Image via Estevan Oriol
It’s hard to tell that nine years have passed since Lil Rob last released anything. It’s hard to tell because the Chicano rap legend’s latest All to the Bueno sounds like he never took a break. It’s got the polish you’d expect from San Diego’s veteran purveyor of neighborhood music. A time-tested formula: shit-talking atop funk grooves and vintage soul. It’s a record built around Rob’s ear for the oldies, his ride or die lady, and staying sucka free.
The terrain is familiar. After all, the classic car-riding SoCal fixture released his debut “Oh What A Night In The 619” in 1992. Even then he was articulating similar ideas — hanging with the homies, the joy’s of joyriding and flirting with “fine Chicanas” – all done over concussive drums and chopped R&B vocals.
He’s part of the early wave of Chicano artists, a peer group that includes Kid Frost, Spanish Fly, ALT, Proper Dos, and A Lighter Shade of Brown. But before the musical success, he was a kid growing up in La Colonia de Eden Gardens, one of San Diego’s oldest enclaves. Founded over 100-years ago, the Mexican-American neighborhood remains full of a deep cultural history. It’s also a community that helped nurture his gift – a place where he rocked parties with his brother and worked on his performance chops – long before he earned national radio play with a top 40 hit.
Ese 1218’s been around. There’s a 1992 YouTube clip, a human interest story about Eden Gardens by local CBS affiliate Channel 8, where Rob makes a cameo midway through. Wearing a blue baseball cap, he spits a few lines for the camera, oozing charisma. It’s a receipt in real time — proof of dues paid.
This is a longevity story, the kind where overnight popularity took years in the making. It was only after a run of solid releases where his 2005 project, Twelve Eighteen, Pt 1, changed his life, yielding the classic single “Summer Nights.”
More releases followed. But one of the lasting effects of his breakthrough was the autonomy it offered. It’s allowed him the freedom to work, tour, perform and record as it aligns with his timetable. And with that, the last few years have been more about live shows than new music.
All to the Bueno, he says, was inspired by concert-goers regularly asking if he had new material on deck. The album boasts the intense energy of Lil Rob’s live show. In a space where Keith Sweat gets a shoutout, he glides through English and Spanish, throws in ad libs that are really melodies from The Manhattans and gives lames get the cold shoulder, “you’re old news, I told you’s, that you lose, I don’t even care about winning, I just refuse to lose to you dudes”. He even stretches syllables in one of his best moments: fitting “parking lot” together with “taco shop” like a line of Tetris blocks.
Set to the mid-tempo bounce of producer Fingazz, it does what it sets out to do: be feel-good music, a playlist made for backyard hangs and easy rolling lo-lo’s — all Southern California by way of nostalgia and the spirit of Sunday evening cruising. There’s party hopping and bass slaps and ‘80s flavor. It’s a celebration, the sound of staying power. Lil Rob’s been here for years. – J. Smith