Maybe I'm outta touch, but this is the saddest news I have heard for Hip Hop in its entirety for a very long time...
I myself have only recently stumbled upon AG.com in my 12 year history of being involved in this sacred artform. I have searched the posts here on AG.com to see if this news had been mentioned at all, but it hasnt.
I had not visited this crews site or their myspace since they released their album "Feedback" realeased in 2007, but I happened to be reading their blog today on their myspace page, which I hadnt done since about 2006.
We and a few others were hoping to bring the crew to South Africa in 2009 for 2 limited sale shows in JHB and CPT, their booking agents had been giving us a run around and it was a mystery why NOTHING was coming out of it as we had the financial backing. I visited their site, myspace, interscope and sent emails.... nothing
If I could name "one" crew that has depicted the essence of Hip Hop and its elements since RUN DMC, it would have to be Jura**ic 5. Personally J5 opened my mind to the true power of Hip Hop and the elemental specialisation anyone could be involved in and explore, no matter what race, creed or social background.
They fulfilled the "legacy" of hip hop...
Read Akil's (J5 MC's) personal and particularly sad account of the demise of one the sickest crews, the fathers of newschool, the representatives of the true hopes for our artform... Jura**ic 5....
I have posted these posts here for you to read, they are long, but a true representation of what our industry suffers from, yeah J5 takes a stab at Interscope and their dealings, but the social comment about Hip Hop and where it is, is something we should all listen to and take what we can from it...
Here it is and I wish it wasn't true...Friday, May 16, 2008
J5 IS DEAD(CAUSE AND EFFECT)
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Blogging
AS WAS STATED IN MY LAST BLOG ENTITLED RACISM I SAID MY NEXT BLOG WOULD BE AN ACTUAL TRUE AND LIVING ACCOUNT OF THE EFFECT OF THIS PHYSCOLOGICAL WAR FARE IN HIP HOP.I WOULD LIKE TO THANK ALL THOSE WHO LEFT COMMENTS MUCH RESPECT ESPECIALLY TO THE ONE WHO LEFT THE COMMENT ON WHAT HAPPENED TO THE GROUP WELL HERE YO GO. PLEASE FOR GIVE MY SPIRATIC USAGE OF CAPS.
"Hip Hop is dead" as bodly stated by Nas seems to be the case with my group Jura**ic 5 wich at this point has been stated clincally dead.the cause of its death is due to multiple gunshot wounds but the one bullet to the heart of the matter was the death blow.It is the cla**ic case of the demise of pure hearted artist trying to survive in an ocean full of sharks smelling the blood of its prey from miles away.like i said it is the cla**ic case of group break ups (bullet 1) artist lable differences Interscope did not understand us from day one im not talkin about individuals at the lable cause their were plenty of people at the lable that loved and did what they could do,Tom Wally being one he was the active Vice President when we first signed to Interscope he was the reason we had 3 videos for the "Quality Controll" album but he left shortly after that and we have only had 2 videos since his departure to Warner Bros." Whats Golden" for "Power In Numbers" and "Work It Out" for "FeedBack". the machine on a whole didn't have a clue of what to do with us we never fit in to their Inter scope of things not to put the total blame on them cause no one made us sign but it is what it is like so many artist that fall victim to believing what the label say and the label believing that the artist must hear and obey and us being the group that we were always had a problem with that industry code of so called ethics so we did things not inspite of but as preventive measures by doing for self as much as we could.one of the first signs that i recieved that it was going to be a rocky road at Interscope was my conversation with one of the head of urban radio promotions department KEVIN BLACK WHO I purposely tried to get at because i knew how important it was for j5 to be connected with the so called urban world especially since that was one of the main reasons for signing to interscope because they had a lock on both sides of the game alternative as well as the urban market we already had are hands in the alternative world being that the majority of our fan base was college white students,skateboarders,rock, punk kids wich we accepted whole heartedly, but at the same time we did not grow up in that world the majority of the group was black raised in the ghettos of amerikkka so it was only right that we would want to appeal to them as well once given a chance to be seen and heard by them we knew it would be a wrap, and what better way than thru a lable that blew up eminem in the ghetto "BLACK FOLKS DONT BUY RECORDS WE VALIDATE THEM". So i attempted to meet with him to discuss this concern of mine being that we are a Hip Hop group and Hip Hop was created in the ghetto so why not promote it there as well I met with Kevin inroduced my self voiced my concern to do what ever it took to make this happen and the answer I got was shocking mind you this is one black man talking to another black man he told me to "make black music" i couldn't believe what i heard my jaws dropped i was in utter disbelief so i asked him had he heard anything off the album he said yes but yall need to be doing shit like this and put on some down south jigga boo music(NO IM NOT DISSIN THE SOUTH)he started mimicking and acting it out mind you this was like about 2 wks before Quality Controll came