It seems like a requirement for rappers to be former crack dealers.
I’ll give you my personal experience with crack. I sold crack for probably two days, and that’s it. That’s all it took for me to learn. It’s like this: anything that has to do with crack, coke, heroin, is a fucked-up game. I’ll tell you why. I bought myself some yay. I gave it to my dawg that lived on the same floor as me. “Oh, I got you. I’ll teach you how to cook this up.” Cool. He took it. This is how bad crack does people, though. See, I’m lookin’ out for this dude. Lettin’ him eat, whatever. At the same time, he’s supposed to be lookin’ out for me, teaching me how to do the shit. Now, first of all, it’s the worst muthafuckin’ smell when you cookin’ that shit up, right? Number two, he took it and whupped me for my own shit. Since I was a newcomer, like 17, he knew that the stuff that was left at the bottom, he could take it and whip it and make almost a whole ‘nother cookie off the shit. So I’m basically letting this nigga get down on my operation, but since he knew I’m a rookie, he whupped me for my shit. So that’s one strike already, that’s letting me know that I don’t need to be in this game. You already see that people you think you can trust are whuppin’ you from the jump. So I told him to hold the stash for me so my mother wouldn’t see me with the shit. My mother ain’t no dummy, she knows what time it is. She caught me with all types of shit. She threw me out the house like three days later. She ain’t even find no crack or coke, she just found the baggie. She knew that I sold weed, she ain’t care about weed. Weed, to her, should be legalized. She knew I sold weed and she done caught me selling acid before, too. She took that shit and flushed it. So she already knew that I’m always doing some shit, but I was trying to be smart about it. So I go back and tell him, “Yo, dawg, let me get that stash.” I already had people ready to buy. I lived in South Miami Heights at the time, and I was peepin’ game. You had three buildings: A, B, and C. I lived in building C, and A was making a killing. So this guy gives me back like a quarter of what he was really supposed to give me. But me being a rookie, I really didn’t know that shit. Later on, I put the puzzle together. I was like, “Yo, dawg, this shit should be coming back more.” I knew it was some raw shit. So he told me his nephew flushed the rest down the toilet. Oh really? Mind you, this nigga lives on the same floor as me, so I really can’t do no crazy shit ‘cause we know each other. So I come to find out that this muthafucker smoked my shit. I didn’t know he smoked. He was on the low with the shit! So that was strike two: he smoked that shit. Strike three; four o’clock in the morning, these muthafuckers are knocking on my door like, “Yo, we need some shit.” My mother was like, “Who the fuck is that?” So that was it for me. I don’t need to be dealing with this. Fuck this bullshit. Then I seen everybody getting locked up and Jump Out coming around getting everybody.
Describe the typical buyer; is it someone that’s obviously a drug addict, or people that you would never guess?
Oh yeah! You’ve got both. You’ve got muthafuckers that you would never think. But there’s just a certain point where you can just tell. If a person is close to you, there’s warning signs. One: lose weight. Two: lose job. Three: lose personality. Basically lose everything. They look a little dead, you know? But they had people lined up. Everybody. It was so bad, they had grandfathers coming through on bikes that had no wheels, just rims. I didn’t see no pregnant women, thank God. That shit woulda really fucked me up. I seen heroin addicts, too. They’re really fucked up. Always scratchin’ themselves and shit. And crackheads, in Miami when you smoke crack and weed they call ‘em “ginks.” If you smoke crack you start talking all this shit and you think you fuckin’ rule the world. You’ve got a solution to everything. They really don’t know what they’re talking about and they’re just looking for that extra shit. They’ll suck dick, they’ll rob, they’ll do whatever for a hit. They’ll go behind your back and do some shit; that’s one reason rap is like the crack game.
You have a line in one of your songs, “Hustler’s Withdrawal,” that implies that your father was in the drug game also.
