At face value, Houston’s Paul Wall, is known for his slow-drip flow. It’s the sound that fits the Southern iconography of flossing at a purposeful leisurely pace. 

New England's Termanology made his name with finessing complex wordplay — with that signature East Coast intensity — that has underground heads rewinding the tape.

These two MCs may not seem like they would mash up with musical perfection, but if styles make fights in boxing, in Hip-Hop, they can also become the difference between a project that elevates each individual, and one perceived as a novelty. 

After teasing singles like “No Tolerance,” “Recognize My Car,” and “No Asterisk,” today, the duo drops their 10-song project, Start 2 Finish, as well as their latest video “Thailand,” featuring the Trill OG himself, Bun B. 

With the pandemic shutting down the world from 2020 until somewhere between 2021-present day (depending on the person), a lot of projects and tours alike were put on hold. But in the case of Paul Wall and Termanology, the timing felt nothing short of serendipitous when it comes to Start 2 Finish. Now as I talk to them on a rooftop in Los Angeles overlooking Paramount Studios and the Hollywood sign, I get a sense that it was all meant to be.

“We met a while back before COVID in New York when I was working on a project with Statik Selektah called Give Thanks,” says Paul Wall. “Me and [Term] got a song on there, but when I went to New York it was just straight vibin’ in the studio. This was before Statik and I were even thinking of putting an album out. It was just, ‘Aye, we’re in the studio, put a beat on. Lemme spit something. Lemme rap over one of these fire beats.' And Term was in the studio as well and he’s a dope MC, so when we started doing music together on that project that was the one domino that led to another and then another,” he added.  

“Then after the pandemic happened we started sending each other beats through email. It was easy. This is one of the easiest projects I’ve ever made. We just picked the beat, laid the concept, laid the rhyme, mixed it and that was it. It was real natural.”

Statik Selektah is not only a well respected and venerable producer, he’s also one of Hip-Hop’s great common denominators. A quick look at the collaborations the Bean Town beat smith has facilitated makes it clear that he low key might be Hip-Hop’s Clarence Avant, and for Paul Wall, it was immediately clear that he was in good company. 

“You wanna be on [Statik’s] team, you wanna be in that rotation," he says. "The first time I set foot in there I knew what time it was. I couldn’t wait. Me and Statik are friends, we fuck around but we never did music together so I was like, ‘I gotta get in this rotation,’ cause everybody that come through there, it’s like Paramount studios (he points to the Paramount Studio water tower), they makin’ hits outta there. “It’s superstars coming through there at all stages [of their career]. If Statik says, ‘This is such-and-such they ain’t got a project out yet but they dope,’ No matter who it is, you know it’s somebody that’s gonna be dope, which is the most important aspect of what we doing, the art of it. It’s not making money, sales, it’s not the look, it’s the art. Is it dope? Can we improve upon the dopeness. That’s really all that matters. One, it’s gonna be dope and two, it’s somebody that’s probably gonna be somebody. It may take ten years, it may take two years but everybody he fuck with is all A-list MCs. I don’t mean their celebrity, I mean their skills as an MC.” 

Termanology actually cited some of their recent collaborations to emphasize the point.

“Even now, we did the album last year, NEMS and Millyz blew up since then,” said Term. “If we dropped it last year a lotta people probably wouldn’t have known who they are, this year, NEMS got the president, Joe Biden talkin’ about ‘Bing Bong.’" 

Another one of those features was Fly Anakin who, along with NEMS, hopped on the single “No Tolerance.” Since then he released his new album Frank, which has become one of the most critically acclaimed drops of the year. The single kicked off the project and also showed the duo that they and Statik could put the pieces together even with everyone being in different places at different times. 

"That [collaboration] was all Statik. I wasn’t there for that one,” says Termanology. “Fly and Paul made the record together with Statik and then when I came, Statik just gave me the song and me and NEMS added our part, so it was almost like me and NEMS and Statik did it, and Paul and Anakin did their session and we put it all together.

Paul Wall added: “Us doing a project together was in the stars from us meeting. We had a great vibe together and especially when we got on a song together that’s when you could really see the chemistry was there. Then it was like ‘we gotta do more. Statik, you got another beat?’”

Start 2 Finish is out now on all streaming platforms. 

Coming Soon: Termanology speaks on the car ride with Guru that changed his life and Paul Wall explains why he had such reverence for Grandmaster Caz when he met the Cold Crush MC at the BET Awards.