Mr. Capone-E

  California-born rapper Mr. Capone-E is no newcomer to the rap scene, but his new single, “Don’t Get It Twisted,” featuring Twista, is showing a lot of promise.  Will it be enough to expose him, beyond the niche fan base of Chicano rap, to the larger audience of mainstream hip-hop fans though?  Well, that’s the idea.

  I caught up with Capone-E in a phone interview last week, and we talked at length about the struggle to get mainstream exposure.  “There’s two worlds out there,” says Capone-E.  “You’ve got the Chicano rap fans and then you’ve got the mainstream fans.  Now, mainstream fans, they’re programmed.  The see it on TV, they hear it on the radio all the time.  So, in their minds, that’s what’s the best thing.  Chicano rap hasn’t gotten to that stage yet.  It’s barely breaking into radio.  And now that it’s on the radio, people are going, ‘Oh, now it’s on the radio.  It must be hot.’ But it’s been selling on the streets, the real fans out there have been buying this music for years now.  [Being on the radio] is broadening the fan base.”

  But while many may be unaware of Mr. Capone-E and his struggle to expose the Chicano rap game, his huge core fan base remains loyal.  “I have a strong fan base that’s waiting for me, they’re sitting in the cut, just waiting for me.  [When a station says Mr. Capone-E will be playing a concert,] whether I get played at the station or not, gente from everywhere show up out of nowhere.  I have people that tell me when I do shows that they have come from hours away, states away, to come to the show because that’s the closest show they can find me at.”
  As an artist, Capone-E is beginning to find mainstream success.  As “Don’t Get It Twisted” continues to climb the charts, he still manages to find time to run his label, Hi-Power Entertainment, which has a large roster of up-and-coming Chicano rappers.  “With Hi-Power, basically, I’m the vision behind it.  There are other people who help push [resources] into it.  But with [the label], I’m just doing the street thing and catering to my gente, my fans out there.  [Before, we didn’t] have our own voice, and now we have our own voice.  And I know in Las Cruces, there are a lot of people out there who have been waiting for stuff like Hi-Power to come, and here it is.  It was my dream a kid for something like Hi-Power to come along, and it never happened.  So here I have the opportunity to make stuff happen, and that’s what I’m doing.”

  Through the course of my long conversation with Mr. Capone-E, we kept coming back to his recipe to success, time and again.  Start by building a loyal street fan base, then use the resources that you generate to through CD sales to expand that fan base to the mainstream.  “There are going to be even bigger things in the future,” he says with the confidence of a prizefighter.

  Mr. Capone-E will be taking the stage at the Hot 103 Fall Jam this Saturday at Club Beverly Hills, at 150 Hermosa.  Also on the bill are Lil’ Flip, Marcos Hernandez, and local rappers The Teem.

  To hear my full-length interview with Mr. Capone, point your browser to www.lcsun-news.com/pulse.  It’s worth checking out.

-From Pulse
   October 12, 2006