Crazy Wisdom Masters - The Payback EP

One of the holy grails of lost hip-hop albums would have to be Crazy Wisdom Masters by the Jungle Brothers. The story goes that following their under-appreciated sophomore classic Done By The Forces Of Nature, the JB's hooked up with an out-there young MC then-named Torture (currently known as Sensational), roped experimental dub maven Bill Laswell into the picture, and created an infamous acid-trip of an album called Crazy Wisdom Masters. Of course, being on a corporate entity like Warner Brothers, this was not to be, and the label predictably ordered the group to deliver something more easy-to-swallow for mainstream tastes. This being an era before labels like Definitive Jux and groups like Dalek made experimental hip-hop a more acceptable forum, Crazy Wisdom Masters was retooled into the scatter-brained and more often than not heavily watered-down J. Beez Wit The Remedy. Sadly, according to various accounts, the CWM tapes were destroyed/stolen/lost, leaving a potentially classic slab of bizarro genius to languish in infinite obscurity. Thankfully, a while back, Black Hoodz resurrected a couple of these gems (how, I don't know) onto vinyl. Two tracks ("Hedz At Company Z" and "Spittin' Wicked Randomness") actually made the final cut of J. Beez Wit The Remedy untouched and sounded head-scratchingly out-of-place amongst trite party jams like "Simple As That." Both songs are gems and proof that the legendarily demented CWM sessions really were all they've been made out to be over the years. Two never-before-heard sessions "Battle Show" and "Ra Ra Kid" will further stupify and delight those enthralled by the JB's detour into near-insanity. Overall, all four songs (well, "Spittin' Wicked Randomness" was actually split into two tracks on Remedy) are an avant approximation of splattered beats, metaphysical wordplay, eerie sonics, and all other sorts of out-and-out weirdness. This isn't just a weird platter for hip-hop, it's very, very strange in general, and it's safe to say that it's even more out-there than a lot of self-consciously "experimental" music. Who knows if Crazy Wisdom Masters will every actually see the light of day, and if this EP is any indication, it will be a depressing lose if the rest of these sessions are really buried forever more.

al1 is right, Warner Bros did have issues with putting these tracks out. But a few tracks of this era got released on the LP ' J. Beetz Wit The Remedy'.

Skiz said in an interview that Bill Laswell's part was introducing Sensational to the Jungle Brothers. Their fist encounter was at Laswell's place where Sensational was freestyling while scraching a Stockhausen record ...!

These tracks are rumored to be part of a Jungle Brothers album produced by Bill Laswell.
Warner Bros. at the time refused to release it, and the tapes were lost until the Black Hoodz issue.

this is a very disturbing record from the well known jungle brothers. Sensational, who has been a part of that group in the very beginning, must have made this possible.. Rough sampled Hip-Hop with fast, nearly screamed vocals, goes well with the "Hawd Gankstuh Rappuhs Wid Ghatz"-release. There is only one platform for this kind of music: wordsound/black hoodz