Before They Were Trapstars Part 3

Tung Twista (Twista) - No Peace Sign (from Runnin' Off at da Mouth 1991)

I remember the first time I heard "Adrenaline Rush" back in probably 7th grade. I was visiting my cousins in Milwaukee, the same cousins who got me into things like Nirvana when I was a wee 7 years old. Car rides usually consisted of all of us with headphones on, and this particular car ride I think I forgot mine at home. I heard that bizarre flat line bass blaring from one pair of headphones with this dude rapping way faster than any coastal Hip-Hop I had been exposed to while in middle school. They had a CD burner before I did too, and when we got home I stole all the Twista and Do or Die they had on their computer. "Adrenaline Rush" is still one of the scariest Rap songs I know, and remains the Chicago west side Traxster anthem to me some 12 years later.

Tung Twista dropped the Tung after this first album from 91 and before Kayne came around was pretty far and above the biggest rapper from Chicago. Even so, dudes got a world record under his belt if that means anything. Twista comes from the same side of town as Do or Die, Crucial Conflict, and the Legendary Traxter, the group of artists responsible for the grimey west side sound. This neighborhood, know as North Lawndale or "K-Town" was also home to the founding of the imfamous Vice Lords gang. Most of the north-south streets (Karlov Ave., Kedvale Ave., Keeler Ave., Kenneth Ave., Keystone Ave., Kilbourn Ave., Kildare Ave., Knox Ave., Kolin Ave., Kolmar Ave., Komensky Ave. Kostner Ave., Kilpatrick Ave.) start with the letter "K", part of an early failed city plan to organize the streets by their distance in miles from the Illinois-Indiana border (K being the 11th letter). A grimey neighborhood that birthed the heart stopping bass in opposition to the No I.D. and Kayne side of Chicago Hip-Hop.

Here is Twista at age 18 speaking on "fake blackness", riding his Guiness Book of World Records speed that in later years proved to be more than just a novelty.