Strict Flow - Radio

We used to have a saying back in the late 1990s- "you're the Strict Flow of wherever you're from" (used interchangeably with "you're the Binary Star of wherever you're from"). Essentially, this phrase means that you rose to the top of the heap in your local indie rap market and then failed to advance beyond the "running shit in XYZ-ville" status.

That was what happened to Strict Flow, who stagnated through laurel-resting and the Raw Shack Records bubble. Now that I think about it, Raw Shack consumed a substantial portion of rising hip-hop talent and basically deferred the best work of J-Live and others until years after the "Rawkus Era" lost energy and vitality to the Rapping About Rapping and Emo-Rap downturn that swallowed indie rap whole. It was like the Bear Stearns of its time, only not.

Anyway. Strict Flow was made up of some dudes who were a few years ahead of me in high school, and they were the crew who were always a few steps ahead of us in the game, opening for major tours and such, so naturally we looked up to them. Once I started doing the same kinds of shows, when I was 18-19 years old, that luster faded, but as an impressionable kid, Strict Flow was some heavy shit back then.

People On Lock b/w Radio was their first 12" and with E.Dan and Chad Glick on the boards, Masai and Sied (now Def Jam's "Pittsburgh Slim"... a whole different story) really slay this track. Listening to this makes me feel like smoking some weed and bullshitting with my friends about whether or not Lone Catalysts is going to "really break out this summer... I mean, J Rawls is doing all this production for this record coming out called Black Star..."

Memories.



Strict Flow - Radio | Divshare | YSI | 320 kbps

YSI is still fucked up for me, who knows. Multiple file sharing services would have been the fifth element of hip hop if they had existed when I was listening to the aforementioned 12".