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Known throughout his long career for slick, drawling, and hard gangsta rhymes backed by funky productions -- sometimes his own --
Celly Cel has been a vital part of the Bay Area scene since the early '90s. He achieved his commercial peak with the low-key slow jam "It's Goin' Down" and its parent album,
Killa Kali (1996), his second of three Jive-distributed LPs for
E-40's Sick wid' It label. The rapper has remained active throughout the ensuing decades with solo albums on his own Realside label and full-length collaborations with
Spice 1 and
Jayo Felony (as Criminalz), and D Enemy, Protajay, and
Mac Reese (as
Hillside Stranglaz).
Born Marcellus McCarver,
Celly Cel grew up in the waterfront Bay Area city of Vallejo. He got his start with the "Lifestyle of a Mack" single (1991) and the Funk 4 Life EP (1993), both of which he produced and issued on cassette. Signed to fellow Vallejo native
E-40's Sick wid' It Records,
Celly went nationwide with
Heat 4 Yo Azz (1994). Featuring the single and
2Pac favorite "Bailin' Thru My Hood," the album reached number 34 on Billboard's R&B/hip-hop chart. More ground was gained two years later with
Killa Kali (1996), which entered the R&B/hip-hop chart at number four and cracked the Top 30 of the all-genre Billboard 200. After
Celly left more dents on multiple charts with
The G Filez (1998), he left Sick wid' It on good terms -- the label anthologized their association with
The Best of Celly Cel -- and reactivated Realside.
Deep Conversation (2000) soon became
Celly's fourth charting solo LP, and was quickly followed by
Criminal Activity, credited to Criminalz, a one-off group with
Spice 1 and
Jayo Felony.
Celly's fifth solo album,
It'z Real Out Here (2005), was likewise trailed by a full-length collaboration, this time as a member of the all-Vallejo group
Hillside Stranglaz. Their one album,
Bad Influence (2006), was issued the same year
Celly offered
Slaps, Straps and Baseball Hats -- his sixth LP as a solo artist -- and presented
The Wild West and
Brings the Gumbo Pot, geographically distinct compilations boasting the work of Too Short,
E-40, and
MC Eiht, as well as
Devin the Dude,
Juvenile, and
Tech N9ne. During the remainder of the 2000s and throughout the 2010s,
Celly, always an eager collaborator, was a featured artist more often than a headliner, landing on projects from
Spice 1,
Rappin' 4-Tay, and
E-40, among many other artists. In the latter decade, he added two proper albums,
Morphine (2013) and Dirty Mind (2017), to the Realside catalog, and worked on his ninth full-length, planned for 2020. ~ Andy Kellman