Wednesday, March 14   8:45 p.m.
Visions   (614 E 6th St)

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2005 was the year Houston, Texas finally got its shine as a certified hip-hop city. Major labels have been descending on the city in a virtual feeding frenzy looking for the next Paul Wall, Mike Jones or Slim Thug � artists who represent what has come to be known as the �Houston Sound.�

The Houston Sound is defined rather narrowly by what is known as a �car culture.� The city is known for being so large and cumbersome that many of its inhabitants look at their cars like their second homes. Listen to most of the records to come out of Houston in past years and you�ll hear many references to pop trunks, candy paint and the many styles of tires and rims that are available to soup up your ride. It might sound funny to some, but it�s been a trend here for years and the rest of the world is just now catching on to it.

But what about the Houston artists who buck the trends in hopes of adding to the game rather than just contributing to it? What about the Houston artists who have more to talk about than merely their cars? Where do they fit in?

Southern Intellect represents another side of Houston. While all of the members, the main MC�s being T and Don Juan, came up in the same hoods as most of your favorite rappers -- Houston�s notorious North Side � they refuse to be pigeonholed as just your average Houston MC�s.

�Southern Intellect is like a southern hip-hop movement.� Don Juan explains, �It�s not just MC�s or certain aspects of the culture it�s more like a movement of the culture as a whole. Basically we all started off as kids who were either DJing or B-Boying doing Graffiti or rhyming and everybody was doing their piece of the culture on the North Side. In the same hoods you got the Geto Boys and Swishahouse from.�

Listening to their self-titled and self-released debut from 2004 -- you�ll hear aspects of what makes the Houston sound so popular but you�ll also hear deeper influences running throughout. Southern Intellect stays true to their name by kicking the lyricism up a notch and they are not afraid to work with different sounding beats.

�Man when we were coming up, we were listening to everything.� T remembers, �N.W.A., Geto Boys, DOC, Gangsta NIP, 8 Ball, Dj Quick, Terrorists, Cypress Hill, EPMD, UGK, Aceyalone, Wu Tang. Whatever coast, as long as it was jammin�, we just loved hip-hop.� That range of influence shines bright on all of their material.

On their next release, Can You Relate, you�ll hear an even broader scope with tracks ranging from straight up H-Town trunk bangers to Latin influenced beats. �With this album we hit them with a wide spectrum.� T continues, �Everyday our feelings are different, so when we are in the studio we recorded something different according to how we feeling that day. We try to hit you with different angles and not limit ourselves. We have some club songs, some gangster/street stuff, we even have some laid back stuff you can just sit and blaze to, it�s all a fusion. But at the end of the day it�s still hip-hop and it�s still some southern shit growing out of H-Town.�

Their story isn�t that much different from other artists out of Houston. They came up in the streets, doing what many young people do in those streets, and they bonded over their love for music. And like so many, it just may have saved them. Don Juan doesn�t like to talk much about his past endeavors, one of which lead to him being shot in the face and almost killed, but he also doesn�t want to hide that fact as he hopes that other young people can learn from him.

�I don�t want to exploit the fact that I was shot in the face.� Don Juan explains, �But one thing I want to get across to those who know is that I was doing the wrong thing in my life when I got shot. I was into a lot of bad shit and someone was either hating on me or someone was jealous and I ended up getting shot in the face and I learned from it.

�I tell you what, ain�t nothing cool about getting shot man.� He continues, �I went through psychological shit after that shit. I almost died and I didn�t know how to deal with that. People from the hood don�t have nobody to talk to about that shit. I know people who have had homeboys die in their arms or witnessed their homeboys death and they don�t have anyone to talk to. That shit fucked me up in the head, but at the same time God removed the pressure off me and I changed how I was living. People glorify that shit and I hate that knowing that I lost loved ones and almost lost my own life over that. I try to keep that the thing that I talk the least about. But we all from the hood, straight up, so it�s a part of us.�

And that�s what it�s all about, passing that Southern Intellect on to the masses. Showing them that there�s more to Houston than the Candy Coated Slabs on Swangas and Gangsta shit. I mean, there�s plenty of that too, but there�s a whole sub-underground in Houston waiting to be unearthed. One that can�t be pigeonholed and is just as jammin� as anything you�ve heard thus far. Southern Intellect is leading that revolution.

�It�s crazy, we�re South to the bone,� T closes, �but hip-hop was such an influence in our life, that we reached for good music from all over. If you see my record collection you�ll hear what I am talking about. We just love good music. There�s always going to be those artists that stand out, and I believe that�s us.