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Interview
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In the early '90s, the idea of female rappers was
still a novelty. There was Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, Salt 'n Pepa
and Roxanne Shante', but nothing compared to male heavy hitters
like Run DMC, LL Cool J, Heavy D and later, Wu-Tang Clan, Tupac
and Biggie Smalls. Let's stop at Wu-Tang for now, When the Wu
came through around the early 90's they pretty much dominated
the scene individually and as a group, and gave birth to a
number of affiliates commonly known worldwide as Wu-Tang Killa
Beez, notable names were Sunz Of Man, Black Knights, Royal Fam,
LA The Darkman, Killarmy and much more, The Wu didn't change the
male dominated presence in hip-hop but pretty much added on to
it.
The Deadly Venoms banded together in 1998 to break that mood,
not just within the Wu circle but in hip-hop as a whole,
Representing the "fairer, but not weaker" branch of the Wu Tang
Clan tree, the Venoms combined their collective expertise and
individual styles for their project, borrowing their theme from
the kung-fu flick"5 Deadly Venoms, The group proved that an
all-female posse can lay down a devastating rhyme with the best
of them. Their rap themes, emboldened with lyrical and poetic
skill were laced over flavourful loops and explosive hooks.
Although not as well-known as
other contemporary female rappers, the women who make up the
Deadly Venoms are no strangers to the rap world. Each member has
had a history in the business with varying degrees of
achievement. Finesse, N-Tyce, Champ MC, and newcomer J-Boo were
brought together under the tutelage of rap producers Norman
"Storm" Bell and Russell "Russ Prez" Pressley in response to the
lackluster respect paid to women rappers. Finesse, whose tough
pretty-lady persona was one-half of the pioneer female rap duo
Finesse & Synquis, had been rapping since 1987 when she and
Synquis unleashed a pair of singles, and dropped the album "Soul
Sisters". N-Tyce had recorded since 1990,
but the Greensboro, N.C., native didn't make an impact until the
1994 release of "Hush Hush Tip" which features her Wu brethren
The RZA on the beat and Method Man on the hooks. Champ MC had
been rapping professionally since the age of 19 and was
considered a female version of Rakim in style and delivery. She
performed on a couple of singles for Elektra Records but never
attained much individual recognition. A label mate to Yoyo she
dropped an album "Ghetto
Flava" around 1994. J-Boo hails from Queens bridge,
NY, a neighbourhood best-known for producing fellow East Coast
rapper Nas and Mobb Deep. This stint with the Deadly Venoms
represented J-Boo's professional debut as an MC. A fifth secret
member by the name of Isis aka Lin Que mostly known for her
affiliation with the infamous X-Clan was meant to complete the
cipher but it never manifested due to unknown reasons.
The hype with the group,
their comparison to the all female version of The Wu-Tang Clan
sparked a lot of noise around the formation of the group, and
under Wu-Tang managements the Venoms were ready to take on the
world, as they prepared for their first debut album "The
Antidote" which featured the entire Clan members on the
project, but due to legal issues and a corporate merger, the
release of the Deadly Venoms' debut was delayed, and they were
subsequently dropped from the A&M record label. That did not
stop the Venoms and they quickly picked up from where they left
off and prepared for a come back with "Pretty
Thugs" via DreamWorks in 2000. Unfortunately like the first
album, the fans were denied the opportunity to see the raw
talent and skills the group had to offer. They finally dropped
an album "Still
Standing" two years later independently after Finesse
left the group for unknown reasons. Nothing much has been heard
from the group since then. |
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Never have they
been a group with so much skills and talent that
have been deprived the opportunity to show their
worth, 2 albums shelved from the fans due to
politicks involved in the music industry. While the
music world and hip-hop has evolved and changed over
time, the Wu-Tang fans and mostly Deadly Venoms fans
still felt cheated, and Wu-International are forever
getting emails, enquires, requests about their
favourite group, where are they, are they still
together, What happened to them, what are they doing
now, When will they release another album? you don't
have to believe me, log on to most hip-hop sites or
forums especially he Wu forums, and you will surely
see something about the Deadly Venoms from fans who
are interested in knowing about the group. Well,
look no further, Wu-International caught up with one
of the members of Deadly Venoms, J-Boo aka Viper to
answer these questions and also find out what she
has been up to, her experiences, future plans and
projects, Please take notes from this veteran emcee
as she gives an exclusive interview to
Wu-International, you might learn actually
something.. |
I like to say thanks first and foremost for
taking the time to answer these questions, highly
appreciated, and will also point out that nothing will be
altered, edited or changed when this is published online.
