The first time Demone Carter hung with Sultan Banks was at a high school backyard battle rap. By the time Banks walked in, Carter was already waist-deep in a slow-moving rap battle that had long since become a war of attrition.

“Me and this other kid from Andrew Hill had been battling for an hour or so and it wasn’t very good or entertaining,” Carter recalls. “Then he strolls in, asks if he can have the mic, and he’s just brilliant, destroys both of us. He was clearly the best rapper there.”

Within a few months, Carter, Banks and their friend Jesse James formed a crew together, Lackadaisical, making their performance debut at an Andrew Hill High School pep rally in 1994. Just a few years later, Banks would change the sound of rap entirely, producing beats for hip hop icons like Keak da Sneak, Too Short and E-40 under the name Traxamillion. 

Sadly, this past weekend, Traxamillion passed away at the tragically young age of 43. Stereogum reports the producer had been battling cancer since 2017. Until recently, he had been living in hospice with his aunt in Santa Clara.

The late producer’s passing precipitated an outpouring of love online.

“We lost a true Bay Area cornerstone to cancer today,” tweeted hip hop tastemakers Empire. “Rest in Power to Traxamillion, the architect of the hyphy sound and a legendary producer to the fullest.”

“Rest up my fella you will be missed,” Vallejo rapper E-40 wrote on Instagram, captioning a video of Traxamillion developing his beat for the 2021 hit “I Stand on That” (featuring Joyner Lucas and T.I.).

Though he never worked with him directly, DJ Cutso of The Bangerz and Wild 94.9 tells Metro the two producers met often and shared a mutual passion for South Bay music.

“His mark on the Bay Area music scene will be indelible,” Cutso says.

Traxamillion’s distinct production—spare and gritty, but full of handclaps and the bounce of rubbery synths—laid the groundwork for much of the hyphy movement in the mid-2000s. Many genre classics often associated with Oakland, like “Sideshow” with Mistah F.A.B. and Too Short, and genre anthem “Super Hyphy” by Keak da Sneak, were brought into the world by the San Jose producer.

In 2018, Carter and his co-hosts on hip hop podcast Dad Bod Rap Pod interviewed Traxamillion for the show’s 30th episode. At the time, the producer revealed San Jose’s unique influence on his sound.

“He talked about growing up in San Jose and the Latino influence on his music, which was through freestyle and high-NRG [music],” Carter says. “Being from San Jose really helped shape what his sound would eventually be.”

And though the sound and aesthetic of hyphy will always be attached to his work, Traxamillion was never simply a hyphy artist, nor was his influence confined to the Bay’s hyphy years.

“He was a trailblazing pioneer,” Carter says. “The sound that he was a contributor to has really reshaped rap music. If you look at the stuff that DJ Mustard and YG and all these guys from LA ended up doing, it’s heavily based on the hyphy movement. A lot of what he contributed to is now just part and parcel of what we call rap music.”

Sirens, Traxamillion’s last album, was just released in May. The album featured all women rappers from the Bay Area, artists like Mother Goat, Qing Qi and Krissy Blanko, all going hard over Trax’s beats. The sample that opens late album track “Bounce Dat Ass” bursts forth like a rallying cry for the record itself: “I want to ask you right now, if you’re not standing at attention, to stand in vagina power and manifest your destiny.”

Ever a champion for his scene and his collaborators, as recently as July, Trax appeared in the music video for “What Happened (feat Lil Kayla),” from Sirens. In it, the San Jose producer drives a G-Wagon wearing an orange and black camo hat which reads “Slapps.” By the time the video was shot, he had been battling cancer for years.

“That’s who he was,” Carter says. “He was trying to make success for others. He was continually trying to make others shine.”

Those still looking to get hyphy after Mac Dre Day on the 5th can’t do much better than seeing San Francisco underground rap legend and Mac Dre collaborator Andre Nickatina—the killa whale—bring the party to South Side SJ’s Branham Lounge. Often spoken in the same breath as both the Thizz Entertainment founder and E-40, the artist formerly known as Dre Dog has been steadily releasing West Coast underground classics for the past three decades, and even rapped over a sample of “Juicy” a year before Biggie. He might be “The Most Hated Man in ‘Frisco,” but he’ll be feeling the love in San Jose.

Andre Nickatina
Thurs, 8pm, $40
Branham Lounge, San Jose

It’s been a little over two years since hyphy-heavyweight Keak da Sneak was nearly murdered in Richmond. The man was shot no less than eight times. “Can’t kill hyphy!” were his words two months later, as he dropped Withdrawl, his first album in five years. After recovering from the shooting, Keak, landed behind bars on a weapons-possession charge. However, the rapper is free, optimistic and continuing to rock shows despite serious mobility issues stemming from the targeted attack. “I’m so blessed,” he told CBS San Francisco in October of last year.

Keak da Sneak
Sun, 8pm, $22+
BackBar SoFA, San Jose

Roach Gigz’s scrubby, pestilent moniker betrays him. Unpolished and more than a little wily, the twenty-three year old rapper doesn’t immediately jump out as the figurehead for an entire movement—until you remember that he’s from the Bay Area, a place that finds its heroes amongst the hardscrabble.

The San Francisco native kicks off a 12-date Northwest tour March 30 at Avalon Ballroom that will take him up to Montana before finishing in Oakland.

“How does Snow White got a star on the Hollywood Boulevard?” Gigz tweeted during a late night stroll on the famed Los Angeles avenue. “That bitch ain’t even real.” Since 2008, Roach, born Orlando Campbell, has tried to located his own star. He’s chartered a course through previously unnavigable waters—determined to emerge from a ferociously proud and independent rap scene into the limelight—on a stage historically shared by only a handful of enterprising Bay Area rappers, most of whom are now in their 40s, or dead. But where persistence and insistence were their moors, borne from schlepping trunk loads of mixtapes from show-to-show, Gigz put his schemes online.

Not that he could help it, or knew of a different option. With only a few mixtapes to his name, Gigz rode the Internet all the way to New York, appearing on MTV2, reviewed in the New York Times, and later, drunk onstage at Austin’s SXSW festival.

And then last year, something a little more interesting happened.

Toronto-based producer Jeremy Rose, very recently outed as the true architect of gothic R&B act The Weeknd, remixed a Roach Gigz song. Currently working under the name Zodiac, Rose walked away from his brooding brainchild because of creative differences with partner Abel Tesfaye, just weeks before rap superstar Drake would cosign the group, giving them, or rather just Tesfaye, the publicity of a lifetime. Given Rose’s success for both gauging and masterminding a new sound, his appreciation of Roach Gigz bodes well for the rapper’s chances at branching out of the Bay.