Deen is eighth cousins with Fat Pat.

I live in Houston. Don’t try to find me – we don’t play that LL Cool J shit outchea. I’m not a native and I’ve only lived here for a little while, but there’s something special about the music scene here. Special in the sense that it inspires a weird-ass unexplainable loyalty from me. It’s weird because I’ve lived in a few other cities with vibrant music scenes and haven’t had the slightest desire to serve as a booster for the stuff I heard. Even stranger is the fact that I don’t really dig most of the newer stuff. Basically, my loyalties still lie with the cats that came up back in the middle of the last decade when I didn’t live here. I guess I’m just getting old.

But there’s nothing to explain when Houston rappers keeping churning out excellence like this. As a rule of thumb, I tend to avoid rap songs with more than 3 rappers yapping about whatever the fuck rappers talk about in 2012. Sorry Slaughterhouse – good luck chasing that Eminem/Cee-lo money. However, my Houston bias required me to give this a chance. Besides, I like EVERY rapper (yes, even Kirko) on this song to a varying extent.

I don’t listen to the radio, but it’s still pretty unfortunate that this shit will get zero burn in Houston, given the asinine ban on Trae’s music here (it’s a long story – Shea Serrano broke it down here.) How absurd is it that this song has a better chance of blowing up in Atlanta (due to Trae’s Grand Hustle affiliation), than it does in his home town because he hurt someone’s feelings at the only rap station in town. Exasperating. So I guess it’s up to nerds like me to get the word out about shit like this. I think there’s some irony somewhere in this situation, but I’m too tired to tease it out.

As for the video, I’d like to make a few random observations:

• No one is sadder than Z-Ro. Even when he’s animated, he just seems so sad. I feel kinda sad now too.

• Maliah is wasted in this video.

• I’m happy for Paul Wall, but he seemed way cooler when he was fat. Pause.

• Kirko’s verse on this shit is almost as bad as that gawd awful Oiler neck tattoo he has.

• I’ve never taken public transportation out here, but if anyone can verify that Houston buses house girls like the ones in this video, I might be willing to try it.

Forget that last point. Fuck public transportation. Fuck the planet (sorry, that’s the Texas speaking).

Seriously though, it ain’t all bad. I know what you’ve heard and read about Texas, but I’m telling you to ignore that shit. So what if our governor is obsessed with wombs and vaginas? No one has to worry about any of that shit until after conception anyway.

So come on down to Houston. If you can’t manage that, listen to and support Houston rap. We’ve got some of the best doing it today. Including Jeremy Lin.

(This post was sponsored by the Houston Board of Tourism).

Download:
MP3: Trae The Truth ft.  Z-Ro, Paul Wall, Slim Thug, Kirko Bangz & Bun B – “I’m From Texas”