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Cold Crush Brothers are a hip hop group that formed in 1979 in the Bronx, New York during hip hop's infancy alongside artist such as Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force, The Fantastic Five, and The Funky Four Plus One More. The group originally consisted of DJ Charlie Chase, DJ Tony Tone, Easy (Girltaker) AD, Whipper Whip, Mr. T, and Dot-A-Rock. Whipper Whip and Dot-A-Rock would later leave and join the Fantastic Five and the line-up would eventually become Grandmaster Caz(Curtis Fisher), Almighty KG(Kenneth Pounder), Easy AD(Adrian Harris), JDL(Jerry Dee Lewis), DJ Tony Tone(Angelo King), and DJ Charlie Chase(Carlos Mandes). Money Ray(Eric Hoskins) would be added to the group in the early 80's. The Cold Crush Brothers were especially known for their memorable routines which included singing and chanting and were patterned after innovations of The Furious Five's routines. The Cold Crush Brothers would go on to basically set the standard for live hip hop shows with routines at the time. They were also known as a group where everyone in the group can rhyme well and because of the attention they began to attract, many groups would try to battle them for supremecy. This would lead to a fierce and well known rivalry with The Fantastic Five. Although the Cold Crush Brothers had a big reputation in New York, and in the Bronx specifically, they never received much recognition elsewhere because they never released a full length album. They were featured in 1982 in the movie Wild Style rhyming against the Fantastic Five and were also on the movie's soundtrack. They were also able to go on the Wild Style tour that same year and introduce hip hop to Japan for the first time. The Cold Crush became involved in one of hip hop's most important events when Sylvia Robinson, founder of Sugar Hill Records, would happen to hear part-time club bouncer and manager of the Cold Crush Brothers, Big Bank Hank rapping to a tape of Grandmaster Caz while working at a Pizzeria. She asked him to join a group that she was putting together called the Sugar Hill Gang. Hank accepted and, since he wasn't an MC himself, he went to Grandmaster Caz and asked him to borrow his book of rhymes which Caz gave to him, no questions asked. The song that the Sugar Hill Gang would go on to record was "Rapper's Delight" which would become a huge hit in 1979 and was the first hip hop single to land on the top 40 charts. Caz would never receive any credit or compensation for the rhymes that he contributed. In October 2002, member Money Ray passed away. The group still puts on shows across the country to this day. |