Kris Kross were a rap duo from the early nineties, discovered and produced by Jermaine Dupri.

Their debut album “Totally Krossed Out”, released in 1992, which included this song “Jump”, sold four million copies in the US and topped the charts for eight weeks. They were also famous for their fashion styling —consisting of wearing their clothes backwards.
Chris “Mac Daddy” Kelly and Chris “Daddy Mac” Smith, reunited in 2007 to work on different projects and still working for Jermaine Dupri.

The Roots, also known as The Legendary Roots Crew, The Square Roots and The Foundation, are an influential, Grammy winning hip hop group based out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, famed for a heavily jazzy sound and live instrumentation. Inspired by the “hip-hop band” concept pioneered by Stetsasonic, the Roots themselves have garnered critical acclaim and influenced later hip-hop and R&B acts. The Roots’ original lineup included Black Thought(MC vocals) and Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson (drums), who were classmates at the Philadelphia High School for Creative Performing Arts. As they began to play at school and on the streets, they added another MC named Malik B., a bassist named Leonard Hubbard, and a keyboardist Scott Storch. Another MC,Dice Raw, frequently made album appearances with the group from 1995 to 1999 before leaving to record a solo album. Scott Storch also left to pursue career as a producer following the Do You Want More?!!!??! album. The Roots filled his void with another keyboardist, Kamal who is still a member. A beatboxer named Rahzel also joined the group and contributed from 1995-1999. Alongside Rahzel was vocal turntablist, Scratch who greatly contributed to The Roots’ sound, most notably in live concerts. He left the group in 2003. Malik B. left the group in 2000 due to drug problems.The current members of The Roots are Black Thought (MC vocals), ?uestlove (drums), Hub (bass), Kamal (keyboard), Knuckles (percussion), and Captain Kirk (guitar). The Roots newest album ‘Rising Down’ was released on April 29th 2008. Features tracks with Common, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Saigon, and other greats.

House of Pain was an Irish-styled American hip-hop group who released three albums in the early to mid 1990s before lead rapper Everlast decided to pursue his solo career again. The group is best known for its 1992 hit single “Jump Around”, which reached #3 in the United States, #6 in Ireland and #8 in the United Kingdom. The band’s history starts with a failed short solo career, Everlast teamed up with DJ Lethal and high school friend Danny Boy to form House of Pain. The group was signed to Tommy Boy Records, and their self-titled debut album (1992) went multi-platinum, spawning the successful DJ Muggs produced single “Jump Around”. Fashioning themselves as rowdy Irish-American hooligans, they toured with various rap and alternative-rock bands after their breakthrough. They participated together with Helmet, along with several other rap acts, on the influential 1993 rock-rap collaborative Judgement Night movie soundtrack. Their follow-up effort, 1994’s Same As It Ever Was, went gold despite minimal airplay and no major hits. The first single, “On Point,” is noted for taking a swipe at another American rapper with a strong Irish heritage, Mark Wahlberg (“Calvin Klein’s no friend of mine/So I don’t like Marky”). Like Cypress Hill, who, with House of Pain, were a part of the loosely-affiliated Soul Assassins posse, they found urban radio airplay an increasingly closed path, which affected album sales. House of Pain abruptly broke up in 1996 after the release of their third album, Truth Crushed To Earth Shall Rise Again, which featured guest appearances by rappers Sadat X of Brand Nubian, Guru of Gang Starr, producer/rapper Divine Styler and reggae singjay Cockni O’Dire (credited as the Scheme Team). On the release date of the album, Everlast announced his departure from the group.

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The Wiseguys was a British electronica and hip hop band that was responsible for creating the song ”Start the Commotion” that was in a Mitsubishi TVadvertisement, as well as the films Lizzie McGuire, Zoolander and Kangaroo Jack; and “Ooh La La”, which was used in Budweiser commercials. Both tracks of which came from The Wiseguys second album, The Antidote. The band was formed in 1994 with two members, Touche (Theo Keating) and Regal (real name Paul Eve). They were partners from 1990 and released an EP called “Ladies Say Ow!” in the same year on the Blackmarket record label. The record label Wall of Sound signed the duo and released the double A-side ”Nil by Mouth” / “Too Easy” in 1995. Their first album Executive Suite was released in 1996 to critical acclaim, feature downtempo jazz beats and happy optimistic hip-hop numbers, and is now considered a cult classic.

