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Jungle Brothers
It's hard to believe it's been ten years since the Jungle Brothers and their Native Tongues movement swept hip-hop off its feet. Ten tumultuous years, some gloriously high, some depressingly low, but while others of their ilk have foundered and fallen by the wayside, the Jungle Brothers soldier on. In a genre where many talk of longevity, but few attain that level of durability, the Jungle Brothers have achieved just that without succumbing to passing fads that slide snake-like in and out of rap. They remain true to themselves and their beloved art.
If, as pundits claim, hip-hop is going through a creative crisis, the Jungle Brothers don't seem to have noticed and it certainly hasn't affected them in the slightest. As they step back into the rap arena with their newest album, the aptly named, Raw Deluxe, a twelve-cut smorgasbord of beats, rhymes and good vibes aplenty, there's much reason to celebrate. The JBs are back in full effect.
"The name is pretty much self-explanatory..." explains the amicable Mike." It's the sweetest of the seed. The purest of the pure.""We definitely wanted to produce hip- hop of the highest quality." Afrika Baby Bam interjects. "It took a while, but I think we achieved what we set out to do and I think the public is more than ready..."
The seeds that spawned the Jungle Brothers were formed during hip-hop's halcyon days. With the bright graffiti on the city's street corners, parks and trains as a surreal backdrop and Afrika Bambaataa, Treacherous Three and the Cold Crush Brothers prov iding the soundtrack, the JBs were religiously soaking up rap by osmosis. Rappers Nathaniel 'Afrika Baby Bam' Hall and Mike G met while attending Manhattan's Murray Bergtraum H.S. and often hit block parties together. When the two MCs decided to enter the school talent show, they enlisted the spinning services of Sammy B a/k/a Sweet Daddy and, to use a well-worn cliche, history was made.
"We knew Red Alert because he was Mike's Uncle. Red used to DJ at the Roxy and had just started doing a show on New York's KISS FM," Sammy explains. "He used to take us to all of his gigs and up to KISS FM with him." After watching him, Sammy hooked up some old mitch match turntables and started DJing. With Red's encouragement and support, Sammy became good enough to fill in when Red was out of town. Red eventually got them into the studio to record their first demo and brought them to Warlock Records where they got their first deal.
Paying their dues and proving themselves on New York's unmercifully hard talent circuit, as well as doing promos on mentor and longtime friend Red Alert's radio show, the trio amassed a respectable underground following. The JBs eventually decided to make the transition from talent show performers to recording artists. In a small studio tucked away in Coney Island, the Jungle Brothers produced Straight Out Of The Jungle which spawned the titillating jams "Jimbrowski," an affection ode to man's best friend, and "Because I like It Like That" as well as the seminal hip-house single, "I'll House You," a huge European hit, which resulted in their first trip to Europe, where they were promoted by Jon Baker's independent label Gee Street Records. On their triumphant return to the States, rather than rest on their laurels, the trio went back to the studio to record the groundbreaking Done By The Forces Of Nature (1990).
On the Warner Brothers imprint, this time they enlisted a group of friends that were on the same creative wavelength: De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Monie Love and Queen Latifah. The result was the loose, but influential collective known as the Native Tongues. While the album didn't rack up the sales units everyone expected, creatively it is still considered a hip-hop classic with its positive, highly inspirational pro-black messages.
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