Houston Music Blog

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

​After you interview somebody in preparation for writing something about them, there are always things that you want to mention that get left out of the article because of flow or space restrictions or whatever. It's the nature of the situation, we suspect.

When we interviewed E.S.G. for this week's music feature, things were no different. So we cobbled together a few of the notes and put those things together. Booyah:

1. E.S.G. ducked this interview a good two or three times. When we were finally able to get him on the phone (the messaging up until that point consisted mostly of general text messages) he literally said "Meet me in Pearland around 6." Not a street or an intersection or a neighborhood; he told us to meet him in a city. So we just drove to 518 and parked. We did not pick the correct spot.

2. After a bit of chit-chat, we decided to conduct the interview inside the Chili's right there off 288 and 518 (which was about 20 minutes from where we were parked, and about 40 seconds from where he was). We got there, walked in and stood at the little station where the greeter greets and seats you and waited. And waited. And waited. The restaurant was far from busy, yet no one said one single word to us for long enough to make the situation a bit uncomfortable. That shit was not cool.

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

Several key artists in Houston released new videos this week. However, before we get down to them, a couple of things from our handy-dandy notebook:

​At the Kroger by our house, there's this electronic helicopter outside near one of the doors. It's one of those rides where you put your kid in it and then you pay 50 cents and then it shakes for a bit and then it stops and the kid goes apeshit and you wish an anvil would just fall out of the sky right on your head.

Anyway, it always makes us happy to see other dads standing there while their kids ride it. It does not, however, make us happy when we see them standing there with their kid riding in it when it's 11:40 p.m. What the H is wrong with people? Why would anyone think it's okay to have a baby out at 11:40 p.m.?

Also: Man, kids are really ungrateful. And what's worse, that shit hurts your feelings. Call your parents right now and apologize. It doesn't even matter what for.

Not much has been on our playlist lately besides Z-Ro's Cocaine, Trae's The Incredible Truth and E.S.G.'s Everyday Street Gangsta. However, Big Mello's Bone Hard Zaggin cycled through yesterday. That mess is good, yo. Google it.

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and list five reasons why it's either brilliant or dumb-assed. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

We've got this notebook that we carry around pretty much everywhere with us. A few bullets from there before we get into the videos.

• Skippy-dippy do! Jay-Z just announced new tour dates, and guess which major Texas metropolitan area landed a show? Yep. You got it: Dallas! (Oh, yeah, Houston scored a spot, too - February 22 at Toyota Center.)
• ​We've been having some trouble sleeping lately. The world is a different place between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. Like, if you stay up late enough, the line-up of movies on the premium channels (Showtime, Starz, Encore, etc) invariably turns to one of two subjects: wacky movies about skiing and soft-core porn. The porn we were expecting, but skiing? Is that the other thing night owls are interested in? Did not see that coming. And what's weirder, you have to watch them both. You can't turn on a movie about skiing at not watch, somehow. It's impossible.
• To that last point, there is no way to buy anything from Wal-Mart at three in the morning without it looking like you're involved in some crazy gay-sex orgy. That's just the way it always looks to the cashiers: "A shower rod? It's 3 a.m., man. You're so going to put this in your butt," their eyes say.
• Right around this time last month we mentioned a then-forthcoming tape from Swishahouse called The Usual Suspects. It's since been released and we've since digested it a few times. While songs from the big names were mostly stuff we'd heard before, there were a few unexpected points on it.

Namely, these five:

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

​

What a fortnight it's been for Trae. First, his Restless album was named the 14th best rap album to ever come out of Houston. Then his newest son, Houston, was born. Then he released the anticipated The Incredible Truth mixtape. (We're assuming those are listed in order of importance.)

And THEN, early this week, a minor controversy erupted on Twitter when a rumor began circulating that his music had been banned by 97.9 The Boxx. Which left everyone asking the same question: Does the only rap station in Houston really have the gall to ban not only one of the city's key rappers, but a noted civil servant?

Basically, no. Or maybe yes. But really, this is mostly a non-story. Or an old story that's become a new non-story. Ack.

All of this (it appears) can be traced back to the Trae Day shooting. If you'll recall, there was an interview on The Boxx shortly after Trae Day where Nnete - and we're recalling this from memory now - asked Trae, in a somewhat derisive manner, why he was not holding the event closer to his home base in Katy.

