All eyes on Bay Area producer of "Getz Ya Grown Man On," "Super Hyphy," and more "Everybody's a fan," the musician, born in East Orange, NJ, and raised in San Jose, points out. "Somebody inspired somebody to make a beat, to rap. That's how I go about my beats. I listen to shit. I get inspired. I appreciate it and harness and learn from it. I've always tried to mimic what's going on, on the radio." Despite this unpretentious attitude toward his art, Traxamillion has developed a highly original sound of his own — bright, downright cheerful noises animate his eminently danceable grooves — and he's already earned a place in Bay Area rap history. In June 2005 he topped the local rap charts as producer of Keak Da Sneak's infectious independent single "Super Hyphy" (Rah), proving the Yay could hang in the mix with big-label megastars while opening up the airwaves to a long-suppressed flood of local talent. "The beat was inspired by the youngstas," Traxamillion says. "My little cousins came through drunk, wildin' out on a birthday, and started dancin'. I was paying attention to their movements, thinking, 'I gotta make some music for these cats,' because the youngstas are really the hyphy movement. When I was making the beat, I was replaying their dancin' in my head, and 'Super Hyphy' came out an hour and a half later." Knowing he had a hit on his hands, Trax shot the beat at Keak, who reportedly wrote the song in one session during a drive home from Tahoe. Within a few weeks "Super Hyphy" was all over the radio. "It took two months to get to number one [on KMEL's list of most requested tracks in June 2005]," Trax recalls. "But it was fresh, and Keak's so abstract when he comes with something — people are fiendin' for it. People loved it, and it still slaps to this day. It's a big club anthem in the Bay." "It was weird because it was my first time on the radio, period, as a producer," Trax says. "I was, like, 'Man, this is crazy — all these people are going crazy to my song. This is my shit I made in my mother's bedroom.' I be at the club, watching everybody at the peak of the song when they would run it back like three or four times, going, 'God-damn!' Nobody knew it was me." If Traxamillion's name wasn't ringing bells, "Super Hyphy" was, and in short order he was working with the Team, whose "Just Go" earned the producer further spins. But when he returned to the local number one slot on KMEL's most requested tracks in December 2005, producing "Getz Ya Grown Man On" for East Palo Alto's then-unknown Dem Hoodstarz, Trax proved his success with Keak was no fluke. The remix — with guests Mistah FAB, San Quinn, Clyde Carson, and Turf Talk — has even picked up national airplay and features prominently on Dem Hoodstarz's Band-Aide and Scoot (SMC) as well as Trax's own The Slapp Addict (Slapp Addict). "The Slapp Addict is the soundtrack to the hyphy movement," Trax says of the album. Its single-producer, multirapper format has earned it a reputation as a Bay Area Chronic. "It's basically a Who's Who of the Bay, produced by me. After 'Grown Man,' I was superhot. People were, like, 'I want to work with you.' In turn, everybody did songs for me, ’cause game recognize game. Damn near a year's worth of creativity went into that album." In addition to spawning singles like "The Sideshow" (Too Short and FAB) and "Wakin' ’Em Up" (Turf Talk and Hoodstarz), Slapp Addict has spun off another huge hit collaboration with Keak. "On Citas" demonstrates the producer's special rapport with the Bay's hottest rapper.
Goldies Music winner Traxamillion
by Garrett Caples
San Franciso Bay Guardian November 8, 2006
[pics coming soon]
When I met Traxamillion, the young producer-rapper was in the lab with Balance, recording a faithful cover of EPMD's "You're a Customer" for a Mind Motion mixtape. Naturally, I would have preferred seeing Trax record an original, but watching him vibe to a classic was perhaps more revelatory. Where many producers insist on their isolation from outside influences, Trax is an unapologetic lover of music.
20061202
Traxamillion wins a Goldie
20061108
Confessions of a Gofessional
Free mixtape by Team member Kaz Kyzah scores 7,000 downloads in first week Things move fast in rap. By the time their second album, World Premiere (Moedoe/Koch), dropped in April, the Team already had a new single, the "Hyphy Juice" remix, which now rivals "It's Getting Hot" as their biggest radio hit. Since then, Moedoe label head K.O.A.B. has inked a deal for Hyphy Juice, the energy drink he co-owns with the group, to be sold at 7-11 stores nationwide, while Team member Clyde Carson just signed as a solo act to Capitol Records. Carson’s ambitious project, Theater Music — consisting of one multisong, album-length track à la Prince's Lovesexy (Warner, 1988) — will appear next year, cobranded by Moedoe as well as the Game's Black Wall Street. Yet my appearance at the Team's condo concerns none of these matters. Instead, I've been summoned by Kaz Kyzah to discuss The Gofessional, his new mixtape with KMEL managing director DJ Big Von Johnson. Consisting of 19 tracks of mostly original material, The Gofessional is part of a growing trend in the Bay Area mix scene — like Husalah and Jacka's Animal Planet and Beeda Weeda's Homework — of blurring the distinction between the carefully crafted album and the "anything goes" approach of mixtapes. What makes The Gofessional unique, however, is its method of distribution: it's available for free at bigvon.com. In the first week alone, the mixtape was downloaded 7,000 times on the strength of two singles currently spinning on KMEL: "Cocaine," a soulful love-as-addiction metaphor over a 9th Wonder beat, and the LT-produced original "Love" (featuring Jimmie Reign), an R&B-infused investigation of more serious subjects often neglected by the Bay's current "go dumb" ethos. Before beginning, however, Kaz clears up the lingering mystery around World Premiere's release, not, as anticipated, through major label Universal but rather through independent powerhouse Koch. "We were on a label of a Mexican artist, Lil Rob, and it wasn't the place for us," Kaz says, referring to the Universal-distributed Upstairs imprint, which caters primarily to Latino rap. "When we got over there, it wasn't