Baby Rasta y Gringo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Baby Rasta y Gringo, real names Wilmer Alicea and Samuel Gerena, respectively, are a Reggaeton duo from Puerto Rico, famous for their track El Carnaval (The Carnival). They have released three albums, New Prophecy in 1998, Fire Live in 2003 and Sentenciados in 2004. Sentenciados came out in both parental advisory and edited versions, and a "platinum version", including a bonus DVD, was released in 2005. Even though their first album came out in 1998, they started recording together in an album produced by DJ Negro, The Noise.

They started their career in 1988, and along with DJ Playero and Vico C, were one of the first reggaeton artists. Even so, they failed to get much recognition. By 1992, reggaeton was extremely popular among the underground scene. Due to its obscene and vulgar lyrics, the Puerto Rican government tried to eliminate it completely. Baby Rasta y Gringo, along with Tempo, responded by producing songs aimed at the government.

In 1998 they released their first album, titled New Prophecy. It failed miserably on sales, and many thought they were doomed to fail, especially with the arrival of Héctor y Tito, who were quickly becoming reggaeton's greatest talent.

After only appearing on several compilation albums, they released their second album, Fire Live in 2003. Though it sold better than their previous album, it still was regarded a failure. Baby Rasta y Gringo were quickly garnering enemies, due to many of their songs being aimed at other artists, namely Lito y Polaco and Pina Records. Even after all this, they were the most popular underground duo, with sold-out concerts in dance halls and such. They were also getting individual attention, with Baby Rasta being noted for his skills at writing romantic lyrics and Gringo for his rapping abilities.

With reggaeton finally getting worldwide recognition, and other duo's (H&T, Karel y Voltio, among others) on the verge of separating, they decided to try once more, and released Sentenciados in 2004. This was the break they had been waiting for so long. Sentenciados was, and still is, regarded as one of the greatests reggaeton albums of all time. Featuring many hits, it included El Carnaval, the duo's biggest hit, and one of the most popular dancehall songs in Puerto Rico.

They separated in December, 2004 because of problems with their record producer, who Gringo says paid more attention to Baby Rasta alone, instead of them both as a group. It has been alleged that they have an ongoing beef, with people alleging that Baby Rasta has dissed his former partner in live shows.

Baby Rasta has achieved success and fame, mostly due to his appearing on many artist's albums and landing a hit with his only Billboard Top 100 hit so far, Hay De Mi, with producer Noriega

Gringo's solo album El Independiente is going to be released September. Gringo also released Reggaeton Con Navidad on December 13, 2005. It featured Bebe, Machito, Klasico, and many others.

Their hit, El Carnaval, is unusual because of the fact that the song samples another of their songs, En La Disco. En La Disco was never very popular, only known for its catchy tune. Nevertheless, Baby Rasta sampled it and even re-used some of the lyrics for he and his partner (minus the more explicit ones), and El Carnaval was born. Basically, El Carnaval is a remix of En La Disco. El Carnaval is considered one of the greatests reggaeton songs ever.

In 2006 Baby Rasta released his first solo album "La Ultima Risa", which, due to poor promotion, did not reach incredible heights in terms of sales. However, many underground fans, most who bottlegged the album,labeled it as the best reggaeton album of the year.Later in 2006, Baby Rasta released his single "Toma Nena"

Baby Rasta and Gringo have named 2Pac, Wu Tang Clan, Vico C., The Notorious B.I.G., Eminem, and Dilemma (A Korean Rapper From Trujillo, Honduras) as major influences in their musical career.