Consider This from NPR - BONUS: The Badder, The Better

Episode Date: November 29, 2020

Brooklyn rapper Bobby Shmurda blew up in 2014 off of his song "Hot N****" and the instantly viral Shmoney Dance. But just months after his breakout hit, Bobby and about a dozen of his friends were arrested and slapped with conspiracy charges in connection with a murder and several other shootings. In this episode of NPR's new podcast Louder Than A Riot, hosts Rodney Carmichael and Sidney Madden head to Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York to meet Bobby for an exclusive in-person interview, tour his neighborhood with his crew, grab a bite at his mom's seafood joint and learn new details of the studio raid that changed Bobby's life.Listen to more episodes of Louder Than A Riot on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey, Consider This listeners, it's Ari Shapiro. It's Sunday, and we've got a bonus episode for you. It's from NPR Music's new podcast, Louder Than a Riot. Hosts Rodney Carmichael and Sidney Madden explore the last 40 years of hip-hop and mass incarceration, and they ask how those two institutions are interconnected. Well, the episode we're bringing you today is the first in a trilogy that examines the life of Brooklyn rapper Bobby Shmurda. Shmurda hit it big in 2014 with his song Hot Boy, but just months later, he was arrested and charged with conspiracy in connection to a murder. Okay, here it is, Louder Than a Riot, episode six, The Badder, the better.

A warning before we begin. This podcast is explicit in every way. December 16th, 2014. An overcast evening in New York City. And Shy Money XL, he's feeling good. The hip-hop vet and executive VP at Epic Records has just come in from LA, and he's headed to Quad Studios in Midtown Manhattan to meet one of his protégés, 20-year-old rapper Bobby Shmurda. Shaw hasn't felt this excited about an artist since he helped develop 50 Cent and turn him into a household name, But that was over a decade ago.

I was in the midst of just trying to find stars, and there was nothing I could see that was going on in New York that I could find. Yeah, nothing going on in New York. Until he heard Bobby Shmurda's song, High Boy. It stole the summer and turned the kid from Brooklyn with his schmoney dance and his disappearing hat trick into an internet sensation. When I seen Bobby, man, I was like, that's New York right there. This is what I'm looking for.

So it felt great. It felt great. And Shaw's bit is already paying off. Hot Boy just went platinum. And now the pressure's on to prove Bobby's not just a one-hit wonder, but a real star. Shaw shows up at Quad Studios to check on the progress of Bobby's debut album. When I walked in, about 17 people, 15 to 17. It was crowded. All the crew.

So, at least 15 handshakes before I get to Bobby. 15 handshakes. That's because the way Bobby moves, he doesn't go anywhere without his crew. GS9. They're all from the same block in East Flatbush, and they've known each other forever. Some of them even co-write Bobby's songs. And there's video footage of GS9 taking over quad. That night, Bobby and GS9, man they're in full celebration mode. Six months earlier, these same cats were working corners in the grimy streets of Brooklyn. Now, they're in the heart of Manhattan, recording music. And this studio is nice. City views, a pool table,

bottles, and blunt smoke. Yo, we need some liquor, man. Bobby's happy to see Shaw. He's playing music. He's excited. He's letting me hear shit I didn't hear. Letting me hear shit he finished. He's excited. Yo, you gotta listen to this one.

Yo, play that for Shaw. Later that night, Bobby bounces Shaw and the rest of the crew continue recording The mood is light And it's getting past midnight Guys are shooting pool, laughing. Then, out of nowhere. One of the little homies running. Yo, they just arrested such and such downstairs. He just left. He tried to leave the building. They chased him. Yo, look, look, look. And then you see a whole bus, a bus, a police bus pull up on the side street. Yo, look at this bus. You see nothing but police coming off this bus, like an army,

an army of them coming off this bus. Like, yo, what the fuck is going on, yo? What the fuck is going on? Quad Studios was being raided. That night, police arrest 15 members of GS9, including Bobby, and they seize 10 guns. This is a major bust. Bobby is charged with a whole host of crimes, including conspiracy to commit murder. The arrest is part of an effort to get rid of New York gangs. But in this case, the gang was made up of up-and-coming rappers.

And the prosecutors, they're painting Bobby as their leader. So who exactly is Bobby Shmurda? It all depends on who you ask. I think the way we characterized him was a driving force. He's a special child, but he's my baby. He was an easy target for law enforcement. He a real entertainer. That's how he been. Mindless thugs who have no conception of value of life, no conception of morals. There's a few different ways to interpret what happened that night at Quad Studios. Some people see it this way. Bobby was a young talent trying to use his music to escape the problems in his hood. To others, Bobby and GS9 are examples of the music industry

profiting off the worst stereotypes of black men. But let's look at the bigger picture. America's always loved an outlaw. And Bobby, man, he's just one rap star whose fame led to infamy. But here's the darker reality. In this country, the people policed the hardest look a lot like Bobby. And they come from communities like the one he came from. Places where gangs replace broken families. Where teenagers quit school to chase dope boy dreams. Where almost everybody learns not to trust the police. For a small percentage, rap can be a way out. And the music industry is notorious for buying in.

