*** K-OTIX Silver Logo Tee in heather gray***
Our first 2 years as a group saw a tremendous amount of growth. Lots of recording and performing, networking with other artists, and hitting up the local college radio circuit. Sometime in 1993, we decided that the name “Guess Who” needed to go. We threw around a number of names and concepts, and for some reason we kept finding ourselves drawn to the concept of “chaos”. We initially came up with “Chaotics”, but in typical early 90s fashion, we flipped it with an intentional misspelling – “K-OTIX”. Someone in the group, who shall remain nameless, wanted to put “Idiotic” in front of it – “Idiotic K-OTIX”. I wasn’t really feeling it. When we visited the local indie station to announce our name change on air, the host (Will Strickland) called us out: “You, that ‘Idiotic’ joint is corny. Just roll with ‘K-OTIX.” And the rest, as they say, is history.
By the time 1994 rolled around, we started to set our sights on getting out of the city. Austin, TX had started catching notice as a city that favored live events, and it was only a couple of hours away. In March of that year, we were invited to perform in the first official hip hop showcase at SXSW. If you’re familiar with SXSW today, you know that it’s probably the most prominent music festival in the US, and anyone who’s anyone in music is crashing the party when it comes around. Back then, not so much.
I believe Matt Sonzala was the one that hooked us up with the gig. We loaded up the gear and rolled 8 deep in a white van for our first performance outside of Houston. I don’t remember an awful lot about who was on the showcase that night. The guys who would eventually become The Niyat were there. The Gravediggaz w/ The RZA headlined. Most notably (though not at the time), a hip hop group by the name of Hedz n Dredz performed, featuring a young green-eyed female MC who went by the name Erykah Free. She went on to do a couple of things…
That performance was the first and last time that we invited 20 people on the stage while we were performing. Somebody bumped me mid-verse, and the mic chipped one of my front teeth ever so slightly. I later had to get it sanded down. Not fun.
Now that we’d gotten the first out-of-town performance off our backs, we were well on our way to more (mis)adventures on the road…
