A late-'90s Los Angeles collective that made soulful hip-hop before dissolving.
If you only know "Big," try "Cloud Eyes" or "The Child Inside", they show what else the Zoo could do when they weren't chasing a single.
Their 1998 single "Big" had that horn riff people still remember, even if the plagiarism lawsuit around it got settled quietly. Songs like "Rain" and "Happy Earthday" showed they could stretch beyond that one hit, mixing soul and hip-hop in ways that felt loose and lived-in. They were a real collective, not just a studio project, which gave their sound some genuine texture.
They formed in Los Angeles in the late 1990s around vocalist Jon B., rapper Babyface Ed, and bassist Randy Jackson. After their self-titled debut in 1998 and the attention around "Big," they disbanded in 2001, then briefly reunited in 2010 to put out "One for the Road."
Keep it compact: a lyric you come back to, a live memory, or the part of the catalog you would point someone toward first.
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