There were no tears Friday night when local rapper Anville, born Angelo Robert Trevino-Villamil, bombastically burst onto the Aggie Theatre stage for his last Colorado performance.
Friday night’s performance wasn’t just a concert — it was a celebration featuring artists from across Colorado, including Jaedyn Garcia, TMC!, YoungBoy 37, Enlightened Artists, One Peace, 22 Crew and Devin Tremell. With a packed theater, anyone would rightfully be nervous, but Anville showed no trepidation taking to the stage with fellow headliner Mitchell James.
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“I’m not nervous; I’m just really prepared,” Anville said a few days earlier. “I feel like this is my time to go, my time to get it.”
If you asked people what comes to mind when they think of Colorado, you’d probably hear breweries or mountains long before you hear hip-hop, but Anville is one of a few rappers from a burgeoning hip-hop scene in Colorado.
People don’t choose wisely to deal with pain, and I feel like music is the way that I choose to deal with pain.” -Angelo Villamil, Colorado-based rapper known as Anville
Anville grew up in Johnstown, Colorado, where his family traced their lineage back to the 1930s, where he still lives today and currently owns the house his great-grandfather built. Growing up in his grandmother’s house from the age of 14 alongside his mother, step-father and brother, Anville attended Roosevelt High School, where he, the self-described stoner kid, played varsity basketball and football.
Some may find it strange that Anville has only been rapping for 2 1/2 years, but they may find it even stranger that he didn’t grow up primarily listening to hip-hop or that he doesn’t primarily listen to it now. In fact, he remembers hearing rap for the first time when he and his mother were driving in their 1967 Plymouth.
“We listened to Scarface,” Anville said. “That was the first-ever hip-hop album I ever listened to.”
Anville says he prefers to listen to artists like Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana or Ozzy Osbourne — artists with multi-layered instrumentals and hardcore or psychedelic aesthetics. In terms of rap, Anville’s favorite artists are Kendrick Lamar, Anderson .Paak and J. Cole. In fact, J. Cole’s appearance at the Pepsi Center in Denver during his KOD Tour in September 2018 was Anville’s first-ever concert.
“(The rappers are) speaking (the) truth,” Anville said. “Right now, the hip-hop game is a lot of candy, and (with) those kinds of people, their music was soul food. A lot of people have gotten away from soul food and just want candy. They want sh*t to get f*cked up to. They want sh*t to smoke to. (Lamar, Cole and .Paak) put love into their music. They put soul into their music.”
Anville’s music can be streamed on Spotify and Apple Music.
Anville is no stranger to putting soul into his music, saying one of the major reasons he started taking rap more seriously was for the emotional release the experience brought him. At 15 years old, he started writing poetry, taking after his mother and grandmother who were also writers, and he even practiced slam poetry.
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Anville’s biological father went to prison when he was three years old, which caused tension between him and his step-father. Eventually, the two grew close, but tragedy struck not long after.
“He came into my life when I was about five years old,” Anville said. “When you grow up without a father, no matter what man comes into your life, you crave your biological (dad). You know like, ‘I don’t care who you are. You’re not my f*cking dad,’ and by the time I realized that this man had been in my life for 10 plus years, he’s taken care of my mom and all that, he ended up hitting black ice and getting in a head-on collision. He was in a coma for nine months, and now he’s a quadriplegic and can’t walk and can’t talk.”
Anville then took it upon himself to help his mom and help raise his little brother. But the tribulations would not stop there. After Anville graduated high school, his girlfriend at the time passed away, which helped to usher in a time in his life from about 19 to 24 years old that he describes as being “lost.”
During this time, he also entered a relationship he described as “toxic.” He tried to pick up a few instruments and even sing the blues, but he found his real relief in rapping.
I’m really sad to see him go, but hopefully I’ll get to see him perform out there too.” – Anville’s mother.
“There are ways to deal with pain,” Anville said. “People don’t choose wisely to deal with pain, and I feel like music is the way that I choose to deal with pain. Everyone has their trials and tribulations. Everyone has something they go through, and not everyone decides to deal with that pain in a positive manner, … and now it’s really easy to harness that pain and connect with people.”
Now Anville feels he’s in a place where he can use the stress from his past struggles as a positive motivator to drive him forward and help his family. He keeps a photo album on his phone that he looks at before every concert called “why I do it,” which is a series of photos of all the important people in his life who help motivate him.
A large part of why Anville is doing what he’s doing is to help support his family who also inspired his decision to move out to California to look for better opportunities. Anville expects to find his best chances in Los Angeles, where he hopes to garner enough attention to be signed by a label.
“When it comes down to it, ain’t nobody gonna love me like my momma, and ain’t nobody gonna look up to me like my little brother does,” Anville said. “Those two people right there, those are my rocks. I gotta make sure they’re safe, make sure they’re alright.”
We all want to take that next step and grow as artists, so I’ll never knock one of my homies for trying to do better in his life.” -Travis “Trav The Trigger” Mcbride of Enlightened Artists
He mentioned during the interview that when he gets the chance, he’s going to get “mama’s boy” tattooed on his neck.
“I’m really sad to see him go, but hopefully I’ll get to see him perform out there too,” said Anville’s mother, who preferred not to be named.
While James and Anville headlined, it wasn’t long before every artist came out on stage to perform with them. Tremell asked at one point for the stage lights to be turned off so that the crowd could illuminate the room using only their cell phone lights. Later on during Anville’s performance of “I Don’t Give a F*ck,” he asked the crowd to start a mosh pit.
“Since the day he told me he was moving, I supported him 100%,” Travis “Trav The Trigger” Mcbride of Enlightened Artists said. “We all want to take that next step and grow as artists, so I’ll never knock one of my homies for trying to do better in his life.”
Ty Davis can be reached at entertainment@collegian.com or Twitter @TyDavisACW.
