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Group Home article from February 1995:

Living in the ghetto, trying to get the hell out.
It's all about family. You can lose a friend over $5 but your family will remain. When times get tough, it's even easier to separate the differences between family and friends. Family will put its own ego in check to help another family member. Family looks out for family. And when times are real tough, its family that's got your back at all times.
"...nobody put me on, I made it up the hard way...". Guru said this in GangStarr's jam "I'm the Man" off of the Daily Operation album. However, on the same track, Guru and DJ Premier share the spotlight with a couple of then unknown MC's. Why? It's all about family. Lil' Dap and Jeru the Damaja are family. Even though nobody put them on, Guru and Premier wanted it better for their family. "We met back in like 1986," explains Lil' Dap. "Back then we met through friends. We all just combined. We were all doing our own thing, but it was like family the way we clicked, though. Brothers were in tight situations and eveybody just combined, just came together and was helping eachother out. It was kind of bugged how we just connected. We formed a family and just kept it moving." Out of hard times, the GangStarr Foundation was fomed. Lil' Dap hooked up with his man Malachi theNutcracker, and the Group Home too was formed.
"...I had to come up the hard way..." Just being put on a GangStarr track does not gurantee success, however. You would think that an appearance on a GangStarr track would guarantee some long hard looks from A&R reps and subsequent record deals. However, that wasn't the case. About the same time that "I'm the Man" came out, the Group Home performed at a showcase during the New Music Seminar in 1992. Later during the seminar, Lil' Dap stepped to a rap panel and asked about the difficulty of trying to get noticed, trying to get a record deal. Dues. The panel agreed that you've got to pay your dues.

In the two years or so since the 1992 seminar, the Group Home has paid much dues. Explains Lil' Dap, "'I'm the Man" was the first time on wax. We took it from there and went on tour. We went on the EPMD tour, and then we went around Europe. Me and Jeru performed 'I'm the Man' with GangStarr. We went out and established our crowd, our audience. Just hustling."
Hustling on tour and hustling a demo. "We were shopping our demo off of the Ill Kid sampler," said Lil' Dap. "Something that we had pressed up ourseleves that featured 'Come Clean' and a jam that we and Malachi the Nutcracker did called "So Called Friends'. Also my man Big Shug did something on there. We went out and did our own little promotions, got it to all the underground DJ's and got it on some mix tapes. We also got a little radio here and there. We ran out (of the sampler) and its hard to get to, so right now that's a little classic."
Then Jeru the Damaja blew up the spot. Was it hard for the Group Home to wait their turn while watching Jeru's joint blow up? "No, because we kept it in the circle," answers Lil' Dap. "At the time when GangStarr was finishing up their album, me and Jeru were out doing shows, just the two of us performing "Speak Ya Clout", "I'm the Man" and "Come Clean". We were doing shows while they were doing their album. It was like one click. Jeru is on PayDay also, it was like a package deal. They already knew me from the appearances on the albums, and they saw that I already had my little audience."
(Article written by DJ Toast in February 1995. The article originally appeared in numerous national music magazines.)