From IAMOnlineMag.com
Shorty Corleone may have thought he put his Mafioso personality aside when he took on his birth moniker for Charles Garris Presents: It’s Christmas, but this album is less like Bing Crosby and more like what the soundtrack would be if “Belly” were a Nativity movie. In his version, the story about Frosty uses The Delfonics’s “Hey! Love” sample that our generation may most famously remember as the foundation of Notorious B.I.G.’s “Playa Hater;” the story of Rudolph has a reggae beat; and every other track has a go-go swang.
Garris became a professional vocalist at age 14 when he signed with Warner Brothers. “Someone had heard songs that I wrote and heard my voice and passed it on to Verdine White of Earth Wind & Fire,” he told IAM. “Before you know it, I was presented with a publishing deal and a recording deal.” Like many teen-aged record deals, however, it ended with a shelved project, but, for Garris, “after having a taste of that, it didn’t stop.”
Meanwhile, growing up in Southeast, D.C. placed Garris in the vicinity of another deal. “[Rare Essence] practiced one street over from my grandmother’s house so I would always go to the alley trying to listen to what’s going on. For a long time,” though, “I decided not to actually be in a go-go band because I wanted to pursue my R&B career.” The decision didn’t stick, however, because, “when you’re from Southeast that beat is on every corner, there’s a band in every alley, someone is beating on buckets somewhere, so you couldn’t ignore it.” By 1993, he joined Rare Essence and Shorty Corleone was officially born.
CLICK HERE TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE
WATCH VIDEO CLIPS BELOW:
Animated/Directed: Andrew Young
Executive Producer: Clayton Toppin
Project Director: Brandi Dunnegan
Hosted: Nadia
Production & Edited: Kato – TMOTTMedia
Special Thanks to:
Thomas Sayers Ellis
Laughing Lenny
Amando – Kemp Mill Records
TMOTTMedia Network:
Blog | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube | Message Board