But artists have to walk a tightrope to transition from the streets to superstardom. Where Bobby Shmurda might land, it's still up in the air, just like his New York Knicks hat. For now, he's stuck in a prison cell in upstate New York, not sure if his career is over or just on pause. When you get locked up, all the rap shit go out the window. Right now I'm in jail and I'm just trying

to get home. I'm thinking about my freedom. I'm Rodney Carmar. I'm Sydney Madden. And this is Louder Than A Riot. Where we trace

the collision of rhyme and punishment in America. Over the next three episodes we're going to tell the story of Bobby Shmurda. His rise.

His fall. And the price he paid for the bonds of brotherhood. This message comes from NPR sponsor, BetterHelp, the online counseling service dedicated to connecting you with a licensed counselor to help you overcome whatever stands in the way of your happiness. Fill out a questionnaire and get matched with a professional tailored to your needs. And if you aren't satisfied with your counselor, you can request a new one at any time, free of charge.

Visit BetterHelp.com slash louder to get 10% off your first month. Get the help you deserve with BetterHelp. Support for NPR and the following message come from Quantacy and Associates, a full-service creative agency and studio helping brands grow by pushing culture in the right direction while introducing a new era of thinking. With a business model designed to help companies excel, they specialize in melding the worlds of marketing, content, technology, and influence. Quantacy works with brands of all sizes, ranging from Fortune 100 clients, public figures, and small businesses. Find out more at Quantacy.com.

My story with Bobby begins with a phone call. In 2014, Shaw Money XL is at Epic Records working as head of A&R. That's the department responsible for scouting and grooming new talent. And one day out of the blue, another A&R guy hits him up. And he was like, yo, Shaw, I need you to check your email right now. I just sent you some shit. There's some Jamaican, Haitian kids in Brooklyn doing some shit that you need to know about. And I know you know what to do with this.

And I put my headphones on. I started watching the video. Jell-O beats, holla at me. And Chewie and some hot niggas. Like I took to Shaq C when I shot niggas. And that shit just blew me away on sight, yo. As soon as I seen it, I was like, yo, this shit is crazy, yo. That video Sha was watching. It was just Bobby and his crew.

They got together and shot it super low budget. Matter of fact, it was no budget. On the surface, it's just them mobbing on a Brooklyn street corner having fun. It's super catchy and playful. And unless you really listen close, you might totally miss the fact that they're rapping about selling crack, repping their set, even taking down their rivals. Yeah, but as menacing as they're trying to be, Bobby's got this baby face that almost makes it hard to believe he's anything close to gangster. Mm-hmm. But that's the beauty of hip-hop, right?

The dichotomy of repping two things at once, the party music and the personal street diaries. That's what made Bobby and GS9 so alluring. Yeah, but you can't sleep on that dance now. You right. The real magic of the video is the dance. It's the shmoney dance. Bobby tosses his hat in the air and starts dancing. Doing this hip-hop knee-jjerk, back-and-forth for a few seconds. Looking like a drunk uncle at the barbecue. Yeah, but what happened to that hat, though? Yo, the hat.

It happens right near the end of the video. Bobby just casually flips the lid of his New York Knicks fitted straight up into the air. It disappears out of the camera frame. And it never falls down. At the time, Shah says Bobby's video only had maybe a few thousand views. But he could have already sensed this buzz building. So his gut told him to act. And once I heard it, seen it, seen the dance, seen the energy,

I just knew that kid was a star. And I said, I just need to meet him. It's not like Shah Money was new to this. Nah, not at all. Shaw's an OG. And he'd seen that type of gritty New York energy before. And you know what? He'd helped nurture it before too. Yeah, a decade before Bobby, Shaw helped 50 Cent recover after being shot nine times and made him the biggest villain in rap. But in 2014, New York hip-hop, it wasn't popping off like that. New York hip-hop was terrible. It was a bunch of average people trying to do it.

Nobody outstanding, nobody exceptional. Yeah, man, by the 2010s, the epicenter of rap had definitely shifted to the South. And the birthplace of hip-hop, it was pretty much close to the last place. But Shaw, he wanted to bring that crown back home. I'm a New Yorker, born and raised. You know what I mean? My journey started in Brooklyn, going to Queens, and kept going from there. So to see the energy coming from my city, seeing Brooklyn,

seeing the hood, seeing them, hearing the song, hearing the shit he was talking about. And then all of a sudden, Tad goes off to dance. Ah, this kid is a star, man. He had the rhythm and the whole thing, man. The voice, the performance, it was all there. Yeah, it was all there, especially Bobby Street Cred. A shot didn't know exactly what Bobby's crew was into, but at the same time, it's not like he was asking. I know in hip hop, the badder, the better. I'm not no human resource department. I'm not a social worker. I don't ask people from the hood if they got criminal activity going on or priors. I don't ask these questions. I just seen what I was doing

and I seen a future that was good for this kid. So on the one hand, Shaw saw Bobby was deep in the streets and he knew that would sell some records. But on the other hand, he sincerely wanted to give Bobby a better opportunity than the streets. Yeah, because Shaw and Bobby, they had a lot in common. They're both products of the hood. They both got that hustle mentality and they both see music as a way out. When Shaw was 17, he dealt drugs for a stint, trying to come up on a drum machine, but he ended up getting busted instead. And later, he met Jam Master J, who introduced him to 50, and gave both of them an opportunity to get into the business. Jam Master J, Music took me out of this shit. And what I did was try to find other people

that were talented like me to take them out of this shit. That's what music is for us. Jam Master J, Welcome to my fucking 90s, man. Welcome to the hard 90s. Welcome to the black. This is where Bobby's from. East Flatbush. We first visited in the summer of 2018 and grabbed some fried shrimp at a takeout spot co-owned by Bobby's mom. It's called Spunky Fish and Things.

