Mr Zay

Hosea Burnett has been a musician all his life, he said. \'By the time I was 10 years old, I had a heart for music and started putting songs together,\' the Hamilton native said. At 15, I started playing the keyboards and it went from there.\' Burnett performs under the name Mr. Zay, and has released his first CD, \'Bread of Life,\' on the Grafted In label, also based in Hamilton and operated by Eugene Meadows. Burnett said that he first met Meadows at a wedding. It was at Burnett\'s church and Meadows was a guest. \'He gave me his card and we hit it off immediately,\' Burnett said. Both share a similar vision to create urban music with a gospel message. \'It\'s the message that we\'re most concerned with,\' Meadows said. \'As long as the message is right, it doesn\'t matter what the genre is. \'We really wanted to reach the youth with a style of music that might reach people who don\'t normally hear the gospel,\' he said. \'Once they hear the words, they start to get the message in the song.\' So far, the team has gotten a great response from \'Bread of Life\' and are hoping to beef up the promotion and distribution. The CD is currently available locally at Galaxy CDs, 1238 Main Street in Hamilton, and the U.S. Market at the corner of Pershing and Front streets in Hamilton. In Cincinnati, it can be purchased at the Record Arcade, 5951 Hamilton Ave. Free samples can be downloaded from Mr. Zay\'s MySpace page at myspace.com/mrzay. On Feb. 14, Grafted In Records will release a second Mr. Zay album, \'For the Lover in You,\' with a message that encourages sexual abstinence before marriage. \'As Christians, we can express the ways we feel about each other in marriage,\' Burnett said.