King Tee - Career

Career

Tee had been around the Los Angeles hip hop scene for many years alongside Ice-T and Kid Frost and acted as a pioneer for the genre. In 1988 he made his debut with Act a Fool, considered a classic amongst west coast fans.

During his time with Capitol, Tee began mentoring a young trio of rappers called Tha Alkaholiks, or "Tha Liks," as well as their loosely affiliated collective called the Likwit Crew. The Likwits included Xzibit, who would later rise to fame and bring king Tee close to Compton producer Dr. Dre. Tha Liks put out their debut album under King Tee's guidance on Loud Records in 1993. Tee greatly influenced The Notorious B.I.G. with his deep voice, flow and rhyme style, which Big would at times imitate on his 1994 album Ready to Die. Tee later paid homage to Biggie on the track "6 In'a Moe'nin" on his album Thy Kingdom Come, using a similar setup to and vocal samples of Biggie's track "Somebody's Got to Die." Recently, Ice T confirmed in an interview that King Tee was B.I.G's favorite MC.

After 1994's Tha Triflin' Album, on which Tee worked with Marley Marl, he left Capitol for MCA and put out IV Life in 1995. After leaving MCA as well, he built with Dr. Dre and ended up signing to the producer's label, Aftermath Entertainment. However, Tee only released three songs while on the label, "Str8 Gone" and "Fame" which appeared on Dr. Dre Presents the Aftermath and "Some L.A. Niggaz" which appeared on 2001; the two began recording for King Tee's Aftermath album, but the project was subject to repeated push-backs. Eventually, King Tee requested a release from the label.

King Tee has also worked extensively with Oakland rapper/producer Ant Banks. He first appeared on Banks' 1997 compilation Big Thangs, in the song 'West Riden' and in 2000 he was featured in the "Lead the Way" album of Banks' supergroup T.W.D.Y., in the song "No Win Situation".

In 2002, King Tee independently released his Aftermath album, Thy Kingdom Come, produced by Dr Dre and Battlecat. He also released The Ruthless Chronicles in 2004, which had songwriting by Tee's protégé Young Maylay and featured some of the songs seen on Thy Kingdom Come and others produced by DJ Quik. In the interim, Tee has guested on DJ Muggs' Soul Assassins II album. He was mentioned on Nas' song "Where Are They Now?" and appeared on the West Coast remix, along with Kam and Ice-T and other California artists Breeze, Candyman, Threat, Sir Mix-A-Lot and The Conscious Daughters. After this appearance, he put out a mixtape called Boss Up Vol. 1 with music by Snoop Dogg, The Game, J-Ro and several other West Coast artists. In 2006 he made a guest appearance on the song "Poppin' Off" from Xzibit's album Full Circle. He has also reportedly started his own label, though no artists are yet signed to it. A remix of the song Money has appeared on Dr. Dre's son Hood Surgeon's The Autopsy Mixtape. The song was renamed "Fast Money" and features King Tee and Dr. Dre. The original song was on Thy Kingdom Come.

King Tee's daughter Heaven McBride was killed in a car accident on May 19, 2009. She was 16 years old. King Tee is currently signed to Table Records Music Distribution. http://www.tablerecords.com