BILL "BLADE" HOWELL was born to Leonard Percival Howell and Tenneth Bent-Howell in 1942 at Pinnacle in Sligoville, St. Catherine, on the island of Jamaica. In 1956, Howell and his family were evicted from the land that they had been living on for over sixteen years through a series of corrupt tactics from government officials, wealthy landowners, and crooked lawyers. Howell went on to become one of the first Black art directors working in New York advertising agencies in the 1970s. He has been living in New York for over fifty years.