Mad Flava

The four-man Dallas crew Mad Flava were brief players in the mid-'90s "weed-hop" scene that followed the breakout success of Cypress Hill. Comprised of MCs Cold Chris the Soulman (real name: Chris Parker) and Don Kasaan, DJ Baby G the Cut Selectah, and producer/MC Erich "Hype Dawg" Krause, Mad Flava procured a deal with Priority Records after upping their profile with support gigs throughout Texas for established artists like KRS-One, A Tribe Called Quest, and Cypress Hill themselves. Concurrent to the popular explosion of Cypress Hill was the House of Pain phenomenon of 1992-1993. The Muggs-produced "Jump Around" had popularized the notion of a Caucasian MC. Mad Flava's main man, Cold Chris, was white and he and his group smoked prodigious amounts of marijuana. Everything pointed to Priority having a hit on its hands in From tha Ground Unda, the Flava's debut album. But litigation over sample licensing and distribution problems hung up its release, and by the time Ground finally arrived in late 1993, the Flava's brief window of opportunity had closed. A half-hearted promotional campaign from Priority did little to drive interest in the group, and soon Mad Flava faded back into the Dallas underground, casualties of a fickle hip-hop market .