How did the 904 Click get started?
Back in 95, it was me and my brothers Adam and Vic. That was the original 904 Click. My brother [Adam] got shot, and the police tried to say it was suicide. He had just copped some work and then a couple hours later he in a hotel with his brains blowed out. The police said that the way the bullet entered his head, he had to have shot himself. But everybody who was there skipped town, and the work wasn’t there when the police searched the room so I guess they took that too.
How old were you? How did it affect you?
I was fourteen at the time. I mean, you know how it is in Jacksonville. Shit like that happens all the time, but when it happens to your own brother, it hits home. The shit ain’t even seem real. I remember one time after that, some older niggas had tried us in the mall and I went to call my brother. I forgot he was dead. I mean, the rap shit really died down after that. In ‘99 I graduated [high school]. I had a basketball scholarship to SUNY-Delhi in New York, and my momma really wanted me to go. It’s way upstate, but all the niggas who went there were from the city. That’s why I’ve got a lot of people in New York. Every nigga on the team was majoring in P.E. (laughing). I was missin’ class every morning, but you know how it is. If you playing sports, the teachers look out for you. Anyway, I was up there playin’ ball but I left in the middle of the season cause my brother convinced me to come back home. He was like, “Come on, we got some paper, we been on the grind, we gon’ start up this rap shit again.” I came back during Christmas break the first year I was up there.
What happened after you came back home?
Shit was poppin’. That’s when [Universal A&R] Tye Dash came down and saw us at this little club we had with [Cool Runnings DJ] Billy [“Bigga”] Rankins. They were playing our song on the radio, everything was poppin’. Tye said Dreamworks wanted to fuck with us, but they were talkin’ about some small-ass paper so my brother turned it down. We were getting limos every weekend to drive us around, trying to promote this shit. These bitch ass niggas really thought we were ballin’. My brother [Vic] had broke up with his girlfriend so we moved into these apartments on the South side. We hadn’t been there for even two weeks, and it was my brother’s fuckin’ birthday. Billy was throwing a party for him and we were performing. Me and my cousin Rico were leaving the house, but my brother and the other CEO of the label, Matt, stayed behind. We got to the club like twenty minutes later. My phone had been ringin’, and when I got the club I overheard my homeboy on the phone saying, “Vic got shot?” I’m like, “What? Nigga, we just left the house.” It happened five minutes after we left. I always answered the door back then, so I always wondered if it was meant for me. Them niggas knocked on the door and asked for some other name, and my brother was like, “Nah, he don’t live here.” They tried to open the door. My brother is a tall, skinny nigga, but he’s strong. He put his back to the door, tryin’ to hold them niggas out. The door slammed on the nigga’s arm while he was tryin’ to get his gun out. These pussy ass niggas just decided to shoot cause they couldn’t get what they wanted, so they shot through the door and it hit him in his back. Then they ran out like some bitches. They didn’t even get shit, so what was the point? That’s how shit is in Jacksonville. Niggas be watchin’ to see what you’ve got.
Did your brother Vic survive the shooting?
He’s paralyzed from the waist down, and he can never walk again. Billy shut the whole club down that night. That was the first time in eleven years he’d ever shut the club down early. They all came over to the hospital. That was some real-ass shit, that’s why I’ll always respect Billy. His brother had got shot back in the day, so he was somebody I could relate to and talk to. He came and said some good words, and it made me feel a little better.
Why do you think Jacksonville is so rough?
I don’t know. There’s just a lot of hate. Nobody wants to see somebody else doing better than them. I don’t know if it’s like that everywhere, but that’s definitely how it is here. I get a lot of respect now because niggas seen my brother get shot, and I still push him in a wheelchair wherever we go. People ask me why I carry so many guns, well, that’s the reason. That shit could happen at any time. It coulda been me. I was in the hospital every day with my brother. He wasn’t even coherent at first, like, “Yo, where my motorcycle at?” Talking crazy shit; that went on for at least a month. I couldn’t deal with it. He had a traech in his throat, he’d be leaving ten minute messages askin’ me to come up there. I hate hospitals. After he got coherent, he was real depressed. He wasn’t going to rehab, none of that shit. My stepdad let us move into his house, so there I am, an 18-year-old nigga having to take care of a grown man. You know how nurses have to wipe people’s asses and all that? I had to do all that shit for my brother. My momma and my aunt helped out, but most of the time, it was just me and him.
