Five artists by this name: 1) Olivier Kponton better known under his stage name East was a french rapper born in 1969 and died February 3 of 1996 because of a motorcycle accident. He was born in the Parisian region of France and spent his childhood and youth there. He started his music career by working with famous french rap groups Alliance Ethnik and I AM. He is the co-founder of the label "Double H" along with his friend rapper DJ Cut Killer. ...show more

Five artists by this name: 1) Olivier Kponton better known under his stage name East was a french rapper born in 1969 and died February 3 of 1996 because of a motorcycle accident. He was born in the Parisian region of France and spent his childhood and youth there. He started his music career by working with famous french rap groups Alliance Ethnik and I AM. He is the co-founder of the label "Double H" along with his friend rapper DJ Cut Killer.

Even though he had never released an entire album, he is considered a legend among the french hip-hop community because of his one of a kind flow and awesome lyrics. 2) Criminally overlooked in the psychedelic scene of the early '70s, East was a Japanese band that made music seemingly right at home in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. Despite the usage of traditional Japanese instruments such as the koto, biwa, taisho-goto, and the shakuchi, they sounded more like authentic West Coasters than a quintet born on the Land of the Rising Sun. Performing lyrics in perfect English, and with enough of an Americana influence to sound at times like the Flying Burrito Brothers -- at other times, more like Love or Jefferson Airplane -- the five bell-bottom- and paisley-clad lads put out only one self-titled album in 1972 before disbanding.

3) East was a Hungarian progressive rock band active in the 1980's through to the mid 90's. Formed by guitarist János Varga, keyboardist Géza Pálvölgyi, singer Miklós Zareczky, bassist Péter Móczán and percussionist István Király, they debuted in 1981 with the album Játékok ("Games," subsequently re-recorded in an English version entitled Blue Paradise). They followed it up a year later with the high-tech conceptual album Hüség ("Faith"), which most fans cite as their finest album. Zareczky was replaced by Jószef Tisza behind the mic for the more commercially-geared follow-up, Rések a Falon ("Cracks In The Wall"), which nonetheless gave the band much success. ...show less