Wade Colwell-Sandoval and Ranson Kennedy first came together in 1993 as contracted recruiters and public speakers in Southern California  with Rebuild L.A./Up With People's Project Pride.

After finding common interests in social issues, they formed the hip hop group Poetic Souljjazz that same year.  They recorded their first album "Things are Changing."

The next summer, Wade and Ranson organized the Spectrum of Life in Tucson, AZ  which brought 100 youth, over half on intensive probation, together for a nightly gathering for six straight weeks during the summer.  The purpose of the program was to create a youth written, produced and performed musical that would depict the real issues in the community from a teenage perspective.  The end result was the show "Livin Inside Out" that drew accolades nationally and was identified in the US Congressional record by Senator Dennis De Concini as a model for educational reform.

In 1995, Wade became a certified secondary level teacher and Ranson continued to balance multiple production projects from arranging music for hip hop artists, television programs, film compositions, sound libraries and radio spots.

In 1997, after only two years in the classroom, Wade identified a major gap between what was being taught in the classroom and what students were choosing to be involved in outside of school. Wade approached Ranson with a proposition to create music, namely "real" hip hop, to engage the learning potential of the nation's youth. Ranson immediately understood the connection and contributed his creative ingenuity to form Funkamentalz that very day. The two immediately jumped in the studio and recorded a Geography song called "Worldside" that contained the name of every single country of the world (196 to be exact).

The rest is history that is still being written.