Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde

Andre Harrell, performing as Dr. Jeckyll, and Alonzo Brown, known as Mr. Hyde, first connected in 1980 as members of Harlem World Crew before parting ways with that collective to establish the duo Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde alongside DJ George Llado, billed as Scratch on Galaxy. Their breakthrough arrived with the debut single “Genius Rap,” a track that reworked the Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love” and climbed to number 31 on the Black singles chart. Additional 12-inches—“The Challenge,” “Fast Life,” and “Gettin’ Money”—surfaced sporadically from 1982 through 1984, paving the way for the pair’s only full-length release, the 1985 album Champagne of Rap. Although the act disbanded in 1987, Brown issued a handful of solo recordings in the immediate aftermath. “Genius of Rap” has since resurfaced on retrospective anthologies such as the second volume of Thump’s Lowrider Jams series and the second volume of Rhino’s Street Jams series. Harrell later rose to prominence as an executive producer and guided the influential Uptown label to considerable success.