James Castady-Kristament, best known as the front man for 'Haberdash Rap' group 'JCK', was born in Porirua, New Zealand on the seventh of January 1978.
James's first live performance came at a concert at 'The Sound Shell' in Mt Maunganui where he fronted a one-off band called 'Jism', singing Nirvana and Offspring songs at the local 'Little Fields’ festival . Soon afterwards he formed his first original band 'Mr Tumnis' at Mt Maunganui College - a heavy metal band influenced by the death metal scene and the huge popularity of grunge. He later went on to front a covers band called 'Peanut around the world' who covered the then latest extreme music of 'Marilyn Manson','Nirvana' 'Korn' and 'Kyuss'.
After the death of his mother, James moved to Auckland to study music. He fronted an extreme metal band called 'No ones own' who although were together for two years, only played 3 gigs. During this time James was also exploring his love of acoustic guitar and songwriting and started performing at local venues and bars in Auckland playing many shows to counter the frustration of not gigging in his metal band.
In 2001 James met and fell in love with Louise Ludbrook in their first year of a Diploma of Contemporary Music Performance at the Music & Audio Institute of New Zealand. After studying a dozen genres the couple embarked on an original project called 'JCK and the Dirty Hoe-bags' - a playful name that mocked the current hip-hop misogynistic attitude. The group consisted of James, Louise and fellow students Anji Sami and Katerina Theologidis. After the diploma ended Anji and Kat continued on their own musical paths and James and Louise continued with the abbreviated name of 'JCK'.
Hip-Hop music at the time was dominating New Zealand in every way. James had always been exposed to Hip-hop through his older sister Leisa Matthews who was an avid vinyl collector of reggae and hip-hop and would make James compilation tapes from the age of 11, which he would listen to religiously. Some early influences were 'Ice T'. 'Public Enemy', 'NWA', 'Eric B & Rakeem', 'Linton Kwesi Johnson', 'Bobby Brown' & 'Mc Hammer',
'JCK' started with a vision to be Rap Music but not necessarily Hip-hop as they saw Hip-hop as a culture that they did not necessarily belong to. Because of this, James Castady-Kristament coined the term Haberdash Rap to describe their vision of a free-form of Rap Music that didn’t always follow the lead of American Hip-hop music and culture. They took influence from Hip-hop, Pop, Soul, Rock, Funk and Industrial Music and based their songwriting on the idea of bringing these cultures and styles under the broad banner of Rap Music.
