Back In The 336, Pt. 1
People go back and listen to old music for a variety of reasons — to remember a particular point in time, to remember a person (or group of people), to appreciate a specific mix of language and sound that they haven’t heard captured in the same way since. Sometimes people go back and listen to something simply because they appreciate that it still exists at all. That’s always been me when it comes to the song “In The 336,” by Phonte, Mez, and Charlie Smarts.
It’s an odd and weirdly nostalgic thing, in an age of seemingly limitless access to information and almost-infinite “cloud” storage, whenever something falls between the digital couch cushions, findable only by those who know exactly how and where to search for it. In other words, those things that no string of magic words will make Siri or Alexa capable of finding for you. “In The 336,” is one of those lost needles in the Internet haystack.
Or at least, it could’ve been. After all, where’s the rest of the mythical “L.S.D.” mixtape that the song supposedly belonged to? Who else was on it? What year did it officially come out? I’ve asked the entire Super Empty staff these questions and no one seems to know. I’ve searched the DatPiff internet archive. And yet, despite so much around it having evaporated into the ether, “In The 336” has valiantly outlasted internet obsolescence for more than a decade — an NC hip-hop fossil kept alive by, as far as I can gather, little more than a couple barely-trafficked links, a few popsicle sticks and some duct tape.
I hope that in reading about it, you’ll appreciate its existence too, and maybe, find yourself reminded of some long-forgotten fossils of your own.
•••
For starters, there’s a distinct tell in the opening moments of “336” that what you’re hearing is a relic from the early-2010’s.
Characteristic of an era in which rarely a new mixtape came out that wasn’t in some way affiliated with a lifestyle or clothing brand, Phonte begins the song not with the opening lines of his verse, but with obligatory shoutouts to The Dropouts and Likuid Nation — two brands that North Carolinians of a certain time and place may remember, created by former NC State basketball player Cam Bennerman* and designed by Jason Clary*, both involved with the song’s release.
Another sign that it’s 2011 (or thereabouts)? Well, it’s helpful to ground ourselves in the other works of Phonte Coleman at this time. He’s just given two standout verses to The Roots’ widely acclaimed 2010 album, How I Got Over (“Now or Never” and “The Day”). He’s in the midst of releasing his first solo LP, the stellar Charity Starts at Home (including the great “Life Of Kings” video with a cameo from his mom), and bringing Little Brother flavor to multiple songs on 9th Wonder’s The Wonder Years compilation album. Even for a rapper whose unique blend of buoyant delivery and incisive lyrics had already earned him near-universal respect from his peers, the releases from this period felt different. The golden era of LB may have been increasingly distant in the rearview, but Tay — maybe liberated by the merciful dissolution of Little Brother, or maybe with something to prove because of it — sounded hungrier than ever. Blistering from the outset, his verse to open “In The 336” seemed to capture the moment in time perfectly:
Back to handling business,
Tay rap like a vandalist spit it,
Like a can of acrylic,
Spray paint/ they ain’t seen ya man in a minute,
He’s possessed, he’s a man on a mission,
Y’all soundin like amateurs, innit,
Stay scannin the blueprint, but
can’t understand how we did it…
Everywhere y’all wanna go, I done gone there,
I’m in my lawn chair,
So fuck these armchair analyst n——s,
Always wanna lick off shots, but ain’t took a round,
Criticize my field, but ain’t took a down,
Shook when they see a legendary rap n——
And if you ain’t know about The Dropouts?
Homie that’s a cop-out,
And you a Tackleberry-ass n——,
Wi-Fi thug, Bluetooth fairy-ass n——,
Cam hit me up and said, ”Tay, have a beat,”
So at bar 16, competition can have a seat, holla
It’s all there: the wide-ranging metaphors, random references, and vivid imagery (shoutout to Bluetooth, Police Academy, and sitting in your proverbial lawn chair after “going there”), the almost-comical put-downs, the irregular rhyme scheme, the self-satisfied boasting that comes with being the first hip-hop act to ever break out of the state, the still-raw feelings over indignities suffered on the journey from the underground circuit to the Major Label Machine.
I don’t mean to diminish or insult the memory of The Dropouts or Likuid Nation to say that for a random track on a local, lifestyle brand-produced mixtape — in a period when he was doing songs with 9th Wonder, The Roots, and releasing his own solo debut LP — Phonte could’ve mailed this one in. He could’ve taken a play off, and no one would’ve blamed him. It speaks to his work ethic, and passion for music, that he didn’t.
It may also speak to his passion for the state, and for the other artists on the song. “On my NC shit right now,” he says, as he passes the baton — and symbolically, the torch — from the unquestioned elder statesman of the group to the 21-year-old phenom, and maybe NC’s next shot at a breakout star: King Mez.
