Owldom Meets SensationalIn The Twilight Zone

Owldom had a traumatic birth, which resulted in him having motor problems. He picked up drumming at an early age, trying to compensate. Owldom suffered from violence and abuse as a kid. This led to him having difficulties expressing himself creatively. As a result of the violent abuse, he is losing his hearing. Music has always been his refuge.

He explored the nightlife in West-Berlin in the Eighties. Owldom was involved with the Breakcore and avant-garde scene in the Nineties, started promoting other artists and booking them. He picked up DJing, which was very difficult for him. Ten years on he was part of the earliest Dubstep events in Berlin. A couple of years later he had a breakdown, caused by the decades old abuse.

Owldom went for three months to Peru, to work with the Shipibos. Back in Berlin he underwent training as a shaman. After his final initiation he started seeing ghosts for the first time. He successfully fought back a demonic attack with the help of Aya Huasca and her sister Ana. A traffic accident and a fight left Owldom injured. Following this, he had problems staying upright for extended periods of time.

Around ten years ago, his shackles loosened after the shamanic treatment, he finally took up music production for real. Under the alias Ini7ial he took part in a couple of remix competitions, for Native Instruments’ Metapop, SoundCloud and Splice. He also contributed two tunes for the first collaborative rounds of Tim Exile’s Endlesss project. After nine self-released tracks, and a one-year break, he decided it was time for another incarnation. Owldom was officially born. The project is labeled under leftfield experimental, deconstructed bass, for lack of a better wording.

Out of the blue, Owldom got back in touch with the original freakstyler emcee Sensational. The New Yorker decided he had to voice Owldom’s tracks. A new partnership was formed. In the wake, Owldom also started to act as his booking agent. Sensational died unexpectedly, only days from the start of his comeback tour. The collaborative album gets released on Owldom’s birthday, the third of November, on his own label, Zeitmasz.

Colin Julius Bobb, better known as Sensational, was born in Guyana and grew up in Brooklyn.

From an early age, Bobb was interested in music, particularly reggae and calypso, before he discovered hip-hop culture. His musical experiments began to take on new forms as he rapped over albums by Karlheinz Stockhausen that he discovered in Bill Laswell’s collection. This would have a lasting impact on his unconventional style.

At the age of 15, he joined the Jungle Brothers, initially as a backup dancer and later as a rapper under the name Torture. He made his debut on J. Beez Wit Da Remedy (1994), where he stood out with his extremely fast flows. The album, originally produced by Bill Laswell, was shelved by Warner Bros. due to its experimental nature, and a tamer version was released instead. Four tracks from the original sessions were released in 1999 as The Payback EP under the name Crazy Wisdom Masters, on Black Hoodz. It wasn’t until 2020 that Bill Laswell released the complete album as it had originally been planned.

In 1997, Bobb signed with Spectre’s label WordSound, changed his name to Sensational, and released his solo debut, Loaded With Power, a groundbreaking lo-fi masterpiece recorded entirely using a four-track recorder, a drum machine, and headphones as a microphone.

Out of principle, Sensational refrained from using outside samples and produced his own sounds. He collaborated with Bootsy Collins, Dan The Automator, Kevin Martin, Mike Ladd, Kouhei Matsunaga, Sofa Surfers, Badawi, Cardopusher, DJ Sotofett, James Ruskin, DJ Scotch Egg, Ghostigital and Marc Acardipane, among others.

The biopic Crooked (2002), in which he plays himself, portrays the period of his life at WordSound.

The rest of his career was marked by immense productivity, as well as homelessness and drug problems.

The documentary The Rise and Fall and Rise of Sensational (2010) followed his struggle and his survival tactics over the course of five years, featuring interviews with fellow artists such as Bill Laswell, Mike G (Jungle Brothers), and Skiz Fernando.

Sensational, the uncrowned king of outsider hip-hop, remained uncompromisingly true to himself until the very end. In August 2026, just a few days before the start of his comeback tour, he passed away unexpectedly. Owldom Meets Sensational In The Twilight Zone is his final album.