Can we get the shrimp and spunky fries? Best thing in New York. Mmm. These fries are spunky. There's soca music glaring from corner stores. The smell of smoke pits outside jerk joints. School kids in uniforms running off the two train. This neighborhood has been full of Caribbean immigrants for decades. Yeah, but it's not the easiest place to grow up. On average, the incarceration rate in these flatbushes is 33% higher than the city as a whole.

And nearly 40% of households are led by single mothers. You know, the thing about what single mothers is, when a father's absent, you tend to go extra to give them what they want. That's Bobby's mom, Leslie. And throughout our conversation, she calls Bobby by the name she gave him, Akil. She grew up in the same part of Brooklyn where she raised her boys.

You know, I was young. I made really good money. You know, we traveled a lot. I gave them anything they want. Akil doesn't really know that, you know, it's wrong for me to do it, but he doesn't understand what no means. And that's a lot for him.

He's used to getting anything he wants. I'm always catering to them. Even while she's talking to us, she pauses every few minutes to answer a call. Akil. Hello? Your daddy's on the phone. It's usually her sons or their dad, and she plays operator to connect them all over a three-way call.

Like any strong matriarch, she's the glue of the family. Anyways, listen, I got an interview going on. I'm going to put y'all on mute. Bobby was just a baby when his father was sentenced to life in prison down in Florida. And by the time we visited the neighborhood, Bobby and his older brother Gervais were both in prison too. That's every male member of his nuclear family, serving time. Leslie says Bobby was a handful growing up.

He acted out in school. And that's when he even bothered to go. I always had to leave work to run down to the school to come get him. It was like every other day, always running around behind Akil. Akil was something else. And right now, Akil is something else. And right now, Akil is somewhere else, as in 300 miles away from his mom and the rest of his friends and family,

which makes all those three-way phone calls even more crucial. They always been supportive of me. No matter what I did, no matter if I went to jail or anything, they always supported me. When we meet Bobby in person for our interview in 2018, it's at Clinton Correctional Facility,

up in Dannemora, New York. You guys ready for him? Yes. Bobby's only done a handful of interviews since he's been locked up, and most of them have been over the phone. But we sit with Bobby face-to-face. What's up?

Good morning. And we talk about growing up in East Flatbush. But we sit with Bobby face to face. What's up? Good morning. What's up, Bobby? And we talk about growing up in East Flatbush. Brooklyn. Well, it make you a hustler. I remember I used to sell waters on the corner at nine years old. If I would give them $5 a day, Jermase would take his $5 and go buy Chinese food.

A kid would take his $5, go to Rite Aid, and get a case of water and sell it for 24. That's how he was always a hustler like that, yeah. That's really smart. I know, right? But Bobby wasn't satisfied just selling waters. I mean, peep this line from High Boy. Now, like we've already said, you can't take everything you hear and rap literally.

Right. But the thing about that line, I've been selling crack since the fifth grade, is Bobby says it's true. Where I was from, it was like an empire. Just crackheads everywhere. And Bobby wanted a piece of that empire. What made you want to sell crack out of everything? It was fast money. Like, it was fast money i was

i wasn't even robbing people i was in a robbing people like that all that running sweating and all that other crazy shit i wasn't into that man see this is so important because it really shows you what bobby felt like his options were limited to growing up in East Flatbush. That fast money, it had a price, though. He remembers the first time he got hemmed up by the police at age 12. They came in a tiny store, and they pulled my pants down all the way to my ankles. They stripped me, like, halfway butt naked. They found, like, a piece of crack. They locked me up.

Ever since that day, every time they see me, they just run down. Yeah, and Bobby, man, he has a lot of early memories like this. He even told us a story about the cops planting a gun on him once. They just pointed to you and said it. Yeah, but remember, I know these guys. Yeah. You know what I mean? So my girlfriend started going crazy at the time the girl was talking to her. He told everybody, shut up. He let them go through the side door in the precinct. They locked me and my uncle Dean up. Police would later report it happened this way. After neighbors complained, officers knocked on the door.

And when it was opened, they could clearly see Bobby, quote, showing a loaded automatic pistol to someone else. Now, we weren't able to verify either versions of this story. But the experiences Bobby said he's had with the police overall, they're not unique. East Flatbush falls under the jurisdiction of the NYPD's 67th precinct. And that precinct, it has its own track record, as Bobby told us, of not going by the rules. Yeah, allegations of corruption at the 67th are well documented, right around the time that Bobby was coming up. The Brooklyn TA looked into at least six different cases that happened between 08 and 2014, where cops were suspected of planting guns at crime scenes and on suspects.