•••
The first time I met Mez (“King” was dropped some time after 2015), two years or so after “In The 336,” I was pitching him on a project for a documentary class at UNC. After coordinating through a mutual friend, I came by his one-bedroom apartment in Raleigh, where he and producer Commissioner Gordon (today known as Sam Island) were working on tracks for his upcoming release, Long Live The King, in the living room. Though still largely unknown in the broader music industry, Mez had already made serious inroads, in underground hip-hop, at least: he’d been recognized in XXL, had put out an entire mixtape with 9th Wonder protege Khrysis (The King’s Khrysis EP), and even had one of the songs from his most recent project, My Everlasting Zeal, produced by a guy named J. Cole. A long way from being a household name, but already someone seen as one of the 919’s, and the state’s, next possible stars.
Eventually the session came to an end, and Sam and the vocalist who had been with us went their ways. It was only natural that, after discussing some more of the details of the school project with Mez, I’d head home as well. For him to send me on my way would’ve been not just normal, but expected. But instead, he said something to the effect of, “You hungry?” and soon after, was buying us lunch at the food court in Crabtree Valley Mall, where we connected on music, clothing, creativity and more. Later that year, when I opened up a streetwear shop of my own in Chapel Hill, he was one of the first people to visit.
I share this not because it has much to do with the song “In The 336” itself, per se, but because it does have much to do with the earnestness and humility of the artist who sits at its center — tethering the scorched-earth bravado of Tigallo’s opening verse to the uplifting, half-sung, almost joyous one from Charlie Smarts that closes the song.
Given the trajectories of their careers, there was much significance to Mez and Phonte trading 16’s at this point in time, so it’s not all that surprising that it would happen more than once. In addition to “336,” it also happened on the closing track on Mez’s aforementioned King’s Khrysis EP, on which, as a show of respect, Mez gave his predecessor the final word of the album¹. In his closing lines on the album’s outro, Tay speaks to the same old guard-new guard dynamic, and appreciation for the classes in NC coming up behind him, that would end up lending similar resonance to “336”:
On “336” the order is reversed, but the chemistry is the same. The self-assured energy Phonte closes his verse with is the same that Mez launches into from the jump:
Most artists, even transcendent ones, tend to be known for one attribute above any others. With Mez, it’s hard to imagine a more immediately apparent trait than the crisp yet sandpaper-rough voice that’s totally unmistakable once you’ve heard it even a single time. But despite the singular voice, he’s always been a writer first — tucking double- and triple-meanings into tight spaces, playing with alliteration one moment and spinning tales of family, childhood, heartbreak and perseverance the next.
On “336,” no doubt aided by this insane Wantigga beat², the penmanship and technical proficiency that would just a few years later land Mez writing credits on all but one song of Dr. Dre’s 2015 Compton album is on full display. Not just the words themselves, but also the way he delivers them:
With Mez’s emphatic “like that” as an exclamation point³, there’s just one appearance left to come. It’s the contribution that takes things over the top, from great, to truly special.
•••
Like any posse cut⁴ that’s worth writing about 12+ years after the fact, there’s no obvious slouch of the group on “In The 336.” It’s in large part what has kept me coming back to the song for years and years, from college days to my early-30’s: the sharpness from all involved, from beginning to end. And yet, the lack of a weak link doesn’t mean there isn’t a hierarchy of status that most fans and listeners would assume going in — one that probably wouldn’t have Charlie Smarts at the top of it.
And no, that’s not a dig, but it does require some historical context.
It would’ve been more than enough if 2011 in North Carolina hip-hop had meant just 1) 9th Wonder’s The Wonder Years album, 2) Phonte’s first solo album post-Little Brother, and 3) the release of J. Cole’s major label debut, The Sideline Story. But something else was brewing, too: a talented group of recent NC State grads, the founders of a hip-hop organization at the school called H2O, were releasing the first full body of work that would mark their introduction to the underground hip-hop world. Their name was Kooley High, and the album was called Eastern Standard Time.
I’ll save the full background and cultural context of Kooley High for the book I’m going to write about them one day⁵, but I’ll say that EST was more than just a surprisingly well-rounded album of tracks that still stand up next to current hip-hop offerings today. It put them on the proverbial map, with breakout songs on the blog circuit (particularly “All Day,” which as of today sits at 2.4 million YouTube views), and established the irreverent, whimsical spirit that would mark their style from that point forward — a “spread good vibes” ethos that managed to come off more as genuine fun than corny overcalcuation. The hook for “Betty Crocker,” illustrated it well: “It’s Betty Crocker, you know it’s Betty Crocker fasho’… said it’s a piece of cake, one take — but first you gotta give me the doughhhh!”
Now, back to the song at hand. As mentioned earlier, Phonte at this time is the most influential MC to have come out North Carolina, and Mez is quietly building the hype of possibly being the next big act to arrive. Impressive as EST (and the Summer Sessions EP before it) is, Charlie is just one of three MCs sharing the mic under the K-High banner — almost undoubtedly lesser-known than Tay or Mez⁶.
