From South Central Los Angeles, USA, 90s rap band Freestyle Fellowship were named after their rhyming abilities and dextrous word play. Comparisons to De La Soul and the Dream Warriors frustrated them, but the impressive thing about the group, as revealed on singles like "Hot Potato", with its samples from Dizzy Gillespie and Kool And The Gang, was the dizzy speed of their delivery and appetite for innovation. The group comprised Mikah Nine, Mtulazaji (Peace), Self Jupiter, Aceyalone and DJ Kiilu, who grew from the Los Angeles Good Life Cafe collective. Mikah Nine had formerly recorded with Carmet Carter and the Wailers. However, the most important music in the Freestyle Fellowship cocktail was undoubtedly jazz, whose experimental edge was reflected in their lyrics.

Listen to Freestyle Fellowship at Finetune.

• (1993)  Inner City Griots

• Cornbread
• Save the Music (feat. Myka)
• Hot Potato
• Inner City Boundaries
• Way Cool

• The Roots (Rap)
• Common
• Mos Def
• Souls of Mischief
• A Tribe Called Quest
• The Pharcyde
• Jurassic 5
• Black Eyed Peas
• Gang Starr
• Erykah Badu
• Ugly Duckling
• De La Soul
• Dilated Peoples
• The BeatNuts
• Pharoahe Monch
• The Fugees
• Del Tha Funkee Homosapien
• Digable Planets
• Pete Rock & CL Smooth
• DJ Shadow

• verticalmule
• jaqaras
• Tanje