No Jumper - The Guerilla Black Interview: Compton, Credit Card Fraud & Doing 9 Years

Episode Date: June 10, 2021

https://www.instagram.com/officialguerillablack/ https://linktr.ee/Guerillablack ----- CHECK OUT OUR NEW SPOTIFY PLAYLIST https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5tesvmDS8h50LkjnSAWMOs?si=j6sJD6DkR4mk5NZZWnlK7g FOLLOW US ON SNAPCHAT FOR THE LATEST NEWS & UPDATES https://www.snapchat.com/discover/No_Jumper/4874336901 CHECK OUT OUR ONLINE STORE!!! http://www.nojumper.com/ SUBSCRIBE for new interviews (and more) weekly: http://bit.ly/nastymondayz Follow us on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/nojumper iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/no-jumper/id1001659715?mt=2 Follow us on Social Media: https://www.snapchat.com/discover/No_Jumper/4874336901 http://www.twitter.com/nojumper http://www.instagram.com/nojumper https://www.facebook.com/NOJUMPEROFFICIAL http://www.reddit.com/r/nojumper JOIN THE DISCORD: https://discord.gg/Q3XPfBm Follow Adam22: https://www.tiktok.com/@adam22 http://www.twitter.com/adam22 http://www.instagram.com/adam22 adam22hoe on Snapchat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No Jumper, coolest podcast in the world. And today we got somebody I've been listening to for a long-ass time. Gorilla Black is on the podcast. How you feeling, man? Man, what's good, man? What's happening? I'm doing great. It's awesome to be in here, really.

Man, definitely, man, definitely, man. It's beautiful, man. Did you see the clip on Vlad where he titled it? Like, Adam 22 talks about how Gorilla Black went to prison for the same shit that he was doing? I think I've seen that joint, man. I definitely, yeah, I've seen it briefly. It was an interesting common century. Yeah, definitely.

Very interesting. definitely. For sure. I mean, okay, I want to do the whole story. So let's go all the way back. Like, where were you actually born? And let's talk about your early days, because I find that very interesting. I was born in Chicago, Illinois. Oh, okay. Cook County Hospital. And my family ended up migrating towards Mississippi. And so shots out to everybody in Chicago, all my aunties, all my uncles, all my cousins, I love y'all. And then we ended up going to Mississippi. And my grandmother and grandfather ended up, you know, taking my mother. And my uncle, he pretty much, he was driving big rigs at the time. So he was going cross country, coming to California, going to New York,

all of these different places or whatever. And what's so crazy about it is, is when we got to Mississippi, it must have been after my grandfather died. After that, I don't know how old I was, maybe about 9, 10, somewhere around there. And my uncle, he came down there for the funeral. And so when he came down there at a funeral, and he was like, you know, he just told my mother, this is a trap. Mississippi is a trap. You need to come to California. And so my mother, you know, she was still young relatively, but she's seen the excitement in her brother's eyes about California. And she was like, man, it's swimming pools everywhere, it's houses, you know, it's just so many different jobs.

You know, you can drive. Jobs on the oil factories, all kind of stuff. So my mother just packed us up and brought us to California. And what was so crazy is the first place that we ended up moving to was Compton. So, yeah, from Chicago to Mississippi, yeah, to Compton. Did you realize that Compton, even as a young kid, you probably knew that Compton is a legendary-ass place that's known for being crazy, right? Right.

I mean, when I first got to Compton, it was a whole new world. imagine me being a young kid coming to Compton. I had never seen low riders before. I had never, you know, the mentality, just everything was just so different vastly. By the way, shout out to all my cousins and my aunties and uncles down to Mississippi. I love y'all.

I love you, Dre. You know, the baby on the way I love you, definitely. It's interesting because, I mean, is Mississippi a trap? Is it that much more of a trap than Compton? You know what? At the time, when you look at it, you know, my mother was searching for better. So she didn't plan on us coming to Compton.

That wasn't what it was. But when she got here and the realities of how much things cost, the cost of living and her having a job, and my mother ended up getting injured and she was working for Exxon. And so from there, things took that downturn. So by the time we got here, you know, she was working and, you know, just trying to fend for her kids. And so when she got injured, it just changed the whole dynamics of everything. And Compton was the only place where she could afford to survive to take care of three boys, you know. You know, how Dalla, my brother, my young brother, Hala, you know, myself.

And she left my oldest brother back in Mississippi with my grandmother. So, you know, just to kind of like lighten up the burden, you know, so, yeah. But it's interesting because, okay, what year are we talking, though, that you were approximately coming up out there? 89, 89, 89. This is not just like Compton when we think about it. Now, I think the crime is down a lot over the years and shit. You've seen the very raw version of it, huh? I've seen the raw, just, you know, 89, 90, 91, we had curls.

We literally had curls. We was wearing khaki suits. I never forget, I got my first Hawaiian silky girl from the Compton Swat meet. You know, mom bought me some Cortez. She couldn't buy me a lot, but she bought me like three pair of Cortez. You know, so just being there at that time, seeing everything, cars pulling up, rims. You know, back then everybody had, you know, whether it was Nissan trucks, you know, just the whole scenery. West Coast was something that was so different from any other place.

You know, when you look at the history of New York. and you look at the history of Atlanta. You look at the history of Miami. At that time, the culture. You know, the homie used to raise pits in his backyard. Then I had another homie who raised pigeons. I mean, it was just something just, the whole culture and lifestyle, as me being a young child, my eyes is just like wide open to like, wow, what is this?

Like, and just inside of it, the violent nature of it. And 89 is like, what? NWA's already broken up, but it's pre- snoop dog. Yep, yep. It's kind of interesting era around that time, right? Like, what was the hot shit in the streets that you were seeing at that time? Man, you know, when we seen NWA, we was dressing. It was so crazy because to be able to see them, they dress like us.

They had curls like us. They smoked weed like us. They was like us. And it was like, damn, they embodied that. They wearing penitentons and khakis. They running. They got, you know, they're talking about fuck the police. Everything.

They epitomized what we were living as young kids. Unfortunately, you know, at that time and in that era, a lot of, you know, my homies, they mothers and fathers, they was on crack cocaine. So we all was in the streets. We were selling dope from day one. I started selling dope at 13 years old. We was in the streets. So my mom, she could only pay for things to a certain extent.

But she got three kids. She's paying lights, gas, buying groceries, school clothes, insurance, car registration, all of these things. So the resources are stretched limited. And the things that I wanted for myself, it just wasn't, moms couldn't make it happen to that degree. And she tried her best. I was watching Big U's documentary series, what was it, the hip hop uncovered. Right. And that really kind of hit hard when they were saying like, because, you know, for me, it's like I grew up knowing about crack.

It's not like it was in front of my face or whatever, but I understood there's people downtown and they're fucked up on crack. But when you're watching that documentary, they say this was the first time ever in a lot of these inner cities where a young black person could become a rich person ever. Like this just did not happen. There was no opportunity that would allow a person to go from broke to rich like that until this shit came along. And that, like, what that did to the communities, both positive and negative, obviously mostly negative, was like, you know, it's just huge. It's like impossible to even put into words how much that changed this environment, right? Right. 100%.

And what he's saying is 1,000 because you got to think most, a lot of, you know, us came from impoverished homes. So, you know, we were below, you know, below that middle class line. So our mothers and fathers, they pretty much were blue-collar. They were working people. And at that time in California, a lot of companies, a lot of factories, a lot of things left California. So coming out of those 70s and 80s, the dynamics of everything changed. We coming from the Reganomic era. And so when crack hit, it exploded in these communities.

I mean from overnight Like you see the homie You know He started off with a double up And next thing you know the homie in a cool lowrower He's sitting in a lowriding You're like damn You like

It's before your eyes you can see it Like he took a double up Then went to a double up to a ounce to it You know he got four and a half Now he got a nine pack He got half he up He's taking out trips O T coming back Whole low rider

Whole frame chrome You're like So the mentality of seeing this as a young like he your same age like damn so but in hindsight now to look back at it 20 20 you know we selling cocaine to any and everybody you know pregnant mother you know at our my mind didn't have the capacity to even rationalize I'm selling the 20 rock to a woman who pregnant but at that time I'm I'm about my money I'm about my bread I'm out here doing it I'm doing what I need do but when you look at it in hindsight the devastation that was caused the destruction that was caused

yeah you were in the the heat of the moment you didn't really know you probably couldn't have like now the way that you know what the lifespan of a crackhead looks like right you probably didn't really even know that you might have seen some people tweaking on the side of the road but you didn't know that this was kind of like a guaranteed result for anybody who fucks with this shit right right but in essence you know it was in our face. We could see it. You know, it's a difference.

This person go bring their microwave to you. Right. Then go back and bring their kids bike to you. Then go back and take their mother's jury and bring it back to you. Until, you know, they're doing whatever, whether it's selling a body, whatever it may be, to supply this. So this is all the conscious still, no matter what it is, we still have a conscious, no matter what. But we were kids. So our way of rationalizing it, but when you look at it in hindsight and then the memories float through my mind, you know, she just pulled up, she got her baby out there.

She walked inside the gate. I gave her a dub. She grabbed a dub. Start pushing her baby like it's nothing. So later on, next thing you know, the little bike she done brought, she brought, and here here go a nickel rock. So this is on a constant basis and it's going on not just myself, but everybody that's around, we're doing the same thing.

But the destruction is far reaching beyond the money, you know, it's far reaching because you're looking at people that getting sick, some of them dying, some of them, hearts blowing up, all kind of shit happening. So, you know, in hindsight, when I look back at it, it was a real evil for real. Definitely. Were you, was there a lot of pressure?

Did you feel like you're kind of an outcast because you're showing up in Compton and there's like this whole culture and everybody's associated with neighborhoods and shit like that and you're just moving there? Was there ever a moment where I was like, okay, this is awkward as fuck and I don't know who I'm going to be down with?

Right. You know, the first, you know, when I went to Whaley Middle School, you know, my first partner, God bless the day, my boy Dee and my other homie, Casper, you know, them two pretty much showed me a lot. So the first time I seen cocaine chopped up is with my boy Dee, and he's sitting in his room, and he's sitting there chopping up a double up 50, and I'm like, man, what is that? And he's like, food, this is some dope. And I'm, but again, I'm old, you know, naive square bear.

I don't know what's going on. So the more I'm with him, the more he ingratiating me, the more he's schooling me, the more he's gaming me the more he letting me understand look man this is what it is oh man I want to make some money give me $50 okay he give me a chunk homie what I do he sat there and chop it up this is 10 this 5 this 20 this and chop it up for me literally and so whenever you get that you come back don't spend no money it's a double up you should make about a hundred hundred and 20 bucks boom next thing I come back bam bam I got I got a hundred dollars oh you got a hundred here go you go 12 grams, bam. And so it just continued to move forward. And so he's showing me what to

doing how to do. No, don't be giving out this. Don't do that. This is what you do. Don't do that. Keep your eyes open. Where that dope? Oh, this is over here. No, no, no, put it over here. So being around him and Casper pretty much showed me the ends and outs of a lot. Not everything, but pretty much that initial, okay, this is how we move and this is how you're supposed to move. This is what you're supposed to do. No, you don't go over here. You don't go over here. This is what it is. So I'm young still trying to figure it all out, but sooner or later, I became

engulfed. Right. Did you, was all the drug dealing stuff before you even had to sort of click up with a gang or anything? Well, pretty much, you know, it's just all of the different people over the period of years that, you know, I've been around has been from all type

of hoods, from everywhere, you know, and so I know dudes from everywhere and throughout Los Angeles. And, Fortunately, you know, the big thing, and, you know, I love your show, Adam, and definitely I've watched it, and you're a real deep, you know, hip-hop dude. For sure, thanks. It's not about glorifying that, because that's something that a lot of us had to do in the past because of the neighborhoods that we were in. And a lot of kids watching a lot of these different programs.

