| “ | Hello everyone! My name is Gabriel Brown or Black Gryph0n... | ” |
―Black Gryph0n's usual intro | ||
Gabriel Christian "Gabe" Brown (born: February 22, 1990), better known online as Black Gryph0n, is an American YouTuber, singer-songwriter, producer, voice actor, animator, and U.S. Navy veteran.
After spending 3 years performing around the world as the lead singer for the 7th Fleet Band Orient Express, he became a voice actor starring in films and series' such as Finding Dory, Geronimo Stilton, and Hazbin Hotel[1]. He was also a session and demo singer on the show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic which he is a fan of.
He is a prominent figure in the Brony Community consistently being guest of honour and performing at various conventions alongside his brother, Nathanael Brown or Baasik, and Michelle Creber, the voice of Apple Bloom on My Little Pony.
Gabe mainly does original music, but he rose to popularity for his impressions of singers and characters. His most popular video, One Guy 54 Voices", has obtained over 120 million views and over 4 million likes in less than a year since it was uploaded and it continues to rise. He has also released 2 full-length albums: IMmortal and Diamond released in 2014 and 2019 respectively with Baasik.
Early Life[]
Gabe was born in Annapolis, Maryland but now resides in Tucson, Arizona to a family of musicians. The eldest of 4 including Nate, Naomi, and Susanna. He preferred going outdoors than staying inside as he grew up without cable making him a bit late at pop culture and trends. He and Nate were both musically gifted and at very young ages started writing music together.
Being an outdoor person he participates in a lot of extreme sports such as sky diving, rock climbing, parkour, etc. He is also an avid tinkerer, he has made his own rockets, paramotor, and quadcopters.
Military Service[]
After graduating high school, he enlisted in the Navy at the age of 18 as Air Crew Rescue swimmer but was planning to qualify for the SEALs in which he passed the PST. During Special Operations, however, he was injured in a sky diving accident and washed out. Unable to recover in time to qualify again, he cross-rated to Gunner's Mate. While he was at GMA he volunteered for the Navy choir. This eventually led to him becoming a part of the 7th Fleet Band based in Yokusuka, Japan and became the lead singer of the Orient Express.
They went on tour, singing for morale and to share American culture and music. They performed around South East Asia covering American songs and singing in the native language of the country they were in such as Tagalog, Nihongo, Bahasa Indonesia, etc. for 3 years.[2]
7th Fleet Band Orient Express 第７艦隊音楽隊オリエントエクスプレス
The 7th Fleet Band performing in Japan
He earned 3 Navy Achievement Medals for being a "superb" vocalist and was honourably discharged and placed in the reserves.
Career[]
He made his Youtube account in September of 2007 primarily uploading outdoor related content and comedic sketches. After enlisting he still uploaded to his Youtube. His content at this time included sky diving, parkour, some sketches and trips abroad which didn't get that many views. He then became involved in the brony fandom while stationed in Yokusuka where he started to release music and made more My Little Pony related content like the "-Licious" animations and My Little Pony themed songs which boosted his popularity.[3]
After being discharged from the Navy he started participating more in the brony fandom releasing more songs like Proud To Be A Brony. He also started collaborating with Michelle Creber, a voice actor on the show. They met online while he was in Japan and they started to work together and share the same agent. On July of 2014, he released his first album IMmortal alongside Nate or Baasik with tracks loosely based on My Little Pony. It was made available on his channel, Spotify, Bandcamp and other music places.
By around this time, he moved to Vancouver, Canada where he gained permanent residence to become a voice actor to which he found very little success only getting small or uncredited roles and background vocals in songs, while also doing scratch tracks for songs in shows[4]. Afterwards, he eventually moved back to Tucson where he turned his focus on doing YouTube.
He and Michelle Creber continued collaborating and touring, releasing a few albums together including Getting Stronger released in May 2016. It was marketed and released similarly to IMmortal.
Michelle Creber & Black Gryph0n - BronyCon 2016
Getting Stronger Live @ BronyCon 2016
Gabe's content up until 2016 was mainly original music with a few vlogs here and there. It was also when he had over 100,000 subscribers. In December he released his first impression video titled "One Guy 22 Voices" and that started his boost in subscribers and views. He started to upload (relatively) more frequently and started releasing more song covers and impression videos which further increased his popularity, reaching 200,000 subscribers the following year. In December of 2018 he finally broke the 1 Million subscriber milestone. He celebrated this with a compilation of his best impressions and shared his history.
The year of 2019 was Gabe's most successful year. In March he uploaded "One Guy 54 Voices". It went viral, making him have the most subs and views in a single day in his entire Youtube career. He gained 3 million subscribers a few months after uploading it. In June he released the first single off his 2nd album titled, Last Chance. Four more singles were released until, in August 16th, he and his brother released the full album Diamond, making its debut at BronyCon. Then, at the end of the year, he was featured in YouTube Rewind for having the 4th most liked creator video of the year.
He was scheduled to appear on Youtubers react for FBE but was cancelled due to COVID-19.[5] He was also a finalist in the Shorty Awards for Best Youtube Musician.[6] Currently, he still lives in Tucson but has found work in some upcoming projects.
Filmography[]
Film[]
- My Little Pony: Equestria Girls - Friendship Games
- Finding Dory
- Thumb Wars IX: The Thighs of Skyskipper
TV[]
- Pacman and the Ghostly Adventures
- My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
- Littlest Pet Shop
- Geronimo Stilton
- Hazbin Hotel (pilot)
- Johnny Test
- Angry Birds: Summer Madness
Video game[]
- Yo-Kai Watch 3
- Billie Bust-Up (upcoming)
Discography[]
Albums[]
- IMmortal
- At Home
- Space Available
- Getting Stronger
- Diamond
Soundtrack albums[]
- His Story the Musical (Original Cast Recording)
EPs[]
- Tribute (Celebrating the Music of Michael Jackson)
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- He can hum and whistle simultaneously.[7]
- He and Nate can sing the U.S. National Anthem backwards.
- He was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome at 12.
- His family has released an album titled Space Available under the name Family Plan which can be found on iTunes and YouTube..
- Being trained in the Navy, Gabe is exceptional at handling weapons and is a skilled marksman.[8][9]
- There are marks on his body caused by radiation leaks while based in Japan.[10]
- He was nearly arrested for being suspected of being a part of a smuggling ring when he flew over where a base was.[11]
- He was the singing voice of Alastor on the Hazbin Hotel pilot. It was recently announced that he and many of the cast from the pilot had been replaced for the upcoming series to be distributed by A24.
- He is one of the singers in The Living Tombstone's infamous Overwatch inspired song "No Mercy".
- He is the singer behind asdfmovie's "Beep Beep I’m A Sheep" which is a playable song on Just Dance 2018.
- He has had over 200 flights on his paramotor.
- He has sung in twelve languages in his time in the Orient Express.
References[]
- ↑ https://m.imdb.com/name/nm6437354/
- ↑ Q&A Livestream, mentioned around 24:06-30:02
- ↑ 1 Million Sub Special
- ↑ Q&A Livestream, mentioned around 24:06-30:02
- ↑ Gabe gets invited to FBE
- ↑ Gabe gets nominated for Shorty Award
- ↑ One Guy 40 Sound Effects
- ↑ Reversify
- ↑ 4 Million Sub Special
- ↑ Q&A Livestream
- ↑ Magic music video, mentioned in the description