Dion Cheese

Dion E Cheese (born 1968), is an African American author from Plainfield, New Jersey. He was a former hip hop recording artist who appeared in Black Beat and Teen Machine magazines in the 1980s. In 2013 he released his first urban-novel derived from real-life experiences in the urban jungle and the federal prison system.
Early life
Cheese was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the seventh of eight siblings, four boys and four girls. His parents, Joyce Cheese (later, Hoover) and George Hoover were natives of West Virginia. Cheese was raised in the small community of Potters (Pottis) Crossing in Edison, New Jersey, with his siblings and stepfather Artis Jones, until he turned nine. He was then moved to Plainfield, New Jersey.
Surrounded by a family with members who either sold drugs or were addicted to them, Dion avoided the lures of both to pursue chemical engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, becoming the first person in the history of his family to attend college.
To support himself he worked many side jobs during those early years, including at fast-food restaurants and construction companies.
Music career
His career began in the footsteps of his older brother, Robert Cheese (Dee Jay King Kut).
Dion Cheese wrote "Phenomenal", a tribute to Robert, which he recorded in 1986, produced by CSI Entertainment. By 1988 he had fathered a son and co-founded Third Street Productions with Big City Records owner Bruce T. Dugan. There he wrote, recorded and released "Third Street", "Come On Everybody", "Kick The Habit", and "Leading The Pack".
Cheese was featured as the first hip-hop recording artist to ever appear on the cover of Teen Machine Magazine in 1988, and featured in a three-page layout in Black Beat Magazine that same year. Performances followed at the Strand Theater and at the Newark Symphony Hall as an opening act for BDP, D-Nice and Poor Righteous Teachers.
During that time, Cheese became a partner in Big City Records and sought out and signed two other performers to the label: Nick D (AKA Soul King) and City E. Big City Records and the Nick D album entitled "Soul King" were featured on the cover of Billboard Magazine in 1990 in a column called "The Rhythm and the Blues" by Jeanie McAdams. The label also secured one of only seven spots at the Jack The Rapper (Black Music Convention) in Atlanta to represent independent music alongside powerhouse indie labels Tommy Boy Records (Naughty By Nature) and Ruff House Records (Cypress Hill).
In 1995 Cheese launched Up Front Records. He recorded "Nostalgia", "Angel of Death", and "Stank B**tches Come a Dime a Dozen". His newly formed group, comprising himself, his niece Malikah Watson, and his younger brother DJ Artis Cheese, was the featured headliner at the Indie Music Summit held in Memphis that year.
Writing career
Cheese released his first book, an urban fiction novel under the title Who Am I? The Chronicles of Cain, in the summer of 2013. The novel deals with the topic of drugs.

Cheese now resides in Easton, Pennsylvania, where he continues to write.

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