Odelay Ese! Latin Rap Classics of the Early '90s: Kid Frost vs. Mellow Man Ace

If you're wondering about the creative process behind this blog, it goes a little something like this.

Usually, I'll stumble across a video I like on the Internet, decide it's combat worthy and start looking for an opponent. It's not actually that complicated. It's not like there's a ton of thought that goes into it.

This week was no different. I ran across a video I loved as a kid, then looked for a worthy match.

The Main Event

In the blue corner, from Pinar del Rio, Cuba, by way of South Gate, California, the lost member of Cypress Hill, MELLOW MAN ACE!

Mellow Man Ace (aka Ulpiano Reyes) started rapping in the mid '80s. In 1987, he formed a group called DVX with his brother Senen and their friends Louis Freese and Lawrence Muggerud. A year later, Ace would quit the group to go solo. Senen, Freese and Muggerud, better known as Sen Dog, B-Real and DJ Muggs, would re-christen the group Cypress Hill and go on to convince millions of fifteen year-olds to smoke pot.

Ace released his solo debut, Escape from Havana, on Capitol Records in 1989. The album did close to nothing for eight months until, in total defiance of music industry logic, someone decided to release "Mentirosa," a song where close to fifty per cent of the lyrics are in Spanish, as a single.

""Mentirosa" was a tremendous hit, going to number fourteen on the Billboard Hot 100. It would also be Ace's only solo commercial success. (He would have a minor hit with a remake of War'sLowrider" called "Lowrider on the Boulevard" as part of Kid Frost's supergroup The Latin Alliance.) His second solo album, 1992's The Brother with Two Tongues, sold poorly. He was dropped from Capitol shortly afterwards. He wouldn't release another album for eight years.

Here's the video for "Mentirosa." If anyone knows where I can get a hat like the one Ace is wearing in the video, let me know.



The Opposition

In the red corner, from East Los Angeles, California, the Hispanic Causing Panic, KID FROST!

Arturo "Kid Frost" Molina started rapping in 1982 as part of Uncle Jamm's army, the massive electro-hip-hop crew the was the West Coast's equivalent of the Zulu Nation. He chose the stage name Kid Frost as a tribute to the man who was alternately his mentor and his rival, Ice T.

After the breakup of the Army in 1988, Frost started working on his first solo album. Hispanic Causing Panic was released in June of 1990. Panic charted at number 45 on Billboard's Hip-Hop and R & B chart on the strength of the single "La Raza," the clip for which features some of the most awesome cholo fashion in music video history.

In 1991, he formed the Latin Alliance, a Latin Rap supergroup featuring Mellow Man Ace, ALT, Markski and The Lyrical Engineer.

In 1992, he released the concept album East Side Stories. The album flopped and he was dropped by Virgin.

In 1995, he dropped the "Kid" from his name, signed with Eazy-E's Ruthless Records label and released Smile Now, Die Later, which produced the hit single "East Side Rendezvous." He left Ruthless in 1997.

Frost is still making albums. His last album, Blunts and Ballerz, came out in 2007.

He all spawned hip-hop progeny. Frost's son is producer Scoop DeVille, who's made hits for Snoop Dogg and Baby Bash.

Here's the video for "La Raza."



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