What happened with your rap career?
He got shot on October 11th, 2000, so for two years after that we was chillin’. We did put the album out, though, The Last Days. Everybody loved that album. We had the 5th Ward Boyz on there. I think we sold around 3,000 copies, just in this little area. We ain’t really push it nowhere else. We started getting shit crackin’ back in 2002 when we did the remix to our single “Love to Ball” with [Thrill da Playa of the 69 Boyz]. Ever since then, a nigga been tryin’ to get back on the grind. We got a couple new members, like a white cat named SJ. That’s my dawg, he grew up with me. Everybody used to be telling me to go solo back in the day, but at the time I ain’t really feel I was ready. I was young. I been soaking up the game, I’ve been on the grind making my own connects and I’ve learned a lot. Rapping is just easy to me. I ain’t really have no problems with other group members hating, cause they knew this is me and my brother’s dream from the beginning.
As a solo artist, do you feel pressure to succeed on behalf of your brothers?
I wouldn’t say pressure, but at first I was a little scared. It’s hard to be doing this shit by yourself. There’s pressure when you’re doing a whole album by yourself. When you’re in a group, it’s way easier. Originally it was me and my brothers and my cousin Rico. After my brothers got shot and Rico just faded away, we had another cat who came in, but it still ain’t feel like the ol’ 904 Click. I wasn’t really vibin’ with the new cats too well.
When you decided to call it 904 Click, were you worried about being limited to Jacksonville?
We wasn’t even thinkin’ about it getting that big at the time, we just wanted to take over our little area and represent Jacksonville. Niggas don’t rep Jacksonville except [Thrill]. Only problem we had was around the time my brother got shot, some niggas came out with 904 Records. Their group actually had a different name, but 904 Records was the name of their label so it caused conflicts when promoters were trying to book us. But I’m cool with some of them niggas, so it’s all good.
But you’re a solo artist now: Young Cash?
Yep, that’s me. I still rep 904 Click cause I’m the only original 904 Click member, I just went solo.
What other artists have you worked with?
I fuck with 5th Ward Boyz, some older cats from Houston. I’ve done tracks with Mike Jones, Webbie, and Bun B, and as a group we did a song with Lil Boosie. Mannie Fresh dropped a track for me.
Jacksonville always seems to be the first city in Florida that’s up on underground rappers.
In Jacksonville, we super thug. Anything that’s hard and underground, that’s what the niggas here are feelin’. Like, B.G. could come to Jacksonville and have a show bigger than Juvenile cause he’s super, super street, and niggas here love that shit. (Upstart Record Pool owner Dereck Washington interjects, “Plus, our radio station here is so far behind in their programming that the majority of the time, people here listen to CDs.”)
Wasn’t there an incident a few years ago between 904 Click and Clear Channel?
Clear Channel, man, they be trippin’. They play the same thing over and over and over. They act like they wanna show the locals some love, but they don’t show love. There was some major shit that went down when we got into it with them. [Clear Channel’s annual] Come Together Day was right when we dropped our single, “Man.” This was in 2003. There was a new station that had just cranked up, 105.7, and they were bumpin’ our shit like six, seven, eight times a day. [Clear Channel station WJBT] wasn’t even playin’ our shit. So we were performing, and one of my homeboys said, “We wanna thank 105.7 for playin’ our shit.” They cut our mics off and blackballed us like a muthafucker after that. [TJ’s DJ’s Record Pool owner] TJ [Chapman] called us right after we left like, “Man, y’all fucked up.” And the nigga that said it was one of the new members of the group, so he didn’t really know all the politics. He didn’t really understand that it was a Clear Channel event, but it looked like we did the shit on purpose so we had to stand by what was said. But, they wasn’t showin’ a nigga no love anyway, so what did we have to lose? Anyway, now that I’m doing the solo shit, I’m tryin’ to leave that behind.
