Aristotle Condenuevo Pollisco (born October 18, 1977), known professionally as Gloc-9, is a Filipino rapper, singer, and songwriter. Regarded as one of the best Filipino rappers of all time, his fast-flowing vocal style has made him one of the best-selling and most successful hip-hop artists in the Philippines. He was described by fellow Filipino rapper Francis Magalona as "a blacksmith of words and letters, and a true Filipino poet."[3]
He has collaborated on almost a dozen songs with other OPM artists; "Lando" with the late Francis M, "Upuan" with Jaezelle, "Bagsakan" with Parokya ni Edgar, "Baon" with Gab Chee Kee of Parokya ni Edgar and Francis M, and "Sari-Saring Kwento" with Noel Cabangon and Champ Lui Pio. His songs mostly tackle social issues such as social injustices, poverty, and patriotism. He began his musical career with the gangsta rap group Death Threat.[11]
Gloc-9 is notably one of the few artists in the Philippine music scene who has won an award for almost every album he released.[4]
Career
In Death Threat
In his song Talumpati, Gloc-9 states that he joined a drive-by show by Andrew E. After the show, a member of the Filipino hip hop group Death Threat came into him then gave a paper on which the contact number of the group's leader Beware (Ronald Salanga) was written. After a phone call with Beware, he joined the group in which he began to make a name for himself in the local underground hip hop scene. His stage name "Gloc-9" came into rising when Beware told him that he must have a rap name to become a rapper. A number of options were suggested: MAGNUM45 and KALIBRE28 were rejected outright, but he decided that Glock 9, minus the "k", sounded catchy.
Death Threat released several albums until one-day Beware had to leave the group and asked Gloc-9 to be the leader of the group together with Hi-Jakk (which Gloc-9 describes as a "rapper who does not know how to rap" in his song Talumpati). In 1997, Death Threat released their third album, "Kings of Da Undaground," but it only features Hi-Jakkk and Gloc-9. The album received 4× platinum certification despite having no mainstream promotion but the only word of mouth in the streets.[12]
As duo with Hi-Jakkk
Within the same year, the duo of Gloc-9 and Hi-Jakkk started to release albums not carrying the name of Death Threat under Viva Records. These albums are Domination that was certified gold, Tha Revelation certified platinum and Domination II certified gold. In his release "Talumpati", Gloc-9 describes these albums as ones that have not been thought-out and of being full of boastfulness. After their third album together, Gloc-9 was kicked out of the group Death Threat by Beware without any clear reason. Later, Hi-Jakkk decided to leave the group and in 2021, he decided to join Andrew E.'s Dongalo Wreckords.
Solo with Star Music
While working as a duo, both Gloc-9 and Hi-Jakkk continued to submit their solo demos until the year 2000, when Christian Martinez of Star Music finally discovered Gloc-9's talent after 3 months of searching, when an executive of ABS-CBN accidentally put on his demo from a recording found in a scrap box.
At first, Gloc-9 composed and sang his own songs for soundtracks of several Star Cinema films like Trip and Jologs. In 2002, he also joined Himig Handog Love Songs, a song-writing competition operated by the ABS-CBN Corporation and Star Music with his song "Bakit?" (co-written with Mike Villegas).[13] The song has been interpreted by him together with Cookie Chua, becoming one of the finalists in the competition but without winning the title as the grand prize went to "Kung Ako Na Lang Sana" written by Socrates Villanueva and interpreted by Bituin Escalante. In this song-writing competition, one of his competitors was Jimmy Antiporda with the song "Hindi Na Bale" performed by Jessa Zaragoza. The latter was mentioned in Gloc-9's song "Gusto Ko".
In 2003, Gloc-9 released his debut album under Star Music entitled G9.[14] Included in this album are songs that had been used in several Star Cinema films before. His second album, Ako Si... was released in 2005 under Star Music.[15]
In February 2021, Gloc-9 announced a new album titled Poot at Pag-ibig, which he would be releasing on YouTube one track a day from February 14–19.[16]
