FUSE TV - Combatant Profile: Cortez's Comeback

Cortez is a man burdened by stereotypes. Hailing from Bed Stuy in Brooklyn, New York, he’s one of the few Total Slaughter emcees who grew up near hip-hop’s birthplace, and he’s the only one that’s Hispanic. “Everyone expects me to rap like Big Pun,” he says. “No disrespect, Pun is one of my favorites, but I don’t have to rap fast and with the syllables and all that. Every other Spanish nigga, half of them try to sound like [Pun], I’m not even gonna front.”

He’s faced other biases as well—being from NYC, he feels he’s often perceived as a ripple amongst a never-ending wave of East Coast rappers in an industry that’s gobbling up all things Southern right now. Despite having had two record deals in the past, he also feels discriminated against as a battle rapper. “We’re keeping the culture alive, but we’re also creating a lane. There’s people now who just want to be battle rappers. Before, battle rappers used to battle to get a record deal and cross over. Now, niggas is like, ‘I don’t even make music, son. I just battle.’”

But that Spanish thing still lingers.

In 2013, Cortez was enduring a slump. His stock as a veteran had fallen, and he decided to travel out to Dizaster’s hometown Los Angeles to battle him. In retrospect, he credits Diz for taking a battle he didn’t have to accept at a time when Cortez had a smaller profile but the two had also been throwing jabs at each other for three or four years prior, so the face-off was bound to happen.