J.J. Fad earned Eazy-E’s Ruthless Records its first gold certification and Dr. Dre his first gold production credit for the single “Supersonic,” but the female Rap group is not mentioned in the N.W.A biopic Straight Outta Compton.
“I think there was a certain image that they wanted to put out there, and I don’t think they wanted us to soften that,” Juana “MC JB” Sperling says during an interview with the Los Angeles Times. MC JB is joined in J.J. Fad by Michelle “Sassy C” Franklin and Dania “Baby D” Birks.
“That’s just my perception, and I don’t know if it’s true or not,” MC JB continues. “The way the story was told was very hardcore, so I’m thinking, there were a couple soft sides, but our presence in it might have been a little too soft.”
Supersonic – The Album, the first album from J.J. Fad, which hails from Rialto, California, which is 60 miles Northeast of Compton, also went gold, in 1988.
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Despite being left of out Straight Outta Compton, J.J. Fad’s and “Supersonic’s” influence has been significant in other ways. Eminem adopted portions of the song in his “Rap God” single and Fergie paid homage to the cut on her hit single “Fergalicious.”
“I just think that Ruthless owes them a great debt of gratitude,” says Jerry Heller, who helped Eazy-E run Ruthless Records.
“They generated a lot of money for our company,” Heller added. “People never thought about some of the other stuff we had there, like J.J. Fad and Michel’le, but that was a big part of the Ruthless story. Eazy and I loved those girls.”
J.J. Fad tours with fellow Ruthless Records alumni Arabian Prince, but Baby D says that the group is no longer in touch with any of its other former lablemates.
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“We don’t even have contact with no one anymore, you know,” she says. “I guess because they’re still in the light, we think about them. But I just honestly think that even if they weren’t in the light, we’d think about them because we’ve always thought about them. Because they were like family.
“I wish it would have gone differently,” she adds, “but there’s nothing that I could do about it. I don’t regret anything they’ve done for us or that we did for them. I just would like for them to take into consideration, you know, look at us and say, ‘Thanks, girls, after all these years.’”
For additional Straight Outta Compton coverage, watch the following DX Daily:
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