When BET's 106 and Park premiered the music video for Lil O's "Back Back" in 2001, it was a pretty big deal. The track was a fixture on Houston's rap station 97.9 The Box and kids across the city were quoting the hook in benign situations, not unlike the "that feeling when" memes that dominate Twitter following a Drake release. Still, nationwide recognition of a quintessentially Houston song was new and exciting, pop stars weren't using the word "trill" back then and living in the city felt more like intentional isolation from blown out metropolises like L.A. and N.Y. than a trending topic.
Brice White, also known as Brice Blanco, was in elementary school when "Back Back" dropped, but its influence is all over his latest track, "Get Back." The U.N.O produced song flips the hook of Lil O's breakout hit into something both familiar and unrecognizable while Blanco delivers piercingly honest bars about the state of Houston's rap scene in 2015. We get it, Sprite, lean in your double boy/ you really, really like things that are drug endorsed he raps, effectively pointing a mirror at the scores of teenagers in the city rapping almost exclusively about drug use like it's a badge of honor.
"The city is rich with a lot of talent," Blanco explained in an email to The FADER. "My team, Constant Reality, we feel it's time for our voices and ideas to be heard. And this is my initial stand for that. This is not an assertion of us against them, but a message for the ones here who cloud the visions of the forward thinkers."
Lil O's track is a fitting sample, he was addressing a rap industry that, at the time, was growing increasingly interested in the city's raw materials. Blanco is living in the aftermath and seems to be trying to clear out some space of his own. Check out the track below.