The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - Rikers Island To Rap Legend: How Rapper MAINO Went From GANGSTER & Prison Shot Caller To Rap Fame

Episode Date: May 11, 2025

In this powerful and raw episode, Johnny sits down with legendary New York rapper Maino, who opens up about his turbulent journey from the violent streets of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, to becoming one of the most consistent voices in hip-hop. Maino reflects on growing up during the crack epidemic, getting involved in crime at just 14, and doing a 10-year prison sentence for kidnapping and robbery. He talks about the brutal realities of Rikers Island, surviving four years in solitary confinement, and how he found redemption through music. Discover how Maino went from the hole to the top of the charts, signing with Universal Music, releasing 15+ albums, and earning his own Maino Day in New York City. Go Support Maino! IG: https://www.instagram.com/mainohustlehard/ Radio Show: https://wayupwithyee.iheart.com/ This Episode Is #Sponsored By Following: PrizePicks! Download the app today and use code CONNECT to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup! https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/CONNECT POLICYGENIUS! Secure your family’s tomorrow so you have peace of mind today. Head to https://policygenius.com/mitchell to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save! Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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There's a call following us. is an Audi, and somebody in the car said, make a U-turn. And as I'm going by them, I'm looking at them, they start shooting. They start shooting. One of my closest friends got shot in the face. This is the war error, just the error that we are outside with, you know, clips that whole 21 shots. And, you know, we're doing whatever we got to do. Yeah, we're selling jobs, but we're going to take some money, too.

We're going to do whatever. I'm with that. This is what I was taught. This is how you handle everything violently. You got a problem with somebody shoot him. The rapper Mayno is a New York City legend. He comes from the meanest streets of Bedstuy, Brooklyn, where he grew up in the 1980s at the dawn of the crack cocaine epidemic. He and his crew hit the block at just 14 years old, robbing and kidnapping drug dealers and getting in shootouts with rivals from the neighborhood.

He was that dude, a hard rock, a gangster. At 17 years old, he took a pinch on a kidnapping robbery charge and got sentenced to 5 to 15 years in prison. He didn't behave on the inside either. He ran every cell block on Rikers Island and in the baddest prisons in upstate New York, where he spent. spent almost half of his 10 years stretch in the hole for slashing. It wasn't until the last few years of his sentence that he settled down and began to write raps. It turned out that he was nice. So when he got out of prison in 2003, he began to make mixtapes. He signed his first major record deal in 2005, and then in 2009, he finally achieved

mainstream success with his first album, If Tomorrow Comes, with the hit singles High Hater and a million bucks. Since then, Mayno has been one of the most consistent and prolific rap. to come out of New York, with over 15 studio albums to his name. Mayno is truly a one-and-a-million success story. A lot of people go to prison, and a lot of people try to rap. But very few can make it home after doing the hard time that he did and actually blow up in the rap game. Go check out his most recent project, The Lobby Boys, with Jim Jones, as well as his radio

show on IHeart Radio. I'll put those links in the description of the episode. Without further ado, I'm excited for this one. I've been a big fan since his first album. ladies and gentlemen from Bedstye, Brooklyn, I give you Mano, right here on The Connect with Johnny Mitchell. We came up with the idea to take this person.

He was the Connect. Check, the whole house, everybody tied up. So for the rest of life, you're going to remember him. He going to remember you. You scarred him. I went to jail when I was 17. I got out when I was 27. If they knew everything I did,

I would never, ever come home. You're one of the few, like, real New York success stories in hip-hop. Like a guy, I don't think people, even fans of your music, appreciate the feat of doing a dime in prison and coming out and actually, like, making it. You know, a lot of cats were in the streets, obviously. Right. But they didn't have to lose everything before they got on. Right, right, right. It's something totally different.

You know, everybody has, you know, been in the street and one. way or another, whether they was actually in it themselves or they were around people that did it. But to go spend, you know, your young adult years in prison. And my story is the fact that I never rap the day in my life. Okay? Like, I go to prison 17 years old. I'm not a rapper. I don't do raps.

You never wanted to be a rapper? No. What did you want to do? Be in the street for the rest of my life. I didn't have no aspirations, no dreams of that. being anything other than what I was already on the road to be. You understand? And that's the, honestly, you know, when I think about my life, that, that is really what

sad, right? So when you think about a lot of these young dudes, right, I relate to that, not knowing what you want to be. So had you asked me at 16, 17, what did I want to do with my life? I didn't, I couldn't tell you anything other than what I was already doing. We out here, we're going to get it the way we get it. We sell them draws, you know, we, we don't, or we, we don't, or we, we don't, or we, do. You're from bedstay?

Yeah. Okay. What part of bedstay? From notion, and they rock. Okay. So there's a couple of bedstays, right? There's like the nice, well, when I said a couple, I mean like the Biggie Smalls, Clinton Hill, middle class bedstay. Technically, we're Biggie from is not bedstey. Technically. Technically, technically, that is not bad style, technically. But, you know, it's Clinton Hill. It's Clinton Hill. It's always been Clinton Hill. And even when it was Cracken Fest,

There was still a lot of middle class black families that lived there and those nice brownstones. And then, you know, his mom was a teacher and administrator or something. And then there's the Marcy Projects, Brooklyn, our bedstide. Right. What, where on Nostren? My section, how would you compare it? My section is, so Mawcci sits between Mawcci Avenue, Mertile Avenue, Nostron Avenue. I'm Nostron.

So after Mertrude, you know, maybe I want to say seven blocks. So I might be about seven, eight blocks away from Mawcci projects growing up. Was it the hood? How would you describe it? Yes, the hood. Lewis Armstrong houses. I'm from a block called Clifton.

You got Clifton, Green, Lexington, Quincy, Gates Avenue, probably being the most popular of my area. you know, it would probably be like the capital of the area where everybody heard of Gates Avenue. Gates and Nostrand. So that would be, you know, the block that was always associated with me early in my career. But technically, I'm from Clifton. Yeah, I remember even recently I fucked up and got off at the Nostron Avenue train stop. Yeah, yeah, Nostron Fulton.

Yeah, and went right back down pretty quick, you know. It's not as better. You know, things change, right? So we, Brooklyn has been the most developed part of New York, right? So when they started to really fix New York up, the first place they came was Brooklyn, right? And they started to develop these new buildings. You know, you think about what Dumbo used to look like. You think about what Williamsburg used to look like.

As a kid, yo, we used to go to Williamsburg as kids. It was a wasteland. Like we was going over there like, you know, steel cars. Like it was like it was wasteland. Yeah, it was just like warehouses and junkies everywhere. 100%. Even Dumbull was similar to that. Dumbull and Williamsburg was similar in as far as the texture, the way it looked.

It was very run down. It was very industrial. They had a lot of old factories back there. And you remember like if you look at pictures right now, if you go in and you Google New York City 80s or, you know, It looks so third world. It's crazy. Right. Abandoned buildings.

Like, we played in abandoned buildings. You don't even see abandoned buildings. They don't even allow abandoned buildings. Like, they knock a building down, they seal it off, and then they're building right on top of there. We had lots, vacant lots and abandoned buildings to play in to run through. You understand? So it was totally a different time. Yeah, you might find a dead body.

No, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. So then your building was a project building? Yeah, so the Lewis Armstrong houses, they went up to the fourth floor. So it's on Clifton, Green, Lexington, and Gates. Okay. Yeah. So what era did you come up in? How old are you? You don't mind me asking. I'm, I'm, I'm somewhere between somewhere. Like, you know what I'm saying? I'm between not, I'm between not, I'm between not, and how old I am and how young I'm not. You understand? Yeah, yeah. Somewhere, though. You know, I'm timeless, though, man.

I'm ageless. So do you remember the beginning of the crack era? Yeah, because my father was a victim of that. I see. So I was very young, but my father was a victim of that first wave. What side of the bag was he on? Was he selling it or was he using it? No, he was a victim.

When you say that, what do you mean? So he was an abuser, right? So this is back in the days when I want to say, you know, because listening in the stories, right, you know, when my mother would talk about my father's addiction, right? Because that first wave of crack hit us so hard, right? I don't know if they understood what they were doing prior to being defined as crack because I would always hear about them saying, oh, we were free basing, free basin.

Putting cocaine in weed, putting cocaine and cigarettes. but then this this thing came out where they was buying the rocks and putting it into this pipe contraction this stem right

so that first wave of the crack era I want to say if I had to put a date on it I want to say 85 84 85 I think is when that wave really hit I know that's when it hit

us I want to say my father and I've seen my household become really affected by that era, right? Things is not in the house no more. Go to school, come back, and the TV gone. Yeah, you've got to sit down and you just fall on the floor. You're like, Dad sold the couch. No, the couch stayed. The couch is stayed.

I want to say that. You know, the VCR gone. You know, the TV on, you know, he sold his car. But, you know, my mother always told me, she would say, but your dad sold all the stuff that he bought. It's not like he took your sneakers and sold them. He didn't never take from y'all. So she always helped me to kind of like make sense of some of the chaos that we was already feeling like we was in.

Right. So like he's taking stuff out the house, but he bought it. Fair enough. Yeah. You know, that big TV, man, what happened to the TV? Maher like me. I don't TV. Hey, man, that's my TV.

I bought that shit. You know, that car, he bought that car, you know. I think everybody back then in the 70s and 80s was doing cocaine. Right. That's all the crack is. It's just cooked up cocaine. You know, my mom went to law school. So different sides of the tracks, me and you.

She went to law school, and she admitted to me one time. She was like, oh, yeah, my roommate, she paid her away through law school selling cocaine. So everybody from all associate economic stratas was doing cocaine. So I think working class people like your dad from Brooklyn were doing cocaine and they found a cheap way to do it. Right. And I think that high wore off so fast and hit you so fast that it created this, it ramped up the cycle of addiction like a hundred times what like a Coke habit would take you to become a junkie. Right? That thing is so amazing, right?

that you see I don't know what what the heroin era looked like in the late 60s, early 70s, right? But I do remember what that crack era felt like. And it felt like I don't know if there ever was a drug that that was that detrimental to the community. I'm talking about mothers selling themselves. People selling everything that they had. I'm talking about zombies coming out going to school. seeing crack vows. Like, it just,

I don't know if there was ever a drug that had people actually selling themselves, right? Selling everything in their possession. Like, what was that strong of a drug that made them do that? Like, it was, like, you don't see that no more. Coming out your house and going to school, you're talking to my literal zombies in the street, right?

That was, to me, very, very, very significant in my, growing up because, you know, like I said, my father was involved. So, you know, the group of people that he hung out with would sometimes be in my house in the morning, you know, and these are the people that we were calling crackheads. So it's like, what I mean? You're going to school in the morning. Yeah, man, go to school.

Yeah, yeah. And it's like, man, you know, and it was a lot of things that I was dealing with. When I would see him and I would go through that, I would feel ashamed. Right? And I would feel like, damn, man, you know, it was times when I would be outside hanging out with my friends. And I'd be like, did you your father? And I would try to be like, act like I didn't see him. You understand?

Because it was, you would get teased. Even though everybody's family was on crack. It was so crazy. Everybody's family is on crack. We all affected. Everybody had somebody in their family that was smoking crack. But father, mother. But that first wave was so crazy that I would get teased.

Like, man, your own family on crack. And it was, it was something. Did you remember families where both parents would be on crack? Hell yeah. God. And then from there, it's like, total disaster. The whole family's damn, they was on crack. The mother, the uncle, the aunt, the father, everybody.

