In December of 1993, I was walking from my parents’ house to the rec center where Friday night league hoops were being played. I had my jersey on and didn’t play until later but wanted to go watch my homies play before my game. Most of the refs in our league were friends with my older brother so they were always cool with Lil Timmy. I was in 7th grade and while walking to the rec center, a car pulled up next to me and it was one of the refs. Stefan, at least 4 years older than me but was always cool with me, offered me a ride. I got in and we didn’t talk as he instead cranked the volume on his tape deck full blast and hit play. The beat rattling his trunk…. The fire in the emcee’s vocals…. The delivery… The sampling… The Snoop sample in the chorus… Everything. This was the first time I heard Brotha Lynch Hung and the song, “Had to Gat Ya.”

I only heard about half of the song but that was all I needed. I can’t remember how I played that night in my game but I probably dropped 4 points but played some intense defense like my boy Patrick Beverley. I liked hoops but didn’t put in the real time needed to get better. I was too busy getting into rap music. All that mattered to me that night was plotting a way to get my hands on the 24 Deep EP that contained “Had 2 Gat Ya” because I knew this rapper out of Sacramento was special. That Saturday I went to Wherehouse Music to the rap cassette section and found 1 copy of just what I was looking for. A picture of a dude in a casket with a black beanie and locs with a 12-gauge shotgun draped over his body. Yup, this was some hood shit so my money was gone. I quickly purchased 24 Deep and threw it right in my Walkman. The “Thought They Knew - Intro” was some smooth jazzy vibes which sampled Harvey Mason’s “Modaji” from 1975. What was this gangster sh*t doing with these jazz melodies?!

Right after the intro we get into our first song which had introduced a menacing bassline sample from The SouthSide Movement’s “I’ Been Watching You” followed by Brotha Lynch beginning his verse and then those drums kick in and you know you had a classic with the track “24 Deep.” Lynch showed off an effortless double-time flow when we had to and also flexed a little Spice 1 and Das EFX type stutter rhyme to let you know he had it all in the pocket. Lynch’s storytelling took me into the Sacramento hood and in his songs I felt like I was along with him with my black beanie and locs on. “24 Deep” is a classic.

The final song off of that EP I’m going to give love to is “Walkin’ 2 My Funeral” which is the last true song on the EP. Beautiful track right here. I still can’t help but sing the chorus every time I bump it. And man…. This footage below? I don’t know if it was the official video or just some concert footage with the actual song over the top but either way, I’m here for all of it. I never got to see Lynch in the mid-90s but I would have spent every red penny to do so if I caught wind of him performing in town.

Brotha Lynch made all of his own beats and also produced for his fellow label mates like X-Raided and Mr. Doctor. While Cali had Dre, Snoop, and Tha Dogg Pound in LA and E-40, Too $hort, and Mac Dre in the Bay, Sactown had this slept on label called Black Market Records that me and all of my friends had on rotation for years. Cedric Singleton started the label and had Lynch, X-Raided, Mr. Doctor, Sicx, Cold World Hustlers, Gangsta Dre, Nonfiktion, and more on the label back then. Before we get to Lynch’s first full-length LP, I have to drop a few songs from the crew.

First we have “Everybody Killa” off of X-Raided’s 1992 album, Psycho Active. This track is only a minute long but features Brotha Lynch on the beat (he produced all of these older albums) and X rappin his ass off. X always reminded me of The D.O.C. for his flow. Keep in mind that when this album was recorded he was between the 16 - 18 years of age. Impressive.

I can’t just leave you with one X-Raided song so here’s what else I have for you. X served many years behind bars for murder that has long been questioned if he pulled the trigger. He was convicted by an all-white jury because of lyrics in his Psycho Active album. Keep in mind, this was in the early 90’s when rap music was “devil music” and the media and white folks were out to squash it in fear that the youth were going to become crack addicts because of what the media fed us. X has been out of jail for a bit and still pleads his innocence. I just wonder what would have happened if he didn’t get locked up. The Lynch and X-Raided combo was unbelievable. I think they would have blown up globally with that distribution deal from Priority Records and some hit singles. Oh well, this is all in hindsight. At least we got the album Xorcist from X-Raided which is him rapping his vocals from prison over the phone. My homies and all thought this was the hardest sh*t. The beats were cold.

Mr. Doctor dropped his album Setripn’ Bloccstyle in late 1995 and me and my homies all kept this in steady rotation. Lynch’s beats, Doc’s dope voice and delivery, and several amazing guest appearances from Lynch himself made this album a classic. Here’s “Bloccstyle” which you really need to listen to in a car with a boomin’ system to get the true effect. A trunk rattling is really the only way to bump this song. Is Mr. Doctor still recording music? Is he alive? Can’t find any trail of him on the socials.

Lynch dropped his second album, Season of Da Siccness the day before my 15th birthday. I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday present either because this album was and is a classic. Lynch’s production moved away from the jazz samples and dropped an evil g-funk murder rap album. The beats were scary. The lyrical content is hard to stomach in 2021 but me and my crew know allllll of the lyrics. To all Lynch fans out there, we all know how magical this album was. This album should be talked about right alongside of The Chronic and Doggystyle because it had that big of an impact up and down Cali. If Lynch was from LA and his subject matter was tweaked a bit, he would have been known worldwide. Lynch was spitting Freestyle Fellowship type rhyme patterns (shout out to Aceyalone and Myka 9) with amazing cadence on tracks. Here’s the “Rest in Piss” edited version. Most edited versions back in the day just bleeped out the bad words but Lynch did something completely different with this. He changed up his flow from the OG track and it came out great. I honestly don’t know which version is better. You?

