From the bottom to the top, at the age of ten Melina Jones was adamant about her destiny: to be a stone cold Bay Area rap machine. She is no stranger music as her father, Ernest East, is a local musician. In San Francisco during the 1970s, he was a vocalist for various soul groups including, The Invaders, The Fascinations, and East and Wes.... [+] Read More

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Remembered for a couple of striking singles and their membership in the Native Tongues family of groups, Black Sheep also recorded one of rap music's most entertaining debuts, A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing. Handling both production and delivery, Dres and Mista Lawnge appeared headed for a long, rewarding career, but unfortunately faded after the... [+] Read More

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A pair of deft, intelligent rappers based in Toronto, King Lou and Capital Q formed Dream Warriors and released one of the finest alternative rap records of the era, 1991's And Now, the Legacy Begins. The pair began working together in 1989, organizing their own Beat Factory Productions with Rupert Gayle and signing to 4th & Broadway. The single... [+] Read More

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Rapper/composer Guru (real name Keith Elam) first rose to prominence as the "lyrical half" of the hip-hop duo Gang Starr, one of the first outfits that attempted to fuse jazz with rap. After three albums by Gang Starr hit record store shelves (1989's No More Mr. Nice Guy, 1991's Step in the Arena, and 1992's Daily Operation), Guru launched his... [+] Read More

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Speaking out against what he saw as a decline in rap during the mid-'90s, Jeru the Damaja came to the fore as a self-proclaimed prophet and the savior of hip-hop, much as KRS-One had done almost ten years before. Jeru first appeared as a guest on Gang Starr's Daily Operations album, and his own deal with Payday/ffrr appeared soon after,... [+] Read More

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Although they predated the jazz-rap innovations of De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and Digable Planets, the Jungle Brothers were never able to score with either rap fans or mainstream audiences, perhaps due to their embrace of a range of styles -- including house music, Afrocentric philosophy, a James Brown fixation, and of course, the use of... [+] Read More

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Part of the early-'90s explosion of Latin rap, Lighter Shade of Brown (LSOB) was formed in Riverside, CA, in 1990, when the teenage ODM (One Dope Mexican, born Robert Gutierrez) was introduced to DTTX (Don't Try to Xerox, born Bobby Ramirez). The duo began cutting demos and secured a record deal within the year; they debuted with 1990's Brown... [+] Read More

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The best and most popular French rapper, MC Solaar found success in America among fans of acid jazz and jazz-rap (if not the larger hip-hop community) after guesting on Guru's acclaimed Jazzmatazz project. His fluid phrasing makes up for his lack of English, and the production on his solo work (by DJ Jimmy Jay and Boom Bass of La Funk Mob)... [+] Read More

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An early alternative to hardcore and pop-rap, the positive, message-oriented rap group Me Phi Me formed in Chicago in 1988 around the duo Cee Cee Tee (Chris Cuben-Tatum) and Falasz (John Michael Falasz). Signed to RCA by the turn of the decade, Me Phi Me released a few singles, one of which ("Sad New Day") was a surprise entry on the singles... [+] Read More

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As a member of Brand Nubian, Sadat X (born Derek Murphy) was one of the key MCs who related messages inspired by the Five Percent Nation. Two years after Brand Nubian's third album, Everything Is Everything, he made his solo debut with Wild Cowboys, which built on his lyrical reputation on top of tough, jazz-inflected arrangements. The album,... [+] Read More

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The Fugees translated an intriguing blend of jazz-rap, R&B, and reggae into huge success during the mid-'90s, when the trio's sophomore album The Score hit number one on the pop charts and sold over five million copies. The trio formed in the late '80s in the New Jersey area, where Lauryn Hill and Prakazrel Michel ("Pras") attended a local high... [+] Read More

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The jazz/hip-hop fusion collective Us3 scored a major hit in 1994 with "Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)," a song that displayed the group's fondness for sampling classic recordings on the Blue Note label (in this case, Herbie Hancock's "Cantaloupe Island"). The group was founded in London in 1991 when concert promoter and jazz writer Geoff Wilkinson... [+] Read More

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Lead Fugees rapper and sometime guitarist Wyclef Jean was the first member of his group to embark on a solo career, and he proved even more ambitious and eclectic on his own. As the Fugees hung in limbo, Wyclef also became hip-hop's unofficial multicultural conscience; a seemingly omnipresent activist, he assembled or participated in numerous... [+] Read More

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