That’s why, more than a decade after he released his first nationally-distributed album, the pioneering Kansas City rapper decided to call his forthcoming studio album Something Else.
“After all this music, you have the nerve to say to the world that you have something else other than what we’ve heard already, that’s cocky,” Tech N9ne says. “I knew going into this album that it was going to have to be totally something else beatwise, contentwise and featurewise. I went in on a lot of stuff.”

Tech N9ne delivers on his goals throughout Something Else, a rousing collection that takes listeners on an epic journey through Fire, Water and Earth sections of the album, a formatting tactic Tech N9ne also employed on his landmark Anghellic album in 2001 and his Everready [The Religion] album in 2006.
“Straight Out The Gate” kicks off the intense Fire section of the album. Featuring System Of A Down’s Serj Tankian, the song has political and religious overtones while highlighting both Tankian and Tech N9ne’s talents. “Serj, he’s a guy that takes chances with music and sounds and fuses them together and that’s how I feel about my hip-hop music,” Tech N9ne says. “Our being on a song together, that’s one of the biggest things that could happen. That’s why I put it first on the album.”