Fabo

Fabo is super weird. His voice is a Funkadelic sing-growl and his songs are mostly about encounters with women, told in step-by-step detail—the woman posessing almost supernatural qualities that forever change how he thinks. Why is there still no solo album, recording industry? After the jump check Nick Barat's Gen F on Fabo from F41. Rocket Man Fabo keeps Atlanta cosmic Story Nick Barat Photography Bryan Meltz Last year, the ultra-minimal doont doont SNAP, doont doont SNAP of D4L’s “Laffy Taffy” morphed from obscure Atlanta single to national phenomenon in a matter of months, generating million-selling ringtones and ubiquitous, never-ending radio play. The song’s highly vocal detractors appeared just as fast. “We would go into radio stations on promo, and the DJs would think it’s a joke,” says D4L member Fabo. “‘Man I didn’t even like this music,’ or whatever, ‘but my kids keep playing it and people keep calling in.’ That’s a compliment?” Legions of “Laffy Taffy” haters might have been skeptical of what they saw as a novelty song—or, in the case of certain middle-aged New York MCs and DJs, the fact that they haven’t come up with anything half as catchy in years—but they were sleeping hard on the track’s star. With his unpredictable sing-rap delivery and outrageous aesthetic (that’s him in the video flipping his striped-socked legs behind his back), Fabo drenched “Laffy Taffy” with gallons of personality, and his perspective gives the rest of D4L’s Down For Life LP a wildcard charm. On album highlight “Scotty,” Fabo croons acappella, “I’m starting to see spaceships on Bankhead,” before launching into a bizarre club track about pills, paranoia and police: Blow my blunt right in front of po-po/ Fuck them hoes/ They get blunted on patrol/ I gotta seeeeeeee my doctor/ Scotty beam me up. With the platinum luster of “Laffy Taffy” still shining, Fabo has been in the studio to guest with everyone from new R&B group One Chance to R Kelly, but he’s most excited for a solo album that will come out early next year. New songs being considered for it include a soulful, rap-less snap ballad called “I Was Wrong,” and “Now Or Never,” which features metal guitars and stomping military cadences (My country geek geek geek/ Strap up and ride with me). At the moment, Fabo’s biggest influences on the LP are science fiction flicks, an alter-ego named Two Dollar (“People see Fabo every day, Two Dollar is the part they don’t understand—the visible and the invisible”) and Parliament-Funkadelic. He’s particularly proud of a song he’s recorded with George Clinton, and it becomes clear that Fabo isn’t a one-hit wonder, but is aiming to become a funkateer for an era of snappin and trappin. “My whole thing is just about getting the hell on, know what I mean?” says Fabo. “Hooking up a spaceship with some 46”s on that motherfucker, aqua, peanut-butter paintjob on that sumbitch cause it’s going. With all my niggas on it, we gonna blow this thing to Mars.” www.myspace.com/snapking