Albe Back

Albert “Albe Back” Daniels was born in The Bronx, NY to his father Albert Daniels and his mother Migdalia Vega. He affectionately gave the name “Pops” to famous poet, Abiodun Oyewole of The Last Poets. Oyewole introduced Daniels to poetry and at an early age. By the age of 15, Daniels grew closer with his cousin, Terror Squad member Christopher Lee Rios, also known as “Big Pun”. In his last conversation with Rios before his death, Daniels ended the conversation with, “I’ll be back...” Rios interrupted and said, “That’s it! That should be your name: ‘Albe Back’!” From this conversation, the name “Albe Back” was born. Having a vast background in poetry as well as hip hop, Daniels made connections with many of hip hop’s biggest names. In 2015 Daniels performed in the BET Hip Hop Awards Cypher as a featured lyricist. As a solo artist, Daniels went on to create three albums: Hi, Raphael De La Ghetto, and The ALBum. In 2002 he first met his now longtime friend, Ye (Kanye West) on the set of the video shoot for “Two Words” feat. Mos Def and made a brief visual cameo in the Netflix first-look trailer for JEEN-YUHS. Years later, Daniels presented a song to Ye, entitled “Good Night”, that West later added to his Graduation(2007) album. Daniels was a featured rapper on the track along with Mos Def and gained him both writer and producer credits. Since then, Daniels has continued to work with Ye as a writer on both Donda as well as Donda 2.