These cases typically had a few things in common. The same officers, a lack of forensic evidence, and some super sketchy informants. Yeah, but peep this. In 2016, the Village Voice reported that the DA and the NYPD quietly concluded their investigations. Apparently, there was no misconduct found, and those suspected officers, they remained on the force.

Now it's clear that once pre-team Bobby was on the cops' radar, he was likely to stay there. But while the cops of his neighborhood saw Bobby as a potential menace, man, those folks who knew him best, they saw he had real star potential. Akeel has it. He has it. Like, if we all go to a party, if someone else at the party, he feels like he could dance,

Akeel would literally dance until he passes out, till they take him out on the stretcher because he's not going to lose. The only thing missing was an outlet for that talent. That's where his crew comes in. Yeah, because a lot of raw talent can get buried early in a place like East Flatbush. Unless you got the ingenuity to go with it. After Bobby came home from a stint at juvenile detention at 17,

he noticed his crew was getting into something new. They were getting into music. They was rapping. We used to be on the block. We'd smoke your eyes, start playing around rapping. And everybody kept telling me, like, oh, Bobby, go to the studio. I'm like, I'm getting money. I don't want to go to a studio.

They would abduct me. I'd go with them for a little, end up making a couple songs, and I'd leave. So it's no secret that Bobby sort of owes his success to his crew. If they hadn't dragged him into the studio, he might have never become what he did. Yes, Bobby tells us this new music collective, it needed a name. So the crew called themselves GS9, a nod to their neighborhood set, the G-Stone Crips, and the fact that they came from the 90s blocks of East Flatbush, Brooklyn. Now, street crews and syndicates have always been synonymous with rap.

From Eric B. and Rakim's connections to the paid and full posse to Young Jeezy's ties to BMF. I mean, it's a calling card that helps a new street artist establish, you know, a certain kind of street cred. Yeah. And you know, my hot boy Bobby introduces us to the whole GS9. I mean, that's basically a GS9 roll call, right? We got Rasha, A-Rod, Mishi. All the shmurdas and the shmoneys. Yeah, the nicknames they created for themselves. The bond that made them family.

They not my friends, my brothers. You know what I'm saying? That's all I know for kids. You know what I'm saying? We done jumped in front of guns for each other, all types of shit. Like, that's just how we grew up. You know what I'm saying? One of us go, we all go. That's just how it was. Yeah You know what I'm saying? One of us go, we all go. That's just how it was.

Yeah, and jumping in front of guns, I mean, that was just an everyday environmental hazard for Bobby and his homies. Especially when beef with other neighborhood crews was so unavoidable. Don't the 90s have a history of beefing with the 50s and vice versa and all that? I mean, we had a history of beef with a lot of people.

That's Bobby's older brother, Javace, also known as Fame. Now, on our second trip to Brooklyn, Fame was fresh out of prison. He was showing us around the neighborhood, along with Rowdy Rebel's younger brother, Fetty Luciano, and about a half dozen other guys in their crew. We stopped in the middle of the street as the guys started passing around a bottle and, you know. You know. Yeah, some styrofoam cups. What you sipping on?

Henny. We sipping on Hennessy. You want some Henny? I'm good. I heard it. Cocaine we pour out Henny. That's what we sip on. That's it.

That's it. That's the ritual right here. Like Fame said, for cocaine, they pour out Henny. But he's talking about a guy named Tyreth Gary, better known around the way as Shysty Cocaine, the former leader of the G-Stone Crips. Some street beefs in New York go back years. For the G-Stone Crips and Brooklyn's Most Wanted, a.k.a. BMW, one of the things that beef can be traced back to is Shiesty Cocaine. Yeah, Shiesty, he was murdered in 2011, shot along with three other people during a Labor Day cookout in Brooklyn.

The word on the street is he was hit by a member of BMW. He was just 18 years old when he died. Bobby, Fetty, and Fame were just kids when Shiesty got killed. And GS9 didn't really officially exist yet, at least not as a record label. But that didn't stop him from becoming soldiers in what would become a years-long battle between the G-Stone Crips in the 90s blocks and BMW in the 50s. I asked Fame and Fetty about it. How has the neighborhood changed since? What's changed?

How did it change when Shiesty died? It changed dramatically. We was real young, so that opened up our eyes. I put a big dent in the neighborhood. He's the person that brought everybody together. Especially in this neighborhood, we got a lot of love for each other. So when we lose one, it's just like... Especially him.

We didn't really know how to deal with it. So he was like a galvanizing force in terms of everybody. Yeah, that's a heart. That's a captain right there. That's a captain. We ain't never let his name die out. Never. Never.

People usually lose a friend, and then two or three years later, they forget about him. Yeah, but not GS9. To honor Shysty, fame says they started going a positive way with it. Started making music and shit. Yeah, Shysty's death has inspired all kinds of musical tributes. Take Rowdy Revel's song, Shiesty Time. They said the most I'm crazy after Shiesty died. Look around, bitch, it's Shiesty time.