 
The Thirst are an electrifying indie/rock band from Brixton who are emerging as one of the premiere live acts in the UK. Consisting of brothers Mensah (lead guitar) and Kwame (bass), alongside school friends Mark (rhythm guitarist) and Marcus (drummer), The Thirst blend together a vibrant sound and offer a refreshing and uplifting alternative to present youth culture. Inspired and influenced by old punk records, Hendrix, drum n’ bass and hip-hop, the result is uniquely their own.

From the first band rehearsals at Mensah and Kwame’s house to playing at local venues, The Thirst built up their strong fan-base the traditional way, gigging across London up to six times a week. Word soon spread of their talent and it wasn’t long before Ronnie Wood heard of The Thirst making waves in London. The Rolling Stone immediately sent his talent scouts down to one of their gigs. The Thirst blew the crowd away and as soon as Ronnie returned from tour, he along with his family went to see the band at their gig at The Half Moon in Putney. The Thirst was signed on the spot, making them the first band to be signed to Wooden Records.

Reggae, rock, afro, hip-hop, drum-bass, funk, samba and jazz, here is PHILHARMONIC WEED. PHILHARMONIC WEED were born in 1997 and they immediately started a whole new cultural movement in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. With backgrounds in Mozambique, Angola, Cape Vert and Portugal, and living in places like Brazil and Saudi Arabia, they started off with a career wich has been developing as a big promess in the new portuguese music. The true mix of values, musical and artistic colors filled up with soul and strenght have been fundamental in their path to create a unique group always searching for new directions. In 2005 they..ve started recording their second album with 13 new songs with the collaboration of several important portuguese artists such as Sam The Kid, Prince Wadada, DJ Nel Assassin and Melo D. This new album will be out in April/ May 2006.

#1 General Electrics is a free electron

Behind this name hides RV (Hervé Salters), above all keyboard player, specialist of instruments from the 60’s and 70’s: Clavinetz, Hammond, Rhodes. RV marked his style within the Vercoquin band, accompanying M and, on the occasion of numerous invitations, in Shoki Shoki by Femi Kuti, in DJ Mehdi’s Spy Story, or, more recently, within the Qannum Collective. He is to be found on the forthcoming Blackalicious album, contributes his keyboarding skills to Lateef The Truth Speaker‘s and Chief Xcel’s project „Maroons” and their first album “Ambush”.

#2 General Electrics is boundless
#3 General Electrics is unclassifiable
General Electrics belongs to those bands, which cannot be classified in a specific style. RV draws with the same urgency from the pop music, the hip-hop, the electronic music, the soul and jazz. With a very modest data processing equipment, RV mixes retro with electro, destroys and rebuilds, strokes then ill-treats sounds. Alternating instrumental with vocal tunes, RV achieves radical collages with Hip Hop, electronic and soul/funk music. “Cliquety Kliqk” is the outcome of this permanent mixture between “vintage” keyboard and electronic treatment. The result is a “modern” sound carrying with it the respect for the masters… which also is a visual experience, “Facing That Void” comes along with a fabulous video in tow! 

#4 General Electrics is sociable
General Electrics welcomes in three titles Lateef The Truth Speaker’s rhymes, the virtuoso MC from the Quannum stage (Blackalicious, DJ Shadow, Maroons).

Gift of Gab and Chief Xcel first met through a mutual friend in 1987 while attending J.F. K. High School in Sacramento,California. In 1992, Chief Xcel, now a student at UC Davis, had started working with a crew named SoleSides, whose members included DJ Shadow, Lateef the Truthspeaker, and Lyrics Born. Parker and Mosley formally settled on the name Blackalicious (”good black music”, according to Mosley) in 1992 and released their first vinyl single, “Swan Lake”, on SoleSides Records (the SoleSides crew’s own record label) in 1994. The song was an underground hit and Blackalicious subsequently released their debut EP, Melodica, in 1995, also on SoleSides Records. In 2007, The Gift of Gab, Lateef the Truthspeaker, and Headnodic formed a group called The Mighty Underdogs, releasing an EP through the Gift of Gab’s distribution companyGiftstribution. They are scheduled to release an LP titled Dropping Science Fiction in early 2008.

The musical style performed by Fela Kuti is called Afrobeat, which is essentially a fusion of jazz, funk and Traditional African Chant. It is characterized by having African style percussion, vocals, and musical structure, along with jazzy, funky horn sections. The “endless groove” is also used, in which a base rhythm of drums, muted guitar, and bass guitar are repeated throughout the song. This is a common technique in African and African-influenced musical styles, and can be seen in funk and hip-hop. Some elements often present in Fela’s music are the call-and-response with the chorus and figurative but simple lyrics.