25th Anniversary of the Poison Clan
It’s been 25 years since one of the South’s most underrated rap groups made their debut with the classic album “2 Low Life Muthas”, and that group is none other than the Poison Clan. A young Debonaire, JT Money, and Drugz were discovered by founding member and producer of the 2 Live Crew, Mr. Mixx. Mixx liked what he had heard and immediately brought the Clan to Luke Records to meet Luke directly.Luke signed the group to a subsidiary label of Luke Records which was known as Effect Records.
In 1990 the first album “2 Low Life Muthas” was produced by Mr. Mixx and featured a mixture of Bass music and dirty explicit lyrics but they also had that hardcore street shit. That is what separated them from alotta of people coming out of the South East at the time. Tracks like the title cut “Low Life Mutha Fuckaz” was just as brutal as NWA or the Geto Boys, where as tracks like “The Bitch That I Hate”, and “You Gets Nothin'” was just as raunchy as Too $hort or their label mates, the 2 Live Crew.
From 1990-1991 the group appeared on 2 Live Crew’s classic album Banned in the USA and recorded the single “In My Nature.” Eventually Debonaire, and Drugz left to form the group Home Team, and JT Money along with other Poison Clan members UZI, Madball, Big Ram, and producer Mike Fresh reformed PC for their second album “Poisonous Mentality.”
In 1992 “Poisonous Mentality” hit the shelves with the first single being a heavy bass driven strip club anthem known as “Shake Whatcha Mama Gave Ya.” The song is still considered one of if not the best strip club songs of all time and it set the tone for the for the project, but the album was really more street than Bass. Songs like “Fugitive”, “Some Shit I Used to Do”, “Livin’ In The City”, and “Action” were filled with grimy brutal tales of street life. When it came to being sexually explicit this album took the fuckin’ cake. Songs like “Ho Stories”, “All They Good 4”, and “Somethin’ 4 U Raggedy Hoes” were filled with tales of crazy sex capers and wild one-legged hoes like Sonya.
’93 was the last time that the Poison Clan released an album with Luke with thier classic “Ruff Town Behavior.” Once again, it was another classic filled with gritty street tales and some of the nastiest most explicit shit you ever heard. Songs like “Peepin” and Goin’ All Out” catered to the streets where as “Put Shit Pass No Ho” gave us all another lesson as to how untrustworthy your average no good bitch can be. Once again the legendary Mike Fresh who is actually one of the pioneers of the Atlanta rap scene, supplied the dope production.
1993-1994 PC was featured on various Luke Records projects where as JT Money was one of the artists on the Dr. Dre, Snoop, and Death Row diss reply to Dre’s “Dre Day”, entitled “Cowards in Compton.” In 1995 the Poison Clan through Warlock Records released their 4th and final album “Strait Zooism.” In my opinion this was a phenomenal piece of work because not only did the other members start to appear more on the songs, but they gelled perfectly with the Bitch-Izer, aka JT Money. This was the last album other than a greatest hits project that was released some years later. But all 4 of their original albums charted and made impacts in their own way.
Madball and Uzi went on to do various projects such as Ruff Town Mob, Debonaire and Drugs released an album as “Home Team” which featured the single “Pick It Up”, and JT Money went on to winning a Billboard Award and earn some plaques as a solo artist.
Poison Clan’s stint in the rap world lasted a short five years from 1990-1995 and it has been a full 20 years since the group put out an album. Maybe one could hope for a reunion in 2015. With that being said when you mention influencing groups like UGK, Three 6 Mafia, Outkast, Goodie Mob, Hot Boys, TRU, and many others, you should always mention the Poison Clan. At no time should PC be left out of any discussion about Southern Hiphop legends and pioneers.
