Biography
Nilo MC ranks among the foremost figures in Cuban hip-hop alongside los Orishas, a fiercely unsanctioned genre whose clandestine status has largely confined wider recognition to those who have left the island. Born Nilo Castillo in Havana’s tough Marianao district, he came from an artistic household—his mother performed as a dancer at the Tropicana cabaret—and first earned his living through painting. Although Cuban music filled his childhood, Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet struck a decisive chord, prompting him to begin writing his own raps in 1989.
Equipped with a recommendation letter from an art gallery, Castillo journeyed to Ecuador in 1992 and cut the album Hora Cero there three years later. The project never received an official release and survives only as a bootleg cassette passed among listeners in Havana’s underground. He subsequently relocated to Germany and joined forces with producer Bernd Kunz of the trip-hop group A Forest Mighty Black. The pair headed to Madrid in early 1998 to lay down the unreleased demo Coconuts.
Dividing his time between Madrid and Berlin, Castillo took occasional DJ gigs in the German capital while forging ties with figures in the Spanish city’s hip-hop community, among them producer Juanjo Valmarisco. Under Valmarisco’s guidance, he issued his debut official album as Nilo MC, Guajiro del Asfalto, on the Virgin imprint Chewaka in early 2002; the record earned a nomination for Best Rap/Hip-Hop Album at the third Latin Grammy Awards.
Equipped with a recommendation letter from an art gallery, Castillo journeyed to Ecuador in 1992 and cut the album Hora Cero there three years later. The project never received an official release and survives only as a bootleg cassette passed among listeners in Havana’s underground. He subsequently relocated to Germany and joined forces with producer Bernd Kunz of the trip-hop group A Forest Mighty Black. The pair headed to Madrid in early 1998 to lay down the unreleased demo Coconuts.
Dividing his time between Madrid and Berlin, Castillo took occasional DJ gigs in the German capital while forging ties with figures in the Spanish city’s hip-hop community, among them producer Juanjo Valmarisco. Under Valmarisco’s guidance, he issued his debut official album as Nilo MC, Guajiro del Asfalto, on the Virgin imprint Chewaka in early 2002; the record earned a nomination for Best Rap/Hip-Hop Album at the third Latin Grammy Awards.
Albums
Singles
