JURASSIC 5 Jurassic 5 actually numbers six, and brings "Quality" to the islands tomorrow.

Jurassic 5 brings
‘A’ game to the world

Still trying to break through in
America, the hip hop troupe
comes strong to Honolulu

---

By Shawn 'Speedy' Lopes
slopes@starbulletin.com

The voice on the other end is unmistakable; that velvety baritone flows from the mighty diaphragm of Jurassic 5's Chali2NA. The affable emcee sounds especially chill this afternoon as he takes a moment to talk hip hop from his hotel room in Melbourne, Australia. "I'm just cool, man," he purrs over the phone.

It's been nearly two years since the group's first full-length LP "Quality Control" dropped, and apart from a short break several months ago, touring has been a constant for the New Guardians of Hip Hop.

Jurassic 5 Where: World Cafe, 1130 N. Nimitz Highway When: 8 p.m. tomorrow Tickets: $20; all ages Call: 585-2877

"It's been pretty crazy," Chali affirms, speaking of J5's current swing around the Pacific. While the group is looking forward to playing Honolulu (appearing at World Cafe tomorrow) for the first time, there are enough surprises in the land down under to hold their attention at the moment.

"I heard they're playing our stuff to death out here," he says, with a hint of disbelief. "When you get rushed at in the airport or hear your record on the radio in a far away land, you gotta appreciate those places that are ballsy enough to play your music," he says. "It's time we start making it happen in America, God willing."

If America valued musicianship over marketability, Jurassic 5 would have been granted superstar status years ago. It's still bewildering to the Los Angeles hip hop troupe that, despite a worldwide fan base and packed houses nearly every night, Jurassic 5 has yet to receive significant airplay in their homeland. The group's singular sound, dynamized by agile basslines, skillful rhymery and classic pass-the-mic old school-isms make them a rare treasure of the Hip Hop Nation and the perfect antidote to the corn-rowed, bejeweled babblers who claim to represent the urban art form.

Backspin: When a union formed between MCs Akil and Zaakir of Rebels of Rhythm and Chali2NA, Marc7even and DJ Cut Chemist of Unity Committee in the mid 1990s, it marked the beginning of a new direction in hip hop. As Jurassic 5 (there are actually six members when you count DJ Nu-Mark), the group began to draw from a long history of influences by evoking the spirits of rap's granddaddies like Crash Crew, Funky Four + 1, and the Cold Crush Brothers.

Thank the Good Life, or more precisely, the Good Life Cafe, for raising the bar on L.A. hip hop and giving Jurassic 5 -- even before it became a working combo -- a weekly forum early on. Standing just below the racial divider of the 10 Freeway in Los Angeles, the health food eatery on the corner of Crenshaw and Exposition brought together aspiring lyricists from all over the city in the name of true hip hop.

In the same general neighborhood which gave rise to such jazz giants as Dexter Gordon, Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy decades earlier, the Good Life birthed such crucial West Coast hip hop talents as Freestyle Fellowship, The Pharcyde, L.A. Symphony and Volume 10.

"Just as you go to college to get your skills at that age, that was the Good Life for us -- it was wild," Chali says with a chuckle. "It taught us how to interact with a crowd, how to keep a crowd's attention, how to communicate with an audience and make people part of the show."

A no-cursing policy at the Good Life Cafe steadily drove performers to reach higher levels of creativity and attendees expected pure magnificence from those who dared grip the microphone. It wasn't unusual for an established rap star to grace the Thursday night crowd with his presence only to get booed for failing to bring his "A" game.

"You couldn't be wack in any way," he affirms. "The crowd would let you know right then and there if you weren't coming right. They would chant 'Please get off the stage' until you got off."

High praise was afforded to those who treated hip hop as their art, Chali says, and recording deals came to those who made the music a lifelong commitment. "I also paint, you know, I'm an artist like that, and (I've seen that) an artist can apply what he's learned in one art to any other art. Things like patience, perseverance, determination," he asserts. "I would have never thought I'd be in Melbourne talking to you over the phone from Hawaii and having you interested in anything I say. I'm still tripping out."

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