
Photo: Manifesto TV · CC BY 3.0 · credits
Phesto
Person · male · United States · Oakland · born 1974
American rapper
Timeline
1970s
Biography
Biography
Damani Thompson (born April 29, 1974), known professionally as Phesto and Phesto Dee, is an American rapper and producer. He is one of the founding four members of the Oakland, California-based underground hip hop group Souls of Mischief, and, with the Souls of Mischief, a part of the eight-person, alternative hip hop collective, the Hieroglyphics.
Biography
Born and raised in Oakland, California, Phesto D met fellow Souls of Mischief member Tajai, as well as Hieroglyphics' founder, Del tha Funkee Homosapien, in junior high school. Tajai introduced Phesto to members A-Plus and Opio, and the group formed in high school before releasing their debut album, 93 'til Infinity on Jive Records in 1993.
As a rapper, Phesto is "renown[ed] for his crazy, and up-tempo flows. Rhyming about anything from 'quantum cryptography' to secret Jedi mind tricks, Phesto's skills are undoubtedly a vital piece of the Hieroglyphics foundation".
Phesto has contributed to all four Souls of Mischief albums, as well as the two Hieroglyphic studio albums. He has also produced or performed on solo projects of various Hieroglyphics' members.
Solo
Granite Pedigree - EP (2011)
Background Check (2012)
Infrared Rum (2014)
With Souls of Mischief
93 'til Infinity (1993)
No Man's Land (1995)
Focus (1997)
Trilogy: Conflict, Climax, Resolution (2000)
Montezuma's Revenge (2009)
There Is Only Now (2015)
With Hieroglyphics
3rd Eye Vision (1998)
Full Circle (2003)
The Kitchen (2013)
Discography & profile
Normalised profile
Percentiles are computed over every artist in the database, so a tier-3 artist can still sit in the 95th percentile on a single axis.
| Metric | Value | Percentile |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia language versions | 1 | 0.1th |
| Spotify monthly listeners | — | no data |
| Release groups in DB | 0 | 0th |
| Studio albums | 0 | 0th |
| Awards recorded | 0 | 0th |
| Timeline events | 1 | 40.6th |
| Recording span (years) | — | no data |
| Genres | 1 | 56th |
Percentiles are computed at render time; missing values mean the artist has no data on that axis.
Discography (0 release groups)
No discography rows stored yet
MusicBrainz enrichment for this artist is still pending. Release groups appear here once it runs.
Stats & PK
Percentile within all 23,672 published artists.Put Phesto head-to-head →
| Metric | Value | Percentile |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia language versions | 1 | 0.1th |
| Spotify monthly listeners | — | no data |
| Release groups in DB | 0 | 0th |
| Studio albums | 0 | 0th |
| Awards recorded | 0 | 0th |
| Timeline events | 1 | 40.6th |
| Recording span (years) | — | no data |
| Genres | 1 | 56th |
Awards & honours
Line-up
| Name | From | To | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Souls of Mischief(band) | — | present |
Where this record comes from
portrait—Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 3.0 · retrieved 11 October 2026
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phesto%2C_2013_interview_%28cropped%29.pngcore—wikidata · CC0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7181480genre—wikidata · CC0 · retrieved 11 October 2026
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7181480seed-list—wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phestobiography—wikipedia-en · CC BY-SA 4.0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phesto
Why this artist is in the database
- List of hip-hop musicians
Tier rule: curated genre/region list
Image: Manifesto TV · CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Wikidata: Q7181480 · MusicBrainz: 76936c3b-e728-47ad-b9fd-36e0248170bd
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