Phlayva Phlayva 4 Dem All 1994 EP

Madd Phlayva, who had to change their name to Da Phlayva for legal reasons, were a 3 piece out of Charleston, South Carolina. Soon after meeting at a local club in the summer of 1992, the MC's [Shrimp Boogie Down, Chawle Dawk Da Supastar and Maximillion] put down a small number of demos with local radio DJ and producer Jahmes Wizard at the Carolina DJ's home studio. Shortly after recording the demo, they dropped a single "Niteliphe/Hookas" on local Charleston based indie label, Rollin Records. If you were looking for a major deal back then in the South, you got your asses up to the Jack The Ripper music conference in Atlanta, GA.The group were booked to play the small stage at the conference, but after some dope feedback were asked to perform on the main stage. It was at the conference that the group ran into S.O.L.A.R Records label execs, who would sponsor the group and let them use their studios to record their debut album. S.O.L.A.R was Dick Griffey's label which was born out of the Soul Train show, co-owned by Soul Train host Don Cornelius. After the success of the earlier Disco Soul years, they were in decline, but recently they had just put out the huge 1992 Deep Cover Soundtrack with a post-NWA Dr Dre. Their main focus had been on R&B acts but with this recent Hip Hop/Rap success they were interested in widening their view.

The three Mc's were all in their 20's in 1993 and were just regular cats, making beats, chasin dime pieces and puffin izm. They had no experience of the music business and just wanted to keep doin their thing on the downlow. When they had to change their name cause of its [obvious] similarity to the Texas group Mad Flava, the group wanted to replace it with the name "The Phlayva Continues" but the label convinced them otherwise. It would be another disagreement that lead to local and then nationwide headlines. Maximillion was the group's design guy, but the label had other ideas for the album cover. Vertical was owned by Angel Quintero, the original owner of Rollin Recs and his partner Sherman Evans who owned a clothing store in Charleston called Utopia. The two businessmen fused their businesses and set up NuSouth Apparel. The two came up with a way to promote the group, grow their music/fashion business and make a political statement in the process. For the Da Phlayva album cover they decided to subvert the Confederate flag by switching the colours to red, black and green, representing African-American liberation and T-Shirts were made to promote the project. At a gig at Stratford High School in South Carolina a bunch of free T-Shirts were given out to the students. Finding the T-Shirts offensive to some [racist? ha] students [parents?] the school banned anyone from wearing them or face suspension. One girl Shellmira Green, 16, chose suspension. The story reached local newspapers and then major outlets picked it up and it went on to raise the subject of racism, nationalism and regionalism on a national level. Seeing an opportunity, Quintero and Evans made a load more of the T's which they sold in their store and then all over the country.

The group's relationship with Vertical began to deteriorate. Their fight was not the fight of the label. They avoided questions about the flag when jounalists asked and they didn't cooperate with the label's methods of promotion. Following them showing up late for a show where notable major label A&R men were in attendance, Vertical lost interest in the group. The whole flag/cover controversy occured before the album had dropped and when it did it seemed the group were overshadowed by the politics. The label didn't press any vinyl for dj's and music customers and focused their efforts on the clothing line. So here we are 20 years later droppin 6 tracks from the previously CD/cassette-only release from 1994.