South Park Monster

He became a regular at flea markets from San Antonio to Albuquerque. He persuaded promoters to let him take the stage between band sets, and sales escalated. He was everywhere. Coy would be seen at a car show in Abilene one day, and a flea market in Brownsville the next. Then he would turn up pestering passersby in Del Rio.

Even grandmothers got the pitch from this smooth-talking stranger. He would ask if their grandkids were rap fans, and keep talking until he pocketed money. Like a politician pursuing grassroots support, Coy viewed it as planting seeds that would grow into future fans.

He sold out of his Hillwood tape, ordered more and continued selling for some two and a half years. In 1995, he launched Dope House Records with brother Arthur. His second offering, Hustle Town, netted him a deal with Houston independent distributor Southwest Wholesale.

Hustle Townroared out of the gate, selling 2,500 copies in less than two weeks. His father saw that the family could make more money peddling Carlos's new dope, his rap, than they ever could brokering groceries. The elder Coy soon gave Carlos free rein over his warehouse, which was renamed the Dope House. Relatives grabbed their executive titles to the new company. Carlos himself assumed the humble mantle of, as his Internet bio puts it, "the Don of Dope House Records and musical engineer with a Ph.D. in rapology."

The slogan at the Center Street record label: Dope Sells Itself. Carlos had always said it did. He was right.

[B]ought my own limousine / 20 inch Macleans / 5 screens / with 2 margarita machines

Matt Sonzala, a local freelance writer who has covered Southern rap in magazines such as Murder Dog and XXL, can predict the words of every rapper he's interviewed. They all brag that "What sets me apart is I have my own style."

"When I first heard of South Park Mexican, I was like, 'Man, who the hell is this dude?' " Sonzala says. "But then I found out that he really is different. He's one of the very few rappers like that. Say what you want about him, but he has his own style."

Most impressive to Sonzala is the wit reflected in Coy's work and the rapper himself. "He's funny. He's unique in that way. And he's a hustler," the writer says. "He's one of those guys who take that whole independent revolution of the mid-'90s here in Houston, and took that music into Louisiana, and more heavily Hispanic markets in places like Colorado and New Mexico. He took his stuff to that level totally on his own."

As his notoriety spread, the colorful Coy carefully locked up the regional rap market. He swept the Houston Press music awards and became a solid headliner in distant venues. His Dope House label lured in several notable musicians, and Coy's own creations kept climbing up the charts.

When the national music press turned his way, the critics outside the Southwest were unimpressed. The New York Press's Ned Vizzini called Coy's Time Is Money "bad, cheap rap" and added, "there's no excuse for Time Is Money to sound like a setting on my cellphone ringer." Allmusic.com's Jon Azpiri similarly dismissed the CD: "The Texan was hoping to break out of the Lone Star State…but the 16-track effort is unlikely to catch on." He concluded that "South Park Mexican fails to bring anything new to the table that is worthy of national attention."

Like every other Southern independent who takes his stuff to a major, it didn't really make a difference to Coy -- any publicity helped.

As his stardom grew, he edged toward becoming another cultural icon for expanding Hispanic awareness, and started to see his role in quasi-messianic terms. Coy no longer considered himself merely a rapper, but a "street poet" or "street philosopher." In most of his later interviews, he spoke like a Mexican-American liberationist. Blacks had their Malcolm X, and Coy seemed to want to become the Hispanics' Malcolm Equis. He referred to Mexican-Americans as "my people" and as an all-but-enslaved class sorely in need of self-esteem.

Coy believed he was the one to bring them that respectability as his own commercial successes mounted. He bragged about going from $400 a month in album sales to $40,000 monthly. Dope House hit full stride in 2000. Recording giant Universal Music Group signed him to a lucrative deal that brought an advance of more than $500,000.

Texas Monthly magazine weighed in by selecting Coy as one of the "Voices of a New Generation," a breakout star on the rise. Accomplishments only fed on more far-out dreams. Next up, he pledged, would be movie productions that could rival Hollywood.

The year closed out with his headiest coup: a Newsweek article about this dynamic Hispanic leading the previously overlooked youth of the burgeoning Mexican-American culture. "A lot of Mexican American kids have low self-esteem, so I let them know that they can do more than just work like an animal for peanuts," he said in the story. "…Nobody screams, claps, or cheers for that."

But his fans did cheer when he delivered his homilies. Before each show, Coy would give a speech about the virtues of staying in school and away from crack, keeping out of gangs and getting a job. He'd tell his listeners about the glories of families and responsible parenthood.