Wu-Internationals: Peace fam, how are you?
J-Boo: First and foremost I'm blessed
Wu-Internationals:
Everyone on our site definitely who you are, but for people
not up on game, can you please introduce yourself, tell us
who you are, where you are from and where you are currently
located?
J-Boo: This is your girl J-boo one of the members of the
female rap group Deadly Venoms. I hail from the infamous
housing projects Queens Bridge projects where many stars in
the game was born. I currently live in Las Vegas aka Sin
City and I love it.
Wu-Internationals: What was your first memory of
hip-hop?
J-Boo: My very first memory was back when I was like 8
or 9 I use to run track and every Sunday my coach would pick
us up to go to the track meet and he would blast the Sugar
Hill Gang: Rappers Delight. as I got a little older like 13
or 14 me and my best friend use to think we were Salt &
Pepper I loved them growing up.
Wu-International: when did you realise you had the
skills and decided to pick up the mic?
J-Boo: I had this summer job as a teenager and it was a
boy who use to go around rhyming all day so I said to him
one day lets battle and he said you cant rhyme and I said so
lets battle and I started cutting him and mad people started
to cypha around us and we just kept going back and forth
until he choked and I won. Then he said man you can rap and
told him yeah I know. That's when I started to take rap more
seriously. I then started going to clubs that had open mic
night and that's how I started my path in the rap game.
Wu-International: J-boo aka the Viper? What is the
meaning of your name and what other names do you go by?
J-Boo: The name J-boo was given to me by the guy I just
told you about who I cut in the battle he came to me years
later and said he got a name for me called J- Boo it means
Justified Beauty over others not so much in the physical
since, but in the lyrical since the beauty of how I finesse
my flow. and I said that's deep so the name J-boo stuck with
me. Now Viper is the name I took on to portray my venomous
flow, a concept that came from the movie Five Deadly Venoms
each character had a alias so I chose Viper the snake to
represent my flow cause we all know viper snakes spit venom
that will kill you. N-Tyce chose Poison, Champ chose
Scorpion and Finesse chose Chameleon.
Wu-Internationals : Finesse, N-Tyce and Champ were
already established Mc’s prior to the Deadly Venoms project,
what were you doing before this?
J-Boo: I was pretty much in school trying to decide what
to do with my life.
Wu-International: Can you kindly give us a brief history
of how Deadly Venoms came about? Who were the initiatives
behind it, what were the requirements and how everything
took form?
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J-Boo: Deadly Venoms was the brain child of our
producers Storm and Russ Prez Storm who had the vision of
forming a all female rap group something like a female
Wu-tang.
He (Storm) was already working with N-Tyce on her solo
project and asked if she would do the group thing if he
found the girls, and she agreed. N-Tyce is from North
Carolina. I met Storm through a friend of mine who worked at
a label she gave him my number and he called to see if I was
interested in the project and said yes. I knew finesse from
a studio her brother was recording out of so I called her
and asked if she wanted to get down and she said yes also.
and champ joined the group after Storm and Russ ran into her
manager in a Sam Ash store while we were recording a
compilation album for Wu-tang. Champ showed up at the studio
and hopped on a song and that's how she got down with us and
that's how the members of Deadly Venom came about a country
chick , a chick from Queens bridge, a chick from Harlem and
a chick from the Bronx. |
Wu-International: Yes, DV was hailed as the
female version of the Wu-Tang Clan, word has it that Lin Que
aka Isis of the X-Clan fame was supposed to be the 5ft
member of the group, can you please shed more light on this
and why she was not included in the project?