We met Nnete once at a wedding, and she came off as a nice enough person. Her tone here, however, seemed to imply that Trae was somehow responsible for the shootings that took place, leading to a somewhat tense remainder of the interview. So that was that.

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

​In June 2007, we became papa to twin boys. It was wild. And they were so, so beautiful the first time we saw them. Actually, "beautiful" isn't the right word; at least, not literally. That's just something fathers get used to saying because it's easier than explaining the truth.

The experience was amazing (we were in the room when it happened), and the concept of having our own children was beautiful. But at birth, no, they themselves technically weren't very attractive. They were pretty much the opposite of that. "Gross" is a more accurate term. They were all purple and bloody and gooey and their heads were shaped like ball point pens. They looked like tiny versions of that guy from the original Hills Have Eyes. Those first few seconds were really off-putting.

But they are rambunctious, goofy, lively man-cubs now, and our life is completely devoted to them. It's wonderful fun, even though every day they do at least one thing that makes us think that God hates us.

Trae, "I Could Use Somebody"

Thursday evening, for example, Boy B, who periodically has the disposition of a bag full of wasps, thought it appropriate to drop a roll of electrical tape into our drink during dinner.

​We couldn't even tell you where he even found electrical tape, only that he had it and, apparently, was in dire need of a place to set it down. He just strolled up, dropped it in before we could react - you see a two-year-old holding electrical tape, "Protect your drink" ain't the first thing that comes to mind - and then walked off.

A toddler, or he at least, is very protective of his beverages. Touching his drink before he has completely finished it is sacrilege, so we have to assume what he did was his way of saying, "Hey, fuckface. Eat it."

Trae, "Universal Language"

That's just the way things go. But then he'll hug us or ask us to help him catch a lizard and we realize we would kill for him (or at least raise our voice at a stranger). Because being a father is the greatest, most important thing that has ever happened to us. Which is why we want to make sure that we send a hearty congratulations to Trae, one of our favorite rappers, on the birth of his newest son, Houston. (Of course he named him Houston.)

We'll be looking for Houston's mixtape to be dropping in about two weeks. In the meantime, get after it with these five fatherhoodly rap songs.

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

Note: A regular reader passed along a story that interested us greatly, so for this edition of Five Spot we will momentarily end our non-Houston rap embargo.

​Buzz is beginning to circulate again that the Hot Boyz, perhaps the South's greatest kitsch rap group of all time, is going to reunite for another album soon.

If we recall correctly, this first happened back in 2007 when the NBA All-Star Game was held in New Orleans (the symbolic home to the group), but ended up being shelved when a bunch of people were shot a little while before their resurgent performance was to take place.

Hopefully this go round that does not happen again because, contrary to what you may assume, we are not fans of people getting shot. Actually, that's not 100 percent true. We're probably two percent in favor of people getting shot.

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

​First, a bit of housekeeping: In this space last week, we wrote about the rumored Z-Ro album, Cocaine. It is, in fact, real and we were able to get our light-brown little hands on a copy. After listening through it, we're 100 percent certain it isn't the Cracc mixtape everyone has been waiting on, but it is very clearly a mixtape. It's hosted by a husky-voiced woman named DJ Drama Queen (we've never heard of her either) and is a double-disc feature.

There's certainly some solid stuff - that "Round Here" song 'Ro did with Billy Cook is used, which might be reason enough to get it - but it also has far too many skippables. Get it if you're a collector (the cover is very cool), but you won't be missing a terrible amount if you don't. Your call.

Now, for this week, we've got a new tape we're lusting for. Courtesy of the Screw Heads Only site, which, if you're a Texas rap fan, you should check out because the dude that runs it periodically puts some gems up there, we caught a glimpse of the new Swishahouse compilation tape and it looks fly as eff. We're totally pretending like we don't know Justus League did something very, very similar.

Welcome back to The Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and list five reasons why it's either brilliant or dumb-assed. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

​Okay, let's get you all caught up.

Back at the end of the summer, word spread that Z-Ro had been jumped outside of Houston's classy, classy hangout High Rollers. We were hesitant to believe it happened at first, because how does someone even go about beating up a nightmare, but Ro later put up a video on YouTube speaking on the incident.

