Favorite albums of 2024: Texas Technician
Entry #5
Rap is a booming, diverse and rapidly expanding genre with subcategories, regional distinctions and homegrown sounds that spawned in different pockets of the United States and beyond. Houston is one of the most prolific regions, trailblazing the modern swagger, slang and bass heavy boasting that has the genre in a chokehold. Grills, car culture, stoner rap, parking lot pimping and the country’s lean addiction either originated in Texas’ biggest city or came to prominence there.
There’s even a lame Juice WRLD impersonator walking around right now, Dave Blunts, who dons a purple jumpsuit and always carries a cup of lean that doesn’t even realize that he’s copying Big Moe. He even looks just like him!
Whether its UGK’s questionable lyrics about having sex with pregnant women and pimping, Slim Thug tippin’ on four 4s or Z-Ro’s introverted raps about getting money and staying out the way, the DNA of Texas rap has bled across the industry and its listeners. Along with the ladies carrying the torch, like Megan Thee Stallion and Monaleo, with boastful, explicit sexual lyrics that Chad Butler would shed a tear for, there is That Mexican OT. OT almost seems like he was grown in a lab the way he checks off the “Houston rapper” box.
Is he always talking about weed, his grill and drinking lean? Yes.
Does he have lyrics about sex that would make your mom yell at you and change the song? Yes.
Does his dark humor edge into “too far” territory regularly? Yes.
Does he mention Texas or Houston at least once a song? Yes.
Is he always alluding to his gang affiliation and (alleged) violent crimes? It wouldn’t be rap if he wasn’t.
That Mexican OT’s Texas Technician, and his last couple of albums, are a beginner’s course in Houston rap with cited sources and guest professors like Z-Ro and Paul Wall and Slim Thug. It’s nostalgiac while breathing fresh air into the scene, with OT’s rapid fire delivery making the tracks feel less like homages to a bygone era and more like a push forward for the region. It’s as if a kid I grew up with in elementary school went and made the music we used to cop in the 2000s after swinging by Big T Plaza in Dallas, turning the volume down when we listened at home because the lyrics were so rough. He literally talks about pouring lean on his pecan pie. How much more Texan could you get?
What works with Texas Technician is how it never lets up. OT’s personality is large and hard to ignore, his lyrics unforgettable and his bravado bursting from the seams. He’s less of a fan of his peers and more like the new kid on the block, easily holding his own with Paul Wall and other vets. Still, he manages to croon and don a cowboy hat occasionally to show his versatility and keep a toe in country. As long as he doesn’t Post Malone us (AKA using the genre for clout and then switching up on his fanbase immediately) then that’s cool too, I guess.
OT also brings back the Spanglish rap we haven’t seen as much since South Park Mexican went away for… well yeah. He isn’t trying to make a Good Kid MAAD city, or the next great American rap album. He’s making good car music, meant for riding slow or blasting the bass as high as it can go in the parking lot, bringing the distinct Houston sound back to the forefront. The bass is heavy, the lyrics are swaggerful and dirty and rebellious like his predecessors. If anything, OT has taken the crown as this generation’s Houston representative. While Meg and others aim for popstar status while keeping some of their Houston swag on the backburner, OT is perfectly fine exporting the druggy, funny, punchy, dirty south style that raised him, and me.
Favorite Tracks: Point Em’ Out, Bull Riding, Function, Cowboy In a Escalade, Twistin Fingers, Hola