Mellow Man Ace

Born in Cuba and coming to the United States as a small child, Mellow Man Ace has possibly become one of the most influential Latinos in hip-hop. As a child Mellow man Ace moved from New Jersey to California; removing him from the main Hip-Hop movement that was originating in New York during the mid 70s. This isolation from the center of the hip-hop movement allowed Mellow Man Ace to become highly influential in California and create his own unique style of hip-hop.

Mellow Man became interested in hip-hop as a teenager in 1983 after hearing The Treacherous Three. Although the hip-hop movement had not spread to California at this point, he B-Real and is brother, Sen Dog began mixing and working to become hip-hop artists. This group with the addition of DJ Muggs became to be known as DVX and signed a deal with Delicious Vinyl. The success with DVX allowed Mellow Man Ace to pursue a solo career with Capital records and release his first solo LP Escape From Havana. The rest of DVX became to be known as the famous group Cypress Hill (25).

Mellow Man Ace was the first Latino rapper to reach Gold and Platinum record sales in the United States, paving the way for more-well known Latino Artists such as Big Pun and Fat Joe. He was also the first hip-hop artist to use Spanish and English on an LP and was one of the first to give this mixture, of Spanish and English, the name “spanglish” which is commonly used today (26).

His popularity was not only in the United States, but world-wide as he traveled to many Spanish and non-Spanish speaking countries such as: Argentina, Costa Rica, Japan, Mexico and Chile. His international concerts spread the unique sound of hip-hop and demonstrated the marketability of hip-hop music, which is a dominating genre in the world music industry (27).

Although Mellow Man Ace has taken several years off, he and his brothers released a CD in 2005 title The Reyes Brothers. The CD includes well known artists such as B-Real, Nate Dogg, and Warren G. They have also released a more recent CD, Ghetto Therapy which includes Snoop Dogg and other well known artists (28).

More information about Mellow Man Ace such as news about his new album and soundbytes can be found on his homepage: http://www.mellowmanace.com/biography.html.