Mellow Man Ace
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Ulpiano Sergio Reyes (born April 12 1967) is an Afro-Cuban rapper known as Mellow Man Ace and original member of the rap group, Cypress Hill
Born in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, and raised in South Gate, California Reyes is best known for the song "Mentirosa" ("Liar" in Spanish). The song took a riff from Carlos Santana's "Evil Ways" as the music, repeated and tweaked to fit the lyrics, which were sung in Spanglish (mixing English and Spanish). "Mentirosa" was the first Spanglish hit record. According to Reyes himself, B-Real came up with the "Check this out baby" line in the track.
Reyes is the brother of Cypress Hill's Sen Dog, and frequently utilizes Cuban slang in his rhymes. Musically, Reyes did a couple of hip house tracks, but mainly hip hop tracks, produced by the likes of Julio G, the Dust Brothers, Def Jef, the Baka Boyz, Johnny Rivers, Tony G (producer) as well as Cypress Hill's DJ Muggs, and his self. Not all of his music mixes Latin and hip hop. His first album contains only one wholly bilingual track, "Mentirosa", but all in all, about half of the tracks include Spanish lyrics. On the second album, which was produced by Bronek Wroblewski, Julio G, DJ Muggs, Ralph Medrano, and Tony G, about half of the tracks were in Spanish or contained Spanish lyrics; one song was in English with a Cuban accent. However, on his third album, From Darkness to the Light, produced by the Collective Funkateerz, DJ Muggs, Cuban, and Tony G as well as himself, Reyes didn't actually mix Spanish and English but kept the languages separate, with only two tracks in Spanish and the rest in English. On Vengo a Cobrar (2004), Reyes returned to mixing the languages, with Bronek producing the whole album.
Reyes is considered the "Godfather of Latin Rap." In 2002 he was inducted into the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame. "Mentirosa" was the first platinum single by a Latin rapper, and "Mas Pingón" was the first all-Spanish rap single.
Originally a member of Cypress Hill before going solo and releasing his album prior to the group's debut, Reyes teamed up with older brother Sen Dog of Cypress Hill to release a duo album under the group name "The Reyes Brothers." Although he has guest featured on Cypress Hill albums, this marks the first collaborative LP effort between the two brothers, with their album Ghetto Therapy released October 3, 2006 on Latin Thug Records.
Discography
- 1989 Escape from Havana (Capitol)
- 1992 The Brother with Two Tongues (Capitol)
- 2000 From The Darkness Into The Light (X-Ray)
- 2004 Vengo a Cobrar (Dimelo)
- 2006 Ghetto Therapy (Latin Thug) (with Sen Dog, as The Reyes Brothers)