what we wanted. But it worked out where we could use it to get the album done and move on. We didn't have to pay any bread. We actually came out winning." "At the same time, I was going through legal trouble," he continues, describing continuing fallout from a robbery charge he caught at age 18. "I was worried about going to jail and house arrest. I did end up spending a couple of months in jail, so it was a real hectic time." While the delays of label jumping and legal woes may have muted World Premiere's impact, the period of house arrest last year proved productive for Kaz, who with West Oakland rapper J-Stalin and East Oakland producers Tha Mekanix formed a side group called the Go Boyz and recorded an album at the condo. These late-night sessions featuring an ankle-braceleted Kaz were the genesis of the current Go Movement, which already constitutes a third front in the Bay's hyphy and thizz campaigns. "What I want people to understand about the Go Movement," the Hyphy Juice shareholder stresses, "is it's not not about getting hyphy, going dumb. But it encompasses a whole lot more and that's what makes it so powerful. Like when I talk to Dotrix [of Tha Mekanix], we'll use go 1,500 times and have an in-depth conversation. "It was Dot who said, 'You the Gofessional, man.' And that was one of my favorite movies, The Professional, so I used it for my mixtape. I didn't want to come out with the Go Boyz, and nobody know what Go is all about. I was talking to some people from Marin, they never even heard of the Go Movement. To us it's old, but a lot of people are still catching on." The free download format of The Gofessional is proving to be an effective means of spreading the word. (Another 5,000 hard copies have already been distributed for the benefit of those not online, and more are on the way.) For Johnson, who apart from Kaz is the author of this largess, the free mixtape is designed to boost record sales as well as keep the Bay's current buzz alive. "I got 7,000 downloads in a week, when I know artists who put out records that took seven months to reach that in sales," Johnson says later that day at KMEL. "There are a lot of big artists, a lot of songs on the radio, but sales aren't adding up. So I feel like, give some away. Instead of trying to break a song, I'm trying to break an artist in the streets. I definitely think this will stimulate album sales." It's refreshing to hear such a statement these days, when the "free download" has been blamed for bringing the recording industry to its knees. To me, Johnson's logic is irrefutable; I'm more likely to check out something for free than for $15, and I'm way more likely to buy a $15 album from someone whose previous work I have and like. As The Gofessional is easily better than dozens of albums I've actually purchased, the odds of me buying an eventual Kaz Kyzah solo album are extremely high. Given the current excitement in Bay rap and Carson's deal with Capitol, the interest in Kaz's mixtape hasn't failed to attract the attention of majors as well.
Things move fast in rap. ...I've been summoned by Kaz Kyzah to discuss The Gofessional...
by Garrett Caples
San Francisco Bay Guardian August 16, 2006STALLED PREMIERE?
GOING FOR THE STREETS
20061104
The Team -- World Premiere (Moedoe/Rex/Koch)
Album Review by Garrett Caples
San Francisco Bay Guardian June 21, 2006
After months of delay, the Team's World Premiere has dropped, not on Universal as expected, but rather on large independent Koch. Whether this label jockeying had anything to do with the disc's belated appearance is unclear, yet the finished product is unquestionably one of the best, if most curiously assembled, albums to emerge under the banner of the hyphy movement.
While not a redo of the Bay Area group's 2004 debut, The Negro League (Moedoe), Premiere nonetheless lifts a pair of tracks, including the ShoNuff-produced hit "It's Getting Hot." The album also raids last year's Team mixtape, Go Music (Siccness.net), for the single "Patron," as well as the star-studded remix of "It's Getting Hot," which amusingly resuscitates MC Hammer. Two other singles from last year, "Just Go" and "Hyphy Juice," round out the familiar material, whereas their current single, the "Hyphy Juice" remix, is nowhere to be found.
All this sounds like a recipe for disaster, the same combination of ill timing and hit recycling that blunted the impact of Keak da Sneak's Kunta Kinte (Moedoe, 2006). Yet amazingly enough, Premiere overcomes its checkered origins and bangs from start to finish. The older material sounds fresh and is even heightened in the context of new tunes like "Top of the World" and "Good Girl," which add an almost psychedelic R&B dimension to the hyphy tonal palette. The innovative qualities of the music make any protest against its lyrical limitations — geared almost exclusively toward the club — beside the point, and the group's lack of gangsta posturing is refreshing in itself.
20061024
B-Legit -- Block Movement (SMC/Sick Wid It)
Album Review by Garrett Caples
San Francisco Bay Guardian January 11, 2006
Apart from cousin E-40, B-Legit 
is the most accomplished rapper from Vallejo's Sick Wid It camp, his danked-out baritone providing the ideal complement to 40's high-pitched, hyperspeed delivery. With two mid-'90s discs for Jive, and two on Koch earlier this century, Block Movement is B-La's fifth solo album, and it shows just how far the Bay Area's original Savage has evolved since his most popular release, The Hemp Museum (Jive, 1996). Where that album relied heavily on 40's early blueprint – a solid mob foundation by the likes of Studio Ton and Mike Mosley – Block Movement shows B-La cultivating a distinct artistic sensibility. Other than 40's guest spot on "Guess Who's Back," produced by longtime associate Rick Rock, the album's best tracks – "Sick Wid It" (Damon Todd), "Trap Game" (Bedrock and Clyde Carson), "Get High" (One Drop Scott) – have little resemblance to 40's recent hyphy phase, taking advantage instead of the sheer depth of B's voice to explore more atmospheric vocal effects. This tendency is heightened by appearances from vocalists Harm and Naté on a trio of tracks produced by LJ, recalling his work on BavGate's The InstaGator (Black Mafia/Thizz, 2004).