Yeah. The family across the street from me. Yeah, they, damn that whole house is smoking. Yeah. So how did that, how did that end for your father? How bad did it spiral out of control? He never came back. My father wanted him dying.

And he was in some sort of car accent. I still don't understand, like, what exactly happened with him as far as, like, him being hit by a car. He got, I really don't understand the details on what happened. One day, I was just out one day. And I had to be about 14. And my brother was like, man, I was looking for you. Looking for you, man. He said, we got to say by the daddy.

Like, what? We got to go. I was in Manhattan somewhere I was doing something I was somewhere where I had no business been and she was he was telling me that something had happened and I remember

going to the hospital and he was seeing him he was incoherent but I never understood the details on what exactly happened it was just some sort of car accident something to do with him in a car he was high

I don't know yeah and it was gone but I remember feeling really bad, but then I also felt some sort of sense of relief, like maybe for him, because, you know, when I started hearing things about drugs very early, right, because drugs is such a part of my growing, you know, addiction being a disease and things like that, you know, because I was rooting for my father, like, he would, you know, go, go, you know, go into rehab or get locked up and come home and have his size back, and he'd be like, yeah, my father back to,

him being who he was and then it would all go to shit again. So I guess I felt some sort of relief maybe like, yeah, maybe that is over. You know, maybe that's at, maybe he's at peace or maybe that was for the best thing. I remember trying to make some sort of understanding in my mind that maybe that was,

I was trying to like fix it to where it made sense for me, you know? Maybe you were a little relieved too that you didn't have, this burden anymore. You weren't going to get teased anymore. No, by that time, everybody was smoked out, so I don't think I was getting teased by that point. I think, you know, it was, yeah, it was pretty normal, you know. What did that do when you saw everybody's parents hooked and addicted? Obviously, you were like, wow, that's the zombie drug. You don't touch that. But did you want to sell it? Sell it? Yeah. Did you look up?

to the older cats that were getting money? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So when you're young, do you get put on with like a package or anything like that? Or are you just doing like cool again shit?

No, we started getting our own. Start going uptown learned by default. There was a guy that really showed me. He wanted him being killed later on. But my guy, Anthony, he was from up the block. He first person took me up town. took me up town, the cop, first person that did everything with me, that kind of showed me the ropes in that era, you know.

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and you get a payout for trying. Someone on Deepop wants what you've got. Start selling now. Deepop where Taste recognizes taste. I was around the same age, around the time when my father died. 14 years old. Yeah. Yeah. Going to uptown? Yeah, we were taking a train uptown. Yeah. Wow. And that was like the mecca for scoring. You got to remember. This is a time when been going to Washington Heights on Broadway, it was like the shit that he was doing was against the law. But it felt like walking down Broadway, like everybody was just out there like they had a license for it.

Like, you know, I got that heart, Papa, I got that hard. We got it right here, Papa. Come talk to me. Oh, yeah, yeah, I got the heart. Like, they was just broadcasting it like it was nothing. Right, the way dispensaries are now. Like it was like a license for it. You know, I got it?

We got it. We got that. We got it. Whatever you want, we got it. We got it. You know. What I've heard is that that most of that shit,

if you bought it already cooked up from Dominicans, it was usually garbage. It was. It was. But this is how you learn. Before you graduated to actually buy, you know, Coke yourself and then doing it yourself. So we was buying what we,

they called it Ready Rock back then. And we would go buy it and come back and learn. You know, I remember buying it, buying some before. And it was like, The crack is like, oh, it's wet, it's wet, it's wet. It's like, what the fuck you talk about?

So you learn, you learn about trial and all. How crazy is that that you as a 14-year-old are selling these narcotics to grown adults? Like, do you realize that that is such a- Selling to the adults that you knew. Selling to adults that actually watch you grow up. How about that? Family members and things of that nature. Like, well, I know people that sold drugs to their mother.

Yeah. I had an aunt, my aunt B. They lived on Lafayette. She started getting high. I definitely did something for her. Rap is, they don't lie in it, bro. Remember the Jay Z lyric? He goes, disrespecting the fiends I used to look up to take it or leave it.

Fuck you. So did you notice that attitude? Like, these people that are now desperate to get high, did you notice, like, kids your age, becoming a little, like, antagonistic to warrant? They weren't. My error, I think, is the error of. You know, the late 80s, early 90s, era of kids that, you know, getting cracked money and became more valid. You know, what they call the super predator, like the, you know, when all the laws really started to get really stiff, right?

Because I got friends now that's been locked up still since that era. Early 90s. Over bodies or drugs? Yeah, right. bodies, but what is the root of it? The drugs. Of course.

The drugs, the game, the environment that spawned this crack, that is the root of everything. That is the problem, you know, in our environment. So we talk in 30 years now

that went by, and kids that were 16, 17, either are still in prison or just getting out. Yeah. So, you've got Ready Rock, you're learning how to,

do you have your own corner? Like, are you selling in the same neighborhood you grew up in? Right, right. How did that work? How did that work? Take it to the block. First corner I ever started selling crack all,

was Nocean and green. And then, no, yeah, No, Ocean and Green. And then we started going Beffin and Green. Was it the same in Harlem, like with the different color tops? Or did you guys do it different in Brooklyn? What you mean?

Well, how would you market your... You had your tops, right? Okay. Red top, green tops, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And then did you learn how to get powder and cook it up in a better product? Yeah, later on, later.

Yeah, that happened later. Were you any good at it? At selling drugs? I want to say, was I any good at it? I think that if I applied myself more, because I also was into taking, too. Yeah, you're known as a tough guy. Right. So I do whatever I do, but I'm into the, oh, we're going to take it too. We're going to take the drugs. We're going to take whoever. We're going to do whatever. I'm with that. Like, I'm, you know, a robber or whatever. Like, I'm, I was on that too. So I'm probably known more for that than anything, you know.

Yeah. When I told my art producer that Mayno was coming in, he texts me, he goes, oh, that's awesome and terrifying. So your reputation kind of precedes you as like a jack boy. It's a very long time ago. We're talking too long to even still have the same reputation. We're talking. I went to jail when I was 17. I got out when I was 27. Yeah.

That's we, we light years beyond, you know, what, what that was. But in that era, yeah. So I would sell drugs. We would, you know, back then we would go to long hours. and go to Suffolk County and sell drugs. But we took money too. Would you rob guys from your neighborhood? Or was that known as like a,

you don't rob somebody from down the street because you know. I brought guys from neighbors. Yeah, I've done that. I've done that. I've done that. How does that work, though? Like you see each other the next day and it's like, I can't say that I'm not in,

I wasn't in my right frame of my, mind and honestly I never thought that what I was doing was ever wrong because you got, this is the error for what I think what was going on. I felt like this was the error. This is the war error. This is the error that we

are outside with, you know, clips that whole 21 shots and you know, we're doing whatever we got to do. Yeah, we sell jobs, but we're going to take some money too. Right. So if you got something lined up, we're with it. So even if you're making money off a package, and you're in profit, you still decide to rob?

You're doing whatever. You're with it. I'm with it. You can call me if you got something lined up. I'm coming. Right. Yeah, right. Back then, yeah.

Well, that was a whole business. Like the business of jacking, there was so much money in drugs that some, yeah, some people just rob drug dealers. People just rob junk dealers. It was an Omar from the wire kind of enterprise. Yeah, yeah. Dangerous. Would you guys rob people, would you try to hit their stashes?

or would you just take the... The cribs, everything. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. So you guys are really with the shit. Yeah, in the houses, yeah, in the crib. Oh, it's great.

At times, to actually check the whole house, everybody tied up. Yeah, definitely. Wow. Yeah. Wow, that's serious business. Definitely. It's dangerous business. Dangerous.

Did you ever have any retaliation against your crew? Yeah. You guys got bucked at? Right. So I was just having a conversation the other day about, how one of my closest friends got shot in the face, right? And I was the one driving a car. I was driving a car when it happened.

I had a car back then. It was the first car ever bought. It was a Ford escort. You couldn't tell me that this wasn't. Yeah, the flyest web. This was a flying spur. Yeah. I was coming around.

It's like, like, wow. It's like a spaceship. What? This, two-door. I was, man, listen, we was packed up in this two-door, and the Florida Escort at two doors, it was a coop. You couldn't tell me that I wasn't in the bins, but I used to wash that bitch.

I used to drive that motherfucker, like it was like everything, right? But I used to always be strapped up in there. But one particular day, as I was driving, I was on Gate Savanel. And coming up, Gates-Savon, it was five of us in this. little-ass car. You know, everybody's still living to this day. Thank God. But my guy, Moldo, he was sitting in the back, man. And as I came up Gates to make a, and there's a car following us, this is an Audi. And I got to the next corner, Tompkins and Gates. And somebody in a car said, make a you turn. And I don't know why I'm, I don't know why I didn't go straight

or make the right on Tompkins, I made the U-turn. And as I made the U-turn, they didn't make it. They just stood right there. And as I'm coming by, so it's a car, I make the U-turn, they just stayed. And as I'm going by them, I'm looking at them, they start shooting. And he got hitting his face.

Are he sitting in shotgun? No, he's sitting in the back. Wow. He's sitting in the back. I want to say he was sitting in the middle. if he wasn't sitting in the middle then he was sitting to the far right if I remember

and boy goes through the windshield yeah yeah wow yeah the the whole back window was out yeah the whole the whole back window was out so he got shot in the face but I didn't know

where he got shot at right so we duck in shit and um when I come up I heard like a like a girl going I heard that and I turned him out

I'm like, oh, shit. And, you know, the car is dark. So I'm looking, I'm thinking he hitting his head. And I'm like, oh, man. You know, and I had already been through a situation where, you know, growing up, a close friend of mine had died in front of me, right? So I was just like, man, dog, you, oh, wow. And I just seen him like, and he just started rocking it.

And I'm thinking he got hit in his head. So I'm like rushing to the hospital, driving on sidewalks, everything. Right. I'm trying to get there. I'm trying to, I'm trying my best to get to the fucking hospital, man. And I got there in time. And when I got there, I noticed that he was hit in his jaw, like his cheek, you know, which to me wasn't bad because we know people that got hit like that.

Yeah, he lived. His jaw was broke. He has the dimple to this day. Right. You know, it was a time. But we had, but to answer the question. we had hurt. We never was sure what that happened, but it was always suspected that this was something that I had done prior to that. It was based on that. So I wasn't 100% sure

because back then we was doing a whole bunch of stuff. Now is this, is this the era where the bloods? No, no, no, okay, this predates the bloods. The blood thing didn't come. So I want to say this had to be like around 91 blood thing didn't happen to maybe, I think, 93. 94. Okay. So there wasn't true like gangs in Brooklyn

that it was just Cruz of cats. No, there was no gangs at all. It was just crews, right? Yeah. Right. Back then.

I mean, I guess in, in theory, anything can be a gang, right? You can be a gang if it's, you know, if it's a few of y'all,

y'all can be a gang. You know, if you wanted to, you know, attribute that to you, to who you are, but, but.

Was it West Coast? Mm-mm. It was not, no. That didn't happen. And that started in jail first. You got to remember.

That started in Rikers Island years later And then it kind of trickled to the street Later on I don't know when it actually got into The streets Maybe 95 You know I'm thinking maybe I'm not sure Yeah there was a reason they said

Manhattan make it Brooklyn take it It's because you guys were just known to Rob people Yeah yeah Brooklyn is not known aggressive, you know, take your shit, you know. That's that's the, the aura of what Brooklyn, but Brooklyn got a lot of legendary money getting dudes, though.

