Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force released the trailblazing single “Planet Rock” in 1982. It eventually made its way from New York City to Rialto, California, where a then-teenaged Juana Burns was captivated by the electronic synthesizer sounds lifted from Kraftwerk’s “Trans-Europe Express” and its speaker-rattling breaks. Burns, who was already in the entertainment field as a professional cheerleader for the United States Football League, decided she wanted to rap. Just 19 at the time, she held auditions in the den of her mother’s home with the goal of forming the West Coast Salt-N-Pepa.
“It was all word of mouth,” she tells SPIN. “That was it. There was no flyers. There was nothing. I would just tell people that went to my school. I told people in my neighborhood. I think there was probably 20 girls that came.”
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Out of those 20, Burns was most impressed with Dania Birks and her crew, and wound up asking them to join the group. Ultimately, J.J. Fad was born, an acronym for the original five women in the group: Juanita “Crazy J” Lee, Juana “MC JB” Burns, Fatima “O.G. Rocker” Shaheed, Anna “Lady Anna” Cash” and Dania “Baby D” Birks. Internal conflicts led to J.J. Fad becoming a trio—and that’s when their career really started to take off.
After N.W.A pioneer Eazy-E heard a rough version of “Supersonic,” he wanted to sign them to his newly-minted label, Ruthless Records. With the ink barely dry, the three girls hopped in the studio with Dr. Dre, redid the song and the rest is history.
“Supersonic” peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot Dance/Club Play Songs and No. 22 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart in 1988. The single was certified gold by the RIAA and earned a Grammy Award nom for Best Rap Performance in 1989, making J.J. Fad the first all-female rap group to do so.
MC JB walks us through how J.J. Fad was formed, the making of “Supersonic” and its accompanying video and how they paved the way for N.W.A to make history.
Bye Bye Barbara
I held auditions for an all-girl group in my mom’s den. I’m listening to all these girls, and I’m like, “No.” Hip-hop was kind of new, so people weren’t really that good at it, including myself. So I was like, “No, that’s not the sound. That’s not what I’m looking for.” I had a best friend that I went to high school with. She’s a little older, but her name was Lisa and she is Baby D’s cousin. So Lisa was like, “Hey, my little cousin can beatbox.” I’m like, “Get out of here. There’s no female beatboxers. You gotta be kidding.”
I was like, “Well, call her to come.” She came with a crew. It was her and four other girls. She’s like, “Well, we’re a group.” But I wasn’t really looking for that many people. With me, that would have made five, but I was like, “OK, let me see what you got.” So she starts beatboxing and they start rapping over it. I was like, “Oh, I’ll take every single frickin’ one of you guys.”
One of the girls that came with them, her name was Barbara, and she was only 12. I said, “Well I have a friend, an Italian girl named Anna. Let’s just make her the DJ so we can have a female DJ too.” So Barbara was out.
Now Serving
The inspiration was Baby D and the other girls that were with her because they’re all from Louisiana. There was a burger place out there called Supersonic Burgers—not the Sonic we have today. They used to go there, so they started rapping about it. At first it was about food and then they were like, “No, let’s make it about this, let’s make it about that.” The beat Baby D was beatboxing was the beat to “Supersonic.” So we all said, “OK, we got to scrap it, use the beat, but everybody needs to write their own part.” So we all wrote our verses.
Then we told Arabian Prince we needed to go in the studio. I go, “Do you know of a studio?” He goes, “You live here!” So I found a studio with one of my friends who lives in Riverside, and we recorded it with the five girls in that studio in Riverside.
Supersonic Speed
It took us literally 10 minutes to write the song. It evolved and changed during the course of time, but the first draft we wrote in 10 minutes.
We had no aspirations of like, “Oh my god, we’re gonna be famous.” None of that. We just wanted to do it, put it out there, and see where it went. We didn’t think we were going to be rich. We didn’t think we were going to do anything special. We just thought—and not knowing the business—“Let’s make a song and it’ll be on the radio.” We thought that’s how it went.
Arabian Prince took us to Dream Team Records, which was the L.A. Dream Team. They laid it on wax on their label, Dream Team Records. That draft had five girls on it. During the Dream Team era, we were doing little local shows at skating rinks and little clubs that we weren’t even old enough to be in, that type of stuff.
And Then There Were Two
The girls that came with Baby D were a little naive to the music business. They thought, “Oh my god, we have a record. We’re rich. We’re doing shows. We’re rich.” So they had a dispute, and they thought—because I was always the leader—I was skimming money because they weren’t making a lot of money. And I’m like, “Look, there’s five of us. You have to split it in five ways. We’re getting like $600 for a show, so we each got a little more than a hundred bucks. But there was no explaining it to them and they quit. Then it was just me and Baby D.
Dream Team
So I’m 19 and Baby D is 15, and her mom insisted she stick with me. We’re still with Dream Team Records. We put it out and there was a little bit of a buzz on the L.A. airwaves. Eazy-E heard about it and he was like, “I need to get those girls because I’m starting this label Ruthless Records and I can’t legitimize this label with the street rap coming out. I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I don’t know if it’s gonna be rejected. I don’t know if they’re gonna put my ass in jail. I don’t know what’s gonna happen.”
He kind of finagled and it’s funny because I was like, “What the hell? Are we prostitutes?” Because he bought us from the L.A. Dream Team from Dream Team Records. I don’t know what the deal entailed. I don’t know how much money exchanged hands. We were left out of all that.
Three Is The Magic Number
We hadn’t heard of Eazy-E, we hadn’t heard of N.W.A, we hadn’t heard of anything. We just knew we were going to a new label and the owner was really rich, and they were gonna do big things for us. Less than a month later, we go into the studio and redo the entire song with three girls.
