attention on one of John Peel's sessions, with three tracks recorded on 24 November 1988. He returned to the show on 2 August 1988, by now having joined Sir Preme T to record four further tracks.

Overlord X's first release was the song "Let There Be Rock" on the first of the Hard as Hell compilations in 1987. This was followed by his break-through single, "14 Days in May" (Westside Records, released 21 March 1988) Benz released a number of records on the Hacktown Records (a sub-label of BMG group) and Hendricks Records record labels including the Top 40 hits "Urban City Girl", "Miss Parker" as well as "Boom Rock Soul". The band members were known as Tim Shade, Big Ben and Darkboy.

He started record producing in 1998 working with unsigned acts. One of the acts X worked with was called Cherise, and she went on to win the MOBOs best unsigned award with a track he produced called "2nd Best" that led her to sign an album deal with WEA/East West Records. Overlord X at this time was working with a keyboardist/engineer and producer and joined forces with Mike soul The duo combined a production team called The beatruners and produced numerous tracks together over three years. They were later known as Clubz Generation. During this time he also came across a young Chinese music promoter called Jessie Tsang. This was in 1999 long before she became CEO of Solar Records. She was hired as part of Overlord X's marketing team. X offered her a long term position in his company but Tsang left to join United Business Media. Tsang gives credit to Overlord X for "my first real introduction into the whole music business" in an interview in the August 2018 edition of Soul Survivors Magazine.

Just before that, X put together the girl group Tommi, who released the single "What Part of No" which garnered industry attention and lead to their signing with Universal and then Sony. Their second single release "Like What" got to number 12 in the UK Singles Chart (Sony, 2003). The band is still going with original members Bambi and Peekaboo and a new member called Juice. A solo singer called Flick has also joined the group which is now known as F.A.T. (Flick and Tommi). Overlord X is credited with writing, producing and remixing a number of songs for artists such as Big Brovaz, Martine McCutcheon, Craig David, Peter Andre, Michelle Gayle, Beverley Knight and Aaron Soul. He went on to sign with Zomba Publishing.

Discography Overlord X: Weapon Is My Lyric (Mango, 1989) – UK No. 68 X Versus the World (Mango, 1990) Come and Get Me (as B. Balogun) with Jah Shaka / Raggafunk (Mango, 1990) With X-Posse: Project X (Mango, 1988)