Hip-Hop

This week, Billboard is publishing a series of lists and articles celebrating the music of 20 years ago. Our 2004 Week wraps here with rap trio Trillville, whose signature 2004 hit “Some Cut” has proved one of the most memorable hip-hop hits of 20 years ago, an incredibly enduring reference point across genres in the years since.
In an era when buzzy singles can spend just one week in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 before completely falling off the chart, the lifespan of a single feels especially arbitrary. Songs can stay perched at No. 1 for weeks or be the talk of the town and a distant memory within a three-day period. 

Songs like Trillville’s “Some Cut,” however, have proven to boast a gloriously endless shelf life. Twenty years removed from its initial single run, “Some Cut” remains the foundation of not just some of the biggest hits and dance trends of the first half of the 2020s, but also eternal inspiration for the squeaking production motif that has enamored countless styles and genres, from R&B and reggaeton to K-pop and Jersey club.

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“This is the sound,” stresses Jamal “Dirty Mouth” Glaze. “It’s an authentic sound. You can’t deny that sound because that’s the golden era of [Southern hip-hop and crunk], from the ‘90s to the early 2000s.” 

In 2004, “Some Cut” climbed to a peak of No. 14 on the Hot 100, earning the crunk trio the biggest chart hit of their career and one of the biggest club hits of the early ’00s. According to Luminate, “Some Cut” has earned over 157.3 million official on-demand U.S. streams to date and sold nearly 500,000 pure copies. Blessed by Lil Jon’s Midas touch, the unabashedly carnal track meticulously balances a gentle piano riff, sultry bass and guitar — and, of course, that iconic squeak loop. With the late Cutty Cartel kicking off the affair by rapping and singing perhaps the greatest series of questions in contemporary music — “What it is ho, what’s up? / Can a n—a get in them guts?” — “Some Cut” is nasty and proud. It’s the effortlessly suave delivery of each Trillville member, alongside Cutty, that allows the track to playfully toe the line between raunch and forbidden fantasy. 

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The crown jewel of Trillville and Lil Jon’s collaborations, the genesis of “Some Cut” lies in the scrappy can-do attitude of the group’s Donnell “Don P” Prince. As he tells it, Trillville was toiling away in the club circuit for a few years before “Some Cut,” packing out shows in Atlanta — thanks, in part, to group member Lawrence “LA” Edwards, who was a club promoter at the time. Eventually, one of Don P’s friends gave him the number to the CEO of BME Records, Lil Jon’s record label, and he seized the opportunity. 

“I was like, ‘Hey, man, we got something here! People keep telling me that our music dope, that they like it!’” recalls Don P. “It was something about the way I said it, because he was like, ‘Usually, people keep telling me that they’re the dopest and the best.’ So, he called me to the office, we developed a relationship from there, and I started going to the office every single day.” 

Don P’s persistence paid off tenfold once Lil Jon eventually attended a big warehouse show the group had been hard at work preparing for. Lil Scrappy, another Lil Jon protege-turned-club hitmaker, was also in attendance that night at the “crazy show,” which jumpstarted the professional relationships between all artists involved. 

In 2004, Jon launched BME Recordings with The King of Crunk & BME Recordings Present: Trillville & Lil Scrappy as the fledgling label’s first offering. A split album with each side hosting the respective debut albums of Trillville and Lil Scrappy, the LP debuted and peaked at No. 12 on the Billboard 200, spawning several singles, including the seminal “Some Cut,” and ultimately shifting over 1.25 million album-equivalent units.

Rooted in the raw, raucous energy of crunk music, the recording sessions for Trillville & Scrappy mirrored the vibe of the music. “It was just a party atmosphere, drinks everywhere,” Dirty Mouth reminisces. “You had the porn playing on the TV, that’s how we got inspired. We was young, wild and we had fun.” 

“With us, it was never just a [regular] studio session,” Don P adds. “The song that you hear is the vibe that was happening.” 

Of course, that studio session yielded Lil Jon’s magical “squeak” moment, which resulted in the priceless ingredient that made “Some Cut” such an irresistibly catchy and oft-imitated record. As the story goes, the Trillville crew were in the studio working on songs for their debut LP when the playback of “Some Cut” was queued up in the system. “We kept hearing something,” Don P says. “And I was like ‘What the hell are they talking about?’ Well, every time [Lil Jon] was playing the song back, he was [makes rocking motion] and the chair was squeaking. All at the same time, everybody was like, ‘It’s the chair! It’s the chair!’” 

In a moment of ingenuity that can only happen when a studio session is directed by the vibe of its artists, they mic’d the chair up, recorded the squeaks and placed them throughout the record — most prominently in the intro. Though those squeaks came from a chair, they recall the sound of a mattress during sex, hence its prominence as a go-to sample across genres in the decades since. 

“We was always an innovative and creative and we worked together because Lil Jon is always innovative and creative as well,” reflects Don P. “You could take any other group and I promise you they wouldn’t do that.” 

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That likely is the case, but even with its infectious composition, “Some Cut” wasn’t even originally planned to be a single from Trillville & Scrappy. “Neva Eva,” which peaked at No. 77 on the Hot 100, arrived on Nov. 4, 2003, as the first single for Trillville, while “Head Bussa” (with Lil Jon) was the first single for Scrappy. With “No Problem” heating up the streets as the second Scrappy single, the original plan was for the Pastor Troy-assisted “Get Some Crunk in Yo System” to serve as the second single from Trillville. 

“[The remix version with Snoop Dogg and Pitbull] of ‘Some Cut’ was supposed to be the first single from our new album, Trillville: Reloaded,” notes Don P. “What happened was, the DJs started playing [the original] ‘Some Cut’ on they own, so I called Naim [Ali], who our A&R at the time, after I saw how people were going up for the record in the clubs, and said, ‘Ay, bro, we need to push this record.” 

