Jeru the Damaja is a prophet. How else to explain the cover of 1994s The Sun Rises in The East, which shows the twin towers of the World Trade Centre burning from the same spots hijacked airplanes would crash into, seven years later?
That album (which, incidentally, has Jeru assuming the moniker of Black Prophet for the second single, "Can't Stop the Prophet") cemented his place as a member of the East Coast's street rapping elite, and has since secured a position in the canon
of hip hop classics. Produced by legendary NYC beatmaker DJ Premier, the album's beats were a stark departure from the smooth, jazz laced rhythms of his work for Gang Starr, instead laying a foundation of hard, repetitive loops for Jeru's rhymes to bounce off like cracked Brooklyn concrete. The result ranks amongst albums such as Nas' Illmatic and Notorious BIG's Ready to Die as a definitive statement of the early '90s New York sound: Intelligent, angry street poetry directed at the conditions facing urban dwelling Black men during a time of violent racial upheaval.
Times have changed. The dust kicked up during the Rodney King riots has long since settled, and rap's once honest expression of urban life has been airbrushed and shrink wrapped for sale in the suburbs, where its value has shrunk to 50 Cent.
None of this has stopped Jeru from damaging microphones with the same ferocity, his arsenal of verbal slings and barbs remain as
sharp as ever. Fresh off touring Spain, he's preparing a new album, entitled Still Rising, that's slated for release in August on his own label, Ashenafi Records.