Posts Tagged ‘UTFO’
While he may be famous for his 1980′s hip hop battles, Kangol Kid of UTFO has been waging a new battle against breast cancer.
Check out the video below for the whole story.
Members
Kangol Kid
Doctor Ice
Educated Rapper
Mixmaster Ice
This Brooklyn based group (Untouchable Force Organization) released one of hip hop’s most important and successful records, “Roxanne, Roxanne” in 1984. Before that record they were official dancers for Whodini.
It spawned over 100 answer records, the most famous of which was from Roxanne Shante.
After their first album, the Educated Rapper left the group. They recorded “Skeezer Pleezer,” which featured the popular song “Split Personality,” he returned for the rest of the tenure.
Their next album “Lethal” went for a darker and frankly, more foul mouthed approach. The Educated Rapper returned. The group recorded a track with Anthrax (pre-dating that groups work with Public Enemy).
They never really reached the plateau they set for themselves with “Roxanne…” and as a result most of their later work was ignored. They have a greatest hits album that is good, but not comprehensive of the group’s often times overlooked talent.
Doctor Ice recorded solo albums that also failed to gain a lot of attention, but were not all that bad of a listen.
Many of the members are still active in the hip hop community and are working on new material.
The group has appeared at a few shows in the 2000′s.
Watch the “Roxanne, Roxanne” Video!
Members
Jalil (Jalil Hutchins)
Ecstasy (John Fletcher)
Grandmaster Dee (Drew Carter)
Formed in the early 80′s Whodini got its start in a rather unusual way. Keyboard wiz Thomas Dolby brought in a track to Jive. Someone suggested they have someone rap over it. The label grabbed Jalil and Ecstasy to record a track about radio personality Mister Magic. The song gained more attention oversees than in New York.
They eventually used tracks recorded from producers all over Europe for their first album which never really received much success.
They were also the first group to include official dancers in their show, utilizing Dr. Ice and Kangol Kid of UTFO.
Their next effort, however, was different story. Escape is the best known Whodini album. It featured “Friends,” “Freaks Come Out at Night” and “Big Mouth” and ended up going platinum. There more melodic sound opened doors for them outside of the normal rap channels. And for a while it was the highest selling rap album ever.
Whodini put out a hype EP called “SIX” in 1996.
By the time their next album came out, LL Cool J was the man to watch and their R&B edge paled next to his hard hitting rhymes. They did achieve some success with the classics “Funky Beat” and “One Love.”
Members appeared in the documentary film The Show.
They did go on to record some other albums and showed up on a moderately successful single on Terminator X’s second album.
Check Out Whodini at Rapmania
Like so many other female rappers in 1984-85, Adelaida/Joanne? Martinez adopted the name Roxanne and set about to answer UTFO’s smash single “Roxanne, Roxanne.”
The Real Roxanne as she was known is usually considered near the top of that very crowded group of women. Her main competition came, of course, from Roxanne Shante.
She made a record called “Romeo” on Select in 85 which was an inversion of Roxanne Roxanne.
She did eventually release an album of her own in 1988 utilizing such producers as Jam Master Jay, Howie Tee, and Full Force.
Her biggest commercial hit was “Bang Zoom- Let’s Go Go”.
Her more recent effort “Go Down (But Don’t Bite It)” bombed.
Check out a performance of “Bang Zoom”
Additional Information provided by Ed Roberts