Lone Star Rap

After leaving the stage to shake hands with fans below, Coy remarks: "A lot of Mexican kids have low self-esteem, so I let them know that they can do more than just work like an animal for peanuts. When you watch professional sports, sitcoms or comedy shows, it's all black and white. It's like we ain't good for nothing except cleaning 100 offices a night, laying shingles on someone's roof in 108-degree heat or cooking and washing dishes, and nobody screams, claps or cheers for that." But Coy gets the major love as he works the floor. He's intensely charming, smiling wide, making direct eye contact and complimenting people whenever possible. It's clear he honed this part-salesman-part-friend approach in his early days peddling tapes and CDs at swap meets around Texas. "I didn't care if it was two old ladies who walked by my booth, I'd say, 'Hey, you got a grandson who likes rap? Take a listen!' " He signs a final few posters, and exits out a back door for the comfort of his brand-new Mercedes.

The next day at Dope House headquarters in Houston, everyone is waiting for Coy to arrive. A few guys sit on the loading dock of the cinder-block building, which would blend in with the adjacent warehouses but for a surrounding high-security fence and two white, company-owned limos in the lot. The crew of 10 will pile into one of these autos later today and take a two-hour trip to Austin to do a promotional radio interview, then play a show. But inside, the ever-stressed office manager, Madie, looks exasperated as she tries to work over the din of resounding bass from the studio and nonstop boasting from the crew ("Jennifer Lopez would go for me way before you, nigga"). Finally, Coy pulls up in the Mercedes with his brother, an ex-chemical-plant manager and now partner in Dope House (SPM also named his dad vice president and his sister general manager). He says he's late because on the way, he stopped to fill up with gas and sold another one of his CDs to a potential SPM fan at the pump. "My philosophy is that every time I sell a piece of my music, I plant a seed," says Coy back in his car, leading the way to Austin with the limo in tow. "One kid takes that back to his neighborhood, and the next thing you know, all his friends are loving it. That's how word got around really fast about SPM, and I'm not gonna stop now." And one more SPM fan is born.

© 2000