Yeah. You know, that people that, you know, that really got money, that really, you know, was hands-on with their hustle and really was about their shit. You guys, springtime is here. It is my favorite time of the year because it's basketball playoffs. I am a basketball junkie.

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from top companies and see how much you could save. Once again, that's policygenius.com. So in this era, do you recall a guy like that that the neighborhood kind of all knew about the way, like, in Harlem people knew about those dudes like Alpo and Rich Porter from the 80s? Was there anybody like that in Brooklyn? Of course, man. I mean, not enough it said about polite who, you know, was a gangster, but at the same time, he was getting money and he was known to get money. You know, you had guys like more popular, like Domencio, you know, Red Bull from my hood. Like, you had a lot of very well-known guys Keith, you know, that was getting money. It was known for getting money, riding big cars and coming through, like, you know, no different than what was going to.

going on in Harlem. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You know? Supreme Magnetic from 50s, from, from Fort Green, you know, just throwing out names, as I remember, you know, of popular ghetto stars of this era. Did you know, this is a corny question, but did you know who Biggie was in the early 90s? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But Biggie wasn't Biggie until, like, after I was in prison. I remember Biggie from, from, all right, so Biggie had a. I had a DJ named 50 grand. And 50 grand, his family, they lived in Lexington between Nootron and Bedford. They said parties there in the basement. I remember seeing Biggie there, but I didn't, the fat dude that I remember rapped. Right. In the basement, in the party, I remember that vividly.

So when I saw Biggie in the sauce or whatever I saw him later on, I said, oh, this is, in deck in him house like yeah so I had remember him from that yeah yeah did you remember him being nice when you heard him rapping at the party yeah

I guess I guess yeah I remember him being there I remember him saying a rap yeah but it doesn't seem like you cared about rap no I didn't care about rap at all

a lot of guys from the streets thought rappers were kind of corny so this is not the arrow when when young street niggas was allies and rappers. This was before then. Just way before, you know,

like, just like, we wasn't idolizing rappers. That wasn't like, we liked rappers. Like, we love Big Daddy Kane. We love,

um, uh, we love Big Daddy Kane. We loved, um, uh, Coogee Rap, you know,

Kara Swan, stuff like that. But then I remember when, when Kane got his, his, his chain took. I was more enthralled with that. with the people that had that.

Like, this is real. And there's, you know, I love Keynes this day, but I remember actually seeing the chain and, you know, look, this big daddy cane chain and the chain being put on my neck, like, that was a, for real? A hundred million percent. Wow.

Yeah, 100%. 100%. Yes. Yeah. So I was more in, enthralled with that. the power of it, the power to be able to take somebody's shit who's famous. Not even so much that, but just that ghetto star,

that guy that was popular before it was even a thing, right, the guy that had the name and, you know, the guys that would maybe look that as dangerous and you didn't, You didn't play with them. They were known to be on whatever. It was something more exciting to me about that than having any kind of rap dreams. For sure.

You know? So I don't even remember any of my friends ever saying, yo, let's start, let's rap. And this is before rappers were getting big money. You know, this is before that rap really became commercialized. They always looked like they did. We seen Remember seeing came

Pull up into Volvo Big Jewels on Like they look rich You know But it just It just wasn't there yet I don't think we idolize artists in this

In this area yet I don't think that that became a thing Until Rap became something That we looked at as a hustle Right You know Then it became like

It's a hustle And I think this is after Jay Z After JZ I think you know Guys like JZ and Big Then it was like oh wow So like Biggie pre-JZ

I don't think I don't know too many people that was talking about being a rapper Yeah because when you're in the street The quickest way to get from where you're at To poverty to To wealth is through the shit that's right in front of you See the thing about

Well I tell people about being in the street Being in the street is not like If you're really in the street Then it didn't feel like you were doing nothing out of that ordinary everything you do is within the realms of that right so you going to school hell no I ain't going to school

you're looking for a job hell am I looking for a job so when I hear about people that was like going to school had jobs in college like you really kind of really wasn't in the street really not really like you may have been affiliated with some people

and all that but like it really wasn't your lifestyle. Right? It really was not your lifestyle because if it's really your lifestyle, then it's 100% you never really had time to do none of those other things. Because for once, you chase the money, you're in the beef. It's things that you're dealing with every single day that's preventing you from being that other person to have time to look for a job and be showing up at work every day or even

going to school. Right. You can't really be a part-time. Especially in that era. At some point, you're going to, unless you're just that good, I don't know nobody is just that good and still finishing school and all this other shit. Now, about rappers that glorify, you know, all the drugs that they used to sell, Jay-Z is the best example of that.

He made it sparkle, right? In my lifetime remix, and you're like, wow, he's the best at glamorizing it. But to become an artist really is a full-time hustle. you have to give yourself to the game if you really want to make it. Do you think those guys exaggerated how big they were in the drug game? Jay-Z definitely was getting money. This is confirmed. I think what people misunderstand is that by the time Jay-Z was giving rap a full chance,

he had already stepped away from that. Right? And if he wasn't fully away from it, then he was... He was almost. So I don't think it was a time when he was doing both. Right. Right. So that's understandable.

You confuse when you make a scene like you're doing both, you know, because it's hard to do both. Because being in the streets, it's like it's a full-time fucking job. Right? It's like, what are we going to do? You got time to be no fucking rapper. It's only running a crack spot is dangerous business. Do you know that the time that it takes to make music? A lot.

There you go. You're in the studio all night. There you go. Weeks, months, years, like, it takes so much time. Now, I'm not saying that you can't be involved to some sort of degree. You can. But, you know, it's not, it's not. is an over-exaggeration. I don't think

Hove was really in line when he talked about his stories because it's been confirmed who he is and what you know what I mean? We all know, you know, um, you know, his story. But yeah, he had to step away. I think to really make it, you have to step away. GZ talks about

that too. He was like, you know, he was juggling keys. And then I think T.I. told him, hey, you got to choose. You're grinning. No, no, no. Because I'm just thinking like, it's a time when you say to yourself, I got a,

I got to really give this thing a shot. Yeah. You know? And you got a sacrifice. You know? Yeah. I think Jay-Z, he was in London,

doing some shit. And that's when his man's got caught. So, like, he was already stepping away from it. And he got out at the right time. Like, everything just kind of worked out for that dude because then his whole crew went down

and got, you know, slammed. We got decades, right? So, yeah, that's the other thing. too. If you're trying to wrap and sell drugs, you're probably going to get locked up. Especially in New York in the Giuliani era.

At some point. You know? Right. So you're a teenager. You're so young. It's crazy. And you guys are like committing full grown men crimes. Right. Do you look back now at your sentence and say,

damn, it could have been worse. Like for all the shit that we did? I've always felt like that from day one. So by the time I went to jail, I've always felt like if they knew everything I did, I would never ever come home, ever in life. This is it. 100 years. Easy. Easy.

So I went into it feeling that way. Man, I can do this. I got a 5 to 15. I can be out in five years I can do this because I've done some things I've always felt like that were you worried that

those things we're going to pop up those things from the past that can never where the statutes don't go away or you know the most serious crimes right you know good dude I got Meno to laugh

whenever you get Rapsar Mano to laugh you do something in there some of the statues that was Slidlander. Whatever it is. Did you ever, when you were locked up or years later, like get that paranoia? Um.

Or were you able to just shut that part off? I don't know if I ever was paranoid about things. Yeah, I don't think I was ever paranoid because I've always felt like, you know, whatever happened already happened. And, you know, I always felt good. I always felt good. Um, consciously I felt like, you know, you know, if anything, you know, karma, you know, other than, other than, other than that, I didn't feel like, um, I was about to be re-arrested for some other stuff. I didn't think that. Right. Yeah.

Okay. So you're 17 and you catch a case. Uh, what, can you tell us what happened? I'm sure you've described it before. There's a drug related kidnapping case. So like I told you, we was already at a point where we were. going in houses of drug houses or whoever, anything, in the realms of taking money, buying, taking, whatever, right?

So, yeah, we had a drug-related kidnapping, where it's actually now we took the person. Okay. Yeah. It was you and how many other dudes? There's a couple of us. Okay. Whatever your thing, it could be anything.

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So you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together. Shop now at palmolive.com. Was it in Brooklyn? the city and Brooklyn. You got, and then, listen, everybody, everybody that was involved, like, everybody can't, everybody didn't go to jail, like, it was it. So, you know, we got to, we got to protect the innocent.

For sure. You feel me? Yeah, that's a way to, yeah. That's something to call them, the innocent. So can, uh, can you tell us about it? Can you tell us what happened? We came up with the idea to, uh, to take this person. You were setting up on him.

Yeah, I was involved. And he had work? He was the connect. He was your connect? He was a connect. He was a connect that we were dealing with. He was somebody that I had a relationship with at the time had a relationship with. Right?

So like I told you, at this point in my life, I was with whatever. So if you came around and said you had a line on something, I was with it. I was with it. A word, you got a line, they doing whatever, they got work. And you're saying that all we got to do is come in there and take it.

And yeah, okay, tie up who? We're with it. So we're going to come. We're going to do whatever we need to do. Was this your line? Or was this, did somebody bring this to you, this specific thing? Or was this your idea?

No, it was brought to me. I was part of it. At this time, I was probably the youngest in my, in my crew when it came of those things so I was the youngest

at that point you know but I was on the front line you know yeah and you guys went in there fully strapped up

fully masked up or were you guys more cowboys that didn't have to happen because for one I wasn't so I had broke my leg early on a motorcycle

you know I ride bikes I always rode bikes I broke my legs so I wasn't actually I wanted to so bad I wasn't there when they actually took him but it wasn't, I mean, they have to do it forcefully because we're, niggas already knew him.

Right. So it was, it was a, a friendly thing that turned into a, you know what I mean? Or we're actually robbing you. There you go. He thought they were just asking him out for coffee. It turns out they got to join on him.

It turns into, it, listen, if I know you, Right? And I don't have to kick down your door. I know you. You'll come meet me over here. I'm going to come meet you. And that turns and whatever. You're in the car, some duct tape, some rope, handcuffs, or whatever.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, your Wikipedia page makes it sound like it's, it was just kind of a cowboy kind of stupid thing. But also, I mean, it's professional. But you got to remember, though, like, You are who you are in the time of the time that you are, right?

Where I was at, I wasn't this person that I am today. Where is, you know, I've evolved. You know, I've lived life. I've had an opportunity to live. You know, we're talking about a young kid who's never seen nothing that was probably, you know, adapting to everything around them. So violence wasn't abnormal to me. I was very normal back then.

Very, very normal. We're not judging you. We need the click pay. 100%. So the thing is this. Violence, for me, or being affiliated with violence was just as normal as anything today.

Like, this is how you handle your problems. You know, this is how you deal with things. This is what I was taught. This is how you handle everything violently. You got a problem with somebody to shoot them. That's it. You got an issue with somebody, shoot them. Pretty much.

Yeah. And you were taught that by the older heads? It was never expressed verbally, but this is what you learn. This is the nature of your environment. Right? Your environment tells you that. Your environment tells you this is the way that you should handle your issues because you see the rewards in that.

In being weak, you see that that's not going to work here because I want to be able to have what I want to have. I want to be able to wear chains. I want to be able to do what I want to do. I want all the girls that like me. I want to be able to be popular. I want to be able to put rims in your Ford Escort. Hope cabs back then.

