The Outfit, TX

The Outfit, TX have been warping the sounds of Texas rap for almost a decade now, their music varying from smooth, split-screen introspection to deep, dank ghost whispers to “cooly fooly space-age funk.” The Dallas trio, consisting of Jayhawk, Mel, and Dorian, reinterprets the legacy sounds of Third Coast hip-hop through a wide range of tints. Their new album, Little World, a trove of middle-class rap flexes, sounds like a dark realm all to itself, the full-on encapsulation of their operation.

Their last album, 2017’s Fuel City, an homage to an off-kilter Dallas staple, was trunk-rattling rap with a hometown bent. Little World retrofits Fuel City’s firing pistons onto gnarled synth patches to power ominous crawlers, channeling the energy of 2015’s foreboding Down by the Trinity, a sound influenced by the heaviness of Deftones and the murkiness of Scarface—but entirely its own. This is still slab music, robust and booming, but instead of candy-painted, it’s matte black. Little World is an anomaly from previous TOTX projects in that it can be strobing and trance-inducing one minute and boisterous and disorienting the next. But there’s always a strong through-line facilitated by the disparate but complementary modes of its frontmen.

Dorian mixed and mastered the record, but he rarely appears as a performer. Though he is missed, Jayhawk and Mel have found a wonky sort of balance in their contrasting styles, performing in tandem from opposite ends of the spectrum. Jayhawk’s raps are in-your-face and combustible, so loud that, when the group was recording Down by the Trinity at Mel’s grandmother’s house, they’d have to cut sessions early for fear that he might disturb her. He chews up the scenery, always foregrounding himself in the mix, and his natural inclination is to be caustic. Mel is more withdrawn, quietly sinister, a mischievous tenor he’s characterized as “the purple devil emoji.” He lurches through like a prowler. So much of TOTX’s allure, and Little World specifically, is wrapped up in this disparity of sound: how they knife through beats at different angles, the ways their almost peculiar voice-work supplements their flows.

Whether going it alone or performing as a tag-team, the members of TOTX leave indelible marks on everything they touch; even as their words leave the mind, their voices linger. On “Name on the Wall,” Jayhawk rumbles through his raps, each utterance bounding between seismic ripples of the 808 drum kit. Mel seems to faze through the translucent synths on “Big Bet,” every syllable implying a certain intangibility. Often, phrases are merely a function of fluidity, waves ridden through the troughs of their immense productions. But even when setting up a specific moment, words ebb and flow, as on this casual Jayhawk scene from “The Woah”: “Lil baby booted up/On god, lil baby cute as fuck/I walked up rude as fuck/I said, ‘Is this your dude, or what?’” There is an immediacy to the writing, but the sensation of it lingers like an afterimage.

Thunderous, abnormal, and sublime, Little World is emblematic of The Outfit, TX as a group. Despite a stellar track record, they’re still fighting for bandwidth in rap conversations, but they will themselves forth with undeniable music, vowing to secure a spot for themselves and the Dallas scene they claim. “Looked straight at my nigga, told him we gon’ make it/Looked straight at my nigga, told him if not, we gon’ take it,” Mel declares on “Conviction,” a song about staying the course. With Little World, The Outfit, TX continue to expand their small but no less significant domain, existing proudly on the outer edges of Texas rap as they always have. - Pitchfork

It’s been a long time since rap music made me want to get buck. The sound du jour is zombie marching band, where the drumline seems to be the only section with enough animation left to create music, all rumbling bass drums and menacing, macabre, horror movie synths (think early Hitchcock, not so much Nightmare On Elm).

Listeners of a certain age may not remember, but there was once a time when crunk was king. Building off the late-nineties momentum of pioneers like Master P, it was a time before “trap rap” proper, when, rather than leaning hazily through a toxic fog of Xanax and codeine, Southern rap instead encouraged listeners to grab two cups of brown liquor from the bar and stomp their way to the dance floor, elbows swinging with reckless abandon.

Underground Dallas rap trio The Outfit, TX remembers, though. Fuel City, the latest LP from the uproarious three-man band from Texas’ other big city, harkens back to the era of tall tees and Bape sneakers, updated for a generation that grew up on anime and Call Of Duty. The result is not unlike if Trap Muzik-era T.I. was sucked into a Pac Man machine late one night, then promptly ran into Lil Sam and Lil Bo (aka The Eastside Boyz) and started a cage match in a whatever passes for the hood in the world of Tron. In short, Fuel City just might be the rebirth of the crunk sound.

Dorian, JayHawk, and Mel share rap duties throughout the album, while Mel and Dorian previously handled the group’s early production. However the low-fi, yet futuristic production on all ten songs on Fuel City comes from outside the trio proper, directly resulting in the nearly unhinged party vibe. While their debut, Down By The Trinity, featured a slower, more somber vibe, over the course of their musical evolution with joints like “Bear Necessities,” they’ve come out of their shells and into their own as a rambunctious, party-starting pack of rabble rousers.

While Fuel City was sold to me as “not really a computer record,” requiring wheels and the sort of speakers that could only be furnished by the finest of old-school low-riders, unfortunately, all I had was my headphones. By the third track, “Goin’ Up,” I was about ready to tear the wings off the airliner ferrying me back to LA from Chicago in midair. The leading track, “Big Splash,” establishes exactly where this collection lives and where it’s headed — right back to the golden era of Lil Jon ad-libs, gold grills, and out-of-control behavior in any venue in which it’s played.

Nowhere is the video-gamey vibe more readily apparent than on “Phone Line,” one of the few solo tracks, which finds Mel careening carelessly over a Mega Man boss fight bass line splashed liberally with crash cymbals that evoked the not-quite mosh pits that regularly broke out in Atlanta clubs back in the Def Jam Vendetta days, when rap music was both party music and fight music at the same damn time.

As far as the raps go? Look, this is not ultra-lyrical, Nas-and-AZ-level rhyme construction. At the same time, neither is it so-called “mumble rap” (which, it could be argued, features a lot less mumbling than the name would imply). The rapping here is what it needs to be; it’s straightforward, it rhymes, and it gets the point across — the point being, in general, that The Outfit, TX does not want you to test their gangster, for your own good. There’s fighting, there’s drinking, there’s stunting; all the usual accoutrements of a YoungBloodz or Three Six Mafia song are here, with rhymes about on-par with some of the higher-tier 8Ball and MJG.

The Outfit isn’t reinventing the wheel with Fuel City. If anything, they’re cleaning out Southern rap’s attic, pulling out old fits and discovering — like every generation of rap innovators before them — that anything old can be made new again, with a little twist on the original design. It remains to be seen if crunk rap can kickstart a true renaissance, but even if it doesn’t, connoisseurs of the chaotic, early-aughts dominance of the music that coined the term “twerk” and pissed off East Coast rap heads for nearly a decade can always return to this gem when they feel like breaking out that tall tee and turning up like they used to. Stream Fuel City below, and watch those elbows. - UPROXX

Southern rap is not a monolith. This is hand-to-forehead obvious, but not always explicit in regional rap discourse. There are shared sonic and topical traits, but every “Third Coast” state offers a varied and distinctive crop of rappers that could not exist elsewhere. The Outfit, TX put their state in their name so you’ll never forget. Of course, you only need to hear one Outfit song to know where they park the slab.

