No Jumper - X-Raided on 26 Year Prison Sentence, Becoming a Legend from Behind Bars

Episode Date: December 20, 2019

Inspiration, motivation and positivity. X-Raided is a changed man! After doing 26 years, where he used each day as a teachable moment to elevate, educate himself and develop his mind through hip hop and the positive influence of people like Sanyika Shakur and Wendy Day (who discovered Eminem), Raided is still relevant and performing shows. From shaking things up inside the system to taking psychology classes, Raided breaks down all the situations he's been through with a clear, calm and collected mind. Powerful. A must watch! ----- FOLLOW OUR NEW SPOTIFY PLAYLIST! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/529mn7of2HBKdLfrAMUzcK?si=rWVBWCuWSXeh0TFYb2P-dQ 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: http://www.twitter.com/nojumper http://www.instagram.com/nojumper https://www.facebook.com/No-Jumper-198283650194402/ http://www.reddit.com/r/nojumper JOIN THE DISCORD: https://discord.gg/Q3XPfBm follow Adam22 as well: http://www.twitter.com/adam22 http://www.instagram.com/adam22 and follow adam22hoe on Snapchat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No Jumper. Coolest podcast on the world. This is a legendary moment. We're in here with a one and only X-rated. How are you feeling, my man? I feel phenomenal. Fantastic even. You look great.

He came in dripping just for the people out there. They can't see the belt. They can't see the full fit, but my man came in looking fresh as hell. Yeah, this is how I feel I'm making up for lost time. We got to add to the drip. You know what I mean? The water was consumed.

It was concealed. Now we've got to let it drip. How many months you've been out on the street now? I've been on the street. Let me see. 16 months I think 14 months Wow

And so how's it feel? Ah, it's surreal Still surreal It's surreal I had these moments Like I've been blessed You know what I mean And my people

My family made solid decisions So I drive home And I gotta pass a waterfall You know what I mean I gotta pass It's just a trip Really? So I'm like

I feel like I belong But I don't belong I feel like I'm supposed to be everywhere And I'm not supposed to be anywhere almost all the time. Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, because it's, I mean, the world is so beautiful and so expansive and there's so many

things, but you were shielded away from all that for so long that it almost doesn't even feel right for you to really just be experiencing that? Yeah. I almost always feel like unless it's a heightened, super, you know, amazing experience like this, it feels appropriate because it's like this is stuff that I dream, but this is what my focus was on. but like when I'm making toast, I'm like making toast. Because that's amazing.

The small things. Yeah. Because you couldn't just make some toast for yourself for all those years, right? Yeah. I couldn't even turn a doorknob, you know what I mean? Like, doorknobs are a trip. God damn. Opening a window is a trip.

Like, I could just walk over there and open a window. Wow. Couldn't do that 26 years. But have you started to get used to it at all over the course of the 14 months or so? You know, just like, because eventually that stuff has to start to, feel normal and you have to start to lose that enthusiasm for these things that you missed for all that time, right? Yeah, it starts getting, every now and then I'll be chilling, but then I'll realize I'm

chilling and I'll fuck it up because I'll be like, I'm chilling right now. And now that I'm thinking about it, I mess it up. It's like having one of them awake dreams. Yeah, yeah. Like when the dream is phenomenal and then something happened in your mind and you'd be like, I'm dreaming right now. Right. Ruin the dream.

Wow. And so I'll be chilling, super chilling. And I realized it like, wow, this is crazy. I'm chilling right now. Boom. I think I became aware of you about 2008. I give a shout out to my friend Shitty, aka Max Schitt from Oregon. Salute the Max shit.

You know what it is. That's real, man. But he was always playing your shit around me. And at some point, you know, I'm just like, what the fuck is this? Like, why are you rapping over the phone? And he explained the whole situation to me and sort of like let me in on what was basically like this cultural phenomenon that had bubbled up. more so as you were locked up

where people just got really, really entranced by the stuff that you were recording in there. Yeah, I think there was a truth to it that was missing from hip hop in a certain kind of way. Right. Because even the most realistic rappers, there's a fantastical aspect to what they're rapping about. And that was true for me too before I got locked up.

And even while I was writing during my incarceration, there was a point where I was still writing fantasy raps. And then when my trial got ready to start, I wrote my first real son, called Deuce Father Life, that was about my real life. And that made it real clear for me that I had been rapping about this bullshit, even though some of it was, you know, the gangpangin part is real, that was the truth, but it was other aspects of it that was fantastical. But once I started going to trial, it got real.

And I think between court, there was so much downtime that I could. I could try to, you know how the human brain works. I could try to distance myself from the negativity of that experience from the weight of it. Right. And the trauma and the pain of it by just acting like it wasn't even happening. I don't go to court for eight months. I go on there 15 minutes. I'm back in the building.

I don't go back for eight months. But when it was time for trial, every day, wake up, five in the morning. You got to go. Go to the change on. Go to the tank. Take the elevator. Everything. Go to court.

Sitting court six, seven hours a day for months. for months and it was real and that bled into my music and I never really went back and I think people felt that that there was an authenticity to it and it resonated with the people it's crazy because it just it stands out to me as such a stark contrast that when we talk about you we're talking about you basically right now at this age and we're talking about you as a 17 year old who really didn't know a lot more than the streets at that point right yeah and that like you've changed so much throughout those decades and that it's like we could talk to you now about the person that you were then but that almost has to feel like such a distant memory right no it doesn't no it was like yesterday

really yeah it when i came while i was doing it i can't even say it felt like forever you know for me i had this understanding of time from doing all that time where it's always right now and when i woke up in the morning it was right now right now i got to wash up right now i got to work out right now i got it was always right now and then i came home and it was like all of that it's like a movie for me you can enjoy a movie about somebody life in an hour and a half two hours you know what i mean 26 years feels like a week it feels like a solid movie just like i can just close my eyes and watch it like like a movie real quick a couple hours and get a bar the whole thing right yeah it's all there still. When you think about that 17-year-old version of yourself, though, it's like,

had you really, you hadn't been shown a different way of life, like, were you just completely consumed with the gang, the street life? Had you even been exposed to a different path? I think that for me, I had, I was immersed in gang culture. Right. And then I started playing football. And when I started playing ball, like, my family sent me out of state to try to keep me out of trouble. And then my maternal grandmother died, that really devastated my family. So, like, a lot of people went their own way. She was kind of the glue to help the family together. So while they, while the adults was morning, I went to the streets with my older cousins and just started hanging out in the neighborhood. And so that altered the chemicals for me, my

molecules on what my perspective of life was because it just was garden block became everything. It was everything to me. So when they sent me out of state, I went to live with my cousins in the projects in Waco, Texas out in Tremwood Houns of projects, one of the biggest projects out there. Years before Waco, Texas would become legendary for the fucking David Koresh situation. Yeah, years before. That's crazy. And so I got out there and I started football's life out there. So I started playing ball and I was going well. And that was the first time I really got exposed to something different. I did well enough. One of my cousins was playing at a private school at Waco Christian High School. So football was

kind of becoming something that you could see yourself, immersing yourself in, that was more positive? Definitely. I would walk from the public school to the private school so I could watch my cousin practice and then go home with him. Wow. And their coaches, I started participating in their practices. And the coaches actually arranged for a scholarship for me. So I got on the team and I started doing better and being around those teachers, those students, it was just completely different from everything that I knew about. And so I was, I was hopeful, but I lost my scholarship because even with reduced payments, my mom couldn't afford to keep up with the payments.

And so when that happened, my brain broke. I was like, fuck everything. Because when we got back to Sacramento, my school records were so messed up that I couldn't even go to Burbank or Floreen High in South Sack. You know, I had to go to a continuation school with no football. And so I just was like, fuck all this shit, this crib. And I went to the streets. Did it just stand, it stood out to you like, this is so unfair and fucked up that I have this talent

and that because my mom doesn't have enough money that I'm not able to pursue this? I don't know that I processed that like that when I was 15, but what I did feel was I felt a certain degree of resentment, very powerful. Like, you know, it's moved me around. Can't never stay still. Every time I invest in something, it took from me. So, like, maybe that's why my right now started. It was like right, fuck it.

I'm going to the set right now on the streets. First chance I got, I was gone, and that was it. I didn't stop running the streets until the day they put the cuffs on me. Right. Damn, so let me answer to this. What was your street rep like before you went in and did this time? Like, to what extent did you already have your respect in the neighborhood or in the streets of where you're from? That was, I mean, it wasn't nothing to talk about when it came to that.

My family members, Big J-Dar from 24th Street, big slim. them dog who put me on the set, you know, the people I'm related to G-Man from 29th Street Guard and blah, my family was respected, so it was just automatic. And so I had a reputation for, you know, being a little wild running around. I say it's like a baby vampire, you know, in vampire lure, they say you don't never turn a child into a vampire because they don't got the discipline, not to drink all the blood. They'll kill the whole village. I never heard that metaphor, but wow, that is actually a really great metaphor for that.

I was a baby vampire. So once I got on, you know, I was a jump out boy. I thought it was all good in the middle of the street, hop out, clap at something. I loved it the way people responded to that or the way people felt when I came around, running around with my rag hanging. I used to put a safety pin on my pocket high so my rag can hang down there to my foot, just mobbing around like that. Like that was normal.