But Shiesty ain't dead, he just went to Vegas. With his 45 and a couple Haitians. And the street beef only got gassed up even more the bigger they became. So the success that was starting to happen, how did that change y'all's relationship with rivals and stuff like that? I mean, it's everywhere. It's just a lot of hate, period. A lot of hate.

Like, when people see you make it to the top, they try to drag you back down. Crabs in a barrel. You know, we all from the 90s, but it's one part of the nine where we're just grimy. Yeah, the grimy side. It's just the grimy side of this neighborhood. You don't come across this neighborhood and think you're disrespect and not give it no retaliation.

Especially from the gun squad. Especially from the gun squad. That's just how we felt. You know what I'm saying? GS9, Gun Squad. Gun Squad, Grimy Shooters, God's Sons. Yeah, GS9, it stands for a lot of things. But gang, that's the label they say they've been branded with. We don't call ourselves no gang members.

Like, that's my shmoney, that's my shmurda, that's the brody, that's my hop. Like, we a family. I mean, like, we GS9, we a family, we a motive. So when you all were repping GS9 early on, say, like, in the video, like, publicly, were y'all repping it in terms of the neighborhood and the gang, or was it more so trying to, were y'all trying to use GS9 as a way to legitimize the music? We was doing that as both. Because GS9 is a record label. We have GS9 Records.

That's Bobby. But we was using it as both because that's us. That's where we're from. Anybody that know us, they know us as GS9. For GS9, it was only natural that what was happening in their hood would bleed through in the music. Songs like Hot Boy did double duty. A party starter and a warning shot. Putting ops on notice.

So they shoot a video for Hot Boy for $300. And they throw it up on YouTube in March 2014. It started catching on, and within a few months, it goes viral. The internet ate it up. Especially the part where Bobby throws his New York Knicks fitted up in the air and it never comes down. The hat went to outer space, honestly. That's Fetty Films, director of the Hot Boy video, telling us about the moment that launched

Bobby's online fame. It was weird because when I was editing it, I realized that the hat disappeared. I said it didn't look right, but then I was like, you know what, it looked weird. I don't know, I'm just going to keep it. And then people liked it. Yeah, man, that disappearing hat, it became a thing, a legend, memed all over the web.

Pretty soon, Bobby was internet and hood famous. One day we was on the block on 95th and Clarkson, and I will never forget this. I was going to make a sale, and I seen a car pull up on me. And it was like a bunch of girls around my age. And they started screaming. And they was pointing at me. They was like, do the dance, do the dance. Then after a while, everywhere I went, people was just going crazy.

Like, oh, all these pictures, this and that, this and that. So I said, I'll probably make some money off of this. Yeah, and Shy Money, who was plotting from his office at Epic Records, he had the exact same idea. In fact, it can be as simple as brewing yourself a warm, comforting cup of Yogi Honey Lavender Stress Relief Tea. With soothing aromatics like lavender, chamomile, and lemon balm, this relaxing herbal tea blend encourages you to take a moment to pause, step away from the chaos of the day, and sip your way to a more stress-free state of mind. Find your flow with Yogi Tea. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Marguerite Casey Foundation.

Creating greater freedom for changemakers to create a truly representative economy. Marguerite Casey Foundation believes working people and their families should have the power to shape our institutions, our democracy, and our economy. Shifting power. Powering freedom. Learn more about the foundation at www.caseygrants.org and connect with the foundation on Twitter at Casey Grants and on Facebook. What does it take to start something from nothing? And what does it take to actually build it? I'm Guy Raz. Every week on How I Built This, I speak with founders behind some of the most inspiring companies in the world.

NPR's How I Built This. Listen now. When the Hot Boy video was blowing up in the summer of 2014, Sha knew he had to sign Bobby before another label snatched him up. So he sets up a meeting to have Bobby audition for his boss, L.A. Reid, who was the CEO of Epic Records at the time. I need to do the whole setup where, you know, you come in, perform for L.A., the whole staff is there. You know, he makes a movie out of it. L.A., you know, he like it a certain way.

So it's all set, the whole staff is there, it was crowded. This audition scene, it low-key becomes almost as famous as the Hot Boy video itself. It takes place inside a boardroom at Epic's Manhattan headquarters. Now, in reality, it's not that far from the Brooklyn street corners where Bobby started. But when you think about it, it's a world away. Bobby comes in, the whole GS9, his Uncle Debo, all of them. And you see it on the video, man. That boy gave a performance like this is his last chance to do anything in life, and he killed it, man.

Yeah, but this video also raised a lot of eyebrows at the time. I mean, here you have a black man dancing on a table and shooting finger guns in a boardroom filled with mostly white faces, some smiling, some wearing these frozen expressions like they're not really sure how to react. And if you look real close, Rodney, you can see L.A. Reid sipping from a teacup while Bobby's up there losing his mind. Bobby's energy and charisma, they're on full display. At the end of the video, they gave him a nice respectful golf clap, which again shows you how far out of his element he's come. From the time he performed till 1159, his lawyer and Epic lawyers banged out the deal and we got it done the same day. Yes, I made sure Bobby didn't leave the building until they hashed out a contract. Then it was time to celebrate.

