Beats From The Bottom

Everyone knows how huge the hip hop scene is down south at the moment, and some ignorant toys might think they came out of nowhere and that they now have some of the biggest names in the biz. The fact is the Dirty South has been around since the beginning and have created their own styles of hip hop. There is alot more to the south than iced out grills, slabs and serp, there's bass, sex rhymes, conscious music and hard gangsta shit to name a few. This post isn't about Texas or Atlanta, its focus is on Miami. I've just picked out 5 different albums that showcase diffent styles that Miami has to offer rather than 5 bass tracks that the area is known for. If you want to know more about Miami hip hop you'd have to hit up Tommy at Miscreant Productions or Drop The Bass as these guys know their shit on this subject. I have chucked up a couple of articles from an old Source from March '94 that is dedicated to the Southern Bass scene.

It's no surprise that the 2 Live Crew found their way to this post even though they were an oldschool west coast duo consisting of Mr Mixx and Fresh Kid Ice before touring Miami and accidentally recruited the promoter of the show (Luke) in the group. Brother Marquis also joined and they released 'Is What We Are' with the huge hit 'We Want Some Pussy'. They went on to drop 'Move Somethin' before dropping probably the most controversial hip hop album to come out of the South, 'As Nasty as They Wanna Be' which caused huge drama and gave the 2 Live Crew more promotion than they could ever dream of. There's not too much you can say about this legendary group that hasn't already been said. I've chucked up an old 2 Live track from their '86 classic, 'Is what We Are' on 'Luke Skywalker Records' (He changed it to 'Luke Records' after George Lucas found out about the label).

This group is not what you'd expect from a Miami group. These guys are nothing like the 2 Live Crew, Freak Nasty, 69 Boys or DJ Smurf but like Dead Prez who coincidentally help put these guys out. They're an anti-government trio with some gangsta styled rhymes consisting of Nemesis, L-R Hoox and Louie Knuckles. Their album 'Connected' has a mix of crazy tracks to just alright tracks but some like 'Connected', 'End Of Da World' and the track I put up for download, 'Capital Punishment' are dope. The album came out in '99 on 'First String Entertainment' and is a must have for anyone who like Dead Prez. I'm actually surprized these guys didn't make more noise considering the quality of the album, maybe if Dead Prez stuck around Miami longer they could have helped bring these guys more attention?

1990 saw Debonaire and J.T. Money (Poison Clan) release their debut album '2 Low Life Muthas' on Luke Records with production by 2 Live's Mr Mixx. To me, this album is sick with tracks like 'The Bitch That I Hate' and 'Bad Influence' this is one of my favourite old Southern albums. They came back two years later with 'Poisoness Mentallity', 'Rufftown Behaviour' in '93 and 'Straight Zooism' in '95 but at this point it was just J.T. Money under the 'Poison Clan' banner so he went solo and later had financial troubles with Luke (don't they all) they made him leave Luke. Not too sure what's up with J.T. Money these days, last thing I saw him do was a live show on some wack Cindy Margolis show a couple of years ago but he wasn't sounding anything like the Low Life Mutha he was back in 90.

Have you ever heard an album that one track is a hard as fuck gangsta track and the next is some slow lovey track you have to skip. Well that's what the G-Squad's 'The Time Is Now' album is like all the way through. When they want to do a fast, hard track they do it with ease but for some fucked up reason they chose to ruin the flow of the album over and over again. As for the group themselves, I've never heard of them other than this album and know pretty much nothing about them. I wouldn't really recomend anyone hunt this down on ebay or amazon although tracks like 'Puppy Chow', 'Miami Nigs' and my favourite, 'If You Get Me Pissed' are mad. I put the latter for download.

This last one is a real weird one, I remember picking up the vinyl years ago in a secondhand record store for $8 and didn't know what to make of the cover. I saw the "featuring DJ Poison Ivy" on the cover and thought it might be the same Poison Ivy from KMC. I'm almost positive it's not, but the album is pretty dope. Not really like any other album I've ever heard but with tracks like 'Bass Line' and 'B Girls' it was worth every cent. They came out in 1989/90 on Pandisc and were a slightly comedic group but had skills and a funky flow. I grabbed their second album off ebay a few years ago but I was pretty disappointed in it. This is one of those few albums that's easier and cheaper to find on wax than on disc.

This post didn't even scratch the surface of what Miami has to offer but I wanted to get a few different styles rather than just the typical Miami bass sounds the area is most known for.



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MP3's:
2 Live Crew - Get It Girl
First Platoon - Capital Punishment
Poison Clan - Bad Influence
G Squad - If You Get Me Pissed
Young & Restless - B Girls
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