C-Note
Courtney Smith has been recording in Houston since 1992, is the most commercially successful member of the Botany Boyz, and did it entirely through a label he part-owned.
Early life and origins
He was born on 5 December 1974 in Houston and came up in the Cloverland area, joining the Botany Boyz and through them the Screwed Up Click. He has been active continuously for more than thirty years.
Third Coast Born
His first solo album was an underground success that eventually reached number sixty-seven on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart — a substantial result for a fully independent Houston release. It was revamped and reissued in 2000, and that version peaked at number ninety-one.
Big Shot Records
He served as executive producer on Forever Botany and has run releases through Big Shot throughout. The label functioned as the business end of the group, and his solo work is the clearest demonstration that the independent model worked.
The Screwed Up Click
He is listed among the Click's active members alongside E.S.G., Lil' Keke, Lil' O, Z-Ro, Yungstar and the Botany Boyz collectively. His voice appears across the Screw tape catalogue from the early period.
What he is known for musically
A deep, unhurried delivery suited to slowed tempos, over heavy Southern production. He is not a technical showman; the appeal is authority and a voice that sits comfortably in the Houston pocket.
Longevity
Thirty-plus years of continuous independent releasing, with two charting albums and no major label involvement at any point, is an unusual career shape and one that describes a lot of Houston rap better than the 2005 crossover story does.
Third Coast Born and the reissue
Charting at sixty-seven on a fully independent Houston release in that era required physical sales through local retail, car boots and swap meets, with no radio and no national distribution. The 2000 reissue reaching ninety-one afterwards is a sign the audience kept growing after the initial run.
Executive producing Forever Botany
He took the executive producer credit on the group's charting album, which places him on the business side as well as the microphone. That combination — rapper, label part-owner, executive producer — is standard in Houston and rare almost everywhere else.
Within the Screwed Up Click
The Click's membership list runs to dozens of names across two generations, and only a handful are known outside Texas. He is among the ones with an actual chart history, alongside E.S.G., Lil' Keke and Z-Ro, which is a useful measure of where he sits.
Thirty years in
He has been releasing since 1992 without a break, a major deal or a crossover single. That is the ordinary shape of a Houston rap career and it is almost never the version that gets written up.