99. 2Mex, B Boys in Occupied Mexico
Mean Street Records
Released October 9, 2001
Alex “2Mex” Ocana’s career dates back to the mid 90s, and sprawls over dozens of tour-only CD-Rs, side projects (including now-defunct supergroup the Visionaries) and poorly-distributed albums, including his best album, B Boys in Occupied Mexico. As one song goes, it’s “Humble is the Style of the Day.” It’s modest yet warmly human: 2Mex rues “I didn’t mean to touch your hand/I didn’t realize I was so grotesque,” then a few numbers later offers “The Believe in Yourself Song.” Not quite emo-rap (though Spin would claim 2Mex as part of that tribe in an infamous article), it gives a vivid portrait of a Latin B-boy in Los Angeles that rips punchy lyrics and “percussion precaution” over Omid’s break beats. “I am the stone in the sun,” he says on “Offering.” “I am the poem in your lungs.”
