Sid Roams is not one man. Rather, it is two men steeped with experience in the hip-hop game. As solo producers Joey Chavez and Bravo are familiar to anyone who's bought an ABB record or smoked out to an Infamous Mobb joint. And now the two have joined forces, combining their respective sounds into a next-level, trademark brand.

Joey and Bravo aren't just enterprising veterans who decided to become musical comrades. The two go all the way back to middle school in Venice, California. Brothers from different mothers, their voices even sound alike. "Me and Bravo were doing a lot of trial and error together," says Chavez. "We started off making beats at age 16."

Shortly after that in 1996, Bravo went to New York University. "Not only did that take him to New York, but it took him away from being able to focus solely on his music career," says Chavez.

Bravo earned a bachelor's degree in music technology and music sociology. He hooked up with Groove Attack's Zach Katz (now manager for JR Rotem), who encouraged him to form a short-lived group with MC Sandman as Bravo & Sandman. "During the little renaissance of underground hip-hop, I was able to get a few things done," says Bravo, who also made beats for Ahmad Jamal, Big Shug, and Jean Grae. "Especially being a hip-hop producer, New York was the place to be."

Meanwhile, Chavez knocked out tracks for Dilated Peoples (the first three Capitol albums), Aceyalone, Beastie Boys, Defari and DJ Revolution. He also authored instrumental records like Music from the Connection and Battle Axe Breaks.

Occasionally Bravo would visit L.A., and he and Chavez would reunite on tracks like Planet Asia and Phil Da Agony's "Classical Hit" (from the 2003 compilation Straight from the Crates: National Vinyl Association). But with Bravo committed to the East and Chavez living on the West, someone had to make a permanent move. "There was the urge for us to reconnect because we started off together, and our tastes were so similar," says Chavez. "making beats with somebody else, having someone else to bounce ideas off of, just felt natural to me."

Chavez moved out to NYC in 2003, and the two producers built a studio in Brooklyn. "We brought the team back together," says Chavez. With so much experience between them, they immediately drew production assignments. But after a track they made for Infamous Mobb ("Who We Ride For") was incorrectly credited to Joey Chavez alone, they immediately recognized the need for a single imprint.

"When we were initially making beats on my trips back to L.A., we started to make some beats that had a real specific sound. So we would say, 'Oh, that's a Sid Roams beat.' It was a name that Joey came up with," explains Bravo. "We were so disappointed that the [Infamous Mobb] credit wasn't right that we decided to create an entity that…"

"…was neither my name nor Bravo's name," adds Chavez, finishing his homie's sentence. "We played around with names similar to "the" Hitmakers or "the" Neptunes. None of it felt right. Instead we decided to come up with a name like it was one person making these beats, even though there was two of us."

Sid Roams also marks a new era for Chavez and Bravo. Once deeply involved in the indie-rap movement, they now supply tracks for the cream of New York street-hop, including Prodigy, Infamous Mobb, Dipset's Purple City, Agallah, Krumbsnatcha, Phil the Agony and, of course, Evidence's solo project The Weatherman (including the single "Mr. Slow Flow"). They've also begun mentoring a hot new group called Hard White. The sounds they make are gully and urban, with hints of 80s electro and eerie, Scarface¬-era Giorgio Moroder synth lines. As Bravo puts it, "We always both appreciated dark records and moody music. New York brings the best of that out of you."

"We've always talked about making a contribution to hip-hop," he continues. "It's something that we've cared about so much for so long that we just wanna continue to be a part of it, and make music that we want to hear."