Shortly thereafter, an email appeared in our inbox from ***** explaining that the attack (presumably) had come at the hands of a Rap-A-Lot goon squad and occurred because some remarks made by Z-Ro in a previous interview re: the label and his album's still-unreleased status were taken to be disrespectful. This was verified on numerous message boards, the same message boards that also "verified" that Z-Ro had been killed on two previous occasions, mind you, so make of that what you will.

Here's the fun part though: The album at the center of all of this is Heroin, Ro's perpetually postponed follow-up to last year's Crack. Wednesday afternoon, a picture of someone holding an album titled Cocaine started popping up on the internet (if there were a Google Trends: Down South Edition, there is no doubt Z-Ro fodder would clog up at least 17 of the top 20 spots daily).

The rumor now is that Ro has apparently become so disenfranchised with Rap-A-Lot that he or someone close to him has pressed his own copies of Heroin and is offering them under the new name.

There are a bunch of different explanations for this "new album." Actually, there are five.

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

​"I Need Mo," feat. Kobe and Travis Barker: A day or two ago, the video for Paul Wall's "I Need Mo" featuring Kobe - the singer, not the basketball player, although after that Brooke Hogan collaboration disaster you'd be forgiven for assuming otherwise - began popping up on all the hip-hop blogs and sites. Now, save for the fact that stylistically it's about two years away from being original, it's actually a fun song*. Nice production, fairly catchy hook, and so on and so forth.

*In the beginning of the video, he implies that he's out on the corner possibly participating in some unruly behavior. Had we not seen him tweet ad nauseum about baseball and trying to lose weight, we might've believed him. That part's kinda weak. And because it's nice outside and because we've been in a somewhat masochistic mood lately, we decided to peruse Wall's catalog and find five other collaborations of his that do not make us want to step barefoot onto a thumbtack.

Note: We will be ignoring all tracks from Get Ya Mind Right because that'd be way too easy.

​Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

So check it: we're sitting in our living room going over notes for the Coughee Brothaz concert/listening party we're hitting up this weekend, and Boy A (we have twin toddlers at home; we are incredibly virile) walks up to us. He clearly has a mouth full of something, and is very proud of himself for placing whatever's in there in there.

In our brain, our immediate reaction is "What the fuck, man. Your mom is at the store, so I know she didn't give you anything to nibble on. And one time you picked up a piece of poop at the park because you thought it was a ball, so I'm pretty sure you're not smart enough to find actual food on your own. And even if you were able to luck up on, say, a bag of Goldfish crackers, there's no way you're chubby little baby hands and poor motor skills would allow you to open it. I have to assume whatever's in your mouth has no logical purpose in there and likely can kill you. Your mom is going to be so pissed if I let you die. Have you seen your brother?" But our parent-filter made it sound more like, "What's in your mouth, son?"

He smiled, opened his mouth, and three Double A batteries tumbled out. Fatherhood.

After the jump, check out five tracks from Fadanuf Fa Erybody, the marvelous 1994 album from the Odd Squad (which eventually became the Coughee Brothaz).

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and list five reasons why it's either brilliant or dumb-assed. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

Marco Torres

​

Yesterday, N.O.R.E. released "Set Trip," a wispy, "Look How Tough I Am," available-via-Internet track that nobody's going to care about in four or five days. We mention it though, because it features a swift contribution from one of Houston's hip-hop archetypes: Bun B.

We actually saw Bun B not too long ago backstage at a concert and finally worked up the nerve to talk to him.

Now, we'd seen him out at concerts plenty of times - he has an unofficial residency at House of Blues - but we always panicked ourselves into silence around him. This one time we were at his listening party for II Trill and he came up to us just to quickly say hello while he was working the room. He was all, "Hey, I'm Bun B. Thanks for coming out." It was like, here's the guy who put together the most dynamic three-song set from any rapper we've ever heard (his work on "One Day," "Murder" and "Pinky Ring" from UGK's Ridin' Dirty is amazing), and he's just walking around telling people what's up? It blew our mind.

Welcome back to The Five Spot, Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and list five reasons why it's either brilliant or dumb-assed. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

​Next month, Cypress Hill will re-up their six-years-dormant Smokeout Concert and Festival. How that was ever able to become an actual thing is still beyond us. Initially, we wanted to bash the crap out of this, if for no other reason than because growing up we were unabashed Cypress Hill detractors. Even if we wanted to like them, we couldn't because everyone automatically assumed them to be our favorite rap group because they had some Mexicans. That shit was annoying, yo.

