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  "I don't need this
gig," Chode says before he sucks down a highball of Captain Morgan and cola. He jabs with a thumb toward the massive wreath
of gold chain that encircles his neck. "Yo, dawg, check me, I'm stylin'."
Chode, a.k.a. M.C. Chode, credits his ascendance
to the top of the lower one-third of the rap-music charts (in Brazil) to his "dope rhymes" and "funky-ass grooves." He also
has turned an unusual form of dancing into a veritable craze among the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin.
"I call
it the Gangsta Jiggle," he says. He sucks in a breath, inflates his already ponderous purple belly, and slaps it on the sides
with both hands. Tremor-ripples of displaced fat crisscross his torso like cellulite tsunamis. "Those rubes in the jungle
just eat this up."
So why is he giving up rap pseudostardom to return to the small screen?
"Well, we had such
a phat time making the original Tripping the Rift short film," he explains. "That's phat with a 'p-h,' by the way.
What was I saying? Right. We bonded on the set when we made the film. We were like family bickering, holding grudges over
petty stupid crap, fighting for time in the bathroom. It was a magical time and place."
After the original Tripping
the Rift filmlet played the festival circuit, it landed on the doorstep of the SCI FI Channel, which aired it on
the short-film series Exposure. From there, the irreverent short quickly metastasized into an underground sensation.
SCI FI soon acquired the rights to develop a Tripping the Rift animated weekly series.
But by then, Chode
says, he was already "hanging and banging" with the likes of Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Eminem.
"Yo, I remember that
dude," Dre says when shown an LAPD mug shot of Chode. "He was always followin' us around, fetching us drinks, polishing our
shoes. That wack [expletive deleted] couldn't rhyme his way out of a wet paper bag, yo."
Despite Chode's total immersion
in the world of hip-hop, he has managed to avoid becoming embroiled in the violent conflict between East Coast and West Coast
recording artists. "I followed Eminem's example," Chode says. "I'm not East or West. I'm South. ... South America,
to be precise."
Chode's neutral politics and remote location have hindered his career in one respect: "My only regret
is that I haven't been able to get shot. All the hardcore hip-hop guys have been shot."
As Tripping the Rift
prepares for its January 2004 premiere on SCI FI, it's a good bet that Chode will finally get his wish.
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