Kevin Madison aka K-Solo was the harder edge of the EPMD collective The Hit Squad who recorded 2 albums in the early 90′s. His 1990 debut Tell the World My Name was entirely produced by EPMD with Parrish Smith handling the majority of the work but Erick Sermon adding the classic opening track ‘Spellbound’. Vocally Solo was reminiscent of Big Daddy Kane with a high-speed hard delivery that, coupled with his storytelling style, vividly illuminated his adventures in prison, flirtation with crack, racism and of course sexual exploits.

Solo briefly became famous for his ‘Spellbound/Letterman’ style which entailed crafting his rhymes around the spelling out of words to create a delayed reaction punchline as the listener would take an extra second or so to decode the spelled out word.

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Spellbound would lead to one of the biggest beefs of the time between Solo and former cellmate DMX who also recorded a track entitled Spellbound featuring spelled out wordplay. DMX claimed that K-Solo had stolen the concept for Spellbound from him when they were inside together whilst Solo responded by claiming it was X who had bit his style and lost a freestyle battle to him in jail.

Solo even went as far as taking a lie detector test in the Beef II documentary to prove his claims, but the feud was never settled and the two traded diss tracks down the years. Unfortunately for Solo, by then few were checking for his name. After splitting from Hit Squad in ’93 following EPMD’s demise and signing to Death Row without releasing any material, he spent the rest of the 90′s as a ‘guest’ rapper often dissin’ his former friends.

Trivia

K-Solo stands for Kevin Self Organisation Left Others

K-Solo claims to have brought Keith Murray and Rockwilder into the Hit Squad family

Trained as a boxer and has offered to fight both DMX and Keith Murray in a ‘cage match’

Changed his style in the mid 90′s to sound harder and guested on Redman’s Muddy Waters LP

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Singles

Fugitive

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Spellbound

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Your Mom’s in My Business

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Slang Dictionary

Not much I think he says Phat once

90s Guy says

K-Solo was one of the most talented rappers in The Hit Squad and one of the more talented rappers of the 90′s to fall by the wayside. His later gruff ‘hardcore’ vocals showed that style eventually triumphed over substance and that the labels were only interested in pushing gangsta personas. Personally I preferred his storytelling rhymes over his gimmicky ‘spelling bee’ style but the dude would’ve smashed it on Countdown still. Shame he didn’t do more but he still managed to squeeze out this classic and ‘Times Up’ before EPMD split and fractured the Hit Squad.

90s Guy Favourites

All the singles above plus;

Tales from the Crack Side Tales from the crack side

Real Solo Please stand Up Real solo please stand up

Renee Renee Renee Renee

In fact just download the whole album below!

Link

On the DL

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