But get this: The festival is going to feature a concert from not only Mr. Devin the Dude, but a special reunion show from the Geto Boys, including Willie D. Yes, the same Willie D that is likely headed to prison for a long, long time. Hat tip to those wily Latinos for pulling that one off.

We're super excited about this. Not enough to go out and buy Black Sunday or anything, but enough that we will stop praying for heavy things to fall on them when we go to church. After the jump, celebrate with five of the better marijuana-themed songs from 'Ro, SPM, 'Face and more.

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

​As indicated in that italicized synopsis above, this is usually an area where we find some news that we can funnel into an opportunity for us to talk about whichever Houston rapper we happen to be jamming at the time.

However, we hit up the T-Pain show last night (full review coming later), and it was spot on. We worked our way backstage and were able to chat him up for a few minutes. And while he neither offered to buy us a drank nor take us home with him, we were able to convince him to give us a high five (more on that later too).

We were so smitten with him that we went home afterwards and watched possibly every T-Pain music video on YouTube. After the jump, see the five best ones.

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

​Last year, president of Don Diva magazine Sam Ferguson played a major role in breaking the news that Miami-based rapper/self-described drug kingpin Rick Ross was once a correctional officer. It started up a nice little writer vs. rapper feud between the two and was hot, hot news for a good bit before it eventually went away.

Seven days ago Ferguson was found shot to death. In Miami.

Officially, there are currently no suspects in the case (police are looking for a "black car," because that's not vague) and that whole innocent until proven guilty thing and blah, blah, blah. Whatever. Ricky Ross is a cold-blooded killer. And on the off chance that he's read something that we've written about him and interpreted it to be insulting in any way, we'd like to take this opportunity to revisit the five best songs from Deeper Than Rap, which we consider to be the best piece of music in the modern century.

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

How much does this suck: Antavio Johnson, some no-name rapper from a place that isn't Houston, just got sentenced to prison for two years for his song "Kill Me A Cop" (Listen to the song here.)

The song is standard stuff really, save for one unfortunate mistake. See, you can mention killing cops in a song all you like (see: every gangsta rap song), but apparently you can not name specific cops.

Houston has churned out a few anti-cop songs - all of our artists were smart enough to address the cops, and not a cop - including the one that will forever be sampled in anti-cop songs for the rest of time. So for your perusal, and for Mr. Johnson's edification, here's how it is supposed to be done.

Geto Boys, "Crooked Officer": Hands down this is the best, most instinctive anti-cop song to come out of Houston. And doesn't it seem like Scarface had perfected that grown man preacher rap way too early in his career? That alone should serve as proof that there is a God. We mean, how else could that have happened? It's like he came out of the womb doling out sage advice and making crisp social observations.

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

​Say what you will about Chamillionaire's occasionally irritable nature, but the man is a great marketer.

For those of you who don't feel the (sad) need to watch, chronicle and rank the moves of every Houston rapper and their inevitable pop-culture significance relative to our city, Cham effectively held everyone hostage by refusing to drop his latest mixtape, Mixtape Messiah 7, until he was one of the top trending topics on Twitter. And what's more, it actually worked. A little after 11 p.m. on Tuesday "#chamillionaire" was ranked No. 2 among trending topics. Wednesday night he made it into the top five, so bravo to him (and his quick-fingered publicist Nancy Byron).

The immediate reaction to MM7 among Cham's fans has been that it's great, but there's an obvious "swell factor" that needs to be taken into account when judging its quality. See, Cham has two big things working in his favor...

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

​You know, prior to the three seconds of gunshots that unwound all the good will, Trae Day was actually a solid event.

As expected, there were the usual concert-day shenanigans that kept us entertained before Trae, Bun, Ross, and Shawty Lo (finally) took the stage - seriously, the "Ricky Bobby" guy performed for about three hours. But J-Dawg, the one guy not named Trae that we were most excited about seeing, did a well enough job that we're legitimately sad that it will be largely forgotten.

J is arguably the second best rapper in the Boss Hogg Outlawz crew. At times, he's certainly more visceral than head honcho Slim Thug, but he lacks the overall marketability that Slim's packaging provides. He's got this unmistakable bottom-of-the-mouth stage whisper for a flow that, when at its most imposing, feels almost skeletal. It gives his songs an immediate sense of weight (most of the time). On more than one occasion we've heard him described as "the Trae of the North," but we're not quite ready to co-sign that statement just yet.

