Biography
Written by Manny Cordeiro
Originally from UDSENT.com

Some artists are immersed in music at young age and grow up to be musicians. Critical Mood was immersed in struggle at a young age and grew up with the need to rebel. Music is his response to the struggle that him and his family faced growing up in the Philippines and the struggle that others endure everyday.

His family of 6 immigrated to Canada when he was a young child to escape the economic and political chaos of the Philippines. Canada's material comforts were a relief to his parents, who were relieved to be settled but Gabriel was far from settled. "I got into a lot of trouble. I was failing classes. Police, juvenile gang shit, fights, getting suspended left and right. I fit the general stereotype of a juvenile delinquent without a clue nor any identity." A life-altering conflict caused him to question his lifestyle and realize the damage he was doing. "Then in the end, I was like, it's not me. That experience made me look in the mirror and see who I was as a person."

He discovered Hip-hop at 17 and rapping became his way of venting his frustrations. His inspiration came to him through a chance encounter with a brilliant album. "It was between Grade 11 and 12 that I picked up a Rage Against the Machine album. I didn't understand what the fuck the man was saying! This guy was talking about everything. The Mexican Revolution, The Cointelpro movement, Black Panthers. I started reading up on that. I got focused. I found something to be passionate about. In turn, I became interested in school."

Critical Mood met Phylle and Blizz Kid in high school during a freestyle session. His intense rap style impressed them and he joined the old Raw Disciples. He began writing verses regularly. Many of them would surface on his first album, "Voice A Riot." Hip-hop helped Critical Mood get his life together. "I realized that hip-hop really meant a lot to me. If something goes bad, I could go back to it and express it in a way that I can't by just talking to someone because I don't share well. It helped me think clearer. I owe a lot to Hip-hop."

Today he realizes that hip-hop is only but one tool in a whole arsenal of weapons to incinerate ignorance and fight for social justice. "Hip-hop is an extremely powerful tool that we can utilize to inform people about the injustices in this world. It can influence people just as much as a powerful author can influence a reader. That being said, it needs to be supported by other things to bring it to the next level. It needs to be organized and given focus. Hip-hop in itself will not inform and change the world. It needs to be supplemented by grassroots activism and responsible intellectualism at the highest level. We need to be able to break down situations and have a broad perspective on things. We need to look at every single nook and cranny of things. We need to take into account all of the relevant aspects. It is fine to be vague and rhetorical to a point, but we must be able to break down situations, issues, and cases with specific arguments and analysis. There is a huge responsibility that comes with that and I want to help in taking that up and I want others to do so as well."

Critical Mood is heavily involved in the activist community in the Greater Toronto Area and is the founder and the Executive Director of the Political Hip-Hop Association which is based at the University of Toronto. "Since the birth of hip-hop it has been used as an outlet to express the frustrations and grievances of a community long ignored by those in positions of power. This is a political/activist group that aims to reestablish this raw connection with a past that only occasionally sees the light of the mainstream today. The PHHA goal is to discuss and evaluate social and political issues by using hip-hop as an effective communications medium to spread our voice among with other outlets. Of course, we intend to reach out to other activist organizations and to the many concerned rappers, producers, and spoken word artists that we can network with." He believes that hip-hop is a tool that can have a large part in eradicating injustices in the world and he intends to throw all his energy in this cause.