‘The Good Life’ of J5

wordplay by Samantha Donen
images by F. Scott Schafer

Hip hop act Jurassic 5 has more fuel to ignite their J5 anthem these days. When DJ Cut Chemist left the band last year to pursue a solo project, they went from six members to five. Judging from the new CD release, Feedback, the L.A.-based quintet has had no adverse effects from the change in line-up. Oozing with new beats, grooves, and rhymes the album is consistent which makes it insatiable to listen to.

In part, this is due to the crew’s DJ Nu-Mark predominantly producing all the “cuts and scratches” on Feedback. When reached for comment, Nu-Mark explains how the album came together. “I was not going to bounce through hoops doing all the production on my own.” Since the band had always talked about collaborating with other producers, they decided this was a good time to act on it…and collaborate away they did! Not only did they bring in producers like Scott Storch and Salaam Remi, they also worked with the Dave Matthews Band on “Work It Out,” the album’s lead single. “It gave the album a new life while allowing me to make the beats I regularly make and stay in my comfort zone”.

Feedback covers a lot of new terrain for J5 while retaining that underground rap that makes the group well known. The album kicks off with a live sound on “Back 4 U,” and then right into old-school homage on “Radio.” The backing female vocals on “Brown Girl” (Suga plum) are catchy beyond belief and so sultry. Songs like “In the House” have got old-school, West Coast funk. “We pulled samples from the 70’s for ‘In The House’,” says Nu-mark. “It has that classic J5 fashion of mic trading going on”.

But Nu-mark definitely has his own favorites, saying, “It is a tie between three songs.” First off, “Gotta Understand,” for Nu-Mark, represents J5 while bringing them to a new audience. It has a very soulful feel to him, more so than any other track on the album. “The Curtis May sample in it just wraps around you, and when we perform it live; it fills the whole room up.” (Nu-Mark gives props to the Seattle producer B1 for providing the beats for “Understand.”) “Future Sound” is his second favorite track on the album because of its straight up fundamental rhyming. “It’s called flexing, which is kind of my favorite style of hip hop as far as vocals go”. He adds that Soup and Akil pair up and do a duo with the rhyming. “It was fun to hear and good to see those guys on a track together. It gave the song a re-union feel because they have not done a duo together since their days as Rebels of Rhythm.” The last track of the album, the Latin-infused, “Canto De Ossanha,” is his third favorite because it is just different.

Nu-Mark laughs when asked if he is getting a sweat on stage manning the turntables alone. “All my friends and family who have come to recent shows say they can tell I am working myself into a frenzy up there.” He would not let on what fans could expect of live revisions to songs from former albums like Quality Control and Power in Numbers. “I usually tell fans to have no expectations of us as we have no expectations of them. Just come with an open mind”. He assured that J5 has a lot of new tricks and stage techniques that Colorado fans will not want to miss, summarizing, “Our live show has always been an accumulation of a lot of different parts of hip hop that really influence us.”

Perhaps it was an erroneous assumption to ask Nu-mark if there was ever any conflict between Cut Chemist and himself, because his response was,” Perhaps that is a question for Cut Chemist”. According to Nu-Mark’s point of view, there was never any conflict between them. “We have performed together for at least 13 years. When Cut Chemist wanted to leave the band to pursue a solo project, we were not going to say ‘No, you can’t do that’. We are all grown men and we just want him to be happy,” concluding, “sometimes you just got to give that 50 feet when someone asks for it.”
 
J5 is now just a five-man collective that also includes -Zaakir (Soup), Mark7, Chali 2na, and Akil. An interview with the band finds them fondly recalling the tale of how all the members of J5 came together.

“J5 met during high school at the Good Life Café in L.A.,” says Akil. The café was a health food store that hosted an open mic freestyle night every Thursday.  “It forced cats that were not into the gangster rap that LA’s hip-hop scene was becoming known for to congregate at this spot,” says 2na. Nu-mark adds that there were two groups originally, Rebels of Rhythm and the Unity Committee.

“The thing about the Good Life,” explains 2na, “is that it was a place where we could do combinations with each other and see what would be dope.” Over time, the two groups collaborated and created the song “Unified Revolution.” They liked it so much that the song was pressed to vinyl and given to every DJ in town.

Somehow the track got to Blunt Records, they heard it, and contacted Soup to press an album. “We were like, we aren’t even a group, we don’t even have a name yet,” says 2na. Apparently Soup’s Mom helped them find a name when joking around saying “you guys think you are like the Fantastic 5 but really you are more like the Jurassic 5”. The joke was that Jurassic 5 was the name of an elementary school in the area and she was implying they were all just young boys still in school. The name stuck and the groups merged, becoming the international hip-hop act still known as Jurassic 5 today.

“It (The Good Life) is something I will cherish for the rest of my life,” says Soup,” I got to cherish it because it is the reason I’m here.”

September 9th @ Red Rocks
September 10th @ The Fox

Jurassic5.com