Back again with some dope ’94 flava for ya ear. Now if it wasn’t for the world’s largest auction site I wouldn’t have known about this record in the first place. I think it was somewhere early 2008 when I first noticed this record on eBay and luckily for me the particular listing came with a sound snippet (props to all sellers who list their records with audio!!!). Of course I liked what I heard, but with the bidding amount already over $40 I decided to pass on it. As we all know patience is a virtue and my patience was rewarded a few weeks later when I dug up a minty fresh copy for only 5 euro at one of my digging trips with digger extraordinaire Redkhat. Definitely one of my best scores of 2008.
Now, Tha 9-X Crew consists of three members: Ted “Tash One” Thomas, Bruce “Chill-Chi” Cunningham and Tim “McNasty” McKasty. In case you were wondering, yes, it’s that Tim McKasty, the younger brother of the legendary producer Paul “C” McKasty (R.I.P.). This 12” right here is not the group’s only effort as they dropped a second single in ’94 titled “Truth 4 U” b/w “4 Ya Radio”, also released on No Doubt Records. I saw this record on eBay shortly after gettin’ the “Smoked Hickory” 12”, but being the idiot that I am I forgot to place a bid. Stupid, stupid, stupid!!! If there’s anybody out there with a copy for sale or trade, feel free to contact me and we’ll work something out.
Well anyway, on to the music. “Smoked hickory” gets offered in four different versions, two on each side. Side A holds the “radio mix” and “radio re-mix” while the flipside holds the “street” and “jeep” versions. Production on all tracks comes from Ted Thomas and Tim McKasty. The four versions don’t really differ that much from each other, so listen to them all below and pick a favorite of your own. I guess for the moment my favorite has got to be the bass-heavy “jeep version”. The emcees don’t really stand out to be honest, but with their energetic flows they prove they can hold their own on the microphone and in the end not every emcee can be the next Rakim or Kool G. Rap, right?
To my surprise I found the original video of “Smoked Hickory” on YouTube and I noticed that it was uploaded by Ted Thomas himself. Now to be honest the video looks like your typical rap video from that era so it’s far from amazing or anything, but even so it’s still dope to see it. After findin’ the “Smoked Hickory” video things even got a little better by the way, because I noticed that Ted uploaded a second video by the group titled “Finger Lickin”. Now I’m not 100% sure here, but to my knowledge the crew only did two 12’s and none of the track titles on those two 12’s match the title of this track, so I’m pretty positive that this is an unreleased track. In my opinion it’s not as dope as “Smoked Hickory”, but I’m definitely feelin’ it. Would be interesting to find out if the group has more unreleased joints like this in their vaults.
In the last year or so I’ve spotted quite a few copies of the “Smoked Hickory” 12” on eBay and Discogs and in Japanese webstores, usually for a fair price (somewhere in the range of $30 - $50 seems the going price for this 12”). This might change though once someone like DJ Koco decides to include one of the tracks on his next mix-cd. When that happens you can be sure that everybody and their mama will be after this record which – as always – will drive up the price to the point where it becomes insane…
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