And so I never wanted to be where it's glorified in that sense. right now we're living in some very, very particular times. This is something that I was forced inside of, and so I had to move and make alliances and bonds with a lot of different people. But I don't want to glorify that. I don't want to put that in, you know, a youngster's head that, oh, this is cool, because there's a lot of dudes that do that. But understand this, you know, where I came from is consequences to every act.

and repercussions as well. So the thing about it is is that that's, it's prevalent, but it's only as prevalent as one makes it. You know, it's a lot of smart, intelligent people out there. They weren't forced or raised in them areas in that culture. Like you say today, you go to Compton, it doesn't resemble anything that it resembled in 89 at all. There's no Compton Swatme.

a fucking Walmart. You know, knock it off. Like, so back then, it was real dudes that really did this, that really lost their lives over it. A lot of it was family, but a lot of it, in turn, when you look at it in past tense, a lot of it was the areas and the things that a lot of us had to do to survive,

to make it, to live in Los Angeles, Compton, Watts. I don't want a lot of these young kings, young queens that think that's the shit to do. So you sound like you really fell out of love with it because I feel like there's two different attitudes that an older gangbanger or dude is associated with gangs could take on and like a lot of people, they get older

and they still got so much love for it culturally, but even though they're not standing on a corner no more or whatever, they still really show love to it. But then there's also people who end up kind of feeling like this is something that I felt victim too. Like I was, this was like, who have no positive memories of an old. You got to understand, Los Angeles and Compton is no way like it was 30 years ago.

It was real back in them days. It wasn't where you could go into somebody's neighborhood and not get sweaty or not get asked where you was from or not get – it wasn't nowhere you could move without that shit. That was what Los Angeles was 1,000 percent. And to a lot of terms, in a lot of different situations, it still could happen. And it's a lot of real dudes out there that really – Believe in that and it's really about that. And I'm not knocking that. But it's more like isolated areas versus the entirety of LA and shit, right?

What I'm saying is, is ultimately, that's the lifestyle. A lot of them were in, and that's the lifestyle that a lot of them had to live in. And that's a lot of them is their family. And those are the people who raised them. And that's their conditioning. And that's their cognition. And that's the choice that they ended up making, ultimately. What I want a lot of youngsters to know is that,

You have the power to change and make the changes. It's so many dope youngsters out there that's so smart, that's so intelligent, that's doing so many different things that I'm seeing in Los Angeles and so many kings and queens. In this day, and in this era, and in this time, especially when you're looking at television, and you're seeing a black girl being shot, you're seeing a black man being choked out.

it's much much more bigger and I just want people to understand that I don't want to glorify that and I really love your program due to the fact that you don't put that out there like that there's a lot of different programs that pray on that and at the end of the day we got to be careful of the platforms

and how we use these platforms and who's watching and who's listening. So definitely, that was something that we were forced in. That's something that we had to live through. But everybody have the power now. And then you're looking at it in this day and age, a lot of these youngsters out here, you guys got the power.

You got to understand something. They have a sale for you. I just sat in one almost nine years. I've sat with a lot of dudes from a lot of different. areas throughout Los Angeles. And they live with regret. Regret.

Show me a man who hasn't regretting, and I'll show you a man who hasn't lived. True. And when they look back at the lifestyle and in which they were raised, the conditioning, the environment, ultimately the cognition, the way that they were taught to think,

and ultimately the choices that led them to get 360 months, 400-something months, 500-something months, they look back and say, damn, wait a minute, did they really care about me? Did they really steer me in the right direction? So I want people to be conscious of shit. Be conscious of it. Every choice, you have choices, and now in this day and age,

you have options. Back then, we only had choices. And in this day, a lot of these youngsters, they got options. Yeah, like I have conversations with dudes who, you know, come from street environments and everything like that. And we talk about like what they want for their kids. Like our friend who got a 10 year old kid and he's raising him right in the middle of Compton. And we're having that conversation. And it's like, you know, like he wants to raise his kid to just be a young, cool motherfucker who is not feeling like who can be cool with everybody that doesn't feel the need to prove himself through violence or turn himself into this person.

everybody's going to be scared of or whatever but there's a lot of role models like if this kid's sitting at home watching YouTubers and then Twitch streamers and stuff I mean none of them are Associated with any kind of street you know exactly in a lot of ways somebody like you or even me to an extent like not even being from that environment I grew up looking at a snoop dog or a dr. Dre and I'm understanding that like these guys are the man the men I guess because they're the craziest motherfuckers who are talking about this shit on records and telling you exactly what's going on and a lot of these guys these kids have role models that are not necessarily justifying their existence that way.

Exactly. Exactly. You know, in that day and age and in that era, when you look at Snooping, when you look at Trey, they was in those environments around those people every day, all day, like myself, like a lot of different dudes out of the city. So this is the lifestyle and the culture in which they were raised into. and when you look at a person in the choices that they make whether you see somebody just get up one day and just start killing people

you look at a person who's sitting on death row gang member you look at anybody who commits a major crime just go back from the choice that they made and go back to their environment go back to the environment and then you'll know why they made the choices that they made so when you go back to that environment, Compton, Long Beach, Watts, 90, 89, 88, you looking at, it was a whole different animal. I came home. I've been home now. What is it? I got out of the halfway house in September. Compton don't look nothing like it did a decade, almost a decade ago. The streets have changed, people have changed, things have changed, and a lot for the good. And then there's still

bad but nevertheless you know I got loved ones all throughout you know some in the bad some in the good regardless of I pray that that they can use my life as an example look they got somewhere for your ass to go you know the guy told me before I walked out he said Mr. Williamson I want you to think about this

this prison here is like the motel six the lights is always on for you we always got a bunk for you we always got a bed for you and you've been there so you know the next thing close to that is death i mean you're sitting in there living life through a bubble and you got dudes who've been living in that bubble on that little island decade after decade after decade away from loved ones family members all of this so yeah definitely definitely so definitely so but you must have been in the streets, quote, and quote, for a long-ass time. Long-ass time. You're talking about moving there in 89, but then your music career doesn't really pop off to, like, 2004, right? Exactly, exactly. All my life, all my life.

I've been in the streets my entire life, even at the height of my music career. I was in the streets. Really? I was moving around, literally going here, going there. I've never not moved around Los Angeles, Compton, until the federal agent said, here, over here, get in the back car, back and see you. And that's when I was removed away from it.

But as soon as I would come off from doing three or four months of promo dates and paid date tours, I'm back on Crunch on, Chris. You're riding back, you know, because, you know, when you look at it as humans, almost 85 to 90 percent of what we do is habitual by habit. It's just habit, you know, the habits that we've created over our lifetime of, what we do, where we go, who we're around, the people we're with, you know, fitting into those social norms that we've created mentally, the way we think about things and the condition and the environment that we were put into.

So when you think about the 90s, basically, like, how would you sort of sum up what your life was like through all that? And, I mean, obviously, rap at some point becomes part of it. Oh, rap has always music, period. I mean, the 90s, I believe it's the greatest decade ever of hip hop music, ever. You have, God bless the dead, DMX, you know, everything came there in the late 90s, where the early 2000s, in that first, in that term page, when you look at albums like Illmatic, I mean, you look at the chronic, when you look at Dre's first album, when you look at DJ Quicks first album here on the West Coast,

when you look at E40's first album, all of these is the icons of the West. You know, when you look back at all of that, when you look back all the way throughout that whole decade of all of the music that came out, Jay Z's first album, Biggs' first album, Tupac, you know, when you look at the 90s, there is no other decade. I think at least one part of why music just isn't the same now is because of the fact that at that time, you would hear some shit and then you would go a year

or a couple of years before you would hear something else. So there was just, you were able to hear so much progression in the music in these gaps between projects. Whereas now it's like, you know, if there's a rapper I fuck with, I hear his new shit, I hear some new shit six months, I hear another song the next week, you know, it's just nonstop. And it gives everybody an ability to sort of copy each other. So shit sounds very homogenized.

And at that time, it was like, you would just hear this fucking new Wu-Tang shit and be like, what the fuck? I wasn't prepared for this. You weren't even prepared. There was nothing to let me know that this was coming from listening to Illmatic. I was not ready for Wu-Tanguing. Just imagine when you first heard, you know, Bill for Cuban Lings. Imagine when you heard that. That shit was like, and I'm a West Coast dude.

So when I first heard Ray Kwan and Ghost Face, I'm like, God, damn, they're killing it. I mean, that album, for me, I love that album. That's just like certain albums, you know, when I first heard Quicks first album, you know, but the music is you can hear it around the country, Outcast. When you're hearing all of these different things at that time, you know, like, damn, it was just so much music for that decade along. And so a lot of that music was truly the soundtrack of, you know, my adolescence and up. So you had been making music all through the 90s?

I hadn't been making music, but I've been, you know, I've always loved music, always. And so I was rapping early 90s, freestyle and writing here and there, but nothing to the degree of by the end of the late 90s, my writing ability and me to be able to, you know, start going and dabbling here. here and there with different, you know, writing songs and sitting down. But musically, I'd always, you know, love music. I knew how to play trombone, knew how to play trumpet since I was in middle school. So the first person ever introduced me to music was my mother.

And, you know, she played throughout the churches as I was real, real, real young in Chicago. And I remember, you know, I remember we was very, very young. And she would just pull up and she could just start playing the piano. And I used to be like, Mama, how do you? know which key to play? Well, it's in my soul. I hear it. So I just want to, you know, now looking back, I realized that my mama didn't know how to read music. She played it by ear. So she would play the organ and she would just play it. And I'm like, Mama, how do you know which one? I used to always ask my mother that. And she just played by ear. And so whenever by the time, you know,

I would go into band class, I started playing trombone and I always had first chair. I always battled everybody in one first chair. So from there, I learned my boy, he would show me A, B, C, all the keys with the trumpet. And so I just picked up trumpet naturally. So I've always loved music. And then, you know, in that time and in that area, you know, you had the black sheep. And you know what I'm saying? You know, you had lost boys.

You had all of these different groups coming from east to west. And so DJing was real big back then. And so my stepfather, he had all of these records. I mean, tons of records. Womack, Brenton Wood, Percy, Sledge, Hell Melvin, the Blue Notes, Betty Wright, just all of these records. And, man, God forgive me, I used to take his records. And, you know, I'm in there, blip, up, scratching them up. And, you know, so, you know, I've always loved music, always.

