Austinist Show Preview: Devin The Dude

We’ve always thought of Houston’s Devin The Dude in the same mode as DJ Quik, probably because we first heard him back in high school in California and the specific register of his nasally drawl, set against a Dre beat, reminded us a lot of Quik, who was killing it on local radio at the time. Though they’re pretty drastically different figures, Devin, like Quik, keys off of whatever-party-is-happening-at-that-exact-moment, and fleshes it out from there.

Devin's verses tend to organically float away from just simple rhymes about weed. “Doobie Ashtray,” his memorable 2002 collaboration with DJ Premier, might seem to explain itself away through the title. But it's a far cry from a glorifying portrait. Devin brings depression and self-pity into focus, and uses the prospect of getting high as a way of emphasizing his protagonist's inability to ever really escape his problems. Even when he's not consciously pursuing some sort of greater thematic tension, something hits you in all of Devin’s verses – his hesitant delivery, his overly-particular pronunciations, his way of building novel-like atmosphere in each verse - that you don’t get from, say, Afroman.

Many of the same Austin upstarts who supported Killer Mike last Friday - Gerald G, Southbound, Da C.O.D. - return to the Parish Room tonight to open for Devin. And if going to lots of rap shows teaches me anything, it’s that the DJ is only thing you can really ever count on. Wes Sanders and DJ Grip – two pillars of the Austin rap scene and both great talents - will be playing all night.

[ Devin The Dude's Myspace ]