For the longest time, the Dallas/Fort Worth area was not where to look for hip hop. Or, more accurately, there wasn’t anybody working to cultivate the scene. There’s a history there, but it’s largely a tale of small groups that didn’t really go anywhere because they didn’t have anywhere to play and no labels to put their music out. As someone who grew up in the area during the ‘90s, I was completely oblivious to any local hip hop that might have been happening while I was there. While I haven’t lived in a long time, it does warm my heart to see some interesting acts starting to make waves on a national level. In large part, it’s because while there is much to love about where I grew up, it’s not a supportive environment for making art outside of the norm. When I heard that the latest act to debut on Mello Music Group was a producer from Dallas, I was excited to hear what Gensu Dean had to offer. The good news is that Lo-Fi Fingahz is an album with great production and a full roster of guests.

The album is packed with different emcees, ranging from well-established artists like Brand Nubian and Prince Po (again, I want another solo album from this guy!) to lesser known acts like HeadKrack, and even an appearance from David Banner. An album with that many guests has the potential to get off track or sound disjointed, but Gensu Dean proves himself to be a strong enough producer to keep the album focused. Gensu Dean’s weapon of choice is his SP 1200, a drum machine/sampler released in 1987, and featured on many classic hip hop albums of that era, leading into the early ‘90s. Dean is obviously influenced by a lot of that music, especially the East Coast of the early ‘90s, but he also manages to make it sound contemporary. Most importantly, though, are the basic skills that most people take for granted. That is, his ability to lay down grooves that feel natural and to subtly develop them over the course of a song, all while working with the emcee to make sure their rhymes fit the song naturally. The result is an album that immediately sounds familiar. That said, there is some variation in quality as we move from emcee to emcee. Some are right on par, some will be pleasant discoveries, and some are a little disappointing. The first artist to fall short is HeadKrack, who uses his track as an opportunity to use sub par rhymes and analogies to talk his own name up. It seems a little tacky to take a producer’s debut album to only talk up yourself, but if you are going to go that route, your rhymes better be really creative, not just some well-worn battle raps that don’t come together to create a bigger picture. It doesn’t help matters that on the very next track, “On Down,” Sputnik Brown basically drops a bunch of battle rhymes, but it doesn’t feel so ego driven - instead it’s much more about wordplay and lyricism and having fun with the beat that Dean dropped. The track I could really do without, though, is “Yen” with Roc Marciano. The beat is easily the weakest and most monotonous on the album, and Roc lays down some really lazy and ignorant rhymes with no charisma. I honestly don’t understand what his appeal is. The inclusion of a female artist is appreciated, but “Runnin’ Me Down” with Miss A is a bit of a middle-of-the-road R&B track, and it feels like an opportunity wasted that could have added some interesting flavor to an album otherwise male driven. David Banner’s track continues my frustration with him as an artist, as the production is fantastic, and he’s got some really creative extended analogies with Alice in Wonderland, but his gender politics still leave a ton to be desired. I know this shouldn’t come as a surprise from one of the artists who worked on “Tip Drill,” but when you see so much potential elsewhere in their music and politics, it hurts to see them be so disrespectful to women in their rhymes.

For a debut album, Gensu Dean firmly establishes himself as a producer to know. He was able to bring together a variety of artists, all while keeping his own style. It has it’s ups and downs, but that’s to be expected. What I’d really love to see going forward is to see him work with one artist over the course of an album, so that he can really push himself to create some bigger musical themes that arch across an entire record. Either that, or just scrap the emcees all together and go instrumental. I’m sure we’ll get to all of this in due time.