Hi Power Soldier

Mr. Capone-E with Team PacMan and Amir Kahn.  Bonus radio interview.

Carolyn Rodriguez: From Selling Crack to Prescribing "Medicine" for the Soul"

One of the first things Carolyn Rodriguez, the Houston-based female singer and rap artist by way of Arkansas, by way of North Carolina, said to us is that she doesn't like bios. "When you make a bio you have to keep it politically correct," she tells Rocks Off. "You can't tell the real story."

She's right. By looking at her bio on her MySpace page, it keeps things really pretty. But come on, if Rocks Off hadn't had an in-depth conversation with her, how could we have known that the first time she came to Texas was to come buy cheap crack in Port Arthur, so she could mark it up eight times its value and slang it on the streets of Arkansas?

How could we have known that the first time she heard DJ Screw was not in Texas but in Oklahoma during another drug run and that she was smoking syrup-laced weed when the chopped and screwed first hit her pretty little ears?



Today, Carolyn is known as the Medicine Girl. You'd think it was a clever name that associates her with her drug-dealing days or the Houston rap mascot, Purple Drank, which is often nicknamed "medicine" on the streets (which makes no sense because that's essentially what it is). But it isn't a play on words. At 30 years old, Carolyn's full-time job is selling her music, not drugs. As for the reference to medicine, well, we'll let her explain.

"The theme is medicine for your soul," she says. "Any kind of mood that you're in, there's a remedy for that. There's medicine for the painful times, the struggling times, and the thing you had to overcome to get to a better place. My music is about what went on in my life and is more of a representation of me."

Yeah, Carolyn's story is somewhat of a cultural roller-coaster that starts off pleasant, gets real gutter and then turns into a tale of inspiration and hustle. Born in Raleigh-Durham, N.C., and raised in Fayetteville, Carolyn was the daughter of two Spanish teachers. Her father is a native of Spain and her mother is Anglo and taught on the Fort Bragg military base "where there were people from all over the world."

"I was exposed to so much as a little girl," says Carolyn. "I never experienced any kind of racism. What people grow up with and have to deal with in Texas and the Southern states, I really didn't have to deal with that as a child."


Every other summer in Spain, road trips with the family... for all intents and purposes, Carolyn was to live out her upbringing tip-toeing through life for the North Carolina State Ballet Company, shooting hoops for the school basketball team and impressing with solos in the school choir.

But like all divorces, they have the potential of impacting kids negatively and that's where this story goes from re-runs of The Brady Bunch to HBO's The Wire. With Carolyn's mother's family in Fort Smith, Ark., they'd uproot and settle there, and soon the cold reality of diversity not being the most embraced thing in certain parts of America would hit her in the face.

"I was in shock," she says. "There were hardly any black people and no Mexicans. I was always used to people of different colors. The redneck thing was new to me. I didn't know anybody I could relate to. The only people I could relate to were people of color, who did crime. I was drawn to the criminals, the thug life."


From ages 15 to 19, Carolyn sold guns and crack and joined a Crip gang that was made up of an influx of troubled youth from the Laotian, Vietnamese and Thai communities. "Crack became lucrative to me," says Carolyn.


But the good in Carolyn tugged at her. She knew she was smart, and hustle was in her veins. She recalled selling stuffed animals and stacks and stacks of books as a kid because she read them so fast. Why graduate a year early from high school to escape racism and then just sell crack?


Her father landed a gig at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville at the time Carolyn was soul-searching, and luckily, she had no felonies or major rap sheet preventing her from attending college and graduating with an accounting degree. She'll admit that it wasn't all out of her system. She sold weed to help her get through college and worked as a manager for Domino's.


And what used to be college playtime on the Karaoke machine with her four best friends in the world, turned into a gateway to successfully participating in talent shows sponsored by 97.9 The Box. Wanting to record a demo, she found herself in a booth at Dope House Records with Jaime "Pain" Ortiz, who hadn't yet amassed the stellar resume of two Latin Grammy wins, four more nominations and over 4.5 million in total sales.

​Here's where the bio is appropriate. In the last four years, Carolyn is known for major features on SPM's The Last Chair Violinist and has done countless more features, from rapping to singing hooks with respected artists in Texas. Juan Gotti, who had major-label distribution on his album, John Getto, put Carolyn's track, "Crush" on it against the advice of everyone around him. Another well known major-label artist, Dallas' Big Gemini, was the first to pay her for a feature after the two met at an SPM show in '01.

Today, she is essentially known as Texas' only significant Latin female hip-hop artist. Often times, she's the only woman passing out CDs and doing shows at Lowrider car shows and Medicine Girl is a huge hit on the streets and is being sold out of shops in San Antonio and Austin. Let's not forget her large followings in Phoenix, Denver and Los Angeles.

Let's face it, in the world of hip-hop where beautiful Latinas are usually bouncing ass and are the beneficiaries of champagne showers, Carolyn is setting a different precedent. "All these females nowadays are plastic," she says, referring to fake female artists and females in general, but excluding rising artists, like Swishahouse's Surreal, and legends like Mia X and Lil Kim.


"Their body is plastic. Their words are plastic. I'm living it," she adds. "I'm out there doing music 24/7, putting food on the table and keeping the lights on. There are talented girls but they're not pushing it and not living it. There aren't many chicks like me. Most are trying to see what they can get out of their man."
Write down the prescription, ladies. That's medicine for curing dependence.

Like Lil Webbie asked in "Bad Bitch," "I-N-D E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T, do you know what that means mayne?

Carolyn Rodriguez does.

Follow Carolyn on MySpace and Twitter.

HoustonPress.com

C Natra, Lucky Luciano, Dat Boy X - So Off The Chain

Underground Chicano Rap DVD Part 3

Slow Pain, ODM, Mr. Capone-E and more......