out at that point i knew we were doomed from the start. to add injury to insult i once again took it upon my self to push forward not inspite of but as a preventive measure so I went to radio my self took Quality Control to Julio G (the homie 4 life) who was at the Beat 92.3 he played it put me on the air the whole nine he showed much love.i went to Interscope the next day seen KEVIN BLACK AGAIN BUT BEFORE I SEEN HIM I RAN INTO SOME OF HIS fellow workers who told me that they heard me on the radio gave me props 4 doing that then walks in MR BLACK I told him as well as his fellow workers told him about Julio playin the record and all he could say was "they just gotta keep playin it"so i said thats not my job thats yours and i have already done half of the work 4 you we all laughed but it really wasn't funny it was really sad cause it was an indication of what was to come. Interscopes urban dept never even tried to push us lead by another condesending black man STEP JOHNSON whom I met 1 time in an elevator he never got a chance to even know us,but thought they had us figured out labled us backpackers under ground artistic want to be creative rappers that dont care about selling records negro please ! This was not only the sentiment at Interscope but the whole industry at the time. there was a New movement emerging (BLACK STAR,DIALATED,BLACK EYED PEAS,J5,LYRICIST LOUNGE,RAWKUS REC ECT,) happening and they was not apart of it so they had to come up with a lable to describe to there white bosses this noise that was comming from the basement so as to not get exposed for not doing there job wich was being in touch with the streets(not only the thug aspect of the streets) this new term was coined backpack rap like i said artist that dont give a damn about selling records this is why they never pushed the button on any of our projects.jura**ic 5 never got serviced to urban radio we have never been to any urban stations to promote any of our albums around the country not one i dont even know what a hot 97 looks like or wgci in chicago its one thing not to promote but to add on by telling certain djays at urban stations that our music is not black or what your station plays is bullshit let the people decide or the dj with out a biased opinion given from one of the top urban radio promoters and lable in the world. the track record speaks 4 it self so what station wouldn't believe them if they said you need to play this record in fact any body could have promoted death row .dr.dre,eminem.g unit,tupac,eve, those records where in demand how hard is it to promote what people already want you need not twist an arm to get these records played but if you can break a j5,bep(at that time),planet asia,4 avenue jones,last emperor who were all on intrescope at the time then you doing something which only proved that they wasn't doing shit but eating off the fat of the land.with all that quality still went gold fast forward to power in numbers when creating the album we decided to let steve berman(a big wig at interscope) come to the studio and listen to what we were creating the thing about this move was to get them on board and make them feel apart of our project as oppossed to just turning in the album and letting them put it out like what was done on "quality" we purposely did certain songs and picked certain beats to avoid what had happened with quality as far as having something the urban department could work with hence forth whats golden wich till today is one of our biggest songs. steve berman heard what we created and a**ured us that they would do what was needed to make this a successful album with the lables full backing especially since our go to guy at the lable tom wally had just left.steve heard thin line feat.nelly furtado and was exited he as well as others at the lable knew going into the album thin line was a for sure hit but we and they knew it wasn't the first single "whats golden " was the obvious and it did what we expected and much more.the problem came when time to go with the next single wich was "thin line" interscope could not get dream works the lable that nelly was on to sign off on her being on the single because of a prior situation with a song put out by interscope that featured nelly with miss jade,missy elliott and timberland a for sure seem to be hit but was a flop they spent allot of money to no avail where their expectations met. dream works michael mann thought since nelly just recieved a grammy that she was wearing her self thin in the public eye and that this would not be a smart move and did not give us the right to put it out but before all of this interscope didn't even want to give us a 2nd single reasons being they said we spent too much money on whats golden. how so when first off we where on the smokin grooves tour not with the help of interscope ?so they didnt need to spend any money as far as a promotional tour like so many artist have to do we where blessed to already have our shit together on the touring side to the point i can proudly say we never took tour support meaning intersope never paid for us to be on the road doing shows anytime in our career .if you seen us on the road it was due to us grinding it out ourselves,they interscope didn't pay for us to have the sprite commercial rather sprite sought us out but interscope intercepted the situation and used it to there advantage as far as promoting the group. interscope got paid for us doing that not us the same goes for the master card commercial they sought