SouthFlorida.com | City Link Magazine

" 'It's all about U!' That's what they keep yelling at me -- the UPN slogan," says Michael Garcia, who is hanging out in front of Club Elite in West Palm Beach, watching a crowd spill out onto Clematis Street.

People keep yelling at Garcia because they recognize him as the face of Miami's UPN affiliate, WBFS-Channel 33. The station recently hired the Kendall-based rapper, who goes by simply Garcia, to star in its regional marketing campaign aimed at the urban demographic. "Garcia is the way to get out our message," UPN's creative services director Larry Wiener explains.

And that message is: "It's all about U."

"But I can't take it anymore," Garcia says with a laugh. "When people start in with it, I have to go, 'No, it's all about U. It's not about me. It's all about U!' "

And there it is: the perfect exchange between an artist and his fans.

Garcia's UPN promos have been so well-received that the network has asked him to record raps for commercials that highlight syndicated sitcoms such as King of Queens and That '70s Show. "I rap about cruising in the station wagon with Eric [Topher Grace's character on That '70s Show] or that chick [Leah] Remini on King of Queens," Garcia explains.

A drink in hand and a Miami Heat warm-up jersey on his back, the 26-year-old Garcia is set to take the stage in a few minutes for a show sponsored by West Palm Beach-based hip-hop radio station X-102.3 (WMBX-FM). But instead of being nervous, he's extremely loose, which is not how he would have felt in similar circumstances a year or so ago.

When he opened for Mos Def at Fort Lauderdale's Revolution in 2004, you would have caught him out front setting up a domino table and hawking his CD to anyone who happened to straggle by. And on days he wasn't performing, he'd routinely be out self-promoting at barbershops, independent record stores and flea markets, all in an attempt to put his face and, by his calculations, close to 25,000 copies of his CD Anti-Social on the street.

"No SoundScan, so labels can't really see it," says DJ EFN, Garcia's manager and founder of Crazy Hood Productions on measuring sales of Anti-Social. "But the industry knows. People know. That's why they're coming around."

That's why Garcia was the first unsigned artist to appear on MTV's My Block. That's why Garcia was the focus of an episode of the Learning Channel's Miami Ink whereby he had his album cover tattooed on his right bicep. That's why last month when you visited the home page of MySpace.com, Garcia's face popped up to highlight MySpace concerts in Orlando and Miami Beach at which he performed. That's why Power 96 and 99 Jamz have been keeping his single "Clap Ya Hands" in constant rotation.

"Y-100 played it once. That's as Top 40 as it gets," Garcia says with a grin. "I'm a full-time artist now."

He has to lie back and not put the hard sell on people anymore. "I've got to fight that," Garcia admits. "Let someone else do it. Let EFN handle it. But you forget, you know, because that's how you get here.''

Here is that strange place where everybody tags you "almost famous" and people can only guess what the final hurdle may be. "The right single and he breaks out of here," says Dady Phatts, the host of X-102.3's Local Love Show.

"Yeah, things have changed," Garcia admits. "All my friends are DJs and attorneys now. But I don't change."

That seems to be Garcia's formula for success. "If they want the next Trick Daddy or the next Pitbull, that's not me," he says. "I don't try to sound like anybody else, and I'm not going to try to sound like anybody but myself."

"His flow is original, not basic and simple like you're used to," Phatts says. "You hear Garcia on the radio, you know that's Garcia on the radio."

On the typical Garcia song, it is not uncommon for a piano intro to cascade into a rap or for an acoustic guitar to form the backbone of the entire song. He prides himself on staying diverse and having no particular style, but lyrically he's like a young Nas but with a rough, in-your-face rapping style.

"He adds a whole new element to the Miami sound," says 99 Jamz's DJ Khaled, who has watched Garcia evolve over the past several years. "And he can fit in anywhere."

Garcia is as comfortable performing on a MySpace.com stage as he is at a nightclub or a middle school. "Whether it's two people or 2,000 watching, he goes all out," UPN promotions producer Hikmat Kilzi observes.

Tonight, dozens of people are watching. Club Elite is a tight space with mirrored walls and a plush, 15-yard-long couch that runs the length of the east side of the room. No one is sitting in it when Garcia makes his way to the stage.

Garcia favors modesty over flash. He is the first performer of the night who is not covered in jewelry. "I just don't want to project an image of cash I don't have," he explains.

But he has everything else. The crowd is up, DJ EFN is leading a chant of "Hell, yeah," and Garcia is howling straight at the audience.

"What is the deal?" Garcia shouts. " I know what it is. Everybody in here is in the same grind as me."

"Hell, yeah!"

At the clubhouse

The tour is a blur. "This is the recreation area. Everybody has to leave their mark," Garcia says, pointing at the graffiti-covered walls before moving on to the Red Room, a small studio where he tapes radio spots and other recordings.

"Did you find that Kill Bill 2 sample?" he asks the guy behind the soundboard. "I love Tarantino."

Before the sample has a chance to surface, Garcia winds back through a storeroom that houses electronics and about 15,000 vinyl albums and wanders back into the main entranceway, where a crowd is starting to gather. The far end of the room has been turned into a makeshift barbershop where DJ EFN is getting the night's first haircut from a guy in a gas station attendant's uniform. A bar has been set up a few feet away. Bacardi Gold and Coke is tonight's drink.

It is Wednesday, and this party/meeting inside a Miami warehouse space has been taking place every Wednesday night since … "forever," DJ EFN says. "This is when the family gathers."

