Jungle Brothers bring their heroic hip hop to The Kazimier next month, Getintothis‘ Neil Docking asks What U Waiting 4?
Hip-hop pioneers the Jungle Brothers are set to play a career-spanning and genre defying live set at the Kazimier next month.
The American trio, whose unconventional sound saw them fuse rap and jazz before becoming one of the first hip-hop acts to work with a house music producer, rose to prominence in the mid-1980s.
The New York natives released their first album, Straight Out The Jungle, in 1988, with its Afrocentric lyrics and innovative beats soon gaining critical acclaim.
Mike Gee, Afrika Baby Bam and DJ Sammy B then joined the influential Native Tongues collective, working alongside legendary hip-hop groups De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest. In doing so they helped create a movement that shaped the work of artists including The Roots, Common and Mos Def.
A year after Straight Out The Jungle’s release, the single I’ll House You was added to the album – a hip house record which became a worldwide club hit.
The group’s second album, Done by the Forces of Nature, featuring one of the group’s best known cuts, What U Waitin’ 4, was an instant classic and later named by The Source magazine as one of the 100 best rap albums of all time.
However, critical acclaim was not matched by commercial success, and after infuriating Warner Bros with their experimental 1993 LP, J Beez Wit the Remedy, it was four years until their next full length effort.
Raw Deluxe included Jungle Brother (True Blue), a track sampling The O’Jays’ Family Reunion, with the immortal opening lines “10th round, and still catching that beat down…”
But it was the frenetic jungle remix of the song by Urban Takeover boys Aphrodite and Micky Finn that became an all time drum ‘n’ bass classic, the infectious bassline and rolling wording creating one of the genre’s top anthems.
Since that time the Jungle Brothers have gone on to record a further three studio albums, released a greatest hits and remixes and rarities double album, and toured intermittently. Don’t miss this chance to see them in action.
The Jungle Brothers play the Kazimier in Wolstenholme Square on October 2. Tickets are £20.
