Whodini

On December 23, 2020, Fletcher died at the age of 56.

On August 16, 2018, the group was awarded the Hip-Hop Icon Award at the third Black Music Honors ceremony held at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

In March 2012, Whodini was featured in Season 5 Episode 3 of the TV One hour-long music documentary series, Unsung.

In August 2012, Whodini was presented with the Icon Award by the Underground Music Awards.

In October 2012, Whodini was inducted into the 4th annual Long Island Music Hall of Fame.

The instrumental version of "Five Minutes of Funk" was used as the theme music of the WNYC TV show Video Music Box, an influential early hip hop music video show. The album is out of print. On May 17, 2011, a deluxe version of Escape was released on CD with nine bonus tracks.

In October 2007, Whodini was an honoree at the 4th Vh1 Hip Hop Honors.

Talks with Def Jam Recordings for a new deal stalled, and in 1996, the group was signed by Jermaine Dupri to his then-Columbia Records-distributed So So Def Recordings imprint. As a child in the 1980s, Dupri did a brief stint as a dancer for the group.

Since the Six album, the group has not released any new music, but its older songs have been featured in many various old school compilations and three greatest-hits collections have been released: The Jive Collection, Vol. 1 in 1995, Rap Attack in 2003, and Funky Beat: The Best of Whodini in 2006, which featured the seven-minute "Whodini Mega Mix", which was a medley of some of the biggest hits.

In mid-1994, the group scored a hit single with "It All Comes Down to the Money", which was co-produced by Public Enemy DJ Terminator X on his album Super Bad.

In the 1990s, the band made an attempt at a comeback, and in that same year the group signed with MCA Records and released its fifth album Bag-A-Trix in 1991, which failed to have commercial impact, as it tried again to reinvent using the then-current sound of new jack swing. Smith produced six of the tracks on the album, two of which co-authored with the band Major Jam Productions, which separately produced the other four tracks, and Fresh Gordon made music for the other four songs.

By 1987, the group had earned its share of gold singles and albums. With the fourth album Open Sesame, its final release of the 1980s, the group had turned away from their once-playful simple beats and catchy rhymes of the old school, and instead became vocally harder and more instrument-driven, with guitars and horns and bells. They even began to sample, as a snippet of Cheryl Lynn's "Got to be Real" is heard on the song "Now That Whodini's Inside the Joint". Smith again produced the entire album except for two tracks, "Be Yourself" and "I'm Def (Jump Back And Kiss Myself)", produced by Sinester.

In 1986, the group released a third album Back in Black, fully produced by Smith. A number of songs from the album received heavy local New York airplay, such as "Funky Beat" and the controversial "I'm a Ho". "Fugitive" was guitar-driven funk and "Last Night (I Had a Long Talk With...)" was introspective. Paul Kodish, the drummer of Pendulum, was featured on the album.

In 1984, the group released the second album Escape. The entire album was fully produced by Larry Smith. From the laid back groove titled "Five Minutes of Funk" to "Friends", a cynical story of betrayal sampled everywhere from Nas' "If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)" to 2Pac's "Troublesome '96", to harder edged singles "Freaks Come Out at Nite" and "Big Mouth".

On July 8, 1983, the group released the self-titled album Whodini on vinyl and audio cassettes. The bulk of album was produced by influential German pioneer Conny Plank at his own studio near Cologne, Germany. On CD, the album was released in the United States only in 2010. The second single, "Haunted House of Rock", was released in time for Halloween 1983. Whodini combined the goofy fun of the Fat Boys with the virtuosity of Run-D.M.C. to create what is the rap equivalent of horror movies. Heavy on the sound effects, the song is full of references to various famous monsters and boogymen - Dracula, Bloody Mary and the Invisible Man all show up.

Whodini was among the first hip hop groups to cultivate a high-profile national following for hip hop music and made significant inroads on urban radio. They were contemporaries of other hip hop groups such as Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, Afrika Bambaataa, Run-D.M.C., The Fat Boys and Warp 9. The group signed with London-based independent record label Jive Records in 1982; they enjoyed a string of hits for several years, mostly charting on urban and R&B radio stations. The bulk of production on its releases was done by Larry Smith, a bass player who also handled much of Run-D.M.C.'s early work.

In 1982, Whodini made a hip hop story with its debut single "Magic's Wand", an ode to hip hop radio pioneer Mr. Magic, which became the first hip hop song for which a music video was shhot. Synthpop and electro pioneer Thomas Dolby helped produce this single. "Magic's Wand" also has the distinction of being one of Whodini's most-sampled songs.

From 1982 to 1986, the group was at its most productive; they toured with more successful groups such as Run-D.M.C., LL Cool J, the Fat Boys, and other prominent hip hop, R&B and funk bands. The group was involved in the first Fresh Fest tour, which was the first hip hop tour to play large coliseums nationwide. In July 1986, the group appeared at Philadelphia's Spectrum Stadium in front of an audience of 18,000. They were the first hip hop act and break dance troop to tour in the UK and Europe, with UTFO also appearing with the group as its break dance act.

Coming out of the fertile New York rap scene of the early 1980s, Whodini was one of the first rap groups to add a R&B twist to their music, thus laying the foundation for a new genre, new jack swing. The group made its name with good-humored songs such as "Magic's Wand" (the first rap song accompanied by a video), "The Haunted House of Rock", "Friends", "Five Minutes of Funk", and "Freaks Come Out at Night". Live performances of the group were the first rap concerts with the participation of breakdance dancers from the group UTFO. Russell Simmons was the manager of the group in the 1980s.

Whodini is an American hip hop group that was formed in 1982. The Brooklyn, New York-based trio consisted of vocalist and main lyricist Jalil Hutchins; co-vocalist John Fletcher, a.k.a. Ecstasy (who wore a Zorro-style hat as his trademark; June 7, 1964 – December 23, 2020); and turntable artist DJ Drew Carter, a.k.a. Grandmaster Dee.