San Quinn & Messy Marv "Explosive Mode" TV Album Video Promo 1998 (Voice-over by Gary Baca)
Channel: Gary Baca TV
Date: 2021-05-01

I was hired for the voice-over by Phunky Phat Garph-X and the Underwood brothers based in San Leandro, California.  This video got airplay on local Bay Area TV stations and MTV affiliates in 1998.   

Explosive Mode is a studio album by San Quinn and Messy Marv. It is the first installment in the three-album series, which did well through independent sales and is considered a Bay Area–classic in the late 1990s.

MESSY MARV & SAN QUINN :: EXPLOSIVE MODE

What’s probably not as obvious is the fact that Messy Marv has been recording hip-hop classics on his own and with a variety of partners for years. In 2004 Scalen Muzik reissued one such album, 1998’s “Explosive Mode” with San Quinn. Instead of just putting one one disc of digitally remastered music, the label went the extra mile to include a “Chopped & Screwed” disc as well as a bonus DVD. 

Marv has a pimpish fly flow and seems to have no problem coming off smooth on any beat, and San Quinn has that deep voice that gives him a commanding presence any time he grips a microphone. Putting the two of them together is like putting together Daz Dillinger and Kurupt, or Run with D.M.C. – it’s just a natural fit. Once the appropriately beats are applied to the mix, it all comes together – on songs like “Money Now” for example. Just peep out how San Quinn and Messy Marv spit on the track:

San Quinn: “Ain’t no friends we all cousins
Baby networkin, money ain’t nothin
You got it all? You need to quit perpin
A quarter million wouldn’t satisfy me
I be a Master like P, and I act like Luni
Only God can do me
Burn a crutch with doobie, approach smoothly
Only ladies with paper amuse me, and broke hoes choose me”

Messy Marv: “Trust a bitch I never would
Hoe I’m too major, havin paper like Tiger Woods
Famous in the ‘Moe
Rob from the rich and slang llello to the po’
Flip and manipulate a dumb hoe
for way mo’, I tell ’em BIA-TCH!!
I love ballin’, how could I be tired of bein rich?
Been off the hook so long, got disconnected unexpected
And you niggaz is wrong for payin hoes and hoe protectin”

Long before it was trendy nationally, this duo was all about making sure to “Pop Ya Collar” with guest star E-40, over a classic G-Funk beat. In fact taking the P-Funk and making it G-Funk is what these two do best on beats like “Discourteous,” but they also wreck their own brand of bumpable beats on tracks like “Presidential” while straight showing the “Bay Luv” to all their fellow compatriots wrecking the scene from Vallejo to Fillmoe.

Messy Marv and San Quinn are unapologetically gangsterish, pimperish, misogynistic and straight twisted. That’s exactly what makes “Explosive Mode” an unheralded West coast classic, as well as a hip-hop gem. Messy Marv and San Quinn spit game from “Home” to “Takin’ Inventory” and the beats remain solid and consistently appealing throughout. This is an album to party to, to enjoy in the headphones at home, and to most definitely cruise with the top down on no matter what state you hail from. This one’s right at home in the laid back Sunshine State though, because Marv and Quinn don’t have to exceed in gangsterish behavior to make a hardcore record. Occasionally their G gets tested, but for the most part they stay cool as fuck, and the most explosive part of “Explosive Mode” is how well the beats bump in your subwoofer.