The greatest have gotten a pretty good amount of shine, but deserve more. Best MC = Scarface. Best DJ = Screw. But then you got cats like K-Rino who were releasing reality raps even before the Geto Boys. You got that whole crew, South Park Coalition who were coming up on the south side of Houston laying that foundation. DJ Screw and all his folks laid the foundation and smoothed it out to what it is today. Then on the Northside you had folks like Trinity Garden Cartel and 5th Ward Boys and all them who really laid the ground work for the north side sound, which sonically I think is more aggressive than what we traditionally heard from the south side. Lyrically they were all similar and it's part of what holds us back today. You got a lot of folks just doing the same old shit.

As for DJs man there's been so many from DJ Domination to DJ Chill to DJ D to Big Chance to Good Grief to Steve Nice to Aggravated to Def Jam Blaster. All those folks have been around for a long time and have their own signature sound and nice crowds behind them. There's more but all them have been doing it for some time now and really know how to rock a party.

Producers I would have to say Mike B of Trinity Garden Cartel is now starting to get the recognition he deserves working with a lot of young cats. DJ Styles and Rob Quest from the Odd Squad always come with amazing stuff as does Domo, aka DJ Domination. Mike Dean did a lot of the Scarface and Rap A Lot stuff as did Mr. Lee, Bido, Doug King,

all have and had signature down south sounds.

Man, it really is like we are our own world down here, to write 'em all would be like writing a history of hip hop. Whether you know it or not, Houston is an extreme hip hop city. There's something going on around every corner.

How is the scene right now?

It's extremely strong right now. Oversaturated for sure, but it's really poppin' at the moment. I think it was better for a lot of people when we had Southwest Wholesale distributing the product and we could just go up there and drop off product and hopefully collect checks. There were some complaints about them, but they really helped to make this scene self sufficient throughout the '90s. Then when they went belly up people lost a lot of money, started to scramble and the vulture major labels finally were able to pick up a couple folks. Shit has been poppin' down here for a while, but most of these folks didn't want to sign major deals cuz what do the majors do? They put you on BET and MTV then fuck you hard in the end. We all know that and have tried to stay entrepreneurs.

Now, just like in every aspect of America, the little guy is getting squeezed the fuck out and we kind of have to conform to the big boys. Which I guess is good and bad, we'll see what happens with all this bullshit. I honestly have faith in the artists but I don't have much faith in these deals. People in New York and L.A. do NOT know what to do with Texas shit and cannot fucking hang with the Texans. Artists out here have been selling records and making money doing OUR circuit, we'll see how that translates to the uh, major label language.

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