With flickers from the perma-lit flame of Screw’s legacy, Maxo Kream illuminates almost every corner of Houston’s dark, violent Southwest in 2015.

The Sauce Twinz aren’t about surprises. If you conceived a stereotypically 2015 Houston rap video, you probably wouldn’t be far off from this. No chrome spinners are invoked. But there are shout outs to Screw and enough double cups to keep the great-grandchildren of styrofoam magnates in mink. The hi-hats are in trap triplicate, the […]

Torii MacAdams has a PO Box in Broad City Inherent to “discovering” new rappers is to confront fear. It’s the fear that the next song you click will be so thoroughly backpacky that your appropriately-sized sweater is going to turn into a XXXL Triple 5 Soul hoodie, that everything in your iTunes will transform into […]

MobbDeen ain’t have no muffin money It’s immediately clear from the opening twangy notes of “Break” that you’re listening to some shit in the tradition of classic Pimp C all the way down to newer beat-smiths like DJ Burn One and Big KRIT. Basically, country rap tunes. Credit for this earthy concoction, give or take a cowbell or two, […]

Torii MacAdams puts his two arms up, touchdown I’m not convinced rappers are cognizant of the fact that stacks of money do not double as cell phones. In the video for Maxo Kream and Le$’ “End Zone,” Kream appears unaware that the phrase “money talks” is a figure of speech, and that speaking into a […]

In the wake of the tragedy currently roiling Ferguson, a song like Cory Jreamz’s “Freedom” hits a little harder. Written well before the death of Michael Brown, the Houston native weighs the price of freedom, myriad forms of systemic oppression, the death of Sean Bell and a chant to fuck cops. The fact that it […]

Will Hagle has outlawed lean in his apartment complex Everything about Houston is repellent to my Yankee blood. The wide highways, the airport’s name, the Astros, the fact that it is both in the South and in Texas. Still, every time I pop Boss of All Bosses in my CD deck I find myself screaming […]

Torii MacAdams is rockin knockin the boots If you love Houston rap, you know that the unassumingly titled Houston Rap: Photographs by Peter Beste is an indispensable document of H-Town’s rich rap history. Though the photos were captured by Beste, hence the title, the actual author of the compendium is one of Texas’ own exes, […]

Torii MacAdams learned how to rock leather pants from DeVante Swing Houston is, demographically, significantly more Hispanic and Latino than Black, and has the third largest Hispanic population in the United States. Despite the strength in numbers, Houston’s rap stars are traditionally Black, with Hispanic and Latino rappers constituting an even further underground sub-culture. In […]

Torii MacAdams always chooses purple stuff over Sunny D It’s been about ten years since Mike Jones, Paul Wall, Slim Thug, and Chamillionaire got regular airplay, and Houston is again ubiquitous. A$AP Rocky has weaseled his way into synonimity with the word “trill” thanks to repeated usage, his supposed love for lean, and syrupy chopped […]