J-Boo:
yeah LinQue at one point was apart of Venom she was the
fifth venom. She came on board while we were releasing the
single Bomb threat she's even in the video and a few
magazines interviews we done. When it was time to get signed
to A&M Records she backed out for some reason that's still
unclear to me. But anyway we flew to Cali signed on with A&M
started working on the Album DV The Antidote.
Wu-Internationals: That would have been ill with all 5
members, anyways let’s talk about your first album
(Deadly Venoms aka Antidote) that was supposed to come
in 1998 in A&M, I have a copy and my goodness, that is one
lost treasure in the whole of hip-hop history, Why did that
album never come out?
J-Boo: The Antidote was definitely a lost treasure, we
had production from Rza on the album members of the Wu was
on the album, an off the hook collabo with Dirty (God bless
his soul) the album was hot the label was very excited about
the whole project the affiliation with Wu and everything .
Then came the closing of the Urban Music dept due to the
merger with Seagram's so that left us out in the cold. No
deal, and most of all no album to put out It was heart
breaking time for us, but we always knew another deal would
come to us.
Wu-International: Trust me, that’s an unheard classic, You
are probably the only group to have done a song with almost
all members of the clan on it outside the clan members, what
was it like working with them?
J-Boo: Working with Wu was great, it was truly history
in the making, those guys are so versatile and talented it
was just a great chemistry in the studio. They respected us
and we respected them, the whole experience was wonderful.
Wu-International: Thanks, DV seems to have had its share
of bad luck within the industry it seems,
Pretty Thugs was the 2nd album that never made it out
again in 2000 via DreamWorks. what happened with this one
also?
J-Boo: After reading this question I had to take a deep
breath because this album Pretty Thugs was our best album it
had so much promise and potential. We had an issue within
the camp that quickly went out of control , and was brought
to the executives over at DreamWorks and they felt very
uneasy with what was going on within the camp, so they felt
it was best to just release us from the label another tight
album gone out the window with no deal this was a great
disappointment for us, I cried for days.
Wu-International: Great shame, Pretty Thug has an
interesting title, why was it called "Pretty Thugs"?
J-Boo: We named the album Pretty Thugs because it
referred to all of us as being pretty young women with
thugged out flows. the type of girl you want on your arm who
look good but at the same time who can get down if the beef
came so that title fit perfectly.
Wu-International: I also think that was a masterpiece,
finally after all that qualms, the group came out with an
album “Still
standing” in 2002, how well was this album received by
the public?
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J-Boo: Still standing was the album after the
departure from Dream Works as you can see on the
cover its 3 Venoms the three that was still standing
after the rain. Us 3 held it together stayed strong
and went back in the studio and made it happen once
again. I swear this should be a movie I think people
need to know our story and see it on the big screen
or even on a HBO special. anyway this album was put
out by Storm and Russ they got a distribution deal
through Caroline Distributors which was cool but we
didn't have no promotion no video, no nothing to
help push the album sales were low, but people did
buy and like the album.
Wu-International: Personally I think that album
was also great, the title was self explanatory, I
was going to touch on it just being 3 of you, while
you were still standing after all the politics, it
was only just 3 of you standing, what was the deal
with Finesse?
J-Boo:
The Finesse issue is a very touchy one, I have a lot
of mixed feelings about how everything went down.
But life goes on and we as a group had to continue
on with the music.
Wu-International: Are you still friends or in
touch with Finesse?
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J-Boo:
Well, a few years later we reached out to finesse we wanted
to know how she was doing and things like that. its been a
minute since I last heard from her.
Wu-International: Would they ever be another
Deadly Venoms project that would involve her as a member of
the group?
