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

The man of the hour stares at the crowd like he’s been cast as an extra in Jaws. Pikahsso, who infuses local hip-hop trio PPT with its vocal harmonies (not to mention its loudest boasts and “get your hands up!” cries in concert), is making his rounds at his group’s CD release party on Monday night, and with so many people to wade through, the Jaws comparison is fitting.

            “I’m nervous,” Pikahsso (he doesn’t reveal his real name, preferring to list his dozens of aliases) says as we brush shoulders and then comments about how he can’t stand being the center of attention. It’s a rare moment of visible vulnerability, a shadow of the outrageous spokesman I spoke to only a week before at PPT producer/MC Picnic’s Plano apartment.

Not that the showier side of Pikahsso isn’t aware of the duality. During that chat, between whirlwind monologues about tornadoes and Allah, he issued a few proclamations about his own humility, insecurities and fears. It’s not subject matter that an uninitiated rap fan would expect, but luckily, the 36-year-old musician is in good company with 38-year-old MC Tahiti and ’80s-minded beat-master Picnic.

“Pikahsso is a different type of thinking cat; so is Picnic, and so am I,” Tahiti says while sitting at Picnic’s place. “The first thing we did that brought us together: We threw the rules out.”

For those who only know PPT thanks to their Dallas Mavericks Playoff Theme Song, that statement probably seems generic. Yeah, so ambitious. Still rowdy, loud and proud, right, guys? But to anyone who has followed the decade-plus careers of Tahiti and Pikahsso, it’s a meaningful battle cry that caps off their hip-hop lives as outsiders.

Outsiders no longer: This week, Tres Monos In Love sees widespread release thanks to Idol Records, the first large local label to ever support a hip-hop album. It’s a major coup for Dallas hip-hop, a scene that will finally poke its talented head out of the mixtape scene as more than an occasional footnote in this city’s music sections.

And the local media attention--Quick, Dallas Observer, K104, 97.9 The Beat, Fort Worth Weekly, all kinds of blogs--isn’t surprising, as their story is the perfect change of pace from the usual headlines. Really, let’s take the kid gloves off for this one: White people have a melodic and positive rap group to talk about, so, by golly, here are some friendly rappers, folks.

But the question is, will people in this city look beyond the surface--the Dallas Mavericks theme song guys singin’ about relationships--and dig into how important this record is? And not even for the local scene, but for the national landscape of hip-hop. When Tahiti says the rules are thrown out, he means it; conventional structure is gone, as is the typical template for beat-making and rhymes. The hook? On a track like “Hollerin,” you’ll lose track of where the hell it went. Sometimes, it sounds like the guys are too busy having fun to get to the actual song.

But that’s the actual song. That’s the actual album.

“Most stuff [on the radio] is 16 [bars], the hook, 16, the hook,” Tahiti says. “Everybody’s doing that. Pikahsso’s really the one who got us thinking about that, how that’s really boring now. Let’s do an old jam with no hook. Mix it up. There were no rules. Whatever idea you came up with, the weirder, the better.”

“Seriously, we’d record shit, and if it was an accident, we kept it,” Picnic continues. “If you listen to ‘Jealousy’ and listen to Pikahsso’s background vocals, 60% of it is shit we should’ve cut out but didn’t.” The guys laugh and imitate Pikahsso’s improvised mouth-horns and harmonies. “But it works.”

Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5