So the thing is, it's like, yeah. So the environment itself teaches you that, you know, conversations that you have on with older people or people that you look up to are just the, you know, the added topping, you know? Plus, all the parents are smoked out. So there's this whole void of, there's this whole absence of like responsibility. And you can see how that just can cause the community to fall apart. Let's just say, because everybody's family, I've had,

friends whose families, I had certain friends whose mothers wasn't and they worked good mothers, but it didn't stop them from being in the street, right? This is just the era that it was very hard to raise young black males because like what was there out there for us to do, right? being maybe a 20-something-year-old mother with a 16-year-old son in 1990, it's rough, right? Because you got to go to work, right? You got to put food on the table. What is this kid going to be doing? He's left to his own devices.

He's left to the environment. You understand? And this is why we've seen so many kids fall victim and not be able to, to double back and have another shot at life. So if you made that mistake back then in 1990 or 16, and you shot somebody or killed somebody, you're still paying for that right now. Yeah, think about how many good guys are locked up.

Right. Just when they were different, you're a different person when you're 16 as opposed to when you're 50. Think about me. Yeah. Think about the opportunity that I had to evolve. So we here talking about the crimes that I committed,

you know, 30, plus. plus years ago, right? We're talking about, you know, what I went to jail for and what I didn't go to jail for or whatever, right? But I got a chance to be in prison, grow up, find myself, find things about myself, come home, create a career for myself, live, right? Have some success and live. What about the kid that didn't have the opportunity to do that?

It's crazy Been in jail since the early 90s Or he's just getting out right now What about him? We've talked to a lot of them on this show That to me is the worst crime So we tell him all these crimes That to me is the worst crime

I know It's tough because On the one hand I agree with you But if you talk to parents Who lost their kids to gun violence Let's say from that era and you said, yeah, the person who shot your son

and changed your life forever because you have this gaping pain in your chest, they're going to give him 30 years and he's going to go through, he's going to lose most of his life. They'd probably say, fuck him. I understand it, but listen to this, though, right? Psychologically, you already said it.

Who you are today is a different person than who you are when you was 16 or whatever. Your mind doesn't develop the same. way. Right? It doesn't work the same way, actually. So the choices and decisions that you make when you're 17 are different than the ones that you make when you 45. For sure. Right? You're not a fully developed human yet. So this irrational decision that you made, whether it's been pride, a lot of it his pride, most of his pride. The root of it may be about

some money, but it's about pride at the same time. Like, what? That nix take nothing from me. They ain't doing nothing to me. Whatever. And you make this decision to do whatever you do, or in my case, to go take something,

take somebody or whatever, these are irrational decisions made by people that have not had the opportunity to be, These are underdeveloped minds. So now you're paying 35 years for those mistakes. I don't agree with that.

It's an unwinnable situation because, yes, it's, you shouldn't have to do that much time when you're just a kid and you make this huge mistake. But there's got families. Understood. Want retribution. Humans haven't evolved enough yet. you know like I was just down in El Salvador and you know what's going on down there they took all the gang members they threw them into this huge prison

they're torturing the fuck out of them it's horrible like I I would never want that to happen to America but you know you talk to the locals there and they're like oh yeah my dad was a bus driver and a bunch of 16 year old kids took him off a bus robbed him and shot him to death right on his bus route and they're like fuck them they deserve to so humans haven't evolved yet to the point where we don't want

some kind of retribution. But, you know. Got it. But the issue is, see, that 16-year-old that makes that rational, irrational decision

is the product of something else. Totally. Right? It's the product of... There you go. There you go. POE. Shout out to Jim Jones.

As long as you have environments that are under- funded, under privilege, ghettos, slums, hoods. It's always going to produce

criminals, crime, gangs. Right? So that irrational decision that the 16thold makes is the byproduct of the pain he already been in. This action now that he makes now,

but the root of the problem is the environment. Because guess what? We 30 years past that, right from my time. Yeah. But we still have the same issues now. I know. You go up to the Bronx. They're doing the same shit you guys were doing in Brooklyn.

It's the same thing. Yeah. Why you shoot them? I go to the jails now. I go to the jails and I speak to the kids and he looked lost and I feel for him because I understand what it felt like to be lost. I know what it is to not have. any aspirations, any dreams, any, any, any, any, any, any focus.

Yeah. Anything beyond just what's right in front of you that day? Right, right, right. I'm so blessed because I had the opportunity to do these things. But when I say, I say, damn, what are we going to do, right? Locking everybody up, locking all the kids up behind their actions is, it's not getting to the root of the problem. I agree. That's a whole other conversation.

So you robbed the shit out of this guy with a broken leg. Did you have a broken leg? Yeah. That a cast on leg, yeah, definitely at this time. When you did the robbery? Like I said, it wasn't a robbery. It was a taking. Right, it was kidnapping.

And I was involved in it. So I was a part of, I would say a unit of people that actually we did that. So yeah, definitely. And how did he tell on you guys? How did the case? No, we just, it was stupidity. We make phone calls from our landline that actually was, they had something back then. The calls was over, I think, a minute.

They can use something that had this technology called. I think it was a trap, trap where they get the number and run it back the address. Yeah, so that was how that went. They weren't tapping your phones or anything like that. No, no, no. The phones wasn't tapped, but you made the phone call for us. certain level of length of time. They were able to trace that back and get the address.

Yeah. That's how we found out the hallway. That's wild. Yeah. Yeah. They can like rewind the phone call almost. Yeah, it was actually able to do that. Wow.

Wow. So, and how did they, how did the law get the drop on you? Like, how do they figure out about this? I just told you. I know, but how to did, how to dude? Oh, you know what I'm saying? Family. Yeah.

Oh, I see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So even though we asked them for keys and shit like that, they was like, we're going of the law. Even back then, drug dealers were calling the police. I don't know if the people we were talking to would actually drug dealers or they were just family members. I want to say that they, it was a drug dealing family. That's just what I believe. So you guys were just snatching a dude that you thought had money

in getting ransom? No, he was a drug dealer. Okay. Right. A thousand percent. Okay. And that actually helped the case for me because he had been caught with bricks of cocaine before.

So it wasn't like some random God. I never had a crime against random people. You know what I'm saying? Like, it was still in the realms of the street. So which to me felt like it's okay for us to do this. Right, right. It's all in the streets. It's all fair.

It's all fair. So, but his family obviously didn't give the money up, didn't give the keys up, Right. Called the cops. Right. And they was listening. Yeah. Okay.

So you and how many other people went down? Me and one. Okay. Right. Did you have a criminal record before this? Yes. Yeah. For what?

Cunning. Robberies. Yeah. Drugs. Mm-hmm. So you have a lengthy rap sheet already by 17. Had you done any time? DFI.

Which is like the youth, youth authority? Division for you. Okay. And what was that like? Nothing. Easy? Prepared. All right.

You're prepared. So I had one co-defendant, which is my god, Mo Dog, that actually, I told you he got shot. And then I had another co-defendant, but he was on another indictment because he didn't get caught at the same time.

So he wound up getting locked up late on. So yeah. So, but this is your first case as an adult? They tried you at 17? No. No. I had a gun charge. already. I actually had a gun charge already at the same time pending.

Oh, I see. Okay. Okay. So the DA wants you. They look at that rap sheet and they say, I don't think I was specific. I don't think that they had any specific issue for me. When you got your sentencing, did that come into play? Yeah, because I probably could have got less time if I didn't have, you know, prior, like a prior felony. So those are actually the only two felonies I have. One gun charge and a kidnapping charge. Right. Okay.

So did you take it to trial or was it? No, I pleaded it out to 5 to 15. Okay. Five to 15. So you can, in your mind, you're like, wow, okay, I can be out in five if I behave myself. But that wasn't easy to do. So did you go to Rikers? They shoot you at Rikers?

I wasn't Rikers the whole time for a year. Waiting to adjudicate it. Yeah. So I was in Rikers, C-75. 4 billion adolescents Right Okay

That must have been What the Rikis? Yeah C74 Was it what Was it rough? Yeah Yeah It was super rough

Yeah Yeah This is before like cameras Or anything like that No cameras No cameras You can have Jury

You can have All the clothes that you wore from outside. So if you have jewelry, there must have been dudes robbing other inmates for their jewelry. People was robbing people for their shoes.

What size of your shoes, right? Absolutely. Shirts, hats, hoodies, jackets, pants, boots, sneakers. Everything.

It's wild. Everything. Did you, when you go in there, do you have like a Brooklyn clay Like before the Bloods were on Rikers and controlling everything, who did you? So by the time I get locked up, I'm pretty popular in my neighborhood already. As far as, as reputation. Yeah, like I'm a pretty popular young guy in my direct neighborhood.

I'm popular. So, yeah, is Brooklyn Click? I knew a lot of people. You know, a lot of people knew me So, yeah, I was And then I got right with whatever the motion was Like, so I kind of just got right with it, you know This is the error when everybody was cutting

And I kind of got right into it, you know You know, give me a razor I need a razor, oh word, I get razors in here Call a girl up, yo, bring me a box of razors You know, just sneaking, putting the black tape over and going in a visit, getting the box of raises. I'm coming back. I'm on, and the homies.

You know, everybody getting raises, you know, we ain't getting busy. So I kind of got right with the environment. Yeah. Right into the motion. That was the easiest. To me, when I first got locked up, what I noticed was the guys that were, did time the best, were the guys that just didn't feel bad for themselves that just got right with the environment. Yeah, I got right into it.

I didn't should have been paying attention in my case or whatever but like I'm saying you're young young and this is where

the wind is pushing you right so all the guys that I know from the streets they're in there getting you know they're getting busy you know

they ain't going for nothing they ain't having it and I want to be able to be the same way that I was in the street right so we was in the street doing shit

I'm gonna come here now and then what just that niggas had away with me right nah I'm not doing that you can get your pants taken

never did you see guys get victimized like that guys that didn't want to get down I didn't even get down like get down like be with the shit have a fucking ox on them

you didn't you didn't get in victimized because you didn't want to have a razor or ox or a weapon you didn't get victimized for that you might have got victimized

for having something that somebody wanted nobody cared if you had a raise on that. Did you ever get tested? Of course. You get tested, solid test. The whole environment is a test.

Did you ever have to, did you ever give somebody the buck 50? Plenty. Wow. Holy shit. Yeah. Plenty. That is wild. Plenty times.

Yeah. Yeah. Damn. And you got, did you get one? I got cut. I remember when you first got, on in rap. I remember that big buck 50 scar.

I think it was more pronounced. And I was like the first thing I thought was, man, that's good marketing. Good marketing. Because he was really about it. It was, you know, it's proof. Yeah. Was that on Rikers when you were fighting your case? That happened upstate.

Okay. You know, so you go from Rikers and you get sentenced. And then you go upstate to do your time. Same thing. You still at war. You know, you still. into it. And yeah, I got a, I got cut.

I did a lot of cutting. So I've always looked at that as I just got one cut out of the cutting that I did or the activities that I was involved in. Right. It ain't, it ain't nothing. It's kind of like your case. You're like, I just got one case.

I did a lot of robberies. I did a lot of shit. And I ain't just say he was robberies. I did a lot of things through it. Just leave it there. By the way, I know these are prying questions. This is why I have the best show in the space. So you're doing great.

