GANGSTA PAT "I WANNA SMOKE"

While most rap listeners will know names like Three 6 Mafia, Project Pat, and 8Ball & MJG, the casual listener won’t be able to tell you who Gangsta Pat is. Today you mention Memphis Rap to any old head and they’ll quickly go to Three 6 and then any youngster will go right to Young Dolph (RIP), Moneybagg Yo, Yo Gotti, and a slew of others that are big out of Tennessee. 90’s Memphis Rap had those dark and grimy beats mixed with double and triple time horrorcore flows that has gained a cult following over the years. The music is straight up raw and was unlike anything out at the time.

But the Memphis Rap genre wouldn’t be where it is today without Gangsta Pat. Gangsta Pat dropped the first major label rap album out of Memphis with #1 Suspect which came out in 1991. Nobody in the rap game was getting looks out of Tennessee back in the early 90’s and here Gangsta Pat went out and put on for his city. Gangsta Pat blazed trails for all of the local rap talent in Memphis that was coming up right behind him.

Listen here to an early track from Gangsta Pat called “I’m the Gangsta” and tell me you don’t think of early NWA, D.O.C., Ice-T, and others out of the West Coast. But Gangsta Pat had his own twist on the early 90’s rap sounds since he was straight out of Memphis. He also wrote, produced, and played all of the instruments on his early releases. How many rappers out there were that involved with their sound?

Gangsta Pat was a part of the Memphis Underground rap movement in the 90’s going back to the early days of Three 6 Mafia, Project Pat, and 8Ball & MJG. We also can’t dismiss everything Tommy Wright III, DJ Squeeky, Al Kapone and more did to influence the rise of the Memphis Rap sound back then. Btw, if anybody out in Memphis is reading this and is affiliated with Tommy Wright III, let’s get his albums up on the DSP’s. At least Runnin-N-Gunnin!

Gangsta Pat dropped his 2nd album, All About Comin’ Up in November of 1992 which had some Compton’s Most Wanted and DJ Quik Way Too Fonky type vibes. From September through the end of the year in 1992 we saw these west coast classics get released… RBL Posse with A Lesson To Be Learned, CMW with Music to Driveby, Ice Cube with The Predator, and finally, Dr. Dre dropped The Chronic to end 1992 with a bang. Outside of Cali, UGK dropped their debut album, Too Hard to Swallow the week before Gangsta Pat dropped All About Comin’ Up. Gangsta Pat was dope but being from Memphis and dropping at the same time as all of these other legends made it hard to get his shine. Here’s the lead single from the All About Comin’ Up album from Gangsta Pat.

It wasn’t until 1995 when Gangsta Pat dropped his album, Deadly Verses that people outside of Tennessee really started to take notice. In the Mid90s, we were starting to see mainstream rap fans gravitate to the fast chopping style of rap where emcees were double-timing and triple-timing their flows and even incorporating some singsong melodies into their verses. Rappers like Myka 9 and Freestyle Fellowship, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Crucial Conflict, Do or Die and Twista were all stretching boundaries on what fast rap could be. And while Bone Thugs will forever get credited with mastering the fast rap style (as they should), I think Gangsta Pat holds the best track from this era of fast melodic rapping with a catchy hook. His track “I Wanna Smoke” off of Deadly Verses is a perfect song in my eyes.

The Ohio Players “Funky Worm” sample to kick it off? Fire. The Quincy Jones sample from Michael Jackson’s “The Lady in My Life” though? Fire. The girl coming in singing and flipping an old Luther Vandross chorus reminding me of some “Thuggish Ruggish Bone” vibes? Fire… One of the best hooks in rap history. Yeah, I said it. Then Gangsta Pat comes in with one of the best flows in rap history. Yup, I said that too. Gangsta Pat made the beat and the timing of the “Funky Worm” sample coming in and out was done so well. Psycho out of Memphis, TN ad a fire verse as well as he held his on the beat with Pat. And then just when you thought the track might be over, Gangsta Pat just drops the same verse from earlier in the song because it was that dope. How does that even go down in the studio where Pat who was producing, decides that he should just run the verse back for the 3rd verse. That’s some true gangster shit. And that’s why this song is an absolute classic!