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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“I’m a fanatic... like right now, I’m going through, like, I’m going through, like, withdrawal symptoms right now. It’s an obsession.” Pikahsso holds his arm out. “The Internet to me is like drugs. It’s like, see that vein right there?”

            He’s explaining his determination to beat everybody else in the city. You have a single? He’ll put out a video. You have an album? He’ll put out a DVD. You have a live show? His will be crazier. And in the case of MySpace, he can’t wait to get back to his computer to send another bulletin, to send another personalized note to a potential new fan, to make the next phone call or e-mail that might lead him to his next big break.

“The minute you stop, somebody’s gonna take your spot,” Pikahsso says. “I know these young dudes want my spot.”

But what group could possibly take the spot that Tres Monos has carved for itself? Let’s review: There’s “Hollerin,” the Neptunes-y song with an out-of-left-field hook, witty rhymes from Tahiti (“now I got that girl on lock like Tom DeLay”) and an infectious progression to Pikahsso’s freestyled sing-raps. There’s “Waterfall Girl,” a Rockwell-era throwback that turns its cheesy electro and falsetto inspirations into the group’s most likely crossover hit. And “Frustrated”’s catchy piano and synthesizer structure masks a surprisingly gutty rap song; how many rapper dudes have you ever heard declare, “It’s like a male waiting to inhale, cuz males need to exhale too!”

“When we first started recording, we’d sit down and talk,” Tahiti says about the album’s direct look at relationships. “Therapy, dude, support group. Bein’ a dude, especially being a black man, people look at you: ‘You’re a black dude. You’re tough, man. You get all the women. You’re real manly. You can’t cry.’ But black dudes hold a lot of stuff in, man. They don’t talk about it, and they get sick. They end up dying at 60.”

But frustration and relationship woes don’t turn this into down-tempo, annoying Boyz II Men material, which is thanks as much to Tahiti and Pikahsso’s wit as it is Picnic’s love for melody. Another self-proclaimed outsider, the 23-year-old Wichita Falls native caught flak from high school classmates for his musical tastes.

“To be honest, growing up, I was a dancer,” Picnic says. “I wasn’t one of those super hip-hop dudes. Even in high school, I didn’t listen to hip-hop. I was watching MTV one day and I saw Ben Folds Five perform. I was like, damn. That shit attracted me, the pianos. I was already a percussionist. But Ben Folds sparked something.”

He name drops other atypical acts--No Doubt, Stereolab--then admits his beat work actually began thanks to the MTV Music Generator for the Playstation, a gift he received in high school and continued using through college before ponying up for a computer rig. On that rig, he whipped up tracks like “Internet Girl,” a spacey collection of French horns, vocal “oohs,” low piano notes and AIR-ish synthesizer textures...a catchy change of pace from the down-souf copycat beats filling local hip-hop radio airwaves.

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