AMILCAR - IF I WASN'T PROMO from DJ TIMBUCK2 on Vimeo.
Revolutionary born, Amilcar Chimurenga’s legacy began September 9th, 1982. “I was born a revolutionary because I’m named after Amilcar Cabral, the assassinated mastermind & revolutionary from Guinea-Bissau, Africa & I am the son of one of NY’s most militant revolutionaries, Coltrane Chimurenga, member and co-founder of The December 12th movement and NY8.” Amilcar’s beginning started in the infamous Fort Green section of Brooklyn. NY. At the age of five he moved to the home of 2pac's "Outlawz", Montclair, NJ, where he was introduced to hip hop, drugs, money & murder. “Growing up in Da Clair made me 50% of the man & artist I am today.” Amilcar, the product of a semi-impoverished environment & a middle class home, his mother a law professor paying all the bills and supporting the family, and his father an activist who only earned finances from community donation, made the decision at an early age that becoming an activist wasn’t for him because of the financial disabilities. “I always wanted to be a revolutionary activist like my father, but at the same time I wanted to be a rich revolutionary activist, so I always had a dilemma because being a revolutionary isn’t about being wealthy, its more about getting your people to unify, believe in what you believe in and supporting them till the end.” Amilcar was influenced by the early 90’s rap, artists like Kriss Kross, Illegal, 2pac, Nas, Smif-N-Wesson and Naughty By Nature gave him style & swagger. It wasn’t until late 1996 that Amilcar took rap more seriously and began to craft his incredible talent. After witnessing his cousin, Yafeu Fula (Kadafi of The Outlawz) pass away in the hospital from a severe gun shot wound to the eye did Amilcar decide that he would rap as a profession. “The night I watched Kadafi laying there lifeless with a bloody gauze over his eye covering a bullet hole through his brain and witnessing his mother devastated, forced to pull the plug on her only son, I made the decision I was going to carry on the legacy.” Amilcar soon moved to the Bay Area of California and then finally to the Windy City, Chicago, where he would gain major street respect & a heavy buzz for being one of Chicago’s sharpest underground artists on the rise to stardom. “When I came to Chicago I found my voice & developed my flow.”
Amilcar soon connected with high school associate DJ Sean Mac & blueprinted a mixtape enterprise & means of being heard throughout the Midwest. “Sean Mac knew I was cold & real different from everybody else rapping in Da Chi & I knew he was a party DJ on the rise so I came to him with the mixtape proposition because I knew mixtapes were an outlet for my words to get heard & that they were poppin on the east coast but they weren’t in Chicago at all so we had to start a new following here.” Aside from blazing DJ Sean Mac’s heavy rotated mixtapes every month, Amilcar has blessed various DJ's mixtapes across the world, from DJ Mike Love, DJ L, DJ Papa Smirf, DJ G-Spot, Paris’s DJ Weedim to DJ Ophax “The French Mixtape King.” Amilcar has moved the crowd opening up for numerous platinum hit artists from Kanye West, Common, Twista to Shawnna. In the fall of 2006 Amilcar’s financial anthem “Get Ya Money Rite” gained heavy buzz & notoriety after debuting on Chicago’s Power 92 FM, “Power Hour.” The anthem went on to getting 250 spins per week according to BDS charts & is even being played in Birmingham, United Kingdom daily on 95.3 KrissFM thanks to DJ LickChart. “My buzz in the streets was heavy before I dropped Get Ya Money Rite though because for a couple years straight I was killing every Sean Mac mixtape released so I built a huge following before I hit radio.”
Amilcar is a very lyrical and self conscious MC that attacks concepts that many artists fall short of doing today. Attacking lyrics with a very distinctive voice & confident aura, Amilcar is a MC that you can live & learn from. “If I could describe my style in three words I would say it is Intricate, Interesting & Witty.” Amilcar is more than ready to fill the industries void of original and reality rap MC's. Amilcar has a message that is void in the industry today & will help bring hip hop back to its golden years when we listened to lyricists.
"You can kill a revolutionary, but you can't kill a revolution." -Amilcar
