Krucial
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Krucial

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"Ask a Rapper :Krucial Picks Which 2012 Rap Tapes Will Be Crucial"

The hip-hop world is a less than sensible place -- lots of times, you're even required to clarify when bad means bad and when bad means good -- so once a week we're going to get with a rapper and ask them to explain things. Something you always wanted to ask a rapper? - Houston Press By Shea Serrano


"(Review) June 15th Krucial In Concert At The Bayou Music Center"

Written by: Loso of Houston TREND Krucial at the Verizon wireless theaterI arrived at the event what I thought was late, and then surprisingly the Headline star, Krucial was walking in at the same time. After a few talks of randomness, he mentioned that his show in Lake Charles was jammed packed and a few of the residents were asking him for his autograph and jamming his music! #WINNING - Houston trend Mag -Written by Loso


"Sound M.O.B. make a houston rap hit"

Pyro is late. Ryu is unfazed.

"He's on his way," says Ryu. "He'll be here in a minute."

"Pyro" isn't a government name (duh). Neither is "Ryu." Both men are now approaching their mid-twenties, and the further away they get from their teenage days, the further away they get from using anything but their aliases to identify themselves.

Pyro and Ryu form a music-production duo called Sound M.O.B. They've existed as such for nearly the last decade, mostly as local guys accomplishing admirably local things. Currently, though, their song "Drank in My Cup," a saucy, hypersexy, catchy aggregate of mechanized thumps and machismo that rapper Kirko Bangz has dry-humped to national fame, is being played to no end across the country. And they're feeling pretty good about that.

Ryu is sitting inside a homemade studio attached to his parents' home in north Houston. Outside, a man with no shirt pushes a lawn mower down the middle of the road.

Tim Seriki, part of the group's management team, opens the door. He's there to film the recording session for a documentary being shot about Sound M.O.B.

"Where's Pyro?" he asks.

"He's on his way," says Ryu. "He'll be here in a minute."
Pyro and Ryu met in high school through a mutual acquaintance, a local rapper named Krucial who now operates as one of the house rappers under the Sound M.O.B. umbrella. The three other acts are another rapper, Cool i10 Jones, and R&B artists Prince Cannon and Ashley Williams. Sound M.O.B. is trying to grow a brand.

Pyro walks in.
He and Ryu are different in obvious ways. Ryu is Latino, Pyro is black. Ryu's family has a musical legacy that extends back at least three generations, rooted firmly in Tejano (Ryu actually plays the accordion); Pyro is the first of his to pursue music. But the two are alike in the most important way.

"When I met Ryu, I knew that he wanted to be in music as badly as I did," says Pyro. "We'd go in the studio from 5 p.m. until 7 a.m. and just vibe."

"We were working one time and got so into it that my truck got stolen from right outside while we were right there," remembers Ryu. "We never even noticed."

Slowly, after the hours added up to a marketable skill set — Pyro literally started making beats on a PlayStation console as a child — the twosome earned a reputation, creating auspicious, warbly, Southern-friendly rap sounds that eventually attracted the attention of Houston stars Slim Thug, Killa Kyleon, Chamillionaire and more.

Sound M.O.B.'s power grew, and they began stacking accomplishments to run parallel with their catalog of beats.

In 2008, they won the Houston division of Red Bull's Big Tune producer battle, crushing local contemporaries. They were flown out to New York to compete in the national finals.

"We got no love," remembers Ryu. "We were heavy on our Houston shit back then. They weren't feeling it. It sucked. It taught us to learn to incorporate new sounds."

Another time, a song of theirs was supposed to have landed on the 2009 collaborative album We Are Young Money, on Lil Wayne's Young Money label. The project eventually sold more than 500,000 copies, but Sound M.O.B.'s contribution ultimately fell through without any warning.

"We got a call from [musician] Pleasure P, who was touring with Wayne and them," says Pyro, head nodding side to side as he collects his words for the rest of the story. "He was like, 'Ay, we just recorded a song on the [tour] bus to your beat. It's gonna be on the album. Wayne, Drake, Nicki [Minaj] are all on it. Someone'll be calling you.' We were so live."

"I remember checking my phone every day," says Ryu, pantomiming picking up a cell phone and checking its home screen.

"I'd look all day," he adds with a laugh. "They didn't call for three months."