Since 2010, the Dallas-bred trio of Mel Kyle, Dorian Terrell and JayHawk Walker have released an extensive and perennially evolving body of work that reimagines the aural hallmarks of Texas rap with increasing returns. Consistency without repetition is elusive for most, but they’ve cracked the code. More importantly, the group affirms and enriches Texan rap tropes as much as they subvert them.

Comparing 2012’s Starships & Rockets and 2015’s Down By the Trinity best illustrates the group’s evolution. The former is an alien’s guide to Dallas, a candy-painted ride over another red turf. The synths are spacey and the low-end is sinister. It’s an attempt to commune equally with E.T. and E.S.G. Down By the Trinity, however, articulates a crisis of faith in self, community, country and the divine over dark, spectral suites. The message isn’t always clear, but the feeling is visceral and undeniable.

I spoke to the Outfit, TX in Dallas, a few days before they performed multiple shows at SXSW 2016. At the group’s request, the interview took place at 2 AM Dallas time, just after they’d finished hosting a local party. Despite the late hour, the trio covered topics ranging from their career evolution, Texas rap history, the inherent problems of contemporary Southern rap coverage and more.

To accompany the extensive Q&A, RBMA Daily is premiering The Hymns: A Chronology of TOTX Thus Far. 33 songs from their continually expanding catalog, the compilation is the perfect entry point for the uninitiated and a reminder to anyone who might’ve forgotten: The Outfit, TX are the best rap group in Dallas. - Red Bull Music Academy

#16.
Green Lights: Everythang Goin'.
The Outfit, TX have been piecing together essential (and mostly overlooked) Southern Gothic tomes for some years now, but Green Lights marks a distinct shift in the group’s sound. It’s tighter and more focused - some might say more commercial - than its predecessors, but listen closely and you’ll find all the same hallmarks that made Down by the Trinity and Starships & Rockets so bracing. The Dallas trio sound refreshed on Green Lights as they dip into Three 6 Mafia territory, infusing their Memphis forebears’ grim atmospheres with energy, creativity and a lot of sex. Just flip to ‘Precedent’, ‘To The Room’ or ‘What I Like’ for evidence – this is hazy, narcotic music built around (for the most part) local production duo Stunt N Dozier’s chilling productions and carried forward by The Outfit’s stark, assertive raps. Green Lights is the most foreboding and uneasy rap album of the year, and should be celebrated accordingly. - FACT Mag

One of the darkest and most depressing Southern Rap albums of 2015 came from an unlikely place.

Dorian, Mel and Jay had a big breakout moment together as The Outfit, TX following the release of their Down By The Trinity project. The Dallas trio produced something that could be seen as a depressing mix of Southern Hip Hop, slowed industrial rock and blues. Complex called Down By The Trinity “a dysmorphic mass of distorted grunge riddled with overt production techniques.”

The lyrical themes matched the moody production. No bottle popping unless it was an eighth of “Wild Turkey” to wash down the depression. Hitting licks seemed more in tune with scrambling to pay rent instead of buying a new foreign whip. Bleakness never sounded so good. Rap notables including Danny Brown and Trinidad James became fans as well.

Their follow-up mixtape Green Lights: Everythang Goin’ wrote a new playbook for the group. They relinked with influential Texas tastemaker DJ Mr. Rogers, who essentially put them on the map during their early days. Normally keeping production in-house between Dorian and Mel, they offloaded a large portion of the project’s beats to Stunt N Dozier (Bun B, E-40). The end result is a lighter album featuring slappers grounded with a slightly experimental vibe.

They’ve previously said they make music for the working man, and that feeling couldn’t have been any clearer when HipHopDX got some time with them. We caught up with the group after they played three shows in Southern California, and they mentioned making the nearly day-long drive from Dallas without stopping.

Just like Green Lights: Everythang Goin’, they’re speeding forward despite overwhelming odds. - Hip Hop DX

For over two decades, Houston has sat as a cultural hub in Southern Hip Hop for obvious reasons ranging from early Rap-A-Lot to Swishahouse. Even the newer crop of artists including Beatking and The Sauce Twinz ensure “Space City” remains in the consciousness of those vested in regions’ musical output. Being the nation’s fourth largest city has its perks exposure wise. Meanwhile, Dallas has unfortunately been placed in the background despite molding significant individuals like The D.O.C. who gained traction himself after making his way west or Erykah Badu and local legend Kottonmouth. Even minor recent gains like Lil Wil’s “My Dougie” found itself hijacked by Cali Swag District for global phenomenon “Teach Me How To Dougie.” That notion couldn’t have been more demolished as The Big D is carefully being watched as the next city to blow in Hip Hop. And, some gains have already been made. Thanks in-part to a new alternative scene, emcees such as Justus, A.Dd+, Buffalo Black and Sam Lao among others are paving the way previously unseen in the area.

One Dallas trio making much-deserved noise musically and stylistically is The Outfit, TX. Since dropping their 2012 Starships & Rockets: Cooly Fooly Space Age Funk, the group’s unique blend of down south bass and southern rock has made them a pivotal group for the area’s Hip Hop scene. Their follow-up Cognac / Four Corner Room further expanded their sound. Earlier this year, Dorian, Mel and JayHawk dropped the well-received Deep Ellum EP named after Dallas’ art center. As 2015 comes to a close, The Outfit,TX releases their best album to date Down By The Trinity. Arguably runner-up for one of the best Southern rap albums of the year, the album provides the chance for maxing out anyone’s sound system capabilities as they ride the slab. However, beneath the off-kilter production, there’s a Southern apocalyptic tale that rides the line of bouncy jams and flat-out hopelessness.

Production for Down By The Trinity is primarily handled by Mel and Dorian. Both are in full control of the project’s sonic direction that at times feels very post-Yeezus in its industrial inspiration. Opener “Burn$” sets the stage for Down By The Trinity lead single “Wild Turkey” before that track transitions to “Gold Teeth.” From the start, their third-full length album is definitely steeped in Texas. The opening lyrics that feel very Pimp C’ish by way of: “Two bitches in the truck/ pussy nigga you dick in the butt/ got bout two sips in the cup / two sticks in the mud/ shit, screw lips with a mug/ blue chips and a slug.” The energy heightens for Down By The Trinity’s first real “turn-up” moments through “Light It Up.” A joint transferable between hipster clubs and epic backwood campfires lends itself to aspirational moments like, “Bet cha don’t believe fat meat is greasy / And you gone have to eat the pig when you see me / You hoes gon have to fuck the clique don’t be sleazy.”

