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.”

One of the founding fathers of gangsta rap and a West Coast legend, Ice Cube tops the bill of How the West Was Won. Featuring a bevy of ’90s hip-hop heavyweights, including Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Too Short and Warren G, it’s going to be like taking a roll down memory lane in the ’64 Impala. While it’s true that Bone Thugs hail from Cleveland, they too are connected to Los Angeles via Eazy-E, who signed the group to his label, Ruthless Records, and served as a mentor and executive producer on a number of their albums. Bone Thugs are slated to perform E. 1999 Eternal in its entirety.

Ice Cube
Sat, 6:30pm, $21+
Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View

As the crowd  waited for Rihanna to take the stage at the SAP Center last year, the opening DJ put on Too Short’s banger, “Blow the Whistle.” Being a local anthem of sorts, Short’s song got people out of their seats to dance and sing along—never louder than when the East Bay rapper called out, “What’s my favorite word?” The crowd lustily responded, “Biiiiitch.”

This could just be privileged hand-wringing from another think piece-prone white guy, but the direct, triumphant nature of the line still makes me cringe a bit. A decade after the song’s 2006 release, the track mostly holds up. But in these wokest of times, that moment sticks in my craw. Though I’m not particularly sure why. After all, Short’s favorite word certainly hasn’t dropped from rap’s vocabulary.

Hip-hop’s reigning social conscience, Kendrick Lamar, made it central in “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe,” the fourth single off his heralded debut, Good Kid M.A.A.D. City. It’s the first word in Vince Staples’ “Norf Norf,” an unflinchingly poignant tale of senseless violence in his native Long Beach. Father and philanthropist Chance the Rapper sprinkles it liberally through his radio single, “No Problem.” And Migos scored their biggest hit to date, “Bad and Boujee,” by using the word to describe their loyal ladies. So in terms of using a bad word, Short’s in good company.

A prolific artist, Short will release his 20th full-length album—The Pimp Tape—later this year. He possesses a bouncy, fun flow and gives a better live show than many contemporaries. But if you rap along, then you have little choice but to engage in a little transitive property misogyny, especially in his new album’s first single, “Ain’t My Girlfriend.”

Featuring three, big-right-now names, Ty Dolla $ign, Jeremih and French Montana, the track rehashes the tired trope of treating women like powerless playthings. Still, I doubt the dance floor clears when it comes on in the club.

Critics who dismiss rap whole cloth for its disrespect toward women miss the rich forest for a diseased tree. Still despite the often Drake-eclipsing success of Nicki Minaj, these attitudes have stuck around longer than homophobia, which has been fading since Eminem and Elton John’s incredibly awkward “See, we’re cool!” moment. And of late, it has been almost entirely blown up by Young Thug’s androgyny and Frank Ocean’s sexual openness.

As media has shifted online, traditionally underheard voices have gained platforms and pushed many to reconsider the impact of words, particularly those used to demonize the marginalized. So it’s a little strange to see hip-hop, today’s biggest, most flexible genre, struggle to keep up with the widely accepted idea that Short’s favorite word shouldn’t be thrown around so casually.

And perhaps a lot of it is in the inflection. As rap has grown, so has its uses for “bitch.” Sometimes, a rapper uses the word to flesh out a character. Or it’s slipped into a string of boasts too ludicrous to be literal. Or it’s deployed phonetically because it’s a punchy syllable that handily rhymes with “rich.” Or it’s preceded by “bad” as a term of admiration—or empowerment, if it’s a female rapper. But too often, it’s used to question the masculinity of a competitor, or to describe an unequal relationship with a woman, as Short & Co. do in “Ain’t My Girlfriend.”

America has a history of glorifying independent men who casually dispatch foes and attract myriad women willing to do just about anything to occupy the same space as they do. Rappers fit the mold. They’re modern-day cowboys who have (mostly) swapped bullets for bars.

From Jesse James to Henry Hill to 50 Cent, we’ve been spoon-fed these men as protagonists from before we started forming memories. So really, hip-hop’s misogyny is just a symptom of a country where 63 million voted to be represented by a man who said more objectionable things into a hot mic than any rapper ever has.

Look. When we put in Grand Theft Auto, we don’t play as the pedestrian. Rappers, including Too Short, invite projection into a long-admired American archetype. It’s fun to hear these chest-thumping words, memorize them and say them as though they’re your own. It’s tragic if you act on them. But there will always be millions of young men, alone in their room, asking the mirror, “you talkin’ to me?” The answer is obvious.

Too Short
Apr 15, 9pm, $30
BackBar SoFa, San Jose

In one of the higher profile shows hosted by BackBar SoFa in recent months, veteran Bay Area rapper Too Short performed to a near capacity crowd last night. After a series of opening acts and a crowd-moving set by San Jose’s very own DJ Goldenchyld, the Oakland emcee took to the stage, deftly moving between hits, like “Blow the Whistle,” deeper-cuts from the ’80s and ’90s, newer material, and some of his most popular features—which include Kelis’ “Bossy,” Chris Brown’s “Loyal” and Game’s “Or Nah.”

Metro photographer Greg Ramar was there to capture the action. Check out photos and a video of “Blow The Whistle” below, and see the full gallery here.

Still going strong after 25 years after his first major label release, Oakland rapper Too Short made a rare appearance Saturday in San Jose for a concert at Fiesta Nightclub.

Photos by Metro photographer C.J.

Last week we wrote about the fact that several homegrown Bay Area rappers, including E-40 and Too Short, were oddly absent from the Rock the Bells lineup at Shoreline over the weekend, despite the fact that they performed at the festival’s San Bernadino show a week earlier. It appeared to be a simple scheduling issue, but E-40 thinks it’s more of a conspiracy—as in, an attempt by the City of Mountain View to keep him out of the Rock the Bells lineup—and presumably any show at Shoreline—for the last few years.

“For some reason, the city of Mountain View won’t let E-40 and Too Short perform. They can’t even give us an excuse or nothin’, they can’t say nothin’,” E-40 told Fuse TV in an interview. “They don’t even know why they won’t let us perform…They don’t want us performing on our own soil, man.”

Mountain View city officials said in a statement they have no control over who plays Rock the Bells, and that scheduling decisions are made entirely by festival organizers. Organizers from Guerilla Union and Live Nation, who jointly produced last weekend’s event, confirmed in an email that all scheduling for the show was done on the basis of availability.

The question then, of course, is why E-40 thought he was available when everyone else thought that he wasn’t—and where his notion that Mountain View had deep-sixed him from the Shoreline show came from in the first place. E-40’s publicist initially said he would look into the matter, but did not return a request for comment.

The Vallejo rapper and Mountain View may still make nice in the near future—RTB organizers have left open the possibility that he’ll perform at Shoreline next year.

Click here to view the embedded video.