Search Results for "Jeff Chang"

Introduced to the world by pioneering producer/DJ Marley Marl, Kool G Rap and DJ Polo remain among the less-celebrated alumni of the legendary Queens-based Juice Crew (which included Big Daddy Kane, Roxanne Shanté, Master Ace, Craig G., MC Shan and Biz Markie). But Kool G Rap’s streetcorner documentary thematics and raw, lispy, word-dense delivery were…

Hailing from Mount Vernon, the same New York suburb that produced Heavy D. and the Untouchables production crew, the teenaged Pete Rock (Phillips) came into prominence as a backup DJ for hip-hop producer Marley Marl. His recording career began with a series of fairly routine remix jobs for a number of new jack swing crossover…

Stomping forth from Long Island in 1991, Leaders of the New School were young protégés of Public Enemy’s Bomb Squad. Their subtle Afrocentric politics came coated in tasty upbeat rhymes. “Case of the P.T.A” and “Teachers, Don’t Teach Us Nonsense!!” are original schoolboy pranks and light protests propelled by the sharp breakbeats of Cut Monitor…

A band only in the loosest sense of the term, the Young Disciples consisted at its core of club DJs Femi Williams, bassist Marc O. Nelson and singer Carleen Anderson, the deep-voiced young daughter of James Brown funk diva Vicki Anderson. If Soul II Soul found its niche in the sound system mix of early…

New York’s Masters of Ceremony first drew attention with the single “Cracked Out,” an anti-drug blast set to an “Atomic Dog”-style track. Led by the high-pitched Grand Puba (Maxwell Dixon), the trio explored the intersection of raggamuffin styles with more traditional breakbeat-based hip-hop, landing solid punches with “Sexy,” “Master Move” and “One to the Knot.”…

In the matter of New York’s KRS-One, it’s difficult to separate the man from the myth. Raised in poverty by a single mother, Lawrence Krsna (Chris) Parker left home at a young age. The library-loving autodidact wound up living at a Bronx homeless shelter where he met social worker Scott Sterling. Taking the names Blastmaster…

Armed with promotion and distribution strategies borrowed from original DIY rapper Too $hort and the local hustling game, the Click — brothers and sisters from the Stevens family of Northern California — hit the streets of Vallejo and sold tapes direct, building a reputation that resulted in six-figure sales for their full-length releases. The group’s…

You can read either the effects of a decade of callous social policies or the bankrupt morality of an entire generation into the story of young Compton hustler Eric Wright’s rise to become one of America’s most controversial stars. But it is also fascinating how much of the persona of Eazy-E — ruthless gangsta, unrepentant…

If George Clinton’s Parliafunkadeliment Thang served as the musical basis for an overwhelming number of hip-hop releases in the late ’80s and early ’90s, nobody in hip-hop took P-Funk’s high-concept, African collectivism, democratic method and loony attitude more seriously than Digital Underground. Skilled Berkeley multi-instrumentalist Shock G (Greg Jacobs) was the group’s inventive overlord, orchestrating…

Former Hollywood BASIC president and hip-hop visionary Dave “Funken” Klein had lots of good ideas; the concept of making a record out of the Scared Straight anti-crime program was one. Formed by Rahway Prison (New Jersey) inmate Maxwell Melvins and consisting of real life-sentence convicts, the Lifers Group represented a small effort to reverse some…

New York Latino hip-hoppers Psycho Les (Lester Fernandez) and JuJu (Jerry Tineo), joined in mid-career by Fashion (Berntony Smalls) — the Beatnuts — initially made their reputation as versatile producers, working the samplers and boards for a slew of artists, including Chi Ali, Monie Love, Jungle Brothers, Pete Nice and Kurious. Then they began making…

Main Source was formed by Toronto brothers K-Cut and Sir Scratch (Kevin and Shawn McKenzie) on the turntables. They recruited New York rapper/producer Large Professor (William Paul Mitchell). After a well-received indie 12-inch single, “Watch Roger Do His Thing,” the group signed to Wild Pitch and cut the superb Breaking Atoms. “Looking at the Front…

Part of the ’90s West Coast revival of old-school rap sensibilities, San Fernando Valley’s Alkaholiks take the “party-and-bullshit” theme to its inevitable falling-down-drunk-and-hurling end. Fortunately they’ve managed to avoid becoming a one-joke act with a slick combination of E-Swift’s (Eric Brooks’) razor-sharp beats and Tash (Rico Smith) and (especially) J-Ro’s (James Robinson’s) hilarious rhymes. Clocking…

The Ultramagnetic MC’s, who arrived in the flood of crews from New York in the late-’80s that also included EPMD, Eric B. & Rakim and Public Enemy, made their early reputation on a number of classic 12-inch sides (“Ego Trippin’,” “Mentally Mad,” “Chorus Line”) which blended unvarnished beats with offbeat lyrical deliveries. Like the more…

Making their initial mark in 1989 with the singles “Rhymes Too Funky” and “This Is Compton,” Comptons Most Wanted was one of the first crews to take advantage of N.W.A’s gangsta breakthrough. Originally made up of Unknown DJ, DJ Mike T, DJ Slip, the Chill MC and MC Eiht, the group boiled down to a…

New York’s Organized Konfusion started as a duo of Queens high school friends concerned just as much with graffiti art, comic books and science fiction as with urban survival, black family life and fly beats and rhymes. Prince Poetry and Pharoahe Monche had formidable mentors — among them the late hip-hop producer Paul C. and…

While Southern California-based G-funk hip-hop was making its crossover moves in the early ’90s, a singularly different collective of rhymers dedicated to experimenting with jazz-based poetics and musical complexity gravitated toward the Good Life, a café in South Central Los Angeles. There, in now-legendary open mic sessions, dozens of rappers proved their mettle and pushed…