Jel

Hip-Hop

He was but a young buck, wet behind the ears and not all that wise. But if Jeffery James Logan—Catholic-born Chicago son, one-time Chuck Berry enthusiast, junior high schooler— knew one thing, he knew that he needed to play the drums. If he knew another thing, it was that he wouldn’t get to, no matter how much angsty teen protest or sullen-eyed brooding he put into the cause, because, well, some jock kid was in better with the gym teacher. So Jeff—the SP-1200 beatmachine master we now know as jel—took up the coronet. Thankfully, the SP found jel shortly after Christmas one high school year. He’d been helping elderly women pump gas as part of a long-term scheme to turn fuel into money into circuitry into sound. He still had the tapes from the year he fell in love with music—1989 radio broadcasts from 105.9 WGCI, The Rap Down with Franky J and Disco Dave—and had been desperately searching for a way to feed his intense attraction to beat-making ever since his first urges were denied. With cash clenched tightly in young fist, he marched to the nearest music store and happily bought the cornerstone of his entire sound: the SP-1200. Revenge on a gym teacher never felt so sweet. And jel never looked back. The next few years were spent mostly in two places. When jel wasn’t locked away in his room with his new mechanical love, he was helping out behind the scenes at Northwestern University’s radio station. At home he’d cut, chop, record, and tap; on campus he�...