$1.1 Billion
Wiki Biography
Washington D.C. native Chink Santana has made an indelible mark in the music industry as a Grammy Award winning producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Born Andre Parker, the self-taught musician took up the drums at the age of 4, and has expanded his talents to become one of the most prolific producers of the last decade.After his mother passed away when he was 3, his father brought him and his brothers up in an atmosphere that Santana recalls as being wild and heavily musical. Describing his home as being one that was never without a radio on or a record playing, the round-the-clock music fostered his love for it. Because his father played a variety of instruments as a hobby and kept them accessible, they later made for a safe outlet when trouble arrived and his dad would force him to stay inside. With the choice between total boredom and playing the instruments, he found the music was cathartic in helping him process the issues he had with growing up in the hood.Even as music started becoming an intense hobby, the streets became primary for him by age 13, and he would swing between the two for many years. While he professes to have never liked school he always made excellent grades—even demanding the teachers give him all his homework in advance so he could get it out of the way. Yet because he was so analytical he saw the teachers as financially poor and frustrated while the streets showcased better heroes in Go-Go bands like Rare Essence and with the drug dealers dripping with money and affluence. Because he never thought music would be a livelihood, hustling was an easy pull when it came to getting money. Yet by the time he started catching minor cases, as well as seeing the effects of the beginning crack era; he realized he didn’t want that life as much and music came to his rescue. With his dad telling him he could do whatever he wanted and that whatever he did he’d be good at, Santana says of his motivation toward music: “My father said, ‘you got something with this music thing’. His support always made me feel I could do it, and since I trusted his judgment I went hard with it.” He started playing with small local groups and utilizing the skills he had for building a song from the ground up. He deems this period as a highlight, and when things started making sense for him.By the early 1990’s his name started getting out and his producer skills were honed off of taking raw groups and making them sound richer. By writing tighter words and rhymes, as well as showing everybody their parts—from the vocalist to the keyboardist—he became stronger at it with each group. After the legendary group Junkyard went through a series of drummers after Heavy One—a musical hero of Santana’s—had died, they auditioned him and he landed a spot that lasted seven years.By the mid-90’s he invested in some recording equipment and started making rap beats in a city where everyone was playing Go-Go. Santana emerged way ahead of the pack when, while still
