Oran Juice Jones is one of the coolest cats to have ever laid his stamp on the music game. Before Drake was ever able to merge the lanes between R&B and hip hop, there was Oran Juice Jones, who was the very first R&B artist signed to Def Jam Records back in the day when it wasn’t yet considered cool to blend singers with rappers. Now before we go any further, let’s just get the urge to recite a part of Jones’ classic 80’s joint out of the way…sing it with me now:

“I saw you [and him] walking in the rain, you were holding hands and I’ll never be the same…You know my first impulse was to run up on you, and do a Rambo…I was about to jam you and flat blast both of you. But I didn’t wanna mess up this thirty-seven hundred dollar lynx coat.”Alright, now that our pimp moment is over, let’s get back to the topic at hand. Before Oran Juice became THE Oran Juice Jones that we all know- the Oran Juice who inspired artists like Snoop Dogg and Jay-Z- he had a completely different occupation. In fact, his job was so far to the left in comparison to who we know him to be now, that we would have never called it a million years! Let’s just say that nobody better not ever think about messing with him, or his people, because he is highly trained and knows how to take a person out.

Oran Juice Jones’ Job Before Music Career

Oran Juice Jones was ‘one of the few, the proud, the Marines’…BUT that’s not all though, Juice was actually a SNIPER OFFICER for the Marines from approximately 1981 to 1986. You know the guys who are always on the roof during a standoff; or when a President comes to town, they’re the ones on the rooftops of surrounding buildings, ready and willing to take anybody out who tries it?

Yeah, that’s what our man, Oran Juice Jones, was. Gotta admit that I would have guessed many other occupations for Juice, like maybe a head manager at a high end hotel, or the owner of a suit & tie company, but to picture him as one of these dudes…

Nah, I think not.

In 1981 Oran Juice graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and get this, he even made history in his military career by becoming the second African American Brigade Commander in U.S. Naval Academy history. Well, that wasn’t quite making history because he wasn’t the first, but it was close enough, so we still salute the man for it.

Once Oran Juice’s music career started bubbling in 1986 –after he signed to Def Jam’s subsidiary company, OBR Records– he’d just completed his term with the Marine Corp and then said ‘peace out,’ deciding to take his music career to the next level. And boy did he ever do that!

If it wasn’t for Juice bringing his swag to the game and talking major smack at the end of “Walking In The Rain” song, many of these music industry cats of  today, wouldn’t know how to act. Much respect to Oran Juice Jones for being one of the originators of the R&B and hip hop merger!

What’s Oran Juice up to nowadays, you ask? When he’s not making a few special appearances to perform every now and then, the 65-years-young legend is helping his daughter and son get their budding music careers poppin.’

-ILoveOldSchoolMusic, old school news with a new point of view

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