"After they called, we thought we were on there," Pyro recalls. "We sent them the files, filled out the paperwork. We were online every day looking for track listings. We saw it on Wikipedia and it had our song title but different producers. You know, Wikipedia you can go in there and edit, so I was like..."

He continues, pretending to type on a computer, posture exaggerated for effect. Everyone in the room is smiling.

"I went in like, 'You got the wrong producers; we made that,' and changed it," continues Pyro. "When it finally came out, the title was the one that we were told was ours, but it was someone else's beat."

Heartbroken?

"That ain't the word," says Pyro. "It was hard."

The lesson there: Production can be a real bitch sometimes.

From there, though, things moved upward. Quickly.

Sound M.O.B. secured a bonus track on Bun B's 2010 album, Trill OG, then walked backward into producing Kirko Bangz's first radio hit, the robosexual "What Yo' Name Iz."

After Michael "5000" Watts broke the single on his Sunday-night 97.9 The Box show, it spread swiftly. Labels came looking for Bangz, and after he signed a deal with Warner Bros., they wanted more music. So the rapper went back to The Mob.
- Houston Press By Shea Serrano


Discography

Debut album "Revenue" entirely produced by Sound M.O.B. https://itunes.apple.com/nz/album/revenue/id445378402

Mixtape "L.O.E. (Life Over Everything)" Hosted by DJ Rapid Ric (@rapidric) http://www.datpiff.com/Krucial-LOE-Life-Over-Everything-mixtape.242063.html or http://indy.livemixtapes.com/mixtapes/14263/krucial_life_over_everything.html

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Bio

Authentic, relatable Southern Rap enlaced with a powerful message of motivation and positivism. In contrast to the turmoil and disappointment of life circumstance, endured by artist, Krucial, the portrayal of his music may not be the expected. Self proclaimed perfectionist, Krucial, pushes the boundary; he breaks the mold of the “typical” dirty, dirty south rapper, and through his Sound M.O.B. affiliations aims to transcend those all too well known stereotypes. His genre can be described as down south hip hop with a pop twist; with the accompaniment of versatile instrumentals, his music can be enjoyed by a broad spectrum of rap/hip hop audiences.

In relation to Krucial’s life, his name is not only recognized as an epithet it is a mindset that reflects the many struggles and quests for success that he has endured. In just 23 years on earth, his life experiences can be depicted as the complete opposite of a fairytale. Growing up in the ghetto’s of Houston, Texas he quickly learned the struggles of life. For the most part of his life his parents stayed in and out of jail, Krucial’s mother had issues with drug abuse. His father looked to the streets for his hustle, selling drugs was his choice of occupation. Until the age of 11, he was raised by his grandparents along with his younger sister. Shortly after the death of his grandfather his father was released and he and his younger sister moved in with him. Krucial affirms, “With my eyes I’ve witnessed the unimaginable. Countless young lives lost over nothing. I only look to become something greater than the generations before me.” Drugs, murder, and gangs is what corrupted and distorted his mindset of life. It was his older brother’s 10 year incarceration that led to an epiphany, and is ultimately responsible for his foray into the rap game.

Krucial’s music reflects his life experiences; it paints a vivid picture of life’s struggles that is interrelated to wide-ranging rap/hip hop audiences. Motivated not to become a statistic, music is what continues to be his driving force and release. He continues to pour out his soul, and the gripping intensity that his lyrics portray accentuates his passion and urgency of success. It is his hope to stir the hearts and minds of his listeners, and create inspiring music that helps others deals with life’s struggles one day at a time.

With major musical influences like Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, and opening for artists such as Rich Boy, Lil Scrappy, Devin the Dude, and E-40, his sound is anything but country fried. Krucial conveys this through his music, yet never turns his back on his Texas roots, which is evident in projects like "Revenue" and "Life Over Everything" with Rapid Ric, and will continue to show through his yet to be released "Kruzin".

Forget the money, the money and the cars, the cars and the clothes…”Success, in my mind, is when your good days outweigh your bad, and you’re truly happy with the person you are and the life you are living”. Not the typical Maybach wishes and Cristal dreams you’d expect from a young rapper, but if the past is any indication of the future, if defying adversity is any indication of rewards yet to come, Krucial is anything, but typical.