That was the way people saw me unless I went to one of my eyes house. That was the only reason I was. and look like that. But other than that, that was my 16-hour, 20-hour-a-day experience and presentation. And it was utterly insane. Yeah, like when you think back about that now, though, do you feel like you were a victim in a sense that you were sort of taught that this was the way that you should be living your life? Or do you feel like that was just you being you, that you would have had to embrace that

and figure out that one way or another? That's a loaded question because, you know, we would have to examine. examine the United States of America. You know, victim is a very strong word. I think I'm a, I am a citizen of a country and I fit a certain demographic in this country at that age at that time that was under an unequivocal attack by the United States of America. And I'm talking cointel pro.

I'm talking all the way back. And these are forces that I couldn't be aware of who put dope in what neighborhoods, who put the guns there. why are these liquor stores in our neighborhoods, but not welcome when it comes to zoning and understanding, they won't let them put that stuff in their neighborhoods, but they'll let them put it in ours. Understanding that this maze have been created for us,

and you get an aerial view of a neighborhood, and you can see they park this here, park this there, when they LA riots, what was it? It was a trap. It wasn't okay, now you burn yours up, but you ain't burning this up, that's what they did. And that just showed it. the reality that that exists.

Right. Cut this off, cut that off and you trap. So I think that child that I was was trapped with limited decisions for sure. Right. I responded inappropriately with my own free will to that stimuli. But yet and still, you know, the choices that were presented to me were presented deliberately by this country and they continue to do it to this day. No, because that's a real ass answer because it's like you could look at it from a narrower perspective

and, you know, certain people end up walking away from just. jail time or experiences with gangs and shit and saying I was victimized by the adults who are in this gang, but it takes an even bigger perspective to say like the entire neighborhood, the entire area was basically victimized by being forced into these fucking neighborhoods with bad schools and limited opportunities and then what? You just expect everybody to figure it out. Right. You know?

Yeah. We can look at the gentrification. We could look at how starting from the civil rights movement where the church, you know, and the family structure was the source of the political consciousness that existed in black families at the time. That's the truth. And it's documented that the government determined, this is documented, I'm not making that up. It was the government determined that one of the greatest threats to the United States

of America as they saw it was the existence of a strong black family. They felt that that was why the civil rights movement was so successful. So they start breaking that down. And like we, you know, I studied this and spoke with some of the men in the prisons about. They took vocations out of schools. It used to be you could go to school and learn how to do, you know, machine work. You could learn woodwork. You could learn ACs.

Yeah, vocations. They don't do that no more because you have people who were leaving with a certain kind of education. They would take that education, go to factory work. And that was how they supported their families. and those families that were supported were the ones the voices came from that stood up and said, hey, we want these rights, ABC and D

during the Civil Rights Movement. They attacked that in the 70s, unequivocally, Cornel Pro, it's a fact. Jay Edgar Hoover, Nixon, all those policies that got put in a place specifically to create a circumstance that led up to eventually the war on drugs in the 80s in Reaganomics

and then, you know, the war on crime. They had all these names that essentially meant a war on people who look like me. That's what it was. That's right up. So you get locked up and then do you kind of have to, did you, at first did you try to just sort of embrace the reputation that you now have for yourself? Like when did you start to begin to realize that the way that you had gotten into the situation was so unfortunate

and that you wanted to change or whatever? Because for a period of time, in particular with the early records of your drop, And it felt like you basically were just like, well, this is what people want to hear from me. So I'm going to do this. I think that originally those records I was dropping, I did that. I wrote that way because the homies liked it.

I liked it. You know, writing about what we were experiencing. I had extreme elements to it. But, you know, it ultimately came down to, we in the projects got the trunk open, bumping, drinking, and freestyle into parliament or the zap or whatever. And, you know, we rhymed about women, weed, you know, the streets, gangs, the set.

And so that permeated my music until I started going to trial. And I was when it really woke me up, you know, that right-induced file of life. After that, my what I wrote changed. Every now and there's some, you know, rap would come out of me. But for the most part, when I sat down the right, it was deadly game. You know, it was misanthropy, land of the law. Mama's Pride and Joy. I started writing, you know, what they, I had a fan tell me I was the first gangbanger, conscious game banger. And it was true that happened. During my time in prison,

I was blessed, blessed to be placed where they put the fathers who fell in that trap. They put the uncles. They put the big brothers. That's where they were. And so I was educated by those men. By saying, dudes who were 20 years older than you, who were in the situation that you were probably going to end up in that and those who had already woke up during their time right who had already came to understand that it wasn't just about you know the genocidal aspects of game banging that that became a topic of discussion and prison is a very segregated location you know what i mean it's a lot of activities in there that's predicated on what you're not just your affiliation but your race right and so that made me hyper conscious of you know the fact that you

You could harm a black if he a blood, but, you know, don't let that dude do it, though. But a lot of people, like, they go to jail. Like, I was talking to somebody yesterday was telling me that they went to jail when they were really young. And that made them realize how silly a lot of gang being and shit was because they go, they get locked up. And they realize all these dudes who want to kill each other on the streets. It ain't really like that once you're locked up. And if the rules can be so completely different just because you're locked inside a building, then what the fuck are the rules? Right.

You know? Yeah. Could you learn a certain set of rules on the streets only to go to prison and be told? Like I got off a bus at New Folsom in 1996, 165 man riot, 60-something knives, three men shot. And one of the first things that I was told by Turtles Brother, Whiskey from Santana Block. And it's a legendary keyway on a street level. They're that word, legendary people. You know, it's a subject right now,

but this is a person, legendary on the streets and in prisons for representing what he represented and what he stood for. And I was blessed for that to be my cellmate. And one of the things he told me was, you have to help bloods, pyrues, you have to help the Bay Area, Yakummi's, Jama. You got to help them.

Or it's going to be balanced. right so right on the streets and nobody's saying that like the idea that you should be unified beyond your gang or whatever is sort of a foreign principal on the street it was completely foreign principal on the street and get to prison and be told basically that if you under the threat of violence yourself if you fail to come to the aid of somebody that's from a rival gang even if it's the rival gang, you were in prison for going to war against on the streets. Yeah. Even if it's your worst enemy, you got to help him in this specific circumstance.

And that led to the man, well, why? But how come nobody told me that? Right. Before I got to this situation with the psychology that anybody that wasn't from what I represented and wasn't one of us was one of them. Right. Why couldn't I have been informed about that? But the reason is the people who could have told us was trapped in them boxes.

Right. That's where they were. Damn, that's true. So then you start to, it sounds like you had kind of like a blessed prison experience because you were maybe exposed to like a more intelligent perspective on your life early, whereas like a lot of people end up going to jail and they just sort of get wrapped up and even more bullshit. Right. I think what happened to me, what made it different for me in prison than a lot of other people was,

I was already ex right at the rapper. By the time I stepped off a bus, I've been in place. Playboy magazine. I've been in the source. I've been in, you know, all these different publications, you know what I mean? So I was a, I was a prize for better and for worse. And so people, some people were very proud of me and viewed it as, you know, that's ours. We did that. That's an accomplishment that we had, especially that I recorded the music, some of my music in the county jail before I got to the pen. So it was a lot of people who felt like They wanted to tell me something because they heard something.

They felt something. One of those people saying Yika Shakur, Monster Cody, when his book came out, he actually started looking for me and he reached out to me. I got a letter from him. I think back then he used to write for rap pages. Right. And he reached out to me and told me that when as many people were listening to someone, as I had listening to me that you had a responsibility to say something worthy of being heard.

I remember it verbatim. That's what he said to me. And so, you know, I wrote him back. We started communicating. It's one of the reasons I got validated getting letters from him. But meaning that the prison determined that I was a dangerous person or influential person. Because you were talking to him. Because I was getting letters from him.

He was validated already. And so they viewed it as, okay, what's, cold is in these letters. You know, I get the letter three months later, you know, stamped all up because it then went through five. different investigators before they finally gave it to me. I can think of such better uses for their budget. Yeah, literally. That's crazy. Yeah, don't you dare mentor that young man.

What the fuck? Right? But that's what he did. And it woke my game up when he told me that Wendy Day started reaching out to me about the music business, making sure that I was taking care of my artistic rights, that I have my copyrights, my publishing rights. She started writing. And one of her demands of me was...

In order for her to write me back, I had to do homework. She sent me a packet of information from the rap coalition. And I had to actually answer all of that to her satisfaction to get a reply to my actual letter. Really? Yeah. She did me like that for about five months. She was just trying to sort of vet that you were serious? Nah.

She knew that. I think she knew that after the first letter. I think she was trying to educate me. Period. She knew I was listening. She wouldn't have kept doing it if I wasn't getting it. So I think that I've noticed that through my journey, even with doctors, people with education want to teach it to somebody. And their greatest joy is teaching it to somebody who's learning it. You get no happier educator than a person involved with someone who is absorbing what they're trying to teach them. Because they spend all their lives learning that stuff.

And so she sent me the first letter and I wrote her back. and her response was a pack of information and a post-it note answer these questions, I'll answer your letter, I answered the question, and she replied to my letter, and then I answer her letter, and she did the same thing.

Did you not really know the true value of education until you got locked up, and is that something you really discovered in there? I discovered the true value of education during my staying in prison. I had no. Education for me was, what's the best grade I got to get

to be able to play football Friday? Right. Right. That was the extent of how educated I felt I needed to be. And then, you know, I had a mom who was big on books and information and learning. She got an autobiographical photographic memory. And so there's a woman who was absorbing a lot of information. It was a lot laying around the house, encyclopedias, but it was, we were self-tight.