My father used to do his thing. My father wasn’t really in my life too much growing up, but I did see that it tore my family apart. He took his money and fuckin’ blew that shit. When I was a baby – you know, I don’t remember the shit – but I seen the pictures. He was livin’ it up. When I was growing up I always seen him with a lot of women, a lot of party stuff going on. It was a lot of crazy shit. They had their own little, uh, party favors and shit.
Was there a certain point where you realized what he was doing?
Oh yeah, I was like six years old. I didn’t realize what he was doing, but I realized it was wrong. I seen the stuff he had on the tables, you know? Y’all could take your imagination and run from there. But I did learn from all that shit. And what’s been instilled in me was his hustle, so in the music game, there it goes again: street game, music game. Same shit.
I heard you comment at your video shoot that you’ve never tried crack because you know you’d get addicted.
Oh yeah. Because of certain things that happened to me before I was born. I had that shit in me, feel me? Me and my father was talking about this shit the other day, as a matter of fact. He was telling me what happened. In the 80’s they were all into that shit, including my mother and father. Since I had that shit in my system, I know if I tried it I would be hooked. Even though the shit now is nothing compared to what it used to be, it’s all stepped on now. Not that I would know from personal experience, but I know.
Did you sell any other drugs?
Well, the two days was just crack. I mean, cocaine was a different story. Yay’s a powder form. Crack is the hard form. You take the yay and cook it up and sell the crack. But you could sell the yay by itself. At the end of the day, it just wasn’t worth it to me. I kept saying to myself, “What, am I going to do this all my life?” I ain’t never really have no job. When I did, I hardly ever showed up. But the drug game, it made me what I am today for this music game. It’s training. You always know you’re gonna get hustled or whupped, that’s how you learn.
Some people say that selling drugs was their only way to survive. But is that really the only option?
Well, here’s what happens in the hood. These muthafuckers run the hood. The drug dealers are the ones you wanna grow up to be like. Some of these muthafuckers have kids in private school with two or three cars and a nice fuckin’ house. Now, that shit makes sense. But standing out on the corner doing this shit and hanging out with your peoples and smokin’ one? That shit don’t make sense to me. That’s the hood. The hood does that to buy some fuckin’ sneakers and shit. There’s always someone who supplies someone, who supplies someone else. So as petty as the shit they pushin’, that’s how petty their mentality is sometimes. Drug dealing is like the NBA draft pick; only certain muthafuckers make it to the league. And when hood muthafuckers see another muthafucker coming up, they connect with him and then they wanna rob him. So that’s why it’s like, “That’s my only option,” cause that’s all you have around you. You’re a product of your environment. You don’t have nobody around you talkin’ about, “Yeah, look at my nice car from my fuckin’ 9-to-5 job.” That’s bullshit. And a hood muthafucker probably couldn’t even get a 9-to-5 if he tried. So you’re a product of your environment.
How does the drug game turn into the murder game?
Look, I’ll tell you what happens, and it’s just like being an artist. Here we go again. Ready guys? Street game, drug game. Similarities. Let’s say an artist gets a little big of money and thinks he’s a superstar. He wants to go to the clubs and fuck the bitches. So what if security stops him at the door? “Dawg, how you tellin’ me I can’t get in the club? I’m fuckin’ Joe Schmoe from the Grove, I’m that muthafucker.” On the other hand, the smart muthafucker that’s got money doesn’t have a lot of jewelry and he’s not flossin’, but niggas know he’s the muthafucker. So if he can’t get in the club, he says, “Aight, no problem, man.” Then he makes a call, asks for a favor, and he’s in. Smart muthafuckers know how to work their way around things. See, what happens is that these muthafuckers push drugs and get they hands on a lil’ bit of money. It’s called “new money.” They buy jewelry, rims, but they’re still stayin’ with their moms at the crib. A dumb muthafucker blows 15k on some stupid shit. A smart muthafucker takes that 15k and buys a low-key car for 5k, invests 5k in realty, and takes the other 5k and flips it. And there are a lot of illegal hustles on the street, but there are also legal hustles. Thank God I had older muthafuckers to teach me this shit, cause if not I’d be one of these ignorant muthafuckers. And most of these problems start and end with women. They get caught up with some women and some shit goes down. God knows who the fuck snitched, but they’re so petty they really don’t know about the law. So the law beats them. “Muthafucker, I’mma give you ten years for this.” And they get scared and snitch. And that’s how it all gets fucked up. On the other hand, the muthafucker that knows what the fuck he’s doing sits there and goes, “Do what you’ve gotta do, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Feel me? ‘Cause he’s on a different level. And that’s basically the rap game. Jigga? He’s on a different level. He knows what the fuck he’s talking about, and he could step into a room full of corporate muthafuckers and talk sophisticated. And even if he don’t talk sophisticated, they have to respect him because this muthafucker knows how to make money, and that’s all they give a fuck about. All you wanna do is make money. They say money is the root of all evil, but where do we all first read, “In God We Trust?” Money.
