American hip hop band
Freestyle Fellowship is an American hip hop group from Los Angeles, California. It consists of Aceyalone, Myka 9, P.E.A.C.E., and Self Jupiter.[1] The group was a prominent part of the Good Life Cafe collective, and are part of the Project Blowed collective.[2]
History
While in high school in the late 1980s, Aceyalone, Myka 9, and Self Jupiter formed the short-lived MC Aces, a precursor to Freestyle Fellowship, at the Good Life Cafe in Los Angeles, California.[3] Subsequently, former high school friend P.E.A.C.E. was added to form Freestyle Fellowship.[3]
Freestyle Fellowship released the debut studio album, To Whom It May Concern..., in 1991.[4] In 1993, the group released the second studio album, Innercity Griots.[5]
Freestyle Fellowship went on hiatus due to the incarceration of Self Jupiter.[6] In 1998, the group reunited to record the Shockadoom EP, which would be released in 2002.[7] The group released Temptations in 2001,[8] and The Promise in 2011.[9]
Style and influences
According to Los Angeles Times, Freestyle Fellowship incorporates "jazz rhythms into its raps, which have the improvisational ebb and flow and the random explosiveness of a jazz solo."[10] In a 1993 interview with Los Angeles Times, the group's member Myka 9 said, "What we are is liberators, liberating rap from its R&B/funk structures--that 4/4 (time) prison."[10]
The group has been described by LA Weekly as "the astral jazz-cracked geniuses of sherm-strafed South Central, rapping with caged bird cadences about sleeping on park benches, biblical books, and gangsta rap carpetbaggers."[11]
