Feel-Good Rappers Try to Get a Toehold, but Gangster Reigns

When Los Angeles rap group Jurassic 5’s debut album, “Quality Control,” arrives in stores June 20 from Interscope Records, there’s bound to be another round of talk about a growing movement to establish a non-gangster brand of rap in a city identified with gangster rap.

But is this underground scene--which has been on the horizon for at least five years now--really a growing movement? Or is it one whose promise will remain unfulfilled after one more standard-bearer gets chewed up in the major-label machinery?

Despite drawing critical acclaim in such mainstream publications as Rolling Stone and the Source, the free-spirited, feel-good Jurassic 5 is unlikely to make a noticeable dent in the charts with “Quality Control.”

Just look at Dilated Peoples, which joins Jurassic 5 and Black-Eyed Peas in shouldering the burden of making L.A. renowned for something other than gangster rap. The group’s first album, “The Platform” (on Capitol Records), debuted at No. 74 on the national chart last month, selling fewer than 20,000 copies, and is no longer on the Top 200 list.

That doesn’t look encouraging, especially at a time when Eminem and other hard-core rappers are selling millions. But many artists in the underground L.A. community are undaunted, finding an encouraging spin in their colleagues’ showing.

“I think Dilated sold a lot of records,” says Jurassic 5 member and producer DJ Nu-Mark. “[The 20,000 copies] shows that underground music can live and breathe in the industry, with artists from the West Coast and on a major label. A group like Dilated didn’t compromise their sound when they came out and neither are we.”

These acts are going up against a formidable tradition established by home-grown gangster acts such as Dr. Dre, Cypress Hill and DJ Quik. With the exceptions of Tone Loc, Young MC and the Pharcyde, every L.A.-based rap group to have a gold or platinum recording was a gangster act.

E-Swift, a member of Tha Alkaholiks, a lighthearted L.A. trio that emerged in the early 1990s, says that Los Angeles rap fans never got over the gangster sound that N.W.A and Ice T pioneered in the late 1980s.

“It’s all trends,” he says. “A lot of people follow them, and if the trend is gangster, then people are going to follow it. But you’re always going to have the hip-hop crowd that’s going to support groups like Dilated and Jurassic. You’ve got to build your audience. They’ve got the fan base, so there’s a way to translate that into record sales, but I don’t know how to do it.”

One major assist could be radio play. New York, Washington, Atlanta and Memphis are among the major cities where stations play a wide variety of their indigenous artists. For the most part, Los Angeles has yet to embrace Dilated Peoples and Jurassic 5.

“They’re bubbling right now and we’re doing everything that we can to give them exposure,” says Damion Young, assistant program director for KPWR-FM (105.9). “We want to get the underground to a mainstream audience, but a relationship has to be built. With any underground artist, you have to court the listener.”

Jurassic 5 has been building its fan base since forming in the mid-1990s. The group, which includes rappers Chali 2na, Akil, Zaakir and Marc 7even and DJs Nu-Mark and Cut Chemist, released a self-titled, critically acclaimed EP in 1997.

But the limited resources that come with working on the independent level can stifle a group in both creative and business ways. Jurassic 5, for example, could not afford on its own to shoot a video that would have a chance to be played on either MTV or BET. Similarly, the group felt it was dedicating too much of its time to doing its own booking and scheduling--functions that are normally handled by outside parties for major-label acts.

But once a group signs with a major label, it can become just another name on a mammoth company’s extensive roster. In today’s bottom-line record industry, an act can be easily forgotten if it doesn’t click quickly.

All of these components contribute to the difficulties Jurassic 5, Dilated Peoples and Black-Eyed Peas (whose second Interscope album, due in September, will try to build on the 200,000 sales of its 1988 debut) will have breaking through on a mainstream level.

With Interscope’s backing, Jurassic 5 now has a high-quality video for the title track of its new album. The group will also be performing at least 40 dates this summer to promote “Quality Control.”

Regardless of how well the album sells, the group’s DJ Nu-Mark says that he’s content, as long he can pay his bills.

“I don’t think we’re commercially recognized yet, and I don’t mind at all,” he says. “We’re doing this for fun anyway. As long as there’s enough income to put bread on the table, I’m pretty much cool. As long I can do what I like and support myself on it, I’ll be all right.”