We celebrate, we smoke more, we champagne more, we even violate the Sony laws and just light up the whole room, man. We make a movie in there, man. We chilling now. The check is coming. You's a millionaire, baby. 19 years old, baby. Come on, man. What more can you ask for, man? Shaw was hype.

Shaw was hype. Now the next step, Shaw needed Bobby to get to the studio and record some hits. So now he's like four songs in on his whole life, and I'm making the fifth one with him. So this guy is really like a brand new talent that was exceptional on site. The next few months are critical for Bobby. Newly signed, booked, and busy.

He sees the opportunity, not just for himself, but for the whole GS9 to make a shift from the streets to the industry. After I seen money coming in, I said, we can capitalize off this. We can also get out the hood and stuff. We ain't got to be worrying about dirty-ass cops in the hood doing shit to us. I mean, I just try to get everybody out as fast as I could. After signing in July, Bobby was everywhere.

Smyrna, what up, son? In July, Bobby was everywhere. In September, the official Hot Boy remix dropped with features from Jadakiss, Fabulous, Chris Brown and Busta Rhymes. Now Rodney, you know hip hop is competitive as hell. No doubt. But at this moment, it felt like everybody was kind of taking Bobby under their wings. And that's something you don't see too often. Now he's just in the life, right? So it's just moving.

So he has a calendar. Now, if he's not in New York recording, he's on the road. If he's not on the road, he's doing something that's just for his career. He wasn't sitting still. He was on Jimmy Fallon. Please welcome Bobby Smyrna! The BET Awards. Drake even brought him out on stage.

One more time for Bobby Smyrna, this motherfucker! I was everywhere. L.A., Texas, Vegas, New Orleans, Miami, Atlanta, everywhere. The key to cementing a hit is really keeping up the momentum. And for Bobby, it seemed unstoppable. Yeah, it looked like Bobby was starting to put some distance between himself and the streets, too. But at the same time, he was bringing the streets with him. His entourage was his crew and his crew was his security. In other words, his homeboys were strapped. So now while things are starting to heat up, if he's at Jimmy Fallon, he's walking in

and he's seeing a police that he sees in Brooklyn from his neighborhood, but he's in New York and he's looking at him and they're like, oh, that's the police from the hood. But not putting like, yo, them niggas is watching y'all. So the cops who knew Bobby from New York, they're following this cat out of state, on tour, everywhere. Now, Shah, he really respected Bobby's loyalty to GS9. He was really trying to form a business for himself and his crew and let his crew get in as well. And he provided that opportunity. And I just seen a young kid that had his head on right. But as time went on, he saw that GS9 was attracting way too much attention from the police. So he thought a change of scenery might help Bobby

focus. I was on him like, yo, we're going to record in LA. It's life, space, car, pull up, smoke, chill. It all sounded good, but it didn't work. He wasn't on it like I was on it. He came and it was so hard even when he was there to get him in the studio. So it was just like, yo, bro, leave the fucking house. Let's go. It just didn't work. But when we got back to New York, he worked. So I had to, I'm back in New York working. That was the routine. Bobby admits at the time he didn't get it. Yeah, and this wasn't the first time that people around Bobby had really tried to keep him on track. About a week before Bobby signed to Epic, his uncle, who goes by Deebo, he called a meeting in East Flatbush.

This is behind the same studio where they recorded. He wanted to convince GS9 that if they really wanted to help Bobby, they needed to back off because the heat they were drawing, it was going to kill his career before it even got started. Now, he really tried to come in and like de-bow the situation, you know,

like be the enforcer. Yeah, but that didn't really work out how he planned. Bobby didn't want to be baby. I had a listening problem when I was young. I listened to what I want to listen to. Not the mommy and uncle telling me this and that. Like, if you told me the stove was hot, I want to find out for myself how hot it is. There was even somebody who Bobby looked up to and who knew about his reputation,

who tried to give him game about making that switch from the block to the business. One day I saw Bobby at Hot 97 and he said, Mano, you don't even remember where you know me from. Bobby grew up on Mano's sound from watching those smack DVDs that launched Mano's career. So when he saw him at Hot 97, it felt like a full circle moment for the both of them. And I said, oh my God. And I remembered, I used to pull up to a block in Flatbush and it would always be like these

young kids on a block. And they'd be like, yo, what up, Mano? And I would stop and talk to them. And that was Bobby Shmurda. I couldn't believe it. Now, Mano and Bobby have a lot in common. Brooklyn, born and raised, major run-ins with the law. But Mano, he's been there, done that.

And he wanted to help Bobby avoid the same drama. He was in the street longer than he was famous. So I understand. I get it. I understand. It is what it is. I tried to give him as much advice as I could, you know, about the journey. Because music is supposed to be a way out for us. Even if New York was a bad element in some ways, it was Bobby's element. His neighborhood is what inspired his music, and his music is what attracted the industry to him in the first place, you know?