Don't worry about it. We're going to go viral. Yeah, that's, so you're on there for a year. And did you ever get like sent to the hole, the shoe? I spent most of my time now. Even on Rikers. Just for being an instigator and a cutter and a fighter and a fighter? Yeah, just.

being in the shit just being into things being into things getting caught with things you know being in the shit yeah so I was so out of the 12 months that I was on Rikers Island

I was in the Bing because they called it the Bing back then out of the 12 months I was in Rikers Island I was in the Bing nine months total of nine months so I was only ever in population

three months and that was in spurts 15 days here two weeks here. Right. You know, so. They'd let you out finally

and you would get in trouble again just immediately. They didn't let me out by mistake before. That was the greatest time. They let me out by the being by mistake. I'll never forget that day.

I was a sixth law of bin. He was like, Corman. Back up. I was like, what? Back up. And I was so nervous.

I was so fucking nervous because I'm like, man, at any second, they're going to say, get the fuck back in the cell. and they really sent me out and put me in Mar 9 and I had the time of my life

oh my God but I only lasted what 15 days or something like that and then what happened? I was getting in the shit man I had I remember I went once I was a chap or snatches got chain and then was wearing it I think I went back to the being over something that happened in the reception area.

I think it was a guy. I want to say he had an issue with my co-defendant. I want to say he had an issue with him. And then I saw him. And I was coming back from court. And I didn't have a raise on him. He saw that was like a pen. and I used that.

I used the pen. I remember trying to, trying to, like, stabbing with it in it. So, you know, remember those big pens that was clear. And then you would see that the ink tube, the tube, the little black tube that was in there. So I went to, like, kind of, like, stabbing with it,

and he blocked it with his hand. And I kept, but I just noticed that, the pen part was in his hand, stuck in his hand, and all I had was an empty little tube. There was nothing, like, you know. But, yeah, I think I went back to the Bing for that. And wound up never getting back out to Bing, yeah. So you got your sentence from the Bing?

Yeah. Like you went to court. Yeah. I went to court. And then when I got up state, I was getting in trouble there. and I was spending a lot of time in a box. So you got sentenced to 5 to 15.

Were you the first person in your family to get like a long prison sentence like that? And your father's gone at this point. Your mother can't imagine she's delighted. Right. She's devastated. You go up, what do you think to yourself? Five to 15?

Like in Oregon where I'm from, there is no 1 to 20. 5 to 15, it's just your time and you do 85% of it. It's like the feds. But in New York, yeah, like, they give you an opportunity to change yourself and be

on good behavior and get out, like, with a lot less time. But going into a 5 to 15 stretch, are you thinking I'm trying to get all my good time? Or are you saying, fuck it? I'll max out if I want to. No, I never had that. I never had that mentality.

Like, fuck it, I'm just going to max out. I'm just going to do, no, I ain't even going to oversell you some gangster shit because that never was me. I wanted to get out. I wanted to go home. I always wanted to go home. I felt like when I got the 5 to 15, I felt like, yeah, I'm going home in five years. I'm going home in five years.

That's what I always felt like. That's what I told, you know, the girls that would come see me, yeah, I'll be home in four more years. So all I got is four years. I'll be home. Now, what I'm saying and what my actions are doing then always coincide. And that is what the problem is.

Because although in theory I'm saying, yeah, I'm going to go up north. I'm going to chill out. I'm going to do my bed, smooth. I ain't getting in more trouble. I always wanted to be that. But I just always was getting in trouble back then. You know, it was always one thing or another.

You know, and mostly I say it was mostly my fault. Pride again, you know, and then me always being involved with things, maybe I shouldn't be doing. I shouldn't be selling drugs in jail. I shouldn't be robbing in jail. I shouldn't be taking shit in jail. I shouldn't be doing all this, but I'm doing it. I'm doing it.

Did you have any beefs that you had in the street or in Rikers that caught up with you when you were in prison? Like anything that carried over? From where? From Rikers? Yeah. Or the street. Anybody you robbed, anybody that you slashed, anybody that you had beef with, that then you had to like...

A lot of jail beef, definitely. Yeah. You know, because that travels and it continues to go on. You know? Yeah. We 30 years past all that and people still talk about my jail beef, which is ludicrous. crystal makers. We didn't we didn't spend

you know summer nights on beaches somewhere with multiple women like we live in life like when we talk about jailbeats like you know um but when you were in prison though did your Rikers uh

how you got busy on Rikers did that give you a reputation when you got to prison? Like did that make you official? Yeah I was cool. Definitely was cool. I definitely was cool. I had a name I was cool.

You were selling drugs? Where in New York State prison were you? Katzaki, Elmira, I was in Elmira twice, Clinton, Comstock, Auburn. I was in over 10 different prisons. Wow, in 10 years. 10 years. And some of those prisons I was in twice. That's the hardest way to do prisons having to go to a new joint.

Well, it was kind of, that is funny because it was easier to me. Because I never spent, I was never. I was never in one prison for two years. So you thought it like broke it up? It did. You did. But then you got to make new friends and... I was popular.

You got to redecorate? You know, I was, yeah, you got to redecorate. I was always on the move, though. I was always on the move. So I was, I was on a tour. Yeah. Right? I was always moving around, always, you know, getting packed up,

getting kicked out the population, put in the box, whatever. Like anything. How many hole shots did you have in 10 years? Whole shots, what you mean? Yeah. Like getting taken out of population, putting it in, going to the hole. I spent all together a total of maybe about four years. Yeah, all together.

Out of 10 years? Yeah. In the hole, in solitary. Yeah. And what is solitary like in New York? Are you on a solitary wing with other people? Like, are you in cells next to other dudes? Or you by yourself?

You got whole jails, prisons that's just the box. Right. Like Southport is just a box. Holy shit. Just the whole prison is S-HU. Wow. What was like the longest amount of time consecutively? One year was the longest I ever done.

So I do a year here, seven months here, six months here. And what would you go to the hole for a year for? Cutting. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Cutting somebody, yeah. Yeah, was that the buck 50 or is that different in when you're in prison? Was that like the slash?

Slash. Yeah. Cut is a slash. And are you trying to kill people with the slash or is that just a maiming like, it's like punching somebody? What are you really trying to do? It's a good question. What are you really trying to do? I don't really know.

We call the razor tag. Now, now, I'm like, check. Technically, is it painful? I don't know if you're causing somebody great pain, right? But maybe it's something about opening his face, right? Something about walking up to somebody and slashing him in his face with a razor and seeing him bleed. There's something about that that is maybe like, I don't know, conquering in the act.

Is he going to die from it? No, probably not, unless you. mess, hit an artery or some crazy shit, but no. Is he in great pain? Probably not physically. Right? What do you really, like, that's a good question.

It's humiliated though. Is he? Anybody can get cut? You're not a, you're not a, you're not a weak person because you get cut. You're not a sucker because you got cut because somebody

might have come up behind you and cut you or whatever. Like, you're not, that doesn't define you in a, in a weak way. It sounds almost like a more gangster way of just punching somebody in the face. But we just take it a little.

It's a lot more. It's a lot more to it, though. Like, you actually open in this guy's face, he has to go through a process and get stitched or stapled or whatever. You know? So, yeah, I don't know what, you really technically getting out of the fact

that you just want to hurt him in some kind of way and then you know the fact that you put that scar on his face. So for the rest of life, he's going to remember him. He's going to remember you. You scarred him. When you got hit, do you remember the dude to this day who cut you? I cut him. He cut me back. Oh, it was a fair one.

What you mean? Oh, it was at the same time. Or he got you later. He got me later. Yeah, he got me later. I was in a bar, but I was getting a haircut. Yeah, he got me later. He came up to you all.

you're in the barber chair. Fuck. And this was on Rikers? No, this is a Comstock. Now, did that? I must have shocked you. Did it? It's shocking.

But it happened. And then, yeah, I mean, tell us, you have to go to medical and get, like, real stitches, or how deep did it get? I don't think, 57 stitches. So, like, it seems, the way you guys describe it, you're like, oh, yeah, it's kind of like a ride of passage.

You know, everybody gets razor-tagged. But 57 stitches, that's serious. So it was from like near the tip of my nose, but you can't see it up here no more all the way back. But the thing is this. You cannot be in a particular life and expect not to be affected by it in some form of way. Right?

You can't be out here shooting dudes for 10, 50s. 18 years straight and then don't expect to get shot, shot at, shot back. Right. This, it comes with the territory. You can't cry about it later on. Like, oh, I cut somebody even somebody cut me back. Okay, it happens. It happens.

You're not an innocent bystand. It's not like, my story is not like I was in jail and I was chilling out of nowhere. Somebody just came and cut me. I don't know what happened. I don't know why. I was just chilling. No, I'm not no innocent.

Oh, man. I don't think anybody thinks. you're innocent. Don't, yeah. I'm just saying, like, so it's just like. So you were able to accept your lumps. I accept my losses. I accept my scars.

I accept my pain. I accept everything because it's all part of the journey. Right? I never had all the answers. I was a young nigga that was lost. For lack of better words, I was lost. I'm out here trying to find my way. and my way just happened to be a way of the street, of crime, of violence, of drugs, of whatever,

which led me to prison, which was another version of that, right? Violence, you know, ego, pride, confusion, right? Pain, all of these things, not knowing... How to not knowing how to really resolve issues, you know, as a man would now. You know? Yeah. Yeah, you didn't know how to talk out your feelings, talk out your problems, your issues. Or just let certain things go.

Right. It's all good. We'll let that go. Look how easy that is. It's easy. It's easy. Compared to getting a fucking razor. Right.

Now it is. So I caused myself a lot of, a lot of issues, a lot of trouble. Okay, so you do four years total in the hole out of 10. First of all, psychologically, what did you do to keep from going crazy, four months in, six months in, a year into the hole? There's only so much you can jerk off. Did a lot of jerk off. Right.

Yeah. Did you go left hand? Did you try offhand? It's impossible. No, I'm just jiggly right here But yeah It's Not much you could do, right?

So you sleep Doing push-ups Reading a book, writing a letter Writing poetry Doing whatever you Whatever you are When did his rap Still not even entered your

So rap came then Being in one of my box stents So the time that I did a year The time that I did 12 months is when rap came to me. Right. Did you have an inspiration? Yeah.

The inspiration was other guys rapping. It was a Friday night. I tell a story all the time and how I was just sitting back and relax. Mine in my business. And then I heard guys rapping. So I was in Southport. The whole prison is a box.

You got 21 sales on each gallery. Okay, so I was one of the 21 sales. And I remember guys in the back rapping. And it was just, for some reason, that night just sounded magical. I've seen dudes rap in the yard, seeing dudes rapping their cells, I've seen dudes rap in the gym. I've seen rap in jail. And I never was affected by it.

I was like, all right, cool, okay? I just come by, listen to them. Oh, that's dope, cool, right? But just one night, just one night on Friday, I heard dudes rapping. And I was just like, damn, that shit sound good.

Damn. And I said to myself, right down and there, I say, yo, when I get up in the morning, I'm going to write me a rap. And I got up the next morning, and I wrote me a rap. I wrote a rhyme. Do you remember it?

I don't remember. the words, so to speak, but I remember what the context of it was, and the context, it was some stressed out, you know, I'm in the cell, living in hell,

you know, it was something like that. Yeah. It was, you know, it was something, you know, of that context.

I bet you were proud of it, though. I didn't know if it was good, right? I didn't, I'm just like, it's just good. Like, you know,

I don't rap. Like, I'm not a rapper. I'm just, putting my feelings, you know, and the thing was, it felt good to do to have some sort of release that was something different than I'd normally ever done. I had been going in the box for a long time now.