I really wasn't getting it in school. I skipped a couple grades, but my whole trip was just about football. I didn't really care. Football, hip hop, girls. I just feel like once, like, I was watching this documentary about this the other day. Actually, it's on PBS right now about all these prisoners who are on death row and like this real intentional attempt to start like an educate, not death row, I don't think, but to start an educational program to like help them get college degrees and shit while they're in jail and how these programs have been destroyed by the government over and over. And I wanted to get your perspective on that question of like how much does education, a prisoner who's sitting there facing decades in jail.

How much does that change their perspective? Because the conclusion that this documentary came to is basically that it's like light and day. Like once you start educating a prisoner, it gives them a reason to live. A lot of these guys form such tight bonds with each other based on having that camaraderie of learning together. Is that the kind of experience you had in there as well? It is, especially toward the end. I ended up being one of the people pushing for those programs to get implemented in the prison system. I had a relationship with the San Diego State University professor Alan Mowgli.

And, you know, they got a program that we were trying to get where people could get a bachelor's. Because even once they started allowing you to educate yourself with a accredited university or, you know, a city college, they only offered the AA. And so you could get your credits were real, but you had to get out to finish the rest of your education and get your BA. So we started working toward, hey, man, let's let these people earn their degrees completely and affiliated with different universities and like Coastline Community College, Southwestern Community College, and the University of San Diego. And so that worked. And I think the University of San Francisco was the first one to start the program.

And from there, you know, we started trying to spread it out throughout the prison system. But it's been, you know, at 32, 33 prisons in the state of California, San Quentin, and Donovan, where the two that kind of started that in the Ironwood, really popping down at Ironwood. That's where the TED talks happen the most at. They actually do TED talks in the prison. They do. They do. They have phenomenal rate.

They're teaching coding, all kind of stuff. So it was a lot. But there was a decision to be made, be a part of the problem or be a part of the solution. even in that environment to actually get involved and use my voice. There came a point where the ignorance, the gangbanging, going to the hall, being slammed all the time in the shoe, to understanding that I had so much influence. But you know, one of the Menendez brothers taught me that.

He said, you're showing up at a prison and allowing the population to define you to the administration because I was a gangbanger. I wasn't a rapper. Right. I came to prison game banging and was like, oh, the rappers here. And I felt like, it's Crip. You fuck rap. That was how I really felt.

Right. It's Crip. I didn't give a fuck about no rapper. Don't come ask me for no autograph. I was tripping. Really? Because it wasn't about no rapping for me. It's Crip.

It's my real life. Don't walk up on me. I don't know who you are. I was having? What do you want? But in terms of your self-preservation, was that the best attitude for you to take? Hell not. You don't think that that was necessary?

as a sort of you being young and hot-headed? Yeah, I was tripping. And I learned that, you know, my first, I spent my first five, six years like that because I was just angry. And then I was unsocialized, like their true definition of antisocial. I was really an antisocial personality.

And so I had to learn that this person is attempting to, you know, make a human connection and give them that. And it comes with a lot. They fans too. This dude might have been in prison for a year, and bumped my music for 15 years. Right. And met me and I told him, get the fuck out my face.

You know, that's an inappropriate response. I had to learn. And once you know the human brain development, age of 25, all that stuff is real. So I had to go from the age of 17 to 25 in prison with brain development, mis-education, rejecting the attempts to educate me incorrectly in my own environment and the willingness

to have to fight over that, too, you know what I mean? Like, everybody's not willing to accept, you know, you rising from this grind. Right. You're not supposed to exist. Not everybody wants to see you be positive because, I mean, you know that from the music. Like, a lot of people want to hear some, some grimy-ass shit from you, right? Even when you want to give them something positive.

Yeah. And not even positive. Just decent, just basic human decency. I'm going to give you basic human decency. That's unacceptable. Right. That's unacceptable. So, you know, it's a strange thing, but I had to learn how to grow past that, surpass that,

and then embrace my ideation, who I believe I was as a man, as a human being, who do I want to be. I start reading Nelson Mandela, his writings while he was incarcerated. I related to some of it. Some of it was beyond my capacity. I had to catch up. There was no doubt. You got to grow. But so you're locked up and you're educating yourself and you're, you know, expanding your mind.

and gaining a better perspective on the actions that led you to be in the situation, etc. But then meanwhile, out on the streets, you're putting out these mixtapes and people are really in a lot of ways so intrigued by the violence that was attached to your name that that's a huge part of you becoming like this mythical person to them. Was that weird to sort of balance and did that in a way make you not want to become a more positive person because you're being celebrated for some of the worst shit that you were probably ever associated with, you know? I don't think so.

I think that I had up for a certain period of time been celebrated for a certain degree of ignorance. But I think that by the time I dropped Unforgiven, you know, May 11th, 1999, I dropped Unforgiven Volume 1. And San Yika was right me. I was 1997 when we dropped Deadly Game about the three strikes law. Right. I think there came a point where people perceived me as that.

Scarface, Tupac, Ice Cube, I chose to go in a different direction as an MC. Because hip hop is one of the main factors for my growth. I wanted to be the dopest rapper a lot. I really wanted that. I wanted to be the baddest rapping motherfucker period. And when I started studying who I believed to be the baddest mother rapping motherfuckers, period, they had bars, they had stories. They had content meaning they were vulnerable, introspect, retrospect.

And so I was motivated to put that in my rhymes by a sense of competitiveness and a desire to be considered elite as an MC. So by the time, you know, I wrote misanthropy, 1996 in a cell, and it came out in 1999 while I was still in a cell. And the first thing I say is, I'm going to give it to you old school style, no album cover gimmick. No intros, no shoutouts, nothing but stray lyrics. So if you're in your car, you could buckle up. And if you don't like what I'm saying when you see me knuckle up, no studio gangster stories of tall tales full of fiction. I'm spitting a life of a nigga that's full of indecision.

Don't know which way to go. I'm at the crossroads. It's trying to elevate the game and quit spitting the same or same because your boy then grew up. That's the first song. That's the first eight bars on my album that was never supposed to happen. That's what I got celebrated for. Yeah, because I mean, but that's what's interesting is that people sort of had this entry point of you becoming sort of legendary for certain street shit.

But then you were taking the content and attempting to really elevate it. But it's got to be difficult when you're recording over phones. You're in prison. Rappers have a hard enough time, like keeping a long career, developing as artists when they're all in the streets and they're in the best studios in the world. You're over here trying to show some kind of artistic development. and you're so limited. But were you amazed once you really started to sell mixtapes or albums from prison? Because that's kind of unprecedented to be recording.

I mean, we act like it's kind of normal for some reason, but that shit is unheard of. Yeah, I wasn't amazed because I didn't give a fuck. Like, I recorded because I wanted to be heard. I wanted to be heard. And, like, I wanted it to be known. that I grew up. So, like, my efforts to make unforgiving really was motivated by

I've been projected as this animal, right? And to my own, I had caused that, my reputation of being a fighter or a shooter. All this stuff was my own doing within the construct of my limited free will in the system in the United States of America. However, I made my decisions. But I was being defined by the choices

of 17-year-old child. I was 25, 24 years old, and I wanted to say something else. And so when I did that, I thought it was brave from people who were waiting for me to rap about, you know, shoot this, shoot that, kill everybody, this crib, fuck everybody to come with a politically, you know, social conscious music, you know, album. I think that was a, it was a surprise. And that's how I got a windy day in my life for Davey Dee and and you can Shakur.

These people didn't come looking for me when I was writing everybody killing. They weren't looking for me when I wrote with a mask on. They was looking for me when I wrote Monsanthropy, when I wrote Deadly Game. They was looking for me when I wrote Land of the Lost because I spoke to, you know, what their experiences were. I came in one of your guys, I don't know how old he is, he probably like maybe 22, 23. And he told me he loved my music and one of the songs that he was just listening to was called grandparents.

I wrote that song in like 2002, recorded it in a cell on a digital recorder. He was barely born. He was barely born. He ain't say, everybody kill it. The song called grandparents, right? And it's a meaningful song.

It's a true statement of how I feel about my grandparents, how I felt people related to that. So I think that's where the Tupac comparison started happening that that is kind of crazy that you were able to spit such real shit that the recording quality and stuff just didn't matter and that it's been able to continue to matter decades later right that's unheard of it is unheard of when i first started uh recording over the phone i think the lifers group out of new jersey had done it first you know i'm all about that hip-hop history right the The lifers group had made, they got recording equipment.

There was a program thinking Ryeway in New Jersey and they put out an album and I was conscious to that and then Mac Dre did back in the hood over the phone in the county jail and I was conscious of that and brother Linchong had me rap on the answering machine and then he took that and put it on 24 deep and when he dropped his first EP, I'm on the I'm on the title track and I'm on the chorus and over the phone. Right. So I end up in a tank with Mack Dre. I walk in, you know, court tanks are a trip.

So, wait, okay. But that was just, that wasn't before you were actually in prison. Because you mentioned you were in prison with the Menendez brothers, which is pretty insane. Yeah, this is the county jail. Okay, so before that. Yeah, in 1999, two or three in the Sacramento County jail, when you, when you got a federal case up that way, they send you to Sacramento County jail to go to court. So Mac Dre was going to court from Sacramento County.

for his alleged participation in bank robberies or whatever allegedly occurred in his life experience. So, Magdray's in the tank, and you got every day on segregate tanks. So you just sink or swim. You're going up in there and whoever in there, in there. Crazy environment, like you're walking in there and it's just insane. You just got to always be ready to go. And that's one of my problems. You know, I always had to be ready to go.