After the jump, listen to a few of his songs and decide for yourself.

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

This weekend, Bun B and Mya are shooting the video for "Show Me Something," the electro-wispy "Upgrade You"-ish single from her forthcoming album.

We used to be a fan of Mya back in the late '90s. We listened to "Movin' On" for a good three hours straight when it first came out, just so we could learn Silkk the Shocker's verse. (At the time, that was very, very important.) Anyhow, Mya sold a ton of records, never returned any of the love letters we never worked up the nerve to send, then just sort of disappeared for a bit (to Japan, apparently).

But if you've been paying attention, you've no doubt noticed that she's shown a tendency to gravitate towards Houston's most hallowed artists these past few years - Z-Ro's "Tired," Trae's "Matter of Time," Bun's "Good 2 Me.". One person, however, remains king of the R&B guest spot among Houston rappers: Billy got-damn Cook.

Cook is a former Rap-A-Lot artist who first gained notoriety on Big Mike's 1994 album, Somethin' Serious. He's a natural coach to other performers and a genuinely charming guy - after speaking with him for all of about three minutes we were convinced he thought us to be his best friend. Thankfully, he has parlayed that skill set into a long and meaningful career.

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

We were reading some "news" the other day about how rap group Slaughterhouse (Joe Budden, Crooked I, Royce da 5'9", Joell Ortiz) was releasing some super cute T-shirts or some nonsense like that when we were hit with an overwhelming feeling of irony.

Remember when 50 Cent first was getting heavy into the mainstream rap game and was absolutely destroying Ja Rule for naming his company Murder, Inc. (on account of all the non-murdering that was going on)? That's kinda how we feel about Slaughterhouse.

We mean, we get what they're trying to represent, but it just doesn't fly. If we were responsible for concocting a group to be named "Slaughterhouse" it would consist of one person: Ganksta N-I-P.

Here's what you need to know about Ganksta N-I-P:

He's fuckin' nuts, but in the coolest way possible. He was literally born with 12 fingers. He's the originator of Horrorcore Rap. He once expressed irritation in song because people were flummoxed by his decision to "marry a dead horse."

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

Last week we wrote about ESG's Ocean of Funk, which spiraled into an email conversation with several different regular emailers/local rappers (and Matt Sonzala) about the 20 greatest Houston rap albums of all time. That's the "recent bit of news" that we're going to use to segue into a discussion about Lil' Keke's Don't Mess Wit Texas. How self-indulgent are we?

Lil' Keke has been underrated for his entire career. Even when "Southside" made him a regional superhero back in 1997-98, it was the wrong type of fame. "Southside" managed to be both conventional (neighborhood-specific shout outs, car talk, etc.) and unconventional (minimal trunk rattling capabilities, high pitched piano work) at the same time. It was incredibly instinctive.

You didn't want to dance when it came on; you had to dance. And it caught fire so fast that a lot of people who didn't normally listen to "that" type of music were listening to it. So when the immediate charm of it wore off (before it settled into the "this song should be universally respected and recognized as a watershed moment in Houston rap" category a few years later), those people seemed to automatically disregard the rest of the album. That's the wrong type of fame.

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

Two days ago, E.S.G. released Greatest Independent Hits. It's badass. Buy it. And not from the Bootleg Movie/CD Man, either. Buy it proper.

In the meantime, here's your assignment for the weekend: dig up a copy of E.S.G.'s 1994 debut Ocean of Funk, give it a proper listen through, and then email us a 1,200-word essay on why that album is not regularly mentioned as belonging to The Pantheon of Great Houston Rap Albums.

For the life of us, we can't figure it out.

Even in retrospect - especially in retrospect? - Ocean is a phenomenal album, but everyone not involved directly with the making of music seems to have forgotten about it entirely. Rumor has it that both Lupe Fiasco and Drake approached E.S.G. after the Bun B and Friends show last weekend and gave praise to him accordingly. (Upon hearing this, we immediately decided we like them more.

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

We suspect the goal of every music writer is to be able to answer "Who are you listening to?" with a response that makes people go "Who?", thus making you smarter than them. It's why we were so amped when we heard newcomer Dustin Prestige's first full-length mixtape, Houston Presto, which he released a little less than two weeks ago. (Prestige is a 25-year-old Missouri City rapper that we mentioned very briefly in an article several months ago after we stumbled across his EP completely by accident.)