It's a shame, though, when you say that, that, like, rap used to have so much more of a reason to be concerned with what came before it, you know, both because, like, in 1990, it's, like, easier for people to remember music before rap, but then also just the fact that, you know, sampling was huge. And now nobody wants to use samples because they want to get all the money from the records and shit like that. And that's kind of sad. Yeah, I mean, when I'm saying these records and I'm saying this, I'm literally, I could see all of the memories with it, as I'm saying, you know, you got to imagine when Illmatic came out, what was that, 92 or 94?

I think it was 92. I think it was early 90s for a little bit. Well, when Illmatic, just imagine Illmatic, I'm listening to Illmatic in Compton. Right. So, you know, I had homies, they playing Sellie Sell. I got homies playing, you know, MC8, and I love MCA.

I love Compton's Most Wanting. And I'm playing Comptus Most Wanting. I'm playing Sally Sal. I'm playing All of this, but I'm playing Illmatic. I'm playing Wu-Tang. I'm playing Biggie. I'm playing Jay-Z's Reasonable out. So my influence

from both sides was just like, damn, because I love soulful music that a lot of those samples had from the East Coast, and I loved the funk that was here on the West Coast. And so it was just like this musical thing for me. I've always loved music, period. For sure. So I'm sure that like the 90s

before you actually got signed and all that, I'm sure it wasn't all smooth sailing. Was there ups and downs during that time period? Yeah, definitely, man. It was a lot of ups and downs. You know, at that time, my mother ended up moving from Ponsetti and Elm, and we moved to Tamarin. And, you know, from at that time, I really just got into, you know, stealing cars.

And, you know, went to, you know, what is that, juvenile hall a few times or whatever not. And then by the time my mother moved on Compton and Arambi, I was just full-blown just pretty much in the streets at that time. So when I look back at that, that time, there was a lot of good times, but it was a lot of bad times, too, you know, seeing different loved ones that you know getting killed, different people inside of the drug business, fighting, just different type of things. You see wars breaking out throughout Compton, big hood wars breaking out. So Compton, yeah, in those days and in that time era, you know,

that music was the soundtrack for a lot of our lives, but a lot took place, you know, during that time, You know, when you look back in the early 90s and during that Rodney King situation and all of that that happened and, you know, the whole unrest that took and broke over the city, you got to think a lot of this music was the backdrop to that. So I'm looking back at that and I'm looking back through that whole decade. Then when you have the DMX's come along and, you know, God bless the dead, man. I mean, DMX, so many of us love DMX, you know. He was just, man, just he spoke to by him. being from there, he spoke to so many dudes on the West Coast in a way that

hadn't been spoken, I think, for, you know, by a lot of different artists out of the East Coast. That's why he's so loved here. He had an energy that sort of went beyond what Coast he was from. Exactly. You had never heard something like that regardless. Yeah, you never, it was like a bomb drop when that first album,

it was like a bomb dropped all over the city. They was just playing I'll never forget, man. I'm like, I never forget, I had a 32-ounce of Magnum, and my homie was like, man, you heard that new his whole album, and I remember we just played it back to back to back to back. We sitting at Roland Blunts and we just like, damn, who is this? And we, I remember when we first seen and we was like, where is he from?

We didn't know where he was from. You know, we was so young. And then we found out eventually he was from New York, but we was like, we hadn't heard that liking. You heard so many people would be like fake angry on songs. Yeah. But then you had him where it's like you really felt the sadness and the pain, you know. Yeah.

It was deep, man. It was deep. So I'd never forget. And then the second album, so when you're looking at that time, when you're looking at Master Pete in that era, and all of the music that came up out of that, you know, that time from the South,

he was one of those engineers out of the South that made music that was relatively relative to a lot of West Coast dudes. And the lifestyle that they lived was almost a lot similar to a lot of ours. And it just was so dope how he was able to, integrated and make it happen and then show so many dudes his entrepreneurial spirit and his understanding and the dynamics of, you know, him being inside of the game from an independent

standpoint and understanding how to monetize it in a way that hadn't been seen before. Definitely. Where were you during the riots? Your memories of the time? Yeah. I remember exactly where I was. Back then, downtown on Compton Boulevard, there was a circuit city. So when the riots first broke out,

what is this, Acacia, Orlyander, there was a store on the left-hand side. And I never forget, my mom's had a hornet. And we went inside of the store, man, I never forget, and I must have took almost a whole crate of beer

and put it in the back of there. Then we went to another store. We put different food in there. Then we went to another liquor store. So then the homies that told me, oh, we're going to go over here and hit Circus City. But they had bolted it up and everything like that. So I remember Compton,

it was on fire riding down the counter boulevard you just seen everything on fire just i never forget that did it feel like the destruction in your own community or did it feel like revenge on the police looking back at it in hindsight it was revenge at the police you know you know at that time but then looking at it in a bigger bigger you know spectrum of it from being like damn we tore our own shit up because a lot of those stores have been in the communities for so long long. A lot of shit was in the community and had been there and been staple points. So at the time, the anger was at the system, at the police, at the justice system, and all of those things. But in that, I think people really wanted to show we will tear this motherfucker up if we don't get

some type of justice. And so in hindsight, it took Los Angeles a long time to rebuild after that. And it's interesting because I think last year during the George Floyd shit and everything, that was like the next round of like big protests for America. I remember there being like a very clear conversation on Twitter or whatever when you're seeing the sort of activist community to speak to each other and stuff where it was like we're going to Beverly Hills to protest. Like we're not going to do this in our own communities. Exactly. Which I mean I'm not like hugely in favor of people destroying anything. But I mean that does make a lot more fucking sense than burning down like your. grocery store that you go to every day.

You know, when you ask that question, at the time, it wasn't what we have today. It wasn't where all of these activists, we have the Black Lives Matter. We have all of these, you know, socially conscious people of exactly what's going on and being able to coordinate things with Instagram, Facebook, and able to have all of these different social media outlets to be able to formulate and get, you know, start brainstores. storming on great ideals. It was just a spur of the moment. It was a lot of anger.

It was a lot of intensity behind that at that moment. And so pretty much Los Angeles wanted to show the world this was fucked up. This is fucked up. And in hindsight, when you look at it, it was truly fucked up because, yeah, we burned down a lot of our own communities. A lot of stores have been there 20 years, 30 years. You know, we had relationships with you could go in some of these same stores. you know what with a note hey I ain't got it right now oh here take a loaf of bread take a pack of hot dogs take this take some Kool-Aid take the rest and yeah when you get your

check in these same stores we burnt them up damn um so around the time like leading up to you getting signed and all that had you become kind of sick of the lifestyle that you were living and were you looking for something that would be able to change your life and when you think in the music might be the thing I definitely did man um Prior to that, you know, it was a real turning point for me prior to me getting signed. I had been rhyming for a long, long time, and I had lived, you know, throughout Los Angeles and Compton. And I had met someone that I truly loved a lot. And when I met her, it just really just gave me a different outlook on everything.

And in a way that we were able to bond and the motivation that she gave me and the spiritual, you know, you know, settleness that I had with her, she was really a big factor in pushing me forward and towards my music career. And prior to me getting, you know, signed, I ended up losing her. And she died of spinal meningitis. And so she was young, I'm assuming. She was very, very young. She was very, very young. And it was just so crazy.

I mean, she had went to work. She went to work, you know, as she normally do. And so that day at work, she ended up, you know, using one of the utensils. She always packed her lunch. She always took her stuff to work. And so that day, she didn't. And so I never forget when she came home. She kept screaming how she had these terrible headaches.

And she started screaming. And I called 911. And so when the paramedics they got there, they was like, what did she eat? What's going on with it? I said, I don't know. And so when we got her to the hospital, hospital, the doctor was like, you know, we want to do a spinal tap. Because at the time, I didn't know that the fluids that are on your brain are the same fluids that's on your spine. And so when they were able to run the spinal tap, they realized that she had spinal meningitis. And, you know, there's three types out of them. There's tuberculosis, there's bacterial, and then there's viral. And she had the worst one, which is viral. So even though the doctors were able to be able to, you know, there's tuberculosis. There's bacterial. And she had the worst one, which is viral. So even though the doctors were able to,

the shotgun, all of these different antibiotics in her, hoping that one of them would penetrate and work, ultimately only her body could cure her. As she began to succumb to it, she lost the feeling in her legs. At the time, I didn't notice she was paralyzed. So every day I would rub her legs down with oil. Hey, press your foot against my hand, you know, talk to her. And her hands was working perfectly, but she really had no mobility in her feet. she couldn't even press my hand like this, her foot against my hand.

And so I started asking the doctor, hey, when was she had feeling, what's going on? And so eventually towards her death, he told me that she was paralyzed. Yeah. And she was your inspiration for wanting to make something out of yourself, but then did that change things for you? Did that make it hard for you to still have that motivation? Yeah, I lost total motivation to be honest with you. I never forget, man. I told my brother Hot, you know, my brother Hot Dollar, I told him,

I said, you know, I don't want to do this no more, man. I'm cool. I don't want to make music. And he was like, what? I said, no, I'm cool, bro. I don't want to do it. And he was like, Black, you tripping, you tripping black. And I was like, no, I'm cool.

And I was like, yeah, man, I'm cool. And so, you know, my brother was, he just seen me, mentally I had lost something, and I lost a big part of myself, because this is somebody that I truly bonded with. And I never forget the way that the songs came together that ended up getting me to deal in different record labels, you know, court me, is songs that I ended up recording

for his birthday because he begged me to come and do a song with him. And I was like, man, I'm not fin to come to no studio. He was like, bro, you mean you can't come on, for me? It's my birthday. I'm not asking you for anything. All I'm asking you to do is come and get on a record for me for my birthday. Can you do that? And I was like, yeah, I was like, yeah. Yeah, you know what? I got you, bro.

And I remember he played Pots & Jards, which is a single. Well, it wasn't a single. It was one of the songs that got me signed. And they played three beats, and I think in 17 minutes, I had all three of those songs. You recorded your part in 17 minutes on three different songs? I recorded three whole songs in 17 minutes. So you were just going off the top already at that point in your career or what? I just had so much material already written.

Really? Okay. Yeah, I had wrote like. Right before I walked out of the penitentiary, I wrote 600 verses. So I've been quite, quite, I've been a long, I've been doing this a long time, Adam. I've been doing this a long time. So, you know, when it comes to, you know, me writing, I write a lot. I'm still, to this day, you know, I stopped for a long, long period of time. You know, when Nipsey died, that's the first time I picked up my pen inside of the penitentiary.

Wow, really? when he died because I had so many memories with him and I told myself there I would never do this music shit again and I was done and when he died something in me said you know black pick up your pen pick up your pen and I haven't put it down since wow when Nipsey died and you were in prison that must have been a fucking moment in there huh

that was a fucked up moment man because you know Nipsey was the hope of a lot of dudes that came from the inner cities of Compton, Watts, and Los Angeles. But he came from that lifestyle. He came from that culture. But he's seen something bigger than that. That's why he wanted to give back. He wanted to show not only his peers,

but he wanted to be something that was bigger than the condition that he came up in. And that's why he dedicated and energized so much of his energy and time inside of that community, whether it be through different school projects that he wanted to do commercial real estate. He wanted to lead by example, lead by example. And, you know, a lot of the things, you know, before, you know, I went to prison way back.