us out but once again interscope intercepted the situation and beniffited more than us we had so many friends mad thinking we where soliciting help to the nation so why wouldn't we get at them knowing that so many of our friends and family need work (catch 22 )damned if you do and damned if you dont we never felt good about the master card situation if at anytime i felt like we comprimised it was here the beggining of the end the door opening to us givin in the bullet that threatend our existence the small but big dose of kriptonite that slowly but surely began to break down the super group. there was supposed to be a contest for a student to be an intern working for us and we never even met the winner so in the end how much money did they really spend to promote whats golden other than money they were supposed to spend on any way no more or less. so with a whole lot of pushing they finally gave in to do a 2nd single about 5 to 6 months after "whats golden" with "thin line" featuring mya second comprimising situation we gave in to trying to work with the lable that to me was a bad move not because of mya wich was cool as hell but because it wasn't us it made it seem like we were reaching and we called our self not trying to pull out of somthing we just fought for. once again catch 22.there reason for using mya was that we can maybe reach that audience we needed to complete the circle good idea bad move cause it did nothin no radio no video i always argued that freedom should have been the 2nd single especially since thin line was a dead issue with nelly i would have thought that they were smarter than that but what the f*** was i thinking.im of the opinion that 3 strikes and your out knowing this coming into our 3rd album feedback wich in my opinion took way too long wich is a whole nother topic i will get to wich gave us a half strike the other half came when we finally met with jimmy iovine the main figure at interscope who we met once before in 99 upon 1st signing to the lable when they gave us the speech on why we should come to the lable and once again in 06(7 yrs later) to let him here what we had been workin on as a means to get the lable behind our project with the mentality that we dont want them to think that we are some hard a**es to work with you know compromise, kiss a** wich me myself and i already felt we did twice and got bit in the a** but being in a group it is all about comprimise so i had to roll with the majority opinion we met with jimmy played him what we did got a few nods on certain songs one in particular "work it out" wich he really liked he said and i quote"i really like this song but i dont see it as a first single"wich opened the door for us to interject what we went there to do was to be open if he suggest that we do some more songs and work with some producers that he thought could give us that first single in wich we interjected that we would like to work with kanye ,just blaze ,pharell,and scott storch kanye had a deal with sony and couldn't do it we reached out to the rest but they were busy scott answered the call being he already had a production deal with jimmy as well as he was a fan of the group and wanted to wk plus we knew him from the days of the roots we met in france in 2000 opening up for them so to us it was natural and not contrived no matter how it looked to fans .we did 4 songs only kept one and that still wasn't the first single (what the f***) the first single turned out to be work it out the song jimmy said" he dont see it as a first single "the other half a strike 3 and you out.like i said the other half a strike came from us (bullet 2) waiting too long to come back out i have my opinion about that but i choose not to talk about that in this.bullet 3 we began to second guess our selves as to what we knew was right as far as the album was concerned as a liner note salam remmy had the best method and music to remedy the situation as far as giving us the production and direction that we wanted and needed but if you dont believe in yourself how can you expect someone else to all of this was a dominoe effect in my opinion we should have rode harder for what we believed in but the kryptonite had already been injected inside the system it was only a matter of time before we kicked the bucket. a couple of more shots to the body resulted to internal bleeding mis management of the body and its vital signs that gave an indication that it was way more serious than it looked outside was evident.this lead to a fight for survival mode that was natural for an immune system being attacked when one knows that death is aproaching.the mind starts to play tricks on you and you fall into this dilusional state as a means to stay alive but the inevitable is a must so in march of 2007 jura**ic 5 died. leaving behind many family,friends and fans who loved and supported them from day one.
this is a breif autopsy report of the group jura**ic 5.to all those family, friends and fans who inquired as to the where abouts and reasons i hope this would suffice as far as an explanation is concerned. my heart goes out to y'all all i can do is say that i'm sorry we ended up like this.
be on the look out for a more detailed account of the inner workings and dealings of jura**ic 5 from the start to finish in my memoirs titled "jura**ic 5 minutes of funk"
You can read the actual posts on Jura**ic 5's myspace blog and the few posts that followed this one by Akilhttp://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=17911058
