Rap’s Got a Brand New Bag : Cuban, Latin and Samoan artists add new elements that reflect L.A.’s diversity

Rap never rests.

Just a year after such forces as Tone Loc and N.W.A established humor and rage, respectively, as the trademarks of the burgeoning rap scene in Los Angeles, another movement is asserting itself around town.

This new layer of activity involves the emergence of a school of rappers who are as ethnically diverse as the city itself. The budding stars of this cultural mix: Cuban-born Mellow Man Ace, Cuban-Salvadoran Skatemaster Tate, and the Samoan brother act the Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E.

The three artists are a genuine reflection of L.A.’s mixed cultural fabric and a first wave in rap music’s expansion beyond its urban African-American beginnings into broader ethnic and musical territories.

“What makes them different is that they are real artists,” said Joe (the Butcher) Nicolo, a Philadelphia-based producer who’s involved with all three acts. “They put into their music what they really are. Which is not to say that N.W.A or Eazy-E aren’t really what they are, but it’s more a theatrical interpretation. With Mellow and the Boo-Yaas, they practice what they preach. . . . It’s authentic.”

“Mentirosa,” the new Capitol Records release from Mellow Man Ace that was re-mixed by Nicolo, finds the rapper snuggling up to a mellow groove snipped from Santana’s “Evil Ways” as he teasingly segues from English to Spanish lyrics. In a city with a large Latin population, the bilingual approach is geared to appeal to young Latino audiences that already regard rap as their pop music of choice.

Born Ulpiano Sergio Reyez in Havana 22 years ago, Mellow Man Ace became his parents’ ticket to freedom under Castro’s regime, because having a child at the time made the family eligible for an exit visa. Making his way from Miami to New Jersey to South Central Los Angeles, Mellow Man grew up as a California kid but never lost track of his heritage.

“Cuba is half my life,” he says. “My image is all Cuban, with the guayabera shirt, the cigars in my pocket, the hat. . . . That all goes back to Cuba.

“On one of my songs, ‘Rap Guanco,’ I use an old style of rap from Cuba called guaguanco , where they would play congas and rap or chant.”

Despite the Cuba connection, Ace is still a dude from L.A. “Rhyme Fighter,” his first Capitol single, was an English-language rap equivalent of Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles,” delivered in the hip, street-corner dialect of your average California teen-ager.

Skatemaster Tate is a Cuban-Salvadoran rhymer whose rap mixes his Latin roots with a prevalent Los Angeles subculture: skateboarding.

Producer Nicolo stumbled onto the Skatemaster through mutual friend Mugs of the rap group 7A3 and ended up signing Tate to his Columbia-distributed Ruff House records.

Tate’s West Hollywood apartment is a museum in itself. Thousands of vintage 45s and albums line the walls, skateboards of every size, shape and age are lined up near the doorway, ‘50s memorabilia and film posters fill the walls. Sitting comfortably amid it all is the cultural commissar to the country’s teen skaters.

“For me the skate audience comes first and foremost,” he said. “There are a couple of million skaters in America, so if every kid bought my record, I’d be stoked.”

Tate has cut more than 30 tracks and is in the process of selecting the cuts that will make up his debut album “Floral Bouquet,” which Ruff House plans to release in late May. The music is a mad collage of wild beats, jazzy instrumentals and funny, irreverent raps, a musical bouillabaisse similar to De La Soul’s chartbreaker “3 Feet High and Rising.”

Tate doesn’t let his heritage get lost in all the skateboard fever. “We did some sampling of classic Latin grooves and created some of our own Latin rhythms as well. . . . I tell people to be proud of what they are. It may sound kind of cornball, but it works.”

If Latin rappers aren’t testimony enough to L.A.’s cultural mingling, how about the new crew of Samoan rappers called the Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E.?

The Carson-based T.R.I.B.E. consists of six brothers who say they were once hard-core street gang members. The name Boo-Yaa itself represents the sound of a sawed off-shotgun.

Kim Buie, West Coast vice president of talent acquisition for Island Records, signed the group to her label, though she had some initial trepidation about the gang connections.

“It was definitely a consideration,” she said. “My feeling now is that whatever their past means of surviving were, now they are anti-gang. As far as what they say, it’s going to be positive, because that’s what they want to promote.”

The crew’s first single is the recently released “Raid,” a dance-oriented funk jam. An album, “New Funky Nation,” will surface in early March.

All six members of the T.R.I.B.E weigh in at over 200 pounds and sport an ultra-tough image. But the message is far from all macho. Eldest brother and Boo-Yaa leader Ted (The Godfather) Devoux puts it this way.

“We go for what we believe in. We put our music to our image, and our image is hard core. We want to get something across to other Islanders out there, that we are opening doors, we’re doing something. We want other Samoan kids to wake up and say, ‘Hey man, we can do it too. . . . If these big, crazy-looking dudes can stand up on stage and get away from gangs and drugs, so can I.’ ”