Down By The Trinity is at its best during those excruciatingly bleak moments. “Highs & Lows” features a hook so desperate as The Outfit,TX chants “I’m tired, so tired / need anything to get me higher.” That level of despair becomes even heavier on “Working Title” featuring an interesting lyrical moment: “Feeling like Biggie’s first album / I’ve been dreaming bout number six with the words of Malcolm / feeling like we can’t change the outcome / so fuck it watch how niggas come out / pride never gone run out / sunny south with the guns out.” The desolate pace of Down By The Trinity really comes together on album highlight “Flame Emoji.“ Emotive anecdotes about their current status within rap and while managing their own personal realities. Closing the album, “Burning Trees” is a fairly spectacular seven-minute guitar solo by Ricky Fontaine who is featured frequently on Down By The Trinity.

With Southern rap and popular music finding inspiration from Atlanta’s simplistic yet effective usage of 808s, it’s fairly refreshing watching Dallas really develop into its own. Down By The Trinity serves as a prime example of where the area’s Hip Hop scene is going. For all the slick production wizardry the rapper/producer collective offers, there’s a level of depth waiting in the group’s stark reality. - Hip Hop DX

March 29, 2014 • The Outfit, TX are a trio from Dallas who came together at the University of Houston. Dorian and Mel have been partners since middle school, and they met JayHawk in a freshmen dorm. The three of them sat down with Microphone Check hosts Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Frannie Kelley in the Austin sunshine, cracked a few Lone Stars and opined on Texas funk, Texas weather, church and their business plan. They also spoke about the career stage they're at right now:

"You sit down and you're like, 'Man. Are they gonna understand? Are we doing this for naught? Putting all this love into this music.' We going and working these server jobs. This lady talking about her iced tea," says Mel. "I got my last chorus in my mind. I ain't even remember she wanted an iced tea. 'I really don't care about your iced tea. But I'mma go get you this iced tea, lady."

They say it's not easy, but they're making music for the working man — that music you can live to.

Credits

Producers: Mito Habe-Evans, Frannie Kelley, Ali Shaheed Muhammed; Audio Engineer: Kevin Wait; Videographers: Olivia Merrion, A.J. Wilhelm; Editor: Denise DeBelius; Special Thanks: Friends & Neighbors, Cedric Shine; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann. - NPR

The number is big.

“Well, we’re all off Monday to Wednesday,” says Mel Kyle, de factor leader of the Outfit, TX, a rap triumvirate spawned in Dallas but now based in Houston, Texas and maybe the best thing in rap today that nobody is talking about yet. “While we were making the album — I don’t remember what part of the process we were in, but while we were making the album we recorded one time for 48 hours straight.”

If you’ve not heard the project he’s referencing, late 2012's Starships & Rockets: Cooly Fooly Space Age Funk, the claim might sound unreasonable: Has anybody ever done anything for 48 hours straight? Is the earth even 48 hours old? But if you have then “48? sounds appropriate.

The Outfit, TX’s music is, in no uncertain terms, absurdly trenchant. It is a master class in influence amalgamation, the sort of cosmic blend of all of the groups in Southern rap history you think of when someone says “Hey, think of rap groups in Southern rap history” that can only come from an altered state of consciousness (like not sleeping for two days). The most impressive part, though: While the lineage is clear (Outkast‘s abstract ambition, UGK‘s femur-snapping insight, Three 6 Mafia‘s complex simplicity, etc), the threesome (Dorian Terrell and JayHawk Walker are the other two-thirds) somehow manages to sound all the way brand new. “This is no shot to anyone making music,” says Mel. “But we couldn’t find anything today that we wanted to listen to. I was always having to search for some ’90s shit on Spotify. So we wanted to make something that made us feel like what that music made us feel like.” The result: A contemporary take on traditional Southern rap that feels youthful but still connected to the forefathers, excitingly creative but still familiar, and uniquely regional without being exclusionary.

Answering questions about themselves in a café in Southwest Houston, the trio falls into the same roles they play while rapping. Mel, wide-voiced and ultra-melodic, guides the conversation, his fuzzy intonation declarative and passionate. He’s charming, and surprisingly funny. When asked why they moved from Dallas to Houston: “It was a bad environment. There just wasn’t anything to do. It was like prison; all I did was do push-ups and read.” When asked what he might order for lunch: “I never know what to do with penne pasta. The shape’s confusing. Do I use a fork? Do I grab it with my hands?”

But he’s also hyper-contemplative, in what is probably the least possible way anyone has ever been contemplative. When asked about the line “Do heaven got some hoes?” from one of the songs: “I mean, does it? And if it doesn’t, are n*ggas still gonna wanna go there?”

Dorian, the group’s dynamo producer, acts as the border fence for talks, letting Mel wander around in his own thoughts without letting him run astray. The album’s 11th song, a trance-like track called “Matter of Time,” extends all the way past seven minutes, the last two of which bleed into a robotic soliloquy that is as fully vetted and emotive as Kanye’s album version of “Runaway.” Dorian builds similar sorts of moments out of nothingness all through “S&R:CFSAF,” and it’s never not impressive.

And JayHawk only talks when it’s absolutely necessary.

For more than two hours, The Outfit, TX sits at a table eating foodstuffs discussing from their new video (above) to how they compose their songs (after the beat is made, they’ll get in the car and drive and just say nothing until they can feel the music in their protons) to the type of defense required to stop San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick (a fucking good one, is the type).

Eventually, finally, exactly eight minutes before everyone gets up and leaves, Mel makes perhaps the only the only statement that needs to be made when discussing The Outfit, TX: “I can feel the music, bro. When Dorian makes a beat I can feel it. When JayHawk gets to doing his lyrical thing, rhyming all these words back to back to back, I can feel it. It’s like it’s not even music. It’s more than music. It’d be nice to be able to stop slingin’ fish plates [as a waiter in a seafood restaurant] and do this full-time, but it is what it is. We have that feeling. That’s all anyone ever needs.” Mel, JayHawk and Dorian stand up, shake hands with others at the table, then walk out towards their car. They all rode together. And they all live together. They all work at the same place too.

And all of their work clothes are in the car. - MTV Hive

Although The Outfit, TX was formed by three Dallas-natives in Houston in 2009, the group sounds like it materialized out of the paranormal Marfa, Texas Mystery Lights.

Dorian, one of the group's two producers, is primarily responsible for the group’s Unsolved Mysteries-esque production, which is a fine balance between what you hear in your head during an intense hip-opening yoga class and a dramatic soap opera score. But unlike the therapeutic effects of yoga and the suspense created by soap opera organs, The Outfit, TX’s records do not always provide catharsis. Instead, their Milky-Way song arrangements will keep your ears rerouting like a disregarded Global Positioning System.

Mel and Jayhawk bring gravity to the group, but only enough to keep The Outfit, TX in orbit. Their self-invented genre, Cooly Fooly Space Age Funk, requires active listening in order to penetrate the group’s ozone layer-like matte finished sound and appreciate the substance of their music. Once that desire is dedicated, listening to anything else other than The Outfit, TX is as challenging as an astronaut readapting to Earth after months in outer space’s microgravity.

