The Jungle Brothers Address Groovy Topics

The Jungle Brothers are leaders of the Positive Rap movement--a bouillabaisse of peace and love and learned Afrocentricity built around a musical eclecticism that includes sampled disco, calypso, Archie Shepp--anything but the James Brown stuff you’ll find on any other hip-hop record. It’s all blended smooth, like they wish the world would be.

“We unite the music, and people like it,” says Jungle Brother Mike G., putting his feet up on a table in a record-company conference room in Burbank. “So why can’t we unite the people too?”

Their confederates, a quasi-formal New York hip-hop community the JBs call “The Tribe,” include rap stars De La Soul, Queen Latifah and Tribe Called Quest, all known for positive outlooks and dance-floor jams.

The JBs, whose debut “Straight Out the Jungle,” on the tiny Idler label, was the underground rap smash of ‘88, were the first of The Tribe to break big. Ironically, their hard-core attitude and street-savvy beats influenced the gangster rap of N.W.A no less than it did the good-vibin’ De La Soul.

“Hip-hop reflects life,” says group leader Afrika Baby Bambaataa, “and there are enough negative things out there to support an N.W.A or a Too $hort. Police are doing what they do; some brothers, unfortunately, are doing what they do. We’re trying to provide a balance to that.”

On their major-label debut, “Done By the Forces of Nature” on Warner Bros., the Jungle Brothers address such groovy topics as sunshine, mother nature, black beauty, and the concept of AfriKa. Any coincidence between the JBs’ music and the early cosmic meanderings of funkmeister George Clinton is purely intentional.

“We see De La Soul as the Parliament to our Funkadelic,” Afrika says, “where one group is commercial and the other--us--is down and funky. De La and us are both known for the same things. We were all born in the ‘70s, and we think the same way.”

“Yeah,” concurs Mike G. “The city’s the jungle and we’re the brothers.”