Unstoppable Prophet: 'The Sun Rises In The East', 20 Years Later - Chris "Preach" Smith

‘Say Jack, who are those guys?
‘Oh, that’s my theme music. Every good hero,
should have some.’
- I’m Gonna Git You Sucka (1989)

If 1994 can be considered the prime year in the
Golden Era of Hip-Hop for most of us, then you
have to consider all of the albums providing a 
key narrative for every MC or group. When it 
comes to Jeru The Damaja and his debut album,
The Sun Rises In The East, the narrative that 
is presented can be summed up in three words.
Brooklyn superhero emcee. In order to really 
appreciate that, we need to look at The Sun Rises
In The East in full.

Representing the grimy blocks of East New York,
Jeru The Damaja had been honing his skills 
until linking up with Guru of Gangstarr. See, the
MC otherwise known as Bald Head Slick wanted
to form his own crew a la the Juice Crew and 
others from the late 80’s. Jeru would be part of
this, along with Lil Dap and Melachi the Nutcracker
of Group Home. Jeru was considered to be the 
most ready in terms of putting out an album 
first. And along with Lil Dap, they’d get their shine
on ‘I’m The Man’ from Gangstarr’s solid 1992 
third album, Daily Operation. This cut is fairly
significant for three reasons. First, Premier 
showed a keen connection with Jeru’s particular
style with the beat production for his verse. 
Flipping Charles Mingus’ iconic ‘II BS’ into a 
steady pace was great framework. Second, 
Jeru’s verse is the last one on the track, and
as we know that’s the closer’s spot on any 
track with more than one MC. And lastly, the
TWO OPENING LINES:

“I’ll tap your jaw, you probably heard it before
step to the bedlamite, I’ll prove my word is law”

The brother used ‘bedlamite’. A term for ‘madman’
that flew over many heads but firmly soldified 
Jeru’s prowess in the minds of many. From this
point, he and Preemo would set down to work 
on the first single for his new album, ‘Come Clean’.
That single stills holds tremendous weight. DJ
Premier’s distinct ear brought about that beat
that seems SO simple when you first hear it. 
The Shelly Manne ‘Infinity’ sample that sounds
like water dropping onto Crescent Avenue from
the rusted overhead tracks of the J train lulling
you into the groove until you’re snapped back
by the Onyx ‘Throw Ya Gunz’ soundbite as the 
hook?! Man, listen. Jeru fully flexes his lyrical
style as a rugged and intelligent MC who’s a 
proud Brooklyn representative. He starts off
the first verse in a challenging mode that can
either be him ready to battle you in a cipher 
or throwing hands, both of which aren’t always
separate when it comes to MC’s looking to 
prove superiority. The song drops, and the entire
East Coast as well as everywhere else went 
crazy over it. Consider this: ‘Come Clean’ was 
released in October 1993. Now when The Sun 
Rises In The East comes out in May 1994? That
track is number ELEVEN on the album.

And when you listen to album in full, you can
appreciate why that is. The entire album is a
carefully crafted mix that serves partly as a 
soundtrack to the gritty blocks of East New 
York and partly as a dojo on wax for both Jeru
and Preemo. Premier’s production was on a 
roll and it showed here; every track contains
a decidedly vicious boom-bap that announces
itself no matter if it’s rugged or smooth. Jeru’s
flow stitched the whole album together in that
he could be that storyteller either from his 
own experiences running the street or what 
he witnessed. He could drop science but also
acknowledge his own contradictions, hence his
self-appointed ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrel’ moniker
fully detailed on ‘D Original’. For example, look
at this quintet of lines from the track’s second verse:

“The fact I have melanin automatically makes me a felon
even though I’m righteous, rotten’s what you’re yellin’
but I’m not chain snatchin’ or drug sellin’
according to your books you said I would be damned like Ham
scoundrel instead of the king that I am”

You have to appreciate the brevity and the verbal 
dexterity Jeru brings in just five lines. All with the 
backdrop provided by Premier that would lend itself
to a heist scene in a movie. The Sun Rises In The East
is full of that acute awareness. There’s references
to Kemetic science, Taoism and other philosphies.
A lot of the teachings many of us came in contact
with coming up in NYC and other cities from the 
‘80’s thanks to booksellers on strips like Fulton 
Street, Jamaica Avenue and 125th Street to name
a couple. Jeru even paid it forward by giving Afu-Ra & the
Perverted Monks their shine on the album in a track
I feel is still terribly slept on to this day, ‘Mental 
Stamina’. Look at it like this: the track is nearly 
two and a half minutes long. Chop off the little 
prelude to the song and you’ve got the two MC’s 
going at it non-stop. You can’t deny the force of
lines like this by Jeru, dropping periodic element
breakdowns in a track that harkens back to the
old days of MCs going back and forth on the mic
but still drops heavy knowledge in a plain way:

“Phoenetician with more stamina than a Christian
My mind C3 H5 N3 O9 like nitroglycerine
I bust as Afu Ra crush
clash with us and meet Cerebus”

The fact that Premier managed to make the beat
to this from a Roy Ayers track AND the drums
from Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’?! Chalk it up
to being another example supporting the Brooklyn
superhero narrative. 


The Sun Rises In The East also stands out for 
a couple of controversies. For one, the album cover
by Danny Hastings showing Jeru poised dramatically
before a depiction of the World Trade Center towers
engulfed in flames. It can be seen as prophetic 
given that this cover was designed two years 
after the first bombing and the Twin Towers’ 
subsequent demolition September 11th, 2001.
Another issue was the track ‘Da Bitchez.’ The
track rubbed The Fugees the wrong way, leading
Pras(Pras?) to throw shots at Jeru on another 
track, with Jeru responding in kind on ‘Black 
Cowboys’. This probably also had more to do with
Jeru’s anti-commercial rap stance as well. That
said, Jeru’s debut album works as a classic 
because of its gritty feel. It can sound a bit 
disjointed and indirect at times but when you 
look at it in the context of capturing a scene 
from any block in Brooklyn throughout the course
of a day or certain martial arts forms, it makes 
perfect sense. It’s also a neat serving of music,
clocking in under 40 minutes. The Sun Rises In
The East deserves to be seen as a solid classic 
that lent to the resurgent growth of East Coast
hip-hop. Twenty years later, the light from it 
still shines.