Mo'Joe

As the syrupy, screw-styled hip-hop became the marker for Texas rap music in the mid-2000s, artists like Mojoe's Easy Lee and Tre were broadening that definition with their own Texas brand of hip-hop soul. The bluesy touches and live instrumentation from their Mojoe Family backup band off their first album, Classic.Ghetto.Soul., introduced a unique duo that could meld soulful singing, expressive rhymes, and spoken word into a cohesive whole, which explains why they would describe themselves as "the Roots meet OutKast over dinner with Marvin Gaye at D'Angelo's house." Originally from New Orleans, Easy Lee (born Charles Peters) first connected with Tre (born Treson Scipio) in high school, after Easy Lee had moved to Tre's hometown of San Antonio, TX. The two both grew up on the same R&B, blues, and jazz classics, and in particular, they reveled in the important history of which Texas was a part for early jazz and blues, like guitarist Robert Johnson's legendary recording sessions in San Antonio. Distributed by hand, Mojoe sold over 2,000 copies of their Classic.Ghetto.Soul. debut after it was first released in 2003. As they came across many potential label deals, numerous A&Rs turned down their material, citing that their music wouldn't receive any radio airplay. Their luck changed when they auditioned in Houston for Mathew Knowles, father of pop-R&B star Beyoncé and manager of Destiny's Child, around Christmas time in 2005. Before they could even finish their performance, Knowles interrupted them to sign the San Antonio natives to his Music World Entertainment label. Their first album was then reworked — some editing, rearranging of tracks, and remastering — for a re-release in September 2006.