HIP HOP VIP: C-Styles

C-STYLES: The Showman

• CHECK OUT HIS MYSPACE PAGE

Real Name: Luis Robles

Hometown: Chicago, moved to Brownsville seven years ago

What he does: MC, rapper, lyricist

Years rapping: 7

LISTEN TO: "Addiction" or "Flirt." Flirt will make you dance. Addiction will make you think.

There's two sides to C-Stlyes. There's the MC that dropped Flirt, a club track with an R & B hook by singer Irish Bautista and production by GoLightly. Bump that track, and you can't help but nod your head. It's light, it's danceable and it has a marketable, commercial feel to it. Then there's the C-Styles that laid down Addiction. It's a dark, lyric heavy track with an assist from Rob Perez of the Jericho Machine. Two distinct styles. One MC.

Who do you think the most overrated rapper is?

Lil Wayne. He's got to be the most overrated, overhyped rapper of all time. Man I'm serious. He has improved from his young days or whatever, but compared to everybody out there? He's like a hit or miss type of rapper. Sometimes he'll put out some good punch lines, and other times it'll be like "naw dude, that doesn't work." So I mean, seriously? A lot of people hype him up for some reason. It's not a bad thing, but at the same time I recognize what's going on. He put himself out as the greatest rapper alive. I can name like 10 rappers that are better than him.

Go name like three right now...

Ok, Lupe [Fiasco], Joe Buttons, Saigon, Nas, Jay-Z, Immortal Technique, Royce de 59, Remy Martin.

If you walked into a room full of strangers what song would you want playing?

"The Champ is Here" by Jadakiss.

Is hip hop dead?

It's dead, and it's reviving itself. A lot of people like to say it's dead because of, man I might get in trouble for this, but the south is killing hip hop. The south is killing hip hop. You got people like Soldja Boy coming out. All these people out there are killing hip hop because of their simplistic lyrics and their simple ways of doing songs and making hit songs like that... It's cool to experiment or go in a different direction because I think a lot of hip hop is going into dance music. I'm guilty of that too a little bit, but it's reviving inself and it's reinventing itself. It's not dead saleswise or popularitywise. You don't have country being the number one album. You still have hip hop being the number one album...Lupe Fiasco went gold. A lot of artist can't go gold nowadays. With Lupe going gold like that there's still hope out there that people respect real hip hop.

What's the biggest stereotype about rappers?

That we have a lot of money. That we wear big gold chains, and that we like to call girls bitches. That basically we're disrectpful and all that stuff. It's kind of not farfetched in a way because I've known people like that, but there's a lot of us out there that are the other way. That we talk a lot of slang. That we like to cuss a lot and wear baggy jeans. I mean, I'm saying it's not farfetched because I know peple like that, but not all of us are like that.

Do you have a guilty listening pleasure?

Who doesn't right? At one time I was rocking Brittney Spears "Gimme More." I mean the beat was tremendous man, I liked that beat. It was produced by Timbaland's protégé Danjahandz. He's got a long list of production credits. He's pretty good too. He's from the same roof as Timbaland.

What's your dream car?

It used to be a Lambarghini, but right now a Chrysler. Right now I don't care about what type of new car. I want something that saves gas. Gas is like four bucks a gallon right now. My sister right now has a Hyundai that thing saves gas. It's like 30 miles per gallon. I need something like that. I need something that's going to save me gas. I travel a lot now days. From here to Edinburg. From here to San Antonio. From here to Austin. I need something that saves me gas. I don't really care about new cars right now.

Who's your hip hop idol?

Nas. He's my hip hop idol because this guy has done it all. To me he's the greatest rapper of all time. He has classic after classic after classic, talking about different issues. He's done everything. He's never really sold out or anything, you know he's tried different things but he's always kept it true to himself. He does well, and he goes platinum everytime just doing it for himself.

Who would you collaborate with if you could work with anyone?

I'd work with Nas, that would be my number one. Royce de 59, and I've met that dude before to and I even asked him.

-What did he say?

He told me anytime, but it was like one spring break that I met him and I was a little kid. I was like "yeah, Royce, you're my favorite rapper right now." I acted goofy on him. I told him "oh I'm starting my music or whatever, if I get up in the industry one day would you ever collaborate with me?" And he was like "yeah." I don't know if he said that because I was a fan, but he was real cool. He was once Eminem's partner in rap too, they were brought up together.

Would you rather go to a strip club or Hooters?

Strip club. Why would you go to Hooters? It's just a tease like that. A strip club's a tease too, but at least you have more action in that. Plus the Hooters over here in Brownsville sucks anway. You got some ugly-ass girls all pregnant.

What's the biggest beef you've ever had?

I'd have to say the one with Alex Montana. That one kind of went out to everybody out there. All the fans were involved in it, and somebody were posting death threats and something like that. It was pretty bad. It was on RGV Elite's blog and everybody was voting who had the best song, who had the best diss track against each other. It kind of hurt too, because that dude used to be one of my best friends. We've known each other since we started rapping. When I started rapping we started forming a crew, started forming a clique or something like that....We went back and forth with diss tracks. We were supposed to battle live, but it never happened.

Would you battle live?

Yeah, I've always battled back in the day. Right now I've kind of slowed down because there's not really a battle scene down here. If there was a chance for it, and a lot of people were involved with it? Sure.