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Baker's Dozen

A Presidential Suite: Chilly Gonzales's Favourite Albums
Laurie Tuffrey , September 20th, 2012 13:09

The man they call Gonzales/Gonzo/Chilly Gonzales/Jason Charles Beck picks out his favourite 13 records

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Rick Ross - Teflon Don
I got into hip hop when everyone else really did, around the classic 90s golden age. That was when I started to see the capitalist revenge fantasy at work and I just liked the idea of how fast it moved and the competitive aspect - needing to push it forward faster than others styles of music, and the way there’s was always someone trying do something more avantgarde with the beats and more and more detailed with the approach to words, so I just followed it a bit more like I used to read comic books.

I don't listen to those same albums now, I can't listen to old hip hop honestly - I can only listen to new stuff, so Teflon Don, a fairly recent album, I put that in here. I don't listen to much Teflon Don now, because of course Rick Ross has a million mixtapes and one great solo album since then, but that's a starting point for people who fell off hip hop, who say they don't like it anymore because it is too materialistic or maybe preferred it in its overtly political phase. I think that Teflon Don is an extremely political album, it's just that that aspect has been rendered much more subtle.

I always think we get the rap we deserve and we live in a certain era compared to what that era was and we get the rap that was meant for today, so I think that if people don't like the rap of today, they don't like today. I want to be a man of my time, that's why I instantly was attracted to rap, the only new kind of music I think that's really worth listening to.