Yeah, but it was all about to come to a head. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Simply Safe Home Security. Thank you. And get a free security camera and a 60-day risk-free trial with any new system order. Race might be a hot topic right now, but for so many of us, talking about race is nothing new. On the Code Switch podcast from NPR, we go beyond the headlines and we go deep. Listen now. On the night of December 16th, 2014. Where we began this story. Shaw flies in from LA for an Epic Records Christmas party, and he decides to surprise Bobby at Quad Studios.

They're working on songs for Bobby's debut album. Sippin' right, livin' life. Yeah, and everybody in the studio is in full celebration mode. Spirits are lifted, blunts are lit, bottles are flowing. Now remember, Shaw had a plan for Bobby. Brand his outlaw image and connection to the streets. But he also wanted to lift him out of the hood, set him on the right path. Now he's already nailed the first part because Bobby's selling records. But as for him being on the right path, Shaw wasn't so sure.

So he kept trying to stress how careful Bobby needed to be. He wanted him to keep his hands clean of any illegal activity. I'm going through this with you and I'm trying to help you. So I'm going to tell you some shit you don't want to hear, but it's for your better in the long run. And as it gets later, Bobby's ready to leave the studio. Shaw walks Bobby down to his car. It's a rare chance for them to be alone. On the elevator ride down, Shaw's trying to explain to Bobby

that being in New York, it really isn't the best thing for him right now. And it's not just Shaw who thinks that. The elevator open is Busta Rhymes. And in that little short moment, he said one thing to me and Bobby, and it was right in sync with what I was telling Bobby, to just chill out, right? Just, you need to, this is too much right now. That's crazy, right? Yeah, even Busta Rhymes knows about Bobby and GS9's reputation.

It just shows how much the streets were talking. And the industry, too. A shot walks Bobby to the front door. Say, yo, peace out out bro. Be safe. Bobby gets in the car and heads out. Shaw heads back up to the studio but he has no idea what's about to happen. Next thing you know NYPD is swarming the building. Like yo what the fuck is going on yo? What the fuck is going on? Now the fuck is going on now the buzz is buzzing the studio's like yo it's the police trying to get up here don't let them up don't let them up so now everybody's panicking fire department come they got the key while we're looking at the camera, you hear the fucking elevator door open. Bing!

It's a cop, a detective, with a gun fully drawn, pointed literally three feet from my head. Then he tells me, get on the ground and put my feet and my hands in the air. Yo, I don't even know how to do that. Got niggas hiding behind fucking consoles, hiding in the ceiling. Everybody was scared. People was thinking about their parole. Just if they get arrested, they are going to get violated.

The police spend all night searching the studio. And they finally find the last guy around 7 a.m. The police also find multiple weapons in the studio. And at a certain point they make another discovery. They've got the Shy Money XL of Epic Records handcuffed on the floor. This guy says, so you're the guy that signed Bobby Shmurda? I said, yeah, why what's up?

He has an MCM bag and he puts it on a pool table. What if I make all of these guns yours so you can go to jail and I have to sign no more of these motherfuckers? Because you signing them and you're letting them buy these guns and they're going back in their neighborhoods and they're shooting people. So you're the problem. Now, this is a big realization for Shaw. I mean, the whole time he's been trying to steer Bobby in the right direction. And the cops saw him as part of the problem, too. It's like they were blaming Shaw and really the whole industry for every trigger GS9 might have pulled. Yeah, I mean, people have accused the music industry of glorifying gangs and violence before.

But here's a cop literally telling Shaw that the money he put into GS9 was used to hurt people. Now he's like, we already got Bobby, and they had such and such amount of weapons in that car. So now we got this many right here. We're going to find more. So just get ready to say goodbye to your investment. Bobby Shmurda, Epic's million dollar investment behind bars. Bobby, what do you have to say to your fans? Bobby, anything? As the sun comes up, the cops, they let Shaw go. But they got who they came for.

Almost everybody else from GS9. They did it in a way where no one was getting away. And they knew that this day was coming for not just Bobby. They away, and they knew that they were coming for it. Not just Bobby, they wanted the whole crew, and they got the whole crew. Leslie was at home when she got a call that Bobby had been pulled over after leaving the studio and had been arrested. She jumped out of bed, and she went to go meet her sons at the precinct. She waited hours for police to tell her anything. And through all that confusion, she finally found Gervais.

I looked at Gervais. I'm like, what's going on? He had his head down. He didn't want to answer me. So he was like, indictment. I'm like, oh God. I can't even describe to you the feeling I had when they said that. The NYPD calls a press conference just hours after the raid. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton takes the podium next to a table full of guns they confiscated from GS9. These gang members have shown no respect for the lives of citizens in the Brooklyn neighborhoods where they wreak havoc. But working

together with the special narcotics prosecutor, we put an end to that. They shouldn't be celebrated, and the fact that their music is celebrated and the so-called dance that they created, I would hope that those that emulate it understand what the source of it is. Mindless thugs who have no conception of value of life, no conception of morals. The NYPD had arrested 15 members of GS9, including Bobby, his brother Fame, Ratty Rebel, and Fetty Luciano. Some of the crimes they were charged with happened after Bobby was signed to Epic. Prosecutors claimed GS9 and the gang G-Stone Crips, they were one and the same. There was no distinction. And the cops used a controversial tactic to take down GS9, one that was designed to be used against mafia and white-collar criminals. They charged everyone with conspiracy,

which makes every member complicit in the worst crimes, including murder. And remember when Bobby talked about GS9 as family and said when one of us goes down, we all go? Well, the police used that same loyalty to build the case against him. While most of the members of GS9 had bail set around $500,000 or less, Bobby was looking at a bail amount of $2 million. Clearly, this meant prosecutors saw Bobby as the big fish in the case. Shaw knew it was critical to get Bobby out on bail.

