Tell me a little about your childhood in Nashville.
Coming up as a child my life wasn’t no different than the average ghetto hood n*gga. I come from a family where it was just me and my sister, and my mother had custody of her sister’s kids. My father was a crack fiend. From day one I had to take over as the man of the house. So I did what I had to do at a very young age to get money. I started selling drugs at the age of 13. I never took to nobody who was younger than me. I always ran with older cats so that’s where you get the name Young Buck. I was one of the youngest n*ggas out there trying to get money with the big boys. They respected me enough to at least allow me to do my thing. From there I used to hustle in the very same spot where my daddy used to smoke his sh*t at. I lived a crazy life. Even before I lived in the projects, I lived in low-income houses around the projects.
How did you meet Juvenile?
By the time I was 16-years-old, I was in the streets, probably doing a little more than the average 16-year-old. One of my partners, Lil Jimmy, he’s in the federal penitentiary right now, he picked up a B.G. Chopper City CD and looked where it said booking information and called. Baby [of Cash Money] picked up the phone. They [CM] came to Nashville and I didn’t make the show but from there, they came back two days later to record in the studio and my homie called me and said come to the studio and I came. Baby said spit something. I ended up rapping and he called Turk into the room. Everybody was there, Juvenile, B.G., Turk, Wayne. Turk started rapping and we started battling. He called Wayne in there. We going at it. I wouldn’t say nobody won. I’ll say I left the situation respected. Cause the next day I got a call from Lil Jimmy saying Baby wanted me to fly down and see about signing me. I left school in the 9th grade and went straight to New Orleans. I would record songs but none of the songs would make any projects that was getting put out. I was getting pushed to the back slowly and watching their careers take off. I spent two years of my life doing that, back and forth from Nashville to New Orleans. In between that time me and Juvenile became close. Me and him would run together when I was there and when I wasn’t with Baby. Most of the time I would just ride around with Baby and he would drop Turk and Wayne off at school sometime. I would sit around with Baby at his office. I was supposed to be in school but I was trying to chase my career. I realized that wouldn’t work. I was 18. I didn’t have any money, traveling back and forth. From there, I was at square one. I went back to Nashville, back to the streets. I ran into Jeff Pringle who had his own independent label called Next Level Records. I was rushing the situation and ended up jumping into a contract that was bogus with dude. Me and my partner D-Tay released a project called Thuggin’ Til The End. It sold about 5-6,000. We would have had to sell 30,000 to see profit. I did what I had to do to get out of that contract. I had learned a lot but I wanted to do it myself. I started doing demos, get homies’ tracks I knew, putting together 12-13 songs, making me a CD. From there I would press up 1,000 CDs for $330 and sell them for $10 a piece. I turned a CITGO gas station into my record store. Right by TSU College. I knew a lot of out-of-towners came to school. I did it like that for a couple of years. Doing whatever to make money. Until I was 21, Buck was on the stroll. By the time I was 21 I got a call from Baby again. He said he wanted to try to make this album with me and his nephew called Headbussas. Here we go. I thought, why not take this shot again? The next day I flew back to New Orleans. A lot of shit changed. The boys had diamonds and cars. I found myself sitting there, two days passed. Three days passed. I’m noticing I ain’t seeing the bond of Juvenile, Wayne, Mannie. I ain’t seen them the whole time since I had got back there. I was trying to figure out what was going on. Four days passed. I made it up in my mind I’m not going to be sitting here like when I was 16. I’m going to head back home. The fourth day I was getting ready to leave and Juvenile pulled up to the office and he said, what you doing here? Juvenile asked if I wanted to take a ride. I jumped in the car. Juvie pulled up in a Rolls Royce, diamonds and all the riches from the game. He looked like he was doing well. I said, last time I saw you, you was in a Blue Camaro with brown railing stripes. He said everything ain’t how it’s looking. He said Baby owe him money. And I looked at the cat like he was the most successful at Cash Money. The more that he told me it added up. He said he was starting his own label, UTP. He took me by his studio to meet Skip, Wacko and Corey C, his artists. He said I can’t promise you nothing but he said I can be heard over here. That’s all I wanted was to be heard. And let the people be the judge of me. I always felt like I had a story to be told. I decided let’s do it. At the time Juvenile was looking to put out Skip. That was his homie. I decided to just roll along and be a part of the situation. Juvie put so much time and money into that project and it didn’t sell so much. And he was trying to get away from Cash Money. He let me know he was getting a little bit unstable with his situation. So I started preparing myself to do other things. He was going back and forth to NY dealing with lawyers at the time. So one day we came to NY and I was playing 50 Cent and the bus driver said he knew how to get at dude. I said I got to meet him. From the beginning me and 50 hit it off. I could never compare our lives. 50 been shot nine times. I been shot twice. 50’s mom is dead. Mine’s still living. 50 don’t know his father. I know mine is a crack fiend. But at the same time I respect we had some of the same struggles. It made me feel that we could have longevity in business with this sh*t. I played records for 50 that I had. One of the records I played for him was later titled “Blood Hound” which was released on his album, “Get Rich Or Die Tryin’.” He bought the record from me and put his twist on it. He just told me if everything happened he would come back and holla at me and give me that shot I always wanted. Guess what happened? He held his word.
What have you learned about the industry from Baby, Juvenile and 50?
I learned never burn no bridges. You never know when you gotta come back and see that same person again. Always be humble about situations. Don’t look for trouble but handle your business when you do have trouble. Sometimes everything that look good ain’t good.
What can we expect from your solo debut, “Straight Out Of Nashville?”
I want to bring that down South feel. Me being the only Southern artist within the group. I wanted to make it a Dirty South/everything else type of album. I reached out to Lil’ Jon, DJ Paul from Three 6 Mafia. I worked with David Banner, Lil’ Flip, T.I. I really think Southern artists are more respected for their slang than lyrical content. I’m lyrical-type artist. So I had to cover everything else. There’s no “Wanna Get To Know You” or Joe-type records. That wasn’t a part of my life. I left the relationship type records out of the picture for now and gave you a harder edge, more of a street-type album.
What are your future plans?
One of the biggest things I wanna do is venture off into acting. I want to start my own label. I’m only one person that made it. I come from a big bubble. When you think of Nashville you think of country music. But when you get there the hip-hop scene overshadows all of that. There’s plenty more Young Bucks where I come from. I’m just one that made it. I want to present more artists in my area to the game.