I used to go to 1,500 at Nuttons House. And around that time, my brother had just did his deal. We did it with Johnny Scheip. over its cinematic. Shout out Johnny Shipes. Shout out to Johnny Shipes, man. I love you, boy. I always, like interviews,

random documentaries I'm watching, I will always see Johnny Shipes and I'll always hit him up and be like, bro, like, you just been around this shit. Hey, man, Johnny Shipes, bad bit of a lot of long fucking time, man, this shit. And so Johnny Shipes is the one who was just like, man,

he really believed in my brother. And so I never forget that, man. Back then when he first ended up doing that deal over there with Shipes with Sony Epic and Cinematic and all of them. And so, you know, around that time, I never forget, man. We used to always just go hang out and go everywhere, man. I go up there and record with them. And just different, you know, for so long, man, I had new nip. I never forget when I was at the dealership. He bought a two-door

and I bought a four-door bins and just so many different memories I had. So I'll never forget. I'm hearing the word throughout the penitentiary. I pick up the phone. I call hot. As soon as my brother answered the phone, he said, Black, he gone. He gone, Black, he gone. I'm like, you for real? He's like, man, he's gone. This is, you know, because we were so close. I never forget he used to pull up to my brother's studio

and Nipa said, hey, what's going on with Black? And, you know, yo, get us to Black, make sure Black good in there. make sure he good. My brother like, no, I got him. He's good, he good. He's like, no. That's the type of heart he had. That's the, out of a lot of the West Coast artists

that I've known over the years, over many, many, many years, and there's a lot of good, good, good, hearted dudes, it was a different understanding because I felt him on a bigger level because, you know, I seen, you know, when he did that multiple times

with my brother, I always wanted to look out on me. it was just, you know, a lot of, you know, when you're in prison, you know, you pretty much, you know, you're a foregone conclusion, you know, especially me. I'm an older artist. I've been around the game for ever in a day, but I think a lot of things that I said to him, he really took the heart. And so he pulled up on my brother and he was like, man, you know, we already had, I already had two barbershops in Harthorn, you know, for years and years and years since 2005. And he said, man, when I seen that, man, I wanted to open up my T-shirt. shopping that's what I went and did everything that he seemed he took it and he took it to a whole

another level and who would know that he would create the brand krenshaw like that or you know do all of the stuff that he was doing so yeah that really from the time when they killed him I picked up my pen and I haven't put it down definitely um okay so what what happens in the lead-up to you getting signed how does that start to become an issue what do you mean not an issue but how How is it started to become a possibility that you might be able to really take this rap thing serious? You know, I didn't really even take it serious then, to be honest with you. I didn't even take it serious then. The guys who I had ended up cutting the three records with, they were shopping them.

I'm still working at Target. I'm still working at Target, and I'm still, I still got a sack. I'm in the streets. I got a job because I need both to pay bills. you know my other not only you know my support system you know this is a my my spouse she's gone so all of the bills are on me um so i'm doing it all so i never even paid no no mind about it no more i just forgot about the fucking songs um the dudes ended up having a lot of eternal beef amongst themselves because they were all trying to bring me in different directions so one would take me

the Dev Jam West. One would take me over here to Sony. One would take me over here to Warner. And then eventually I met Pete Farmer over at Virgin. And so Pete didn't play it like an A&R from a distance. He was really involved highly. And he really wanted to figure out who I was. He wanted to figure out the music that I was doing.

He wanted to be involved. And, you know, I never, I didn't take him serious neither. I come from the old way of things I don't believe nothing I hear in half of what I see so in that saying

you know oh I'm gonna get you a deal I'm gonna do this I'm gonna do that it sound like he underw woov waw wawf I'm like so yeah okay whatever it's like saying he's gonna turn you into a superhero

or something the fuck like seriously like okay yeah whatever so yeah let me hit the connect up you know let me find I need to make a move so he was like no I'm serious I'm serious I'm really serious I'm fin to sign you to a deal bro I'm fin to do this I'm like yeah you and other five of the labels and he was like I can go get you a bag now you can go get me a bag so I'm like you can get me a bag he's like yeah I can go get you a bag right now I can get you 14,000 against your advancement you're going to get almost we'll give you almost 250,000 I'll get you 14,000 against you I'll get you 14,000 against you against it right now. Just show how serious I am. I'm like yeah, do it then. He was like, well, you got to do, we'll do the short form. We'll put up the money for Peter Lopez and Mark Kovinsky as your attorneys and whatever it goes through this route. And then when you start signing, when you start the small portion of the short form, we'll give you an advancement. I was like,

shit, do it. I want to see this. So I signed the shit and they sent me a check. So after that, I signed another portion of it, and so they had my bank account, and I said, you know, the rest of the money was in my bank account. Right. So I was signed a virgin, and so from there, I'm still in the streets. Right. And so Pete was like... But now you have a lot more capital to work with.

Oh, a lot more. So my mind at the time is like, okay, this is what's going to happen. I'm fed of made. So Pete was like, look, bro, listen, that bullshit. is over with, bro. I need you in the studio. I'm like, well, shit, I still, you know, I'm telling him I got a job.

I'm on some nickel slick shit. You're like, no, fuck that job, bro. I just gave you almost $250,000. Come on, let's go. And so Pete was in the studio on me, you know, all the damn time. So that just really pulled me away from that shit all the way and just, I was like, oh, I can really do this.

They're giving me money to do this. So to rap, okay, fuck it, let's go. It's so interesting because, like, when we think about artists making something out of themselves these days, it's like, it's on you and then the label will like swoop in at a certain point and start helping to make your career move. But at that time, it was so different because an artist who's coming out really had to like, it had to be working with the label from step one because you just cannot gain any kind of real traction unless you have the label sort of hyping your shit up.

So did you feel like you were good at playing that game? or was that a skill that you had to kind of learn as you went? It was a skill that I had to learn because when I first started going into the Virgin buildings, I'm like, okay, who are all of these people? Right.

Who is that? And I'm seeing all of these people sitting in desk. Who is that? Oh, okay. Who is that? So I was like, yo, Black, every one of these people inside of here have potential.

and they're going to be working with your project. We need to find out who they are and what they do. We need to either have a meeting, we need to take them to lunch. So we developed the skill of befriending and figuring it all out. Making everyone like you. Hey, so what is your job? Well, I'm the head of this department, and what I do is I set up all of your interviews,

whether they be locally, whether they be internationally. I work with everyone. I do all of these, different arts. that are here on the, oh, okay. So I'm going to be the one setting up all of your interviews. Oh, okay. Wow. So, yeah, I'm ready to do any of them that you want me to do.

Oh, you're going to do any of them, any and every one of them that you ever asked me to do. Okay, cool. So when can I sit down with you and we can, you know, so I would take them out to lunch, bring them lunch. So every person I figured out inside of a label had a pivotal part. Oh, you're the head of radio. So you're going to have me doing the radio tours. So I'm going to be going on the road with, oh, I need to really figure out who you are.

So I had to really not only let them meet me on a genuine level and understand what it was that I wanted to accomplish, but I wanted to build those friendships and relationships. And those people, they really pushed my project. And they all had their hands in it. And I'm thankful for all of them because they taught me so much about the industry, things that, A lot of artists weren't privy to, and I was able to go back and share this information to Glasses Malone and Bishop and talk to all of these dudes, J-Rock, and, oh, this is how this work, and this is how this work. Because, you know, if you look back at that time, myself in game, we were pretty much the precursors to a lot of the artists that came. You were before the game, basically, because his blow up with GUN it was maybe like a year or so after you.

And it's kind of hard for a lot of people to remember, but the L.A. had gone a long-ass time without a star. all through the late 90s and stuff. It was kind of like a slow period for everything. Right, right, right. Definitely. And so when you're looking at that, I was a precursor to a lot of those artists. So it was easier with all of the information

that I had to share it with them, whether I shared it with NIP, I would sit down with glasses, I would sit down with them, and anywhere I would go, I always made sure that I put those artists out there because, like I just spoke to the artist that was here a minute ago,

they're the future of the West. they are the future. So even though I'm in my prime, I'm at my light, I'm still shooting my light back because, again, the same people you meet up is the same people you meet on your way down. And regardless of, you have to understand it, hip hop is a changing form of art.

It continues to change. If it stayed in one state, it could never grow. If hip hop today, Adam, was like hip hop in 92, those good old days, those Wu-Tang. What we know about the little dirks or the little babies? It would not be the biggest art form in the world if it just stayed stagnant. Exactly. It's a growing, moving body of work.

And it's like, it's like if we hung a Van Gogh here and we had another, we had a Mona Lisa here and we had a Van Gogh here and we're looking at all of these different, you know, Picasso, look at the time ranges, but the beauty is still there nonetheless. They're still in their body of time, but as you look at new artists all the way, as they continue to grow and gravitate and change,

it's changing, and that's what hip hop is. If it stayed in one dimension, it could never stay, it could never be the biggest, you know, it could never be the biggest of what it is. That's the difference with it and every other genre, that it continues to evolve, change, It could take shape. You hear Western.

You may hear pop. You may hear classical music inside of it. It's able to take all of these different bodies and different shapes from different cultures and be able to integrate it. So that's what makes it a world music. For sure. When you say the thing about really getting to know the labels and everybody works at the labels and stuff, what that makes me think is that's why his album came out. Because there's been so many great artists out rap history who just,

just don't even ever end up putting their project out. Obviously, now it's a little different. But back in the 90s and stuff, you were just forever hear about like a dope rapper who got signed and the project never even happened. Never came out. And am I correct that you would say that's like one of the main factors of why they actually ended up really getting behind your shit

is because of the relationships? I think for myself, I really do believe that because even when I went to Europe and I was there in France and I got to meet everyone in capital there in France. And so I got to meet, you know, the people from Enioux. I'm over there because there's different divisions of EMI that were pretty much. And so me continuously developing those relationships and understanding how vital and pivotal all of these different people in the parts and the positions of how they made the cog, you know, turn inside of that will.

Each one had an intricate part in that. You know, there was the person who had to deal with all of the different people, whether it would be Viacom and how they got my videos on 106 in Park and had my videos here and as well on. MTV. Then, you know, there's another person that, okay, well, I'm dealing with all of the people here at Radio One that's going to be able to get you on these Radio One shows. And then at the same time, they were able to barter me doing, you know, promo dates for, you know, a lot of more spins on their weekly, you know, cast, you know. So I would go and do a bunch of promo runs. I would pull up and meet the program directors and different things. And I also developed relationships. So that and in itself, I had a lot of, you know, of good people that were working around me, but I do know that I really wanted to learn. So I approached it with the curiosity and the mind of a child. Like, everything that I thought that I knew, I excluded it. I don't know nothing. So I'm going to let these people who do this for a living teach me.

