The `90's had lots of mojo. The Doors were popular again, and a new generation heard Jim Morrison tell them about a guy named Mr. Mojo Risin' in the song "L.A. Woman." Mojo Nixon, the singer, was at his peak. I started going to clubs to hear The Urban Shakedancers do Muddy Waters' "Got My Mojo Workin'."

But the Mojo that stood out the most was Atlanta's own Stuck Mojo. These guys pretty much invented the rap-metal genre, and in this blogger's opinion did it much better than anyone else. From humble Pizza Hut beginnings they grew to be a successful underground metal band known around the world.

I first encountered Stuck Mojo at a battle of the bands at the Center Stage Theater. I'd never heard anything like them. The sound was aggressive, grooving and relentless. Crowd response was lukewarm but my pal Darren and I were instantly impressed. (Hootie and the Blowfish were the second act. Dullest band I've ever seen, bar none. Clearly going nowhere. Multi-platinum albums a few years later proved me right.)

A year later Darren and I were dropping off a press kit for our own go-nowhere band at the International Ballroom. Incidentally Stuck Mojo was performing. Mojo had changed, and the crowd had grown! The guitarist, "Richie" Rich Ward, had been hitting the protein shakes. Bonz, the rapper, now had a `do rag and T-shirt to replace the prom suit he had been wearing before. There were 300-500 people there moshing and stage diving like crazy. Dis shit be blowin' up!

I saw them several more times after that, picking up their three-song cassette demo along the way. Stuck Mojo would eventually be signed by an independent label called Century Media and became their biggest-selling band, playing huge metal festivals in Europe and filling club gigs in the United States. They also debuted a video on WCW's "Nitro" at the height of the wrestling craze, and Rich Ward formed a side project with wrestler Chris Jericho on vocals called Fozzy Osbourne.

But by the mid-90's Limp Bizkit and Korn were having all the hits and getting all the credit for the rap-metal genre Stuck Mojo founded. Stuck Mojo splintered, with Ward trying his luck with more melodic modern rock projects Sick Speed and Cafu while Bonz started the short-lived 420 Monks and Dead Gospel.

Now, 17 years since I saw them at the Center Stage, Rich Ward has formed a new Stuck Mojo and is touring Europe. He's got a new rapper and a second guitarist, and to me it ain't Stuck Mojo. However I'm loathe to criticize people who are more successful than me, so I'll shut up. He's living a life and doing things I'll only ever dream of, so hats off to him.

If you're interested (and you should be), here are MP3's from that old `93 cassette. If you want to hear these in CD quality from the original master tapes, you should buy this on a compilation from Stuck Mojo. If you're just curious to hear what they sounded like and don't mind a 15-year-old cassette copied to MP3, take a listen. None of the subsequent CD's I ever heard topped this demo: