Houston Music Blog

Roughly 84,000 rap albums have been released in Houston since 1989. We're counting down the 25 best of all time every Thursday. Got a problem with the list? Shove it. Just kidding. Friendship. Email it to sheaserrano@gmail.com.

OG Style

I Know How to Play 'Em! (Rap-A-Lot/Priority, 1987)

There are any number of reasons that you could point to as to why this album should've made the list. Here are a few:

1. It's one of the earliest Rap-A-Lot albums to be released, back before the label really got its hooks dug in and had its wayward formula for producing regional stars formatted. This is identifiable by OG Style's young and charismatic MC, Eric Woods, who seemed to arrive already pristine in style. The group's aura leaned towards his will, resulting in a clear East Coast bent. Culturally, it is a measuring point for where the Houston sound was (or, rather, was not) at the time. You needn't look much further than "This Is How It Should Be Done," which flips Eric B. and Rakim's "I Know You Got Soul," for an example of that. Or you could just to listen to six seconds of any song. Either way works.

Roughly 84,000 rap albums have been released in Houston since 1989. We're counting down the 25 best of all time every Thursday. Got a problem with the list? Shove it. Just kidding. Friendship. Email sheaserrano@gmail.com.

Z-Ro

Let the Truth Be Told (Asylum, 2005)

​This is our second entry from Joseph McVey. He landed at the No. 20 spot with The Life of Joseph McVey, which, as we described in our write-up, "was important for one big, big reason: it represented the budding of the artist that Z-Ro eventually became."

Let The Truth Be Told, which immediately followed The Life... in Ro's discography, is a natural continuation of the maturation process he began on that album. And because Let... is the album that saw Ro blossom into a genuine thoroughbred artist, it is (and likely will remain) the most important of his career.

Dissecting the appeal of Z-Ro is simple, really, because you can only like him for either one of two reasons: 1) he's just like you, in which case he presents your struggle and day to day hardship in an artistically integral manner that not only empowers you, but emboldens you; or 2) he's nothing like you, in which case he presents someone else's struggle and day to day hardship in an artistically integral manner, and thank God you don't have to deal with all that shit. Of course, both of these are the exact same thing.

Roughly 84,000 rap albums have been released in Houston since 1989. We're counting down the 25 best of all time every Thursday. Got a problem with the list? Shove it. Just kidding. Friendship. Email it to sheaserrano@gmail.com.

Street Military

Don't Give a Damn (Wild Pitch, 1999)

​Surprise.

Kids, meet Street Military. If you know who they are, then you no doubt sing their praises at parties, business meetings, funerals, whatever. If you don't know who they are, don't feel too badly. They've somehow slipped their way into "It Might Make Me A Houston Rap Elitist That I Listen To These Guys Still" status.

Street Military was a five-member rap team made up of four MCs (KB Da Kidnappa, Lil' Flea, Pharoah, Icy Hott) and one hypeman (Nut) that peaked early in the mid-'90s. For some reason, Icy Hott is regularly listed as an accompanying DJ and Nut is listed as a rapper; however, this is incorrect. KB confirmed this in a recent interview. And since he a) has a video or two of himself on Youtube knocking people out; and b) carries a snake around town that's so large it literally wears its own necklace, we're inclined to pretty much never question anything he ever says.

Snake be damned, at the beginning of writing The Countdown, we had every intention of leaving these guys off the list. We really, really did. We even specifically mentioned them as not making the cut during our precap of the rules. But, ultimately, their seven-song strong thunderstorm of an EP, Don't Give A Damn, had two things going for it that just could not be ignored.

Roughly 84,000 rap albums have been released in Houston since 1989. We're counting down the 25 best of all time every Thursday. Got a problem with the list? Shove it. Just kidding. Friendship. Email it to sheaserrano@gmail.com.

DJ Screw

3 N' Da Mornin, Part 2 (Big Tyme Records, 1995)

​While researching the Countdown, we came across two very distinct opinions regarding this album; naturally, they were almost diametrically opposed to one another.

People either argued that it should be placed somewhere near the No. 4 spot - this was most often the position of rappers who knew Screw personally, hip-hop heads over 30-years-old, white music intellectualists and the homers over at the Texas Takeover forum, where Screw serves as the mascot. Pretty much everyone else argued that it shouldn't be included at all. As preposterous as the latter opinion initially feels, there's a certain amount of logic to it.

Essentially, two requirements that must be satisfied to qualify a rap album as an actual rap album, thus qualifying it for this list. First is that it overtly revolves around one single act; this makes up about 96 percent of all albums. Second, if it does not feature one specific act - we're talking compilation albums here - it must be comprised of all original songs. This is why something like Swishahouse's The Day Hell Broke Loose would work while a similarly themed Greatest Hits album wouldn't.

Those who argued against 3's inclusion, whether they realized it or not, took issue with it not meeting either of the two requirements. And technically, this is absolutely correct. It's also fatally flawed, but we'll get to that.

Roughly 84,000 rap albums have been released in Houston since 1989. We're counting down the 25 best of all time every Thursday. Got a problem with the list? Shove it. Just kidding. Friendship. Email it to sheaserrano@gmail.com.

Trae

Restless (Asylum, 2006)

​Disclaimer: We dissected this album without referencing "Swang," the album's best song and possibly the finest representation of what it is that makes Trae Trae. We did this in part because we wanted to see if we could do it, but mostly because a) we've already written about the layers of "Swang" several times before, as has just about anyone who has ever written about Trae and/or Restless; and b) if you've made it this far into the countdown, you're no doubt familiar with all that went on with that song anyway, namely Fat Pat's posthumous appearance and H.A.W.K.'s non-posthumous posthumous appearance.

There's no need to waste your time rehashing everything. Although, we suppose it would've been easier to have just gone ahead and explained everything rather than fumbling through this now hamfisted disclaimer. So, moving on...

Roughly 84,000 rap albums have been released in Houston since 1989. We're counting down the 25 best of all time every Thursday. Got a problem with the list? Shove it. Just kidding. Friendship. Email it to sheaserrano@gmail.com.

"You drop one track, he's still alive." - Chamillionaire, on why he aimed an entire dis album at Mike Jones rather than just one track

Chamillionaire

Mixtape Messiah (self-released - it's a mixtape, duh - 2005)

For the most part, we've tried to avoid including mixtapes on the Countdown. But there is no justifiable way that you can make a list of the best rap albums to ever come out of Houston and not include Chamillionaire's original Mixtape Messiah.

Within the context of Southern music, it is a mini-watershed moment, signaling not only the birth of one of the most hallowed mix-tape series in the region, but also the viability of Cham as a solo act. Besides, you can buy it on iTunes and at Best Buy. With the exception of the title, it's closer to an album than a mixtape anyway.

Roughly 84,000 rap albums that have been released in Houston since 1989. We're counting down the 25 best of all time every Thursday. Got a problem with the list? Shove it. Just kidding. Friendship. Email it to sheaserrano@gmail.com.

Bushwick Bill

Little Big Man (Priority, 1992)

​"Get to the house, all I'm thinking 'bout is shootin' her/ 'Cause shootin' her would be sweet/ But you know what'd be sweeter/ if I made her shoot me."

Scarface will always be the best rapper from the Geto Boys, but the gap between him and Bushwick Bill was narrower than a lot of people realize. The ironic part of this statement is that we have to use "was" here because since 'Wick ventured down the Christian rapper trail, it has widened substantially, basically to the original girth most people assumed was the case anyway.

Anyhow, Little Big Man, Bushwick's 1992 debut, represented the most honest, visceral effort of his career. For this duration of this one album, he was rap's Hannibal Lecter: A wildly charming nutbag who was trying to either sleep with you or eat you.

Roughly 84,000 rap albums have been released in Houston since 1989. We're counting down the 25 best of all time every Thursday. Got a problem with the list? Shove it. Just kidding. Friendship. Email it to sheaserrano@gmail.com.

South Park Mexican

Never Change (Universal, 2001)

A few months ago we interviewed a Northside rapper named Coast for Artist of the Week. One of the things we mentioned about him was that lyrically he had a remarkable ability to deliver a powerful sentiment without feeling at all forced. It's not an easy thing to do (see: 85 percent of all rappers). But as good as he as is at doing it, he's only about half as good as South Park Mexican was on 2001's Never Change.

