Wise Intelligent

Wise Intelligent was the lead MC for golden age hip-hop group Poor Righteous Teachers, a Trenton, New Jersey-based trio well-versed in Five Percent Nation ideology. The exposure of their jazz-driven hip-hop was not on the scale of Brand Nubian or A Tribe Called Quest, but PRT did have an equally great influence on the new generation of alternative rappers that cropped up in the late '90s and early 2000s. Wise Intelligent's own pro-Black politics were fueled by his dire upbringing in Trenton, where he and his nine siblings spent a lot of time in and out of homeless shelters. He and Culture Freedom grew up together in Trenton and would later meet DJ/producer Father Shaheed to form PRT around 1989. After 1996's New World Order, PRT pretty much disappeared off the map, although Wise Intelligent did issue his first solo album, Killin' U for Fun, that same year. Not coincidentally, many of the hip-hop acts from that era were being pushed into the underground and independent rap scenes around that time, as rap music began to go more commercial and dominate the pop charts. In 2000, Wise Intelligent founded his own company, Intelligent Muzik, which also established youth and community programs in his Trenton hometown. A few years afterward, he reappeared on the underground circuit with his politically charged rhymes, ready to spark a new socially conscious rap movement. Intended as part of a seven-album Back to School series, The Talented Timothy Taylor was his first effort, released in July 2007. ~ Cyril Cordor, Rovi