Right. I'm in the box again. This is basically what I do, right? But this is different. I wasn't in there writing rhymes. So I wrote me in rhyme, and I'm just like, yo. So I remember the guy was a porter. The reporter is the person that he let out to sell

to help mop, you know, right? Orderlies. Yeah, so my man's smooth. I was like, yo, you come and listen to this. And he said, all right, let me hear it. I was like, yo, I read it to him. He was like, oh, that's all right, I like it. I said, all right.

I was like, word, that was the first time I ever felt any bit of, you know, confidence. So I was like, word, you like it? And he was like, yeah. So at that point for me, I just wanted to do it. just to help pass the time. And were you writing? At that time, yeah, I was writing it down.

Because you're known for people that aren't familiar with Mano. He's probably most famous for making rap without writing it down. No, Jay-Z, he done that. A lot of super big artists do that. Okay, let's talk about that, though, because I want to get to that. You said something really profound. You said this is the first time I felt confident doing something. You couldn't pick that up from hearing your stories from the street.

from Rikers from jail. It seems like you had the most confidence. Confidence in the wrong way. Not confidence in like something creative. Right? Were you, were you, it seems like this might have been the first time in your life where you were almost self-conscious of a thing.

Because art is self-conscious, you know? It is self-conscious. And then I had to deal with the way I felt, right? About myself. Yeah. So how did I feel about myself? I felt maybe I was, a gangster.

I was a I'm a gangster. Like I don't I ain't a rapper. So what did that look like in this era? That arrow, that era rapping ass, nigga.

Right? So that was a I was very self-conscious about that to the point where it's I didn't want to let people hear me rap. So when I got out the box, I had been writing rhymes

for the last seven, eight months. But was I, Broadcasting it, I didn't want to be the do in the yard rapping and all that because I looked at, you know, that might be mistaken as being not vulnerable. Right. Not gangster. Right. You entertainment to niggas. Right.

And I ain't even want to be misconstrued with that. So it was a lot of stuff that I was going through internally about that. And then the biggest thing above all anything was the fact that I refused to tell anybody in the street. Now, I had a lot of support from the street. You know, my friends would come see me. My, like, my girls, the girls that I dealt with, they would all come see me. So I was always fortunate. I always had stuff.

I always had visits. I was always taking care. Right. I would not tell nobody. Nobody. Because you got to understand what that looked like in this era. Nobody. Nobody had done a gang of time.

and went home and became a successful rapper yet. That had not happened yet. That had not happened that. We've seen, you know, artists that had been to jail and stuff like that and came, like, we knew artists been to jail before. But it's like, I wasn't a rapper to begin with. And you're doing hard time. You're not just going to jail. You're doing three, four years.

No, you're doing hard time with lifers. Right. Dude's getting cut. Right. I'm doing rough time. I'm in the box all the time. I'm at the bottom of the world. Right.

So if life is a totem pole, prison is at the bottom, right? What is S.HU? What is the bottom of the prison? It's the bottom of the totem pole. It's a box within a box. Right. So if we're already at the bottom floor, this must be the basement. So in everything that they, everything that New York State has,

everything that they built in New York State to punish you in prison every sort of cell that they got built I've been in everything they built to punish you, everything. And your good time, how to explain how you lose it. Like obviously it's, yeah,

explain how you saw your good time five years turned into 10 years. because getting in trouble So you In my mind I want to go home in five years I always felt like I'd be home You know but again Getting in this shit

In and out the box Now fast forward I go to my first parole board With my institutional record It's like It's laughable like You think you're going home Chill out, get out of there

Go write some more raps Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Pretty much. Like, you know, I didn't have a chance. Like for when you got sent to the hole for a year for slashing that dude, how much good time on that did you lose? So I didn't lose. So you got to understand the indeterminate census is that New York State.

So it wasn't about the good time. What it was about was how much time you. got to parole, meaning. I had 5 to 15, meaning I was eligible for parole in 5. I can go home in 5. But if I'm fucking up, that 5 can easy turn to 7. Now, what they have in New York State is conditional release, meaning is I can, they got to let me out in 10, as long as I don't lose a lot of good time, meaning like,

See, it's hard to describe. Like, I wasn't losing a lot of good time. I wasn't losing a lot of good time. I was just not making it bored. Right. I was just not making a board. So just for cutting somebody, I mean, yeah, it's terrible. You've got to spend a year isolated, but you could still be out in 10.

Right. I lost maybe total 90 days a good time. I mean, dude, if you were in like a small state, you would have got recharged. I didn't recharge. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Over what? Can you explain that?

I think I blew trial to a razor. Yeah. Meaning you... That's wild. The meaning you went to trial over a razor? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They charged you would just have them? I had an assault, right? So they charged cuttings and anything you do to somebody as an assault.

So I beat whatever that was and had a... a possession charge and I had a judge trial and yeah, I lost. And they gave me six months for that. So did they run that concurrent with your kidnapping sentence? Okay. So, all right, but all in all, getting out in 10 with your record, your behavior, To me, it could have been worse. Right.

I didn't do no complaining. Right. I was not doing no complaining. I think that's the key. It seems like you have this just embedded in you is an ability to kind of just roll with it. Right. Especially if I know that whatever I'm rolling with is based off my actions. But a lot of people don't have that.

How many people in prison are like, man, I don't ain't supposed to be here? I felt that way for a while. Yeah, but those is, that's, that's, that's like a delusion. It's a victim mentality. You, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you're, like, like, we got to pay for the shit we did, like, mm-hmm, like, we're not blaming nobody else for what we done. Yeah.

All right. I've made my life harder. So I got a man up. Mm-hmm. Whether it's coming to prison, going to the box, whatever it is, these are the decisions that I made and I got, and I got a man up. Mm-hmm. these are the decisions that I made and I got to stand on it like yeah you have you have a soldier's mentality

and it seems like it's just baked into the cake right where some people have to learn it yeah to their detriment though don't learn it too late you know don't spend your life being playing victim and then you losing out just accept who you are accept what you are and what you're not

period yeah okay so So how long into your, before you get paroled, how long have you been rapping? By the time I got paroled? Oh, a few years now. So are you getting good? Yeah, yeah. I think I'm getting good.

Are you getting known around the institutions as a rapper? No, not like that. No, I'm getting more confident, right? So I'm not going to say that I didn't get to the point where I wasn't rapping. and, you know, I didn't rap in the yard. I did. You know, I wanted to test it out. I wanted, you know, I got to that point where I wanted to rap.

I got confident. I started to feel like that. Was I, I felt like I was really good. Yeah, I felt like I was good. I felt like, but what I really felt like, I wanted to go home and do it. Yeah. I wanted to go home and give this a try. That was what I was really feeling.

I was more or less scheming on that. the idea of going home and becoming an artist. And I would sit back in a day room and I would watch 106 in Park and RAPCity. And I would see myself there. Literally like, man, I want to do that. I would see Cameron and Jader Kissing of Lox and Jaru and Hove and DMX. And I would be like, yo, I'm coming home to do that. Like, I had my mom made up.

Yeah. These are dudes from your neighborhoods, from, shared the same experiences from your era. And this is when New York hip hop is like just dominating the world. Right. Late 90s, early 2000s? Late 90s, yeah. What year did you come home? So I originally came home in 2001.

Okay. I came home September 2001. That's a rough month to come home. Right after, right after 9-11. originally. But I was home only for five months, and then I went back to do another year because I had a violation.

Why'd you violate it? I went to go see my guy. I went to go visit him. I see. And that's just a felon. You're just not supposed to be. Okay. Where was he?

He was in another prison. What the prison was at? I forgot what you were out there. But I wasn't supposed to go up there. I went up there to visit him. On a Sunday, I went to Peru. rope on a Tuesday

and he asked me how my weekend was. I told him it was cool. He said what you do? I said I ain't do much. I was chilling. He said stand up. As he said stand up. All them busting

their hands behind your back. It's like, oh my God. I wanted to cry. I'm going back to jail. I just did all the time. I'm going back. Over a fucking humble. And I didn't even commit a crime This is not even a crime

I just went I'm a real guy I'm a real nigga I just went to go see my dog Oh my God That's I'm keeping it real I just went to go see my guy Like I'm supposed to do that

I'm supposed to do that That is fucked up And I went back for that And then let me tell you That was the realest Most depressing time I've ever I think

my violation, so we talk about my ability to accept things and stuff like that and the role with it. But in my violation for some reason I had it bothered me more than doing time the first time because for once I was

I was outside doing things I had elevated in my life I felt like now I got a car I had my little Lexus in my Lexus truck. I got a girl. You know, I got things going on. You got some goals. I got stuff going on.

I had made my first CD. It was Hustle Hard Entertainment Presents Maineau. First CD. And you're still writing? No, I did this when I was home. That's what I mean. When you got home, your first CD, were you still writing lyrics? Yeah, yeah.

I was, no, no, I wasn't writing them no more. Like, I was doing it in my head. But I had recorded and I recorded the first CD We got it all pressed up You know, had my jewel cases and everything We was outside, you know With the CDs dropping them off and everything So I was on my way where I felt like

Then I go back to jail And I'm in there and I'm just so depressed Like this has got to be the end of the world for me I'm never going to make it ever And I remember people saying Man, it get greater later champion I'm like hell no It ain't never like why me?

Like what the fuck? I did everything right. I just went to see my nigger and he locking me up. And I had made some alliances when I was home. So they give you a hearing to see if they're going to actually send you back up north or if they're going to give you another chance. So if they give you another chance, they call it revoke and restore. we're going to give you another shot.

So I had a lawyer, right? And then I went and got these letters from Foxy brother. He said, you wrote me a letter. Foxy Brown's brother. Rossy Brown was Gavin. And to this day, I love him to this day because that meant so much to me. It had the logo at the top, right? And it talked, you know, Germain, you know, was outside, you know, becoming artists, right?

And I had a letter from Jay Records. My uncle had got me that letter from a guy, Richard Palmisi. I never forget his name. And he sent me a letter. And I went into that, and I had my CD. And I went in there and I said, you look, I'm outside doing something. he'll these letters from the music business. I'm not signed yet,

but this is what I was actually doing. Here's my CD. And he looked at that and the judge, and he was like, I said, you know, I just, I went up there out of, I didn't know that I could not do that. Right?

But at the same time, it's not like I, I'm not trying to commit a crime. Like, this is what I'm trying to do. Yeah. And he said, all right, you know what? I respect that. He gave me revoke him or something.

store. I won. I won. Do you understand how happy I was? So they wanted to give you... Listen, listen. I had been in jail almost three months by this time. Almost, about two months. I won the hearing. They said, okay, revoke him a store. They stamped the paperwork, a sign. They said, in two weeks, you're going home. Two weeks. I waited every day.

I'm on the phone. I'll be back. You know what I mean? Yo, it's on. It's on. Call your girl. Hey, get ready. We get ready.

Everything is on. It's up. Like, I'm coming home. We're getting back to it. Slow two months ain't nothing. And then the two weeks started to tick. And the two weeks came. And they never called my name.

They never called my name. And the time just kept going by. ever called my name and I call home. My brother 80 told me, he said, you know, people ain't letting you go, bro. He said, what? He said, yeah, Albany reversed that decision. What? You got a year.

