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Slow to Speak - On and On 12" (1996)
First up is an indie rap record I found which I really like but sadly I did not take a photo of and it is no longer in my possession, so I searched the internet for about 15 minutes looking for one and there is none to be found, so at the least be glad that you have a chance to check this track out because it's very farking rare, and very much under appreciated. Classic beat production on this joint from Texas (I think) with a very un-texas sound, and although a couple of the mc's dont match the mood of the beat,l they are quite good overall, not the best lyrics ever but their cadence and flow is good, and it has a nice' old school abilities vs dissing' and violence style, the beat is great though. I wish i could find more about this group or the release, i think it has a hell of a lot of potential and its only draw back is that its approaching the end of the mid school era and stuff after '95 just doesnt sell for as much as a rule, but for '96 it still has the 93-94 sound and you can tell they have been listening to a lot of Nas and a whole other list of midschool names that i dont care to list right now. Enough of this though, just Enjoy it!
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Special Treat - It's a Treat 12'' (1992)Special Treat is a group that had a couple singles it looks like, the first being from 89 or 90 and also having a love jam style, this one is much harder to find and practically no information exists on it. It's not that great but it is definitely interesting, the first track "baby it's you" is a real LL Cool J style sax and all jam that is fun but the second track is a little more interesting, "too much" has a nice break and some nifty rapping, still regarding a honey but it's more hip hop. Out of Houston, TX.
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Al B. Bad - Half Pack EP (1994)A personal favorite for its genre hopping, covering ghetto booty club bangers, miami bass explicit electro style, a conscious style ghetto track with the break from the biz markie song, that track is called "what i see" and you will like it's home produced real style or you suck. This crew is from Irving, TX and as far as I know has not released anything else, but who knows. "What I See" --
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RCU - Penitentiary Blues E.P. (1992)RCU had a small hit with this EP in Houston, and they apparently released a full LP a year or so before this, which contained the lead track Penitentiary Blues, that being said the best track is by far "material things make you feel the need to get g'd" because of its Dr Dre/west coast funk revival sound that is kinda ganked but is still a bangin' track. The other 2 aren't bad either.
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God Complex - Seek & Destroy / Bust My Style (remix) 7'' (1995)This is the early incarnation and first release by 7L and Esoteric, with Karma also, under the name God Complex. It's probably the best known of all these but I couldnt really find it anywhere on the net and it's interesting that the Bside is so superior to the Aside, both are quality tracks (produced by madsol) but "seek and destroy" is a really dope track, with a sort of dark and atmospheric wu-tang style beat and intelligent mid nineties lyrics somewhat similar to company flow style stuff, not quite as good as a lot of coflow but this is still 95 and it's damn good. "bust my style" is not as interesting and you could tell they were dumbing it down some to try and get radio play while their real efforts went to the bside. Obviously the label has held some truly great hip hop artists early stuff, like MF grimm, Mr Lif, and MF Doom.
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Lethal T. and Outcast- Lethal LP (1994)Last up we have a full LP which I .rar'd for you, it's from San Antonio, TX and it was somewhat of a local hit when it came out in 1994, but has been lost in the annals of rap since then, being hard to find much about it aside from some web info on the group which is still active, it's a classic texas style gangsta rap LP sounding much like the privately done studio work from Houston at that time, lots of keyboard and some bass solos mixed with a little west coast funk some dark shuffling drum samples from the east and a lot of ghetto style drum programming to top it off, it gets pretty dense and atmospheric sometimes which impresses me a lot and the producer clearly had some musical background or impressive natural talent because for what it is, it's quite good in my opinion. I mean it's nothing revolutionary and its not the cleanest sound or pressing quality, the lyrics can get sorta weak soemtimes (though they have some great hooks) but overall its a fine piece of TX Gangsta Rap.
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