Jungle Brothers

Jungle Brothers are an American hip hop trio composed of Michael Small, and Nathaniel Hall. Hailed as pioneers of the fusion of jazz, hip-hop, and house music, they were the first hip-hop group to collaborate with a house-music producer.

Operating from Harlem in the late '80s, Jungle Brothers didn't just make hip-hop—they architected a sound that dissolved boundaries between jazz, house, and rap when those genres still felt worlds apart. Their 1989 debut *Straight Out the Jungle* arrived as a genuine left turn, proving that house music's four-on-the-floor pulse could coexist with boom-bap without either sacrificing its essence. More consequentially, Mike Gee and Afrika Baby Bam founded the Native Tongues collective, a kinship that would reshape New York hip-hop's entire DNA through De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and Queen Latifah. Though their connection count sits modest by the numbers, their actual influence—the idea that hip-hop could be intellectually playful *and* sonically experimental simultaneously—rippled through a generation that still hasn't stopped running with it.