Wow. Oh, my God. You talk about depressed. I got a year. He said, yeah, they wanted to give you two, but they gave you a year, bro. You got to, you're going up north. Call my girl at the time. She told me.

she's pregnant. What? It's like, man, I ain't never going to make it, man. I ain't never going to be nothing in my life ever going to be nothing. That's crazy. Somebody at the capital of the state was like, wait a minute, this guy. Yeah, so proudly, you know, they had to go through another channel. That had to be, like, approved, like, okay, all the paperwork from New York come up there.

They had to stamp it and be like, okay, cool. They had to sign off on it or whatever. Somebody saw that and was like, oh, hell no, fuck him. Give him another year. A year? 12 months, you're taking more time out of my life for what? Crazy. I didn't, like, it's not that, like, is it that bad?

It's not that serious. You're talking about a level of depression. I couldn't talk, I couldn't eat, I didn't want nothing. I just felt so bad. And the first time of my life, I read. really got I talk about this moment that I was in and it wasn't I wasn't I wasn't I wasn't a real dark place because I felt like I was it wasn't just doing the time it was the fact that I felt like I was going to be a failure that I was never ever going to amount to anything all this

rap dream shit all this shit about going home being it it ain't going to happen bro you want to because my biggest fear was to be one of those dude one of those dudes one of those dudes that always came in and out of prison for the rest of his life. That was my biggest fear. I never wanted to be that. I always looked at doing my time as I'm just passing through. Yeah, sure, I've been here eight, nine years, and I get in trouble with the rest of them, but I ain't no jail, nigga.

I ain't going to be no jail, nigga. I ain't never, I ain't never going to be no jail, nigga. And plus, now you've lived in that little five months time. Now, I've lived more in that five months than I had lived ever in my life. Yeah. And I'm honest, I had lived more in that five months than I ever lived in my life, in my entire life. Yeah. So it's real hard to go back when you got something going on on the streets.

If you see a comfortable dude in jail who's having fun, that guy ain't got shit going on. I was so pressed, man. Where did you do the rest of your, that parole violation? They sent me to a place called Go on. I've heard of it. Yeah. And it was, I think there was an old hospital that they turned into a prison. And what was cool about that is that they had rooms. And I was, they had like six-man rooms, eight-man rooms.

And then I was for some reason lucky to end up in a two-man room. I just had, it was just me and one other person. Were you writing? No. I was that depressed that I couldn't. I ain't write no rhymes. I ain't never going to be no rapper. So you kind of gave up in your mind.

I gave up. I gave up. Damn, that's hard. I gave up. And now there's like all these bloods that are in the system now and you got to watch everybody getting slashed and killed. It's like, I wasn't worried about that. Yeah.

I wasn't worrying about so much of the prison action or whatever. Like, I can handle myself in that aspect. But I didn't want to get in no trouble neither. So I was just trying to chill out, stay out the way. And then get back home. But I was depressed. I was depressed because I just felt like this was the end of the road. But I snapped out of it as I got shorter.

My son was born while I was there. And I started to come out of that hole I was in. I started to write again. I started to get the feeling back. I started to start planning in my mind about what I was going to do. I started to really get. excited about it at some point, you know? So you got out in 2003?

Yeah, for the last time. March 5th. March 5th, 2003, the last time, Mano, Jermaine, Mano saw the inside of a facility. Yeah. Voluntarily. Involuntarily. I got out. Yeah, I got out.

Yeah, I got out. I took a plane home. Yeah. I was out of here. Okay. So I think the first, you really blew up in, what, 2009? 2008 is when my first. real single came out

and it was just high hater. Yeah. So yeah, I get out in 2003, 2008 is when, you know, my first real single come out. But I've had, you know, some moments prior to that. The song that actually got me on was a song called Rumors. That was 2005. That got me signs at Universal back then. Okay. So, so yeah, explain, you know, just real quickly,

how, I mean, it was such a different time, 2003. There was still the CD game. 50 cents was all over, mixed tapes were huge. And DVDs. So I got into this mixtape circuit, but then it was something that was on a rise back then, which was the DVD game. The DVD game was something like a visual mixtape where it was like, now you're getting rappers, you know, we're shooting,

videos on the DVDs. Like it was the, you know, it was different. So you smack DVD, cocaine city to come up, this one, that one. Like, you know, and to be on the DVDs, like people starting to see you. Like, oh, man, I know you from the DVDs. So it was like, I was getting popular from being on the DVDs. Right. Wow.

Mm-hmm. And then YouTube started to get bigger around 2005. And so people would take, people would cut those DVDs and then put them on YouTube. And that's how guys like me, college kids at the time, got introduced to a lot of these underground rappers. I think before YouTube I'd be, it was MySpace that was like popping. Everybody was on MySpace. Yeah.

You know, DVDs, MySpace. And then I think YouTube was there, but I don't know if we were really in tone with it, you know, as much. Were you starting to pop in New York? So the thing about the DVDs is that they, the DVD distribution was so crazy that you could you would be in Atlanta and in somebody would be like yo I know you I've seen you on such and such and it felt good I met I met T.I that way right in fact that he had seen me on a DVD you know I was a I was a one of the I was a fixture in the DVD circuit I was one of the I was one of the I was one

of the guys that was always on the DVDs, you know. Yeah, I had met two change that way, too, back then. You had seen me, you know, that joint. Yeah, I seen you on that. It's crazy. So I had met people, and they would know me from being on in the circuit at that point, you know. And so you're getting better and you're putting out more material. What was, what year did you feel like, oh, I'm like a professional?

Like I found my voice. No, I never felt. I don't think that you could call yourself a profession, especially back then until you had a, at that point, I mean, it's different now, but a major record deal. Right. Then you can say you're a professional. Yeah.

Right now, we just, we're trying to make it happen. We're trying to get hurt. We're trying to get out there. Right. But until a major record label actually says you're good enough for us to invest in to spend money on and put you out and to help see you become a star or whatever, then you just, you know. You're a hustler.

Yeah. Trying to get on. Yeah. And for you, that was Universal Music in 2005? Universal. Motown Universal. Oh, okay. And, yeah, I want to say, yeah, January, 2005.

Wow, a 20-year anniversary you just had. Yeah. So how much was that deal worth? I want to say all together about 700,000 maybe. Because it was, I think, at that point, just the typical artist deal, right? Meaning most of that is the budget, you know, out of that. I think my advance was only about 75,000, which was decent for just for not having like a super cosine or whatever, you know. So out of that, I remember they gave me 50 up front, but then the lawyers, so I ended up with 30-something.

And then I had 25,000 in payments for a few months. it was like 3,000 a month for a few months or whatever. Yeah, so that's how it works. So when people say, oh, my deal was a million dollars, you didn't get a million dollars. But the deal was about, yeah, I think $600,000, you know, all together. And were you, did you learn, how did you learn the business? Because so many rappers, so many artists just got fucking raked over the coals

by these predatory, you know, record companies throughout the years, right? Like, did you, were you pretty, did you have a good business sense to, like, not spend your advance or to, you know, budget everything properly? No, I'm not going to say that, but I will say that. The music business is not designed to make artists wealthy. I don't think nobody's recording deal is designed that way, because if you look at how recording deal is structured, it's almost important. Like, how am you going to get rich off this? So, you know, when we talk about this one get jerked, that one get jerked, I think that everybody had a, for lack of better terms,

not so good record contract, you know. I could think maybe based off of what was, you know, my second record contract was with Atlantic, I got, you know, like 150,000 or something like that. For my pocket, it was a bigger deal. It was, you know, I think in the room, almost that, maybe it was, we could say it was fair, but what's fair, are we really going to get rich of this? No.

You get rich by becoming, well, how do you get rich today and back then as a rapper? Obviously, ticket shows live sales, right? That's the live performance. Becoming a brand. That is the key. Yeah. To increase your value to the point where you are walking money, basically. You know, whether it's selling merch, live shows or tours, everything, brand partnerships. You know, when we talk about brand partnerships, we talk about we've seen this morning. Chanel just made Kendrick Lamar, the ambassador.

That is huge, right? Chanel, which don't even probably even step into the urban space and definitely not with males. Right. Right. Right. So those are all of the things that lend towards you actually becoming, you know, financially secure. It's building the brand. That is it.

It's the brand. You know, you have to be valuable to people who want to do business with you on all levels. Yeah. I think Spotify streams, though. I think artists can make money off streaming now. What? You know how much money? You know how many streams it take to make some real money?

Like we get streamed we do We do pretty well as a podcast Now maybe it's different Why I don't know why it'd be different with music Why not? Because you're going through a record company Right and that's why I think Independent is the way that cats are going now

Yeah and if you if you If you encoded the record yourself That's the whole other talk though Okay so why did it take you I first heard of you in 2009 I'll never forget you because that was the height of my drug dealing. That's when I was like really on.

Extra drug dealer here. So yeah, that's how the whole show started. Right. So just me talking about that. And people be like, nah, not him.

Yeah, it was you and Rick Ross. You guys were just popping that summer. The summer of 2009, God damn, I felt good. I was driving a Dodge Charger or was it a Magnum?

You really there right now. Yeah, I am there, dude. I'm there. I'm thinking about just hundreds of thousands of dollars. In that charger right now. You're thinking about it. Bro, I had the, I had like the phone that popped out. This is before the smartphone, but like, I can't remember.

It wasn't a razor. But I was living, dude. He was living. And so why did it take you four years after your first universal deal to kind of like really break out to the masses? Everything takes time. Of course. You know, this music thing is not a.

overnight thing. So I got signed in maybe 2005, right? Early 2005, they wound up dropping me in 2007. No, yeah, roughly 2007, early 2007. I wound up signing to Atlantic the same year. But I didn't come out to next year, to 2008. So everything is just part of, it's a process. Right.

You know, we were working. We were pushing, but it was just a process. And you have, like, lots of mixtapes. Yeah. You only have two albums. Well. Too fully... Is that a misnomer?

Yeah, because the line between what we call a mixtape and a project, somewhere along the line, it got blurred. Mix tapes used to be where we took people's beats and wrapped over them. But I've been stopped doing mixed tapes. Almost everything I put out is. an album, right? So, K-O-B,

one, two, three, and four those are albums. The project Lobby Boys with Jim Jones, that's an album. That's your newest thing, right? No, that came out.

That's one of my newest thing. It came out in 22. Okay. Yeah, so we formed the group Lobby Boys. And, yeah, that's an album. Yeah, you shit is really good.

Like it's really good. Thank you. So, I don't know. Maybe you just got to update your Wikipedia page. No, that's, you know what? Maybe you're right. Maybe we should update that.

They call them. They call them. They call them. I shouldn't know mixtape because I tell people all the time that like, when you say mixtape, that almost felt like a throwaway. I don't like the message that that even sends.

We ain't making no mixtapes. Right. You're putting real equity. And if we actually paying for samples, but then what? How is that a mixtape? This is what I'm telling you. Samples and it's coming through a record label,

it's coming through distribution. Call it a project if you want. Call it out. Like, call it whatever you want to call it. Don't call it no mixtape. Yeah, you're not taking other people's beats for free and wrapping over. That day over with. That been over with.

Right. No, we go on the studio and making real songs. Are you, you think it's a better time now, to be a rapper, to be what, I don't want to call you an underground rapper, but to be this provincial rapper, this real New York

New York, what is that? Regional kind of, Jesus, now I'm scared. No, that's up. Well, do you know what, middle class, you're a middle class rapper. Middle class rapper. Right? What does that mean?

