Jean Grae:

Born in Cape Town, South Africa on November 26, 1976, the daughter of South African jazz musicians (her father and mother are the celebrated musicians Sathima Bea Benjamin and Abdullah Ibrahim), she studied Vocal Performance at the LaGuardia School of Music & Art before majoring in Music Business at New York University. She also did some modeling during her teen years.
After working with groups including Ground Zero, she joined a hip hop music group called Natural Resource in the mid-1990s, along with rapper Ocean. In 1996 they released a pair of 12-inch singles called Negro League Baseball “Bum Deal” “They Lied,” and “Bum Deal (remix)” “They Lied (remix)” b/w “I Love This World” on their own label Makin’ Records. She also appeared on singles by fellow Makin’ Records artists Pumpkinhead and Bad Seed, and on the O.B.S. (Original Blunted Soldiers) double 12-inch single alongside crew members Pumpkinhead, Bad Seed, and Meat-pie, and produced much of the material released on the label under the pseudonym Run Run Shaw. During this period she established strong ties with the Brooklyn Academy crew, with which she would appear throughout her career.
Natural Resource dissolved in 1998, after which Ibrahim changed her stage name from What? What? to Jean Grae, a reference to the X-Men character Jean Grey.[4] Under her new moniker, she released her first LP—Attack of the Attacking Things—in 2002, and followed it in 2004 with This Week.[4] Throughout her career she has also recorded tracks with numerous major hip hop artists, Atmosphere, The Roots, Talib Kweli, The Herbaliser, Da Beatminerz, Phonte, Mr. Len, Masta Ace, Vordul Mega, C-Rayz Walz, Mos Def, and Immortal Technique among them.

5 Comments

    shaun July 26, 2011 at 11:37 pm25

    Cookies or Comas is dope. Nobody can mess with Jean Greazy. Pure hip hop. Thank you.

    2. dominic August 1, 2011 at 5:35 am25

    metal face family!

    3. Zwe_Sim December 5, 2011 at 3:20 am27

    Tsidi … My Inspiration

    4. cocofro January 13, 2012 at 7:20 pm27

    I AM LOVING ME AND YOU CAN’T PLAYING
    LOOKING FORWARD TO NEW LP

    5. cocofro January 13, 2012 at 7:22 pm27

    MIC CHECK U AND ME,

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