We met Sassy C through Dream Team. She was Dream Team’s friend that’s how we got to know her because it was just me and Baby D. They knew her. She was a solo artist, and they knew she was trying to do rap as well. So they introduced her to us. We clicked and all three of us went over to Ruthless. We laid down the track and basically redid it. Dr. Dre was producing it, so he put the special sauce on it. It wasn’t a whole different song, but it was a different sound. I hate even telling that story because I don’t like that version. It sucks so bad, but it’s what happens, so you got to embrace it. I hate even giving those girls shine because they left and it was so rude.
To The Moon
[Los Angeles radio station] KDAY got a hold of the song and it went to the stratosphere. It just goes from that point. It was a crossover hit. It was huge. Ruthless didn’t have the money to really do the project, so the money that they made off of us is what funded their project.
Super-Surprised
We didn’t think it was going to be a hit, no. And the only reason why I say that is because, yes, we knew the song was good. Yes, it was catchy. Yes, it was fun. Yes, we knew that there was something there, but this is the ’80s. We’re trying to break into this rap game, right? And all we’re hearing from the East Coast is this beef and that beef and this beef and that beef. So we were like, “OK look, we gotta come out dissing. We can’t come out with ‘Supersonic.’ We gotta come out hard. “Supersonic” was actually a B-side. The A-side was called “Another Ho.” We dissed every East Coast rapper known to man in one minute and 30 seconds. We talked big crap. We’re like, “Roxanne Shanté ain’t got no hair in the back.” Oh my, we went off.
Another Go
When we went to shop that, we had a street guy—his name was Doug Young—and he was part of the Ruthless street team. So he was going to clubs, he was shopping “Another Ho” and he’s like, “This shit is just not working.” It wasn’t hip-hop. It was just more like, “I’m talking shit about you,” but there’s no basis behind it and the beat was just not all that. So he goes, “You guys need to come with me. Maybe if they see you because you guys are cute.” So we go with him, and it was still like, “Eh, nothing.” People were laughing at the lyrics, but nothing else.
One of the DJs—I don’t know his name and I wish I would have known at the time so I could give him his props—but he’s like, “What’s the backside of it?” Doug was like, “Oh that’s ‘Supersonic.’ That’s gonna be their B-side.” He’s like, “Let’s flip it over.” He flipped it over, played it, and the dance floor went crazy. From that point on, “Supersonic” was the A-Side and it freaking worked.
A Roller Skating Jam
The video was shot on the rooftop of downtown Los Angeles, on one of the tall buildings. I’ve always been into entertainment and all that kind of stuff. I grew up being a competitive roller skater. That’s why you see me spinning on wheels in the “Supersonic” video because I could skate and do tricks. I did that my whole life growing up. I was a national champion roller skater. That was my life. I lived in the skating rink for 18 years. That was my sport. Just like everybody does basketball, roller skating was my sport. I went to competitions, everything.
Behind
It’s not really a funny story, it’s kind of a weird story, but Sassy C, she had gotten into a disagreement with a fellow artist and he punched her, so she had a black eye the entire time in the video. We covered it up with makeup. We were all young, so I think it was something that got out of hand. But you would never even know by watching the video.
Behind The Turntables Is DJ Train
By the time that video happened, Arabian Prince was gone. DJ Train is the one in the video. Train passed away in a fire here trying to save his family. He and Baby D were super close; they were besties. He had a girlfriend that used to be on the road with him. She was younger, so he had to miss one show because he had to take her to the prom, so DJ Yella filled in for Train on one show.
Ballin’ On A Budget
We had Jerry Heller as a manager when we shot the video, so he took care of everything and we didn’t know what the budget was. We had no idea. We just knew we had a video to shoot and we shot it.
Supersonic 2.0
I feel proud that it’s still semi-relevant today and that the new generation of kids absolutely love it—especially since it was on the Sonic the Hedgehog trailer. We got a whole new generation of kids that love the song.
I got a note today at my office—I’m the school nurse—and it was from a student’s parent and she was like, “Shut the front door. My daughter just told me who you were.” I’m like, “Your daughter?” She’s in the fourth grade. Since it’s Women’s History Month, our librarian put together something about women from our school who have done great things and I was on it.
Her daughter went home and told her because the mom said, “Hey Alexa, put on ‘Supersonic.’” I guess she plays it when she’s cleaning. The daughter came in and said, “Hey, is that ‘Supersonic?’ My nurse is the one who sings that.’ So it’s a generational song. It’s going from generation to generation to generation.
20/20 Vision
The whole thing was a whirlwind. We didn’t take the time to embrace that and enjoy it because we were so young. We just figured, “Oh, yep, this is gonna last forever. Next song’s gonna be a bigger hit than this.” We never took the time to really enjoy what was happening to us. We toured everywhere, and we didn’t take the time to go look at the sites. All we wanted to do was hang out with—and this was fun too—the artists who were on tour with us, which was amazing. It was the Run’s House tour [featuring Public Enemy, Run-DMC, EPMD and DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince]. We loved hanging out with the other people on the show, but we never took the time to go sightseeing and take everything in. But when you’re a teenager, you couldn’t care less.
Advice To Her Younger Self
Take the time to smell the roses, take everything in, embrace every experience that’s happening to you at that time and don’t take it for granted. It was good for all of us, and the reason why I say that is because it gave us a work ethic. I’ve always been one to work hard, but they weren’t. At Ruthless, we had to work under Dr. Dre, and he was like “Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Nope, that’s not right. Do it again. You better be here at 6 a.m. and you better not be late.” That really taught us a work ethic that we have all carried with us throughout our lives—through our jobs, through our interviews, through whatever we do—we have that work ethic that has stayed with us. I think that’s amazing.
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