Mountain Brothers

Mountain Brothers is an American hip hop group originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Named after the legend of 108 mountain bandits depicted in the Chinese novel Water Margin, the group formed in 1994 after all attended the Pennsylvania State University in State College, Pennsylvania. They all shared a common interests; making music which is how they became friends. At Penn State there was an electronic music lab which they took advantage of by using it as their recording studio. Mountain Brother’s goal was to get signed to a major label so their music could be known nationwide. Their method was to send their demos to a variety of music labels; somewhat anonymously. Chops stated, “We didn’t want people to prejudge based on us being Asian so we would send a demo and a letter saying, ‘We have a picture, but it doesn’t matter what we look like if you don’t like our music.’ People that knew music, it was their job to like music, so they loved our music and then we sent them our picture; their mind was blown!”