Attitude Solution
After nearly two decades of frustration, local MCs Pikahsso and Tahiti finally exhale on PPT's Tres Monos In Love.
4.October.2006

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As the ’00s progressed, both MCs, in their 30s and with children (currently, Pikahsso’s daughter is 11; Tahiti’s daughter is 3 and son is 9), began to push much harder in their respective hip-hop paths. In 2002, Tahiti had a stint as a producer and collaborator for a weekly hip-hop show on channel 52 called The Source, but the almost-hot show fell apart before it could pick up steam.

            “It got to the point where 97.9 was behind us, wanted us to go for an hour, but we weren’t making any money,” he says. “I got depressed, started looking in the mirror like Michael Jackson, and I was like, ‘I never put out an album, I never made a movie,’ two of my biggest goals. Man, I need to put something out, an EP or something, so I could say I did it.”

            2004 saw the release of The Birth of Whack, an album he pulled off (unemployed and broke at the time) by trading favors with S1, then an unknown producer from Waco but now a well-known up-and-comer as part of Strange Fruit Project. Tahiti gave that group four music videos, S1 gave him seven beats. The trade worked out in Tahiti’s favor, securing favorable reviews from local magazines, particularly those from yours truly in the Dallas Observer.

            A year later, Pikahsso collaborated with Tahiti to create a music video for his forthcoming solo debut The Blew Period. During video production, the producer for the song, “Verb,” pulled his beat, forcing the duo to scramble to find a new backing track. They opened a contest online, requesting remixes from local beatmakers, and young new local producer Picnic responded to contest, only months after he and Tahiti had met online and traded beats.

            “Picnic made two remixes; the second one blew me away,” Tahiti says. “I’m not gonna lie--I played it about 30 times in a row. The notes, the chords, the way Pikahsso was on it...I dunno, man, everything was just tight. The energy of it.”

            And he wasn’t alone in his opinion; Tahiti saw an opportunity once the “Verb” video exploded on sites like DFW Hip-Hop and Dallas Peeps. “[Pikahsso] had hundreds of e-mails about this video,” Tahiti says. “That shit blew me away.” He made a few phone calls--“How would you like to do an EP?”--and the trio was born on February 1, 2006, meant only to whip up a short CD in time for the guys’ Final Friday performance at the Gypsy Tea Room, a monthly showcase for the best in both the old and new guards of Dallas hip-hop.

            But Pikahsso’s increased promotional push on those sites, along with MySpace, landed him a spot at SXSW ’06. “Being the cool dude that he is...” Tahiti pauses and smiles. “He’s like, ‘I wanna premiere PPT.’ And on the way down to Austin, he was like, ‘I think Texas Gigs is gonna do some Mavericks thing. We need to put a song together for that.’”

“I know a lot of artists, when they get that one shot, they get worried about getting stuck in a rut,” Pikahsso says. “We didn’t want to be known as the Mavericks guys--[nerdy voice] ‘Hi, we’re the Mavericks Rappers!’ And that’s all they know you for and you’re a one hit wonder.”

            Not that the trio holds its noses up at the Mavericks Theme Song victory; each member points out how “blessed” he feels about the experience as often as possible. They performed to thousands at the American Airlines Center (even if relegated to the Mavs ManiAACs booth). Their catchy song and music video were plastered all over the Internet. They know it wasn’t a bum deal, but a little apprehension still makes sense. The guys were seen all over Dallas TV and newspapers during the playoff run, but interviews had much more to do with basketball than music, and once the Mavericks lost to the Miami Heat, the attention was gone, and the haters had their ammo.

            “It was for the kids, man,” Pikahsso says. “A lot of the hip-hop elite took that song too seriously...come on, man. It was for the damn kids. We’re not trying to break inside your medulla oblongata, and drive into your cerebral cortex with the basketball, going inside pendulums inside your mind state...” He laughs. “We would’ve lost.”

            Really, anybody who targets the “Rowdy, Loud and Proud” song to make fun of PPT is missing the song’s genius. The guys knew their target, attending games and listening to the groups with the most AAC airplay to figure out how to craft the ultimate winning anthem, yet they put their own twist on a track that could’ve been dismissed as promotional trash. Pikahsso’s funk, Tahiti’s energy and Picnic’s unobtrusive, hyped beat were catchy even without name-checks to guys like Dirk and Jason Terry.

            And the “for the kids” perspective isn’t such a terrible thing, either. It’s one of the strengths of Tres Monos In Love, and that’s not to say the album is a boring piece of Will Smith-ery. After all, the songs are about adults in relationships, from ex-girlfriends’ jealousy to sexual frustration and even custody battles.

            But it’s the closing track, “When We Was Kool,” that sums up Tres Monos. Sampled horns, wah guitars and a rich, melodic foundation lead into each member’s memories of life in school--the same stories they remember to the tiniest details in our conversation. It’s the members’ sense of recklessness and lack of structure that makes the album work, as if the same guys who made bad grades and got kicked out of study hall were summoning the spirits of party hip-hop ranging from Digital Underground to the Sugarhill Gang.

            So why’d it take so many years for PPT’s immature genius to come to the surface? As far as the guys are concerned, they had to grow up before they could throw the party.

            “I never wanna come off like we’re better than somebody else,” Pikahsso says as he stands up. “The main thing I think a lot of groups lack...like Dirty South Rydaz, they grind their ass off. Money Waters grinds his ass off. Strange Fruit Project, S1 grinds his ass off. You have to get your business acumen up, you have to keep working. You can’t sit on MySpace all day, though I do that too. You gotta make calls, you gotta e-mail people, you gotta make connections. [Rappers] go to K104 and say, “they ain’t playin my shit,” most people shoot themselves in the foot when they go up to K104 [on media day] cuz they go up there smelling like weed, smelling like liquor, going with a fucked up attitude. I used to be that guy--not smoking or drinking, but I used to come up with a badass attitude. That’s the main thing that stifles groups in Dallas, an attitude problem. I got to my 30s and I had a talk with myself: ‘If you keep being a jerk, you’re always gonna be at this certain level. When you humble yourself to God...’ You gotta humble yourself.”

            And the business connections have come full circle for PPT’s debut, starting with Tahiti’s years-long friendship with Idol Records owner Erv Karwelis. The two had casually discussed putting out The Birth of Whack years ago, but Tahiti already had it out in local shops and Karwelis knew it’d cost too much to license the sampled tracks for further distribution. In 2006, Erv’s DFW roster was thin, leaving him plenty of room to foray into new territory for Idol Records, and as far as he was concerned, PPT’s album, complete with hot guest spots from Strange Fruit Project and Headkrack, was the only way to go.

            “I’ve met millions of rappers over the years who had visions of being the next Puff Daddy, but these guys were professional and had reasonable expectations.” Karwelis says. “And I was amazed at the full product--music and DVD--they were putting together.”

            Figures that the group responsible for Pikahsso’s “Verb” video wouldn’t stop there, assembling a nine-video collection bundled with Tres Monos. Admittedly, they’re not the greatest videos ever (with the exception of the hilarious “Waterfall Girl” ’80s throwback), but the DVD is just part of PPT’s master plan to stand out in Dallas’ hip-hop scene.

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