I could honestly write paragraphs on most songs from this album. “Locc 2 Da Brain,” “Siccmade,” “Return of Da Baby,” and so many more. This is gangsta rap at its finest. But to wrap up this article, I have to end on a storytelling note. While Season of Da Siccess dropped in 1995, we all kept it in steady rotation years after that. But in 1999, this album, and one song in particular, took on a new meaning in my life.

In March of 1999, my homie RP threw a house party while his mom was out of town for the weekend. We sought out to make this the house party of all house parties. I got my friends to DJ, we covered the walls to protect all of his mom’s trinkets, and we gave the rager a theme. But all of our parties seemed to have the same theme so this wasn’t any different. It just meant that we had to hit all the thrift shops to come clean because we were all on a limited budget. But for any Pimp & Ho party you knew you had to come correct.

Germs, Tenshun, Psychopop, and “Pele” Durian Funk circa March of 1999 at the infamous house party

When I say that this was a raging party it’s still an understatement. We went through 5 kegs before the party came to a screeching halt. I don’t even recall what time it was but I was with my homies by the turntables when my TW ran inside the front door screaming. The music was so damn loud that I couldn’t hear a word about of his mouth but I could see the panic and fear on his face. I immediately ran outside and the first thing I heard was a few gunshots go off. Everybody ducked to the ground just like it was Menace II Society or Boyz n the Hood and I looked straight into the street. Right there I saw my homie RP in the middle of the street in a wife beater looking down at his stomach. He had been stabbed in the stomach and the look on his face and the moment itself is one that will never leave my mind. I sprinted out to him and over to my left I saw my homie on his knees punching the concrete like Bushwick Bill in “Mind’s Playing Tricks on Me.” He was so mad that this had happened and these guys had gotten away. I got to RP and knew I had to act fast.

I grew up on songs like Public Enemy’s “911’s a Joke” and everybody at that party was underage and all f*cked up so we didn’t want to call the cops. I didn’t drink or smoke back then so I was literally the only person sober at that party. I grabbed RP and we slowly walked to my ‘91 Candy Red Volkswagen Fox in his driveway. We reversed out quickly and I drove as fast as I could to get him to the hospital. He was tripping the f*ck out as his large intestine and guts were exposed from the knife wound. He uttered which hospital to take him to but I had no idea how to get there. I was gunning through the streets running every red light and peeling around corners to get onto the freeway. There came a point where he told me to tell his mom that he loved her. I had never before been put in a situation like this but knew there wasn’t time to panic. After not knowing where I was going I decided to take him to Scripps Hospital. I never looked once at his stomach but told him everything was going to be alright. I blasted the CD in my deck to keep our mind off of what was going down while I drove 90 down Genesee Ave running every red light barely looking left or right. The song being played through all of this? Brotha Lynch Hung’s “Liquor Sicc” off of the Season of Da Siccness album.

Keep in mind…. My friend is in really bad shape but we have this gangster ass song playing full blast in the whip. RP was just thinking about making it out of there alive and my mind was hearing the lyrics that so closely tied to the situation at hand. How were these thugs just going to crash our party and then stab my homie? We weren’t used to getting stabbed and hearing gunshots going off in our hood. But if something were to happen to RP that night you better believe there was going to be some retaliation. And the song’s lyrics literally talked about what had transpired. Chilling stuff.

We pulled up to Scripps in our gold chains, khakis, and pimp hats and I grabbed RP and we went to the glass doors. It was late….. We were panicking…. The doors wouldn’t open and I was banging on the window telling them to open up for us while RP’s in major pain. We finally get inside and they get him in a wheelchair and wheel him back to the operating room. Then I just stood there frozen in my wife beater and thick gold chains wondering if I just said goodbye to my best friend for the last time. The hospital needed Ryan’s insurance information but his mom was out of town and this was before cell phones so we literally couldn’t reach her in the middle of the night. So I had to call my parents and wake them up. My dad came up to Scripps to sign off on being RP’s legal guardian so they could start the surgery. Cops quickly came and pulled me into a room and were bullying me about what had happened. I weighed 115 pounds soaking wet with pure fear across my face because of RP and these dumb f*cks want to pressure me into saying some sh*t? It was truly odd but after a few minutes they realized that I didn’t do anything wrong. One of my other friends got questioned the same way. Was it JT? MM? I can’t remember…

RP came out of surgery alive but lost 5 pints of blood through the process with a wound that ended up being a half inch from his aorta. We all visited him in the hospital in the days after while he recovered. This was a night that so many of us will never forget. This was my side of the story and I know others have different angles from where they were that night. But my most vivid memory of this night was listening to Season of the Siccness and “Liquor Sicc” in general. That album and that song gave RP the strength to make it on this night. This rap music is deep man! Brotha Lynch is literally in our blood.

I still feel like Black Market Records as a whole is slept on. The music that Brotha Lynch, Mr. Doctor, and X-Raided were putting out back then was the definition of some G sh*t. As teenagers, we loved what was coming out of Sacramento. We even went to go see Lynch up in Northern Cali around ‘99 or ‘00 but he didn’t perform because he thought he would be sued by the label. We all finally got to see him around 2008 but he didn’t perform anything off of 24 Deep or Season of Da Siccness. I’d still pay at least $20 to see him perform some songs off of these albums and know some others that would too. So Lynch, if you’re reading this, get at me. It’s still EBK every day til the day I die.

Here’s a Spotify playlist below that has a lot of the Black Market, Lynch, X-Raided, Mr. Doctor, and Sicx tracks we used to bump. And if you’ve never heard any of this before, just a warning…. The lyrics are gruesome.