Juice (12)

Juice (real name: Ivan Ivanović) was born in Belgrade, Serbia in 1981. As a little kid he changed a lot of neighbourhoods from Karaburma where he grew up, till Leka's Hill where he is living now. His love for the music manifested in the early childhood, always the odd one in the eyes of the other children, he lived in his creative world, one of his first talents was street art, and soon music followed. In his pre-school he was into heavy metal and hard rock, but soon he was attracted to Dance, Turbo folk and Rap music. Listening to the domestic rap of the early 90's his eagerness to make his own songs made him join a demo hip-hop group "Boys In The Hood", which had 8 members. At that time recording songs at a Studios was really expensive, so they've tried hard to make as much a better song they could. They recorded "Generacija Geta" at Velja Mijanović's studio, and had success with it, because it received heavy rotation on the radio hip-hop show "Geto". After releasing one more song entitled "No more games", Juice leaves the band and forms Full Moon, with Goran from Voždovac & Miša from Banjica, later Shorty joined the band, and he and Juice were the only to band members left. After releasing a couple of songs, Juice then meets Ponjke & Marko of Belgrade Posse which was a famous demo rap group at the time, and with their help a hit song "Razmisli" is made, this song was played twice in a row in radio show "Geto" and it made 4th place on the year top chart of 1995. Song also appeared on the compilation "Crni je Struk Za Svaki Struk", it helped Full Moon get even more affirmation. In 1997 Juice was a guest in Dis 1'z 4 Us song, on the debut album of rap duo called Belgrade Ghetto. Full Moon met Monteniggers on a basketball tournament, and a strange collaboration happened, Full Moon appeared on Monteniggers video for "Ducka Diesel". Soon after that their album debut followed in 1998 it was released by "Centro Scena". Juice and Shorty presented a hardcore underground hip-hop sound, attain an even greater fan base, and they make big success with the hit single "Ja se vraćam u svoj hram“ a drum'n'bass version of the song, it should be mentioned that this song was the first drum'n'bass song in Serbia at that time. A lot of interviews and video appearances on the tv bring them a wider recognition in their country, they tour through whole Serbia, and also accompanied Gru to Dunav Fesitval in Germany, where they performed together. In 1999 a pause was made due to NATO bombarding, and after 9 months Full Moon was back on the stage on a successful concert at Dom Omladine and a new video for the song "I kada znam". That same year they were a support act for Das EFX. After that Juice decided to do a solo album. Material was being made for four years at Kruševac in Big Boss Studio. Album was also recorded at Studio VD at Zvezdara, Studio Be-Bop in Zemun, and lastly for Studio Sekunda at Zemun, it was released for BK Sound. Also Juice was a band member of V.I.P. albeit he recorded one song "Ko će to da plati?", because of the quarrel with Relja, he left the group before they recorded their first album. In 2001 video for his hit song from Hiphopium album „Keš kolica“ was released, for a long time video was on the top of the video charts, and was accepted by domestic public, it had influence on the future young rappers and „Keš kolica“ became a slang phrase used by youth. Album was promoted at night club "Bombo" and it was perceived as one of the greatest album promotions by the Serbian media. Parallel to the success of the album, a political operation "Sablja" was issued, and it canceled all future promotion for his first release, just as bombardment stopped the successful promotion of Full Moon's album. Nevertheless „Keš kolica“ for it's streetwise lyrics gained even more popularity through street channels, radio stations and press. One more interesting fact about the video that almost all active rappers of that time appeared on the video. With the release of the album he made a rap collective known as 93 FU (Fuck You) Crew. Soon after that Juice goes on to fulfill his military duty, after he returned he tries to find himself another job, but because of the recession, hopelessness and poverty of the country at that time, instead he ends on the streets with dealers, junkies, whores, and killers, concentrating on doing lyrics for his next album, that lasted for 3 years. 2004. saw him collaborate with Gru on his last album "Beograd" single "Stara škola, nova škola" with guest appearance by Kiza Robin Hood, Drej (Who is The Best) & Struka. Life on the streets made him change his perspective about street glory and respect, because of all the problems and paranoia it caused him for the last few years, he decided not to be clouded by illusions, instead he set his mind to make something better and more serious than before. He became aware of his talent, charisma and quality, and then he tried even harder to release his second album, which he finished by his own expense with two videos in his own production also. His second album "Brate Minli" was released in 2006, and it differed from his earlier hip-hop sound, it shared more connections to the Turbo folk and dance movement of the 90's Serbia, and it even had guests from that period like Ivan Gavrilović and Hussa Beat Street. Album had lukewarm reception from the critics, but it gained cult status, with people of Serbia that were into "Diesel culture of the 90's" young and old alike. Tours was done through whole Serbia and album received heavy promotion on Pink tv, with it's videos and Juice making an appearance on "Grand show" singing a duet with his half-sister Mina Kostić. Also internet hip-hop forums and videos on youtube popularised the album even more. In few internet interviews he did in 2006. when he was asked which bands did he respect and deem to be the real creators of Serbian hip-hop, he mentioned Budweiser, Tapiri and Beat Street, and influence from Đogani Fantastiko. Juice also did "Redaljke" in which he bashed the other rappers from the scene like Gru, Bad Copy & Marčelo. This caused a lot of controversy with the fans and in the domestic hip-hop community. Couple of years later Juice publicly apologized to Bad Copy members on their concert. His latest and third release to date is Hiphopium 2, a successor to his first album Hiphopium, critics once again were divided about the opinion on this one, they still deemed that the album has steeped even deeper into glorifying the diesel culture, while others thought of it more as an intended joke. Three videos were released "Ćuti dok te karam" (censored and uncensored version) and "Beli Grom GTI 16V" featuring Ila of Sha-Ila, and "Ti Si Ta (Corfu Summer RMX Oktopod Travle)". In 2009 he celebrated his 28th birthday on a concert with The Dridgers as support plus 93 Fu Crew band members as special guests. Concert was held at Belgrades oldest striptease club Lotos.