Gior Chambonea is a Dominican rapper from Sabana Grande de Boyá, in Monte Plata. He signs himself El Psicópata que Canta, releases his own records through an independent distributor, and has built a catalogue of more than a hundred videos without a label, a manager or a single line of press coverage.

A town, not a capital

Almost everything he has made names the place. Pa la 42 and En Mi Bloque, subtitled Pueblo Nuevo, sound like capital records to anyone who does not know the country — la 42 is a famous street in Santo Domingo — but both are barrios of his own town, and that is the one he means. Parada Sabanera is named for the town too.

The live footage is all from the same map: nights at Oro VIP in Sabana Grande de Boyá, the Expo Monte Plata in 2018 and again in 2019, a set from Maquiteria. This is the provincial circuit, which is where most Dominican urban music actually gets played and almost none of it gets written about.

The records

Lo Cotomo, with La Cima, came in 2020. Bolsillos con Papera, with La Cima and Los Bacanísimos, followed in 2021, and Barrio Calentón at the end of that year. Soy de RD, made with Sincero, came in 2022. Ají Titi, Código Picante, 420 No Confío, Una Shorty en Pinta and El Sistema Vieja Escuela are on the same shelf.

He works constantly with the same circle — La Cima on record after record, Mr. Código on Desacatate and Aquí Tamo Bien, Cedeño Brown, Nayla, Sin Freno Rap, Los Bacanísimos. Desacatate is dancehall rather than rap, which in a catalogue this size counts as an experiment.

The mandamientos

10 Mandamientos was written as an answer to another posse cut, Los 12 Mandamientos, and he cut it with a roomful of other rappers. Pablo Piddy then took it further with a 2.0, and put him on Chuky Trotiao as well.

The answer record is one of the oldest forms in Dominican rap, and it is how a rapper from outside the capital gets heard: not by being signed, but by replying loudly enough to something the capital made.

Nothing about him is otherwise on the record. No legal name, no date of birth, and no article in any newspaper — the whole of what is known comes from his own channels.