A p ril 9, 2014
®,!* ^Jortlanh (Dbsertier
Page II
photo by D onovan M. S mith /T he P ortland
O bserver
Filipino-born rapper Talilo Marfil is hoping that
listeners will hear that he has found his purpose on
his debut album “Bom for This. ” He refers to his
trademark rapid-fire style as “chopping, ” highlighted
by high levels of introspection."
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the microphone
by D onovan M. S mith
T he P ortland O bserver
On Dec. 30,1989, Talilo Marfil come into this world without
a tattoo, significantly less hair, and perhaps if you ask him,
missing something even more vital: a microphone.
Now 23, the Filipino-born Portland rap-artist digitally
released his debut album “Bom for This” fittingly on his
birthday last December.
The album is highlighted by his trademark rapid-fire style
of rapping he refers to as “chopping,” but between the
diction are often high levels of introspection.
“I feel like the concept came from me observing the world,
and seeing that a lot of people don’t know what they’re living
for, and nobody has no purpose,” he says, “I found mine if
the music.”
“They lockin ’ us in a coffin before we even departed/
They trappin' up on the block and I ’m wondering what is
real/You can see we a in ’t different/Heart, got a soul, got a
mind but / know that I d o n ’t fe e l whole, ” he raps on his
opening track “Conception”.
Lyrics like these are not hard to come by on Bom For This,
and back-dropped by Talilo’s own background it is easier to
make sense of them. After being kicked out of school in
California as a teen, he migrated up to Portland. In the Rose
City, he found himself heavily entangled in the gang life,
selling drugs as a means of survival, with a tendency towards
“hot-headeness” as he calls it.
“I wanted to be a gangster growing up. I wanted to have
that power, I wanted to feel that worth. After going after that
lifestyle and trying to feel that self-worth in that, I found that
the consequences weren’t worth it,” he says.
The ultimate consequence was a several-year prison stint.
It was here that would make a promise to himself to begin
taking rap seriously.
Part of that promise also was that he’d get on a track with
Northwest favorite Luck-One, and that he did on one of the
album’s standout tracks. “Can’t Take That Away” finds the
two detailing their spiritual pride despite being in a system
they felt largely ignored their humanity.
You can talk about your lifestyle in a negative way or a
continued
on page 13