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The initial excitement of a burgeoning rap career slowly turned into frustration for will.i.am. The release of the Atban Klann's debut album, Grass Roots, was delayed multiple times. It would ultimately go unreleased, and it took Ruthless two years to issue the group's first single, "Puddles of H2O." "Puddles of H2O," like "Merry Muthafuckin' X-Mas," was produced by the aforementioned duo of Danes Madness 4 Real.Though Ruthless' flautist Jimmy Z was outwardly the most unlikely member of the extended Ruthless family, he'd been gigging around Los Angeles for years and was a known quantity among the city's studio rats. It makes sense that this guy would, at some point, cross paths with Eazy E and Jerry Heller. Madness 4 Real, meanwhile, were straight outta Hillerød, a sleepy town about 20 miles north of Copenhagen, where their conception of gangsters was limited to leather-clad Hell's Angels. Nicholas "Nick Coldhands" Kvaran and Rasmus Berg's production for Lifers Group, comprised of Rahway State Penitentiary prisoners, caught the ear of Eazy-E. With a post-Dre Ruthless in dire need of producers, Eazy enlisted Coldhands and Berg. They arrived in Los Angeles a week after the 1992 Rodney King riots and were shocked when, instead of G-funk, they were asked to make a Christmas song.
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