The Houston rap scene is one of the most established in the US, no question. Since the 80's, it delivered a wide bunch of great rappers, and over time it developed its own identity. In the 2010's, this long journey continues, thanks to new heroes, The Sauce Factory. This collective, whose most eminent members are Sosamann and the false brothers from The Sauce Twinz, started buzzing with their unrelenting stream of mixtapes, but also with their beef with Drake. As usual, that vulture had tried to posture as a friend and supporter to promising rappers. But those guys are proud, and they love their city: they denied him the right to represent it.
The Sauce Twinz, indeed, are loyal to Houston's rap tradition. They've been praised by one of the city greats, Slim Thug. They claimed their respect for Fat Pat, the cult rapper from the Screwed Up Click who died in 1998. And through the undefined "Sauce" concept that qualifies their style or their allure, through their lyrics and the purple colors on their cover arts, they seem to allude to codeine, the drug associated to Houston's rap culture. However, despite their chauvinistic stance, Sauce Walka and Sancho Saucey sound like Atlanta trappers, more than perpetuators of the cinematic and screwed music of Houston. On In Sauce We Trust, their manifesto, the music is as unremitting and the raps as goofy as those from the Migos.
Like the latter, the duo built its formula over the nihilistic gangsta rap and the ego-trips of the South, and made them particularly ludicrous. There are "Versace"-like repetitions on "Drip", "2 Legited 2 Quited", "Cheese", and "93", and they are used ad nauseam. Onomatopoeias are there too, like their main adlib, "oooweee". The rhymes are limited to a handful of words, as expected with people who don't see themselves as rappers. Their melodies are rudimentary, and their flows are jerky. But their silly raps are possessed. There is something religious, some deep fervor, in the way Sancho Saucey and the even greater Sauce Walka revere their "sauce".
Together, or separately, or with other members from The Sauce Factory, the Sauce Twinz would continue with this formula. They would flood the market with new mixtapes, so much that even the most dedicated fan would be lost and exhausted. However, in this overabundant discography, and despite its own musical obesity, In Sauce We Trust stands out, along with Sosamann's Trap'd Out 2. From the disarticulated piano of "Know the Sauce Twinz" to the catchy steel drum that opens "Westheimer", from the R&B tentative of "Stay Down" to the social comments on "Black on Black Crime", an unusual but powerful track, it delivers some of the very best of The Sauce Factory, and consequently the best rap from Texas in the 2010s.
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