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| http://imusic.artistdirect.com/showcase/urban/royalf.html |  | Royal Flush biography |
Emerging from the "Wastelanz" of Flushing, Queens, New York, 21 year-old emcee extraordinaire Royal Flush crafts compelling street-songs that represent only the finest qualities of hip hop's new breed. After initially blessing the microphone apparatus on friend and labelmate Mic Geronimo's heralded debut LP The Natural, as well as his own underground smashes, "Moving On Ya Weak Production" and "Worldwide," Flush (a/k/a Ramel Govantes), prepares to set the rap world on its ear with his own debut LP release, Ghetto Millionaire: 14 dead-on shots to the dome to any credible rap fan.
"The album is not like everybody else's," comments Flush on his long-playing maiden voyage, "Where you could say, 寃ell he just talks about the street.' Mine is like Slick Rick's first album, Snoop's album or Biggie's album, where every song reflects something different that) went through in my life. Peaceful, happy and sad."
Contrary to the conviction evoked by his effortless cadence and wordsmith adeptness, Flush's ambitions in his chosen field don't extend as far back as one might think: "I really wasn't into this rap shit, honestly," he confesses. "I was basically on the street I used to smoke weed and freestyle around people sometimes, but I never really took it serious. Mic Geronimo lived up the block from me and he used to come down and hang out with us. I'd be on the corner selling whatever, and he used to just beat on the mailbox and I used to just freestyle to it. When he heard me, he was the one who really saw the talent in me to take it out. Otherwise, I'd probably still be in the street doin' my thing."
Rich in its detailed recollections of life on the ill plains of the Queens urban desert, Ghetto Millionaire's cinematic-level narratives are masterfully rendered on several cuts that readily confirm Flush's knack for concrete jungle poetics. "What A Shame," featuring Noreaga (of Capone-N-Noreaga), contrasts a chiming, hook-infested beat with sobering tales from behind bars. Over a disarmingly simple piano sample, "Illiodic Shines," featuring Mic Geronimo, reanimates a first hand account of stick-up scenario gone awry. Explains Flush of the song's title: "the story is just talkin' about how a person's wildin' out to outshine everybody else. Instead of shining while he's rapping, he's letting his gun go to shine."
Elsewhere, the infectious Buckwild-produced "Niggas Night Out," finds Flush trading lines with Q-Borough cohort and Jamaican (NY) funkster Mr. Cheeks of the Lost Boyz over a classic party-generating groove destined to heat up airwaves and dancefloors coast to coast. Meanwhile, the eerie "shine" ponders the ramifications of rocking jewelry in the ghetto. Its companion piece, the dynamic "Iced Down Medallions"--also featuring Noreaga--is the album's next under classic. With acclaimed producer EZ Elpee (Junior M.A.F.I.A.'S "Get Money") supplying a fat, horn-driven musical foundation, Flush's memory-staining chorus: "My Cuban connection/flexin', wildin'/sippin' Dom P by the gallon/Queens stallions/what's it all about?/Iced down medallions."
But while contemporary rappers commonly flaunt name-drops and shout-outs to Dominicans, Italians and Cubans on records, this Cuban descendant dismisses these fictitious underworld pre-occupation as casually as casually as an exhalation of blunt smoke: "I just feel that when people say `keep it real,' he reflects, "they should just keep it real about what they do. I don't like bullshit rap and I don't think you should lie, that's all. If it's true, if it happened and you really seen it, mention it. I'm Cuban, my family's from Florida. We moved from cuba to Florida and then we moved to Flushing."
There, Flush eventually solidified his Wastelanz clique--composed of members Phenom Pacino, P-Cipher, Tasim and Quasimodo, and featured on the sterling posse cut "Conflict"--which shares the same name as his neighborhood. "The name been like that for years," Flush explains of the area's alias. "Been around for maybe a decade. We're in Flushing, they don't see a lot of gunshooting and all that, but it goes on in our part of the neighborhood. So we call it The Wastelanz to separate us from the rest of Flushing."
Separating Royal Flush from the rest of the rap pack shouldn't be a problem for discerning listeners. In re-focusing his attention from the street life to the music industry, Flush waxes philosophical on the transition: "It's the same game but you just gotta be smarter with everything. You can't answer everything with a gun. You gotta handle your actions verbally. And I've mastered that `cause that's what kept me goin' in the streets: talking to people to let them feel what I'm sayin'. If I can do it in streets then I can do it here." A wealth of skills qualify both Ghetto Millionaire and Royal Flush as safe bets for hip hop's future. |
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