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Jazzy Jay (b. John Byas in Beaufort, South Carolina, November 18, 1961), also known as The Original Jazzy Jay or DJ Jazzy Jay, is a pioneering American hip hop DJ and producer.
Jazzy Jay was born into a Gullah family in coastal South Carolina. He moved with his family to New York City at a young age and took up the drums, his first instrument. He began his career in hip hop in the 1970s in The Bronx, New York, the epicenter of hip hop culture during the first decade of its development, at the age of 13. An early...
The Jazzyfatnastees, Tracey Moore and Mercedes Martinez, began as a quartet, signing to Tommy Boy Records in November 1993. "At that time we sang forties style harmonies over jazz loops and break-beats. We wanted to have three-part harmony plus a lead vocal. Basically we wanted to be able to do anything we did on record live and in person," explains Mercedes. Her brother J. Swift (producer of hip-hop group the Pharcyde's first album "Bizzare Ride to the Pharcyde") helped pen their name. " The Jazzy lyrics, the fat harmonies, and the nastee tracks, it's all about the music," says Tracey....
