Initially, Tisa made music to fill that same niche, eventually borrowing little production touches from outside influences of his own, like the Neptunes and Tyler, the Creator. He didn’t think his music was anything out of the ordinary until it started gaining traction online. “I thought my shit would be lame to somebody not from Houston,” he recalls while clicking through his beats on the computer. “But people from other places would be like, ‘Yo’ shit crazy!’ And I’d be like, ‘Really? We all sound like this in Houston.’”
Now long removed from the gym, Tisa changes out of workout clothes and into baggy shorts and a T-shirt that reads A1 Junky, a reference to his recently formed crew, A1, whose job I think is mostly to mob out in dance videos and wear matching outfits—stuff of that ilk. Joining us is co-face of the clique Mighty Bay, who has been partying, dancing, and occasionally rapping with Tisa since they met through a cousin nearly a decade ago. Together, they joke and sometimes finish each other’s sentences and share stories of tearing up dancefloors like they’re in Saturday Night Fever. “Partying cost too much now to not turn up; if I pay 500 to get in, you gon’ have to choke me out to make me not have a good time!” exclaims Tisa. Mighty Bay smiling along goes, “Yeah, we partying fanatics.”
The three of us spend the afternoon rolling around the south side of Houston in Tisa’s snow white Benz. They point out the club where they dance, the liquor store where they dance, and, of course, a few of the gas stations where they dance. We stop at Tisa’s favorite snow cone spot where he gets his drowned in cream the color of melted American cheese. Mighty Bay gets a kick out of my disgust. On line, a few people from the neighborhood come by and dap them up. Next, we head over to a Chinese chicken wing counter where we chow down as they get on my ass about the choices on Pitchfork’s “Best Rap Albums of All Time” list. “You guys are just rage baiting,” goes Mighty Bay; Tisa nods.
In the car, we’re listening to and cracking jokes about music. Mighty Bay has tears in his eyes from laughing so hard at the funky drum machine beats of Keith LeBlanc’s Major Malfunction, coming around to it by the final track. They go nuts for some old Afrika Bambaataa instrumentals, especially Tisa who tells us he was heavily influenced by a chopped-and-screwed version of “Planet Rock.” Tisa then plays a few beats that have lately been inspiring him as a producer: the G-funk bounce of Westside Connection’s “Bow Down,” the soul of UGK’s “Choppin’ Blades,” and more Boosie. “We really influenced the most by what we grew up around,” goes Tisa, barely talking when the beats play to catch every detail.
