Seagram

Seagram, a little-known gangsta rapper and producer from the Bay Area, demonstrated equal skill delivering storytelling reflections and menacing threats across relaxed funk beats and dark, horror-film-style productions, yet his catalog stayed small though widely respected. It consists solely of The Dark Roads (1993), Reality Check (1994), and the posthumous Souls on Ice (1997), each issued on Rap-A-Lot and all registering on the charts.

Oakland-born Seagram Miller entered the scene in 1992 via the stark G-funk single "The Dark Road," whose grim tone helped drive its parent album, The Dark Roads, onto Billboard’s hip-hop/R&B chart the next February. Appearances came from close friend and collaborator Gangsta P, Geto Boys’ Scarface, Willie D, and Bushwick Bill, as well as fellow Houston heavyweight Ganksta N-I-P. The more polished Reality Check arrived in 1994 and performed stronger commercially, peaking at number 53 on the R&B/hip-hop chart thanks in part to Too $hort’s guest verse on "Gangstas & Players." Two years afterward, Seagram and Gangsta P were shot in East Oakland; P recovered while Seagram did not. Souls on Ice surfaced posthumously in 1997, and its opening cut "Sleepin in My Nikes" later resurfaced on Scarface’s double-platinum 1998 release My Homies.