The Outfit, Texas and Maxo Kream Are the Perfect Texas Rap Match: Watch Their Video for "Ü"

The Outfit, TX and Maxo Kream are kindred spirits: Relatively young artists who are steeped in the traditions of Texas rap but are also plugged into the internet and the wide world of music that comes with it. Both know how to take the raw, fun, and slightly sinister sound of forbears like DJ Screw and turn it into something modern—in a way that stays truer to that source material's original spirit than, say, Drake attempting the same trick.

That the two would team up was inevitable: TOTX's Mel describes meeting Maxo when both acts opened for Kendrick Lamar in 2012, and they've been in touch ever since. And here is the long-gestating musical result: A new song, "Ü," with an accompanying, suitably dark video of the rappers chilling on a bridge and, obviously, drinking straight out of a bottle of Wild Turkey. It's straightforward, drawling Texas rap shit-talking, with a hook that goes "big rims when I ride / watch your bitch grin when I glide" and features lots of drawn-out oohs and ahhs. Jayhawk, Maxo, and Mel all come through with tight verses, although Mel steals the show with the line "you a player from the Himalayas / you a ghetto dope rhyme sayer." Mel shared a few thoughts about how the two acts round each other out over email:

Continued below…

Maxo is known around these parts for mobbing pretty deep, and we pretty much move as three everywhere we go. At the same time, how he and the rest of the Kream Clicc move was one of the things that we dug about bro Maxo. Maxo is an authentic hardhead, and that’s how a lot of hardheads move, and you rarely get authentic versions of those in hip-hop music, nowadays. Music needs that authenticity. We all have patnas that are resting in peace, or confined in some private prison somewhere that once had dreams and the talent to do this music shit. So, to us, Maxo personifies our desires for more real ones to make it. We funk with each other off the strength of all of the aforementioned elements, and most importantly the mutual respect we have for each other. We wanna see each other win. Ü is the first of many more byproducts of this.

"Ü" will be on The Outfit, TX's upcoming album, which they are preparing for this fall. It will be their first full-length release since 2013's Cognac/Four Corner Room. It follows "Wild Turkey," the excellent, zoned-out track they released a couple weeks ago. Maxo Kream is coming off his excellent mixtape Maxo187, which we premiered in March. For those in Texas, TOTX is heading on a short tour in June, the dates of which are below. Basically, there is lots of good stuff to look for from all parties involved here. Man, I'm so pumped. Texas is awesome. Music is dope. Here is the video for "Ü":

The Outfit, TX tour dates with Bones, Xavier Wulf, and Chris Travis:

6/10 – Dallas Curtain Club
6/11 – San Antonio - Korova Upstairs
6/12 – Austin - Red 7
6/13 - Houston - East Down Warehouse

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