Although the first instrument young
Jel (born Jeffrey Logan) played -- much to his chagrin -- was the cornet, as soon as he had saved up enough money he bought his first (and only) drum machine/sampler, the SP 1200, when he was in high school. He began to dedicate most of his time to beat-making, and while at college he worked at the Northwestern University radio station, where he was eventually put in contact with MC
Adam Drucker, or
Doseone, with whom he connected instantly.
Jel dropped out of school in 1996 in order to better focus on music, and two years later
Dose's debut, Hemispheres, which featured two tracks produced by
Jel, came out on
Dose's fledgling Anticon label. The following year the duo released Them as the band
Themselves, and both, as part of
Deep Puddle Dynamics, along with
Alias,
Sole, and
Slug, began working on the record Taste of Rain...Why Kneel? That album didn't end up being released until 2002, the same year that
Jel's solo debut, Greenball, came out, with 10 Seconds following a few months later. In 2003 the
Meat and Oil EP was issued, and in 2006, after
Jel moved from Mush, the label that had released most of his solo work, to Anticon,
Soft Money hit shelves. ~ Marisa Brown