Odoms from outa space

For us who grew up in New Orleans, rap was everywhere you turned. From Q93 (before evil clear channel took over) and Phat Phat and All that (back when they played more then like 4 videos in an hour). Despite growing up in a weird vacuum of rap that created its own style in a similar fashion as New York did with just people rapping over DJs at block paries, many major hit makers came out of New Orleans in the 90s, from Master P, Mystikal, Juvenile and of course Lil Wayne. No matter how hard my parents tried, this music was a huge influence on me and many others in my generation.

Odoms, the long time famous hype man for Ballzack, is one of those people. Though, he might be a little older than me, and can actually pull original copies of Get It How You Live, Vol 1. He also has a copy of Baller Blockin on cassette which I am super jealous of, but I do have the original Master P doll, all have depreciated in value. But, I digress.

The first time I saw Odoms play "solo" was at a Ballzack show when he performed his then brand new track, Keeping Up With the Jeatsons. This alone got me super excited to see what he could do on his own. I would routinely ask him where his own album was, and he would say it wasn't ready. His perfectionism shines through in his debut album, Up And Atom.

This is an album for all those Ballzack and Lil Doogie fans out there, but this album is much deeper than that. With self production to tracks produced by Ballzack and Jay Younger, from White Zombie fame and did a majority of the production on Ballzack's last album, Yeah Indeed. All their time together has led to a really well produced album with many layers that will leave you smiling the whole way through. With it's huge single, Keeping Up With the Jetsons to his dance song, Dance Dance, there are a lot of great tracks that I think even non New Orleans would get into.

The song that I am posting here, Shybe, is my favorite song on the album. It reminds me a lot of some great old Hot Boys. Talking some game and telling a story with fabulous visual imagery. This is what all music should do, pull emotion from you and Odoms album pulls many emotions and keeps your head nodding the whole way through. Get the album, and see him and Ballzack live if you haven't yet. Just don't see them at Voodoo, they may get kicked off stage.

MP3: Odoms - Shybe