Biography
The Cold Crush Brothers ranked among the earliest rap ensembles to surface in the Bronx in the years immediately following hip-hop’s emergence during the mid-1970s. Together with Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, Grand Wizard Theodore & the Fantastic 5 MCs, and the Funky Four Plus One, the four New York City natives had already secured a following well before the Sugarhill Gang turned rap into mainstream fare through their multi-platinum 12-inch “Rapper’s Delight.” According to longstanding accounts, a cassette by the Cold Crush Brothers supplied the material that pizza-shop employee Big Bank Hank was performing when Sylvia Robinson encountered him in 1979; rather than identify the actual performers on the tape, Hank assembled associates who would form the far more commercially successful Sugarhill Gang.
Original members Grandmaster Caz, the Almighty KG, Tony Tone, JDL, Easy AD, and DJ Charlie Chase combined showmanship with coordinated rhyme skills. They rehearsed and refined their stage routines for more than a year starting in 1978 before taking them to live audiences, most notably at the numerous MC battles then common. One such contest was recorded in 1981 and later issued in 1991 on the compilation Afrika Bambaataa Presents Hip-Hop Funk Dance Classics, Vol. 1. Together with the group’s Live in 82 album, the recording captures the pre-commercial character of the music before its transformation into a major industry during the 1990s. The straightforward, celebratory rhymes evoke an earlier era when MC denoted Master of Ceremonies, DJs performed beyond merely cueing DAT tapes, and allusions to violence remained purely figurative. In 1982 the crew appeared in the landmark film Wild Style and issued the 12-inch “The Weekend.” Although they never produced a conventional full-length album, several influential singles appeared on the Tuff City label, among them “Fresh, Wild, Fly and Bold.” The majority of these tracks were gathered on the 1995 collection Fresh, Wild, Fly & Bold. The group disbanded in 1986 yet resurfaced on Terminator X’s second solo release, Super Bad.
Original members Grandmaster Caz, the Almighty KG, Tony Tone, JDL, Easy AD, and DJ Charlie Chase combined showmanship with coordinated rhyme skills. They rehearsed and refined their stage routines for more than a year starting in 1978 before taking them to live audiences, most notably at the numerous MC battles then common. One such contest was recorded in 1981 and later issued in 1991 on the compilation Afrika Bambaataa Presents Hip-Hop Funk Dance Classics, Vol. 1. Together with the group’s Live in 82 album, the recording captures the pre-commercial character of the music before its transformation into a major industry during the 1990s. The straightforward, celebratory rhymes evoke an earlier era when MC denoted Master of Ceremonies, DJs performed beyond merely cueing DAT tapes, and allusions to violence remained purely figurative. In 1982 the crew appeared in the landmark film Wild Style and issued the 12-inch “The Weekend.” Although they never produced a conventional full-length album, several influential singles appeared on the Tuff City label, among them “Fresh, Wild, Fly and Bold.” The majority of these tracks were gathered on the 1995 collection Fresh, Wild, Fly & Bold. The group disbanded in 1986 yet resurfaced on Terminator X’s second solo release, Super Bad.
Albums