Interview by Douglas Doneson (@droopydood)

Your name, The Outfit, TX, is partially a satire on the way many Texans reference their street names and neighborhoods?
Mel: Back home a common phrase is to put Texas on the end of everything, like “I am hungry, Texas.” It is an affinity for our state; maybe we are too in love with it. Forgive us, but it is what it is. We were The Outfit for the longest, but there is an alternative rock and roll band based out of Denver, Colorado and they go by The Outfit as well. They reached out to us via email on some legal shit. Because we didn’t want to deal with that, we added what belongs anyways, TX.

Where does The Outfit, TX currently reside?
Mel: Dallas, Texas. In 2006 we moved down to Houston for college at the University of Houston. We stepped foot in Houston during the zenith of that whole second wave of H-Town. We were there from 2006 to 2013. Once I graduated from U of H, we stayed down doing the music thing. Houston has a lot of good. We love it as much as we love Dallas; it is home.

Pick a street in either Dallas or Houston which best represents each of your personalities.
Jayhawk: I would say Buckner Street because you can get anything you want on Buckner, from speakers to food; clothes; insurance; and pawn shops [Laughs].

Dorian: In Dallas, I would say Malcom X, but the museum side of Malcom X because there’s a lot of art and I love to be around that sort of thing and those kinds of people. That is where I mainly get my inspiration.

Mel: I will give you one from each city. In Dallas, Lake June Road, because that is where I grew up. My mom and I stayed there for the first 13 years of my life. It stretches all the way through to Mesquite, which is where we moved and where I went to middle school and met Dorian. And that is where the story starts…

Take me down that “road” (if you will) and end on that street in Houston.
Mel: My mom was a single mother and we moved around a lot for financial reasons. My father was in my life but it was like a visitation thing. I tell people that I am Dallas because I have stayed in every part of it, but I always ended up coming back to Lake June. When my mom remarried we moved to Mesquite, where I met Dorian in seventh grade. We were in the cafeteria before school and I was talking about how my momma beat my ass on the side of the road. Dorian was the only person listening to my rant.

Dorian:It was funny. He has a way of captivating you with his personality and telling stories. We talked about stuff no other seventh graders would talk about, like funk records, Cee- Lo’s “Closet Freak,” and Stevie Wonder.

Mel: Dorian started producing in ninth grade and I was just his friend messing around with the females and going to parties. We were in honors classes and every year in high school we had a math class together. By the time we got to graduation I said “Bro, let’s go to college. We’ve got to get out of Dallas.” We went to U of H and that is when we met [Jay]hawk. So, Lake June weaves through the story on how I got here today and the street in Houston would be Upper Kirby. I like the Rice Village area. It represents the dichotomy that is all three of us. Lake June is a lower income ghetto area. Upper Kirby is the opposite. But we are not ghetto kids. We are well read, educated, and artsy individuals. So we can go to Premium Goods in the Rice Village or be in a hole in the wall with Rice students and talk about science or whatever. We could also go down to the King’s Flea Market and post up at the Swang Parade and just parlay.

You’ve received a good deal of press comparing you to U.G.K., OutKast, and Three Six Mafia. But your compositions clearly exhibit styles of specific Dallas acts, such as Money Waters’ unique sense of humor and his nebulous song arrangements; Dorrough’s chant-like hooks; Chalie Boy’s anthems; Big Chief’s iron-fisted verses; and E-Class’ country intonations and Dallas poise. E-Class even has a song called “Fooly” and your self-invented genre of music is called, Cooly Fooly Space Age Funk. Why do you think the press you’ve received hasn’t compared you to any Dallas artists?
Dorian: Wow.

Jayhawk: Hold up mayne! That’s my big bro. Shot out to E- Class.

Mel: Check you out! Most press is unbeknownst of Dallas’ whole hip hop history. That is just a sad fact.

Why is that?
Mel: Two reasons. First, Houston has had a legendary history [going] all the way back to the Geto Boys. So they kind of overshadow us like a big brother. Second, infrastructure: for a while Dallas had an issue with properly organizing the movement like Houston was able to do. A lot of those acts you named are from different areas of Dallas. It takes synergy and we have not been able to have that synergy. The closest I believe we got [was when] we had D.S.R., Young Nino and Hot Boy Star, and a couple of North Dallas acts still hanging on.

Dorian: Outside of that, we had the Boogie Movement.

Mel: That’s a part of our culture, but it’s surface level. It’s like Bounce music in New Orleans; it’s there, but it’s not all the hip-hop New Orleans has to offer. The Boogie Movement is the best example of synergy Dallas hip-hop has probably seen, because all those different high school kids from the suburbs were getting on YouTube and putting their tracks up and having people dance to them in unison. The timing was there; the D.J.s got behind it; the radio got behind it; these kids were going off to Prairie View, T.S.U., and Grambling taking the music with them. I remember Tuck got to B.E.T. and “Tussle” played and I never saw it again. I remember “Caprice Musik” got number one! I started celebrating like it was New Years! It was getting ready to happen but just…it’s no fault to those gentlemen; they are legends. I just believe that Dallas has always been [considered] by the radio, local radio, and cities outside of 635 as one hits. They don’t take us seriously. We’ve had artists come through that nobody knows of such as Mr. Pooki, Mr. Lucci, Nemesis, The D.O.C., Twisted Black. Man, free Twisted Black!

What Dallas artists have influenced you?
Mel: Big Tuck, D.S.R., Nino and Hot Boy Star, o2 and Lil’ Richard. A lot of these people I am naming were really about the shit they were talking about. Hot Boy Star got locked up several times. Him and Young Nino were out of Oak Cliff and can be credited with the whole Triple D name

Jawhawk: They dropped that song “Oak Cliff, that’s my Hood.”

Dorian: D.S.R. had a direct and indirect influence on me. They were taking what Houston was doing at the time and making it Dallas. We were getting their burnt CDs from friends in high school. It gave us a platform. It showed us a way to be able to do it too. We started getting instrumentals, rapping over them, and screwing them up with our own swag.

What differentiates Dallas rap from Houston rap?
Mel: It is a different energy. Let me take it back to the early 2000s and late ‘90s. I had a Talking 2 Texas mixtape series and the only Dallas acts on there were Mr. Pookie and Mr. Lucci and the rest were just H-Town cats and those two records stuck out like sore thumbs. I love H-Town music, but the thing about Dallas is it’s more high energy. Pookie raps fast and is wild [whereas] Keke has a smooth butter flow and Fat Pat is like some Courvoisier.

Dorian: It’s that I-20 connection between Dallas and Atlanta too. Atlanta influenced Dallas’ sound a lot because of…

Mel: The radio…

Jayhawk: We had [DJ] Greg Street’s Six O’clock series on our radio and he was [broadcast] in Atlanta and Dallas simultaneously.