J-Boo: I would love to do another Venom project and yes
Finesse would be apart of it what ever happened in the past
is in the past we were like sisters and you know how sisters
do we fight but the love is always there no matter what.
Wu-International: Good to hear, moving on, the group has
worked closely with West coast Killa Bee Madam Scheez, there
were rumours that she was going to become a member of the
group in future works, any truth to this?
J-Boo: Madam Scheez was another female artist that was
down with our camp. when finesse left the group we were
considering adding Scheez to the circle because for one she
was hot and she could have brought a different element,
which was her west coast flava and style she would have fit
right in with us.
Wu-International: Same applies to Bambi The Iron Maiden
under Protect Ya Neck records, was she also going to be part
of the group at some point?
J-Boo: Same goes for Bambi she was also another hot
female with her raw lyrics she was tight.
Wu-International: It’s been 5 years now since your last
album, the questions the fans have been forever writing
about are mainly 2, first one is, they would like to know
what the current status of the group is, is the group still
active or of have you broken up?
J-Boo: Deadly Venoms is the still the foundation
although we are not currently functioning as a group, We are
always going to be Venoms. All of us has moved on the do
solo projects, for instance, N-Tyce is working on hers and
Champ was working on hers as well as me working on mine.
N-Tyce lets me hear some of her stuff and its hot we all
still got it no question about that
Wu-International: Damn, there goes my question as to
when the fans can expect another group album, Will those
classic albums “Pretty Thugs” and “Deadly Venoms” ever be
officially released to the public?
J-Boo: I think you meant Pretty Thugs and the Antidote
album, I don't think those albums can be released because
the label owns them. They should because both albums were
hot.
Wu-International: Russ Prez and Storm handled most of
the production on all your albums, what’s the deal with
them, do you still work closely with them?
J-Boo: Storm and Russ they made it happen their
production went hand and hand with our style. After the
still standing album we sort of parted ways with them. Storm
went on producing and managing he's working with Mobb Deep
now. I haven't spoken to Russ but I know those two would
come together once again to bang out another Venom album if
asked.
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Wu-International: Thanks very much for those
answers, we are going to talk a little more about
you now, since the group’s last album, what have you
been doing?
J-Boo:
Since the album in 2002, I have just been chilling
living life I did a few mix tapes, some remixes I
did a hot remix for Beyounce crazy in love song with
DJ HotDay from the Dream Team other than that I just
been living. I moved out of NY to Vegas Got a good
job , A good man, I got a baby on the way I'm very
happy.
Wu-International:
That’s good to know, Can the fans expect a J-Boo
solo effort and if so can you kindly give us more
details about this as in album title, guest emcees
and producers, and so on?
J-Boo:
Yes I
am currently working on my album, pregnant and all
up in the studio with a big ass belly (lol) the
album is titled the second coming the single is
called paper chasing which features a bay area
rapper by the name Mercuri Rizin we got that east
coast meets west coast male/female collabo going on
and its hot. the track was produced by Black Rhino a
hot producer also from the bay area I'm very excited
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about
this solo project its still in the beginning stages
but I'll let you know when its complete. I can send
you the single so you can get a taste of what's to
come and let the fans know what J-boo is doing.
Wu-International: Oh that would be great, we
can run that when this interview is up, thanks,
Would you be looking to get it out independently or
via a major?
J-Boo: I’m doing
everything independently right now, but my goal is
to get a major label to back my project.
Wu-International: Back
to the album Barely Legal, when will it be released?
J-Boo: I say it
will be ready for Release in Dec., but we are
working on deciding which track we will release as a
single prior to that time.
Wu-International: Why
has it taken you so long to come out with a new
material after “Still Standing”?
J-Boo: I took the time
to sit back and reflect on what I went through, I
was feeling a little discouraged and hurt that I
wanted to hang up the mic, but the love I got for
this rap shit is real and its hard to walk away so
that's why I'm still here trying all over again.