You were more ready to go than anybody else. Uh, I think I might have had a little bit more motivation than everybody else that wasn't famous for sure. But I come from a place where they get, they get busy where I come from. Right. So I ain't going to say that I was, you know, I never met the hardest gangster yet. But you met a lot of them. You went in there with the attitude of unknown motherfuckers, you're going to try to press me.

So I'm going to be extra aggressive in case anybody has, has an issue. I didn't even think about it that far. I just thought it's crib. That's what I thought. You come back to that. I'm coming in this tank. I mean, period. But that's interesting that you sort of keep summarizing your thoughts as a young man as

his crib because it's like really like if you have that as your co is like I'm going to stand on my shit. I'm not going to lay anybody disrespect me. Then that's all you need, right? Yeah, when I even think about no disrespect because it's crib. Right. That's how that, that's it stopped right there for me. That's where it was.

I'm coming in this tank because it's crib. I'm going to fuck who in here. That's how I really felt. I felt that way. for years and years and years, it's an inappropriate psychological disposition. But that was my perspective for sure. So I walked in his tank, and Matt Drake, there's a big ass afro in the corner. He lift his head up, it's Mac Drake.

We had a connection as the first two Northern California Bay Area artists who were being reported about by hip-hop media. You know, we had penetrated the culture as a result of our music and as a result of our music and as a result of our cases. So, Mac Dre and I were being written about, this is before they were, if you wasn't too short or Spice One, I want nobody talking about you unless you was MC Hammer.

Right. Up that way. That's the truth. Very different time. This is before E40 popped. I was bumping the click already. He's already been putting in work, but he hadn't been, they weren't reporting about that yet.

They was reporting about me and Mac Dre and then everybody above us. So every time they wrote about me, they wrote about Dre. And every time they wrote about Dre, they wrote about me, a writer named Billy Jam. He always connected me and Mag Dre. So my first big story was attached to Dre, and Dre's first big story was attached to me. So when we met each other, it was coming from a place of like, you know, every time I see me

and really my greatest achievement as an artist, I see you too. We've shared that. And so Mac Dre gave me the game about recording over the phone. He told me how he made his record. and told me, you know, this is how you could do it, because that instrument, I told him we did it on an answering machine. He was like, nah, it gave me a whole other way to do it. Really?

Yeah. Anything in particular? Well, there wasn't no cell phones back then. So, you know, Drey told me to take the phone apart, right, and solder the mic cables to it, to the transmitter, to the receiver, and plug that in the mix board as the microphone. So now I called a phone, and it goes straight in the board. and then call another phone and they do the same solder it and play the beat through that.

Wow. So I got to listen to the beat on this one and spit the rhyme in that one. Dre gave me the game about taking stuff apart, but John Botts at Inharmonic Studios in Sacramento kind of tweaked out on it and took it to another level and came to those conclusions. But the impetus for that for me was Magdray. He taught me that. And then we put that on steroids and took it to another level. and that's how I made that Exorcist album

and so, you know. The idea of Mac Dre being familiar with how to use a soldering kit is kind of just fascinating to me that that, like that there was a technical side to this as well. It's a lot of reasons why you would need to know how to use one of them things in the streets. That's true, I guess.

It's factual. That's fucking crazy. You got to modify, you might not have to know how to modify something where we come from, straight up. Hey, what was it like when Pock died while you were locked up? Interestingly enough, when Pock died,

I was in a cell with, with Sebo. We were Selleys at Tracy. And, you know, Bo had just done all eyes on me with Tupac. You had trade war stories. You ain't hard to find. He had a couple songs on there with Tupac. Yeah. And so it was, you know, he was really focused.

Pock was about to do the McAvelli Records thing. And Bo was a big part of Pock's plans. You know, it's unfortunate that nobody really talk about that. Like, what Pock's plans were. Right. You know, we know what Biggie did. with who he put his crew on before he passed and how Jay-Z came to be the guy

putting people on and along with others. Park was doing the same thing. We never got to see that part of Pock's career. Right, what happens? You got this dude selling 10 million records at a time. You 5 million records. And he got E40 a phone call away, too short a phone call away, Forte a phone call away.

He got CBO. This is somebody who literally could have signed any and everybody from the West Coast have one of the most dominating companies. hip-hop history, and that's what Park was doing. And his relationship with Kidada and Quincy Jones, to think that that education wasn't available to Tupac, as smart as he was, would be unreasonable

to think he wasn't conscious of that. Right. And so, Bo was real focused on signing with McAvelli Records and elevating what he was doing. So we had a female CEO. That's how powerful Pac's death was, and who he was as a person. A female CO came, got our door open, and stood there and cried and told us that Tupac had passed.

So we found out he got shot. A CO told us he got shot, and a CO came, stood at the door and cried and told us that he had died. And that was how we found out. And so, you know, that hit Bowharder than that hit me. Like this rare moment where you and the guards are on the same level feeling the same pain? well I mean maybe not the same pain but feeling the same sadness about losing somebody so important uh psychologically that ain't you know yeah it's a female she might be male guards was it's me and seabo in a cell together they was on our door all the time they was getting yelled at

by that supervisors for being on our door right like it's me and seabot in a cell in a prison in northern california how the fuck are you guys getting the same cell crimp That's what it was. Crip. That's fire. Gar and block, you know, you house with your affiliation. I was housed with my, from my neighborhood. I don't think I had a cellie that wasn't from my neighborhood.

Right. Until I got with whiskey, you know, at Folsom. But so she was, she wasn't a guard standing there. That was a woman experiencing pain at losing the dude that wrote Dear Mama and keep your head up. And I guess, you know, that she was, she was. reacting to her trauma from losing somebody that was communicating something to her that she was attached to and knowing that we had a connection to that, that both specifically had a connection to that. So I stood there and consoled my homeboy in that moment where, you know, he got to

think about his whole life. That changed his whole life. Every decision he had to make after that was altered by the death of Pock, you know, and Pock publicly had proclaimed that Sibo was one. one of his favorite rappers. And being from Goran Blagher and from Sacramento, we was real proud of that. We were very proud to have that and hopeful. For real. So that's why I gave him those songs, Daily Game.

I gave Sebo Mac and Mac and Fram and Lemma, he just didn't use it. I gave him my lyric book. Really? Like, you do, it's going to be you. Somebody got to do it for the set. When you, was there anything else that was that big of news in your entire sentence?

Like the Tupac thing? Was that like the most significant thing that happened in terms of like the prison reacting to anything over that whole period of time? Like 9-11. Was 9-11 on that scale? 9-11. It's kind of harder to comprehend. 9-11 was more impactful for me as an individual. Right.

Because 9-11 taught me something that I hadn't known up until then. I suspected I was conscious that my life circumstances were different. Sanyika, by then, had already been. programming me for about three years. By the time 9-11 happened, I remember I was asleep. I'm in the cell, and it was too quiet.

It was so quiet, it woke me up. And so I opened my eyes, and I just started listening. And then I heard this roar, a cheer, like your favorite team won the Super Bowl. Went crazy, the building went crazy. And I turned the TV on and the first tower had fell.

And like, actually a plane of the building was burning. And I saw the other plane hit the other building. And that was how I understood what I was watching. Because everybody was like, we don't know what was going on or was it an accident. But the first building had got hit. But I didn't understand what was happening until I saw that plane smack that other building. People start jumping off the building. Like I was working.

watching that, people jump off the building in my cell watching that. And the tear was cheering. They cheered for that. Why were they cheering? Just the destruction of society? You know, nobody knew what that was. Like, is it, as America, is it World War III? Yeah.

Is it deaf to America? I mean, these are a lot of guys who feel like they've been fucked over by the prison system. The government. So it's kind of. Yeah. So it was, you know, it was fuck America. It was fuck the government. It was fuck California.

That's how they feel. felt Pete Wilson and all the rest of them up to that point. Gray Davis, they fuck them. And I think that's where I was coming from for them. But for me, as an artist, I think maybe seeing those people jump off that building, man, that was traumatic for me because I understood it. You're going to jump or you're going to burn. Yeah. Them is the choices, you're going to jump or you're going to burn.

Watching somebody make that choice is just, right. There wasn't no walking through the fire. There wasn't no getting down the stairs to smoking, all of that. To understand the whore, man, that fucked me up watching that happen. And I judged my environment for cheering for it. Really? I did. It made me feel different than my community right then.

In that moment, I felt like I can't co-sign that. A lot of people don't talk about the way that there were. So many people did not know how to feel in that moment. So many people were used to sort of shitting on America. and then that happens. And, I mean, there were a lot of sort of weird responses within hip hop when I look back on it in terms of, you know, weird conspiracy theories

or where people like saying, like, oh, we the Taliban. I remember dips that were on that for a while. And, like, people got on heavy because it was like, yo, that's distasteful, blah, blah, blah, you know? It was like, it was very hard for people to make sense of something that devastating at that time. You know what it is?

People that I read in my psychology courses that unequivocal truth is, hurt people, hurt people, and hurt people want people to be hurt. And so African Americans are hurt people in this country. And so, and they've been hurt by this country specifically. They perceive the country to be. And that's whether it can be effectively communicated or not. That's something, that's a belief.