Mel: So there is a lot of Lil’ John influence. I will just put it simply: Dallas is more 808s, where Houston is more synth bass; there are more bass lines and it is just smoother. Now once you got to 2005 to 2008, Houston started going into more 808 sine wave bass line and it banged in the trunk.

Who is primarily responsible for your beats and production?
Mel: Dorian

What kind of production tools do you use?
Dorian: It is really simple. We use a 61 key mini keyboard and another 25 key mini keyboard with some pads on it and run it through Logic. We have software synthesizers and tons of drum samples that I have accumulated. We took a lot of the music we liked, knew what we wanted to make, listened to a lot of different things, and made a gumbo.

Mel: Erykah Badu has a lot more to do with influencing us than a lot of other shit. One night in 2011, I was in Dallas at an Erykah Badu concert and she started fucking around on this drum machine she had on stage. It had one large circle pad. It had this 1983 sound, but it also had some distorted 808 shit. I was like, “God damn that shit sounds tight.” I came back home and I remember being like “hey, let’s try some shit.” We found this drum kit and we started to tweak it with our own recipe. It sounded like some rap from ’94, or ’84, or 3004! We couldn’t put an age to it, we just had some shit.

You mentioned that “cooly” is a Dallas term. What does “cooly” mean and what exactly is Cooly Fooly Space Age Funk?
Mel: We were at the house, like six records deep, and [Jay] Hawk said, “what do we call what we are making?” I just sat there on the stairs and I said, “Cooly Fooly Space Age Shit.” That’s inherently some Dallas shit. We always just swag shit out. We just coin words. Merriam-Webster, it stops with him? Like when they were making genres up, who was the first person to say, “this is Jazz”? This was the same moment.

Jawhawk: Everybody knows Houston is cool, it’s real cool, chill, slow motion city, leaned out, and everybody is real playa. While Dallas can get a little bit more rambunctious. We fooly; we like brighter colors; loud jewelry; we like to stand out. So the cooly, the fooly, the space age, and the funk just describe us.

Mel: The funk is more of a foundation than any other word in the genre that we coined ourselves. Funk was a big part of Starships and Rockets. My dad was a funk DJ. Parliament, Funkadelic, Slave, Graham Central Station, Midnight Star… I am talking about anything that was funk, that’s what my dad jammed at home. He played Kool and the Gang’s extended nine minute version of “Summer Madness” over and over one time. I was in high school and came home with a Lil’ John CD. He used to let me jam my music in the car and he thought it was crap. So he ejected it and put on “Summer Madness” for like four straight hours. It was punishment but what he didn’t know is by like the twelfth time I was like this is the best record I’ve ever heard. At this point, we’ve had jazz for years now, we’ve had rock and roll for years, and we’ve had hip hop for years, but why’d we stop? All throughout the 20th century we’ve created all these genres of music and we get to like 1978 and we just stop?

Why did you name your debut album Starships and Rockets?
Mel: We were paying homage to 8ball and M.J.G. They are unheralded, unsung, and un-anything you can think of. They have a record called “Starships and Rockets” and we just wanted to pay homage to a sound that inspired us.

Dorian: …and we were living in Houston too, which is Space City.

George Clinton is a huge influence of yours and he was a proponent of Afrofuturism. I also read in a previous interview that your friends back in Dallas have turned their backs on your, making you feel like aliens. Tell me about this space theme in your music. Are y’all Afrofuturists, friendless aliens, or just out of this world?
Mel: Wow. We’ve had this discussion ourselves. We feel like we lost track of how we were once in tune with our surroundings. We have this kind of hierarchy belief that humans are on top of the totem pole and you go down and get to amoebas. When in reality, we are all interconnected and depend on each other. We had those antique civilizations that were smarter than us and had time to study the universe because they didn’t watch Scandal. They had time to study the universe and build pyramids that lined up with the stars and they did not need Google Maps because they were literally able to chart out courses and maps based on how the stars lined up. Because we are into this type of shit, it permeated through our music. It is a motif.

Dorian: It points to evolution too. We hear all these different sounds and we are just trying to take the sound a step further. We are forward thinking. We have our mind set on the future and pushing the sound forward, pushing ourselves forward, and our culture forward.

Jawhawk: There will always be times in an artist’s life when you are not doing the norm. Instead, you are kind of just doing things opposite of the regular way of thinking and that gives you an alien type of mentality at times because you always feel like what you want to do or enjoy is not necessarily what everybody else likes to enjoy.

Dorian: Or they just don’t even understand it. They look at you like, “why are you still doing this rap shit?” We deal with societal influence. Society expects people at a certain age to go to college, get your degree, get a job, do this, do that; they expect you to follow a certain rubric and if you come up in something and you don’t necessarily follow that rubric you get alienated.

"The Price of Dreams," an open letter you wrote a while back, is right on point with what you just mentioned.
Dorian: Dang. That was a while ago. I felt like a lot of people in our lives didn’t understand what we were doing. The letter was about realizing the things we sacrifice. We sat down one night and wrote out what we sacrifice personally and as a group. We took a moment to look at things and ask ourselves, “was it worth it?” It was, because those things that I miss, I’ll get the opportunity to enjoy them at some point in time again. But this period in our lives, we only have it right now, so we might as well go after it and get it.



Tell us about the concept behind your latest project, Cognac/ Four Corner Room.
Mel: Dorian started working on a project and expressing himself on some solo shit. And then later, the inspiration hit me and I started expressing myself on records that were tailor fit for me and we both kind of arrived at the finish line together on these projects. You’ll see parallels in both. You’ll see the story of 2010 to 2013.

I read somewhere that there are three more albums in this five series project.
Dorian: That’s the plan. It’s called The Texan Chronicles. We are telling the same story from two different perspectives, but of course it would not be complete without [Jay]hawks perspective, and without a unified perspective from us again.

So the next one is going to be a Jawhawk album?
Dorian: We don’t know.

Jawhawk: They are going to Detox me. It’ll come out when Detox comes out.

I want to talk to you about three of your songs which have impacted me the most. Tell me any story that comes to mind regarding each song. Let's start with “Dysfunkshun” and about the saxophone solo at the end.

Mel:That song took six months to make. Dorian made the beat and we wrote the verses in a night but did not record them that night. [Jay]hawk tried to record his verse but couldn’t really convey the emotion he wanted to and I tried to put the hook down but didn’t like how that was conveyed, so we had to wait because we tried the next day too, but it was forced. Each of us recorded our different parts at different times. We waited until the next dysfunctional incident in each of our lives.

The beauty of music, and of being an artist, is that there is no rubric, there’s no curriculum, and there is no right or wrong. That’s the problem with the supposed “genre.” With rap and hip-hop, people feel like there is a certain rubric or a certain technical way.

Dorian: As far as the musicality on [Jay]hawks verse, we had to strip the baseline away because his delivery and the baseline didn’t work well together. But we smoothed it by putting 808s under there and you just felt it.