And so each one of them just used to sit down with me for vast amounts of time every day. I was at Virgin Records. I would be up there flip-flops and elbows ashy. just sitting there at their desk and they would explain all of the artists they work with. And so I just got to develop great relationships with people who had been in the industry for 10 and 15 years and had worked on some of the biggest projects that, you know, I didn't even know about or the history about, you know, like Kevin Blackhow. He was breaking stuff all the way back in death row days and stuff and all the way up to 50 cent. I'm like, and he had told me about records he had broke for all of these artists for year after year after year after year after year.

So to be able to develop relationships with a lot of different people that, you know, you never hear of or never see this behind the scenes. The marketing campaign must have been pretty strong, too, because, I mean, I was like a 19-year-old kid in Queens, and I knew all about it. And when I look back, I'm like, I guess it was magazines. It was, I mean, there must have been, because that was like before there were blogs and stuff in, like, 2003, 2004. There was magazines for sure. I'm sure you were all up in double Excel. Shetload and stuff like that. I was in a lot of those magazines.

Double X-L. I was in the source magazines. A lot of those different magazines. But at that time, it wasn't easy to make, like, people in New York know all about a new rapper from Compton. No, no, definitely it wasn't. Definitely it wasn't. When you look at the spending budget, you know, in those times, you know, artists at those times, it was a lot different than, you know,

I'm seeing and learning so much still to this day about how these young kids are moving around and it's just eye-opening so I approach it with that because these guys are doing some phenomenal shit they literally are creating their songs writing their songs making videos for their songs producing their songs they're able to get them on different streams they're doing this totally independent they have took this and evolved it to a whole other animal and grabbed their careers by the horns and shifted it in gears in gears and gears and gears and gears in different directions and monetized it. So it's totally different from the age of it in which I came into the game.

You know, you see cats, you know, you look at them, and next thing you know, they got millions of streams on a live stream, and you're like, wow, man, and he's just on there just chilling and talking. I'm like, damn, you know, I've been gone for quite some time, so I'm still learning, and these young dudes, you know, they are the future. And so I just sit back and I wonder with all just like, damn. I mean, because in those days, there was a machine, literally, a machine, an army of people that were running around, putting up pictures, PPP, and the side of the stores, you know, the little, you see a person whole figure of his body there with the CDs there. And it was, you know, you had targets and you had Best Buy's and these were the biggest buyers of CDs.

They always have been the biggest. So, you know, me coming home and CDs don't even exist no more. So, yeah. Yeah. But it's interesting because you're talking about sitting down the label with people who are like basically telling you like, this is how I set up interviews for you. What do you do when you get home from prison this time? Set up an interview with Ladd, set up interview with me. I mean, you know what?

You still got that knowledge, huh? Well, you know what? I still come at at it with a childlike, you know, approach. I still come at it with a childlike approach. I'm still hungry. And, you know, I'm still, I'm still learning. I'm still learning. I'm learning from you.

I learned from Vlad. I learned from everybody. Like how this game goes and how it's shifted. It's been a total paradigm shift. And so when you look at a lot of artists now and artists from old and some of the different gears that they've shifted into and the positions that they have now, whether I see podcasts with different, like, whoa, wow, that's dope. I didn't know that. Or I see other artists just, you know, keep recreating themselves and rebranding themselves and repacking themselves and repack. and then I'm looking at the new guys.

And, you know, so everything is an eye-opener and I approach it with that curiosity. I approach it with, you know, I don't know nothing. Even though I've been in this shit for a long time, it don't matter. What I know, the conventional wisdom that I had, I just put that shit in the bag and threw it out the door because the shit doesn't change so much.

For sure. I listened to your whole first album on the way here for probably the first time in almost 20 years today. And I will say that it strikes me as like a very, very good album and that it sounds, at least a lot of the tracks, sound very classic even if maybe it's not necessarily talked about or remembered like the way that it, to me, it seems like it would be worthy of.

When you look back on that album, did you put your all into it? And what do you think of it in retrospect? When I looked back at it in retrospect, the other day I was in a barbershop. And when I was in there, he was cutting my hair and the dude was playing it. And I just kept having to make it.

memories of us cutting it. I never forget when I went in the studio with Jazzy Faye. And man, shout out to Jazzy Faye, man. That dude is so fucking talented, so creative, so energetic inside of the studio. I think at that time, man, I was in a different space and I had so many different pieces around me to help me shape that into what it is. And I can't take all of the credit for it. You know, when I look at Carlos Brody, when I look at Mario Wein is what they brought to. the project. I never forget the record when I cut it with Nate dog.

And I remember I wrote the verse and I spit my verse to Nate and Nate looked at me and he was like, homie, you got to come way harder than that. Really? He checked me right there. God bless the dead. The homie checked me. He was like, he's like, look, you got to be spitting. I don't know.

Man, I'm sitting there and me and my brother like, nigga, this Nate dog. He was like, you better go rewrite your verses right now. So I'm sitting there rewriting my verses, because he just totally rejected my deposit. No lie, man. Listen, this man was so talented and gifted. He had the Hennessy. He's sitting in there.

I never forget it was a booth in the garage. They had the control booth inside the living room. And so he's sitting in there. We give him the chicken. We give him the Hennessy. He rolled up the weed. He sits there. He smoke his weed.

He drank his hand and eat his food. and he just said, I'm ready. You ready? Yeah, I'm ready. The man walked directly in the booth, no paper, no shit, and spit the hook. I was like, what the fuck?

I mean, it was so crazy. And when me and my brother, we listening to it, we're like, damn. And he was like, you got to come off. You got to kill this shit. And then, I mean, I must have rewrote my verses. a few times.

So, yeah, it did. When I finally, I spit the first verse, he was like, okay, all right. So then I rewrote the second verse again and took elements from it and put with that. And I'm like, okay, let me redo this. And so, but, you know, Nate was, you know, people don't know, but he was a perfectionist to that extent. And he was so dope, man. And his ear for music and the way that he embodied it and his talent, man, I mean, just

imagine I'm seeing him rolling some weed, drinking, eating chicken, and say, I'm ready. Was the beat playing that whole time? The beat was playing. So he's just subconsciously forming it in his brain? Man, the man stood up, walked through the garage door, walked into the booth and spit it. One take, Jake. I'm like, me and my brother, we're sitting there like this. And so when I spent my first verse, he was like, homie, you got to come way harder than that.

I'm sitting there. And my brother was like, hey, man, let's go outside. We had to have a huddle behind this shit. But, you know, that's a legend. He rejected my deposit. I mean, shit, I mean, what I'm going to say, this man's selling millions of records. Like, go rewrite this fucking verse.

So I sat there and kept writing and writing and writing, I must have a damn wrote eight verses. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. So the album comes out and did you feel like they were immediately like, oh, this hasn't met our expectations? because especially at that time,

if your album didn't sell like millions of copies, then you just weren't really interested in you. Right, right. Well, that first week we did $42,000. And so eventually, you know, the album ended up going gold. It went over gold. When you look back at it, at that time, the label was really exciting.

But it wasn't like it is now where you have so many platforms. Now, what is it? Is it like 50 something? It's what, 50 something platforms, streaming platforms. I'm sure, yeah. Yeah, it's like 50. You've got the big ones, but then there's a lot of small ones.

Yeah, okay. Imagine it wasn't like how it is now then. So it wasn't like your platform. There's people watching and hearing this all around and it's going to be everywhere. It wasn't nothing like this. So everything was organically from the ground grass roots. I did 200 promo dates.

200. Over about 200 and something like that. Over the course of like 200 days or how long were you on the road for that? Sometime I was on the road almost seven and eight months at a time. For free basically. For free. Yeah. For free.

To get the word out, you know, back then it was called, you know, shake hands and kiss the babies. I don't think they can get artists to do that anymore. Like they try to get artists to do promo tours these days and I think they're like, no. Exactly. So in them days, everywhere I would pop up, Mike Jones would be there. You know, I would just keep running into the different artists, whether it be on this one. It would be John Legend. Here it would be Sierra.

Here it might be Pit Bull. You know, some of these artists blew so big. I remember that, the area when you came up was also the era when like Slim Thug was coming up. And I remember he was one who they tried to put him on the road for months doing promontores. But he's already big down south, making hell of money performing at clubs and shit. He's like, I'm not fucking doing that for free. I'll never forget when we did the box radio tour down in Houston. And so him and Farrell was there, whatever not.

And, you know, I was so dog sick. I'd never forget. I remember I flew from Philadelphia to there. And so I'm running a fever. And, I mean, the label ran me until I had hoofs. I literally, my feet was hoofs. I mean, I really had horseshoes on my dogs. So, I mean, I was so exhausted.

and dehydrated. When I finished performing, I walk out of the back. It was for 50,000, and I collapsed. And so when I collapsed, you know what I mean? Scrappy and all of them like, damn, what's going on? Everybody looking and everybody like back up, back up, back. Because I have been performing, performing, performing, performing, performing, performing. I mean, anywhere, the whole Chittling circuit through the South, I mean, I must have to zip, zip through the Bible belt, just back and forth, Bible Belt, then go to the Midwest, Cleveland, Columbus, Ohio, just continuously nonstop. I mean, the label ran the brakes off me.

And so I finally collapsed. And I was down in Houston at the box. And I never forget, you know, Scrappy coming to my room. And he was like, man, wake your ass up. And I remember they had the IV. They was feeding me fluid or whatever, not just to rehydrate me or whatever not. But that's how much I had ran, literally.

Were you taking care yourself at that time? Or you getting fucked up and all that? I was fucked up because I was drinking, you know, Theraflu. That was my choice back. then Theraflu was a little... Really? Yeah, I used to take two or three Theraflues and pour them in a little coffee cup and I drink that Theraflu. Really? Because I stayed six, so I didn't realize that how strong Theraflu was. And so I would buy a whole box of them

and pour three of them in a cup and before I hit the stage and I'd be feeling real good. You never got into the Lien? No, my shit was Theraflu. So I would, you know, after I drink the Theraflu, I hit a, you know, a shot of gorilla milk and I'm ready to go. I feel like Theraflu, like, they still talk about that and, like, Benadryl and shit in terms of prison stuff. Yeah. Dudes will be able to get it in there. No, it was a lot stronger in those times than it is now.

Okay. I'm here. I'm in New York. I leave New York. I'm down in Miami. I leave Miami. I'm back in the Midwest. So I'm traveling, so I'm getting sick. So I just started this Therflu thing. And so, yeah, that's what I was in too heavy, you know, just drinking that Therflu. And so I didn't realize how strong and all of the shit that was in Theraflu at the time. Yeah. So is there a point in the, like, did they make a real effort on your second album? Or did you start to feel like they were just kind of losing interests or something at some point after the first? album. Well, after the first album or whatever not, I was contractually binded to, you know, those two albums and six options. So what ended up happening was is that at the time, Virgin was really trying to really build an urban section and they really wanted to have a lot of powerful urban people in charge. And so at that time, Janet really was rebelling against Virgin. And so I think it made more sense for Janet to bring in Germain to executive produce that. And so, I think, project and so when he did come in they wanted to make him the president and so when a label ensues

uh you know new new upper echelon changes you know at the magnitude and the level in which they were at that time it becomes what's called well in that day was a blood letting a blood bath and so a lot of people were getting fired a lot of people you know it is it causes pandemonium and so at the time i was being managed by jimmy henchman and so you know, I'm translating, you know, my message to him. He's translating the message to the label. The label is translating the message back to him, back to me, vice versa. And so, you know, at that time, everything in that, that whole thing and the component of what drew us together and what created the first project, a lot of those components weren't there at the company any longer.

