Fans of Houston hip hop who have enjoyed the Library’s main floor exhibit DJ Screw and the Rise of Houston Hip Hop will want to check out our new mini-exhibit Samplified Studios: Capturing the Sound of Houston Hip Hop. This small exhibit is on the 2nd floor of M.D. Anderson Library right next to Special Collections, and contains rare memorabilia from one of Houston’s noted independent recording studios. The exhibit runs through September 21, 2012.
Engineer Keenan “Maestro” Mosley, originally from Philadelphia, was born in 1958. He first started a recording studio in Philly, then relocated with his three brothers to Houston. He reopened Samplified Digital Recording Studios in Missouri City around 1990. There he recorded artists such as DJ Screw, K-Rino, Point Blank, BAM, the Terrorists, Klondike Kat, Big 50, and more for over a decade. He also wrote his own music, produced, and kept a detailed audio diary of his life. Mosley, who went by the professional name Keenan Lyles, died in 2010 at the age of fifty-two.
This exhibit celebrates the recent acquisition by the Library of the Samplified Digital Recording Studios Records, a collection of master tapes, business documents, photographs, and posters donated by Mosley’s son, Kendall Mosley. For more on Keenan Mosley and his son Kendall, who raps under the name Chane, check out the following articles.
Chane: Rapper Confronts Dad’s Death in Wrenching Video, Houston Press
Chane: Rapper’s Late Father Was Partner, Mentor, “Maestro”, Houston Press
Chane Drops Samplified Successor, 29-29/Houston Chronicle