When Ramirez was still part of the 59. When the boy$ weren’t beefing with J. And when they were always around smurf at any chance. One of my personal favorite tours to dig up videos from
I wonder if anybody from any of these photos will see this?? Also if this gets enough attention I’ll make a part 2 or more. (There’s LOTS of pics from this tour)
THIS IS GONNA BE A LONG ONE BUT TRY TO STICK WITH ME IF YOUR A NERD ABOUT UNDERGROUND ERA LORE LIKE I AM. IF NOT YOU CAN LEAVE THIS DISCUSSION ISNT FOR YOU.
When the boy$ came into the game, it was in a time when a resurgence of hip hop that mixes Memphis rap, screw music, and dashes and hints of cloud rap were thrown in. To make this dark mystic sound. That sounded very early 3 6 mafia influenced. But had its own twist into it. It was started obviously by the infamous spaceghostpurpp who im sure you all know (at least I hope you all know. Saw on twitter a few days ago a very huge $b fan had absolutely no idea who sgp was. Can’t expect everyone to know everything but sb fans nowadays don’t even listen to other underground artists, including the godfathers )
The main dna to signify this new “phonk” style was having Memphis samples. Mainly early triple six mafia samples. Even people such as the infamous sgp would sample them. And that would even catch the attention of 3 6. Most noteable juicy j. Who literally name dropped him in a genius interview. And had nothing but kind words to say about he felt honored that all these new kids were trying to bring shit back from the good old days. Another person being Djsmokey (Mr shadow wizard money gang aka) who doesn’t make shit like that anymore. But was on top of the scene with raider klan when he was. Smokey can be scene as one of the pioneers of the subgenre of a subgenre “trill phonk”. Soon the whole underground wave whether you were a rapper with consistent beat selection. A rapper and a producer. Or a producer of many variations of phonk and in some parts even Trillwave (a genre that has dna also tracking back to spaceghostpurpp and is most notably rapped on by early xxx, bones, Chris Travis and night Lovell, and also most known for producers like Edward skellitrix (aka Cight) and even night Lovell before he started rapping, going by the name klnv.) started rapping on beats with these vocal samples.
Scrims production while over the years has slowly gotten further and further from this style, was very much in-tune with a combination of this phonk-esc/phonk-adjacent style. While yes I do admit some songs are literally just Koopsta knicca beats remixed with banging 808s. Once again, the point of this post is that when scrim was making these beats. ALL KINDS of producers were making these beats, with all of these Memphis samples. Or bone thugs n harmony samples, or songs that sound like they copy the screw style from mfs who aren’t even from Texas. Yet scrim is really the only person to catch flack for doing this. Which I would understand if it wasn’t for one thing. Scrim both inside and outside of his music even in interviews gives an insane amount of credit to triple six for his whole style. I think the only time he doesn’t mention them when given the chance is on the no jumper interview. Yk.. the interview where he’s wearing a screwed up click hoodie. Another inspiration to his music which he also mentions the trill Clinton ep on to shout out Texas. Not to mention him and Ramirez made the three 6 mafia balcony lifestyle shorts popular.
Scrim has always wore his inspirations on his sleeve, never tried to take credit from these guys. Even after he started beefing with them (I don’t wanna talk about that. It’s stupid on both ends and I lost a bit of respect for both sides because of it. Just some dumb shit) you can hear the Koopsta knicca and the lord infamous (scrim literally calls himself YOUNG scarecrow as a reference to the original scarecrow infamous) from the way he raps. And even then scrim has shown since way back in 2015. He CAN rap without copying them. He just chose to rip off that style because he’s a fanboy and was in an era where everyone else was also doing this. Tho I do agree they ripped that style way more often than other artists did including other raider klan artists. And there samples tend to be just direct remixes half the time. But I also think scrim did a good job at evolving the old Memphis beats. I think scrim was just a guy in his mid 20s, who saw a bunch of people trying their hands at an adjacent genre to one that scrim had been autistically fixated on for years at this point. And because he had no idea where his life was gonna go at the time. Just decided to join in on the fun. And so as a black person no I don’t think scrim was at least PURPOSELY trying to be some kind of culture vulture, by evolving these beats for modern kids (at the time) ears.
I think scrim did a great job evolving beats like “I drove the Camaro off the causeway bridge” from “ Ridin in da Chevy” or “Germantown” from “torture chambers”. other such cases. I think he also has a good ear at intertwining some of these samples like “Cerberus” or “fuckyouall2k18” or “breakdalaw2k16” or “ reign in blood”. Not to mention there are also many songs from that era where just like with rapping. Scrim is also capable of producing without sampling any 3 6 vocals, or even any vocals. Ik crazy right? Now ik people call the boy$ sample merchants in a general sense. But once again. This goes for practically 99% of producers, including Kanye. And it was popular to have samples clearly and blatantly blaring on your beats in the 2010s underground era.
Now to some negatives. I do know scrim is also known for literally just snatching fully fledged beats off the internet and just tweaking them a bit and calling it a day (stop calling us horrocore was an already existing beat that was just redone with different kicks and scrims vocals from black beard and then they called it a day) which when I found out, regardless of scrims beat output. Did make me lose respect for him. Not necessarily because I thought he was god and would create a beat for the boy$ by thinking about it. But because he doesn’t give credit. But there’s also plenty of rappers who don’t give producer creds period. That’s not to say that makes it ok. But I do get the idea of just taking shit you like just to get the work done. Then there’s shitty stuff like the jgrxxn situation. Grxxn and $lick are both producers. So they fucked with eachother heavy through 2015. But around the time they had their last concert together. Sometime during the dirtyna$ty$uicide tour. Scrim stole vocals from j from “GOT ME FUCKED UP” and put it on opana. When that song exploded into popularity and j started asking for royalties. Putting it out there that he never actually gave him the sample. Scrim for years would not give him credits. Or when scrim had to. He would just say “we trade samples all the time he’s a friend of ours”. Now ik grxxn is a manipulative bi polar asshole. And if not for Rubys advice. Peep and Ghostemane would’ve been getting pulled down by j longer than they should have. The downfall of schemaposse is still an entirely separate situation. Scrim still needs to take the blame for this one. Otherwise it still adds to the list of things people can take away his credit from for being a good producer
To try to end this off. Sampling is something that’s huge. And more noteably disscused in underground rap than in mainstream. And for fucks sake. Memphis artists sample eachother all the time from back in the 90s. Triple six actually used to get into shit from also sampling artists and not crediting them til after (sound familiar?) I mean seriously. Koopsta has an unreleased song that samples the intro to change by deftones. This also isn’t to mention that a lot of the dark vibe Memphis rap evolved to. Wouldn’t be ANYWHERE without dj screw and the screwed up Texas sound he created. Am I saying scrim is the best producer ever? No. One of the best? Also no. Do I think he deserves all the hate he gets when there’s much more nuance to be discussed about his beats? ALSO NO. I think a lot of kids nowadays want to make TikTok’s larping about knowing about the history of underground production and get some views off of hating the boys cuz they liked a few songs from there’s off some edits they heard back in the day, but never really cared for them, and since hating $b is at an all time high and on going. They can try to get away with it.
I just wanted to add my 2 cents (or 2000 from the looks of it) of the controversy of scrims production. And shine some light on anyone who may not know ceratain things. If yall made it to the end. Lmk yalls 2 cents
A wild shiny scrim has appeared!
What the FUCKKKKKKK did scrim sample on this beat? This is potentially one of scrims best beats, and this is probably the hardest instrumental to find the sample of. Somebody said it might’ve been from a game once but then never fkn elaborated If anybody knows lmk