The family to which he's referring is the Crazy Hood Productions crew, which The Source magazine dubbed "the Spanish Wu-Tang of the South." The crew has its own slogan -- "Who's crazy?" -- and this evening's invitation came with an e-mailed warning from Kristy Oropeza, the Hood's marketing coordinator: "Please let me say Wednesday night meetings are considered our downtime. Yes, we are working, recording, brainstorming and planning, but it is very informal. There will be liquor and meaningless conversations, but it is a ritual that has withstood the test of time."

Garcia entered this fold while working at a Kinko's just up the road. "That's how bad I was into hip-hop," he recalls. "I took a job at Kinko's just so I could use the place to make fliers and cassettes and CD inserts. The Internet, graphic design … everything is there.''

Including the beginnings of Crazy Hood. Before setting up their own offices, DJ EFN and his "posse," as it was then known, used to hang around outside the Kinko's. Their presence scared the customers, so the store's management offered them a conference room in which to meet.

"One of my co-workers told me I should show my stuff to EFN," Garcia says.

Garcia knew DJ EFN only through his reputation as Miami's mix-tape king. "But I couldn't pass it up," he says. "I gave him some of my stuff, and I'm the first to admit my music sucked."

"No, no, it's not that it sucked," DJ EFN interrupts. "It wasn't even about that. I was looking for someone with talent to develop, someone with a real work ethic. I was looking past the music."

"Thank you," Garcia says. "He liked that my stuff was all glossy and shrink-wrapped."

And the bottom line was: "EFN looked me dead in the eye and said, 'There's no money, but if you want to learn, we'll work with you,' " Garcia remembers. "And I've been annoying him ever since."

Garcia had decided early on that if you're part of the hip-hop world, you're either doing something illegal or deep into the music. "I had to make it all about the music," he says. "I'd been in trouble with the law, stupid stuff."

How stupid?

"I got arrested at an Elián [González] protest," he says.

That's pretty stupid.

Sunk down in a couch near the beverage cooler, Garcia makes eye contact with every person who trails by and greets him with a fist pound or a slap at his knees. "If I sign with a label, I'm not leaving anyone behind," he says. "Crazy Hood is a family. We're all intertwined."

Garcia is a graduate of G. Holmes Braddock High School in Kendall but he never took to books. "For me, reading has always been lyrics and liner notes on the backs of albums," he says.

After high school, he attended Miami Dade College. "But only because I wanted to learn how to put video up on our Web site," he admits. "I skipped math and only went to the filmmaking classes. Degrees don't mean shit in this business."

As both a former member of Da Alliance Family and a solo artist, Garcia has acted as a hype man or opened shows for everyone from the Wu-Tang Clan to Kanye West. But he has always pledged allegiance to old-school hip-hop. "My history is Public Enemy, KRS-One," he says. So it is only fitting that his Diaz Brothers-produced single "Clap Ya Hands" is getting attention for its shout-outs to many of his influences, including Luther Campbell, LL Cool J, the Beastie Boys, Cypress Hill and Society.

"My hope is that when kids hear the names, they go back and do some research, do some discovering," Garcia says. "When I was growing up, it was almost corny to want to be a rapper. But the funny thing today is the average hip-hop consumer wants to be in hip-hop, wants to be a rapper. It's crazy."

Being on the rise, Garcia has had the opportunity to cross paths with many of his heroes. "Once you know them, they do let you down sometimes," he says. "You watch them in the studio, and all of a sudden, you realize they're totally fake in everything they've done."

One major exception was a chance meeting with Public Enemy's Chuck D. "I'm telling him how important his work has been to me, and he's all quietlike. And then, he says in this humble way, 'Really? You think I did good?' "

Garcia aspires to a similar level of good. "You go at this with some contrived formula, and that only buys you three to four years," he says. "I want to be a long-term artist."

Everyone in the industry talks about Garcia's work ethic.

"He's a hard worker, willing to do whatever it takes. Appearances, radio drops, mix tapes -- whatever you ask of him, he's there," Dady Phatts says.

"Such a strong work ethic," DJ Khaled agrees.

"His passion for the music is unbelievable," UPN's Wiener says. "Whatever he does, he sells it."

"Well, this is all I do," Garcia admits, as if he's still a bit surprised by his burgeoning success. "I don't go to another job in the morning."

No part-time job. No Kinko's. "I'm just rollin' with this," he says.

A good analogy

DJ EFN is pontificating on the virtues of the Treo 650 vs. the Blackberry when the door of the warehouse space opens, and Garcia spots the nose of an idling car.

"Whose is that? Whose car is that?" he asks, rushing outside.

It turns out to be a cream-colored Chrysler 300 that one of the crew is renting.

"I've got one on order," Garcia says. "My Montero got stolen last week."

The car's hood is up, and people are straggling out to take a look, forming a circle around the car. Even DJ EFN, still draped in a black barber's cape with his head half-shaven, rises from the shadows to take a peek.

Earlier, Garcia had mentioned he never wanted to end up the type of person who parks an $80,000 car in the driveway of a $50,000 house. So he must be struggling to find some balance within his newfound success.

For him, the 300 is only a sign of being on the verge. And the verge is a frustrating place to be.

"It's like having a fucked-up haircut," Garcia says, glancing over at DJ EFN. "You're waiting for it to grow out. You know it's going to eventually be good, but it's hell getting there. You're right there, almost where you want the hair to be. But … but …

"Is that a bad analogy?"