Throwed Off Mexican featuring Coast - I Apologize

Dem Milli Bois

Underground rappers take note.  The normal birth for most underground artist consist of creating a buzz in their hometown by selling mixtapes out of the trunk of their car, word of mouth, local mom & pops, and flea markets. If successful they cultivate that buzz into shows/performances and well known guest features, thus sky rocketing into the unknowns of success.

If that's what is considered typical, Dem Milli Bois are not your ordinary underground rap group.  Matter of fact, they are the complete opposite.

Hailing from the slums of Milliken, Colorado, Alpha Omega and J.R. better known as Dem Milli Bois have proven that you can book shows from buzz alone.  This can be said with all confidence because they were booking shows to open for the likes of Spice 1 and Yukmouth before they released their first mixtape 'We Aint Industry, We In The Streets'.  They are well known throughout Northern Colorado's 970 area code stretching across major markets such as Ft. Collins and Greeley.  Denver of course has caught the buzz and Texas is starting to embrace the young guns.

Dem Milli Bois are preparing for their second mixtape release in February 2010 titled 'Milli-Ville'.   Production is being held down by First Platoon Studios.  Recently the Bois hooked up with Dopehouse Records and Houston, Texas' own Juan Gotti for a track called "Texas to Colorado".

For more information visit Dem Milli Bois on Myspace and keep watch for new mixtape 'Milli-Ville'.

The Real Reality Show - Episode 7 (Season 2)

Chingo Bling finally finds a way to the Bay..unfortunately he STILL had to wait on the bus to arrive..meanwhile he finds himself doing things unlike him. The cast finally finds a ride back to Houston also because they have to catch a flight to San Antonio the next day..In the process they almost land in jail. www.chingo.tv



www.Chingo.TV
www.TheRealCompound.com

Stunta - Behind The Lyrics

The last time Rocks Off hooked up with Stunta, there was lots of talk about "keeping it 100."

"When I say I'm bein' 100 I'm basically sayin' I'm being 100 percent authentic, 100 percent true to myself and to anybody else," he says. "So to say 'Keep it 100' means 'don't fake the funk and be you.'"

Yeah, not much has changed since July. Stunta is still keeping it 100 percent. Since Rocks Off started really honing in on H-Town's Latino rap movement, we've tried to reveal a more personal side to the campaign's leaders, a "Behind the Lyrics" special that humanizes the hard exterior of the rappers' gangsta personas, if you will.

When Stunta stepped into the passenger seat of the Rocks Off ride during a recent video shoot, he kept it 100 on his upbringing, trying to stay relevant in the game, how rap doesn't pay his bills, and of course, regret.

Stunta revealed he was the son of an undocumented Mexican immigrant, who was in and out of his life and also a drug addict, and that in itself has served as a major inspiration for the evolution of his music.

"It was an easy transition to rap because of all the things I was going through, being forced to grow up," says Stunta. "Whether my father was in jail, on a drug binge, or being deported to Mexico; all that shit allowed my lyrics to come out so easy. I think my fans respect me for that shit. I keep it hood, but I also let them hear that real shit."

"I learned from him what not to do," he continued. "That's the best thing that he gave me. I tell him all the time."

Needless to say Stunta had to play dad to his younger sibling in the Aldine Mail Route area of the Northside. One of his proudest achievements, he tells Rocks Off, was raising his little brother who just got accepted to the University of Texas.

Funny, he said that at Jump Street, and then talked about getting his start in the game touring coast to coast with Chingo Bling, building a national fan base, and ballin' out of control while signed to the Worldstar Wetback's label, Big Chile. We guess family comes first.

"I see (Chingo Bling) like my big brother in the whole industry," says Stunta. "I was under his wing the whole time. Going on tour with him, I learned a whole lot of shit. The only thing I regret was spending all the money I was making on tour and through CD sales.

"I was still young. Too young to know to put some money away and get a studio. I was ballin' out. (In the end) I didn't have shit. I had a vehicle, a suburban Chingo gave me when I signed, and that got stolen. I didn't have shit."

And that's really where this story picks up in present time and becomes one of reemergence, reestablishment and leveraging what he gained on tour to stay relevant in the game today.

While Stunta is definitely among the top rappers in the local Latino underground, he's also Jorge Alvarez, 24-year-old husband and father to three girls and a baby boy. It may be hard to believe, but Stunta hustles through freelance construction work through his aunt's company. It's nothing he's hiding from the world in order to put up a false image of invincibility.

He's continuing to make music, and tells Rocks Off he's going to give it away for a dollar if he has to, because at this point in this career, it's about staying relevant and reorganizing his fan base around his sound "that has changed drastically."

"Rap don't pay my bills," Stunta says. "I'll keep it 100 with everybody. I'll put that on front-street. I ain't full time rapping. It's a slow economy. People ain't buying shit. They want to hear it, but they ain't buyin."

Stunta understands the market's behavior, and is acting accordingly. In mid-January, he's dropping a mix tape called I Need $$$ but, ironically, plans to give it away for free. Now that's a contradiction if we've ever seen it, but hell, if it's anything like his last mix tape, Crook, we'll take the free download.

"I have fans everywhere," says Stunta. "I'm going to put it back in their mind that I'm still out here. I'm still here but I'm doing my own thing with Hard Head Entertainment. I'm at that point that I ain't doing it for the money. I'm making this music giving it away for free. I just want people to hear my shit and know that I'm back in this bitch."

We look forward to the day when we can buy Stunta's music again. Trust us, it's 100 percent worth it.

Follow Stunta on Myspace and Twitter.

Source: HoustonPress.com Rolando Rodriguez