Wu-International: For
someone with your experience and skills, Do you
really feel that you have been given the credit you
truly deserve, despite all the strides you have made
and the many milestones you have accomplished as an
artist? How has the industry been to you?
J-Boo: The
credit hasn't been acknowledged but I'm fine with
that, because this time around I'm gonna be making
my mark in this industry, good things come to those
that wait and I'm very patient.
Wu-International:
The fans are forever sending bugging questions and
enquiries about you, and DV to our sites, even on
other sites and forums topics about the group are
constantly popping up, are you aware of your group’s
strong cult following? especially within the Wu
fans, even without an album out for a while now, how
do you also feel about this?
J-Boo: I know we
got fans, true followers who respect what Venom was
about and that makes me feel proud to know people
really liked our music. and even after all these
years still checking for us. now that's love, and I
love that, it keeps me strong and grounded.
Wu-International:
Whether you know this or not, Your group are
considered part of the extended family of the
Wu-Tang tree, how has being affiliated with the Wu
affected your career? Name some advantages and
disadvantages that fans may not be aware of if any?
J-Boo: Being
affiliated with Wu was great It gave us exposure and
respect I couldn't have imagine any other camp I
would have wanted to be apart of.
Wu-International: Which
song or songs would you say are your best work to
date and why?
J-Boo: There are so
many songs I loved on all of the albums, but the one
I feel means to most was Don't Give Up from the
pretty thugs album. That song had a message that was
so powerful and inspiring and of course our very
first single Bomb Threat because that song started
it all for us.
Wu-International: Would
you say coming from Queens bridge where it’s known
to bring out lyricists such as Nas, Mobb Deep and co
is an influence on the way you write?
J-Boo: Coming
from Q.B definitely influence my thoughts and style
of rap. Man I love Nas , Mobb Deep you can hear that
Queens bridge shit in my flow its in my veins that's
all I know.
Wu-International: Are
they any artist/groups out there you are currently
feeling or would like to work with now or in future?
J-Boo: I would love to
do a song with Nas and Mobb Deep also Method Man, I
love him too.
Wu-International: A
question related to above question, are there any
Female artists/groups out there right now that you
feel are carrying the touch or represent what DV
stood for?
J-Boo: At the present time I
gotta say NO
Wu-International:
Any future side projects in the mix (e.g. movies,
commercial, modelling etc)?
J-Boo: I would love to
get into modelling that's another one of my goals
Wu-International:
What do you get up to when not recording? |
J-Boo: When I'm not recording I'm working yes
I have a 9-5 got to pay my bills. I just like
spending time with my family and friends. But right
now I'm getting ready for my little bundle of joy
she will be here any day by the time you run this
interview I would have given birth, I m so looking
forward to motherhood
Wu-International:
Congrats on your baby girl, and thanks very much for
the interview J-Boo, it’s been a lot of questions,
and believe me there were more than this initially
we had to filter them, we always get emails
enquiring about you all the time, so you taking the
time to answer these questions means a lot not just
to us here but to all the fans that have been
curious to know what you have been up, so thanks
again, highly appreciated, we know you have a
myspace account, is there any other forum, sites or
place where the fans can keep up to date with you?
J-Boo: I'm only on myspace I'm currently making
a artist page on myspace I'll keep you informed when
its done, you will be able to hear songs from my
upcoming album.
Wu-International: So any last words, shout
outs, anything else we missed that you want the fans
to know?
J-Boo: Hey I just want to give thanks to you for
sharing my story the Venom story and I wanna thank
the fans for the continued support and love.
Wu-International:
Thanks very much again, Congrats on the new born
baby, good luck on all your
endeavours and we look forward to hearing more from
you in the near future, Peace
J-Boo: Peace..
J-boo |
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Catch up with J-Boo a/k/a Viper
of the Deadly Venoms on her myspace account at
http://www.myspace.com/jayboo35 add her to your
friend's list, say peace, send greetings, congratulate her
on her new born baby etc.
<Read Other Interviews> |
