Dayton Family? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOvczrRGEAE
Asked by Anonymous
Not a question, but yes, “What’s On My Mind” by Flint, Michigan’s Dayton Family (Bootleg, Shoestring, Ghetto-E and Backstabber) is a seminal hardcore rap record for me. TDF were (are) early innovators of the Midwest gangster rap sound. Unheralded outside of a small regional following (and now, rap nerd corners of the Internets), they functioned as kind of a northern, post-industrial version of the Geto Boys + Eightball and MJG phrasing, often with West Coast funk underpinning their graphically violent lyrics.
Signed to Relativity during the label’s hip hop expansion of the mid-90s (which saw it add the likes of Three 6 Mafia and M.O.P., as well as becoming a distributor for Ruthless Records), The Dayton Family put out two LPs on the label, 1995’s classic, What’s On My Mind, and 1996’s F.B.I. (Fuck Being Indicted). The group members also released a number of subsequent solo efforts, with Bootleg’s “No Future” (off 1999’s Death Before Dishonesty) one of my most-played tracks…ever (pair with: Celly Cel’s “Pop The Trunk”).
After a string of legal problems around the turn of the century, 2002 saw the release of a new record from the crew, Welcome To The Dopehouse, on rap re-tread label, Koch. Finally, following a series of unheralded, self-released LPs and EPs, the group signed to Psychopathic Records / Hatchet House last year.
It’s been a long road from fantastically gruesome beginnings on the now defunct Po’ Broke Records to their Juggalo embrace, but (especially early on), The Dayton Family made some of the most aggressive, unsettling and frightening hardcore rap in the country.
Further Listening:
The Dayton Family “Flint Town” (1995)
The Dayton Family “Dope Dayton Ave” (1995)
The Dayton Family “Blood Bath” (1996)
The Dayton Family “Killer G’s” (1996)
-SM
