Junk Science

Junk Science is Baje One on the mic and DJ Snafu on the beats. Simple. These two gentlemen met in high school in Brooklyn in 1996 (when Baje One stole a handful of tapes from Snafu’s backpack, including a cassette containing original beats that were “dope”) and started making lots of “not-that-good-but-definitely-interesting” music together on half-days and weekends. Not that much happened between then and 2003-ish. At that point, they moved in together and started working on their debut album, Feeding Einstein, and album that URB magazine called “simply superb.” In 2005, they caught Scion’s attention when they won the car company’s NextUp Song Contest with their track “Roads,” a victory by popular vote which earned them a marketing deal that included a music video directed by Andrew Gura (Nas, Madlib, MF DOOM). The success of their video and the quality of their then-finished debut LP in turn grabbed the attention of DJ Ese of Brooklyn’s Embedded Music, who released Feeding Einstein in 2005 to critical acclaim. The album was praised in part for its lyrical risk-taking, particularly in the song “House Wigger” which found Baje discussing the role of white people in hip hop, and vice versa. In the Hip Hop Site review, one editor commented that “these are the type of artists you can only hope for, ones who will push the limits of what hip-hop artists can or should talk about.” The success of their debut led to a license of their 2nd record to indie superlabel Defintive Jux, who released Gran’Dad’s Nerve Tonic in 2007. In promotion of the record, and in keeping with Junk Science’s love of delicious beer, the duo teamed up with NYC brewery Sixpoint Craft Ales to create a limited-edition beer to coincide with the release of the album. To spread the word about Gran’dad’s Nerve Tonic, the duo toured the country with hip hop legends Del The Funkee Homosapien and Devin The Dude. In 2010, with Definitive Jux closing its doors, Baje took matters into his own hands and started Modern Shark, a staunchly independent record label run out of his apartment in Brooklyn. The first release on the label: Junk Science’s A Miraculous Kind Of Machine, an album that The New Yorker praised for its “old-school beats and clever rhymes…and a rewarding, wiser-than-their-years approach.” In 2011, Junk Science teamed up with longtime friend and collaborator Scott Thorough to release Phoenix Down, an album inspired by old-school video games. The beats for the record were made using all original music played on 8-bit synthesizers. Phoenix Down was released on Modern Shark on a limited-edition, custom-molded, rubber 2GB USB drive in the shape of a “pixilated” feather. Baje and Snafu are now at work on a new EP which will be awesome when it is done.