Puerto Rican Queens, New York born and Bay Area raised emcee Rico Pabon loves hip-hop and lives hip-hop. He has for years. In fact, I first interviewed him way back in the day-- in 1991, right after he arrived on the Bay Area hip-hop scene with his group the Prophets of Rage. Sixteen years later, the conscious hip-hopper is still diligently putting it down in the Bay -- mainly in the East Bay. When not in Richmond recording or spending time with his family, Rico can be found at his other spot over in the Fruitvale district of Oakland -- Sofrito Authentic Puerto Rican Cuisine at 3451 International Blvd (E 14th St), which he owns and cooks for. As you know, there's no money to be made in conscious hip-hop these days. Besides, Rico treats the restaurant, like his hip-hop, with love. And he loves keeping his Puerto Rican heritage alive through its culinary creations and the concept that food can help create community and foster culture. The restaurant has become a needed gathering space for the East Bay's Boricua community. (14,000 Puerto Ricans in Alameda county alone!)
In the early days when Rico started, the Prophets of Rage consisted of himself, his good friend, known then as "Crazy" and his older brother DJ Park, who used to make most of the beats. By the time Prophets of Rage released the album My Power, the group was just Pabon and had been since then until recently, when he started using his own name on projects such as his recently released Louder than Fiction on Hard Knock Records. Note: Prophets of Rage also appeared on Independent Sounds: Amoeba Music Compilation Vol. III with the track "Make The Most."
AMOEBLOG: What is the exact meaning behind the new album title?
My friend and sometimes host for 90.7 KPFK's Travel Tips For Aztlan Mari G confessed to mistaken lyrics on her myspace page. Because of all the latest hype about the Transformers, it was exposed that she had been singing the wrong lyrics to their theme song for years. She thought the Transformers song went: “Transformers, robots in the sky!” Rather than “Transformers, robots in disguise!” She also mentioned that her brother thought that "Red Red Wine" went, “Reg-gie White,” maybe because the late great NFL football player was all over the news when that song was out. 
Along the same sports theme, when I was a kid I thought the lyrics to The Commodores song "Easy" went, "Why in the world would anybody Wilt Chamberlain?" rather than, "Why in the world would anybody put chains on me?” Don't ask me why, it's just what I heard. When that song was out Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was in L.A. and Wilt had long split the scene and was no longer in the news.
Also, for some reason, in Santana’s version of "Evil Ways," when they sang, “You got to change your evil ways, baby!,” I heard it, "Que hijo de tu (p*nCh#) madre, David!"
Maybe because my pops muttered that under his breathe to me all the time!
Got any mistaken lyrics of your youth you'd like to share?
Thanks to director Leon Ichaso, I got to see an advance screening of the film El Cantante. Ichaso found out that I’m a huge Hector Lavoe fan, so he invited me to see the film. To me, the Willie Colon albums with Hector Lavoe singing rank up there with such albums as Sgt. Pepper’s, Pet Sounds, What’s Going On?, Innervisions, London Calling, Straight Outta Compton, Nevermind & Low End Theory. They are that good.
Lavoe’s story is legendary. His voice captivated a generation and pushed Salsa into the forefront. In the Fania Records heyday, the artists were filling up concert halls all over the world, including selling out Yankee Stadium. There were many talented musicians that were responsible for making Fania a giant in the record business, but Hector was Fania’s rock star. With that came his tragic rock star life.
In the movie, Marc Anthony has the daunting task of playing Hector Lavoe. For not being a Marc Anthony fan I think he does adequate job of it. During the film, especially during the live sequences, it's easy to forget Marc isn’t Hector. The same cannot be said about J-Lo. Jennifer Lopez plays the part of Lavoe’s wife, Puchi, and she never stops being J-Lo, perhaps her biggest downfall as an actress. There are very few moments when she slips out of the J-Lo role and is somewhat believable. Most of the film is done as a narrative from Jo-Lo’s character's point of view, a la a Behind The Music piece. It would have been better to skip that all together and perhaps develop a better script that gave the characters more depth. The rest of the cast is only serviceable, just enough to keep the story moving along. Besides the script never allowing the supporting cast room to develop, it never showed the development of the revolutionary style of music called Salsa. The way the film portrayed the origins of Salsa was as if the style developed overnight. rather than showing it was music that developed through time. The movie's pace seemed better suited for a T.V. movie. I wanted more from this movie than it could ever give me.
So last night I finally go to see the Klaxons live. I refuse to go to popscene, so I had to wait for them to play a real show. They played at the Great American Music Hall. Not exactly where I expected to see them, but I do love it there. I have seen some amazing shows there and always love to look at the great architecture and ceiling. Curt actually told me that he would love to be the persong who paints those ceilings, at least in his next life. However, I don't think I could handle being suspended from the ceiling like that. We eventually scored some seats in the upstairs area usually reserved for people eating dinner. But I think I only saw one person eating
dinner last night. It is kind of a weird thing to eat while a band is playing. Isn't that what you do before you go to a show? Dinner theater is one thing or maybe eating during a 3 hour Celine Dion performance. But not during the Klaxons. Last night was also the night of mistaken identities. Curt swore he saw my coworker Margo upstairs. But I didn't think it was her until we went upstairs to investigate and I saw her tattoo. But right in front of me, I swear I saw another coworker Nick, who also happens to look like one of the guys in Chromeo. But as soon as he turned around, probably cause I was staring at him, I realized it was not him. We did get some good people watching in, once we got our seats upstairs.
Opening up for the Klaxons was Fist Fite. We planned on missing them but ended up getting there early since we only live a couple blocks away Another reason that I love the Great American Music Hall. But they ended up being awesome. Like a mix between the Gossip and the Lost Sounds. They are from Portland and really just the kind of band I think of when I think of Portland. The singer sang the entire show through a telephone. But she had trouble balancing the phone between her head and shoulder while playing keyboards. So she eventually got someone from the audience to help her tape it to her head. They had really great stage energy and played super fun loud music. Both bands actually made comments about San Francisco audiences being better than L.A. And I have to agree. I have been to many L.A. shows and they just don't dance or get excited down there as much as up here. I am really glad we got there early to see them. They currently don't have a CD out but I will be patiently waiting for one.
