Texas Rapps Flashback: K-Otix

Damien, Mic and The Are of K-Otix sprung forcefully out of Houston during the mid-'90's onto the worldwide underground rap circuit. Culminating in the release of their Spontaneity EP in '97 and their Universal album in 2001, K-Otix proved themselves as thoroughbred workhorses whose music struck a chord with those in tune with true school aesthetics...

The Niyat - Box Kutta 2 video

Synato Watts and Tabu Da Rekka of The Niyat collective show that Houston rap can be primarily influenced by classic New York styles and still come out right. It's no surprise that The Niyat contains a former member (Doc MinBender aka D-Ology) of the Psyko Ward, long ago billed as Houston's version of the Wu Tang Clan...

League of Extraordinary G'z - We Gon Make It video

Austin's League of Extraordinary G'z is a collective comprised of three groups: Dred Skott, Southbound and Da C.O.D. Together, they've put out two excellent mixtapes to date, Concealed Weapons Volumes 1 & 2. With the League's first offical video, it's Reggie Coby and Esbe of Dred Skott and Lowkey of Southbound trying to reassure themselves that all their hard work and conviction will rightly pay off some day...

A.Dd+ - Likeamug video

Dallas is always good for some left field rap that still jams out the trunk, this time in the form of a bottom-heavy Picnic Tyme production featuring Slim and Paris of A.Dd+ along with Brown of Sore Losers...

Gerald G interview (from 2009)

Gerald G Explains How He Was Raised

Gerald G has for years held it down as Austin’s most voracious freestyler at local shows. Gerald’s latest live sets with singer Staci Russell prove him to be a well-nuanced performer and his still-underappreciated Mr. 512 mix cd channels a thunderstorm of intense, double-timed lyrical expression. Fresh off the release of his first video, Gerald sat down to discuss how he landed on his particular planet of frenetic rap style.  

Harvey Canal: So which artists inspired you to rap?

Gerald G: Ice Cube, 2Pac, then I got into Twista. I liked the fast rap, I thought it was murder, just chopping up all those words. Then I got into Bone and then my people put me on to Screw.

HC: Was that a weird change for you to go from fast rap to the slowed down style?

GG: I didn’t like it at first, but after I start hearing it for a minute I was like ‘yeah, that’s it’. You just had to get used to it. You know everybody likes to turn down something when they first hear something different.

HC: So was it that you were originally from Compton, California that had you digging on West Coast rap?

GG: I’m pretty sure that’s why I knew about all of them before I even knew about Screw and all of that, because that’s where I came from. And all the soul music we were listening to was just glorious on that California radio. I can’t remember a whole lot of things I did when I was little, but I can remember those songs and the melodies. I remember just riding listening to the radio. And my mom was a tourist, especially in Cali. We’d shoot to San Francisco and then to Oakland and back to LA. Then my kinfolk worked for Universal Studio, so we were into entertainment at way little.

HC: On your mix cd, you mention being a young teen running around rapping with a karaoke machine. Is that when you started formulating your style?

GG: When I first started, I was just rapping like everyone else really because I didn’t know where to start from. We were probably rapping just like Houston. I know we were ‘coming down’ for a minute. When that came around, we got into that and we was ‘coming down’. But that wasn’t our roots so we didn’t hold onto it like most people. So I eventually went back to regular, you know, what I think. You got to be original. You can’t be ‘coming down’ way in Austin. You got to be Keke to be ‘coming down’.

HC: When you speak of we, who are you talking about?

GG: Everybody I made listen to music with me. I was already walking up to everybody saying ‘listen to this, man’ and trying to rap to them. That’s back when I wasn’t really making any rhyming words together. They were like ‘ah no, shut up’. Way back then when I first started I was just rapping anything. We were just saying anything, probably didn’t make sense or go together. We were just rapping, happy and crunk, trying to put people on our tapes, when they were probably just garbage. I wish I could find one.

Anyway, when you live music, you become music. Eventually my style formed and I got my swag. You just start punching wild for a couple of years, you’re gonna wind up learning how to throw a combo. So as soon as I got hold of that combo, and then know how I was throwing that combo, then you can start throwing extra punches with the combo. You got your main combo there, and then you start throwing extra combos. You throw another hook in there, throw a left blow. So it just grooves, that’s how I figured it out. And you see how other people punch too. Watch Pac, watch Twista, check their format, see how they throw their blows. You don’t just copy their blows but you can use something. You can use something from everybody because that’s where everybody comes from anyway, everybody. They’re either just more developed or they just tweaked a style that somebody else had and now its an original style, or it’s a little bit better than the style before it, or its worse. But everybody’s style is off somebody’s style. It doesn’t matter where it’s from, somebody was saying it like that before.

HC: And how did the church come into play for your music?

GG: The church choirs were always off the chain, especially going to my kinda churches. They be going live, like they doing cd’s in the church. That was always good music. My roots is from the church, we were always in the church. So no matter where I go in life, I’m going to end up going to the church, going back to home. It’s already in me. There were a couple of times that I performed in the church, was in the choir and all that kinda stuff. I still really like that kinda stuff. Most people might think that’s kinda crazy, but shit...all I know is God.

