Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Mad Flava - From Tha Ground Unda

Mad Flava is four man crew from Dallas, TX. It consists of Cold Chris, Erich "Hype Dawg" Krause, DJ Baby G and Don Kassan. It is a group that focuses specifically on rhyming technique and lyrical flow. They tend to give off that east coast hip-hop vibe with their style of production and even the delivery of their lyrics. From Tha Ground Unda is their debut album and it was released in 1994 on Priority Records. All the production duties are assigned to Erich Krause while DJ Baby G provides the mixing and scratching. Since the beats are mostly derived through the process of sampling, the producers make sure they put the keyboards and the drum machines to good use. In the end, the beats turn out to be very crisp and completely entertaining. Lyrically the record is solid and all four members contribute. They show a lot of emphasis toward their flows and project them with clever word play. Cold Chris seems to be the more dominant member but the rest of them are not too far behind. Featuring on the album is Docta Ling and Goldie "The Mack Mother." All in all the record delivers a good product and shows great poise. Although the group seemed to be headed in the right direction, Priority Records somehow ended up mismanaging them. Everything from licensing the samples to distribution issues and lack luster promotional marketing all led to the group fading into the depths of the underground. Also, with no follow up release in sight, the members became disgruntled and eventually fell apart. To their credit though, what they did release as a group was something far more astonishing and rewarding.

Deadly Verses




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