Jigmastas

A Brooklyn-based act that took plenty of time to make an official album debut (and even longer to follow it up), hip-hop duo Jigmastas were nevertheless fairly well-known by the time they released their first full-length outing early in 2001. That was partly due to the pair's much-hyped appearances in their native Big Apple but owed even more to the production work of DJ Spinna. Renowned throughout the '90s for his cut-creating and remixing abilities, he worked with Mary J. Blige, Mos Def, De La Soul, Les Nubians, and a host of others. Spinna had been friends with MC Kriminul since the mid-'80s, and the two struck up an official partnership a decade later in between Spinna's outside jobs. Jigmastas debuted on wax with the single "Beyond Real" in 1996; besides becoming an underground hip-hop hit, it also provided the name for the duo's newly formed record label. However, it would still be half a decade before an album appeared, as the duo tried to appease their growing fan base with singles like "Last Will and Testimony" (released on the Tommy Boy Black Label) and the EP Grass Roots: Lyrical Fluctuations in 2000.