The most curiously affecting thing about the new tape is that it consists entirely of samples from various Houston legends (and Paul Wall). Sampling Houston artists isn't necessarily groundbreaking work in and of itself, but Prestige managed to pull off what feels to be more a thought-out approach - similar to the way that Wale sampled Seinfeld on last year's Mixtape About Nothing. (It also makes us eager to see what Prestige will do for his official LP, dropping later this year.)

We dialed up Prestige and he agreed to pass along five MP3s from Presto, as well as explain exactly what he was hoping to accomplish. He'll take over from here.

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

MTV's Cribs has to be one of this generation's finest cultural achievements. For anyone who's never seen it - and thus, indirectly shown far more independence of character than we possess - the show consists of a camera crew showing up at some famous person's home and following them around while they tout all of their fine worldly possessions and make us feel like a great big underachieving asshole.

Inevitably, whenever a rapper's home is visited, there will be a mini-shrine to Al Pacino's Scarface; apparently, Tony Montana's "The World Is Yours" dogma mirrors that of every rapper ever. It's borderline grand delusion at best, but there is some truth that can be squeezed from the Gangster Movie Character Represents Rapper premise.

To wit: there's a nifty little scene at the beginning of Goodfellas where Ray Liotta is doing a voiceover, describing the area's various mafiosos in one or two sentence capsules. He gets to Paul Sorvino's character, Paulie, the neighborhood boss, and mentions something about how he "only moved slow because he didn't have to move fast for anyone." It's a great line; also on that list: the scene in A Bronx Tale where Calogero is describing how Sonny, his neighborhood's boss, has a penchant for folding his middle and ring finger into his palm when he's talking, saying "Sonny had five fingers, but he only used three."

Welcome back to The Five Spot, a Rocks Off recurring feature. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and list five reasons why it's either brilliant or dumb-assed. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

Wednesday, RapRadar.com threw up an interview with former Roc-A-Fella rapper Freeway in which he discussed jumping ship to the Cash Money camp. Now, by most accounts, Philly's favorite bearded son has had a very solid career - there was a good two-year stretch when Free was arguably Roc-A-Fella's second best rapper- but reading about his successes served only to remind us of the curious case of one of Houston's most loyal spokesmen: Big Pokey.

Every city has its own Big Pokey: a local underground icon who's seemingly preordained to do nothing but churn out beautifully region-specific smash singles.

Of course, the charm of this type of track is lost on anyone without an intimate knowledge of the city from where it spawned*, and in Big Pokey's case, that has caused for an unfair maligning of his efforts.

But Big Pokey is like a time-period art piece - chastising him for being "too Houston" and "not universal enough" is like chastising a Van Gogh painting for not being a Picasso painting. When he gives applies his esoteric wit to a song, it is downright aristocratic. Before or since, few have been able to corral the sound of Houston rap as near-perfectly as Pokey has. And he should be lauded for that, not denigrated. So let's get with the lauding already:

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

Mddl Fngz is a hard hitting (and totally texter-friendly) rap group that formed in 2002, in part as an offshoot of UGK when Pimp C was incarcerated. They're lyrically talented, gruff in their presentation, and utterly convincing in the Look How Mean I Am In My Black Shirt And Hat And Sunglasses role. (Their new mixtape, Smokin' Wit Tha Enemy, is out now. Buy it here.)

Yet, despite being one of the more intimidating tough-talk rap conglomerations currently operating, they've gone largely unnoticed by the mainstream rap audience. Here's where we'd like to point out that the YouTube page for B-Hamp's "Do The Ricky Bobby" has amassed more than 1.3 million hits in less than eight months. People are sooo stupid.

If you're a fan of harder-edged rap stuff, you've got to give these guys a try. For your consideration:

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, albeit sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. You can five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

Back in November of last year, we co-signed the dopeness of rapper Kyle Hubbard, a self-admitted "dorky, four-eyed white kid," proclaiming him the Rocks Off Artist of the Week. Hubbard, as you can see in the above picture, doesn't exactly have the prototypical "rapper" look - his glasses aren't even for show, they serve a functional purpose - but an argument against his seemingly effortless ability to craft fluid bars would be little more than dubious.

