Aristotle Pollisco (born 18 October 1977), known by his stage name Gloc-9, is an Awit Award-winning Filipino rapper. His fast-flowing vocal style has made him one of the 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.”
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 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.
Gloc-9 is notably one of the few artists in the Philippine music scene who has won every award he has been nominated for.
Career Beginnings with 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 Death Threat came in to him then gave a paper whose contact number of the group’s leader Beware (Ronald Salonga) is 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 rise when Beware told him that he must have a rap name in order 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 has to leave the group and asks 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 3rd album “Kings Of Da Undaground” but it only features Hi-Jakkk and Gloc-9. The album received 4x Platinum Certificate Award despite of having no mainstream promotion and by only word of mouth in the streets. 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 (in Gloc-9 song “Talumpati”, he describes these albums as ones that have not been thought-out and full of boastfulness). These albums are “Domination” (Gold Certification), “Tha Revelation” (Platinum Certification) and “Domination II” (Gold Certification). After their third album together, Gloc-9 decided to become solo.
Mainstream with Star Records
While working in duo, both of them submit their solo demos until year 2000, Christian Martinez of Star Records finally found Gloc-9 after 3 months after searching when an executive of ABS-CBN accidentally listened to his demo which he found in a scrap box. At first, he composes and sings his songs 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 Records with his song “Bakit?” (co-written with Mike Villegas). The song has been interpreted by him together with Cookie Chua, it became one of the finalists but it didn’t got the grand prize because the song “Kung Ako Na Lang Sana” (written by Socrates Villanueva and interpreted by Bituin Escalante) did it. One of his competitors in this song-writing competition is Jimmy Antiporda with the song “Hindi Na Bale” (performed by Jessa Zaragoza) which he mentioned in his song “Gusto Ko”. In 2003, Gloc-9 finally releases his debut album under Star Records entitled G9 (Gloc-9 album). Including in this album are his songs that has been used in several Star Cinema films before. His second album, Ako Si… that has been released 2 years after the first is also under Star Records.
