By Chali 2na is standing in the alley behind The Aggie Theatre with a welcoming smile on his face, summing up his entire vibe with eerie precision.
The bellowing voice of Jurassic 5 and his touring band, House of Vibes, are right on time for soundcheck at the longtime Fort Collins venue. Sitting in the green room, the 6’6” Chi-Town native sees his signatures on the wall from past shows, a tangible symbol of his storied career. Sitting in the green room, the 6’6” Chi-Town native sees his signatures on the wall from past shows, a tangible symbol of his storied career.
While most hip-hop fans know him as an MC from J5, Chali is a self-described renaissance man, and wears the hat of photographer, painter, musician and actor. And he doesn’t just dabble — he’s freakishly talented in all arenas.
“My grandma used to always tell me that everybody is blessed with at least two talents,” Chali says. “She used to say, ‘God will take it away from you if you don’t use it, so you gotta use it.’ I think that mentality just seeped in and had me like, ‘Okay, I’ve got something, I’m gonna try to just do as much as I can.’”
From vibrant portraits of African characters to hyperreal drawings of frogs and fish, it all started at age 10 when he discovered comic books.
“Dare I say self-taught?” he says when asked where he learned to paint. “I don’t wanna say that but I used to love to draw. I used to always tell a story. My grandmother used to have me go grocery shopping with her and my reward would be a comic book. I used to take comics and learn anatomy, drawing different characters and things like that. That got me hyped.”
From there, Chali was introduced to graffiti. A friend from the Bronx who had fled to Chicago, away from the gangs and destruction that were littering New York City in the ‘70s and ‘80s. He brought his extensive hip-hop knowledge with him.
“When hip-hop started to really seep in, I had a friend who moved to Chicago from the Bronx who basically put me up on graffiti, the culture of graffiti and how it fit in with hip-hop,” he explains. “From there, I started linking up with a bunch of dudes that I knew ’cause house music was extreme in Chicago. There were just a few dudes who had their claws into the hip-hop scene, so you could search out those people.”
Eventually, Chali relocated to Los Angeles and found his niche — despite momentarily being a fish out of water. The infamous Good Life Cafe, which was a hotbed for underground hip-hop talent, provided the platform he needed to find like-minded people like aspiring turntablist Cut Chemist. Out of The Rebels of Rhythm and Unity Committee, Jurassic 5 was born in 1993. The lineup consisted of MCs Mark 7, Soup, Chali and Akil, and turntablists DJ Nu-Mark and Cut Chemist. After signing with Interscope Records in the late ‘90s, their dream of being a bona fide hip-hop group came to fruition.
“I never thought that what we decided to do would work out because we simply loved hip hop,” he says. “We’d go over to Cut Chemist’s house. His mom and dad bought him a few pieces of equipment, and we would just mess around in his room. God bless his momma for just tolerating us all these years. I never thought of the possibilities. I didn’t really think about it.”
“We were just hoping we could do something,” he continued. “It was fun more than anything, at least for me. Then all of a sudden we got a deal and it started to be real.”
Jurassic 5 released a total of four albums before breaking up in 2007. After getting a generous offer to play the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, they got back together in 2013.
The members of Jurassic 5 are all enjoying thriving solo careers: Cut Chemist is currently touring in support of his latest album Die Cut, Chali has dropped several mixtapes and EPs as well as his 2009 solo album Fish Outta Water, DJ Nu-Mark stars on the Method Man-hosted battle rap show Drop The Mic and Soup is working on his new LP. Despite this, they’re playing around with the idea of another J5 album. It would mark their first project since 2006’s Feedback.
“You can never call what’s gonna happen tomorrow, you can work towards it, but you never know,” he says. “I feel like all these blessings were just was laid in front of us to be able to tour like we did, for people to like the stuff that we do. It was like, ‘Wow.’ All of a sudden we can get paid for this? We can travel the world? It’s a trip. I think there’s truth and power in numbers. We are strongest together.”
