James Mtume, recording artist, musician and one of the most innovative producers of R&B in the 1970s and 1980s, passed away on January 9. He was 76.
Philadelphia native Mtume is perhaps best known for his 1983 hit single “Juicy Fruit” which became even more well known when sampled in 1994 in Notorious B.I.G.’s signature hip hop single “Juicy.”
Mtume began his professional career playing percussion with Miles Davis’ electric band in the 1970s. Multi-instrumentalist Mtume brought his jazz chops to R&B when he later wrote and produced songs for Roberta Flack, Donny Hathaway, Stephanie Mills and others.
To quote from Los Angeles Times:
Described in the artist’s words as “sophistifunk,” Mtume’s sleek yet finely detailed music layered lush, jazz-inspired chord arrangements over uncluttered post-disco grooves that could make slow jams feel like club tracks and make club tracks feel like slow jams.
“Juicy Fruit,” with a stuttering drum-machine beat and a risqué lyric suggesting the pleasures of oral sex, spent eight weeks atop Billboard’s R&B chart (and led, Mtume said, to a legal inquiry from the Wrigley gum company).
Mtume’s survivors include his wife, Kamili; his brother, Jeffrey Forman; two sons, four daughters and six grandchildren.
In the years before hip hop gained a mainstream foothold on the charts, the ’80s provided many of the jams that would ultimately be sampled by rappers – so you can hear some of the underlying inspirations of Notorious B.I.G., Eric B & Rakim, and LL Cool J – along with LL Cool J himself, with the first enormous hip-hop slow jam, “I Need Love.”