Nobody before or since has marshaled the dejection and isolation a lot of inner-city Mexicans feel) near as well as SPM. It's one of the things that made him so necessary. For example, on "Real Gangsta" (When Devils Strike, 2006), which tells the story of how a kid is pulled into the hustle, he wraps up a kid's entire youth by mentioning that even when his mom finally was able to buy him some new shoes (on sale), "She didn't know, she bought the wrong color/ and they stayed in the closet all summer."

Roughly 84,000 rap albums have been released in Houston since 1989. We're counting down the 25 best of all time every Thursday. Got a problem with the list? Shove it. Just kidding. Friendship. Email it to sheaserrano@gmail.com.

This is the first album we've seen on The Countdown that has aged its way to a spot on it. What we mean to say is that, if we simply considered this tape in a vacuum, it probably wouldn't have made the list.

Mind, it's certainly good, but time has swelled its significance considerably. First, it was put together right near the end of the '90s, a couple of years before the new-money Houston rappers (Cham, Paul, Jones, Slim, Flip, etc.) were able to piece together a marketable enough version of the sound that would personify - still personifies - our city.

South Park Mexican, Lil' Mario and Slim Thug, "Hay Hay Hay"

TDHBL is all warbly voices, "I done came down"s and synthy production that sounds way better once it's been Screwed, which is not an accident. Listening to this tape now is an easy way to recapture the earnest days of Houston's second-generation rap pre-boom. It's remarkably nostalgic; were there a barber shop open at 11 p.m. (which is when we were writing this) we almost certainly would've woken up the next morning with a ball-fade haircut.

Roughly 84,000 rap albums have been released in Houston since 1989. We're counting down the 25 best of all time every Thursday. Got a problem with the list? Shove it. Just kidding. Friendship. Email it to sheaserrano@gmail.com.

Ganksta NIP

South Park Psycho (Priority, 1992)

We wrote about NIP at length a couple of week's ago. Read about him here if you missed the article.

South Park Psycho was the debut work of South Park's monster rapper Ganksta NIP. It's 14 tracks of balled-up fury and visceral anger; not exactly uncommon for the time. But what made the album so unique is that NIP was able to put a completely fresh spin on the gangster rap sound before there was even a real gangster rap sound. That's also what it made the most frustrating, at least as far as list-making goes anyway. It was among the more un-pin-down-able albums on the list. It was like, part of the time it felt like it should be a lot closer to the top ten - it is often recognized as the birth of the bloody horrorcore rap subgenre, so its cultural significance is undeniable - while other times it felt like it might be just a little too hard to listen to to make it on the list at all (there's lots of talk of eating dead animals and whatnot). Alas, 21 is where it fell, and we're entirely okay with that.

Roughly 84,000 rap albums have been released in Houston since 1989. We're counting down the 25 best of all time every Thursday. Got a problem with the list? Shove it. Just kidding. Friendship. Email it to sheaserrano@gmail.com.

​For all of the talent and charm and natural charisma that Hawk brought to Houston's rap scene - his fingerprints are all across it, most notably for co-founding the legendary Screwed Up Click - the most impressive aspect of his legacy is uncommonly simple yet profoundly unique: nobody disliked him. Nobody.

That's not a matter of opinion. There are no qualifiers to add on there. It is just a fact. Let that sink in for a bit. We can't even go to Target without pissing someone off, yet in a line of work that seems to pride itself on being cutthroat, H-A-dub managed to float through it leaving behind a wake of people who were only better for having known him. That's insane, yo.

That's why when he was gunned down in 2006 it was such a total gut punch. He had worked so hard to keep the SUC name prominent after Screw's passing that everyone just assumed he had garnered too much goodwill for anything to ever happen to him (like how Bun did when Pimp went away). Nobody saw it coming. Really, nobody even believed it when the news began circulating. Everybody had that same, "yeah right, quit playing" thing going on.

But it did. And everyone immediately realized we were all the worse for it.