That's an inherent belief that go all the way back to before 1865, pre, Abraham Lincoln, 13th Amendment, Emancipation Proclamation, all that. Before all that, people felt like America had done them harm. And a lot of the things that they were experiencing in their lives came as a result of America's decision and what America chose to impose on people, Jim Crow, all these things. And then the killing of the Panthers and the Philadelphia, you know, all that. People don't know how to say, I feel,

fucked over by this country. I feel like I have been inappropriately treated by this country. I'm a disadvantaged and I haven't had a fair shot at life and I would like to have that shot. It's that simple. But what it comes out is this is the Taliban. Yep. That's how it comes out. But that's really what it being communicated is I do not feel connected to this place. I don't feel appreciated by this place, respected by this place. I feel attacked by this place. But this is my home. There's an utter confusion involved. involved in that. So I think I'm having been an ignorant, extremely ignorant person, I understand I'm

empathetic toward other forms of ignorance when I're experiencing. I just get it. I get it. I can't agree with it, but I get it though. When when you first got locked up, were you even thinking about getting out or did it seem so far off that there was no, it wasn't even a thought? When did it start to materialize in your head? Like, okay, I have a future. P. Wilson, you know, one percent of lifers were being paroled. One percent. One percent. And you were facing life at first?

I faced life to the day I left. I was sentenced to 31 of life. And so I had to do 85 percent of the 31 to be eligible for parole. So I became eligible for parole in my 24th year of actual incarceration. Wow. I was 2016 on... March 19th, 24th year of actual incarceration by the law. So I had a life sentence for short.

I still have a life sentence, by the way. You know what I mean? You've been paroled, but it's still hanging over your head? Yeah, I'm one couple good things away. You know, I got to be real cautious. You know, I do something stupid. I got a life sentence. I don't get a parole violation.

I get a life sentence in place back in prison. I got to go back the board. And they have to do a rescission hearing to determine what occurred and why were you in this circumstance? And then if they decide it wasn't on me, and then I get to go home again. So you move careful? You're moving smart, I'm assuming?

I'm moving very smart. Yeah, because I mean... Yeah, I wouldn't call it careful, though, but it's certainly intelligent. I mean, it's just too much at risk for you to just end up in some bullshit situation, right? There's a significant portion of my psychology that believes it's more acceptable

to return to prison than to die and not be able to provide for my family. So it's going to be some respect, received. That's how I feel about that. But I also feel that that's going to be, that's an ultimate choice. You know, it's people who feel like just drop a bomb on Iran while we even talking about it. But that's an irresponsible decision.

But it's also something we're capable of doing as a country. And so I feel the same way as a toward an op, a rival, or anybody with a problem. I feel like it's just that easy to crack the football open and push a button. but that's not reasonable, in an unreasonable situation. You go out of your way to, like, keep yourself in situations where it's unlikely that something could happen that would be detrimental to your future? Absolutely. But, you know, you're on the ground.

You got to do a show. You got to do a show. You got to pull up somewhere. You got to pull up. So I'm all about doing that appropriately. I think it's important to convey to people that you do business with that you are a responsible person. Like you want to be, you want people to feel like they could do business with you and they could count on you like Brian Shaft and giving me the deal at BMG, then the freedom to, you know,

do whatever I want. If I get a better situation offered to me, go do it then. Like, because he believes in me as a human being, right? Before it, I had life and he still was in touch with me. He still was like, man, I believe in you when you come home, it's going down. So I owe him something. I'm going to respect that. I'm going to honor that for my family first.

foremost I owe my family something for the way they waited for me and represented for me so I'm gonna be mindful of how I conduct myself and certainly my greatest desire is to convey motivation inspiration to positivity encourage people but you know that that's understood that that come from a place you know I'm Darth Vader and which one is it Empire Strikes back I don't know I ain't seen them shit to be honest I'm Darth Vader after he decided to help his kids How do you stay on top of the culture while you locked up for that long? Because it seems like you haven't really missed too much in terms of staying aware of what was going on and shit. Like how much are you even able or interested in paying attention on what's going on outside when you're in your own world out here?

Man, most of it, you know, magazines, subscriptions, newspaper. I was big on USA Today reading all the time, you know. Read the Sacramento. Obesey was happening in the L.A. Times. state of breast with the news, you know. But there's prison, man. If you got a couple bucks, you'd be amazed what you

could purchase. Right. You know, I think I got a write-up on time for having an entire studio in myself. And it's funny, because what they wrote me up for was so small because they didn't, you just don't want to deal with how did that happen. The answers to how that happened,

they don't even want to know. They don't want to know. Because they're going to implicate fucking 10 guards or some shit, right? They don't want to know. So they acted like, it's in the write-up, but they didn't charge me for it. They just was like made up a reason why I had it. Right.

The Arts and Corrections program and then took it and donated it to the arts and correction program, put it in the chapel. Right. But it's like, you know, so you need cell phones, whatever, allegedly appear.

You were able to stay in touch pretty well? Potentially. Right. Yeah. I was doing well. But that's got to be a choice, though, because it's like on one hand, like you could live more comfortably by being able to stay in touch better with your loved ones or shit like that.

But then you also got to feel like you're taking a risk because if you get caught with that shit, you could get extra time, right? An entire studio in myself. And they wrote that up and did not charge me for it because they did not want to know how I got it. When did you start to become, like it feels like when I'm reading and hearing you talk about this that at some point you really started to learn how to work with the prison and stuff because you started a fucking podcast program that's not regular shit how did you like slowly start

to work your way into the good graces and be able to make moves within the system you know where it started with the first stage for me was the doctors I was in the whole when they they made this law as a result of hunger strikes that happened at pelican bay and corkron into hatchapie where people started protesting the conditions of the shoe and what they call Z units. And, you know, I'm in a cell with a sliver for a window that faces a white wall. So all I could see when I look out that window is a white wall on both sides. And I got another sliver the same size in the roof and I could get a bar at a sun for about 15, 10 minutes every day. But other than that, you in there, I was in there.

24, 24, probably 17 because you come out for exercise. You get two hours of recreation. So 10 hours of recreation a week and 24-hour lockdown. Otherwise, however, they spaced that out. So you might get two up, one out, two up, one out, you know. And so that's, that had been determined to be stressful on the human psychology. So the doctors started having to come around and check and see if people doing all right. pass out puzzles and different kinds of information, you know, if you wanted to read to learn something or whatever.

And so I had these doctors that kept giving me these papers about psychology itself, metacognizance, different things in real life psychology. And I would learn it and ask questions about it when they came back like, hey, so what's this concept? You know, how does this work? And again, when you got somebody who has dedicated their laws to education in front of somebody who is hungry to learn, they're going to give it to you. And so the doctors started really teaching me a lot. And they became advocates for me. Big time. The doctor started being some of the first ones like, hey, this is a really smart dude in the circles that they moved in.

And then the counselors started saying, you know, I had this older black lady I am. ended up with, I was a counselor of mine. And she just was like, you remind me of my nephew so much. She's so smart. It don't even make sense why you act the way you act. She just called me out on it. Really? Not even as a counselor.

She just got to have me like a mom, you know? That must have felt good, honestly, in that, because you're kind of lacking that sort of emotion from people in real life while you're in there, right? Yeah, but you're suspicious of it, too, you know? True. If you go to help a dog in a flood, the dog on bite you because it's afraid. They don't know what you're doing. You hear on it hurt me?

What? You know, it's until you get it in the boat, not the water, and in the towel, and then the dog is good. Right. Human beings are much similar to that. That's true. They're going to bite you when you try to help them initially. And so I was a bit of a bit of a biter. You know what I mean?

They tell me something like that. I'd be like, what you, you're going to send me to committee and do what? Transfer me, you know? I'm suspicious at everything. Where I'm going at all? What are we doing? Let's get to it. Fuck what you're talking about.

Right. You put me in a hole. You're keeping me here three more months, four. six months, nine months, how long am I going to be here? Let's go. Right. And so it was hard for that stuff to penetrate my brain until years later, you know, the seeds got planted, somebody else watered it. I got a couple sprouts, somebody else pruned it, and then somebody else gave me light. And then I was receptive. So what happened is I changed my life for the sake of my family and my own personal comfort so much that

that became apparent to a casual observer. Anybody could see it. It wasn't. It just wasn't the same. And it wasn't just money, you know. I'm gonna have more food. I'm gonna have nicer stuff. That's just part for the courts. I'm gonna have the best of the best that you could possibly have because in comparison

of life on the streets, it really ain't nothing. You know what I mean? Anybody with $10,000 is gonna feel like a baller in prison. And so for me, I was doing very well and it was obvious frequent visits. My family, you know, I'm regularly, you know, pulled out. And so I started trying to get into programs, self-help groups and stuff like that. And I was in environments where they didn't have it. And I had an OG tell me, you want to

you start one yourself? You start a group. Like, you just keep talking about they ain't got one. Go start one. So I started getting the bylaws. How do you start an NA group on a yard? Right. You know, how do you start in that anywhere? They got rules for that. They sent them. I wrote them and they sent them. I wrote a and sent it to the administration. We need a space to be able to meet so that we can have this particular thing because they ask for it when we go to board. Right.

Y'all denying us parole because we don't have access to courses that we have to be suitable for parole, and you literally don't have a program. But you're gonna deny us parole for not going. Right. But then once people get into that environment, like, did the podcast shit really start developing from there? Like, it was really later.

That was much later. It was much later, okay. Yeah, I'll start with that, have a little success. They actually gave me my program. They let me, all right, you got this space, you got this many hours, do what y'all do. If you fuck it up, you know, that's on y'all. Right. And we came under scrutiny because it could have been, we're trying to get some dope.

