Wajid Yaseen is the man behind 2nd Gen, a fusion of electronica, industrial, and hip-hop sounds. Yaseen, born in Manchester to an Indian devotional singer, began exploring music by singing backing vocals for his father. After discovering punk and underground rock in his teens, he eventually ended up playing bass for Fun-Da-Mental in the mid-'90s. Yaseen continued to experiment with more extreme music on his own and in 1997 he released his debut EP Noise Sculptures, an aptly named introduction to Yaseen's heavily processed, sliced and diced sound loops. The following year he signed to Novamute and released the Against Nature EP, which added hip-hop beats to Yaseen's sonic arsenal, and began work on his first full-length album in 1999. In early 2001, the single And/Or, which featured remixes from Techno Animal, Cold Kid, and Si "Buckfunk 3000" Begg arrived just before the release of 2nd Gen's debut album Irony Is, which also featured contributions from Gallon Drunk's James Johnston. ~ Heather Phares, Rovi