Songoftheday 4/12/17 - Check this out baby tenemos tremendo lio, last night you didn't go a la casa de tu tio...
from the album Escape From Havana (1989)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #14 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13
Today's song of the day comes from Cuban-born rapper Mellow Man Ace, who moved to Los Angeles as a toddler. He released his debut album, Escape From Havana, in 1989. One of the tracks from the album was a "story-rap" about a lying, cheating woman, with the Spanish word for liar, "Mentirosa", serving as the title to the half-English, half-Spanish, or "Spanglish", single which sampled two songs from the Latin rock giants Santana, "Evil Ways" and "No One To Depend On"...
"Mentirosa" became Mellow Man Ace's solo pop hit, reaching the top-40 in July of 1990. The single also climbed to #60 on Billboard's R&B chart, while it hit #34 on the Hot Latin Tracks list. The 12" remix single which also featured the non-album house music jam "Welcome To The Groove", climbed to #10 on their Dance Club Play chart as well. Over the pond in England, "Mentirosa" slipped on to the chart at #99, while "Welcome To My Groove" hit #96.
A year later, Ace joined fellow Latin rap artists Kid Frost and ALT as the Latin Alliance, and had a minor pop hit with another cover song, this time "Lowrider" featuring the original rock band War. That track also sampled "Evil Ways" as well, and reached #54 on the pop chart in 1991. He came back with a second solo album the following year, and from it "What's It Take To Pull A Hottie (Like You)?" spent a couple of weeks on the R&B chart peaking at #92. In the 2000's, he returned with three indie studio albums in that decade.
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Here's the B-side of the 12" remix single, "Welcome To My Groove", with a remix by Steve "Silk" Hurley, which was the big reason it made the top ten of the dance club play chart in Billboard. The track on its own got to #96 in the UK...
...and the extended version of "Mentirosa"...
Finally, here's MMA performing live on Arsenio Hall...
Up tomorrow: A glam-metal band with a song about Ms. Mansfield?
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