"Whatever form you need, you know we has it," Element spits on "Intro (Welcome to the Gateway)," the first track off Second Family's latest album, Gateway Drug. El and partner in rhyme NoQuezt, together Second Family, are local street hip-hop heavyweights, a rep earned from their debut album Caskets & Funeral Homes and furthered by Sleep Deprivation - a 2011 Super Best of Tacoma Editor's Pick for "Best Mixtape."
But July's freely downloadable Gateway Drug is a conscious effort to temper the gangsta-ness and reach more listeners.
"With Caskets, that was for us. That was Tacoma," NoQuezt says. "Sleep Deprivation and Gateway are more for everybody. They have a more friendly appeal."
"We were trying to expand and be more universal. Caskets was what we wanted to do. I think a lot of people misinterpreted it and put us in this box," Element adds. "Gateway is us getting out of this box and letting people know we're not one-dimensional - the street rap, the gangsta rap box. The kind of thing people back away from."
Second Family's struggle is that of so many other hip-hop artists with a hard edge: balancing a sound inspired by the streets with one tailored for a wider audience.
The group formed in late 2005 when the rappers, in different groups at the time, linked up after those projects began to fall apart - hence the name, Second Family. While there is a glut of local gangsta rap (the majority of it mediocre at best), Second Fam stands apart and above, based on impressive writing chops and a sound owing to styles outside the usual West Coast g-funk. Element names Slum Village and Apathy as influences, while NoQuezt credits Bone Thugs N Harmony and Do or Die.
All in all, Gateway Drug is really not a marked departure from Second Family's earlier work, especially in terms of overall quality. The high-level lyricism is still there and the duo's song-writing technique has improved, a byproduct of being four years older than when they first started work on Caskets. It's a more mature and polished work with an eye toward future success rather than previous hardship.
"Caskets & Funeral Homes was a metaphor for burying the past. It wasn't about killing everybody or anything like that," Element says. "The bullshit's over with, we're burying the past, and this is our stamp to it and we're going on."
After the Gateway intro, "Represent That" is classic Second Fam funk, with banging keys giving an East Coast vibe to the duo's braggadocio. The next track, "Good Life," marks the first sonic departure to a friendlier sound, with Seattle songstress Dice compelling listeners to toast life's finer things. Singles "Too Many" and "Sexy Little Secret" (which will have a video debuting next week) are melodic odes to the ladies.
Despite going for a broader appeal on Gateway, El and Quezt still throw in a couple street numbers, notably "Murda Muzik," featuring NoQuezt vowing to "kill your whole family, now they hauntin' the house." Both readily admit they like making this kind of song more, and hope that by getting the listener hooked on the lighter product they can slowly introduce the hard stuff.
Second Family already has the next succession of releases planned out: next up is Substance Abuse, then Intervention, and finally Celebrity Rehab.
"It's about getting [the listener] hooked and rehabilitating them. It's about drawing them in and hopefully by the time we hit Celebrity Rehab it'll have had it's desired effect: shows, and we'll be on our way to success. More or less it'll be us coming out as a known entity," Element says.
Second Family also hopes it will bring to fruition another line from "Intro (Welcome to the Gateway)": "Next time we chargin', by then they'll be linin' up."