The Maximum Definitive was a

Canadian hip hop The Canadian hip hop scene was established in the 1980s. Through a variety of factors, it developed much slower than Canada's popular rock music scene, and apart from a short-lived burst of mainstream popularity from 1989 to 1991, it remained l ...

trio, active in the early 1990s. They are noted for their single "Jungle Man", which was a

Juno Award The Juno Awards, more popularly known as the JUNOS, are awards presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music. New members of the Canadian Music Hall of ...

nominee for Best Rap Recording in

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...

. Originally from

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

, the group was formed in high school in the late 1980s, when Justin "Darp Malone" Ryan saw David "Click" Cox win a dance battle. Darp had been performing and (dance) battling with Jerome Lewis; Click joined them and they added two more dancers, a DJ and a female vocalist. The name was chosen from a thesaurus, mainly because "TMD" is an effective acronym. The band was then joined by Roger "Mystic" Mooking, however Mooking and Lewis did not get along and Lewis left the band. The group began performing in Edmonton and touring

Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada� ...

as an opening act for Ice-T and Will "Fresh Prince" Smith; the band dwindled to the three members. After performing at an Edmonton fashion show, the trio was approached by filmmaker Jordan Kryzanowski to film videos for some of their songs. "Jungle Man" attracted the attention of

MuchMusic Much (an abbreviation for its full name MuchMusic) is a Canadian English language specialty channel owned by BCE Inc. through its Bell Media subsidiary that airs programming aimed at teenagers and young adults. MuchMusic launched on August 31 ...

Master T Tony Young (born 1961), professionally known as Master T, is a Canadian television and radio personality and urban music promoter. He was born in Leeds, England, and moved to Canada with his Jamaican family in 1974. Early life and education He ...

. The video, inspired by the

X Clan X Clan (formerly stylized as XCLAN and often incorrectly spelled X-Clan) is a hip hop group from Brooklyn, New York, originally consisting of Grand Verbalizer Funkin' Lesson Brother J, Professor X the Overseer, Paradise the Architect, and Su ...

and

Brand Nubian Brand Nubian is an American hip hop group from New Rochelle, New York, composed of three emcees (Grand Puba, Sadat X and Lord Jamar), and formerly three DJs (DJ Alamo, DJ Sincere, and DJ Stud Doogie). Their debut studio album, '' One for All'' ...

, has a tribal theme and was filmed at Edmonton's

Muttart Conservatory The Muttart Conservatory () is a botanical garden located in the North Saskatchewan river valley, across from the downtown core in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. One of the best-known landmarks of Edmonton, the conservatory consists of three city-ope ...

. Jerome's Lewis' baby daughter,

Quanteisha Quanteisha Benjamin, often referred to as Q-Benjamin, is a Canadian R&B singer. Early life Quanteisha grew up in Edmonton, Alberta. In 2008 she entered the local singing competition Bounce Showdown, held by contemporary hit radio station 91.7 ...

, who became a Juno award winning vocalist, was featured in the video. After making it into rotation on MuchMusic, the song earned the band their Juno Award nomination, as well as the

MuchMusic Video Award The iHeartRadio MMVAs were an annual awards show broadcast on Much to honour the year's best music videos that was last held in 2018. Originally debuting in 1990 as the Canadian Music Video Awards, the awards were renamed in 1995 to the MuchMu ...

for Best Rap Video in 1993. Mooking and Ryan were under 20; Cox was still in high school. The band was planning to record their debut album when Mooking, now living in Toronto, co-founded the band

Bass Is Base Bass is Base was a Canadian Contemporary R&B, R&B group based in North York, Ontario. History In 1993, Chin Injeti and Ivana Santilli were in the music group Syndicate 305. At the 1993 Music West conference in Vancouver, Injeti and Santilli met MC ...

. Cox and Ryan discovered this only when they saw Mooking on the cover on the latter's debut album ''First Impressions for the Bottom Jigglers''. Production on the TMD album ceased and the band dissolved. Cox went on to work in A&R (

artists and repertoire Artists and repertoire (colloquially abbreviated to A&R) is the division of a record label or music publishing company that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists (singers, instrumentalist ...

) for

BMG Rights Management BMG Rights Management GmbH (also known simply as BMG) is an international music company based in Berlin, Germany. It combines the activities of a music publisher and a record label. BMG was founded in October 2008 after Bertelsmann sold its ...

and

Universal Music Canada Universal Music Group owns, or has a joint share in, many of the record labels listed here. According to UMG official site, the main labels are Abbey Road Studios, Bravado, Capitol Music Group, Decca Records, Def Jam Recordings, Deutsche Grammopho ...

; he also founded the Stylus Awards, which recognizes DJs, hip hop artists, producers and Canadian club culture. With the rapper E-Dot (Errol Henry), Ryan recorded the 2008 album ''E-Dot & Darpmalone Are... Hero''. Mooking became a restaurateur and celebrity chef.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maximum Definitive, The Canadian hip hop groups Musical groups from Edmonton