Jadakiss
When Jadakiss hit the rap scene with his deafening group, the LOX, all hell broke loose. Why, you may ask, well, primarily because there had never been a hip-hip group in history who revolutionized the sound of hip-hop music as fast as they did. -They're the only group who knew how to precisely give you lyrical food for your mind while simultaneously making thongs shake and drop (check out the meteoric rise of their platinum Money, Power & Respect for evidence). Plus, they redrew the rap map and became an influential force in the musical genre. Now, as one of the toughest and tightest emcees to ever grip the mic, Jadakiss, the LOX's front man, is on the move to jump-start his solo career with his unprecedented album-Kiss Tha Game Goodbye-which, due to its brilliance, is destined to go down in history books.
Drag - On
How would you feel if your first album was the next release from the skyrocketing Ruff Ryders label? DMX has six platinum plaques and counting; Eve's freshman effort has icy grey all over it; The Lox are poised to take over the charts; and, all of a sudden... center-stage is set for you. Well, 20 year-old hip hop lyricist Drag-On feels the pressure. However, twelve years of paying dues and hard preparation have him feeling like his platinum opportunity is now. "It's my time... it's... my... time... I feel pressure, but I've been working hard at this. I paid my dues, I went on the Survival of the Illest Tour, the Hard Knock Life Tour, been on X's three albums, the Ruff Ryders Compilation and now I got my album coming out," declares Drag in a confident and reassuring voice.
The Lox
The lox ain't shit. That is when it comes to putting out garbage that the streets can't feel. Presently, the masses that are ignorant to the true life force of Hip-Hop want easy to digest, microwavable ear sweets that they can wave glasses of cheap champagne to. It's too bad that the Lox can't provide that. They're too busy improving style and rhyme flow that influenced an entire wave of emcee. Pay attention to the majority of uptown and Harlem based rappers and you will hear the lyrical path that Jason "jadakiss" Phillips, David Styles, and Sean "Sheik" Jacobs laid down for the rest. Even though they've sprinkled their sharply spiked lyrics over softer hits by the likes of Mariah Carey ("Honey"), LSG ("you Got Me") and Mona Lisa ("I Just Wanna Please You") the Lox have the uncanny ability to create true to life verses that give any song a ghetto pass into the hearts of the rough and rugged. "Even if we rhyme on some commercial shit we still keep it street," Styles confirms. So let it be known, The Lox absolutely suck at spitting that ol' fake stuff that dung lovers are afraid of
EVE
Philadelphia's Eve Jihan Jeffers got her first break in the record business the way many rappers go platinum -- she walked right through the front door. The story goes something like this: Some of her friends (who now serve as her managers) hooked up with producer extraordinaire Dr. Dre and arranged an impromptu audition for Eve -- well, kinda,...they never told him that she was coming. "Out of nowhere they put the tape on and I stood up and started rapping and he was looking at me like, 'Why is this girl rapping?'," recalls Eve. Liking what he saw after only a few bars, the executive cut the audition short and promised to bring Eve to California to work with the good Dr. -- Eve was not impressed.
"I had been through a lot of auditions," she admits, "so I thought, 'If he calls, he calls; if he don't, he don't.' But he called the next day - I had auditioned for him on a Saturday and that Sunday he called and told me I had to be out there by Friday."
Eve moved out to L.A. Dr. Dre put her in the studio, where she completed a three songs demo tape. "Eve of Destruction," one of the songs from those sessions, wound up on the Bulworth soundtrack. Unfortunately, Dr. Dre was still overseeing the growth of his fledgling label, and Eve's one-year contract with Aftermath expired before she could get to work on her album.
"I believe that everything happens for a reason," says a pragmatic Eve. "The music that I really wanted to write at the time wasn't coming through me."
While still in L.A., Eve forged a bond with a rising star named DMX, who she met through producer Mail Man, while X was in town promoting his debut album, It's Dark And Hell Is Hot. When she moved back to Philly, Eve would come to New York and hang out with the rest of the Ruff Ryder's camp. Soon enough, Eve was invited to join Ruff Ryders Records through a trial by fire. "The way I was signed was in a cipher," Eve remembers. "I had to go up against [Ruff Ryders emcees] Drag-On and Infa Red - I was shook. If I was wack, Ruff Ryders wouldn't have signed me."