Thursday, April 17, 2008

We're JJ Fad and we're here to rock...

As a child the opening lines of J.J. Fad's (Just Jammin' Fresh and Def) lone hit Supersonic will forever be etched in my brain. The late 80s were a fun and carefree time in popular music and J.J. Fad certainly fit the bill. J.J. Fad was comprised of 3 female rappers: MC J.B. (Juana Burns), Baby-D (Dania Birks) and Sassy C. (Michelle Franklin). Hailing from Los Angeles, CA, the ladies were signed to Ruthless Records and their debut album was produced by Dr. Dre and Yella. While there seems to be some confusion as to who the original members were of this all female rap group, according to a visitor of discogs.com here is a little background:

JJ FAD does not mean "Just Jammin Fresh And Def"; that was a revision. Originally, there were 5 girls in the group, and JJ Fad was an acronym of their names:

Juana, Juanita, Fatima, Lady Anna, and Denea (JJ FAD).

The original version of Supersonic had this spelled out in to beat-box intro, which was revised later when remixed, and the group reduced to a trio (and adding DJ Train to replace Lady Anna
But before we get to Supersonic, it must be noted that their first single was actually Another Hoe released in 1987 which took many jabs at fellow female MC Roxanne Shante. Unlike many West Coast rappers of the day, their producers made J.J. Fad's sound easily accesible to a pop audience by including many electro elements throughout (fabulously displayed on my personal favorite track Blame It On The Muzick).






(L-R: Supersonic CD, Supersonic 12", Not Just A Fad CD, We In The House 12")

Their lone hit was the aforementioned Supersonic. While this song is fondly remembered by many (inspiring Fergie's recent hit Fergalicious) I was quite surprised to see that it only peaked at #30 on the Billboard Hot 100 & #22 on the R&B charts. Two more singles were released from their debut album, Is It Love (#92 Hot 100) and Way Out (#61 Hot 100), but neither did much chart-wise. All three singles were pulled from their debut album Supersonic: The Album which peaked at #49 on the Billboard 200 Album Charts and #20 on the R&B album charts.

After being away for a few years, the ladies returned in 1991 with their follow-up album Not Just a Fad. Unfortunately the album flopped. Two singles were released from this album, Gold and We In The House. The latter heavily using the house music sound which was oh so popular during the early 90s. A year after this album was released the trio disbanded and have yet to be heard from. According to wikipedia the ladies are likely to be featured on Dr. Dre's upcoming album Detox.

We couldn't leave you without sharing some videos now could we? First up an old promo for J.J. Fad's 1-900 line!



Of course the infamous Supersonic video:



And did I mention I found a recent interview / the ladies? Grimmie Wreck TV recently interviewed the ladies but not once did they talk about what they are up to. Hmmm...at least we get to see what they look like now!

11 comments:

bomitoni said...

just testing out the new layout

Nasty G said...

Awesome post! Love me some JJ Fad. And I love that commercial! How hilarious is that? I'd love to have called. "We're JJ Fad and we're here to TALK!" LOL And it's great to see them now (perhaps not as well preserved as Salt N Pepa, but whatever). Not Just A Fad is a totally underappreciated album. I even got Mark addicted to it! We In The House is fab!!!

bomitoni said...

i agree!!! that whole album was great!!! both albums were, too bad they are considered a one hit wonder.

Kyleigh said...

I like JJ Fad! They were a great hip-hop group from the 80's. I love their album "Supersonic." My favorite songs off there are the title song, Is it Love, Way Out, and Now Really.

Anonymous said...

From the second album, the singles released are "We In The House" and "Be Good Ta Me". I'm a J.J.FAD fan since 1988. When I heard Supersonic for the first time! And I'm from Brazil!

Anonymous said...

Their is also another member of J.J.Fad who temporarily performed with JB & Baby D. in 89 her name was Classy P. she replaced Sassy C. and was Ice Cube girlfriend at the time she also was a member of Oaktown's 357 briefly and can be seen in their "Yeah,Yeah,Yeah" video...the story goes JB and Baby D. were having issues with Sassy and wanted her out Classy P. who was dating Cube at the time was asked to be in the group. Cube was on the verge of jumping ship from Eazy & Ruthless so Classy was advised to do the same she did not also like the direction the group was going with the material they have been recording. So she too bounced and obviously they brought Sassy back to record "Not Just a Fad"..on another side note OG Rocker(Fatima) and Crazy J.(Juanita) 2 of the founding members went on to form a group Too Badd along with Araibian Prince sister Arabian MC after leaving JJ Fad. They recorded a 12 inch single "Too Badd b/w "We're Cummin up" which sounded alot like "Supersonic"

Consolecharlie said...

Well it turns out that JJ Fad have reformed, and have a official MySpace page :D.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=37554653

They plan to rock the mic again!

Kyleigh said...

JJ Fad has reunited and is planning a re-release of their debut album and going on a 20th anniversary tour with the Fat Boys.

According to 2 VH1 countdown shows on hip-hop and 80's music, the members of the JJ Fad became working mothers.

I've updated my JJ Fad entry for more info. Check it out!!

Unknown said...

Met Baby D the other night and she is by far the coolest person I have ever met and I just love her and can't wait now to see them perform in Hollywood!

Unknown said...

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Michael Waterman said...

Another great post about an equally great one-hit wonder. I hope you'll keep writing and posting about these obscure artists.

J.J. Fad is fantastic. Love the old-school clothes and dancing.

I wrote about J.J. Fad and tweeted their brilliance and they were kind enough to tweet back. Nice.

Here is my post on Supersonic: http://toponehitwonders.com/1980s/supersonic-j-j-fad/

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