Photo by Mr. Nice Guy Records.
Audio By Carbonatix
As Jesse Perez worked on his remix of Miami DJ/producer Chalk’s track “You Oughtta Know” ahead of its release on his label Mr. Nice Guy Records he couldn’t help but cry — not only because the track is beautiful and emotional (which it most certainly is), but because Chalk, nee Kairo Gudino, is dead and has been for nearly 10 years.
“Working on that record, it was tough,” Perez says. “It was enjoyable, but — I don’t even know how to explain that. It’s like, ‘man, this shit sounds dope,’ but it’s hard to listen to, because I know the words that he used on this record; just knowing the genius he was with his songwriting, his play with words on that record. It’s like, ‘wow man, this is genius,’ but it’s all fucked up all at once because of his situation with heroin.”
Gudino was just 23 when he died of a heroin overdose on July 18, 2016. It was an incredibly sad day for the Miami music scene, let alone Gudino’s friends and family, all of whom had been touched by the young multi-hyphenate artist’s indelible talent, overwhelmingly warm soul, and kind heart.
Full disclosure, this author is one of those close friends. I wrote his obituary for Miami New Times a week after his passing, and cried loudly at his funeral. I’m not the only one who still mourns the loss. In 2023, right after Skrillex finished playing the Mind Melt stage at III Points, the festival’s producers played the opening clip of Chalk’s Boiler Room Miami set, filmed at the first-ever III Point’s finale party in Gudino’s own living room (for which he was promptly evicted), to thousands of people whose brains were still booming from the dance pioneer’s heavy headline act.
I didn’t know it was going to happen, and I just broke down in tears. If Gudino was still alive, I have no doubt he’d be headlining III Points. His talent deserves to follow Skrillex like that. The III Points family knows that, and Perez knows that, too.
“I couldn’t pinpoint his style because it was so all over the place,” Perez says. “He was well-versed in everything from music and art. He was modeling, and probably was acting at some point or he was some sort of drama kid, because he had that personality where he could really go into different styles of music—not just produce it, but as a vocalist as well, which is super hard to do. I can make beats of all kinds, but when it comes to laying down the vocal, I’m gonna do one thing and one thing only. This guy could do so many different things.”
Perez first met Gudino when the upstart producer cold messaged him some demos via Facebook.
“I was comparing [him to] myself to when I was that age, I wasn’t making anything at that level,” Perez says. “He had a style, which is the most important thing you can have. Identity is everything.”
He immediately signed some of Gudino’s tracks to Mr. Nice Guy, including the tracks “Take It To Da House” and “Main Thing,” and made Gudino a central figure of the label’s crew. He brought him to play the 15-Year Anniversary party at Club Space, as well as the label’s WMC Pastelito Party on South Beach. It was an era when Mr. Nice Guy was gaining a lot of traction, and Perez was building a crew that he felt could take over the world a la Dirtybird Records. He was proud of all the talent he signed, but he saw Chalk — with his model good looks, crazy talent, and undeniably cool thrifted fashion — as the linchpin.
“I really had some badasses,” Perez says, “and he was leading the pack as far as bad ass.”
Unfortunately, Perez and Gudino only had a few years to work together. They were very close throughout that time, in constant contact about releases and collaboration ideas, but behind closed doors, Gudino’s struggle with drug use was getting the better of him. He spent the last year of his life in and out of jail, and after his last stint, came out clean of drugs with a clear mind. Unfortunately, he came out of jail and either didn’t find or didn’t accept the support he needed in that moment, and succumbed to an overdose a few days after release.
“He told me, ‘yo I’m clean,’” Perez remembers. “We had the conversation about Ariel [another Miami scene friend] that had passed away. I think he had that conversation with everyone, because I remember my boy telling me also that he talked to him and he was like ‘yeah, I saw what happened to Ariel, and I don’t wanna go out like that.’ It killed me. It fucking hurt, because it was like ‘damn, he was so talented, he was young’ and I felt a responsibility to try to guide him and try to help him. That disease, I don’t know what it’s like, but it has to be super difficult because he wouldn’t respond to our help.”
In that last conversation Perez had with Gudino, they talked about making a hip-house track together where Perez could make the beat for Gudino to rap over. This latest remix is a chance for Perez to make that would-be collaboration a reality.
“You Oughtta Know” is a funky, slinky, groovy, soulful house track Gudino finished a year before his passing. The track is built around a poignant lyrical refrain: “People oughtta know / how to get high when they’re feeling low / how to get by when they all alone / it’s not always fun when you’re on your own.” At first listen, it feels like a hopeful message about self-reliance, but as the song continues, you realize it could just as well be a song about leaning on drugs in hard times. Much like Gudino himself, it’s a beautiful song that hides a hard darkness under an inviting groove.
It’s the closing track from his III Points 2012 Boiler Room set, wherein Gudino grabs the mic and sings the song live to a house full of scenesters and party people. Folks in the comments have been asking for the track for years, but the decision to release it on Mr. Nice Guy wasn’t easy.
“I was a little in my head like, ‘alright, he’s no longer here. Would he want this?’” Perez says, “But I was like, ‘yeah, of course he would want this! He was always sending me his stuff. He was trying to work with me on something. At least I’m remixing his stuff, so I’m working with his vocals, and I’m fulfilling that idea of that conversation we both had.”
Perez received the track a few years ago from Gudino’s friend Greggory who was given possession of the producer’s hard drive.
“It kinda sucks to listen to it sometimes for me, because it makes me emotional to hear it,” Perez says. “Even now, editing some of the video clips to put out for his song, I was doing that this morning, and I was in tears doing it. It still hurts. It’s like he passed yesterday.”
Perez sat on it for a few years, listening to it regularly, before it dawned on him that with new AI technology, he could isolate Gudino’s vocals and give the 114 bpm track a more energetic house remix, fitting it into the Mr. Nice Guy Records catalog. It’s a remix that reflects Perez’ style, but he intentionally blended his sound with Gudino’s tastes, creating a synth pad melody near the end of the remix that takes inspiration from 808 State’s house classic “Pacific State,” a song Gudino played so much, Perez and I both can’t hear without thinking, “Oh, that’s a Chalk song.”
Both this release and Perez’s remix are a bittersweet tribute to a friend and a talent that was struck down in the early hours of his life, gone much too soon. I, for one, am ecstatic to know my friend’s music has the chance to reach new ears and stay in the modern music conversation. Gudino was so ahead of his time musically that even 10 years after its creation, “You Oughtta Know” feels as thoughtful, interesting, and original as it ever did, fitting nicely into the modern soundscape of house music.
“This isn’t a generic house track,” Perez says. “This is a great song. This is a song that could have been nominated for a Grammy, given the right exposure and the right people behind a record like this. He did everything on that! He played the keys, and the more I listen to it, the deeper I get into the song. It makes me emotional because it takes me to another place like, ‘damn, I wish you were still here,’ but it’s beautifully written and sang. I’m just glad that it’s coming out, because there’s a lot of people are going to be happy about this.”