We're going to manipulate the staff, the free staff. We, you know, we prisoners, we criminals, right? So it's always a plan, a plot, and a scheme. And we did that successfully, instituted it, you know, voted the chairman and the co-chair in, got that up and running. I tried a music program that didn't work there. They still was suspicious. I mean, but through the years, as I kept doing that, because I like the response I got from

the population, it really wasn't no more about, you know, I'm trying to convince the institution no more. It was like, it felt good. Like, I don't know. I actually know how to do it. And people was like, hey, man, I got an idea for it. a program, they would bring it to me because they knew I knew how to write it. Right.

I knew how to read the rules. I knew how to work it and word it. And so, you know, I ended up just having a bunch of people telling me, hey, you know, that's what I think we can do, what you think. I wrote it. We submitted it and they approved it. And we came with all of the support and documentation. Other institutions have this and this and this.

They sent us their bylaws. This is how they did it. You know, is it acceptable? That's an amazing thing. You think that like the tide is going in a good direction in terms of like conditions and prisons getting better? Because I'm sure that you saw stuff later on in your sentence that you probably couldn't have imagined early on in your sentence. Oh, for sure. Even at the end of my sentence, I still, you know, it's still present.

But honestly, in the state of California, when Jerry Brown got elected, there was a, from him being governor-elect to being governor come that January thing, 2009 or whatever, it was day and night that fast. Really? How the grievance system changed, how the request for anything changed, the accountability that he placed on the staff.

If somebody is trying to do whatever, they had to have a way to document that that was requested. So there wasn't going to be no more, or we didn't know that was happening or medical requests, the way that you submitted requests for physical assistance, you're not going to die in the cell. And they say they had no idea this person was sick, even though I've been communicating that to you for 90 days,

let them die. And now you get to say, oh, we didn't know. We just be counting the body. They're laying in there funky for four days because the cell he can't tell them, right? Right. Just the dead body in there. So we saw stuff like that.

All that stuff started getting better, honestly. to God when Jerry Brown got elected, that's the truth. Wow. I watched it happen. You know, I went from Pete Wilson, Gray, Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to Jerry Brown. And our experience changed drastically when Jerry Brown was elected. And, you know, it even culminated in my freedom is attached to that. I mean, we have different people within our society who come from different places, too,

because, I mean, you have people like Meek Mill and then even like Kim Kardashian kind of trying to create this public discourse about prison reform and everything. Obviously, Meek is coming from a more authentic position, having recently done time. But is that something like when you get out of prison, is there it's probably a part of you that just wants to be like, goodbye, I'm never fucking thinking about that part of my life again? Or is there a part of you that wants to keep going to try to do what you can to be a face for some kind of change in terms of the way that you spent all those years? I think Meek Mill is a good example of why. That's not possible.

So there's learned helplessness. You know, they did the study where the dog, there's a wall and there's a dog, two dogs, and the floor shocks, the dogs, right? And one of them decides to just lay down and learn to get accustomed to the shock, and the other one learns that if I jumped this wall, that floor over here doesn't do that to you.

And they're like, I'm going on the other side. I don't know what you're all going to do, but I'm jumping this wall because I'm not getting shocked no more. So the way that parole is, you're either going to lay down and get shocked or you're going to jump the fence. And so jumping the fence is you got to participate in the discourse and make changes because this is your real life. Especially if you intend to be free. I intend to be free, healthy and alive. So in order to do that, I got to jump the wall and say, these are the ways that I can be successful better.

and certainly these things are going to cause other people to fail. And if that's not what you want, then we need to make these particular changes. And so I think Meek Mill was on foot probation. In there a decade. Doing a wheelie. For doing a willy. And like, okay, how is he possibly able to move on with his life

if he's going to be on probation for 10 years? That's probation. Especially in his position moving around, torn all that. I mean like he's just a guy going to work every day. Yeah, I've done 40, 50 shows since I came home. And all that requires paperwork, documentation ahead of time. I'm going to this place. Here's the contact.

It's the promoter. Here's the contract. Like all of this stuff to be able to pay for my house. You know what I mean? This is my real job. So it requires participation. And I think Meek is a good example. If a person doesn't do that, it's going to be very difficult to tolerate.

And it's going to create an. anger and resentment if you're not positively combating what you're experiencing because it's going to be it's going to feel real bad. It's going to feel like, God damn. I just did all this time and it ain't enough yet. It still ain't enough. If I wasn't ex-rated, the way they sent me home would have sent me back to prison within 90 days if I was not me. If you didn't have something to go home. If I didn't, if I couldn't afford to get a condominium in the town they paroled me to where I had no family members. Right.

If I couldn't afford that, then I would have failed because now it's what, trapped at a transitional house. What am I doing? Am I limited in my movements or my ability? If I was not me, I would have went back to prison probably by Christmas of 2018. So when you got out, you were still doing all right, money wise from all the music that you sold while you were locked up and shit? Were you smart with your money the whole time you were gone and everything?

I got a very intelligent partner. who knew how to make moves and make sure that we had the things we need, a hard worker. So, you know, being a part of a team like that created a circumstance where there were certain kinds of security, owning, you know, homes, things like that. So the music did a lot, especially, you know, come home, sign a contract for a tour. I think I was home for two months and already had 30 cities, something like that lined up. That was a lot of money. So, you know, and then I invested, reinvested my money and myself, my merchandise, things

like that. That's a lot of money. So I was able to do all right for myself, make sure that I could, you know, I got my vehicles, transportation, my brothers came to my aid to make sure, hey, man, whatever you need, here you go. You know what I mean? So I was fortunate and, you know, living in Oakland with no family, just driven there, and chained up.

You know, the day I got out of prison, they put chains on me. You put me in a van in a cage. And drove you where to San Diego to Oakland. Drop me off at my P.O.'s feet. So you get out, and then they stick you on a bus and chains for eight hours. Yep. Because I'm a, so I'm a public interest, hard notoriety designation, validated game. Remember, that's my status.

And it's funny because I, like, I noticed these other rappers. A lot of times, man, I don't want to say nothing because I, like, I come from a real culture. And it's a lot of things. I never said and as a result of that you don't say a lie, unrefuted can become the truth. So I've had a lot of rappers say there two-sent about prison and what their experience was in prison. There is no rapper. There is no rapper in the history of hip-hop who had a life sentence, who did his life sentence in parole from prison, who was validated a public interest case or high notoriety, not one of them. Meaning there wasn't one rapper who went to prison and even was considered

a celebrity. They didn't even consider them a celebrity. And so you got some of these dudes that stand on that like, you know, I'm such and such, but it's like the prison didn't give a fuck that you existed at all. The administration, the state of California, they didn't give a fuck about your little raps and your pennies. Didn't care at all. I got validated as a public interest case, high notoriety case in the same way that they did Scott Peterson and the way they did Charles Manson and the way they did Tuki Williams, that's my designation. Literally, I have the same classification as Tuki Williams the day he died right now to this day. My CDCR classification is identical to his. There is no rapper ever that had that ever. Or that did 26 years, five months,

and 26 days of a 31 of life sentence. So I have no peer. in hip hop at all whatsoever for one of them to speak on what I did or didn't do or how my time was so I got sent home chanked up like that because my status requires that I be moved that way on some Hannibal Lecter shit

because of my childhood and influence and ability for ambush like I'm an ambushed transport on a day I parole from prison like that stupid as fuck the dumbest motherfucker I still wouldn't do that. That dumbest motherfucker could have just waited and be like, I'm going to be free here.

Kill some people when I got home, yeah. Yeah, you're going to do it right now. But whatever. So that's how I got transported, dropped off, chained up, shackles, manacles. Must have been the best feeling in the world just sitting there knowing that this is going to be a last time in chains, or at least for a long time. Man, I could still feel those chains to this day. Really? You know how they say amputees can still feel the leg, the arm?

I could still feel them change. Damn. I'm all right with that, though. I don't want to go away. I don't want to go away. I think that would be a mistake. Definitely. For somebody, you know, relapse is a real thing.

It's a slippery slope. I wake up in the morning and it's easy for me to get angry about something and think it's crib. You know how easy that is? Could you see yourself going down a bad route again, though? Absolutely not. No.

Because I'm conscious of it. of it, not because I'm acting like it don't exist. Like I don't have these issues. I got a lifestyle addiction. I come from the streets. I'm from a specific culture. And my natural instincts are all fucked up. Like somebody coming home from the military from war with PTSD, their instincts are fucked up.

So by the time, like, I started training service dogs while I was in prison. And I trained one for a man named Jim Hornet. Sergeant Jim Horner. We trained the dog for him. He told us that when he came back from Afghanistan, he went to the mall and had a panic attack because a kid set a backpack down. And, you know, in Afghanistan, that's a bomb.

Right. That's a bomb. But in the mall, in the mall, in the California, yeah. Probably not a bomb in the backpack. Could be nowadays. Right. Probably not a bomb in that backpack

But that's what he felt And he has such a bad experience That he contemplated suicide And all of that Until you know the decision to get his dog Actually saved his life It's what he communicated to it And so I can relate to that

Because I got backpacks too They're just not backpacks Right It's things that can happen to me Where my brain says There's a bomb in that backpack And it's just a dude standing there And he ain't thinking nothing about

nothing but my brain says fuck you this crib because it's damaged so i have to have something between my brain a thought and an action i have to have something in the middle of that deliberately right has to be there so i counter that with positive input meditation you know i ain't afraid to bust prayer you know i understand that i have to put something else in my brain so that my my first thing to draw upon is something decent right And if we not can, I don't tell this story so I could be like this crap and I'm hardcore. I'm saying the people that I'm most likely to be helpful to think that. Definitely.

