Pie Gomez slices off a sweet second solo album
By KELLY WILSON
Get Out

Former Cousins of the Wize rapper Pie Gomez felt like his world was falling apart after he lost his best friend and fellow COTW MC, Chris “CPT” Pangrazi, in a car accident last year.
“I was heartbroken,” Gomez says. “But you’ve got to bounce back and learn something from what happens. I couldn’t help myself but to write songs. When Chris passed, there was no way to go on with that band.”

While the tragedy caused the Cousins to go their separate ways, Gomez continues to march on with his solo project, Magnum P.I.e.

This week the artist is releasing his second disc, “Undercovers,” a follow-up to his 2000 solo debut, “We Attended Different Schools.” Gomez says Pangrazi was a big influence on his sophomore effort.

“He embodied a lot of what this record is about,” says Gomez, 33, of Scottsdale. “(Chris) took Cousins from an introspective (group) to a full-blown party band in the last couple years and I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that we let Chris take the reins on concepts and songs. It evolved into a great big party. That’s what this album really is. It’s a lot of club jams and talking about having a good time, it kind of chronicles some of the Cousins of the Wize days ... I see Chris when I think of some of the partying. I just remember the good times.”

When Gomez celebrates the release of his CD Friday, he promises that the remaining COTW members will be on hand to relive the party days of the past.

“We’re calling it Cousins of the Wize All-Stars,” he says of the musicians he was together with from 1998 to 2003. “We’re going to get up there and surprise people with what we do. We’ll perform stuff off (the solo album) and older COTW songs for the fans ... It’s never really a solo project. All these guys always contribute to what I'm doing. We're family.”