Making own way pays off for Vegas MC

The dream came true at a gas station -- the magazine rack, to be specific.

Tough-nosed Las Vegas MC Romero was on his way back from a gig in New Mexico, performing with fiery Latino rapper Pitbull, when he got the news: influential urban music magazine Vibe had named him among the 51 best rappers on MySpace in the country.

"My boy called me up, said I was in the magazine. He was like, 'Man, congratulations,' " Romero recalls, sitting on the patio to a Henderson home studio where he records. "I couldn't wait to drive in and pick up a magazine. As soon as I drove into town, I hit some little Chevron. I didn't believe it until I saw it."

Romero earned his stripes with a rugged, yet slick flow and an introspection not always heard among such street-hardened MCs. He's an open book whose pages are penned in blood and tears, struggling to come to terms with a father who was murdered when he was a kid, the rigors of being a single dad and trying to make it in the hard knock hip-hop ranks.

"I have fell into trying to make commercial records, because being successful and having good radio play, of course we do chase that," says Romero, sporting a blue ball cap, a black T-shirt and a steady glare, his forearms tattooed with the words "Mero Mero," the name of his record company. "But my whole thing is that the records that have touched people is me just telling my story. I don't make records for the world, I just get my story out. It's real life-type situations."

It's this cold-eyed earnesty that helped endear Romero to the staff at Vibe.

"I think the attitude was certainly something that was intriguing to us," says Sean Fennessey, a Vibe editor. "We were looking for diversity, and obviously Romero isn't a typical looking or sounding rapper. This is going to sound kind of perfunctory, but he can really rap."

A do-it-yourself-kind-of-guy, Romero runs his own record label, distributes his own releases and even hand makes his own T-shirts on a T-shirt press next to the studio.

Also a part of hip-hop duo Clicka 1, Romero claims to have sold more than 25,000 copies of his numerous solo records, mix tapes and Clicka 1 releases, mostly through small local retailers and out of the trunk of his car.

"Being a Latin rapper, there wasn't really any lane for us, so we had to make our own lane, which was going to the mom and pop stores, the swap meets," he says. "That's really where we made our own market."

As he speaks, it become clear that music is a family thing for Romero. Born in Albuquerque, N.M., his father and uncles were mariachi men, and he hopes that his young son will some day dream as big as all of them.

"I want to let him know, 'Hey, pops, he followed his dream, he never gave up,' " Romero says, his features fading in the light as dusk approaches. "To me, my whole thing is just letting him know that I'm a dreamer. And I still believe."

These days, he's not alone.

Jason Bracelin's "Sounding Off" column appears on Tuesdays. Contact him at 383-0476 or e-mail him at jbracelin@ reviewjournal.com.