|
|
Chali 2na Talks About the Early Days and the Legacy of Jurassic 5
After a decade since it was originally released, Jurassic 5 is re-releasing their self titled debut LP. Jurassic 5 is truly one of hip-hops legacies and heads from around the world will always remember them as a group and individuals. We caught up with Chali 2na for a moment while he was getting his hair cut to talk a little bit about J5. From the early days till the end, the memories, and lessons learned.
La Famiglia- Jurassic 5 is re-releasing the original LP, tell us whats going on?
Chali 2na-Well, the group is over in a nutshell. We wanted to give the fans a last hoorah so to speak. The LP, it’s like its 10-year anniversary, actually a little bit longer than ten years to tell you the truth. So we were like, let’s put that out, as well as a lot of cuts that didn’t come out or that people couldn’t get certain songs that came out on certain things. We put it all together along with a DVD of old footage and crazy stuff that we used to do, as well as a performance from Brixton Academy. It should be pretty cool for the heads that really supported us all these years.
La Famiglia-So what really was the reasoning for the end of Jurrassic 5?
Chali 2na-Internal shit truthfully. In my opinion, and my opinion may not be the same as the next man in the group, but in my opinion it was an internal thing. Just old school problems that finally take way, and the group basically dissipated because of it. You know, every good thing comes to an end, that’s kind of how I saw it.
La Famiglia-It’s truly sad for me to hear that Jurassic is no more….
Chali 2na-It’s been about almost two years now. The last time I saw everybody together we were in Japan leaving tour. It’s a sad day, but you have to just continue on.
La Famiglia-How did you guys all come together in the beginning?
Chali 2na-We were to different groups, Unity Committee and the Rebels of Rhythm. We used to attend this café, a health food place called The Good Life. We used to attend that place with a lot of other hip-hop heads that were coming out of Los Angeles underground like Freestyle Fellowship, Tha Alkaholiks, The Pharcyde, and different people. We just like each other’s style and we wanted to do a song. We did this song called “Unified Revolution”, ya know combining both of our names. Us doing that song together basically made a way of the world for us that was a lot deeper and a lot more positive and ongoing than any one of our two perspective groups that we were doing separate.
So, we decided to join forces and when we did that we caught a deal at TVT Records which is no more I guess. We were in there with Mike Geronimo and all them kats, and Ja Rule when he was in that group the Cash Money Click believe it or not…weird (laughs). But at any rate, they signed the song “Unified Revolution” as a 12inch deal. That got us a little bit of notoriety over seas, actually a lot of notoriety over seas. So, we went back to the drawing board, hooked up with this girl that had this situation with New Groove Alliance, a distribution house out of San Francisco. Her deal was to put out two EP’s and two singles. She was like, “I got one EP and two singles, do you guys want to do the other one?” We were like, “cool!” So we went back to the drawing board and made about six songs and it was the Jurassic EP. We put that out to her in the states and we turned the EP into an album by adding a few things on it and put it out over seas through Play It Again Sam. Play It Again Sam calls us and says that we have a gold record over seas, Concrete Schoolyard got really big, the video got played everywhere, it was the start of our career. Interscope was courting Jurassic, Jurassic decided to stay with Interscope, and the rest is basically history.
La Famiglia-What helped inspire and keep the group together through out the years?
Chali 2na-Everybody in the group except in the group was a father. I think that the family aspect of things kept us going more than everything. Trying to provide for our children…wives and kids were the fuel for the fire in a lot of ways. It’s been beautiful to be able to turn a hobby in to job that paid. It’s done more than just pay. It put something that’s more so immortal on this earth. Your voice recordings, that aint going nowhere even when you do. So that’s been a blessing to be able to do that, but like I said the family aspect of things.
La Famiglia-What was your favorite memory of your career with Jurassic?
Chali 2na-Wow, one of my greatest memories man was being able to perform in front of 55,000 people at Bonnaroo in America. We’ve done crowds slightly bigger than that over seas, but America is always a bigger market when it comes to that. To be able to do European festival type vibe, 55,000 folks watching, and you can tell that damb near everybody in that crowd is rocking. That to me was one of the most amazing points in Jurassic’s career. We took a picture of the crowd and used it on the cover of Power in Numbers.
La Famiglia-What have you learned through out your career with Jurassic?
Chali 2na-Wow man, just the art of show business. I think I’ve learned every crack and crevice in it in my opinion. Touring, of recording, of marketing, dealing with different situations as far as labels are concerned. And the contracts and agreements that you tend to deal with between the two. There’s a lot of different things that I think I’ve learned, but the whole of the game, I’ve been able to absorb through the classes of Jurassic 5. Between Jurassic 5 and Ozomatli, I’ve seen a lot of different aspects, I’m just happy to be here.
La Famiglia-Is there anything that you would do differently?
Chali 2na-The biggest life lesson for me is to be better prepared for anything that happens. My participation in this group and the music business almost killed me. We got into a tour bus accident in 2000 that almost took my life. I just gotta be aware that anything can happen at anytime. Whether it be a hit record or whether we fall off. Or life threatening situations and life giving situations, in any case. It’s just one of those things, being prepared for it all, as much as you possibly can be.
La Famiglia-What do you think is vital to the future of hip-hop culture in a whole?
Chali 2na-The biggest thing is you can’t know anything about the future or the present if you don’t know the past. So anybody participating in this sport called hip-hop, or any musical genre for that matter, should do their homework. They should go back to the beginning and it check out where it started, to where it is know, and make a decision about where they stand with in that genre from there. Some people just dive right into what is the now, and have no respect or concern for what was, in order to make the now. So, I feel like that if you can absorb the whole of the history, then you can absorb the whole thing and make a clear concise assessment so to speak of where you stand.
La Famiglia-What would you like to say to the people that have listened and will be listening to Jurassic 5?
Chali 2na-Bigger than anything man, is just thanks for all the support for all of those years. And for those will probably be just introduced to us through this project, to be introduced in this way, and do the little homework that it takes to learn who we are as a group and hopefully you enjoy what you hear. It’s really out there for the people. It’s kind of a keepsake to say thank to all those people that supported us all these years.
La Famiglia-Last words........
Chali 2na-Big ups to all those people that supported us in the past. Hopefully the people that hear and see this project that’s about to come out will enjoy it. Everybody out there that supported us, support everyone else in their solo endeavors as well.
Links
Chali 2na's MySpace
www.jurassic5.com/
Tell a Friend about This!
Check out the News you might of missed!!!
More News,Even More, & More
Home | Newsletter | Graffiti Gallery #1 | #2 | #3 | Art Gallery #1 | #2 | #3 | Submissions
This site is ran by La Famiglia Magazine. Independently founded, based out of Detroit. Support independent companies. Support independent artists. Support what you love.
Stand up for what you believe in.
|
|
|
|
|
