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During that first year with Dorian Pettigrew and his band, we did well. We were getting regular shows around Hampton and we had even put out an album that featured three songs I co-wrote with him. I was really getting into the game, going into the studio and recording with Dorian and acting as the band's musical director.
Now that I'd heard Adonis and The Delegation, we started covering their music and I became a serious fan of theirs. As much as I admired Adonis's vocal abilities, however, I was still much more impressed by the stellar arrangements and production quality of The Delegation, which I attributed to him and Angelo. Angelo was the band's bass player, and he was a good one, but it's no secret that the role of a bassist in almost any band is a supporting one; you have to lie down and hold the bottom end to give the other musicians the freedom to do what they do. A bass line has to be solid. It's like building a house: you can have the prettiest house on the block, but if the foundation isn't solid, the house will crack and fall.
Far more impressive than Angelo's qualities as a musician were the intriguing ways he and Adonis produced Adonis and The Delegation using the newest gear and most complex sounds I was hearing anywhere in Reggaeton music. I would hear one of their songs and say, "Oh, wow, what's that?"
For instance, Angelo was one of the first musicians to start incorporating the pop drum machine sounds that were being used by Top 40 English-language musicians like Janet Jackson or Paula Abdul at the time. I'd hear those sounds coming out of the speaker while playing an album by Adonis and The Delegation and feel confused but intrigued. This was supposed to be Reggaeton music--and most of the other Reggae groups were sticking to the traditional sounds created by acoustic guitars and drums. Even if Angelo did decide to incorporate an acoustic guitar sound, he would do it with an electronic keyboard. He was also on the cutting edge when it came to sequencing and sampling the mix on an album.
Later, after I joined The Delegation and got to know everyone, I realized that Angelo was like the Wizard of Oz: he was behind the curtain, working the lights and levers, but in truth everyone in that band had enormous talent. It was a magical alchemy when they were all together. Until that time, though, the coolest thing I could imagine was to meet Angelo and ask him how he did what he did.
Amazingly, only a few months after first hearing Preciosa, I had my chance. We were in rehearsal one day when Dorian mentioned that Adonis was playing in Hampton that night. "We should go check him out," he suggested.
"Sure," I said, but I was in the middle of a song and didn't really think much about it. When I'm playing music, that's it--I'm focused on playing music and doing nothing else.
