The Trials of Jean Grae

(It must be hard for Jean Grae. When the music industry is screaming"They looking for the next female rap artist" And she's sitting right there in front of them with the looks, swag and the skills. Politricks as usual. Go buy the album Jeanius right now!!!! You won't be sorry)


Why an NYC rap star threatened retirement, and why she hasn't stopped threatening yet
By Rob Harvilla

Jean Grae once had two different albums leak on the same day. That is really hard to do. This Week, the official follow-up to the brash, volatile, riveting New York City MC's 2002 debut, Attack of the Attacking Things, saw official release as scheduled, in September 2004. That's also when Jeanius, a superior effort to This Week, began a horrifying four-year odyssey of neglect, abandonment, and (very) gradual evolution. Some of this ludicrous delay goes down to sample issues: Helmed by former Little Brother producer 9th Wonder, it's a mesmerizing ghost-town of classic funk/soul echoes—easy to love, hard to clear. But darker calamities have plagued our heroine, too, which explains, as we near Jeanius's long-awaited official release on Blacksmith Records (co-founded by Talib Kweli, overseen by Warner), why Jean herself is now threatening to retire via her MySpace page.
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