Falling Tyde

Black Spade says the contract impeded the success of his side project, Soul Rebels, which also includes Coultrain and Kash -- two guys who signed the contract. The story goes like this: Soul Rebels slipped a copy of their album to the road manager of nationally successful R&B artist Cody ChesnuTT. The road manager liked it so much that he invited the group to make an album. All systems were go. "We was getting the people ready, they were getting people ready in New York," Black Spade recalls.

The brakes were put on the project, however, when Soul Tyde's founders reminded Soul Rebels of their contractual obligation to the collective. Black Spade was pissed. "I could never do business with them again. I've been down with them since '96, but that's the outcome of it right now."

But Wes maintains that the contract was entirely reasonable.

"The deal that we had for each artist was just for one solo CD from each one," he says, adding that after the one album each artist would be free to pursue other deals. "It wasn't like no ten albums!"

But Teflahn says it was personal. "Some of us were actually good without Soul Tyde; that's when things started getting hectic and chaotic. 'Cause, like, you could function without them, and if you didn't need them, they felt threatened."

In any case, everyone agrees that Soul Tyde as it was previously known is finished. The lease has expired on the downtown studio space. Teflahn and Kash are focusing on their side project, Honors English, a group chosen as the Riverfront Times' best hip-hop act of 2004.

As for Mustafa and Wes, they did a show at Blueberry Hill together a few months ago. But Mustafa moved to Atlanta last October in search of greener pastures. "I wanted to get some farmland and stuff," he explains.

Despite his distance, however, Mustafa holds out hope that his group will resurface with a different face. "Soul Tyde is like an NFL team; the name 'Rams' exists no matter who's on the team. The idea of what we stand for still goes on. We still got some of the artists from the original group, but we had to clean the fat. We had to clean house."

Finishing up his juice, the 20-year-old Karim explains that he's just as happy to be gone. In fact, he says that he's one of the lucky ones; even though he signed the contract, he was too young at the time for his signature to be legal. That leaves him completely free to seek success with his side projects. He's particularly excited about Meta4 Experience, which also features former Tyder B-Hollywood.

"We're gonna be opening up for Devin the Dude at the Hard Rock Café on the thirteenth of March, and we're going to Memphis next month to open up for Murphy Lee," he says. "I've got real high expectations."