Roughly 84,000 rap albums have been released in Houston since 1989. We're counting down the 25 best of all time every Thursday. Got a problem with the list? Shove it. Just kidding. Friendship. Email it to sheaserrano@gmail.com.

"So you was God posing as Satan doing an imitation of God acting like Satan?"

​K-Rino has always been inordinately clever. With regards to just raw content, you're not going to find too many MCs that delve deeper into the "word as weapon" mentality. For the duration of his two-plus decade career, Rino's albums have centered on wildly complex and creative wordplay laid over thickly produced beats.

The irony here, though, is that he's done so to such a successful extent that people began listening to K-Rino albums just to see what he was going to say next, which makes listening to the same album again and again feel the same as when you watching a movie with a "twist" ending again and again. Derailed was good the first two times, yo, but we never felt like we need to see it more than that.

But Time Traveler felt - still feels - like a straight-up hip-hop album, most notably in two parts.

Roughly 84,000 rap albums have been released in Houston since 1989. We're counting down the 25 best of all time every Thursday. Got a problem with the list? Shove it. Just kidding. Friendship. Email it to sheaserrano@gmail.com.

Pimp C

Pimpalation

Asylum, 2006

​As fun as it is for us music writers to pick obscure or obviously lacking albums by artists and lionize them when we make these types of lists, everybody in the world knew this album was getting a spot here. Worry not, naysayers, there are a few of those picks higher up on the list that you're sure to disagree with.

It's weird to think about because they've been around so long, but Port Arthur's favorite sons only have four solo albums between the two of them - Bun's Trill and II Trill and Pimp's Sweet James Jones Stories and Pimpalation. One more from each is scheduled for release in 2010.

Out of the four, Pimpalation is hands down the strongest of the group, which goes Pimpalation > II Trill > Trill > SJJS, if you're curious.

SJJS, Pimp's solo debut album, was solid, and there was a nice little buzz about it, but ultimately it felt a little too much like a "Biding Time Until This Artist is Released From Prison" album - similar to Z-Ro's comp Tha Omega, though the situations weren't exactly the same. Pimpalation was the "I Was Locked Up For Way Too Long And Now I'm Going To Crash Every Song On This Bitch" album.

Roughly 84,000 rap albums have been released in Houston since 1989. We're counting down the 25 best of all time every Thursday. Got a problem with the list? Shove it. Just kidding. Friendship. Email sheaserrano@gmail.com.

​The first thing we thought once this list was compiled and all the records had been ranked was, No fuckin' way are we starting it with an album from an MC who has passed. And then we realized: we don't really have much of a choice. Of the 25 best albums to ever come out of Houston, eight of them are, in one way or another, attributed to someone who is now dead. Think about that for a minute. That's 32 percent, nearly one-third. One out of every three. It's a crap situation. And really, even that number is a lowball.

Once you get into the thick of it, all the rappers and DJs in this town are tangled together. This guy was on that album which was sampled by this one that was featured on that one. For better or worse, they all rely on each other to survive. Houston is its own rap biosphere. When someone passes, everyone is affected, regardless of affiliation. Thirty-two percent is really closer to 57.

Roughly 84,000 rap albums have been released in Houston since 1989. For the next six months, we'll be counting down the 25 best of all time every Thursday. Got a problem with the list? Shove it. Just kidding. Friendship. Email it to sheaserrano@gmail.com.

​For the last few weeks we have pored over countless Houston rap albums, attempting to narrow down the mass into the 25 best. And if that weren't enough, we then ranked them, top to bottom. It was some stressful shit. Imagine going to the beach and trying to find the 25 best grains of sand. Or the 25 worst Paul Wall similes. That's what it felt like.

But the list is finished. Finally. And as far as we know, it's a project that has never been done before. It'll probably end up as a cited source on Wikipedia pages for the rest of time. We consulted actual rappers, music fiends, other writers and the guy that's always at the bus stop by our house with no shirt on. This is some official shit.

And because we don't want to get a bunch of waah-waah "You just picked your favorite albums" emails, we'll explain how this works. Essentially, we ranked the albums using four basic rules.