Doc Wynter, who’s responsible for controlling nationwide urban playlists for Clear Channel, is based right here in Jacksonville.
I don’t know what to say about that cat. They needed another artist for [Come Together Day 2004] and our name came up. From what I was told, [Doc Wynter] said, “Is that them cats that said something about that other radio station last year? Fuck them niggas.” I don’t know if he really said that shit or not, but that’s what I was told. And a lot of radio jocks be hatin’ too. Like, G Wiz – I don’t give a fuck, I’ll put his name out there – he was like, “904 Click need to go back to sellin’ crack.” If you black and you from the hood, everybody been in the game. I don’t give a fuck who you are. Everybody got a story to tell. Just like 8Ball say, “Everybody know everybody done sold a lil’ dope.” That ain’t shit. Just cause you sell dope, that don’t make you a real nigga. Real niggas do real things. You judge a nigga by how he handle certain situations. Look at Ja Rule. Them niggas are millionaires, and the Feds still tryin’ to get them boys. You’ve gotta take that money and put it into something positive. Most of the niggas in the game are fake, so they’ve got a nigga on they team doing dirt to make them look real. That’s how niggas get caught up. Real niggas know how to put their money into some legal shit and make it pop. But in Duval [County], some niggas, that’s all they live for - just to sell dope. I don’t understand that. If you ain’t got no muthafuckin’ plan and you just sellin’ dope for no reason, what is your purpose? You’ll die doing that shit, cause that’s the only way out. Dying or going to jail, one of the two.
Do you agree with the theory that the rap game is the dope game?
I guess being robbed and shot in the dope game is equivalent to being in the rap game and getting jerked with a bad record deal, so it’s kinda the same thing. They do it with a gun in the dope game and with a pen in the rap game.
Have you been talking to any labels?
I ain’t really tryin’ to put no names out there, but they been hollerin’. They know that we had shit poppin’ until my brother got shot. They hear my shit and they think it’s tight. I’m still fuckin’ with Tye Dash, that’s my nigga even if I ain’t rappin’. I don’t even wanna fuck with Universal cause they’re like a Velcro label. They just throw you out there to see if you stick, and if your shit fall off you’ll get dropped. Unless you Nelly. (laughing)
So what’s your plan right now?
To do it independently and get some numbers so they’ll come hollerin’. And even if they don’t, we’ll still make this money. We’re getting spins right now on WJBT’s mixshow for “Gimme a Bottle,” the new single.
Do you wanna give any shoutouts?
To my family, my brother Vic, Matt a.k.a. Lil Man, everybody in the 904 Click, Dereck Washington at Upstart Entertainment and Record Pool, Bigga Rankins and the Cool Runnings Crew – Bigga Rankins been showin’ me love ever since I first met him on Florida Ave. when I was eighteen – Levi Jordan a.k.a. The Boss, my nigga Tye Dash in NY, my homegirl Renee in ATL with Infinity Productions, my nigga Karim in ATL, all the DJs that fuck with me in Duval, and the Hittmenn DJs. My Texas family: my niggas T Farris, Mike Jones, and PaulWall, and the legend Bun B. TJ’s DJ’s, my tattoo artist Eric, my street team in Duval (Swole Dogg, Mike Mike, Mario Andretti, Smallwood, and K Black), my hype man Midget Mac, and all the real niggas in the struggle in Jacksonville. And I can’t forget my girl JB who be on the grind more than all you niggas claiming y’all grindin’! R.I.P. to all the niggas who didn’t make it to 2005. And I been peepin’ game from my nigga Mike Jones: if y’all wanna holla at me, call me at 904-622-6229.
