Sometime early in 1997, I was 17 years old and 90s hip hop had officially taken over my life. I loved going to different record stores nearby (Tower Records, The Wherehouse, Sam Goodies, Music Trader) where I’d dig through CD racks and read rap magazines to stay up on the industry. Let’s not forget the singles section too where you would see what artists were dropping new songs to help promote their new album soon to be dropping (or after their album had already dropped). There was word of mouth at school from friends of yours that were also into music which is where I found out about a lot of good music. There was your local radio station which would play the mainstream hits. But to me, the best place to truly help me catch a vibe were rap music videos.
Let me tell you… Catching Jeru the Damaja back in ‘96 or ‘97 was something… That style of his, matched with his lyrics, and beats by DJ Premier??? I love Gang Starr but I always felt Premier kept heaters from Guru because he knew Jeru would get at them harder… Yall agree? And this is not a knock at Guru… He’s one of my favorite emcees ever…. But Jeru had a whole other pocket as an emcee…
I loved when Wu-Tang Clan came out because their style was different. It also made me look for other NYC artists who had the same type of raw boom bap vibes… Boot Camp Click and Jeru the Damaja were some of my favorite artists from back then… Give me a playlist of Mid90s heat from Wu, Jeru, and Black Moon, Smif-N-Wessun, OGC, Heltah Skeltah and I’m alright just listening to music all day… But Jeru… Jeru was always a cut above the rest to me. What about you?
I don’t feel Jeru the Damaja is underrated because I feel every 90’s rap head is up on him. But maybe most of yall aren’t hip to how dope Jeru was back on those first 2 albums… Go listen to his debut album The Sun Rises in the East and Wrath of the Math from front to back… Go listen to the lyrics… Catch a vibe in these old school hip hop videos… This is vintage fire…
I feel like you need to watch Jeru’s freestyle from Rap City in ‘96 as well…
“Come Clean” is a forever classic… Go listen to that beat… Go listen to Jeru over that production… Go watch that video… ALLLLL OF IT…. So good.
Jeru and Biggie tho???
Press play and just take yourself back on this one…
Give me a VHS of all of this Jeru heat and I won’t leave my couch for an hour. I don’t need my phone… Don’t need a tablet… Just need to be left alone while I nod my head to the sounds of Jeru and DJ Premier.
And you know I can’t finish this little article without the Crooklyn Dodgers…
As I write this in 2026, Jeru is just as cold today as he was back in the 90s… Those 2 albums hold up… They might not be classics to you but they’re classics to me… Time capsules from an era I can’t ever let go of… Jeru the Damaja will forever be a goat to me… you?
