DESCRIPTION:
JayZ's 1st Group "The Rockafellas"! He SAT the Back!! with Original Flavor
A tribute to the golden age and the innovators of Hip Hop! My collection of music videos, exclusives and interviews.
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Original Flavor was a hip hop group from the early to mid 90's. The group originally consisted of Ski and Suave Lover. It released two albums—This Is How It Is (1992) and Beyond Flavor (1994)—although for Beyond Flavor Suave Lover was replaced by T-Strong and DJ Chubby Chub. The group had a hit with the song "Can I Get Open," which reached #46 on the Billboard Maxi Singles chart.[1] This track prominently features Jay-Z. The group, managed by Damon Dash and cousin Darien Dash, disbanded after it released Beyond Flavor but Ski went on to work with Roc-A-Fella Records, producing four records on Jay-Z's debut album Reasonable Doubt.
Carter was born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City and was raised in Marcy Houses, a housing project in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.[16] After their father, Adnis Reeves,[17][18] abandoned the family, Shawn and his three siblings were raised by their mother, Gloria Carter. Reeves would later meet and reconcile with Jay-Z before dying in 2003. Jay-Z claims in his lyrics that in 1982 at age 12, he shot his older brother in the shoulder for stealing his jewelry.[19][20] Along with future rapper AZ, Carter attended Eli Whitney High School in Brooklyn until it was closed down. He then attended the nearby George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School with future rappers The Notorious B.I.G. and Busta Rhymes, followed by a stint at Trenton Central High School in Trenton, New Jersey, though he did not graduate.[21] According to his interviews and lyrics, during this period he sold crack cocaine[20] and was shot at three times.[19]

According to his mother, Carter used to wake up his siblings at night banging out drum patterns on the kitchen table. She bought him a boom box for his birthday, sparking his interest in music. He began freestyling and writing lyrics.[22] Known as "Jazzy" around the neighborhood, Carter later adopted the showbiz/stage name "Jay-Z" in homage to his mentor Jaz-O.[16][23]

Jay-Z can be briefly heard on several of Jaz-O's early recordings in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including "The Originators" and "Hawaiian Sophie."[24] Jay-Z became embroiled in several battles with rapper LL Cool J in the early 1990s.[25] He first became known to a wide audience on the posse cut "Show and Prove" on the 1994 Big Daddy Kane album Daddy's Home. Jay-Z has been referred to as Big Daddy Kane's hype man during this period,[26] although Kane explains that he didn't fill the traditional hype man role, and was instead "basically ma[king] cameo appearances on stage. When I would leave the stage to go change outfits, I would bring out Jay-Z and Positive K and let them freestyle until I came back to the stage."[27][28] The young Jay-Z appeared on a popular song by Big L, "Da Graveyard", and on Mic Geronimo's "Time to Build", which also featured early appearances by DMX and Ja Rule in 1995. His first official rap single was called "In My Lifetime", for which he released a music video. An unreleased music video was also produced for the B-side "I Can't Get with That.