LATINO HIP HOP RADIO - Featured Artist

FULL CIRCLE
Interview by Chris Delgado
September 5, 2005

A lot of people don’t know who Full Nelson is. They don’t know of his international success or of the five albums under his belt to date, (not including remixes/re-releases). They don’t know about the countless shows he’s rocked in Spain in front of hundreds of screaming fans, (a market exclusively dominated by Spanish emcees). They don’t know that this Bronx born Dominican rapper, who was once signed by Russell Simmons, has spent the last five years setting him self up to be a household name. Yeah, there are a lot of people who don’t know who Full Nelson is . . . but they will soon enough.

LHHR: So you’ve been grindin’ for a minute now right?

Full Nelson: Yeah, actually I took up Latino hip hop towards the end of 2000, probably till then I was just recording American Hip Hop and basically my decision was because I was invited to participate on an album called “Para Mi Gente” produced by Domingo Padilla. I ended up doing a Spanish joint and was like, “Wow, this shit is pretty hot”!

LHHR: I read that you were previously signed to a subsidiary of Def Jam in 1995. Did you do an album with them?

Full Nelson: I was part of a group called Dope On Arrival, D.O.A., and we had several albums recorded. We were signed to Fever Records, which was a brother label of Russell Simmons. We were a part of a compilation of five groups in which we each had two joints on the album. The conditions was that they was gonna put it out to the public and let them decide which group was the hottest, and that would be the order in which we would be released. Unfortunately at that time the majors had done a crazy shuffle around, and within that shuffle we got caught up in the stitches and our music was never released. It was a great experience though. I’ve learned to appreciate opportunities, and learned to also accept failure at times. It was a big situation for us. Here you are, four Latinos sitting up at Def Jam Recordings for several meetings getting ready to jump into marketing plans and that kinda of thing, and it was pretty exciting . . . and at the same time, very disappointing when nothing happened. It just points back to the lack of understanding on how important Latinos have always been in hip-hop.

LHHR: Do you feel like the new exposure of a Daddy Yankee or a Pitbull could possibly turn into a situation that repeats what happened with the whole Latino Pop movement in 1999 where it was pushed as the next big thing but people went right through it then shit it out and they were done?

Full Nelson: Unfortunately whoever was pioneering that movement thought that pop was the way, but pop wasn’t the way because hip hop is the way. Especially during that time hip-hop was going through an incredible evolution of integrating into corporate commercials. As far as comparing that situation to the one we currently have with the strong push of reggaeton I really feel like it’s a benefit to us. It’s like what happened to hip-hop in the 90’s when reggae came in and for a long time, at least in the New York area, reggae took over the clubs and everyone was hooked on this reggae thing. It made a lot of people nervous. A lot of people really started to think that somehow hip-hop was going to faze, and I think that hip-hop is too strong of a culture to be effected by reggaeton. I feel like reggaeton is peaking and it’s gonna hit its peak, if it hasn’t reached it, very soon. After that dude it’s hip-hop time you know, so they’re basically openin’ up the doors. I big up Daddy Yankee. He raps on his reggaeton music, Don Omar raps on his reggaeton music, I mean they all rap!

LHHR: Back in 95 did you know other cats in the New York area putting it down in Spanish or have the flood gates just now opened?

Full Nelson: Naw, it wasn’t in Spanish. I really became acquainted with it in December of 2000 when I collaborated on the Domingo Padilla album and I started researching it. I just realized that there was this whole culture, a movement going on internationally that us as Americans were unaware of really, at least in my sector and I’ve always been hip-hop affiliated. I took my first trip out to Spain and was like “Wow, this is a good look”. Here I am grindin’ in New York and getting free trips out to Europe first class! I’m over here buggin out on graffiti and on the break dancing; it was like the four elements in full effect you know. It was a great look dude, and that’s something that’s very memorable to me. Before that I didn’t know anything about Spanish Hip Hop.

LHHR: From what I hear you got a grip of projects simmering on the stove, so what’s the current situation?

Full Nelson: This is my current situation right now, last year I recorded an album called “Confie en Mi” and that album is an album that I did collaborations with artists all across Spain, from La Mala Rodriguez to Ariana Puello. What I did was sign a joint venture situation label to label with EsTaoChunGo Records, and I have my label called LAH Entertainment, Latinos Ain’t Having It Entertainment. All my dealings internationally have been joint ventures, so we did it 50/50 on this record right here called “Confie en Mi”. They brought all the artists to the table and provided the studio, and I did my part and recorded. The album is crazy, it should be hitting the market sometime in the next month, (July 05). In Colombia I took my very first album which is Purina Pura and I reedited some of the songs in which I did colabos with La Etnia from Colombia, and Tres Coronas from out here and France and Colombia. We reissued the album out into Colombia, so we have that running trickling down into Latin America. In November of 2004 I recorded my most recent album which is called True Mansaneros in which Domingo Padilla produced 90% of the tracks. We are currently shopping it around. It’s an incredible album and it’s definitely setting the bar high for Latino Hip Hop artists. I just took it there dude. Once we get that situated we’ll have three albums circulating on three different continents so it’s quite exciting to see it all unfold. It’s a lot of hard work bro, but we definitely grindin and it’s definitely to send a message that us as independent dudes, as little guys, we can make shit happen.

LHHR: I read in an interview that you once said, “I’ll be damned if I don’t go platinum”. Do you think that to go platinum you’ll eventually have to look to a major label at least for distribution? Could this album True Manzaneros be the one?

Full Nelson: Yeah it definitely can be. I’ll tell you something the situation that I pulled out of was with Sony Discos, not to say that that situation is completely dead cause at the end of the day I may just turn around and say to the C.E.O. “Dude, you wanna try this again”? It may just work. For the time being I look at it like this, it’s all about relations, it’s all about contacts, and it’s all about having ties and people in different areas. Distribution is all about spreading it out as far as you can throw it, and I’ve learned from a lot of the independent labels around the World and even here on the West Coast, how cats on the independent grind get busy and they move units. It’s not hard to go platinum or gold if you know what you’re doing. If I gotta go up in a telly for a week or to in a certain area to make sure my product is in every store then that’s what I gotta do. Is major distribution an option? Absolutely . . . as long as the price is right. What we don’t want from the majors is to get jerked. It’s not about don’t work with them it’s just about don’t let them abuse you and rape you. Understand your business and make sure that you capitalize on them and not vise versa.

LHHR: So a quick discography.

Full Nelson: Purina Pura, Bachata Rap, Confie en Mi, True Manzaneros, and Jungla de Concreto which is unfinished at the moment but I might go back and finish it, or not.

LHHR: So . . . here it is. Your worst chancleta story.

Full Nelson: Dude I used to get my ass beat by my pops! I came up in an era when beating your kids was alright, but I was a fuckin hard head cabeza dura, cocotaso. Not really chancletas, but wet belts and towels, so yeah, he he I know about that.

FULL NELSON