Just like how they self-advocated to originally connect with Lil Jon, having their ear to the streets resulted in the smartest marketing pivot of Trillville’s career. Trillville, BME and Warner Records didn’t just give “Some Cut” a half-hearted push for a late-album cycle single, they cranked out “a clean [version], super clean [version and], a super duper clean radio version,” jokes Don P. “There was so many versions of that song we did, I still don’t know which one to rap when I perform, to this day!” 

Given that the crunk music blueprint involves the songs percolating in the streets and clubs before breaking through on radio, Trillville had already heard “Some Cut” outside – but hearing it on the radio confirmed to them that the song had reach a different level of popularity. 

“I was driving and I heard [“Some Cut”] on either 107 or V103, I had to pull over!” laughs Dirty Mouth, “That thang was jamming too! I was like, ‘Damn, it’s on now!’” 

And on, it was. In just one week, “Some Cut” had eclipsed “Neva Eva” as Trillville’s highest-charting entry on Billboard’s marquee singles chart, and it wouldn’t even hit its peak until 14 weeks later. For Trillville, the biggest signifier that the song was resonating on a higher level than their previous songs was the increased diversification of their crowds. 

“I just noticed the crowd went from a bunch of Black people to a bunch of Black and white people to a bunch of Black, white, and Mexican people,” says Don P, with Dirty Mouth chiming in, “It was more women, though! More women than dudes and the dudes came when the women came.” 

Crafting records specifically catered to women is a hip-hop practice that is as storied as it is convoluted in the greater context of the misogyny that is intrinsically tied to the genre. With their previous singles erring more on the gangster side than the smooth-talking Lotharios they posture as on “Some Cut,” Trillville knew they needed something for the women. 

“We needed a female record,” explains Dirty Mouth. “We came up in the era of pushing and shoving and throwing bows and sweating — now it’s time to get on with the ladies. Give the ladies something that they can gravitate to. So, that’s what we did.” 

So, how exactly does a song this crass – made in a studio with porn playing in the background, no less – find a home amongst the ladies? Well, one answer lies in the late Cutty Cartel’s hook. Caked in a seductive Southern drawl and delivered with a swaggering wink that complements the twinkling keys in the production, Cutty’s hook is arguably the most recognizable part of “Some Cut,” at least as far as vocals go. The smoothness of his performance simultaneously masquerades the raunch of his lyrics, and provides a smart juxtaposition to the gruff delivery of each Trillville member. 

“Rest in peace, Cutty,” Don P says of the inimitable artist, who passed on Aug. 30, 2019. “He so smooth with it. He’s a rapper and an R&B singer, so he could come with that melodic sound.” Dirty mouth adds: “He’s the Nate Dogg of the South, I always say!” 

In addition to Cutty’s suave hook, the “Some Cut” music video also helped the track carve out an eternal place in the hearts of women across the country. In fact, the Fat Cats-helmed clip – which found the Trillville crew renting a mansion for a single day to host a house party – featured appearances from several women who would go on to be major fixtures in entertainment, including reality television star Porsha Williams and prolific video vixen Summer Walker (not to be confused with the future R&B star of the same name).

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And, in the spirit of a truly timeless record, “Some Cut” is still a source of inspiration for some of today’s biggest artists across R&B and hip-hop, namely TDE rap star Doechii, three-time Grammy-winner Victoria Monét and, of course, Beyoncé, who paid tribute to Cutty’s chorus backing vocals in the third verse of her remix of Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage.” Before Monét’s “On My Mama,” which samples another beloved ’00s Southern hip-hop smash (Chalie Boy’s “I Look Good”), she had a major viral moment in 2021 with a dance break set to the “Some Cut” intro. Choreographed by Ysabelle Capitulé, who was still a child when “Some Cut” first hit the streets, the dance break spawned hundreds of thousands of recreations across social media. 

Last year, just one year shy of the 20th anniversary of “Some Cut,” Doechii interpolated the track on her own Kodak Black-assisted “What It Is (Block Boy).” Opting to flip Cutty’s hook to a woman’s perspective instead of taking a stab at the infamous “squeak” sound, Doechii rode “What It Is” to the biggest hit of her career, peaking at No. 29 on the Hot 100 and earning her her first RIAA Platinum plaque. At the 2023 BET Awards, Trillville joined Doechii onstage to perform a mashup of both tracks. 

“My potna, J. White Did It produced [‘What It Is’],” says Don P. “He hit me up and told me he was doing something, but I just didn’t know what it was. Then Warner Brothers hit us up, [played us the record], and I was like, ‘Oh, my God!’ I loved that song from the very first time I heard it. So, of course, we all cleared it. I had no idea it was going to be that huge, but I kinda did because I loved it so much.” 

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Although “Some Cut” has remained one of the go-to early ’00s hip-hop cuts for contemporary performers, crunk, the defining sound of Trillvile’s catalog, is notably absent from the current mainstream. With a movie based on the Trillville story due early next year (music video director Todd Uno is currently attached to direct) alongside an accompanying soundtrack, Don P, Dirty Mouth and LA hope to reignite the coals of crunk outside of all the callbacks to “Cut.” 

“I wrote the script three years ago, and we just started production this year,” reveals Don P. “It’s been fun to cast other actors that look like us going through the experiences that we went through back then. This movie is going to show the young people what it was and give older people that nostalgic feel.” 

And as for the soundtrack? “It’s literally going to sound like an updated version of 2004 crunk,” teases Don P. “We’re trendsetters, it’s been such a pleasure to know that people really appreciated what we brought to the table, and the movie and soundtrack reflect that.”