Recording artist Merlino’s gritty street tales depict his life growing up in the shadows of a notorious family with ties to the mob. An artist who does not have to fictionalize his lyrics in order to capture attention, Merlino’s story paints a chilling portrait. It’s real and it’s raw. Let Merlino tell it in his own words… It’s A Done Deal! ON THE UP AND UP “I met Big Bub (from the Motown vocal group Today) through a close friend of mine who said he liked my stuff a lot and was willing to take it over to Motown Records, where Big Bub was at the time. Big Bub came down, and at the time I didn’t know who he was. I wasn’t thinking too much of it, I just thought that this was a man who was here to critique my music. To make a long story short, I was listening to the song and the next thing I know that Big Bub was singing on it. It was a spur of the moment thing. We just clicked and that was that. I just recently found out who Big Bub was, it started out as a friendship thing. In the mean time my partner Raul “Sir” Santiago wanted to do an album with me and that’s what we did. He produced 19 out of 22 tracks on the debut album, Chapter One: The Beginning, distributed by Universal Music/Up & Up Ent. on Feb. 28, 2006. I got interested in music through my uncle who was more like a brother, and when I was round 11 he would try to take me out. My mother would have me on lockdown, but he took me out to the streets and projects so that I would see that everything is not all good. He would let me hear Run-DMC and LL Cool J so I came up on that, and I was doing poetry for awhile and I mixed it with hip-hop. And I have such a crazy story with my family, that I just put it all together. I did my poetry in school in my spare time. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life then because when you are at the age you don’t just show you work to someone cause it’s a pride thing. DJ Dramadik, would play my material but people didn’t know who I was, I was just doing street stuff. My family thought this was just a hobby. When I was coming up we didn’t have anything. (I was born when my mom was just 18 ) and I was the type of person who always wanted something and then I would just leave it alone, so my relatives thought my interest in music was just a hobby. When they saw I stuck with it they said, ‘he’s not playing.’ Now I have my family listening to hip-hop and R&B! I was born outside of Philly and I was raised most of my life in Atlantic City. I am 20 now. My family is still in Philly but, I moved down to the suburbs next to Atlantic City at the age of 2. You see, Philly is one of the top five areas for music and closer to Atlantic City than New York. Atlantic City is so small that I had to take my music to Philly because it’s a bigger city. I had to get money my own way rather than through my family. I didn’t want them helping me anyway because if they put out a lot of money and if we don’t go platinum… But we have a good situation now with Universal and Attack Records and film works out of Toronto, with Universal and Up & Up Entertainment behind it. Everybody wants to come out with drugs, violence. But everybody can do songs about that, I really have a story to tell that people can talk about. Everybody talks about the mob shit, the Italian shit, but I really lived it. I have seen how it works, not just watching in on TV. My family was really into it. You have a good side of the family (hard working, etc.) and then you have the other side of the family but it’s all the same name, so when you mix the good with the bad, it hurts the good. The good side of my family ended up suffering because of the bad, but I decided to use the experience to make good hip-hop music. Hip-hop is a culture and it doesn’t matter about your pigmentation of your skin. A lot of people know who I am because they have heard of the last name and people thought I was just trying to be in the music business and thinking I had juice because of the money in the family not realizing that I didn’t have shit, I was just talking what I know. Over the past three years I have earned a lot of respect by putting out music that touches people wherever I am. It was hard work, but this is what I want and what I want to do. My first single, ‘I’m A Hoe,’ is an old Whodini track. We were thinking, ‘you know what would be crazy, use the song with a different angle. Big Bub said, “this is the track to get on.’ So, we hit them a couple of different ways. We talk about girls, sluts, especially since these days, a lot of girls just want to be around the money. You ain’t got to be f---ing to be considered a hoe, that’s just how it is. We even have another concept called, “I’m a hoe, but you’ve got to strap up, though,’ as an AIDs awareness campaign. Another song is “Hold Me Down,” an old Gap Band song where the hook was written by Bub and me and a writer Ebony who is like a young Mary J. Blige, came together. It’s an old school party joint that you can hear in the backyard. Like an old Biggie joint. “Wiggle” is a classic, the whole song to me is crazy, and I didn’t get a bad review yet, I think that’s the one. “I’m Hot” is a modern day song, like something you’d hear from The Neptunes. I love the beat and the hook where we talk to the people. F that featuring Heat” is a street joint that was on mixtapes and Heat’s affiliated with DJ Whoo Kid through Black Wall Street. We keep that song real street. I let people know what I’m about on that song. They’re the ones slack on buying CD’s. First off, I would like to thank GOD for blessing me, GRAM, MOM & DAD, Uncle Joey, Nicky, Marc, the whole Merlino family. The man behind it all super-producer Raul “Sir” Santiago, Big Will, D.Arch, Chais tha Great aka Blitz, Whanz, Jus Nice, Heat, Chic, Beet, Street Ka$h, Luv, Fella, Murdah, Riq G’s, Shakur, Young Sheef, Dalia Rayen, 88, and Bobbi Medley for holding me down. Big up to DJ Doitall for everything since day one. To Yummy Bingham for that voice, (drop that album). All the mixtape DJ's in the world I love yall for the support, I'll cook it up yall supply it. Mike “Donz” Donahue (Thanks for the support) and Andrew Manzano for recording everything I did. Big up to Jersey and especially AC, lets get it together…To all my fans and people holding me down…. Keep it real !!! Up & Up B.M.R & BMW 4- Life!!! Oh and to yall Pop and R&B people look out for my sister, she’s coming !