Tuck Me || January 18, 2007
Longtime readers know that we stick our head out for local MCs pretty often, but anybody who keeps up with the increased hip-hop coverage in the Dallas Morning News and its sister paper Quick as of late might wonder about a serious disconnect in our local coverage. You might ask, "Where's Big Tuck?"
...there's Big Tuck
Ever since we began writing about local music, we've been particularly quiet about Big Tuck and his better-known group, the Dirty South Rydaz. The six-man South Dallas crew has built a die-hard fan base around the South, and they're perhaps the city's biggest underground success, selling thousands of CDs thanks to hustle, word-of-mouth and connections with the Houston rap scene. Only last year, the group's Dallas label T-Town Records levied its underground cred into a deal with a Universal Records subsidiary for national distribution, and the first fruit of the deal, Big Tuck's Tha Absolute Truth, reached record stores on December 12 after months of delays.
One month later, the record has all but vanished from local radio stations K104 and 97.9. On one hand, this quick vanish is a surprise, as Tuck's crunk-influenced beats and thoughtless, shouty delivery seem perfect for the stations' relatively boring playlists.
On the other...it kinda confirms what we've been thinking for over a year now. Normally, we don't allow corporate radio to sway our take on a band or musician, but in the rap world, our tastes skew to the outskirts--storytellers over shouters, weirdos over gangstas, flow before fire. And in that respect, Tuck and his DSR crew annoy the hell out of us, recycling the beats Houston was shoving down our throats over two years ago and rattling off uninspired rhymes like this:
"You better respect this / Won't settle for less, bitch / You never been to Dallas / Then you ain't been to Texas"
This comes from Tha Absolute Truth's particularly disappointing "Welcome to Dallas," a meathead ode to thuggin' and violence in our fair city, complete with--no shit--machine gun fire sound effects sprinkled throughout. (Wonder if Mayor Miller has considered submitting this single to the city's tourism board? If not, she can download it via the MP3 link at the article's end.)
This album's cheap-sounding production and boring rhymes aren't really much different than the previous material, the stuff that's been winning over a sizable cult fanbase, so we had to wonder whether Universal's push would deliver the kind of mainstream success that we had sincerely doubted. Our doubts have been confirmed, and not just by the lack of local airplay--Tuck's nowhere on the Billboard charts, so we can't even see if/when the man charted with a single or the album, and his Amazon sales rank currently dwells at #87,975 in the site's music section. Universal may certainly be to blame: An album release in mid-December is a promotional kiss of death, overshadowed by the biggest Christmas-ready releases of months prior and ignored by the label once '07 rolls around.
But for the most part, it's a case of overhyped rap-pap. We know exactly what Universal saw in its DSR deal: sounds kinda like H-Town, has some word-of-mouth. And we think it's the same thing the Dallas Observer recently saw in him when blindly lauding the guy in its year-end wrap-up. Who cares if it's any good, right? But hip-hop's about the next big thing, not the movement that already ran out of steam a year ago. Dallas has plenty of potential next-big-things--our bets are on either Headkrack or Money Waters, at least in terms of talent and street-wise style--but the attitude that landed DSR a sweet deal is the same one that'll probably blame Tuck's failure on Dallas' lack of mainstream presence (just as they might've done for the lackluster, talentless dorks of Play 'N Skillz). It's the wrong conclusion, of course, but why bother digging into our city's true talent? Instead, A&R reps call Dallas a done deal, move on, head to the next city, leave our geniuses behind. Thanks a Tuckload. -SM
MP3: "Welcome to Dallas," Big Tuck
...there's Big Tuck
Ever since we began writing about local music, we've been particularly quiet about Big Tuck and his better-known group, the Dirty South Rydaz. The six-man South Dallas crew has built a die-hard fan base around the South, and they're perhaps the city's biggest underground success, selling thousands of CDs thanks to hustle, word-of-mouth and connections with the Houston rap scene. Only last year, the group's Dallas label T-Town Records levied its underground cred into a deal with a Universal Records subsidiary for national distribution, and the first fruit of the deal, Big Tuck's Tha Absolute Truth, reached record stores on December 12 after months of delays.
One month later, the record has all but vanished from local radio stations K104 and 97.9. On one hand, this quick vanish is a surprise, as Tuck's crunk-influenced beats and thoughtless, shouty delivery seem perfect for the stations' relatively boring playlists.
On the other...it kinda confirms what we've been thinking for over a year now. Normally, we don't allow corporate radio to sway our take on a band or musician, but in the rap world, our tastes skew to the outskirts--storytellers over shouters, weirdos over gangstas, flow before fire. And in that respect, Tuck and his DSR crew annoy the hell out of us, recycling the beats Houston was shoving down our throats over two years ago and rattling off uninspired rhymes like this:
"You better respect this / Won't settle for less, bitch / You never been to Dallas / Then you ain't been to Texas"
This comes from Tha Absolute Truth's particularly disappointing "Welcome to Dallas," a meathead ode to thuggin' and violence in our fair city, complete with--no shit--machine gun fire sound effects sprinkled throughout. (Wonder if Mayor Miller has considered submitting this single to the city's tourism board? If not, she can download it via the MP3 link at the article's end.)
This album's cheap-sounding production and boring rhymes aren't really much different than the previous material, the stuff that's been winning over a sizable cult fanbase, so we had to wonder whether Universal's push would deliver the kind of mainstream success that we had sincerely doubted. Our doubts have been confirmed, and not just by the lack of local airplay--Tuck's nowhere on the Billboard charts, so we can't even see if/when the man charted with a single or the album, and his Amazon sales rank currently dwells at #87,975 in the site's music section. Universal may certainly be to blame: An album release in mid-December is a promotional kiss of death, overshadowed by the biggest Christmas-ready releases of months prior and ignored by the label once '07 rolls around.
But for the most part, it's a case of overhyped rap-pap. We know exactly what Universal saw in its DSR deal: sounds kinda like H-Town, has some word-of-mouth. And we think it's the same thing the Dallas Observer recently saw in him when blindly lauding the guy in its year-end wrap-up. Who cares if it's any good, right? But hip-hop's about the next big thing, not the movement that already ran out of steam a year ago. Dallas has plenty of potential next-big-things--our bets are on either Headkrack or Money Waters, at least in terms of talent and street-wise style--but the attitude that landed DSR a sweet deal is the same one that'll probably blame Tuck's failure on Dallas' lack of mainstream presence (just as they might've done for the lackluster, talentless dorks of Play 'N Skillz). It's the wrong conclusion, of course, but why bother digging into our city's true talent? Instead, A&R reps call Dallas a done deal, move on, head to the next city, leave our geniuses behind. Thanks a Tuckload. -SM
MP3: "Welcome to Dallas," Big Tuck
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home