Performance · Production

Casual

US rapper John Owens

United States • b. 1975-12-19

Casual is credited on 278 releases across 100 albums tracked on Gatefold, active 1992–2025 — the collector-built map of who actually made the music.

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278

Pressings credited

100

Albums

Decades active

167

In collections

Biography

Jonathan Owens (born December 19, 1973), known by his stage name Casual, is an American rapper, producer, and one of the founding members of the alternative hip hop collective Hieroglyphics. He also reads and has been studying Egyptian Hieroglyphics for many years, makes videos on the subject on his YouTube channel Smash Rockwell as well writing about it on his blog Rap God. As a rapper Casual initially became known for his freestyle battle rhymes in the Bay Area hip hop scene and later developing into a solo artist. He is known for diverse lyrics, a complex multisyllabic East Coast influenced flow but with a distinctive Oakland accent. Casual's debut album Fear Itself released on Jive records in 1994 when he was 17 years old garnered both critical and commercial success. Along with Del the Funkee Homosapien Casual went on to become one of the most prominent and recognizable faces of the Hieroglyphics crew, releasing three albums all on the Hieroglyphics crew's own label, Hiero Imperium. He has released thirteen solo albums as of 2023.

Bio from Wikipedia