Jean Grae was originally from South Africa, but says that she will always be a New Yorker by heart. She is the daughter of two jazz musicians. Jean learned an appreciation for all genres of music at 9. She attended the High School of Performing Arts as a vocal major and was later accepted to New York University as a Music Business major. She was later given a good foundation on becoming a hip-hop writer and producer. After that she was recruited by a rapper named Ocean, who formed a group called Natural Resource in the mid-90s. In 1997, Natural Resource founded their own record label, Makin' Records, and released the 12" single, "Negro League Baseball", which became an underground hip-hop classic. They followed with several other 12"s including the song Love This World. In addition to writing and producing with Natural Resource, Jean also produced singles for Makin' Records artists Pumpkin Head, Don Scavone and The Bad Seed. She sometimes collaborates with Talib Kweli and Canabal Ox. She made two albums: The Attack of Attacking Things, This Week and The Bootleg of the Bootleg.
Named herself after the character of Jean Grey from the X-Men comics. Her former stage name was "What? What?"
Daughter of Abdullah Ibrahim
