If this year’s presidential election taught us anything, it’s that America is as divided as ever — and that, once again, the country could learn a thing or two from hip-hop. The hip-hop world also appears irrevocably split, between the somewhat self-important serious types who break it down to the most delicate minutiae, and the party people whose main motivation may well be to ride around in limos. Sound familiar? Maybe the reason neither Bush nor Gore captured a decisive majority is that neither one ever figured out how to represent the way President Clinton did. (Oh, and if he were here, he’d want me to mention thongs. He loves Sisqo.) Hip-hop’s great secret is that to be successful, all it takes is staying true to your personality. Other people aren’t gonna feel you if you ain’t feelin’ yourself. From this irreducible truth issues infinite variety, and makes hip-hop way more inclusive than any political party. Even Austin, still the Round Rock Express to New York, Houston, and the Bay Area’s major leagues, has sown a hip-hop field diverse enough to include both Azatat and the TrappHouse family. On one level, the two local crews are as far apart as to what they seem to do in their bedrooms: One mixes it up with wax, the other with punanny. Azatat’s Corporate Chains (Circular Records) is a true mixed bag, as likely to hit you with some heavy, angular phonetics as they are unspooling dialogue from some forgotten movie over a chilled rainy-day beat. A lot of it calls to mind the sound collages favored by non-hip-hop DJs, lending the album a certain ambient cast at times. It’s scholarly, studied, as in tune with the four elements — down to the graffiti-art cover — as the cast of characters on TrappHouse’s Body Entrappment is in tune with the streets. They holla at Manor Rd. and Airport Blvd., and stand firm in their convictions: “Much love to east and west, we gonna represent Texas.” Body Entrappment is archetypal Texas Big Baller ridin’ music, all slow, steely beats, storylines fresh from playa central, and bass, bass, bass. No matter how local heads cast their vote, both Azatat and TrappHouse represent their authors and the ATX to the fullest. Even the Supreme Court can’t overturn that.
This article appears in November 24 • 2000.