Mel: I tried to put jazz down [Jay]hawk’s throat because he is such a hip hop head and I love jazz. So we had an idea; we need a saxophone on this bitch.

Jawhawk: I called one of my cousins who plays saxophone. He played saxophone while I was growing up. He lived in Houston and used to come to Dallas to play saxophone at my dad’s church. I asked him at a family function if he could come play on some records for me and he was like, “yes, no doubt.” So he came in one time and we let him do his thing.

Dorian: That’s an homage to the Stevie Wonder song, "Girl Blue." My dad is a huge Stevie Wonder fan, so coming up I heard a lot of his songs. I would listen to his albums early on, but I didn’t really have that much of an appreciation for him until I started hearing songs like Girl Blue. I had an idea when I started doing Four Corner Room to do a rap version of it. It’s about a young lady in my life who was in a verbally abusive situation. I wanted to tell a little bit of a story about that and write it from the perspective of a friend while paying homage to Stevie at the same time.

And finally, “Everyone’s for Sale.”

Dorian: When I was out here in Dallas for another point before we all collectivity moved to Dallas for that six month period, I was working on this song with him. I made the beat and he had the hook and it just sat there. As I was working on Four Corner Room, I remember playing the beat for them and they were like that shit is dope. So I called him up and told him, “you got to let me get that song for the project…” and he agreed. He even came out and recorded a verse with me. In the industry we are trying to get into, everybody has their price. It’s like that Wall Street movie where they asked him, “what’s your number?” and he said, “more.” Everybody has their number that they are willing to go for. So that is what that’s about.

On your blog, you posted a Supa Day video. Is he from Dallas?
Mel: He has to be. I’ve sat down and studied that video. I know he’s from Dallas because of his accent. He starts to say different slang words; he says, “God-damn-me.” He also boogies. That boogie shit we were talking about? He does the dance, but like the original Oak Cliff version. So, he probably is a Dallas boy. He’s a legend.

How are you trying to push things forward and evolve your sound?
Mel: Going crazy. The beauty of music, and of being an artist, is that there is no rubric, there’s no curriculum, and there is no right or wrong. That’s the problem with the supposed “genre.” With rap and hip-hop, people feel like there is a certain rubric or a certain technical way. [For example, people will say,] Gucci Mane sucks, Jay-Z is great, this is bad, this is good. Being a fan of other genres, you’ll never hear two people sitting in a bar and argue that Red Hot Chili Peppers are technically better than The Smashing Pumpkins. If they do, they are pretty lame. At the end of the day, just jam the double discs of The Smashing Pumpkins and then put in Californication when you feel that way. Just listen to the music. We plan on taking this shit everywhere we can take it for as long as we can take it.

Dorian: We don’t create our music right now with a ceiling in mind. Whatever we want to do, we will try to figure out a way to do it. That’s our mindset. Going forward, we are going to try to challenge ourselves. We are students of it at the end of the day.

Mel: Let’s try to make some shit people haven’t heard before. [Mel sings Heard it all Before by Sunshine Anderson] - Complex

Dallas-via-Houston trio The Outfit, TX just got off touring with Run The Jewels late last year and today, they're back with their first release of 2015, "Wild Turkey." An ode to the Kentucky bourbon and partying with your people, "Wild Turkey" is a menacing, lo-fi re-introduction to the crew, who haven't released new music in quite some time.

"It only takes a 2 or 3 drinks of Wild Turkey 101 to be sauced up. That, in addition to it being cost efficient, is how the the Kentucky-made bourbon became "one of those ol' country staples," The Outfit, TX rapper/producer Mel told Complex over email. "My PawPaw (Grandfather) put me on to Wild Turkey. He's a retired truck driver, and Wild Turkey was his liquor of choice that he took with him on the rigs."

"Wild Turkey" features verses from Mel and JayHawk. It's the first single off of their forthcoming album, the trio's follow-up to 2013's Cognac/Four Corner Room. Stream "Wild Turkey" below. - Complex

Houston futurists want little kids picking up their box set in 2058 — and they just might.

"Nobody wants to hear a UGK cover band." At least that's what 25-year-old rapper/producer Mel Kyle, one third of the Houston by way of Dallas rap crew, The Outfit, TX has to say on the matter. Kyle is talking to me by phone with the group's other members, producer/rapper Dorian Terrell, 26, and MC Jayhawk Walker, 25, on the line as well. They all chime in when it comes to talking about their influences.

In hip-hop, you're asked to somehow be both incredibly mindful — if not downright deferential — to the past, while being entirely original. "No biting," etc. The Outfit's sound begins with the top-shelf musicality and brutally honest street talk of Dirty South heroes like UGK and Eightball & MJG before spiraling into psychedelic-funk territory. In other words, they have figured out how to honor their heroes without wholesale jacking their shtick.

This is rare. Terrell refers to the Outfit as "futurists," with the goal of absorbing in what has "already been done" and "seeing how far they can take it." Walker interjects: "Those artists [like UGK] were original to themselves and their music was indigenous to them," he adds, pointing out what they've ultimately gleaned from their musical heroes. What they’ve learned from their expansive taste, one that goes far beyond Southern Rap to include artists as varied as Alanis Morissette and Zapp & Roger, is to sound like themselves. "I can put a comma on [an influence] and add something to it," says Kyle. "It would be a disservice to be inspired by something and just make it sound like what it already was." Terrell and Walker concur.

The trio is a complement of strengths and personalities. Kyle’s voice is a deep baritone and he talks quickly, like a charismatic leader. He's the Outfit's frontman, though he often disarms his confident pronouncements with humor to drive his points home. For example, he gets a laugh out of all of us, when he drops this, regarding influences: "Everybody listens to Michael Jackson, but we all ain't gonna start dancing in line at Walmart, you feel me?" Terrell’s swirling, modestly cinematic production is the trippy foundation for the group. Walker talks the least and raps the best.

The Outfit, TX came together at the University of Houston (Kyle and Terrell have been friends since middle school; they met Walker during their freshman year) and first made their name with 2012's Starships & Rockets: Cooly Fooly Space Age Funk, which sparkled because of its cohesion and out of nowhere blog buzz. Late last year, they followed it up with two solo albums: Kyle's Cognac and Terrell's Four Corner Room function as a double album when batched together. (It's something of a Speakerboxxx/Love Below move, or perhaps a nod to the White Album.)

Kyle's Cognac, which features an instantly memorable cover image of Kyle driving and holding a brandy snifter, is an 80-minute dive into his mind. There's the aptly-titled "Feeling," an instrumental that sets thunderous percussion to melancholy strings and functions as an interlude before launching into the eight-minute, "Ride On." Prefacing the album's boastful "Business Man" is a skit in which Kyle's hollered at while he tries to get a burrito bowl at Chipotle. Meanwhile, Terrell's Four Corner Room is a sonic drift with sudden flashes of focus concerning the topics of insomnia and dreams. The single "Hourglass," begins as a slow creep of piano with synthesizer stabs before blaxploitation horns honk through the song; there's no rapping for nearly two minutes. Imagine Un Chien Andalou as directed by the guy who did Baller Blockin' and you're close.

