Originally Posted by music_phantom13

If you want to do it based solely on when they started, Jungle Brothers were producing a fusion of jazz and hip hop before De La Soul or ATCQ, and their debut album Straight out of the Jungle launched The Native Tongues Posse, where all of the early jazz rap stuff came from. The album was released in '88, a year before 3 Feet High and Rising. Really, ATCQ was eyed by Geffen Records in early 1989, and they made a 5 song demo for them which included a few of the tracks from People's Instinctive Travels.... So they had already developed their sound and recorded part of their debut by the time De La Soul's first album came out. Also, ATCQ sort of formed in 1985, 2 years before De La Soul, but was just Q-Tip and Jarobi doing rap battles. They were originally called Crush Connection, then Quest, and didn't pick their full name until 1988, when Jungle Brothers gave it to them. So they actually did come first. And they were friends with Jungle Brothers before De La Soul was around. In all reality, though, Jungle Brothers, ATCQ, and De La Soul were essentially around making music together in The Native Tongue Posse at the same time, it's just that ATCQ took longer to release their new album.

So really, both bands are probably equally responsible for creating alternative rap, and in reality less so than The Jungle Brothers They were both trying to make chill, laid back nonsense music heavily influenced by jazz at the same time. And it's really quite sad that Rolling Stone once said De La Soul paved the way for the Jungle Brothers... can't forgive them for that.