In his 39 trips around the sun, CharlieHipHop has been called many things: asshole, Buddha, genius, moron, hottie, fatso, oracle, talking urinal, trailblazer, super guinea pig. One thing is for certain: This is one tough mofo to pin down.

Molded by rich and varied experience, CharlieHipHop has gorged himself on the wonders of the world; sipped champagne with ambassadors and kings; waded drunkenly into the open sewers of Global South shantytowns, the half-digested dinner spattered on his prominent belly earning him the scorn of their inhabitants; bathed under tropical waterfalls well beyond the reach of cheesy guide books, emerging naked to find himself face-to-face with puzzled indigenous inhabitants (also nearly naked) who shared the fruits of the jungle, some sort of nutty, leafy euphoria-inducing combination; talked his way out of getting shot or robbed on numerous occasions; meditated at dawn with monks in mountaintop temples; caroused until dawn with all manner of lechers and hedonists; studied under great scholars; attended a World Wrestling Federation match with a sanitation worker from Tuscaloosa... and on and on.

All along the way, CharlieHipHop has sung at every opportunity because singing is the only way he knows to express his (for lack of a better word) love fully -- his love of liberty, beauty, humanity... his love of love itself.

Charlie Rose said of him, "He is perhaps the greatest rapper of all time, and certainly one of the premiere contemporary poets." (Not really -- but he surely would say that if he were familiar with CharlieHipHop's prolific body of work.)

When asked how he's doing, CharlieHipHop's stock response is, "I'm here, aren't I?" His credo: If you're alive and relatively healthy, quit your bellyachin' and milk it for all it's worth.

Never a sucker for a fashionable address, CharlieHipHop lives in leafy North Flushing, Queens, and loves it. In his own words, "It's not where you are, it's where you at."

He makes his living as a peddler but lives as a poet. Like anyone else, he has no idea how many more trips around the sun he'll be making, and this fact compels him to "live deliberately and suck the marrow out of life."