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OFFICIAL: Jurassic 5 Call It A Day

Author: GoldFuZion
Monday, March 19, 2007
What was thought to be speculation and media hype when the rumours first surfaced of Jurassic 5's imminent disbanding have, within a couple of months, become reality.

Hip-hop fans the world over were shocked when MC Soup's comments proved not to be an idle threat or misquote.

Shortly before the Good Vibrations '07 Festival began on the Gold Coast (QLD), Australia's Gold Coast Bulletin interviewed Soup (aka Zaakir), one of Jurassic 5's founding MC's, who was rather blunt in his assessment: "After the tour, that's basically it.

"I don't want to sit here and fake around with it - we're not seeing eye-to-eye right now."

Displaying a certain amount of bitterness and disappointment, he continued to speak from his heart, admitting, "people see us as a harmonising, loving group, but that's far from the truth. I'd like to keep it going, but you can't force grown men to do what they don't want to do.

"Some people may say it's a creative thing, but I'm not buying it. Some might say business, some might say merchandising, whatever, there's some really stupid shit - some really childish things - happening."

Soup ended the interview in similar fashion to how it began - a brutally honest self-assessment of the situation, citing various members' solo projects also being partly responsible. "When it comes down to it, some people here want their own shine, their own thing. If that's what you want, I say 'more power to you'.

"I hope it works out for you - just don't come up with lame excuses (for J5's demise)...For certain members it's been brewing for a while - I've heard in passing there are things that could have been brought up a long time ago about how people were feeling that weren't said."

Since then not much more news of the outcome has come to light until the break-up was made official on BBC's 1Xtra's Friday night show 'Semtex' where it was stated that Jurassic 5 had decided to go their separate ways.

Jurassic 5 Background Info:
Chali 2na, Marc 7 and Cut Chemist, who exited J5 last year to pursue solo projects, were members of Unity Committee, and Zaakir and Akil formed Rebels Of Rhythm. The groups met in 1993 while frequenting The Good Life Health Food Cafe, a former open mic venue for unsigned acts. Several significant Los Angeles acts from the early '90s came out of this scene—The Pharcyde, Freestyle Fellowship, Volume 10, Ahmad, and Skee-Lo, among others. After years of suggesting that the Unity Committee and Rebels Of Rhythm work together, the groups recorded 'Unified Rebelution'," which became an anthem, prompting the groups to merge.

And the rest, as they say, is history...for now!

Look out for the veritable snowball of J5 solo projects and collaborations that are sure to ensue with this announcement.

A final observation - while their official website makes no mention of the split (not suprising as the last news item is dated November 2006) there is a rather large degree of irony in the song streaming on their homepage:

"We can work it out... We gonna work it out"
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