I work for a label. They just invested in him. I'm thinking that if anything, they'll be able to recoup something. And they have policies. It's a corporation. I don't know this shit. I'm used to 50 and G-Unit and us going bailing them out. I'm not in that position right now.

It's not my artist. I just signed him. I just work here. His bail is five times my salary, right? So what am I going to do? And when Shaw says there really wasn't much he could do, he's right. Shaw ran G-Unit Records with 50 Cent. But in Bobby's case, Shaw just signed him to Epi. He didn't own the keys to the bank. No one got through. That's what the public don't know. My guys tried it a certain way, it didn't go through. Other people tried a certain way, it didn't go through.

So in my eyes, they weren't allowing him to get bail. And the reason bail was so important is because it's hard to mount a defense when you're behind bars. Plus, it increases the pressure to just plead guilty instead of waiting for a trial. Did you feel like, to some extent, Epic let Bobby down? Absolutely. Absolutely. The way they kind of just silenced me, the way they silenced everything,

it just didn't feel right. It didn't feel right. Fans thought that Epic should have bailed Bobby out too. I remember I was at a concert in New York around this time, and 50 Cent, he hopped on stage to call out Sean Money by name for not bailing out GS9. And he did it while his DJ was firing shots in the background. Not literally, but you'll hear what I mean. But it wasn't just 50 Cent. I mean, They left the niggas in the jailhouse.

The whole GS9. But it wasn't just 50 Cent. I mean, this whole time, Shaw was blaming himself too, right? Because he felt like he wasn't able to save Bobby. And this was a big blow for Shaw because, remember, this was his way to pull cats out of the streets. And now, he sees Bobby behind bars on his watch. He felt helpless. I don't know what was going on with me. Some people call it depression, but I'm from the hood. So I just started smoking extra blunts, man. I was fucking pissed, man.

It was the catch-22. It was Bobby's authenticity and loyalty to his crew that made Shaw sign him in the first place. But now that his loyalty got him caught up in the law, the label that was so ready to capitalize off his street cred didn't have his back. You brought me there to make it hot. Here I am making it hot, and we can't take the temperature because it's too hot. Too hot. Now, Shaw's boss, L.A. Reid, he gave a rare statement about Bobby on the podcast Rap Radar back in 2015. When I heard him, I believed him. That's what sold me. It felt soulful.

It didn't feel like someone was play acting, and it felt really believable. And I guess it was. Yeah, he said it was a business decision not to bail Bobby out. He admitted it just didn't make financial sense for the label. Bobby Schmurda is not the same as Snoop Dogg in Murder Was the Case, who was coming off the Chronic and his first album. This is a different era and we're a publicly held corporation. We just aren't in the same position we were in back in those days. Yeah, but for Shy Money, man, this wasn't just a business transaction.

He felt responsible for Bobby. And Shy ended up paying a heavy price, too, one that forever changed how he views the industry. I got let go in April, so I didn't have a job. So it was like, all right, but I don't want a job no more. What I'm going to do, sign another artist to the label and tell them we got you and we don't but I don't want a job no more. What I'm going to do, sign another artist to the label and tell them we got you and we don't? I don't want to do this no more. So that became the thing. I don't want to sign artists to labels because the label don't even got my back. How the fuck I'm going to tell artists I got your back? We reached out to Epic Records for comment

on Shaw's firing, but they declined. Shaw says he hasn't heard from L.A. Reeds since. He doesn't blame him, but he's never worked directly for a major label since either. After all that went down, Shaw went back on his independent grind. Yeah, and as for Shaw and Bobby, they would keep in contact, but there was just no way Shaw could protect Bobby from what Bobby was about to go through. In our next episode, we dig into the crimes of GS9 and look at how they affected one family in particular. And we consider the reasons why trauma doesn't care about labels like victim and perpetrator.

He's making other people think that this is okay, that you can kill someone, then turn around, put it in the song, and blow up off of that. So it's not a party song for me. It's a reminder of what they did. This episode was written by me, Sydney Madden, Dustin DeSoto, Adelina Lansianese,

and Michael May. Michael May also edited this one with help from Chiquita Pascal It was produced by Dustin DeSoto and Adelina Lansianese with help from Matt Ozug and Sam Leeds Josh Newell is our engineer Senior supervising producers

are Rachel Neal and Nidre Eaton And shout out to the big wigs Steve Nelson, Lauren Anki, and Anya Grunman. Original music by Casa Overall. Our digital editor is Jacob Ganz. Our fact checkers are Will Chase and Nicolette Kahn. Hit us up on Twitter. We're at Louder Than A Riot.

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