Texas Rapps Flashback: DJ Screw

Wow, what can be said about DJ Screw that hasn't already been tatooed on someone's arm? Screw is like a god down here, the one to singlehandedly provide Texas rap with its own distinct identity. Matching the mood of his tapes with the prevailing mood of Southside Houston, Screw attracted a dedication bordering on a religious phenomenon. Rappers in Texas grow up on Screw like church pastors grow up on The Bible. Screw not only had that uncanny ear, but he also had the techniques. Long before deejaying went entirely digital, Screw was messing with listeners minds with his live remixing of tracks. RIP to the undisputed king of Texas rap... 

Chamillionaire & Big K.R.I.T. - It's My World video

Since winning a Grammy Award in '07 for his hit single "Ridin'", Houston's Chamillionaire has appreantly been living quite the charmed life. He had always seemed to be thinking bigger than his fellow Texas rap cohorts and serves as living proof that if you set your goals high enough and put into motion a viable plan to actually reach those goals, anything becomes possible...

Riders Against the Storm - In the Light video

Jbro and Tiger Lily of Riders Against the Storm (RAS) relocated to Austin from Providence, Rhode Island about a year or so ago and have become quite the sensation on the underground circuit down here ever since. Their album titled Speak the Truth promotes social justice every bit as much as it adheres to the tenets of old school hip-hop sesnsibilities. And their live performances are always brimming with a creative excitement that is nothing short of contagious to those in attendance...

Chalie Boy - I'm Here video

Following in the footsteps of fellow Texans Big Moe and Z-Ro, Chalie Boy puts a lil more of a country gospel feel to his one-two combination of rapping and singing. That's evidently what you get when you're dealing with an artist from Hearne rather than Houston. A member of both Freestyle Kingz and Rapid Ric's Whut It Dew Family, Chalie Boy scored himself a major radio hit in '08-'09 with his single "I Look Good". Looking to build upon that momentum, Chalie Boy delivers yet another one of his introspective specialities...

Starvin Arden - Rappin Circles video

Starvin Arden represents for the Southside of Austin as a memeber of the Die Slo Entertainment camp. With a no frills approach to rhyming, he wrecks a beat produced by Da Bosnian...

Kydd Jones - Jungle video

Austin's Kydd Jones has been making a splash down here as of late on the true school tip. His 2009 mixtape The Thoughts in My Head is still getting burn and Kydd has been popping up performing with choice touring artists left and right...

Texas Rapps Flashback: Fila Fresh Crew

Fila Fresh Crew, by way way its primary rapper Doc-T aka the D.O.C., helped to position Texas rap within the context of the West Coast gangsta rap revolution of the late-80's. Since Fila Fresh Crew's DJ Dr. Rock also spent time working with Dr. Dre's World Class Wrecking Crew, an affiliation between Dallas and Los Angeles artists was cemented with a trio of Fila Fresh Crew songs appearing on 1987's N.W.A. and the Posse album. From there, the D.O.C. started working exclusively with Dr. Dre and the next thing we knew, the duo took the world by storm by way of the D.O.C.'s 1989 No One Can Do It Better album. While the D.O.C. never really brought his Los Angeles-derived stardom back to Texas in order to help bolster the scene here, Fila Fresh Crew remains as a pioneering group who did much to initially put Texas rap on the map...

Texas Rapps Flashback: Street Military

Houston's Street Military really knew how to do rap right. Rappers KB tha Kidnappa, Pharoah, and Lil Flea get studied seriously by upcoming Texas rappers as much as Lil Keke and Fat Pat do. Z-Ro can't seem to go three verses without shouting them out in one form or another. And it's crazy to think that Street Military was once signed to New York's Wild Pitch Records (although I guess Wild Pitch also signed the Coup out of Oakland, so it wasn't just East Coast boom-bap ala Gang Starr and Main Source that they were promoting). Anyway, it don't get much better than this right here...

Z-Ro freestyle

The King of the Ghetto, the Mo City Don, the best rapper alive by far, Z-Ro sticks to the tried and true like a daily habit. While all these youngsters are out here trying to rewrite the rap playbook, Ro stays scoring touchdowns with nothing but that classic gangsta shit...  

Texas Rapps Flashback: Ron C's "Trendsetter"

In 1989, before DJ Screw emerged out of Houston as the end-all, be-all purveyor of slowed and slurred rap music, Ron C of Nemesis tried his hand at the practice. Halway through "Trendsetter" the tempo decelerates to a staggering creep and the bass drops even lower than seemingly imaginable. As Ron C was a California transplant posting up in Dallas and typically sounded like a second rate Too $hort, he had no direct ties to the Houston scene that would later produced Screw. Thus, there is a historical disconnect between the "Trendsetter" experiment and the Screw phenomenon. But "Trendsetter" remains as quite the precedent for what was to come in Texas, standing strong still as an 808-styled standard and far more than a mere coincidence of Texas-derived technical trickery... 