Jermain came in and he had a different direction in which he wanted to take the company. in. And so, you know, again, our interest, they definitely became unaligned. And so when that happened, we all parted and went into different directions. And I think more than anything, it was just a direction in which, you know, Jermaine thought that my project should go and the direction in which I think that my project should go. And, you know, not to take away from him. You know, he's, you know, legendary throughout the South. And he made so much, you know, the music that's, you know, been the backdrop for, you know, that whole South region. And, you know, you know, he's, you know, He lived in that.

He been in that, you know, for his whole entire life. Like, I've been on the West Coast, my almost entire life, lived this, been with this, seeing it on every level, on every aspect. So it's kind of hard for me to tell an artist in the South how he should be South, you know, because I haven't lived there. I wasn't raised there. I don't know all of the culture. I don't know the ends and outs. I don't know the language. I don't know all of the different.

everything that entails in that because he's lived here his entire life. Like, he doesn't know the same that entails with a West Coast artist. Right. Like, did you feel like you were really making a play to be a West Coast sort of artist? Or at some point, it didn't really feel like you were going with that sound necessarily in the same way? Right, right. I feel like that sound was kind of, like, not considered cool at that time.

Right, right. I think what it was is that I wanted to take my album in a different direction. and in the direction of it to being is that with us being on the West Coast, we set trends and we've always set trends. So the music that I made was something that was totally different from a lot of the West Coast sounded that came previously. And it was to set us in a different direction, musically, sonically, lyrically.

And I wanted to show the West Coast that there could be lyricism, that we could do music on different platforms and on different backdrops of music. music from different regions and work with different artists outside of the West Coast and in which would shape a whole different form. And I think I look back now, I think, you know, again, I was the precursor to that because look at the artists that followed after myself, after game and continuously the line of artists all the way up to Kendrix to this day.

Definitely. Do you feel like the label wanted to put you, like, obviously there was this biggie comparison. Do you feel like that label sort of pushed it? that angle of it almost? Definitely. They wanted to pigeonhole things to a certain degree. It wasn't the whole entire label.

It's certain people inside of the label. You know, there's a lot of good people, so to just blame something on the whole entity, I won't do that. But there was a lot of people that were in power, that were over my project, that wanted to pigeonhole

and put things in that one perspective. From like a marketing perspective, like this will help people to understand that if we compare them to one of the biggest rappers of all time, right? I don't know exactly what their logic of thinking was at the time, but I noted that, you know, you could say that if we're going to assume, but a lot of the different things in which they approached it,

they wanted to put it in that spectrum of it. And so a lot of the different writers from different magazines and different articles and different things of that nature also wanted to shape things to a certain perspective. So it kind of led me to believe, yeah, if he's believing this, and now he's saying this, And also he's saying this, but you have certain people that are setting up to interviews. And so then you're sending out these press release with certain material to kind of steer things in it in this direction that, you know, I didn't have control or power of.

Because was that something that people said about you musically all your life leading up to it? Because like when I'm sitting here talking you now, I don't hear a similarity in your voice to Biggie. Exactly. And so I think more than anything, you know, people's perspective of things and when you look at, opinions, you know, if you said, well, Jay-Z, okay, well, you look at LL Cool J. When you think of Big, you can say, okay, Chub Rock. Again, you can make comparisons throughout it,

until you take an artist and break it down and look at his whole body of work, then you can really say, oh, wow, that's, if you say fabulous and think of Mace, go and look throughout hip-hop and the, the, that, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the archives of hip hop compared to a lot of music that you see today it's like you said you know it's easy to harmonize

you know to be able to look at it and see how easily that so many different artists have the same sounding records the same sounding concept of records same sounding everything in this one period like whoa

but you know when you go back and you look at that And I always been deep voice And I've always been a heavyset dude And you know when people compare me You know there is no comparison Biggie is one of the greatest artists that ever did it in our culture Him Tupac So when you look at his body at work

And you look at all of the things that he did I mean I was a kid looking up to this dude So I've always been a big dude I've always been dark skin I've always been deep voiced it So those are things and in which, you know, just came naturally. I think more than anything, though, when you look at it

and you look at my body, you're working, you look at the music that I've made over the period of time over the years, and especially some of the new music that I've been working on and everything that I've been on, I mean, it always speaks for itself. I have my own mind. I have my own way of looking at the world and the way I explain things

and the way I expound upon a lot of different things that's in the world to this day. And so, yeah, and the way that he's seen his world and through his eyes, so you could never compare, two artists because they came they come from two different parts in their way in their environment and the way that they think about it and the way they approach it and when you look at you know big and what he said in the precedent and the standard it was high and the bar has been set high for quite some time for sure so when you and the label kind of fall out uh how's that go like not fallout

but like when do you guys decide to go your separate ways um i think more than anything once you know again our interest became unaligned it was at the point in which where I don't want to bicker back and forth this is what I do this is my life this is my music this is my passion and I'd rather you know us separate on amicable ways than to continue to go back and forth over you know this or over that and I've seen you know the glue to a lot of the dysfunction inside of that.

I seen the adhesive there. And once I realized what that was, I think that I really wanted to, you know, I had an option, which was in my contract, where I wanted to be released. And so upon my release, they would pay me, and they would let me out of my contract, which was, you know, put in there by, you know,

Mark Kovinsky and Peter Lopez. So at that point when you leave, though, are you still very motivated to make it as a rapper? Or has you lost some of the ambition at that point, given up the time. I lost a lot of steam. I lost a lot of steam. Because, you know, when you come into the music,

you come in with this energy, this ambition, this hunger, this drive. But then when you begin to understand the business side of it and the political side of it and the ruthless nature and the power grabs that are inside of it and the controlling and manipulative different personalities that you'll end up meeting, then it changes what was so beautiful and, you know, free and spiritual and, you know, into something that becomes business, business, business. So, yeah, it definitely took a lot of the fire out of my belly.

So, I mean, along the way, you said that you never really got out of the streets, but were you, like, making money in the streets like that whole time? because at some point you sort of like leave the music shit and you basically are back to what you were doing before in some way, right? Yeah, I mean, at that time, man, I didn't have any financial literacy whatsoever at understanding how money works. You know, as most African-American kids, we learn about money from who?

From our first teachers, our mothers, our fathers. And so their relationship with money is strained. and it's not their fault, but it's been a perpetual cycle of that. So when you look at it, you know, my mother, she didn't want to talk about money because the lack of and always the worry to get to pay the like the gas. So money is a very, you know, hot button topic, you know, especially for a lot of young African-American kids, you know, in their household. It's not where I had a mother that was able to say, well, CDs gained this much interest.

IRA accounts you could pay it before or after and they gained this amount of interest and you have to leave it in this. There's no tax loopholes for it. I had no one to sit down and give me an understanding of how money works. You know, money is dead and dead is money and they're in exchangeable. If you, you know, I had no one to sit me down and expound on how, you know, money was created, how the federal, nobody to sit down and show me, oh, this is why people buy real estate so that they get right off their earned income for 27.5 years against the depreciation and amortization. I didn't have. So a lot of us as African Americans, we're not taught about money. So whenever I started having money problems as an adult having two kids, I only went back to.

Again, I told you earlier, when a person makes a choice, all you have to do is go back to their condition. And then their condition, their cognition, the way did they think about things, and ultimately the choices that they'll make. And so I went back to what I knew best, and that was hustling. Definitely. The fraud thing, though, was kind of like a, that's not something that was really happening in the 90s as much, I'm assuming,

or were you exposed to it back then as well? No, not the 90s, but, you know, I knew about it. I knew about it. But yeah, by the time after my record deal, you know, and I left the record company a few years of, you know, financial strains or whatever not. And, yeah, I got in.

Because the thing that I said to Vlad on that interview that he did with me was that in 2003, 2004, when I was driving around Massachusetts and New Hampshire, et cetera, hitting all the malls and doing all our purchases, right that was the exact era in which I would have probably been listening to some gorilla black and then fast forward to I don't know what you got caught up around like 2009 no 2012 is when I first failed so yeah and so by that time yeah I had kind of like moved on or I moved on right around then actually it been a long as time since I'd done it but then you ended up getting sort of wrapped up in that who necessarily or how did you end up figuring out that that was because I remember

one thing I used to think when I first moved to Queens, 2004, I was just around all this, like, you know, street shit that I'd never seen before where there's dudes putting dice on the corner. There's some dude who's obviously selling drugs on the corner. And I remember thinking, if these motherfuckers knew about this credit card shit, they would not be standing on the corner. Fast forward to, fast forward 10 years, 100% came true. I'd never forget, man, when the shit came to me and, you know, once it came to me and I first got a card and I was like, oh, shit. And so, bloop, bloop, approved. Blue, bloop. Approved. So my fascination and my hunger and my motivation delve me even deeper and deeper and deeper to where I don't want to buy from nobody. I want to be the source of it.

So I continue to deep, deep, deep, deep dive. And so once I realized it, I just was having tens and tens of thousands of credit cards every day at my... Let me guess because I'm guessing that you're kind of similar to me in that I was basically like brought on to be part of a crew that this dude was doing where he had some people and I remember the first day I went out with him. He gave me like 40% of the value of what we brought back and I, you know, blew my mind. But then I couldn't figure out the technological side of it.

Like I couldn't figure out like, how do I order an encoder online? But I had a friend who wanted to get down to and I brought him around. Right. As soon as we were away from the guy I was trying to bring us in, he's like, I got it. He's like, I know exactly what I got to order. We cut out our connect right away. That was, you know, the dude who was my connect,

he ended up showing me where to go buy it from. So once he showed me where to go buy it at, I was like, oh, shit. And so next thing, you know, I'm able to get so many cards, and I'm like, okay. And so I'm only making my little money back. I'm making my money back with a little bit of profit.

And so then I was like, you know, let me dig even deeper because I don't want to buy from him anymore. I want to know who's the source. I want to go to the source. So I continued to dig deeper and deeper, and I eventually found the source. And yeah, from there, it was no limit to how many cards I could get. And, you know, the levels in which I was involved was even deeper and deeper and deeper.

And so from that point out, I could easily, you know, you know make two 300 cards a day sell a few hundred of them a day i would just sell a bunch of them and keep so many and send so many people out every single day and that's what i did for a long time right and i mean did you stay focused on like that area of that game because i would always hear about like oh yo when people really get into this they have a whole identities and they'll go and take out a loan and they'll do all i didn't need to do all of that i felt like i just wanted to keep it basic and simple. I mean, it was the only hustle that paid for everything. You know, I knew D-boys, they still had to pay for gas and food and everything. Me, I'd pull out a card.

Blue-bloop, the gas, bloop, the food, bloop, the clothes, bloop, and go make $3,000. How did you beat me? That feeling of, like, a girl, like, you're taking a girl out to eat, and she's thinking, like, I ain't even paying for this. I ain't even going to pay for it. I just go right in my wallet, and, you know, what was so crazy? is I put almost $5,000 in my wallet, and so I just walk in the store. And so I would have them all up in there. I put up my, I have, okay, this one, this one, this one.