Meaning like you're not, somebody who's not a superstar. Somebody who's not Kendrick, but somebody who's clearly not a mixtape rapper, like that guy... Right, in the middle. In the middle that's eaten. Right.

Right. Like, it's living. Exactly. Exactly. Is that... Is it a better time to be that guy now than it was back in 2005? Like, are more rappers able to eat now

without having to be, like, giant stars? Yeah. Yeah, you don't... Like, because what's the truth of the matter? The truth in the matter is that we're not going to all be Drake. We're not going to all be Kendrake. You're not going to all be Kanye, right? Or Hove or whoever.

But that doesn't prevent us from making a living. And that's the name of the game. That doesn't prevent us from building brands. That doesn't prevent us from doing business. That doesn't prevent us from doing all of the things that we want to do, right, in our realm, right? And the possibilities to do business and to partner up with brands and to do so many things. I'm doing more now than I've ever been doing. Dude, you're working.

Right. And the only, the, so when you think about, when you say like regional, right, I've had music that took me across the world. Right?

So we got to understand that my biggest song is all the above. Like we've traveled. That wasn't regional. Right. Right. Do I wish I had 20 more of those? Absolutely.

But everything don't go the way we want it to go, right? And people need to understand that hit records are not just made. They actually market it. And there's a lot to go behind the songs that you're hearing, you know, 30 times a day. Do you consciously sit down sometimes with your team and say, let's make a hit? like not something that you necessarily want to do like for the hip hop heads like me you're obviously putting out that fucking

we want that gutter Brooklyn drug dealing shit but then do you say okay let's try to I don't make no gutter no I make music for whatever for whoever I make fun music I'm not the song that I got out now

was a fun song it's called Shade Room you know we just did the remix with Remy Ma it's it's that's fun right right that's party that's you know we have a

good time, which is a part of my lifestyle. It's a hit to me. Right. But what you got to understand is that the textures of the song, when you hear it, may sound like a hit, but if I don't have the resources of $200,000, $300,000 and a record company to go behind it, then it might not live up to what the potential of it is. So that's when I say, hit record. records are not made. They are marketed.

Right. It's a machine. You got to pay to get those put on every radio station. You know, it's, it's, it's, niggas is not winning just because they better. Right. That's a fact. You're not winning just because it's just that good. You know what I mean?

So every record has to have a plan. It has to have resources. It has to have. a certain level of commitment for it to be where it needs to go. Right. Right. Everything is up for sale.

Right? So these top 20s, top 10s, top 15s, like, it's not just because it's that good. No, most of it is not. Yeah. So when you don't, the general public don't know that, though. So when you don't have that, it may feel like, I don't hear your shit

because your shit just not that good and that's not true. No, not at all. It's not true. The same is the truth, true with comedy. I mean, because that's my background

is stand-up comedy. That's what I started doing when I got out of jail. I moved to L.A. and I started doing stand-up comedy. This podcast ship came later, but yeah, usually the guy that everybody loves

is pretty fucking unfunny. Because the masses of people are, you know, pretty, fat and stupid. Right? So, but there's so much money now

to get on the internet from building a brand that you might have never heard of a comedian, but he sells out. He's making 50 G's a weekend. There you go. So that's the thing.

Bill your brand. No matter what it in it. It's a great time. It's a great time. And it doesn't have to be rap. How many people that we watch build brands and they're not rapping?

They're not rapping. You don't have to wrap. Well, you, well, before we plug your shit, But I just want to talk about you, the process. Because you're right. Jay-Z was the first one to kind of popularize. Like, I just go into the booth with a concept and I just rap.

Right. How true is that? Yeah, I believe that. But the thing about that is when I was doing that, I was in prison. And I thought I was the only person in the world. I did that. So then when I read the magazine said that he did that, oh, shit. Wow.

I thought that I was the only person. in the world I did that. Wow. Yeah. Because at that time, like, I never seen nobody not, I was just laying on my bed thinking of raps, and then I wouldn't write them down. Okay, so then, but songs still have to have like 16 bars

broken up by... We wasn't doing, I was just, we just, we just, wow, wow west, you're just rapping. Right. But now, but now that you're on, and there's studio time you've got to pay for, and there's the engineer, the beatmaker, how do you continue to

wrap without writing anything down, but also organize them and compress them into 16 beats or 16 bars before? You know what I mean? Without writing it down is the same thing as writing it down. You're just holding it in your mind. So there's no difference. That's incredible. It's the same thing. There's no difference. Because you think of thought and then you just write it down, right?

So imagine thinking and thought and just holding it right there. It's the same thing. But you can compress that into a neat 16 bars when you need it to be? Yeah, or sometimes I do this. Sometimes I think of, because every song is not going to be 16 bars. Some bars might be 12,

some songs that's 12 bars. A song I got out now, probably rap only eight bars, but whatever it is. Or it could be longer. Fucking 64 bar, like whatever, right? Yeah. So sometimes I,

my process is I, I do eight, ten bars or whatever I got in my head right now. Now I go record. it. And I listen to it and come back and I build from that. And I build on it. Right. You know, I might record the first, you know, four bars, you know, first eight bars. And then I build from that. That's incredible to me. It's like, you know, I smoke a lot of weed. I can't remember anything.

Oh, see, that's the thing. You can't remember. Wow. Wow. And that's been your process since what year? Day one. Since I got out. Crazy. Crazy. Have you met your, have you met the other Brooklyn guys? Have you met J? Have you met? Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. What's, uh, your proudest accomplishment in your rap career these last 20 years, 22 years? Oh man. Just being able to turn the narrative around and making my mother, my mother having an opportunity to see me turn that around. Yeah. Right. Seeing me doing something with my life, something different. Because. I never, no matter what, even to this day, I never saw this. I never saw this. Like, never, still to this day, I'm like, man, fucking rapper.

Like, people can't take pictures of me? I never saw this. I never saw this because I still reflect on being young and confused and not having direction, which is so important, right? And not having an outlet, I didn't know what I was feeling. Right. I still reflect on that so much so that when I think about how far I came, it's just still unbelievable to me. Yeah, you're grateful. Super grateful.

And you were that guy in the yard embarrassed to tell motherfuckers that you were rapping. Right. I just didn't even want to, didn't want to tell nobody. You know, I always think about, like, what if I tell somebody I rap? if I told one of my homies over the phone, you know, I'm rapping now. You know what he was going to say to me? You ain't no rap homie. You know, I am.

And then I was so delicate in my mind and so not confident and secure about rap that I would have said, you know what you're right. I'm not. And we wouldn't be talking to me right now. Yeah. Well, you push through, man. Your longevity.

is rare. That's another thing that really stands out is like you've always kept, because I go in and out of like going deep into rap, but your name's always been there. Right, right, right, right. And I really think you're in New York, you're one of New York's finest when it comes to rap, bro. Thank you. And Robin. Robin. Oh, Robin, man. Tell us, tell us about your, tell us, yeah, plug away. Tell us about your Instagram, your podcast that you do on High Heart, all of that stuff. I do, I do, um, I do the show with Angela Yee sometimes on um on power on a five that's our heart it's called the way up way up with Angela Yee and I come down and we make it fun it's it's dope it's a super dope show but that's radio it's a syndicated show in about 50 markets so it's big radio it's not like you know some local thing and um and they they take the footage and running it as a podcast you know but I got a lot going on man so just you know a lot of TV things and it works my is coming out very, very soon. It's called All the Freedom, which I'm very, very proud of

this because we talked a lot about what I went through, you know, going to prison, getting out of prison, right? But so this is my views. This is my philosophy on what I feel like are the steps to be successful at staying free. Right? So I wanted to give back and have something for the guys that are either just getting out of prison. or about to get out of prison. So now they got this book. It's not a big book. And they got something that can actually, you know, read a chapter a day,

you know, just some inspiration, some motivation on, you know, how to continuously have the thought in your mind to own who you are and stay free, man. And persistence. 100 million percent. I heard that quote from like a CEO. He might have been like Ray Kroc, the guy. guy who franchised McDonald's, you might have said that. Like, the ability to just stay consistent and persistent goes way further than talent. That's right.

Oh. Right? Consistency going to be talent any day. Any day. It's dudes that I know for a fact were better than me in prison. A rapping. Yes. Wow.

Yes. Yes. Wow. But didn't have the ability to get out here. and stay committed to what it takes to become an artist. You can rap, but becoming an artist is something totally different. So I was persistent on what I wanted to do. I was consistent on where I needed to be.

So that's a difference. You know, I've seen dudes that I felt like deserve, you know, a shot, you know. And it's a, it's probably like a, like a small crime that they didn't get a chance to actually, you know, have a shot. Yeah. It's, I don't know how you teach the strength that you have. Just that, that ability to just go and live in the moment and go day by day by day moving towards your goals. It takes a lot of strength. I don't even know that I have it.

I don't have whatever this is, this is calm zay. then power that you have. I don't know how you teach people that. Because this is something you're born with. But I'm going to read your book because I want to see if I can learn how to harness some of that power. Right, right. Really, that's what power is.

It's not taking somebody's chain. It's the ability to stand as a man firmly on the earth and not be swayed about by by life, the winds of life. Right. Because it's going to be so many things that have tried to knock you off your course. whether that's temptation, whether that's greed, whether that's, you know, thinking that, you know, there's a shortcut, whatever it is. Yeah.

Steady your course. Well. Keep moving, you know, and, but a lot of that also is being honest with who you are. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And that's okay if it takes time for people to figure that out. It's okay.

Hustle Hard, Mano. Mato Hustle Hustle Hustle Hard on Instagram. That's where you're always promoting all your shit. So we'll put links to the radio show to your, yeah, all your links and all your shit. And let's go back to Brooklyn sometime, dude.

Let's do it. Do you, let me ask you this. Do you, if you went to Brooklyn now, you would probably pass like a vegan restaurant and you're like, oh, I shot somebody right there. Does that blow your mind? Absolutely. Funny thing, I was thinking about that the other day.

I was thinking about it was so I go to Brooklyn. You know, we was on, you know, I ride bikes. Right. Yeah. So, you know, and a lot of times when I'm riding, you know, you might not know it's me because I keep the full face mask on, my glasses on. So you might not notice me, you know, and I came through it. It was a corner of murdering notion. I remember, you know, having a shootout there before.

So, but the thing is, I come to Brooklyn. The city gave me my own day, right? So, Mayno Day. Last year, it was the first, you know, the first annual Mayo Day last year and it was really, really dope. Over 2,000 people outside.

It was so cool. I'm talking about blocks blocked off. I got stuff for the kids, rides, bouncy houses, roller coasters. Then on the other end, I got a stage for the local artists. I got give-backs. I got just a festival style

give back to the community. Really, really, really, really, really dope. Yeah, really dope. It must feel good. It feels really good. So we're doing it again this year. So I don't know if you're in town, but it'll be really dope. What day is?

It's really dope. August 16. Yeah, I might be here. I'm here every month for a week. So if I'm here, I'll pull up. Say it. Say it. Say less.

Right. All right, Mayno. Well, I appreciate you. Thanks for taking a chance in some weird white guys podcast. Hey. It's all good. I appreciate it. So good.

Mano, hustle hard. Hustle hard. And we'll catch you guys on the flip side. Thank you so much. Did you know if your windows are bare, indoor temperatures can go up 20 degrees? Turn the temperature down with Blinds.com and get up to 50% off custom window treatments like solar roller shades and more during the Memorial Day mega sale. Whether you want to DIY it or have a pro-handle everything, we've got you.

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