And apparently, renowned hip-hopper DJ Vlad, who's received various awards from MTV, Vibe, XXL and a slew of others, thinks the same, as we got an email this morning informing us that Hubbard will soon be releasing an official DJ Vlad-hosted mixtape.

Hubbard confirmed, saying "This is the biggest stage I have had the opportunity to perform on, and nobody breathing knows if I will ever have this chance again."

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and list five reasons why it's either brilliant or dumb-assed. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

We were flipping through the Trae playlist in our iPod yesterday, and "Swang" came on. "Swang," if you'll remember, was the Big Hawk and Fat Pat-assisted second-best song from Trae's irreplaceable Restless album. It was swirling, ethereal wonder of a track, but the thing that made it a staple of any best-of Trae list was that not only did Big Hawk pass just a few days before Restless came out, but it featured one of Hawk's most poignant (and sadly prophetic) bars ever:

"I would give my last breath just to bring you back, bring Screw back, matter of fact, bring the whole crew back."

You could almost hear the sorrow dripping out of your earbuds. The whole thing had a creepy, foreshadowy vibe to it. And when we were listening to it yesterday, for some reason the first person we thought about was the likewise deceased Big Moe.

If we had to rank the three most disappointing things not to happen in our lives, it would be these. We have never:

1. Dunked a basketball on a regulation goal. We play basketball, in some form or fashion, at least five times a week. Frankly, we love it. Yet apparently we did something so horribly awful in a previous life that God thought it necessary to smite us with this great irony. We would gladly trade ten years of our life to drive down the lane and tomahawk dunk one good time. Please, Jesus. Just once before we die.

2. Punched someone in the mouth and then cursed him afterwards like it was no big deal. The way we picture it in our head: Some guy is mouthing off to an attractive cashier at the Discount Tire by our house. She asks him to please sit down. He says, "Why don't you sit on this?!" and then grabs his crotch. The crowded room gasps.

We tap him on his shoulder, he turns around, then we punch the crap out of him, knocking him to the floor. Then, very calmly, say, "She said sit down... bitch." Everyone claps. A guy opens that door leading to where the cars are being worked on and says our car is ready. The attractive cashier rings us up, giving us an unauthorized 15 percent discount. And then we dunk a basketball on the way to our car.

3. Met any member of the Geto Boys. This is the one that actually bothers us the most. We mean, you figure covering music and nightlife stuff for the past year or so, we'd have at least bumped into them at some point, right? But it's just never happened. And it eats us up.

They are, without question, our favorite rap group of all time. (Just barely edging out UGK and Black Star, by the way.) Listening to the goriness of their collective bawling flow makes us feel like a bad MF'er. And considering that's prime reason the gangsta rap genre was spawned, we have always thought them to be wildly important.

Now would be a good time to plug those headphones in.

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It's five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

For some reason, there was this kid that we went to middle school with who, despite only having said about four words to him ever, we never forgot.

He was a burly, hard-looking kid named Detective Torres. Actually, his name was Jesse Torres, but everyone called him Detective Torres on account of his superb ability to sniff out guilty parties during Heads-Up, Seven-Up.

It really was uncanny. It was like he was looking right into your subconscious when he focused in on you. Rumor had it that he didn't have to study because he could just peer at test questions until the right answers stepped forward, although that was never substantiated.

At any rate, as middle school progressed, the other thing Detective Torres became associated with was consistency. He was like a rock. He never seemed too high or too low. His grades weren't superb, but they weren't near the bottom, either. Everything about him was unwaveringly middling. If the 682 kids at that school were ranked on an average of every category possible, we're certain Torres would've been found firmly at No. 341. It's exactly the same way we feel about Chamillionaire.

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and list five reasons why it's either brilliant or dumb-assed. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.

www.djbooth.net

Swear to God, this is exactly how this week's Five Spot came to fruition: We were reading on some Web site about how Method Man and Redman are currently trying to get How High 2 made, when the following occurred in our brain over the span of about six seconds:

"What?! The original How High was gawdawful! Why was anyone interested in watching the first two hours, let alone making more? Hey, 'more' sounds like 'whore'... Puff Daddy became a millionaire in part because he was a sample whore in the '90s...He did make 'Mo' Money, Mo' Problems,' though, which, at the time, we thought was phenomenal... Why do people say 'mo' instead of 'more'? That's stupid... Mo? Mo? Mo!Cory Mo!

There's no adequate psychological explanation how or why that happened.