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Tag: DJ 2Smooth

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Deathflow

Brothers Of The Same Mind were a Seattle rap group in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They got “Unsigned Hype” status in the October 1990 Source magazine, then put out a seven-song masterpiece in 1991. After the group broke up, the two rappers, Class and Sin-Q, each did solo cassette projects. First, the smoother, bohemian MC Class put out Brother From The Projects in 1993, then the rougher, more hardcore rapper Sin-Q dropped Deathflow in 1994. The two releases couldn’t be more different.

Sin-Q’s gruff voice drops to such a low octave on Deathflow that it feels “chopped and screwed” like the playback speed is dragging. When you add the fact that his delivery is sometimes subdued and quiet, it almost sounds like he is muttering his inner thoughts to himself, rather than presenting rap lyrics. The effect for me is like having Neuralink access directly into Sin-Q’s brain, where the content is very explicit and uncensored.

The police sirens at the start of opener “Seward Park” set an ominous tone for the rest of the Deathflow tape. I like “Yeah Mutha F**** Yeah” for the bounce in the beat, and the swooping interplay of the horns. Sin-Q talks about relationships with women in “Menace 2 The Hoes.” “Tell you like this I got my girl, my hoes, both suck ****, but only one do my clothes,” is typical of the track’s boastful tone. “Peelin Back” features a reminder to avoid sporting red or blue clothes in gang territory, among other topics. “So I see you gots to watch what you wear, in the wrong neighborhood you get smoked for your gear.” However, in my opinion the overly simple looped beat doesn’t allow “Peelin Back” to expand to its fullest potential.

Side B starts with the excellent “Float On,” a reflective track about how friendships change over time, and sometimes you just have to part ways with someone for whatever reasons. “Ill Funk Freaker” has a fun, jazzy hip-hop sound, a stylistic departure from the creeping, dissonant production prevalent throughout Deathflow. Sin-Q describes how hard it is to survive working low wage jobs in “P’s & Q’s.” “Doing all this goddamn work for seven and a quarter,” he says with disgust. The last track “Changes” contains philosophical musings about society, in Sin-Q’s words, “Something’s gotta change, for better or for worse.”

An exciting second chapter recently began for Brothers Of The Same Mind, as they reunited in 2021 and have since put out two albums. Gotta Have Style is a much fuller version of the 1991 project, and Franklin Highfield III Present The International Lover is a whole album of new material recorded in the 2020s. I can’t wait to see where they take it next. Written by Novocaine132

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Flavin’ In Bumpcity

This is the rare Flavin’ In Bumpcity tape from group PD2, circa 1992.

This cassette features the third PD2 lineup, with MC Willin’ “The Villin’” replacing MC 3-D at the mic. “Groove Manipulator” 2Smooth continues to hold down the beats and serves as the backbone of the group.

There’s a video on YouTube video where the two explain their sound as an original and funky counterweight to the NastyMix all-stars. Indeed, they clearly felt there was some camaraderie and rivalry here… They shout out Mix-A-Lot, Kid Sensation, and Criminal Nation repeatedly throughout the tape.

The sound is squarely in the Public Enemy and Bomb Squad sweet spot, but Bumpcity is all about having fun. There are no real breaks between the songs, it’s a non-stop jam from the get-go, with skits and interludes and Seattle references throughout. The group says they wanted to make “music you can relate to… That when you get to the end, you say “damn!” and press rewind to hear it again.” The standout cut here is the closer, “Givemewhatugot,” which, indeed, I always rewind and listen to again.

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Dopemuzik4thehead

In the mid 1980s, rapper Lawrence “Pouchie” Moore and DJ Donnell “2Smooth” Jackson became a duo called P-D2. The P was for Pouchie, the D was for Donnell, and there were two of them. However, Moore and Jackson never officially released any music, and Moore eventually left the group.

Then another Seattle rapper Bobby “MC 3-D” Stills returned from attending Texas Southern and began making music with DJ 2Smooth, still using the same name P-D2. P-D2’s first official release was a 1988 cassette single on JROD Recordings titled “You Ain’t Got No Bass.” JROD Recordings was run by Rodney Jones, who is Donnell’s uncle. The duo of 3-D and 2Smooth followed up with singles on JROD Recordings in 1989 and 1990. In the Summer of 1990 as they were shopping a full album titled DopeMuzik4TheHead to major labels, MC 3-D had to step away from the rap game for a while to take care of some personal business. The record sat unreleased until 2021, when Ever Rap Records licensed the album from JROD Recordings and released it on wax.

DopeMuzik4TheHead contains a very traditional style of rap for 1990, a year which many would consider deep in the middle of rap’s golden era. The beats are arranged and stacked by 2Smooth on his Studio 440 sampler/sequencer. MC 3-D brings an early ’80s tone to his delivery, with swoops from high to low similar to Emerald Street Boys. He raps about crime and gangs in the neighborhood, and also about getting ahead in life and staying dedicated to your dreams. His verses are rather poetic, easily bouncing from party to politics to pure rhyme skill. One standout track is “Trash Environment.” In this format shifting masterpiece, 3-D’s voice thunders over a rap rock hybrid beat as he laments the decay in community values he sees around him. “Suprize” is a party classic which deftly samples “Hydra” several years before Black Moon popularized the sample on 1993’s “How Many MCs.”

P-D2 were an early force in the Seattle rap scene, and the fact that this record has finally been released should help to establish the historical importance of their work. Not long after DopeMuzik4TheHead was completed, the lineup of the group changed for a third time, and P-D2 dropped the Flavin In Bumpcity cassette in ’92 with a new rapper Owen “Willin” McCants now performing alongside DJ 2Smooth. MC 3-D had not yet returned to his rap career. The two rappers did not share a similar style, which gives Flavin In Bumpcity a very different feel than the material with 3-D. As a postscript, MC 3-D aka Bobby Stills continues to rap into the 2020s using his new moniker Unko Gazz. Written by Novocaine132

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Suprize

In 1989, Seattle rap group PD2 dropped the three-song single “Suprize” on their own label JROD after a successful West Coast tour with Harlem’s Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock.

The beats are courtesy of DJ 2 Smooth, with verses from MC 3-D, who describes their underground sound as something you might find at the tail end of a mixtape. He raps, “This is the new age, a new stage in rapping, rhyme is the new way to make things happen.”

Indeed, 2 Smooth’s production is unlike anything you might’ve heard from NastyMix at the time: His samples clash and collide, hitting off the beat, not always in tune, lending a truly funky vibe. (Hence the “Suprize.”) The songs often take their time to settle into a groove, but once they do…! Your head will be nodding for sure.

In an interview with The Rocket at the time, 3-D describes their politics: “Hip-hop is a tool and a ticket for minority youth to excel and conquer their dreams. People have to be able to move their feet before they can hear a message. The Black male is becoming extinct because of the drug situation. We have the intellect to articulate that. The music is the platform.”

This message is best exemplified in the EPs third song “Crack-In-The-Box.” It’s structured like an extended skit that takes place at an imagined drive-thru, where instead of pushing fast food, the government sells low-cost crack into Black neighborhoods. Politicians are “playing the kingpin” in an effort to disenfranchise their community, and it’s time to rise up in response.

(Addendum: MC 3-D, aka Robert Stills, was replaced by MC Willin’ on later records. He also is not the only Seattle rapper to use the name. In 1997, a very different emcee named 3D (Damion Reed) rapped with group Diamond Mercenaries.)

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