By Roman Wolfe and Champtown
This week’s Footage Fa Dayz features Chicago’s pioneering Hip-Hop group Crucial Conflict from the South By Southwest music convention in 1996.
The clip was taken just days before they dropped their major label debut, The Final Tic on Pallas Records, in 1996, although their first EP Crucial Timez, was released independently in 1992.
Pallas Records was run by Hip-Hop pioneer Fab 5 Freddy, who helped over see the release of “Hay,” which moved a half-million copies upon its release as single.
Crucial Conflict’s best known hit was the single “Hay,” which was one of the first “Crunk” songs to cross over and achieve mainstream success in 1996.
The group, which consists of Wildstyle, Coldhard, Kilo, and Never even had their own dance, "The Giddy-Up."
“We sent out tape off old school style to a lot of companies,” group member Wildstyle told Champtown in 1996. “Put a little press kit together with three songs on it. We sent it out to different record companies. About seven majors. In about three weeks we got a response from the record label. Came down to Chicago and we showcased. We had a couple of majors, but we wound up rolling with Fab and them, cause at the time it was a good decision. That’s how we got hooked up with Fab. He came down after he heard the music.”
Because the term “Crunk” had not been introduced into the lexicon of Hip-Hop to describe a style of music, Crucial Conflict labeled their genre as “Rodeo” rap, a mixture of rap and rodeo.
Crucial Conflict released a follow up to The Final Tic, titled Good Side, Bad Side, which produced “Scummy,” which was a minor hit for the group.
These days the group is laying low, although group member Wildstyle is preparing to release a new album titled That Was Then, This Is Now and has recorded a track with fellow Chi-town artist Lupe Fiasco.