Chilly Gonzales
I don't care what people say, this guy makes some really good hip-hop music. He's got a pretty nice flow and had his public image been different, he would have made it bigger. Although that's probably not what Gonzales was out after. When you parade around with a face like that, show off your amazonian thick chest hair and have a bad habit of wearing leopard-skin speedos or a pink suit and tie in public and bitching about the record industry, you're just begging for trouble from the big guys. Little did they know that he was attacking them through parody, by using the same tactics that got more famous artists on the map, but with a different goal in mind. Unfortunately, this seems to have failed; there never were any retaliating from Eminem or Puff Daddy's (P Diddy, P Combs, P Nut, or whatever he is called during that week) side, so his whole attack on the hip-hop scene can be considered failed. He has now moved on to other projects: after the hip-hop thing, he went ahead and proclaimed himself to be the president of the underground, gave that up and he now composes music for the piano (he is an accomplished player), but the hip-hop music remains and is still good, years after it was released.
In fact, if it weren't for Chilly Gonzales (The Entertainist was my first ever hip-hop purchase - like many other albums, I sold it to move to Sweden back in 2003), I wouldn't have went on and actually paid attention to Kool Keith, Missy Elliott, Clouddead, Eminem and the likes. By trying to break down hip-hop's sexist and materialist image (and making confusingly obscure references), he made me focus on the music and the production not the subject matter. I realize hip-hop, from the start was all about getting your message across and what the MC was rhyming about was the basis of the song, but with time and the advent of video and the market, it's basically lost all it's meaning and as long as the crowd's would be getting what they were force fed to want, they'd keep cranking out redundant garbage. Gonzales was definitely not what the crowds wanted even though his production was as good, if not better than radio and MTV's propaganda "artists".
The Presidential SuiteLabel: Kitty-Yo Release: 2002 Format: CD Cat. no: 7243 8120622 5 |
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