Ruel Brown, aka Rula Brown was born in East Kingston, Jamaica and attended XLCR High School in Jamaica before he migrated to the United States to pursue a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Rula received his Master of Science (MSc.) in Mechanical Engineering from New Jersey Institute Of Technology with high honours. Currently he works for Lucent Technology as a hardware engineer designing telecommunication equipment to be used on the Internet.
Rula has always enjoyed listening to music since the early days, listening to Dennis Brown, Ken Boothe, The Heptones, Bob Marley, Delfonics & Stylistics. It was while studying for his Masters degree that Rula sang and produced his first song titled "Life without Love/Reggae down on it" which he released on his own BEE CAT RECORDS label out of New Jersey. The single went on to hit # 5 on the reggae charts in New York and did very well in other states and Europe.
Throughout this time, Rula produced other reggae artists such as SHAGGY, RAYVON, PAPA SAN, SHABBA RANKS, MERCILESS, DERECK PARKER, LEROY SMART, JACK RADICS, LUKIE D, COBRA, SKANKY DAN, RED FOXX plus many others. Some of these artist songs were subsequently released on other major labels such as VIRGIN RECORDS, ATLANTIC Records, VP Records, PRIORITY Records, SONY, RYKODISC, JET STAR RECORDS & RAS Records. Currently RULA has produced over 500 songs on the BEE CAT Record label.
Recently, Rula have been quite proactive in the promotion of the GRANNY-Icy Academic Scholarship program that he founded in September of 1999. The program was created in memory of his grandmother, Miss Adeline Smith and his mother Ms. Icilda Malcolm who died September 13, 1999. The program provides for scholarships, computers, printers & SAT books for high school students in the Mountain View Ave, Norman Gardens, Jarrett Lane & Saunders Lane community who would like to attend college in Jamaica or abroad. On 8/09/2000, Rula also created the Adopt a Student program for students between the ages of 10-13 who passed their common entrance exam and is on their way to high school. The first student adopted in this program was Kijana McIntyre, 11 years old, who attended St. Hughes High School.
Thus far, Rula has donated from his own pocket JA $6,350,538.00 (~US $105,300.00) in scholarships, computers, trips to Disney, gifts, Spelling Bee Prize money, SAT books, inks, printers, printing papers, for trips to 8 students visiting from Jamaica to Disney World, Florida in August 2001. An additional JA$390,000.00 was donated by others towards the GRANNY-Icy Scholarship and the Adopt a Student Program for a grand total of J A$6,740,538.00 (~US $112,340.00). My goal is to provide scholarships & donations to these students totalling JA $10,000,000.00 by 2010. The most recent recipient of the GRANNY-Icy Academic Scholarship is Hensley Marsh who majors in medicine at UWI. The first recipient of this scholarship was Nalisia Jackson and she majors in Business Marketing at UTEC.
To help support the scholarship effort Rula Brown produced and released his 7th CD on the BEE CAT label titled Hey Mr. (Do You Have a Heart to give?). The CD has 18 songs, comprising of lovers rock, message and a little niceness for everyone. 25 % of the sales proceed from this CD will be donated to the GRANNY-Icy Academic Scholarship and the Adopt a Student programs. Please check www.beecat.com or send mail beecat1@aol.com or Tele 770-715-0224 for more info. Stand out tracks on the CD are Hey Mr., American Story, I'm All Out Of Love, I Want To Know, Once Upon A Time, Boink, Bad Bwoyz (Duet w/ COBRA), Montego Bay & Party On The Beach.
More recently, Rula Brown has been working on his new album"Positive Inspirations" which will be Rula's ninth CD to date. 'Positive Inspirations is due for release in the winter of 2009.