The two full-lengths dig further into the particular sonic obsessions, ideas, and personalities that Starships is meant to merge. "They coincide," says Kyle, going on to mention that the trio is building "an entire body of work" entitled The Texan Chronicles. Kyle imagines a kid a few decades from now taking in all their work as a box set: "We want a little kid to pick up the Outfit, TX box set in 20-fucking-58, kinda like we did with the Frankie Beverly and Maze or Earth, Wind, and Fire box sets as kids on a summer day."

A solo record for Walker seems imminent too. Though, for now, he modestly explains that he's "just kind of cooking in the lab, doing what [he] feels." Kyle chimes in: "Jayhawk's definitely got shit to say. He's a rapping-ass fool. But he's been real adamant about it not just being rap. I can see this motherfucker making something like the sequel to Carmen: A Hip Hopera." Kyle is half joking and half not; a rappin' ass hip-hop musical from any one of these guys is possible. They’re futurists, after all, not a UGK cover band. - SPIN

The lines "M-A-R-S. Mars, bitches," declare what The Outfit, TX, are shooting for with their current project. It'd be easy to chalk up the reference to the group's characteristic "cooly fooly space age funk" aesthetic, or even just the song's title. But it goes a bit deeper than that, because, to paraphrase Dave Chappelle, they ain't stopping at the moon.

The Dallas hip-hop trio's current project-in-progress is a five-part series called The Texan Chronicles, which isn't just an homage to the state, but a play off Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. Last November, they put out a double-disc album of the first two parts of the series, "Cognac" and "Four Corner Room."

The Outfit, TX features the talents of Dorian Terrell, Jayhawk Walker and Mel Kyle. Since 2006, they've been building beats based around synthesizers and 808s while mixing in sharp, clever lyrics. Tonight, they will be performing at Trees for the Red Bull Sound Select series alongside Isaiah Rashad and a bill brimming with local hip-hop talent, including Blue, the Misfit and Buffalo Black.

The influence of Bradbury's science fiction book manifests itself in several ways. Primarily, the concept of the five-part series itself is influenced by the style of The Martian Chronicles, which is a collection of short stories that Kyle says was required reading in middle school. "They were smoking some chronicles in south Dallas," he quips.

Mirroring the book's format, each song and each album functions as an individual piece that together form a mosaic perspective of an alienated planet. For the Outfit, their "Mars" is where they've been living since they dove deep into the music industry, and their chronicles are snapshots of the time period they're trying to navigate.

"Cognac" and "Four Corner Room" are both solo projects by Kyle and Terrell, respectively. Mel's side is a biography of the life of a "player," where he digs beneath the surface to dredge up the influences that create a personality.

"We never really get the nuances and the exposition and the sincerity that creates some of that [player] mentality," Kyle explains. "It all contributes to that behavior."

For Dorian, "Four Corner Room" was about finding his footing as an individual artist and then channeling his own stories into each track. Throughout the LP, Terrell weaves the real with the surreal, using a dream-like state as a means to blur the two lines.

Although they're technically "solo" albums, the two LPs play off each other in motifs, callbacks and even track titles where the two were on the same page as they were recording their individual albums.

The Texas Chronicles grew naturally out of the group's predilection for telling stories. As they collected what they were writing about, they realized that it all revolved around their lives in Texas, across different cities and with different people. It's not just about the state itself, though; it's about the people they've worked with and the music scene they've broken into.

"Just like with the renaissance or any revival, it's about working together," Kyle says. "Any great period in history wasn't built without collaboration."

Though they formed in Houston, the Outfit came back home to Dallas with fresh eyes and could feel that the scene was vibrant and alive, even if people who had lived there forever couldn't quite see it anymore. "We think Dallas is one of those quintessential hip-hop-ass cities," Kyle says. "We're at the cusp of something big, something great. And I think we all can taste it."

Walker said the scene's eclectic offerings allow musicians to stretch the limits of their sound and try to bring something new to the city. "Nobody's afraid to do the music they love to do," he says. "There's something for everybody when it comes to Dallas hip-hop."

On stage, the trio hones in on each other's energy to avoid getting trapped in their own heads and instead be in the moment of the show. "We also try and make sure the music is there," Kyle says. "Sometimes you see so much circus shit going on at a show, but at the end of the day, people go to live shows to hear music."

With three albums to go in their series, Mel says the group is about waist-deep in their next release. As they move forward, the Outfit avoids setting anything in stone, such as whether or not the upcoming albums will be LPs or EPs, or planning who will be featured on them. As it stands, Kyle, Terrell and Walker think it's best to just see what strikes them next.

"After these albums, who knows, man?" Kyle says. "We're just going to ride out this wave. That's the best part about how we like to approach this." - Dallas Observer

Even if you don't rank them in any particular order, compiling a list of the area's best rappers is still an incredibly difficult task.

Real talk: Much as this city enjoys bemoaning its seeming inability to blow up on a national level and emerge as a hip-hop powerhouse on par with an Atlanta or Chicago, the local hip-hop scene really is teeming with talent.

From legends still putting in work and newcomers carving alleys toward national success to transplants calling Dallas home and high-caliber talent living elsewhere but still repping the Triple D, the area scene really does have a lot to be proud of.

Don't believe our hype? Well, you should.

And you can start with this here list, which was crafted after wading through the catalogs of some 50-plus area performers. It wasn't easy putting this thing together, no.

But, hey, neither is making sure your voice gets heard over all those crappy wannabes out there.

The Outfit, TX.
Dallas natives Mel Kyle, JayHawk Walker and Dorian Terrell may have made their name down in Houston while studying at U of H, but these days, the crew's back in the D, just waiting for locals to take notice. Well, we should: This trio's simply one of best groups in all of hip-hop right now. Their 2012 release, Starships & Rockets: Cooly Fooly Space Age Funk, is a triumphant take on the classic Texas sound made famous by DJ Screw as well as southern rap. It's a must-listen. - Central Track

I blame only myself and maybe Shea Serrano for not putting us up on the The Outfit, TX sooner. The latter is the foremost chronicler of Houston rap and I like to think of myself as the kind of guy who would sense the disturbance in the force created from an album called, The Ballad of Percy Shalamar. But that was last year. This year, The Outfit have returned with Starships & Rockets: Cooly Fooly Space Age Funk, graciously brought to my attention via POTW contributor, Alex Piyevski.

You can learn a lot from an album title when it contains 89 syllables. I don’t know much about their The Outfit’s biography, but I know that they obviously don’t read blogs or else they would’ve realized that G-Side already used that album title a few years back. This is a good thing — rappers aren’t supposed to be refreshing their RSS feed, they’re supposed to be living life, creating music, and preferably smoking acres of weed to give them them the proper “I Don’t Know What.” What draws me most in is the Space Age Funk.

