"A cassette that was hustled at stereo shops and became wildly popular in the south, but ignored by gun-shy record label executives who preferred more mainstream Memphis cheese." First came Satanic Verses a mixtape that some soon-to-be members of Da Crime-Click recorded in 1995; they were 10th graders. Then, in 1996, II Tone brought together Mac Montese, Yung Madness, Big Cheese, K-D, and K. Redd to release Million Wayz To Murda, a "savagely violent and introspective document of life on the streets of Magnolia." Narcotized productions that utilize sirens, funfire, horror samples, oozing basslines and rat-a-tat drum programming provide the perfectly gritty backdrop to the then fifteen-year olds' accounts of what it meant to be "thugs who slaned, bled, and pimped" in Magnolia, and you can't help but be reminded once again how much trap music of now is influenced by Memphis. Check out "You Hoes Gone Get Kidnapped" (sampled by A$AP Rocky for "Babushka Boy"), "Deathwish," "Lifestyles of a Thug," and the title track, recommended.

• limited to 300 copies
• first time on vinyl
• music label: Burger Records 1996 / 2020

reviewed by singing in japanese 01/2020