DJ Rapid Ric with A3, Craig G & ESG - Leanin video

Seems like we've been waiting forever for Rapid Ric to drop his Whut It Dew album. Shoot, it's been over four years since the video for "Pullin' Up" dropped. But it's all good as Ric keeps releasing these hints at forthcoming greatness. Last year's single "Parking Lot Pimpin'" with Gerald G, Dorrough, Lil Boosie, and Chalie Boy on it was the lick. And now with "Leanin'" Ric fully embraces the Houston sound by way of a lagging, reggae-tinged production that nicely supports the syrupy lyrics of A3, Craig G, and ESG...  

Tukdagat, Drai B & Stat 1 - Popping

This is my favorite song from the forthcoming Wat Dat Iz compilation, but I'm afraid that the final version to be released on cd will include verses other than those on this version. Tukdagat of Da C.O.D. sets it all of properly, then Drai B of Public Offenders and Stat 1 of Die Slo Enterntainment finish the job. It's true that Crooked T's beat is fire regardless of who happens to be rhyming over it, but still... 

Crew 54 - Impala Music (Tosin remix) video

Mos and G-Christ of Killeen's Crew 54 are always on the scene here in Austin, typically shooting footage for their 54 Reality Show broadcasts. But their worth as rap artists shouldn't be underestimated. As they typically do more of an East Coast, boom-bap style of rap as compared to the Texas norm, Tosin of the Screw Shop puts a nice Lone Star twist to their latest single "Impala Music"...

Cory Mo & Z-Ro - Rollin' video

Houston's Cory Mo is a better producer than he is a rapper. And that's more a comment on how good a producer he is, as his beats are consistently shrouded with sticky instrumental funk overtones. Obviously influenced by Rap-A-Lot legend Mike Dean, Cory Mo should be working with Z-Ro as often as possible. If ABN's "Still Gets No Love" and/or Ro's "Eyes on Paper" wasn't enough of an indication of that, then "Rollin"" absolutely seals the deal...

Mad One - I'm Gone/Funeral Flo video

Can't express how good it is to still see Mad One doing his thing musically. The San Antonio product first rose to prominence during the mid-90's as a guest freestyler on the world famous Wake Up Show out in Los Angeles. The story goes that he initially called Sway and Tech during their airtime from a payphone and started ripping rhymes to the point that he was invited to the studio for about eight weeks straight. Upon returning to Texas, Mad One has since released quite a large amount of mixtape material with members of his original crew, Third Dimension, flashing in and out of the picture...

Texas Rapps Flashback: Sam Huston Boyz

At the turn of the millenium, the Sam Huston Boyz were running Austin rap. Their songs were all over KAZI radio and major collaborations with the likes of Lil Keke, ESG, Z-Ro, and Big Moe were readily falling in their laps. This song is taken from a 1999 Sam Huston Boyz compilation titled When the Smoke Clears...

Texas Rapps Flashback: Short Fuze

Back when full-blown rap artists were still a rarity in Austin, Short Fuze was putting it down to the fullest, along with local radio personality Brotha K...

Dok Holiday & PLA - On tha Southside video

This video is at least a couple of years old, but it can't be reiterated enough how much rap talent resides on the Southside of Austin, Texas. Over a hypnotic beat produced by DaBosnian, Dok Holiday and PLA show why their Set 4 Life family ain't to be messed with... 

LuxuryMindz Photography

OG of LuxuryMindz Photography has made a significant name for himself for both his lone images and his videos. The three rap music videos below that OG produced for Gerald G, Pimpin Pen, and Southbound are some of the cleanest to ever originate from the city of Austin...

The Guud - Bend a Corner video

The Guud formed as a group when former solo artists Young Nick, Trashman, Blac Goliath, and Mirage decided to join forces. Based out of Austin, The Guud covers hip-hop from a variety of different perspectives, all fuzed together into one tight package...

KJ Hines - Money No Good video

KJ Hines relocated from Austin to Atlanta last year, but he remains a son of Texas. With the track for "Money No Good" produced by AC, KJ lyrically gets his grown man on by way of this autobiographical country rap tune...

Texas Rapps Flashback: Epatomed

During the mid-90's, Epatomed emerged on the underground circuit out of Arlington. Rappers Kasar and Saahir (RIP) played the game of verbal gymnastics over introspective jazz loops to the delight of their many fans. In 2003, we lost Saahir to a tragic automobile accident, but his memory lives on through Epatomed's music...

VIP, Lil J & Sertified - I Got Em video

The lil homies Jay Michael and Crooked T have put together a compilation album titled Wat Dat Iz that spotlights a diverse cross-section of Austin-based rap artists. The first official video from the album features Pimpin Pen and K-Paul of VIP, Lil J of Da C.O.D., and Sertified of Die Slow Entertainment...   

Gerald G - Bloodline video

Gerald G exemplifies Texas rap at its finest...original in voice and sound, rooted in both the streets and the church at the same time, confident in its headstrong strut, something nice to ride to and all that. As many eagerly await the release of Gerald's debut solo album, the Austin-based rapper has left us with a pair of solo mixtapes (Mr. 512 & What's Really Hood) in addition to a lingering affiliation with Rapid Ric's Whut It Dew family. Expect Gerald to unveil a video a month during the extent of 2011, with "Bloodline" being my favorite released thus far...