“I heard “Sucker MC’s” for the first time. It was a wrap. I had to rhyme.” But for RepLife, a.k.a. Daniel Gray-Kontar, it has never just been about rhyming. He’s even tried to put down the mic and start new projects several times since his first engagement with rhyming on Cleveland’s streets at the age of 12.

An MC, poet, publisher, award-winning journalist for The Village Voice and The Source, youth mentor, and advocate for public education, RepLife belongs to the generation of musicians who actually walk the walk by being actively involved with improving the lives of underserved youth and fighting for social justice.

Lucky for us, RepLife’s childhood passion kept calling him back to the world of rhymes and music production. Since 2004, he has been busy recording his solo album — to which Belgian producer Cris Prolific has contributed a track –and working on other collaborative projects, appearing on a couple of songs on Montreal-based, nu-jazz producer Don-Ray’s forthcoming album, and is planning to release a joint EP with Mark de Clive-Lowe this year.

The hip hop, future soul, broken beat and nu-jazz culmination of RepLife’s solo efforts, The Unclosed Mind, released this week and is one of the most innovative musical projects of this year.

When asked about the concept behind the album’s title Replife explains that “it was a record I had to release, because I think that music is one of the primary ways that we connect with each other. So if we can unclose our minds to music, we can unclose our minds with respect to a number of other things socially-speaking.”

The Unclosed Mind is a global collaborative effort with artists from Japan, Sweden, London, Los Angeles, New York City, Montreal, and Cleveland, Replife’s native city.

Musicians Noni Limar (Sa-Ra Creative Musical Partners), Deborah Jordan (Silhouette Brown), jazz singer Ki Allen and rising Swedish star Kissey Asplund lent their vocals to the project, while Mark de Clive-Lowe, Dego (of 4Hero), Kaidi Tatham (of Bugz in the Attic), Atjazz, Don-Ray, RLP, Archetyp, and a host of others contributed production to the album.

Creating this record, say RepLife, was “more than about music. It was about connecting with soulmates.”

“I look at future music as being the present utterance we’re delivering as musicians in anticipation of the next frontier,” comments Replife on the direction of the future soul genre is taking.

“We live in an increasingly globalized world, and that globalization impacts us politically, culturally, economically, and spiritually. All of the musicians involved in making this style of music are all very global-minded. So I think everybody that’s a part of the future soul/broken beat movement realizes this spirit of the times.”

The Unclosed Mind released this week on Monday. Keep your eyes peeled for the follow-up album to The Unclosed Mind, recorded between 2004 and 2006 called The Book of Job, coming out on Futuristica Music by the end of 2008.

Replife is on record release tour in England. If you are in London, you can catch him tonight at Futuristica Music’s monthly event at Barrio North.