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Vico C
"Desahogo" (EMI Latin)
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Salsa crooner Marc Anthony is often compared to the late Hector LaVoe, the great Nuyorican salsa singer. But if LaVoe were reincarnated today, his spirit and music would be a lot closer to those of rapper Vico C, a tormented ex-drug addict with the agile verbal skills of a street-corner poet, tremendous timing and a big, big heart.
During the '90s, while Anthony was gentrifying salsa with generic love songs, Vico C was refining an urban Latino rap that bristled with the raw passions, risks and rewards of the barrio. Born in Brooklyn, raised in Puerto Rico, he recently experienced a traumatic motorcycle crash, recovery from cocaine addiction and an evangelical conversion, and now returns with a provocative new album.
He quickly plunges into the ferocious title track, Spanish for "release," or getting things off your chest (literally, dis- suffocate). Despite his disclaimer that he doesn't pretend to be a preacher, Vico C's rap sizzles with a fire-and-brimstone righteousness. He skewers hypocritical politicians as well as the rap culture of sex, violence and materialism.
Unlike reggaeton, the popular but often monotonous Puerto Rican rap/reggae fusion, Vico C explores a stunning breadth of styles (guajira, reggae, classical, vallenato) and sentiments (outrage, regret, gratitude, love). He stretches out in several collaborations: In a duet with salsa star Gilberto Santa Rosa, he makes a soaring appeal for a lover's forgiveness with a Mozart- meets-Eminem string arrangement. And with reggae beats from Puerto Rico's progressive band Cultura Profetica, he delivers a wake-up call from a son to his distant, disciplinarian father. The least fruitful pairing is the guajira-hip-hop with D'mingo and Spanish rapper La Mala Rodriguez.
The most touching tune is Vico C's heart-wrenching tribute to his loyal wife ("Companera") who stuck with him during "addictions, afflictions and convictions." He urges her to dispel her doubts, calling her "my...