August 28, 2007 @ 12:55 pm

My Album's Out: Tego Calderon

by: Julianne Shepherd

With a new album and a new role, El Abayarde strikes back

Tego Calderon is a changed man. And after nurturing a newborn baby - named Esteban, after his father, who died in 2004 - coming off a trip to the blood-diamond mines of Sierra Leone, and exploring a new role as actor (in Illegal Tender, in which he's transfixingly cool as a gangster with a soft spot) - who wouldn't be? VIBE spoke with El Abayarde about his new album, El Abayarde Contra-Ataca - one that's uniquely Tego, an accomplished record spanning hip hop and salsa, rock and reggaeton.


Your first film, Illegal Tender, opened Friday, and your album, El Abayarde Contra-Ataca, dropped today. How are you feeling?
I am really excited that I got two projects at the same time, and I hope that one helps the other. Together, [Illegal Tender producer] John Singleton, we gonna do some of the soundtrack for the movie. And I'm going to be touring by myself. I'm going to be going to Spain and Rome and do my first tour in Europe.

With Contra-Ataca, what were you writing about? Striking back against?
Well, it's a happy album. My last album, The Underdog, had a lot of feeling with it cause of what was I was going through - a lot of craziness in my life with things that I never experienced before - there's a lot about my father, my daughter, and I made the album real personal. I'm trying to come like, you know, I came out of that situation and it's all good again. And I talk about the street in a way that doesn't sound like I'm bragging. I'm just telling it like it is, that we can do better than this. That's the whole mentality - real positive.

What do you mean exactly by 'We can do better than this'?
Sometimes when you're young, you see yourself as certain things - you do crazy things just to have that quick money. Sometimes you think that, because you went to jail or you had a bad experience at school or at college, you won't be able to accomplish certain dreams. It's not like that sometimes. You just got to keep trying and trying and never lose that faith, cause that's all you got.

That's how I feel these days. I just take it how it comes and I know that I got my angel watching on me and it's all good, always. When I go through rough times, I just lay back and relax for a minute and everything comes to normal again and that's how I'm living now. I wanna share that with my people.

You traveled to Sierra Leone for the movie Bling'd: Blood, Diamonds, and Hip-Hop - and saw firsthand the human toll from the diamond industry. Did that change you?
Yeah, definitely, definitely. I feel like I have a responsibility with my lyrics even though before I denied it. I used to say, I'm not a role model. Whatever, maybe you're not, but people do listen to what you say and it really affects all the people. I have people telling me, "I did this because of your album."

You didn't think you were a role model before?
With my... before, you coming with this idea that "I wanna do this, I wanna do that, I don't care, that's how I am." This type of behavior that we men got. It's not that I want to be a Bob Marley, either - I love Bob Marley and I would love to be Bob Marley, but I'm not and I'm aware of that. But I really like the feeling of how he lived. I know he had trouble, and everything wasn't perfect for him but he tried to do the best he could.

I'm into a whole different mentality these days and I'm feeling my music. This last album... I really enjoyed it.

You weren't feeling it before?
Maybe when I started, I was hungry and my first album. And my second one, I knew how the business was and I was going through a lot of stuff - the whole business thing came into my music.  The last album is a real personal album. I wrote it, but there's so much pain in it, I really don't play it as much, for real - because of my father's song, there's some thoughts on my baby mama, you know, a lot of bad memories. So I came out with a new one that is hot and I'm really excited about it.

Do you feel like you've grown?
As a man, yes, definitely and as a musician too. The whole trip to Africa made me grow. My kids, too - I see how smart they are and sometimes I feel like I wanna be there for longer to enjoy my grandchildren, to enjoy their children. I'm trying to do the best I can these days.

Can you tell me about your role in Illegal Tender?
Yeah, I'm like a Scarface, but I see myself as human being and I see myself as a criminal at the same time. [It worked for me] because I'm so used to, for all my life, seeing people die. So it was easy for me to do this role -  a regular human being that has feelings that maybe doesn't like everything he does for a living but he has to do it.

It was a great experience, and was a dream come true for me to be able work with [producer] John Singleton. I was a big fan of Ice Cube, NWA, the whole NWA movement, and when Ice Cube went solo. I really wanted to work in movies when I saw Ice Cube do what he did on that movie.

They really liked what I brought to the movie. Sometimes I forgot lines and made them up and they liked it. [Director] Franc. Reyes wrote it with Tego on his mind. They knew that I was no actor and they let me do my thing.

Did you know that you wanted to make the character human, beyond the stereotypical drug villain?
It's just the way it was... the main character is this kid that doesn't know that his family used to, his father used to be a gangster, but he didn't know. He was going to college, he was living a normal life and all of a sudden they had an encounter with some of the enemies and his mother had to tell him that it was dangerous for them and they had to move. They'd been moving all his life so much and he was comfortable already... my character knew his father, so [he had] some empathy [towards] the [family]. It made it human for me. you gotta see the movie, it's a hot movie. I'm a fan of action movies and I like comedies too - I love the whole Hollywood movie thing.

Will you go on to make more movies?
I might, I might not. It's a lot of work, but I really enjoyed the opportunity to be someone else for a moment.

Article tags: Abayarde, Reggaeton, Tego Calderon 

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