by Marisa BrownThough both Jeru the Damaja and Nas released their debut LPs in 1994, the former hasn't had the same kind of success and name recognition that his fellow New Yorker enjoys. A big part of this is because Jeru has been nowhere near as prolific. While Nas continued to make albums throughout the '90s and 2000s, some of them with poppy enough hooks that he was able to cross over into new territory, Jeru ditched beatmaker-extraordinaire DJ Premier (which Nas didn't do until much later) after his second album, The Wrath of the Math, came out; he kept on criticizing commercial hip-hip (a move that generally doesn't help radio play), and completed only two albums between 1995 and 2005, neither of which were particularly impressive. Now, with the issuing of Still Rising, a clear allusion to his debut, The Sun Rises in the East, on his own Ashenafi Records, Jeru is trying to re-stake his claim as an East Coast force. With a couple of unkn...