Whodini – Grandmaster Dee

Jalil (Jalil Hutchins)
Ecstasy (John Fletcher)
Grandmaster Dee (Drew Carter)

Formed in the early 80’s Whodini got its start in a rather unusual way.  Keyboard wiz Thomas Dolby brought in a track to Jive.  Someone suggested they have someone rap over it.  The label grabbed Jalil and Ecstasy to record a track about radio personality Mister Magic.  The song gained more attention oversees than in New York.

They eventually used tracks recorded from producers all over Europe for their first album which never really received much success.

They were also the first group to include official dancers in their show, utilizing Dr. Ice and Kangol Kid of UTFO.

Their next effort, however, was different story.  Escape is the best known Whodini album.  It featured “Friends,” “Freaks Come Out at Night” and “Big Mouth” and ended up going platinum.  There more melodic sound opened doors for them outside of the normal rap channels.  And for a while it was the highest selling rap album ever.

Whodini put out a hype EP called “SIX” in 1996.

By the time their next album came out, LL Cool J was the man to watch and their R&B edge paled next to his hard hitting rhymes.  They did achieve some success with the classics “Funky Beat” and “One Love.”

Members appeared in the documentary film The Show.

They did go on to record some other albums and showed up on a moderately successful single on Terminator X’s second album.

Check Out Whodini at Rapmania

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