Chingo Bling
By Daika Bray

Who does the music for you? You’re getting played a lot on the radio.

I’m glad you mentioned that, because I’m getting a lot of radio support and my intentions with this in the first place was just sell out the trunk, at the flea markets, swap meets, mom & pops in this little underground market we got going on down here, the way everybody’s doing it. The reason I’m getting so much radio support is the stations are using it as a way to compete against the other radio stations. Like we got Chingo Bling and we like to play it in the morning and the kids call and ask for it and it’s funny. He’s making fun of rap music and celebrating Mexican culture at the same time. And it works. It works for me. I don’t care as long as they play it.

What’s up with the tamales?

Chingo Bling made all his money from tamales. All the piece and chains, the toe wear, the ostriches, the custom Versaces with the Virgin Mary. You can’t make all that off of CDs alone, you gotta have something else going on. Tamales is big business. I got that million dollar recipe. Start with some masa, some pork, cumin. That’s just Chingo’s way of making a million. Really, it’s a lot of different ways to make a million. Tamales is just one of them. Kind of like, it should make people think, you should be able to point at any object and somebody’s making a million dollars off of it. It could be that paper bag right there. Somebody’s making a million off of it. If you look at rap music, that’s all people talk about is slanging crack. They talk about cookin’ this and that up, and that started in the 80’s in New York and then it spread around, and all these conspiracy theories about Ronald Reagan, but Chingo was cooking up something else. He’s rappin’ about it like it’s the same thing. To him you sell it the same way. And he raps too. If you listen to him you might think it’s Jay-Z or somebody, with all these kitchen metaphors., but when it comes down to it it’s tamales.

Can you describe your work ethic?

The word wetback has been used derogatory. But the whole immigrant mentality, it’s something that should be respected from everybody. You know how they say American work ethic? America was based on immigrants, the Irish, British or whatever. And most recently Asians, Mexicans, West Indians, and everybody else. We built this city, literally. We on the highways, we on the roofs, we have a different mission, a different work ethic than everybody else. Or maybe everybody just got complacent. I mean, they’re already here and just kind of forgot what it’s all about. That’s what Chingo represents, too. Look around, there’s money out here, just get on your grind. Whether you’re born here, or you just got here or your parents been here for two generations, or you been here for ten. It’s really no excuse. You’ve had the same opportunities, the same library on the corner, public school. Chingo already told you the recipe. Pork shoulder, masa, cornmeal, salt, cumin.

Where did the rooster come from?

I was holding for a very long time for Daika Bray for the Murder Dog Magazine. My rooster deserves to be in Murder Dog more than me cause he’s killed more dogs in his life. He doesn’t even fight any roosters.

Did he ever fight other roosters?

Yeah, but it wasn’t fair, so we just pit him against dogs.

What’s his record like?

I try not to fight him too much, cause he’s very valuable, but probably about 45-0.

What?

45, yeah.

How many rounds do the fights go? Are they short rounds?

To the death.

To the death? Lord have mercy. He’s killed 45 pit bulls?

Some of them are roosters, some of them are Chihuahuas. A couple of those are pit bulls, don’t get it twisted.

I guess he is valuable if you put everything in his name.

That’s more for tax reasons. Hood rich, that’s how we do it, hood rich. Keep the heat away from me.

You’re always on the run anyway, right?

Sometimes I might get woken up by one of my assistants at three o’clock in the morning. We gotta get up and go. When we get up and go we get work done. We might go do a show in that city, we might sell CDs, we might sell tamales, might set up shop, might see some girls. Always remember this about Chingo, Chingo’s a businessman first.

You’re a tamale kingpin. How did you start out doing that?

You just do one dozen at a time. The way I look at it, everybody gets hungry, everybody has to eat at some point, and I’m gonna fill my community, pump it up with the thing that everybody fiends for, and at Christmastime I make a killing. I sell to old ladies, I sell to little kids, I sell to pregnant women, I don’t care. I don’t have a conscience. It doesn’t destroy the community. Now that’s gangster. If you can pump something that they’re fiending for and it doesn’t destroy the community, that’s gangster right there. People laugh about it. They say, oh, tamales, oh how funny, but tamales is big business. I mean you can be at the courthouse, trying to pay your ticket, and there can be an old lady right there with an igloo, and she probably making more money than the court, and the lawyer. She’s bein nice, giving you your change, and then she goes across the street to the gas station and makes another quick hundred dollars. By the time noon come around, she got two grand in her pocket. 52 year old lady named Luisa and she just bought a Hummer. How she get a Hummer? She sell tamales, what?

Pork doesn’t destroy communities?

You’re right, that’s arguable. I have other kinds, too. I have bean and cheese, I have diet, I have lite, I have all kinds. Pork could be considered a filthy animal and sometimes I don’t even mess with that really. But that’s the way I look at it, you know those people in New York in the Hamptons, they have their fancy parties? When they have their fancy parties and they need 500 dozen tamales delivered ASAP, who do they call? Me, that’s who. I ain’t mentioning no names, Sean Combs.

Puffy orders a bunch of tamales from you like that?

Let’s just say that there’s a Mr. Combs out there in the Hamptons and he does order quite frequently. That’s all I gotta say about that.

How did you get from being the tamale kingpin to being the new rap superstar?

Before I was a tamale salesman, I was a rap superstar. And I started to notice, I started to observe, man, this rap game is getting real stale, real, real boring. It needs a little bit more sauce. So I decided to take it upon myself and I started freestyling in the barn, at the bank and it sounded pretty good you know, different people got a couple of copies, the next thing you know people burning, it gets everywhere. Some people put together their own compilations and they used my face on it. It says Chingo Bling 17 Flows, 14 Screwed and Chopped, Freestyle Chingo Bling. I walk into stores and I never know what I’m gonna see. I kinda got it under control now.

How did you first start rapping? Did you just pick up the mic one day and say I can do this better than anybody else?

Chingo Bling is a hustler. Your textbook grinder, straight from the book, I was slanging CDs out the trunk, and Fade Dog from San Antonio gave me a spot on his CD and then Baby Beesh from Lonestar Riders, I guess he saw my hustle, he respected my hustle, and he gave me a spot on his DVD called "What’s Really?" Then we flew out to Cali, and when we were filming, we met up with the people from Power 106-Pocos Pero Locos, Kool-Aid and Johnny Cuervo, they have a syndicated show about 20-some odd markets, and they got a hold of my CD, which is underground. I was just selling them underground like the way Slim and Paul and Chamillion just freestyle over other people’s beats, but in my own way, like funny, prank calls on there, making fun of everything on there. So they saw it from another perspective. They didn’t see it from the H-Town underground, Texas scene. They were looking at it from the Chicano rap scene, which is how they categorize it out there. They gave me a spot on their show, so next thing you know I’m on the radio, and that’s where it all took off from. Started from there. People giving me opportunities.

BG
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