Okay, I got, okay, that's 10. Okay, cool. Yeah, give me that. Yeah, I want $500 on that one, $500 on that one. And they would never, it was just so easy and so quick. So I realized that once I would leave there, I would pull up and put $50 on the tank, and then roll back around the corner. You know what?

I think I want some Jays. Bloop bloop. It just paid for itself. It never, it was the only hustle that, to me, out of all of the hustling, I've sold everything on the streets, it paid for the gas, it paid for the food, and it was profitable. So it was the ultimate hustle for me

because I never had to buy anything. I just had nothing but, you know, closets and clauses for the club. and, you know, every time, you know, everybody went out and they worked with me. They trunks was full. They had washing detergent powder and they made a third a third of 30. I split it all the way up. So everybody ate and everybody was fed.

It's a weird hustle because you're doing it to make money, but then at a certain point it almost feels like I don't even need money. I don't even, I never didn't need. That was the scary part. I'm going to use this shit to make the money. I'm not going to spend no money. I mean, no lie to you. I would literally get up and maybe make 200 cards.

Literally, you know, when I was being sentenced, you know, they brought it out. You know, the guy who told him, he took them, you know, to the room where I made them, and they put up a surveillance camera. And so, yeah, this was played at my sentencing. And so they had, I had an open plea sentence, so they played the footage of me making cards. So that's how you ultimately got caught up Is that you just had somebody snitching on you? Yeah, everybody pretty much, you know,

the main dude told on me and another guy he told on me as well. So they both ended up telling on me and cooperating with the government. Wow. Yeah, so, yeah, it was just at the point of where, you know, I would make 200 cards a day and literally, you know, employ my little soldier at home girls and we would just go. But that's always the problem in any crime is once you start taking it to the level of really scaling it

And it ends up being a bunch of people involved. That's when you're fucked. But you can't control them all, right? I can't control nobody, but I live by the code. And, you know, I've always lived by the code. And, I mean, I didn't, you know, these is, you know, they made their choices ultimately. But I wanted to make sure that I protect myself.

So I would never put them in a position of where I, if they were to go to jail, I would leave them there. Hell, fuck no. I would bail their asses out. They got kids. You know, my mind is, okay. If I take care of them, they're going to take care of me, and none of them told on me. None of them told on me.

It was two people told on me. They know who they are. All the rest of them people, none of them people told on me. Them two people was men. Out of all of the women that I were with, it was two men, and they told on me. You got hating your heart for them still? You know what? I look at it is that it was bigger than them.

It was bigger than them. It was bigger than them. what they did, I don't like, but ultimately, God had, you know, things don't happen to us, they happen for us. And so it was two options. I think God really wanted to slow me down because I didn't have no breaks and I didn't have the rationale to really sit with my thoughts on a lot of shit. My mind worked one way and it was one, you know, dimensional.

And so it was this. I'm going to go get it. I'm going to do this. I'm going to make it happen. There was never where, you know, they say everybody can hear God, but over the period of time, we turn his volume down more and more and more and more and more. So he becomes almost like a little... You had him all the way turned down.

I had him all the way turned down. You weren't hearing shit. I turned God all the way down. I wouldn't even shit. If you're really doing some crime day in, day out, you're going to have to tune it out. Yeah, yeah, you got to tune it out because you got to, so, I mean, I had turned it all the way down. And so he, you know, they said, God, protect fools and babies. And I think I was a fool.

So, you know, he was protecting me. He was like, look, I'm going to have to put you over here for a minute. For one, either you're going to be dead or two, you're going to end up getting some crazy, crazy numbers. And I was facing crazy, crazy numbers. So, I mean, to be able to take a plea deal? I did an open plea, open plea where I spent. pled out to eight felonies and in an open plea, I played out to five bank frauds, an aggravated identity theft. So on the majority of my charges, I had an access device charge too. So access device

aggravated identity theft, which carries a two-year mandatory, and five bank frauds. So he gave me 86 months, but the two runs, it doesn't run, you can't run it concurrent. It has a mandatory minimum. So after the 86 months, you tack on another 24 months, which gives me 110 months. Right. So, yeah, you can't run it. It runs bow-legged because of it's a mandatory because it was

aggravated identity theft. It does feel like that's a pretty extreme sentence. Something that wasn't violent. It wasn't, you know. Well, he could have banged my frame. Just, you know, if you know, if you know anything about it,

bank fraud carries a maximum penalty of 30 years. You could have no worse, huh? I pled to five. So you just have to think about that. I also pled to access the vice fraud. So look at the amount of cards that I had in my possession. I had 30,000 cards. So, well, they weren't physical cards, but 30,000 numbers, you know, that were captured, you know.

Right. When you look at it at 500 a pop, that's $20 million. Yeah. That's $20 million. So he could have banged my frame, even though I was first coming into the system. my points was so high when you're looking at a sentencing guideline at a federal sentencing guideline so when you look at it my range is between 108 to 135 months right so yeah yeah once you get in there um yeah just like how how did you manage like how long did it

take for your your mentality to sort of adjust to being in there and the fact that you were going to be doing all this time like how how did it feel and and all that I mean the first first First year is a mug. Second year is crazy. Third year, you're still there. Fourth year, things feel a little bit better than you're able to accept it. In the fifth year, your mind leaves the street. It's not like it leaves it completely.

It's just you understand that you're going to be here. And you fully accept that. And you're fully enveloped in here. You're here. You know that we're going to watch TV at this time. We're watching snowfall. we're going to make some nachos. I'm going to read this book.

The homie just gave me. I'm going to make a phone call. You're watching snowfall in there because I was thinking when you were telling your life story, I'm like it sounds a lot like snowfall in the beginning. So, yeah, when you look at, you know, we on a program. We do the same thing. At 2 o'clock, I'm going to the weight, pal. I'm from the buff hour.

I'm going to go in the morning time. I'm going to do the reg move. I'm going to go do my morning cardio. You know, then, you know, throughout the day, you end up finding. so many different things to do inside of there, but it's about what you do with your time. And the biggest thing for me is just reading.

Reading became so big for me. I mean, huge for me. I mean, Harry-O, man, I mean, that man is a genius, literally, man. He's the, you know, the start of death row. You know, he funded it and did all of that from, you know, where he was at. And I'll never forget, you know, he had three lockers full of books. Books. I'm talking about, like I was telling the guy earlier, he turned me on to a book called E-My Myth by Michael Gerber.

He turned me on to another artist that was super dope. This guy, this writer, his name was Agi Mandino. I never forget, we read The Everything Store, Jeff Bezo, you know, about the beginning and how, you know, Amazon was created and his parents, you know, garage, and they had everything on pretty much a door. and so they had a bail in there hooked up. And so, you know, he just figured that one of the greatest things that he could sell and that he didn't need this big supply of was books. And, you know, it's books all over the world, but you don't have to have them all there. And he realized that he could actually ship them.

And when he realized that he could be profitable selling books, he realized that he could be profitable selling anything online. And so there goes the everything store. Definitely. Was where you were located? Was it some super crazy shit? Or was it a bunch of guys who had kind of accepted that they were going to be in there for a long time and it was sort of chill? It was sort of chill to an extent.

You know, other than, you know, there would always be standout moments and different shit that, you know, dudes had to, you know, take care of and things happen there and that nature. But for most parts, you know, it would stay relatively cool because with prison, you know, everything is political. So, you know, you can't really jump out there and do some stupid shit because of the simple fact that. that, you know, these are your people. And so you're warned and you're told what you can and what you can't do and you understand immediately how far to go and not to go, you know. And so once you understand that, the lines and the boundaries are drawn, and so you understand that.

And so in there, it's a form of respect. Once respect is broken, then people get hurt, period. People get hurt. Would you say that you sort of went into a leadership type role, or were you on some leave me the fuck out of it. I'm not trying to do anything. I don't got to do shit.

No, no. I didn't take a leadership or leave myself all the way out of it. You know, at the end of the day, I didn't PC up. I was on the main line with everybody else. With everybody, I ate child with everybody.

I didn't go hide in protective custody or anything like that. It was just that, you know, when shit arose, you know, in different situations that happened on the yard that took place, I'm there.

And that was just what it was. I mean, I don't consider myself different from nobody else. At the end of the day, I got kids and I got family. And this right here is when you know that it's that important, you know, it's a scary situation because you facing the opposition and you outnumbered. But, you know, I put my kids picture in my heart in my pocket and, you know, kiss them and prepare to do whatever, you know, it needs to be done. Do you ever have a moment in there where you're thinking all I want in the world is to go?

home to my kids but I got to do some crazy ass shit right now in prison because if I don't I'm going to lose my respect and I'm going to not be able to continue to exist. I mean that that shit always is there but you know the biggest thing is is when you know that me getting down or a person getting down with you in there that comes and goes you can't allow nobody to get it you out of pocket any way around nobody period hands down. The first time no put your shoes on let's go no no no never, no disrespect is ever tolerated in there. And if you see a dude allow another man to disrespect him,

then everybody loses respect for you. You can't have that respect. You have to be a man before any and all things. I don't care whether you're a preacher, a pastor, a gangbanger, a stockbroker, whatever, you got to be a man first. Whether you get your ass whoop-wipped or you whoop-ass, then the respect is there. You know what? He took a good ass-whipping, but he fought.

he got his ass but he fought yeah all the prison show shit that I've watched it's pretty crazy watching that dynamic play out where that really is no shame and getting your ass beat but there's so much shame in not holding it down the way you're supposed to

coward die thousand deaths which is interesting because the outside world is different than that where if you get your ass beat on the outside you will be clowned as a result I mean that's the thing man but it's okay at least you didn't kill no If you had your ass whoop to whoop somebody ass, you didn't kill somebody.

A lot of dudes have this conception and preset notion in this day and age and where we living at in this environment and this climate that if they get their ass whoop, they need to go get that Draco. I need to go get that pole. Again, once you get the Draco, once you go get that pole, he can't come back from that. You can't come back from that. He has a pole. You got a pole.

the difference of it is is the after effect and the long-stretching effect of it after that. Family members are involved. This could play out and more people potentially get fucked up. So again, what's

wrong with a good old-fashioned and passionate ass-whipping like Eminem said? What's wrong with a good old fashioned passionate ass-wop it? What's wrong with it like Eminem said? I mean because at the end of the day you survive you got your ass whoop. Shit. I didn't have my ass whooped plenty time.

Lip busted, tooth knocked out, eyes swollen. Damn, whew, need a bag of chips. You know, I need to think this shit off. You know, my ass whooped. I mean, I sit there and eat a bag of chips. I mean, shit. My ass whooped.

I'm lumped up, but damn, he got the best of me. But I went in there and I handled my candle. It was regardless of it, it wouldn't be, it wasn't the first or the last time. Oh, man, give me some popcorn. You all right? Yeah, yeah, I'm going to get some ice for it in a minute. Right. I mean, I'm not saying, oh, you're just supposed to get your ass whooped all.

