Gabriel Garzón-Montano just got signed to DJ Peanut Butter Wolf’s famed Stones Throw Records, which is huge. But it’s not that the NYC producer, vocalist, and musician needs in-studio guidance. Having masterminded his debut album Bishouné: Alma Del Huila into a funk-inflected smooth ride, Garzón-Montano proved that he could craft an entire release from start to finish with his own two hands. “No other person clicked on a computer file or played any other instrument or wrote anything,” he told Remezcla earlier this year.
But the resources at Stones Throw may be what this talented artist needs to step up a level, past the point where certain hip-hop heavies see fit to credit him with just his initials. That was the Drake shade that went down last year when the Toronto rapper copped Garzón-Montano’s “6 8” as the background for “Jungle” from If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late.
We’re ready for more GGM in the center spotlight, especially given the meditative clip for “Trial” that he released to celebrate his arrival in the Stones Throw family. Floating on a bed of blooms in a blue sea, he calls ambition into question, even as he takes another step up the career ladder: “Maybe I’ll trade my trials for fame and still be just as lonely.”