Third Eye Blind Frontman
Goes Hip-Hop

Stephan Jenkins may be a favorite in Tiger Beat magazine, which recently referred to the Third Eye Blind frontman as "a cutie," but no one expects to see him on the covers of Rap Pages, The Source, or XXL anytime soon. Even so, the alternative rocker with the brooding poster-boy looks considers himself a member of the hip-hop nation�and he's produced a hip-hop album to prove it.

Jenkins, who once rapped in an acoustic hip-hop duo called Puck and Zen, recently completed production work on an album by the Braids, a female hip-hop/R&B group from the San Francisco Bay Area that covered Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" for the High School High soundtrack. "I did all kinds of stuff�a lot of loops and some programming," Jenkins says of the Braids' as-yet-untitled debut, which won't come out in the United States until at least late July, according to the group's label, Atlantic Records. "It was pretty cool."

One thing that won't appear on the album, however, is any kind of self-referential Third Eye Blind samples. "I'll leave that to Puffy," Jenkins cracks.

That Jenkins is a hip-hop fan shouldn't surprise anybody who's heard 3EB's music� especially the ubiquitous "Semi-Charmed Life." "If you listen to 'Semi-Charmed Life' or even ' Want You,' I'm basically rapping," says Jenkins. "I grew up listening to hip-hop and stuff like that�Sugarhill Gang, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, the Geto Boys. It's always had an appeal. I also started out as a drummer, so everything I do musically is based on a groove, you know?"

Jenkins, who programmed some of the drum tracks on 3EB's multiplatinum self-titled debut, says work on the group's next album will probably start around Christmas. "I expect it to grow a lot rhythmically," he tells Wall of Sound, "a lot of loops." You may not have to wait until that album is completed, though, to hear a new Third Eye Blind beat; sources say the group recently spent a weekend at San Francisco's Toast Studios recording a drum-and-bass version of the Scooby Doo theme for an upcoming movie soundtrack.

-Josh Freedom du Lac