No, I'm just saying that happens. You're going to meet your match. You're going to meet somebody who can whoop your ass. Doesn't matter. There's somebody, you're going in that place with your chest poked out, thinking that you're the one, believe me, they're going to test that. You're going to find somebody who is better. It seemed like a viral tweet or Instagram story going around the other day.

That was basically like your gun is there to protect your life. your gun is not there to protect you from getting your ass beat in a fair fight. Exactly. It would be great if people will absorb that a little bit more. Exactly. I mean, once you pull that Draco out and you kill that man,

he has a mother, he has a father, he may have kids, he may have a baby mother, he have cousins, he have aunties. The effects go beyond just him. When you go to prison, who all is going to be affected? All of your family, your mother, your father, your brothers, your cousins, your sisters, all of them, even your children, your baby. So who won?

Who won? There's no clear victor because you allowed your anger to take hold of you, and you didn't get the desired outcome that you wanted. Look at the outcome. I sat in there, man, and so many people have so many different stories of how they ended up getting 20 years, 30 years. years on a phone count or 15 years just you know because the feds are very very harsh when you do an 85.5% of your time and you realize how the sentencing guidelines have been set for almost the last 40 years and you know how disproportionate you know disproportionate that they're set against African-Americans with drug charges and different things like that of that nature like like you said even with my time

I've seen people come in with the same loss amount as me but only get 50. 55 months. But when I signed an open plea, I signed away my appeal rights. So that was explained to me, you know, by, you know, Harry O and my other board, like, you know, when I did that, you signed away your appeal rights. So when the money loss changed in 14, it changed again. In 15, the money loss changed again. I couldn't go back to the courts and appeal for a lesser sentence because I signed away my appeal rights. Oh, wow.

because for the open plea so that I could get my guideline of 108 to 135 months. Wow. Ignorance is expensive. When you were locked up, was there ever a point where you were thinking, like, I'm going to get out and keep doing the same shit I was doing, or I'm going to do something illegal, or was your mind kind of on like, I need to get my life right when I get out? Yeah, that's why I went in.

You know, there's a program in there. A lot of people they probably know about it. It's called Ardap, and it's a cognitive behavior program. and, you know, that's, when you see this bracelet, you know, this is, you know, the completion of that cognitive behavior program, if you see FCC Lompoc. But I wanted to, you know, when I was in the program, I heard a lot of different statements that were made. And, you know, there was, you know, a lady, she was, you know, my DTS, and her name was Ms. Robinson. And she said, Mr. Williamson, look where your best thinking got you. your best thinking got you here

your best thinking put you here and there was another DTS by the name of Mr. Tironis and after I was recycled he really really grilled me and he said something to me because I went to group and when you recycled your push back

three more months so you're pushed from the group that you were in into another group. And because, you know, of my anger, which, you know, I allow my emotions to get me, you know, to a point to where I walked up, you know, on my senior guide. And, you know, I really wanted to hurt him.

And so it had set a bad precedent because a lot of people had looked at me as a model inside of the program. But when they seen me blow up to that level and I walked up on him and I invited him, is, you know, interpersonal intrusiveness. When I got there on him, I didn't even realize how angry I had got at that time and how aggressive I was. And so he said, you know, Mr. Williamson, people don't change because they see the light.

They change because they feel the heat. And so when he told me that, you know, that day I really didn't like what he said to me. I didn't like that shit at him. But when I look at it in hindsight, 22, unfortunately, a lot of people are not going to see the light, but they will change when they feel that heat in one way or another. And so, you know, when I thought about those two sayings, you know, my best thinking, look where your best thinking puts you at. And a federal penitentiary, all the greatest thoughts, all of the greatest things you've done in the world, and your best thinking put you here with me. And I said, wow. yeah I need to do something because I can't continue to travel down this same path

and continue to you know think the way that I'm thinking so it put me in a place of where I was around different people to challenge me it allowed me to understand what it is to be open-minded a lot of people say oh I'm open-minded yeah I'm really open-minded but no when you say but you're not open-minded so if next time you talk to someone but oh yeah I hear you but no you're not really hearing me if you're open-minded you're able to not be cynical or foolish you know a cynic can't embrace a new ideal or see a new viewpoint or be open to others ideals a fool is too foolish to keep a foolish-ass scheme out of here so they reside on the same side of reality but being open-minded is truly

being able to hear your ideal out, see the way that you're structuring it, and look at it from that view and say, oh, wow, what if his ideal is really right? And what if what the way I'm thinking about it is wrong?

But that's okay. And maybe he may have a right answer, and maybe she may have a right answer. It's not about having one right answer. It's about having five right answers. And so it put me in a place to where I was able to challenge myself. and around other people that were trying to challenge

themselves and make changes for themselves. A lot of dudes have been to prison four and five times wondering why they had kept coming to prison over and over and over and over. And, you know, being in that program gave me the ability to really look back at my life and ask myself, hey, you know what? Who really won from this scenario?

Well, the people who I took the credit cards definitely didn't win. Did my kids win? No. Did my wife win? Check. No. Did I win? Check no. Everybody lost. There was no real hero. And what did I do it for? I did it for money. Money. Hmm. Okay. So where does money rank on this totem pole here? The wealthy don't measure riches and richness. They measure wealth in time. So when you look at time, information, leverage, money is just a byproduct. of ideals. So I did this for money.

Hmm. I traded my time for money. Look at the people I could have met the relationships that I could have involved. Look at everything that I could have did in the period of almost nine years with my time. So yeah, it's just, yeah. Yeah, it was real crazy.

Now they are out, where's your mind at? And I regret having to sort of like rush this conversation along slightly because we have another podcast I've got to do after this. But we're almost two hours in, but what, coming home, where's your mentality at now? Like, where do you feel like your energy is best put?

Do you feel like your, you know, music is the thing you're focusing on? Or where's your mentality? My music is definitely a big focus of mine right now. But I also created a hair care company, which is called Hair Gods, in which I do, you know, beard oil. And I create, you know, organic products because like I told you, in 2005, I had,

a hair shop. And so back then, my wife used to work in there and you see a lot of different women coming in with invisible edges, psoriasis of the scalp, you know, hair breakage and things like that of that nature. So I started creating products back then. And so I'm back at that, creating products to help grow your beard, you know, grow your hair, you know, shampoo, conditioner, all natural, shade, moisturizers. So I'm focused on that and I'm focused on my music. So that's where my mind is at. And really with this music right now, we've been really moving forward. And so, definitely I want everybody you know to go to my Instagram page man artificial Gorilla Black on Friday we're going to be dropping

three more new records that I just created as recently is it Friday boss lady Friday Friday we just created I've been just cutting records after record after record so we're going to be dropping three records on Friday and I want you know everybody you know to go out right now I have a new t-shirt line and I've been working on different things or whatever not it's called a Messiah collection and so you know we're going to to be doing a lot of different t-shirts inspirational t-shirts a lot of motivational t-shirts and things like that it's called a messiah collection dot com so yeah that's dope um so your your girl really

held you down in prison the whole fucking time yeah man my wife definitely man she looked out for me man and without her i don't think i would have made it through that you know that period you know one thing i will say is that woman man she brought them kids up there man to see me and you know When you separated from the world and everybody and everything that you know and you're in a place full of 1,500 hardened criminals and all of they are miserable and they mad. And just to be able to have your kids and people who really love you, that means a lot to be in a place like that right there. She would come there, man.

And I mean she would bring them boys faithfully, man. And so she also made sure that she took, you know, care of me, you know, made sure money was on my books, made sure that my business. She was ran and things of that nature. So I definitely, you know, she held me down, man. Definitely. That's pretty incredible. Yeah, definitely, definitely.

Definitely. Definitely. She definitely held me down, man. And so I'm eternally thankful and forever grateful to her, man. And for her being the mother, the wife, you know, to those boys, a great mother, a wife, you know, that, I mean, you know, to be able to find people like that in this world is very, very, very rare. So definitely, man. Yeah, definitely. I love you, Sean.

Definitely. That's a beautiful thing. Yeah, everybody check his Instagram out if you want to know what black is up to and shit. I mean, it's a crazy story. It's an inspirational story. And, I mean, I definitely, when I hear you talk about it, it feels like you've, you know, made these mistakes. And, you know, like you actually had to end up paying the price. But you seem like your mind is in a great place now.

And you're ready to just really make the best out of the years you have here. Yeah, man, definitely, man. After being in a place like that for solo, man, I'm just really just excited, man. I really want to work with a lot of new artists, man, here on the West, down in the South and the Midwest. I'm really, really making music, music. And definitely, I want people to, you know, go check out, you know, my websites, man. I'm creating merchandise and as well my hair care products and stuff. So I'm excited, man.

It's a new period of time. I was isolated for a long, long time. So to be able to have freedom again, your liberties, this is something that, I mean, for me, from my perspective, looking at it through my lenses and seeing what I've seen through my lens. and seeing what I've seen through my lenses for my eyes to be at this point, to be sitting down with you, man, to be here on this platform with you. I mean, I couldn't imagine this, man, five years ago sitting in the shoe. I appreciate it.

I mean, that's one thing I was thinking of is how weird it must be for you to, you know, have been involved in rap for all these years. And then you get out of prison and there's like, oh, yeah, like, there's this white guy who was a podcast called No Jumper that a fuckload of people will listen to and they'll probably, having you on there will probably be really popular. You should go do it. It's like, that must sound so crazy, but.

So futuristic, so futuristic, man. But definitely, man, I appreciate you having me here, man. I definitely do. Anybody, I want you all to go to my page, man, Adificial Gorilla Black, definitely y'all can contact, you know what I'm saying? My manager, man, boss lady, you know what I'm saying, boss lady in the building.

You know what I'm saying? Shots out to my man, Booty out there, man. We was down in Bull City, definitely doing it real big, man. I love you. My man, Wafoo out there, man. you know, keep holding your kid down. So definitely. We just worked it.

I appreciate it. It was an honor getting to hear your whole story and shit, and we should do it again sometime too. Definitely, man. Anytime, man, Adam. Definitely. I really enjoy it, man. I really like that you've really been around the culture

and you're one of those people that look at this from a musical perspective, man, and you've really been involved with this shit. That means a lot for the culture itself to help perpetuate it to that next level. And I really love it that you come from that hip-hop level. love it and a lot of people respect you for that shit and I thank you man I definitely do thank you no I mean every time I get to sit down with somebody like you who's been in the game for those years it's a real honor definitely man it's honor to be here man with somebody who really involved with this culture and really want to help move it forward thank you and I mean even just in your individual story I just hope that

this interview plays a role and moving whatever you got going definitely man I definitely appreciate you I definitely do and when I sat back and a lot of the people had spoke to me about some of the things that you've did over the period of years and how deeply you have loved music, hip hop music, and how much you really, you focus on this, it really made me like, wow, big difference in your platform and a whole lot of other ones.

Appreciate that, man. Thank you so much. Thank you, man, definitely. Gorilla Black, No Jumber, coolest podcast in the world. Check us on YouTube, SoundCloud, iTunes. Like, comment, subscribe, nojumper.com, if you want to support. And make sure you tap them with my man on Instagram

and everything like that. You've got a lot of good shit on the way. Adificial Guerrilla Black.