Steve 'Flash' Juon“Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam. He never gave a damn
So why should I give a damn? Why should I give a damn?”
The first time I heard the name South Park it wasn’t a bunch of crass pre-pubescent cartoon characters from Colorado. For a rap fan in the 1990’s it was an infamous Houston neighborhood that gave birth to rappers like K-Rino and Ganksta NIP, and it’s no coincidence both would become part of a larger collective known as the South Park Coalition. If your journey into Texas rap started with the Geto Boys you might have heard more about the Fifth Ward, but if you stuck with Rap-a-Lot Records and/or Texas after that the words South Park became just as familiar. The turning point for their notoriety was arguably the release of Ganksta NIP’s “South Park Psycho.” With no promotion and no single they still moved over 100,000 units on Rap-a-Lot, taking a regional rapper to national recognition just like that.
“Psychotic Genius” is NIP’s third album and regrettably it’s the first one covered on RapReviews. I’m not sure how or why such an influential and important artist fell through the cracks, but I’m personally embarrassed by it and feeling quite apologetic about it. Sorry y’all. Now honestly I can understand why some people shied away from NIP. Rowdy Lewayne Williams writes some dark raps that are at times quite graphic and macabre, especially for the era they are from even if they seem less shocking for someone listening to drill or trap in the present days. Even on a song like “Goin to Da Death” where he shouts out rappers coast to coast and his pride in hip-hop, he can’t resist trying to gross you out.
“Decompose his skull ’til the fluids in his head run out
You run for help — I’ll watch the worms that are dead come out
Every time you see me, believe I always pack a knife
Every time you see me, believe I’m thinkin about takin a life”
He didn’t get the title of “Psychotic” by accident. Some rap historians consider Ganksta NIP to be the progenitor of horrorcore, although the term didn’t exist when NIP began his rap career and was only applied to his style retroactively. What’s compelling about NIP is that he’s not just chopping up bodies like a schlock B-movie horror film. This is an intelligent insightful rapper with a political point of view who also happens to be a proud member of the Nation of Islam (he shouts out Minister Farrakhan on the album). How do you reconcile these seemingly conflicting values when listening to songs like “Psychflow?” Simple — you don’t. When NIP wants to be a psycho, you just roll with it. “Nigga lend me a shank and I’ll shank ya/Bury me! Dig me up! Bury me! Dig me up! Thank ya!”
His style might not have lent itself to radio play or mainstream acceptance, but the cult following he achieved made him a success again and again. Peaking at No. 32 and No. 19 respectively on two different Billboard charts, “Psychotic Genius” moved major units without having to compromise Ganksta NIP’s style. That’s evident when you listen to songs like “Hood Talez” with a hook that could have just as easily been sung by Nate Dogg. “Never once have I gangbanged or sold ‘caine/I’m from the Park, putting pistols to po-pos brain.” He has what rap’s most compelling orators do and what rap’s most envious desire — the ability to make you visualize any scenario that he describes.
With engineering from the legendary Mike Dean and production from Houston vets like Swift, Mike B and the late Gregory Jackson (RIP) songs like “Murda After Midnite” bled through your speakers straight into your ear holes. Seriously now, listen to this song and tell me it’s not as good as anything Dr. Dre put on “The Chronic.” If you try to argue that point with me I’m going to call you a liar. This song makes me want to get up, start my car, roll the windows down and play the song at high volume rolling through a residential neighborhood… and I’m way too fucking old and gray haired to be doing that shit… but damn it I FEEL IT listening to this track.
My affection for “Psychotic Genius” should by now be obvious, but I can admit there are a couple of songs here that don’t work. “Slaughterhouse” is fun just because of how demented NIP’s performance is but the music doesn’t support him well. “Crime Wave” is a run-of-the-mill track for Williams and when he says “So make the devil respect us/the same thing that happened in L.A. is gonna happen in Texas” he’s obfuscating his meaning a bit. You could assume he means the 1992 riots but you know what they say about making assumptions, and frankly it’s erroneous to think the verdict didn’t inspire civil rest across the entire U.S. to boot. This is still an important album from an overlooked rapper though and I am just as guilty of overlooking him as anybody else.