You might expect the usual touchstones of a futuristic funk-influenced group from Houston. There’s the influence of Screw, Dungeon Family, Rap-A-Lot, lean, and a sluggish neon psychedelia. Neither rapper really asserts their personality to Outkast levels, but they both have presence, chemistry, and a gift for fitting into the wide open spaces of the grooves. They describe it as “a guided tour de funk through TOFT’s unique sonic brand of “Cooly Fooly Space Age Funk”…taking listeners into outer space in the passenger seat of an ’84 Biarritz, with the slant-back ass.”

Highly recommended if you like K.R.I.T, ADD+, martian deserts or dessert blunts.It’s trippy and then some.
- Passion of The Weiss

It's been a good month for The Outfit, TX.

A few weeks ago, the trio of Mel Kyle, Dorian Terrell and JayHawk Walker released the video for their single "Private Dancer" from their 2012 album Starships & Rockets: Cooly Fooly Space Age Funk, and, ever since, they've been buzzing like crazy, earning nods of approval from a number of high-profile sites such as MTV Hive, Four Pins and, just this morning, 2DopeBoyz.

But here's the thing none of those outlets will tell you about The Outfit, TX: Though the group currently resides in Houston, all three of its members are from Dallas.

And, yes, we'll happily claim them as our own. The Outfit, TX blends together the best characteristics of such legendary Southern hip-hop acts as UGK, Outkast and Three 6 Mafia, and, once you've heard "Private Dancer," you'll immediately agree.

Still, the trio would prefer to be appreciated in their own right. And, as you'll learn in the coming interview, they deserve to be.

This afternoon, as the group prepares to perform tonight at Houston's Warehouse Live for their first-ever headlining show, we caught up with Kyle to learn a little bit more about the group, the slow process that led him to "Private Dancer" and why his group ever bolted Dallas for Houston in the first place.

Tell me about the past month for The Outfit, TX.
We just got back from South by Southwest, so that was a memorable look. We just went down there and kinda mixed and mingled a little bit. Before that, we went and did a show in Austin at the beginning of the month. Tonight, we actually have a headlining show at Warehouse Live [in Houston], and it looks as if it's sold-out. Other than that, we also dropped the video for "Private Dancer" at the beginning of this month. [It's] been getting posted on blogs; we actually just got posted on 2DopeBoyz [this morning]. Outside of that, we've just been in the streets pushing our album.

Yeah, man. That "Private Dancer" video has been getting posted on blogs like crazy lately. How does it feel to be garnering so much attention?
It feels great. Especially, y'know, since we spent all of last year making our album -- really, the end of 2011 and all of last year. So the reciprocity that we're starting to receive -- that's all the album really needs. That's the whole reason we put all that love in to it. We really wanted to plant that seed, and water it, and hope it grew, and hope everybody enjoyed what we made. So it feels great.

What do you think it is about the "Private Dancer" song and video that's starting to garner all this attention?
Honestly, man, and I mean this with all humility, I think it's a pretty damn good song. It's one of my favorite songs that we've ever made. I know we were making it in the lab and I remember it just had that feeling. There's songs you make and you kinda joke around, talking about other shit or whatever, but that was one of the ones where it was like no talking. Everybody was just vibing around, writing their verses. It was stoic. So I feel like the record is strong, in my opinion. It's been in my head since 2011. I was working at Pappadeaux in Dallas and I was walking around work one day and I was just saying, "Cup full of Jolly Ranchers." I was just saying the hook. And I went up to my bandmates -- we all worked together, or used to, they actually just recently fired us. But, anyway. I walked up to them and said, "Say, bro, check this out," and I did the hooks for them. Dorian, he produced it; he's the main producer of the band. He was like, "OK, I can work with it, I can work with it." And months went by -- months. In the springtime, we had moved back down to Houston and he just started making the beat and it all came together. It's just one of those songs that's been slow-marinating for a minute.

You've mentioned getting a "feeling" with these songs. Can you explain that?
Man, to be honest, every record, just like life, everything has its own specific emotion. And what we try to do as a band is we want to capture-- or we want to pay attention to -- if we can even get an emotion initially. So, with many records -- this is me being candid -- even stuff that we've made, there's records in hip-hop music or rap music that don't really have a feel, you know what I mean? What we try to do is when we make those, we consider those stepping stones. They're building blocks, a means to an end. So, when we get that record that makes me feel something, I feel something! We try to say we got something here! We got something and we just run with it. If not, we're just making beats and we're like, "OK, that's a cool beat, let's come up with a hook." But it's not really making me feel like nothing.

You guys are from Dallas and you - Central Track

The Outfit, TX "Midnight Mover"
If instead of charging $6.99, this Houston crew had given their album Starships & Rockets: Cooly Fooly Space Age Funk away for free, they probably would be a little bigger right now. (Rap fans are petty, cheap motherfuckers.) Here, these nostalgic youngsters circle around a very 2013 take on country-rap tunes: Allman Brothers fried-guitar wails, punch-you-in-the-gut 808s, and a nice thick layer of weed-smoke atmosphere floating around all that open space. But it's a celebration of the group's multitude of voices, first and foremost: A series of hissing, squawking rappers who care about rapping, but know how to have fun, all trying to outdo one another in the spirit of friendly competition. - SPIN

If you're not paying attention the Dallas rap scene right now, it's probably time to start. Last month, Mel of The Outfit, TX wrote a great scene overview highlighting the artists and crews that are spawning a renaissance in the city. It's worth checking out, but, if a list of 25 artists seems a little daunting to dive into, here's a better entry point: The Outfit, TX have a new EP called Deep Ellum (after the artsy neighborhood at the center of the new Dallas scene) that brings many of those artists on board for a showcase of the city's talents. Featured artists include Crit Morris, K. Vation, G.U.N., Ea$e, Lil Ralo, Que P, Diego Money, Kissed Killed, and Devy Stonez. You'll walk away from Deep Ellum fully soaked in the sound of new Dallas and more than a little impressed. There's not really a weak spot on here, but I'm particularly into Lil Ralo's turn on "On Em" and Que P's appearance on perhaps the tape's best song, "I Know People." Mel, Dorian, and Jayhawk provide a thread of continuity with their own charming attitude and distinctively off-kilter production throughout.

This EP doesn't just spotlight Dallas's scene as it is, though. It's also a comforting listen because it has the casual ease of the type of old regional rap tapes that have long defined under-the-radar locales like Dallas. Those projects are entertaining to listen to because, without fail, they always include a few guest verses from artists you've never heard of going absolutely lights out. While the internet makes it more likely that you'll be hearing a lot more from all of the artists included here, this project has a little bit of that aura, where everyone seems to be giving it their all, and great rapping just pops up out of murky instrumentals.

The Deep Ellum EP may be presented as above all a scene portrait, but it's a great project in its own right. It's also a prelude to The Outfit, TX's upcoming album, due later this year. Check it out below, and get familiar with Dallas's talent: - Noisey