So they need to know to put something between that thought and that action so that they can do better for themselves too. So that's what I'm hoping to be able to do now that I'm home. I feel like that's a responsibility like saying you could tell me, you know, you have a responsibility to say something worthy of being hers. So that's what I'm trying to do. I'm going to share how I was able to overcome some of these things. And then how I have to address my present weaknesses that exist in my spirit. As a result of what I went through, like reading Mandela's works.

You know, I'm inspired by all of that. So I'm trying to be helpful to the demographic I came from. Right. They always want us to change. We can't help the people that we came from. What kind of shit really gives you the most joy at this point, being a free man. Oh.

Because I know, I can imagine what you're doing in a day. You know, definitely probably working on the music, promoting all that and stuff. But what really brings to the most happiness? Oh. The most happiness? Man, the most happiness I get is being around, you know, family, you know, family.

There's a couple of people that I get to see who make me really happy. You know what? I mean, beautiful, little human beings that make me happy. My animals, you know. But it's family, family is everything. That's my greatest joy. But separate from that, it's the studio.

It's the studio. Ain't nothing for me like being in a booth and headphones on with a beat blasts and in front of a microphone, spitting bars. I feel free. You know, I dog stick their head out of the window and let the tongue flap. Yeah. face that's me in a booth that's how I feel all them years I just wanted to write rhymes record rhymes make songs and now I get to go sit in the studio for 10 hours and just create

and then listen to that song and be like yeah like yeah that's my happy thing right there it's a great joy for me has it been a challenge at all to connect with like the new generation of artist because we do know that a lot of young rappers are totally full of themselves and not trying to hear none but you've got a perspective and like you know you're a legend in your own right but sometimes these kids don't know about fucking they don't know about 50 cent never mind x-rayed they don't they got short-ass memory spans and shit so is it kind of interesting seeing who shows love and who's who's aware of your impact and everything versus the people that are too young to really know Yeah, but as a student in hip hop

Like we gotta be It's funny The generation that's experiencing it Always forgets about Being the generation that it happened to You know, I wrote Psychoactive When I was 17 years old That was drastically different from what hip hop did

Then people looked at me As the dude just rapping Bitch killer Fucking with a psycho Like the shit I was writing about with a mask on, if you weren't a game member, my music wasn't going to appeal to you. I wrote music for game members. Bloods, Crips, Northern or Southerner, my music appealed to game members.

Even white supremacists could relate. My shit was about smashing war, soldiers related to my music. Did you ever have white supremacists tell you they fuck with your music? Yeah. I never heard that before. That's crazy. I'm the one anomaly that was in the prison environment. that people would risk their life to speak to me.

Wow, really? Yeah, that's when I learned. This man wanted to say he fucked with my music, let him do it, because that's a big deal even speaking to me. They don't speak to black people. A lot of white supremacists, though, are the most lost-ass motherfuckers that they were probably listening to a rap fucking two years ago, you know? Or six months ago or last night, you know?

Like, they don't know what... I think you're making a mistake when you hear about, like, white supremacists, and you take them as these, like, serious-ass motherfuckers. There's got to be some percentages that I don't know about that. But a lot of these dudes, if you actually, like, see him in interviews and shit, you're like, yo, that's the goofiest dude ever. This is what I'm going to say. I'm going to speak for my, that's my demographic, too. I'm one of them.

Because you were incarcerated for so long, yeah. In that environment, we formerly and currently incarcerated persons are my, that's my people. That's my gang now. Okay. And so what I could tell you is the same way that we've had as African-Americans' culture that was, attacking us and pushing us in a certain direction, they got that happening at them too. They've been, see, the 13th Amendment is a very specific document when you read it, right? Slavery is hereby abolished in these United States of America except, except as punishment

for those duly convicted of a crime, right? So they didn't abolish it, they modified it. They said, if you go to prison, you're a crime. slug and the majority of every prison population body for body in a prison is white per capita based on the size of your presence in the population we hear about blacks and Mexicans being overrepresented in that environment and that's true but when you count the bodies there's more white people in prison than black people and Mexicans probably combine those do come to prison and they never had a problem with a black person or a Mexican in their life.

But if they don't join this particular thing, they're going to die. They're going to die. You're going to join one of them. Or you're going to die. So everybody may not even have believed in that. And it just became a survival mechanism, you know, faced with the choices of not having the ability to survive or getting your ass took or any of that being a victim. Then, yeah, fuck all the black people.

That's every white guy's nightmare. Well, not every white guy, but a lot of white guys is like that you're going to just end up in prison and like... Right, overnight. What are you going to do to fucking survive when you can't like go be cool with the fucking cribs just because you fucking... You know what you would do? You would shave your eyebrows. You shave your beard. You would shave your head.

You put your boots on, tie them up and you take your ass to that yard. That's exactly what you would do. That's the scary part. The idea that you might have to. Oh, no, no. I don't want to. Trust me. Listen to what I'm saying.

You're saying, I have to. Shave your eyebrows? They do that too. Are you going to have to? That is what you are going to do. Trust me. That's exactly what you're going to have to do. So don't go.

That's why I'm not going. Yeah, that's what I was thinking, man. Don't go. It's not cool. But, you know, I think that as I got involved in organizations that had to do stuff for everybody, I started understanding, you know, one of the biggest lies, like Martin Luther King said in his speech, I think, at Montgomery, One of the biggest laws that America told white people was that they was better than somebody else because of they color because of poor white people, poor brown people and poor black

people were all just poor people. It's one of the biggest laws that I'm like, I ain't got shit to eat, but I ain't black. Like that don't fill up your stomach. So anybody that believes that obviously has some damage, but the 13th Amendment, this country has done a number on all people and the 13th Amendment didn't, it's a number. said y'all want to fight over this issue you can all be slaves go get in trouble and i'll put your ass in chains to yeah that's what it really says i'm gonna translate it that's real what uh so you got a bunch of new music videos you dropped since you've been out and everything what

what's the plan in terms of all that what's been going on right now i'm working on a project it's called psychoanalysis i'm going back to the beginning of my music all my everything i ever wrote during my term that I feel like it has substance to it and meat to it. We're taking all of that and reproducing it, re-recording it, remixing, remastering them, and putting them out 12-song increments with video diaries for each song, breaking the song down, where I was when I wrote it, while I wrote it, how I felt, along with the lyrics, a book, all that.

So that's a very ambitious project, psychoanalysis. We're working on that. funding our own documentary with visions of getting it to Netflix. Oh, really? Yeah, we studied the camera specs. I mean, I feel like the X-rated story is built for Netflix and could be so much bigger and more well-known if it had that light shine on it.

Yeah, I agree. And what I've come to learn and shout out to Nipsey, you know, for having preached about empowerment and the understanding that you've got to do some of this stuff yourself. What I had to learn was wasn't nobody gonna do that for me. I had to learn that from September 14th, to 2018 to this moment in this seat right now, that if I don't do it, the likelihood of it getting done is very low.

And so, you know, me and my management, we all, you know, right now meeting with a firm, we got the shooters, and we got the bag. So we do it ourselves, edit it, you know, write the book myself on this. Nobody to help me with that, but I got somebody that can check it out, make sure I did the right, hire an editor. And just, but the beauty of doing the work yourself is you put it out yourself and you get to bag yourself.

And when they come knocking saying, we want this story, I got to pay myself. And so, you know, salute to the legendary Nipsey Hustle. Salute, big time. That legendary Nipsey Hustle for teaching self-empowerment and that, you know, people supposed to go out there and get their money. on that shit. I mean, you were only, you were free for a couple months before industry passed, huh?

Yeah, it wasn't very long at all. Yeah, probably seven, six or seven months. That one shook the city to the core. Yeah, it did. I was locked up with his homeboys, you know, to the day I left. Big Round, Ryan, you know, he's on my IG. I think, like the second post I did ever is a picture of me and Big Round Round and MC Fausty

that made radio. active inside the podcast studio you all together you know and they're doing what nipsy was trying to do out here and then you know so that's why when he passed I pulled up you know way big round ride went to Ralph's for the meeting I went to Crenshaw and Sloss and I went to the Marathon store I show my IG tool just to show my respect you know especially for what his homies did for me you know Definitely. Bad.

So it's big respect for the legendary Nipsey Hustle. Facts. What else, in terms of what you're working on your life, you just focused on the music and focused on bringing that to the people. Is there anything else that we wouldn't guess that you have going on in your life? I think most of my I could be guessed. I'm like king of transparency right now. Music, everything going to be music.

I'm about to drop surprise music, shoot videos because the psychoan, analysis project is an ambitious thing and it's a labor of love and you can't do it wrong. Some of these songs, it'd be like Tupac changing hell Mary. Right. If, you know, I was to tweak Mac or Fram and Lama incorrectly, that could backfire on me. You know what I mean? You can't mess with that. People have 20 years invested in that song or somebody who discovered it a year ago.

Right. I got to make sure that I'd do that correctly. So I've been obsessing over making sure that it sounds exactly. exactly like the original on steroids. It's stronger, but it's not different. Right. That's what I'm trying to accomplish. So in the meantime, I'm just gonna drop random 10-song projects

for the people at an extreme pace, you know, so that I can just keep up with the youngest. It's a beautiful thing, man. It's almost, I don't know if you ever get this, but it's like almost surreal to be sitting there having a conversation with you in real life after just, you know, you were always, like, It's like my whole time knowing about you.