So it’s one of the delights of “336” that Smarts gets the track’s unquestionable top-billing — from a sudden, orchestral beat switch-up at the start of his verse, to performing the song’s one and only hook (“In the 336, in the 336, swear to God thought that I would never see these hits…”), to presumably sharing (alongside Phonte) the original inspiration for the title of the song itself (both hail from Greensboro).
As great as Tab-One and Rapsody are, it’s impossible to imagine Kooley High without the effortless dynamism that Charlie brought to the crew, something that, for me at least, made him feel at times like the closest thing there was to an avatar for the group as a whole. His verse on “336” — in which a sincere, almost saccharine tone through the first few lines ultimately gives way to a swaggering finale every bit as cocky as the guys before him — is C. Smarts at his shape-shifting best:
My mom told me if you leave,
people will appreciate you more/
So I got peace, the biggest piece I ate before,
And it’s a feast, you see me pay it forward,
My people won’t buy a CD that they can’t afford,
What I got in store, you don’t have to steal,
I was a passenger til, I started grabbin’ the wheel,
Parked the van on the hill, now I’m standin’ still,
Lookin’ toward the top, that’s where I’m plannin’ to build…
And then, after building to a peak of boasting and Biblically adjacent self-aggrandizing, there’s a hard left turn to a moment of humility — one of my favorite shoutouts in a song, and the perfect note to close the track with⁷:
As the beat fades out, the only vocal we hear is a clip of Kanye drawing connections between hip-hop and the church. Eventually almost everything falls away — aside from hand claps, and the feeling that for those who worship at the altar of NC hip-hop, we’ve had something of a semi-religious experience. Or at the very least, a damn good time.
•••
Last year, Charlie (alongside Kooley High co-conspirator DJ Ill Digitz) released the Charlietape — a characteristically boisterous, playful showcase of Smart's’ abilities, complete with production from 9th Wonder, lyrical assists from Tab-One and Skyzoo, and nostalgic, radio-inspired shoutouts from Don Will, Rapper Big Pooh, and Hot 97 DJ Peter Rosenberg, among others. I wanted to write up a little something about it, but never did. I still haven’t — but I will say, for now, that if you haven’t treated yourself to the wistful vignette of “Mezzanine,” or the triumphant, perfect outro that is “Foolishness” (“This beat is straight foolishnessss, coming from a crew that’s cool as shit…”), you’re missing out.
For Phonte, 2023 was a year on the road, following up 2019’s Little Brother reunion album May The Lord Watch with a nationwide tour of screenings for their documentary of the same name (directed by Rap Portraits — 220,000 views and counting!). The film was named Best Hip-Hop Movie of 2023 by HipHopDX, and recognized in The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, and Stereogum.
And Mez? If we’re talking music specifically, that’s harder to say. Recent years have yielded occasional singles and videos (including a COLORS appearance last year), but mostly visual work like music video direction for J. Cole and art direction for Puma, under his HEIRS creative agency label. But if recent teases are to be believed, this could finally be the year that a debut album lands on our phones (hopefully automatically, like that one from U2 back in the day).
One small prelude to everything that would come after, “In the 336” stands as a testament to a distinct moment in three artists’ careers, and to the culture of collaboration that surrounded it. It’s the best kind of time capsule — one that isn’t just valuable for the sake of its historical contents, but because it sounds good, too.
Let us pray to the Gods of Soundcloud and YouTube that we have it forever.
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* - Asterisks are used to denote facts that could not be verified by press time.
¹ Mez speaks directly to the influence of Phonte and Little Brother in the EP’s opening song, “Reach Out,” when he says: “To LB, and J. Cole, anybody who made those is predecessors/ We be grateful though the hateful tend to be hella clever/Love bring sunshine beamin’ through any weather, long as we stay together…”)
² I admittedly have no idea who this Wantigga guy is — seems kinda important to the song. Something to explore in earnest for Part 2.
³ Many of the verses from Mez around this point in time, as well as those from Lupe Fiasco and others, would end with an emphatic “like that…”. A passing fad, or something that’s been consistently popular throughout the years? An investigation for another day.
⁴ The “posse” in this case is simply being from North Carolina.
⁵ Speaking this one into existence. Call me, fellas.
⁶ This is yet another bold, highly unscientific assertion among many in this piece. For why I’d so recklessly throw claims like this around without thorough fact-checking, please see the disclaimer at the top.
⁷ Technically, the shoutout to Phonte doesn’t “close” the song. That honor would have to go to the song’s true final line, one that would have to be immediately enshrined in the North Carolina Rap Hall of Fame, if such a place existed: “In the 336, in the 336, when I touch down my girlie gonna feed me grits.”