Custom Made - A Few Friends

Not everyone can be a social butterfly; those determined to march to the beat of their own drummers are often content with A Few Friends tuned into their wavelength.  Such is apparently the case with Bluff, Element, Scoobs and Six of Custom Made, a Los Angeles foursome who, true to their collective name, come with a sound that doesn’t quite fit the mold.  At first listen, the most striking facet of the group’s first Booth feature is Chris “THX” Goodman’s instrumental, which establishes a darkly catchy lo-fi groove by way of a few unique samples and provides an intriguingly off-kilter accompaniment to the emcees’ aggressive underground rhymes.  The choice to forgo the traditional hook in favor of off-the-cuff spoken-word samples adds to the cut’s rough feel, but the first speaker says it best: “F*ck keeping it real, keep it raw… when you’re damn raw you know what you’re dealing with, so anything out the ordinary, it ain’t out the ordinary.” A Few Friends can be found on forthcoming street album The Lost Weekend, a compilation of tracks recorded during the sessions for ‘07 mixtape Truth Be Told.