You're like this phantom dude that we're never, people just always say now that I think about it. Like, yeah, he's life. Like you're never going to see him. Yeah, I'm Bigfoot, really. You know, you're kind of become that, right? Yeah, I'm Bigfoot with a shower and a shave. I tell people that all the time.

It's like, X rated. I'll be doing a meeting greeting and they'd say that over and over, like, ex-rated. But that must be a weird thing for you to have people still be surprised that you're out because from your perspective, it's kind of like, well, motherfucker, it was in the news. I posted about it, they got interviews online, they got new music videos out like,

why my motherfuckers not paying attention, right? Nah, I think there's a degree of arrogance if I was to go there. What I believe, this is my perspective. I believe it's a significant blessing that whatever percentage of people remembered me at all, or that are conscious, or that cared that I came home at all.

That's a blessing, because I did 26 years, five months, and 26 days, and came home with a million views on my first, video and sold out shows with people who had rocked with my music. Some of them are from the 1991 to 2000. Some of them are 2000 to 2010. Some of them are 2010 to 2019. Right. I got four generations of fans rocking to my music and nobody ever came home from prison to that. Nobody that did time, like time. There's just, you know, just me and my son in New York that did this much time come home and still be considered a part

of the culture at all. I mean, we talk about rappers who get three, four years, like, damn, I wonder if they're going to be all right when they get out. Right. You know, because it does move so fast that it ain't a sure thing. And their music, unfortunately, has no substance. And so when your music has no substance, it can't connect. And now you just Jayquine.

You just, you know, everybody in the club, get tipsy, and you're gone. And that's what will happen. And that's why I encourage people to actually put some substance in their music. But that goes back to our point about being the generation. I remember NWA came out. Everybody has something to say about the ignorance in their music. To live crew was so ignorant. You know, the East Coast was used to a different kind of hip hop.

And the East Coast controlled the media at the time. With no podcast. You wanted to get on TV or be written about. You had to get that through New York. Right. And, you know, L.A. had to play catch-up. light weight in response to being treated like a stepchild by New York. And so we forget that even Run DMC was considered by New York as an aberration because they was used to the Grandmaster

Five, you know, the Furious Five, they was used to Sugar Hill game. They was used to, they was used to that. There's not a lot of people left in rap who could comment on that time period and like remember those sort of stylistic changes and shit, you know? It's like a lot of that stuff sort of is the kind of stuff that's written about in books, but there's not a lot of people. who could really have that conversation. It's insane. You know? It's insane because it's a sport.

Hip hop is a sport, but we don't, we ain't created a Hall of Fame for ourselves yet. We don't hand out gold jackets for our icons. We tear them down when they die, right? Instead of saying, you know, we lost one of our own. You get, if the makeup man dies from the Wizard of Eyes, the Academy is going on. me is gonna honor to do it. The dude that did Dorothy's makeup got honored.

Right? Right. Nevertheless, the man that shot the movie. That makeup man. And hip hop, in hip hop, you can't even get that from your own. You get blessed if Rolling Stone mess with you. We got to get inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame.

Right? If you're in W.A., if you're public enemy, if you're the Beastie Boy, like we're not understanding. That's our culture. and we got to get acceptance outside of it because we're so busy tearing each other down and having built institutions

within our sport to honor ourselves like all the other sports do like all of them, the NBA, NFL, and we all obsessed over those ones and I'll argue all day over who to go in NBA sports and what stats they got and what the why they stats matter. But we don't have no system to honor that in our own

and therefore it's a speculative. thing, a subjective thing, and it causes people to be reckless. And that commentary sometimes I think we should honor our own. We should give a fuck. And I say our own, all of them, and the M&Ms and from all of them, Kendrick Lamar, all of them. We shouldn't have to lose one to start throwing flowers around. It should be understood that this is, we witness in greatness.

Right now, the kid from the Kansas City Chiefs is so phenomenal. You know, Lamar Jackson. It's amazing, right? All of that. Right now, they give it to him. Nobody say he had to win a Super Bowl. Right. He ain't won an MVP, nothing.

Right now, that was a great game. And in hip-hop, there's so many ways to matter. Like, you don't have to have a number one hit. X-rated ain't never had a number one hit in X-rated or die a legend. You know? It's like, there's a lot of different. I'm going to live a legend, too. Facts.

But, like, that's the kind of thing where it's like, there's a lot of different standards by which you could judge a rapper. And, yeah, a lot of rappers who had number one, and hits are legends, but a lot of rappers who never even hit any kind of chart of legends to us because we can appreciate a motherfucker who was dope in his area, never broke through, whatever. That's don't matter. That's, that's, that's, I'm going to ask you a serious-ass question. Yeah.

You ready for it? Yeah. Is vanilla ice doper than Nipsey Hustle? No. Vanilla Ice has greater numbers than Nipsey Hustle. Fair enough, but I mean. Which means that the numbers is bullshit. That's what it means.

The numbers are bullshit. At the end of the day, make it, make it's great enough. a massive hit doesn't guarantee you legend status. Although I guess you can kind of give it to Vanilla Ice that in a way he is a legend. Vanilla Ice is a legend, but it's not because of the numbers. Yeah. It's because no matter how much a motherfucker want to act like they hate the dude, that goddamn song is slapping, bro. Ice Ice Ice Baby slap and turn it on, that shit slap. And people going to know the words that hate the song because that shit slaps, bro. Ironically, Vanilla Ice is...

song slap. He's an urban legend, which is kind of funny. He's like an urban legend, even though I'm not sure I want to give Vanilla Ice urban after the conversation. He certainly can't have urban legend. Vanilla Ice has a certain degree of legendary status in hip-pop because we have to talk about him in certain regards. The Shug Knight story is a legendary story. He got legendary status, but I can tell you that, you know, statistically speaking, as a person who likes to watch the sport, he ain't had one game in his life better than a game

that Nipsey played or better than a game that Tupac played as a rapper. The sport, he never outshined in the sport. The thing I'll say is that it's always hard to be the first one through the wall and Vanilla Ice, you know? He was first.

He did it for all the other white boys. No, MC searches, though. Back in third base was the shit. You know, I'm a historian. Third base was the shit. shit, Paul Revere is still the shit, the Beastie Boys was the shit. Okay, but the reason why it's easy for white rappers now is because of vanilla ice and because of Eminem, because all these dudes who took all the shit for white people in general

so that GEZ can just be GEZ. And motherfuckers don't say, oh, G, easy ain't black enough. Like, people are past that, you know? And it's like Eminem had it a little rough, but Vanilla Ice had, I mean, it's kind of different because Eminem had a lot more reasons for people to respect them versus vinyl ice. So he had kind of earned his respect a lot. more but you know everybody got to kind of break through the wall to to get to where they're going I guess in order for hip hop to be truly open to whatever extent that's a good thing the beastie boys

got no hate right mac miller got no hate the certain certain white dudes managed to sort of skate through so it's a trip the dope rappers m&M didn't really get hate Eminem manufactured hate that m&M started the argument about being Elvis m&M started the argument about being Elvis m&M started the argument about y'all hate because I'm what Eminem did that it was very brilliant marketing particularly early in in his career black people didn't seem all that mad at Eminem white people conservative people were mad at Eminem yeah yeah white people were more but they were in dr. Dre's cosigned black people to me it was over with my perspective was the black people were just like how the fuck you're talking shit about your mom you cannot allow to do that that more than anything stood out as like wow

that is some white boy's shit right there you when you start saying why people aren't so fast to get somebody, greatest rapper, all-time status, it's going to be the mom thing and it's going to be the gay stuff. Because it's intolerable for some people to bump that in their car out loud. Even if you thought it was a dope song, I want to be at a light slapping my uncle raped me and whatever. And I'm at a light with my window rolled down and the dude pull up next to me slapping something or whatever.

Don't nobody want to do that. And so it harmed him the same way ludicrous being a comedian. harmed his argument for one of the better rap. Do it's one of the dopest rappers on the face of the earth, period. His entire career, and he can't get an honorable mention whatsoever because of the comedy. So it's rules to this and how you get, you know, accepted and argued for your greatness. And I think that's what harmed them and them, you know. But at this point, I think people understand the dude is one of the toughest rappers to ever do it.

I don't think it's room for argument no more. If there ever was, like, it's just stupid. this point like come on man yeah I feel you um last question how do you want to x-rated to be remembered to be remembered to somebody who had adversity who was ignorant who educated himself who persevered who overcame and inspired and motivated other people to do the same that's what I want to be remembered for right there well said yeah it was an honor getting to talk to you for this long man honestly I appreciate you having me man this is You know, there's on my list of things that I wanted to do when I got home.

Appreciate that. So I appreciate you having me. Surreal experience. Go grab it. California Dreaming album available everywhere on all platforms. It's dope. Go get that album and slap. You're going to be shocked how dope it is.

I'm my mama. I'm better than your favorite rubber. Just like that. Yeah. Shout to anybody who made it this deep with us because this is a wild ride. Appreciate it. All the time, man. Thank you.

X-rated. No jumper. Coolest. Podcasts in the world. Check us on YouTube, SoundCloud, iTunes. Like, comment, and subscribe. Nojumber.com. If you want support, appreciate y'all. Do that.