What do you think of the theory that the United States government introduced crack into the ‘hood?
Oh, they probably did. I don’t doubt that. ‘Cause who the fuck in the hood is gonna be like, “Let me put this shit with some baking soda, cook it up, and see what the fuck I make?” You know? Bullshit. They’ve probably done a lot of shit. The government has done a lot of shit that we don’t know about, but it’s better that way. I don’t think a lot of people could handle that shit. As conservative as all these muthafuckers try to be, they’re the biggest fuckin’ thieves in this muthafucker.
So why do you think so many rappers rhyme about selling crack like it’s a badge of honor or something?
Because they’re fuckin’ idiots. That’s what I’m here to tell these muthafuckers. Think about it like this, right? Look at the Mafia. Look how they move. Everything is silence. Stay quiet about what the fuck you do. The less you talk about what you do, the more you’re gonna get away with.
Based on some of the things people rap about, do you think the police are justified in having “hip-hop cops?”
Oh my God. See, it’s cool to talk about what you’ve been through. But when you start mentioning names, and what those names did, and how they did it, you’re fuckin’ silver-plattering it and shit. You can use shit in a way where it doesn’t incriminate nobody. And it influences people. Even myself, I had a moment in my life where I had entertainment and reality crossed where I’m thinking I really gotta be like these muthafuckers. Going through an identity crisis and shit, where you really don’t know who the fuck you are. But I grew out of it through paying dues, all the bumps in the road that I hit. But it’s like, look, dawg, if you love to sell crack so muthafuckin’ much, why are you rapping? Instead of rapping about how much you love to sell crack, then rap your ass off and go back to the block. No one loves to sell crack! That’s the whole point, that’s why you’re rapping. So you won’t have to sell crack, or whatever the fuck you sell. Muthafuckers don’t just get rich off crack, especially not these days because the product isn’t the same. The crack game is becoming what the rap game is becoming: everybody wants to do it.
Describe the average drug dealer.
The typical dealer is an arrogant-ass muthafucker. Made a little bit of money and thinks he’s on top of the world, basically. I see those with a lot of money that don’t know what to do with it. You’ve got those that slipped through the cracks and stumbled on a great connect, and then they’re so stupid that they fuck up the connect cause they just happened to get all this money in one shot. Then you’ve got those who are laid-back and cool, everybody respect them. Why? Cause they ain’t try to do no dirt to nobody. Good business. Feel me? He takes care of his peoples, comes back and shoots some shit to the people in the neighborhood. Those people are looked up to. Those are the ones that become urban legends, folk tales. And then you’ve got those who don’t know what they fuck they’re doing and they just fuck shit up. And they’re just doing it to be that person. They don’t even need to do it.
How does the drug game affect the rest of the community?
It’s destructive. It’s a domino effect. It goes from the dealer, to the fiend, and then whatever the fiend has to do to get money. They’ll steal from their own family, rob anybody in the neighborhood, and then these cats end up fighting over fiends. The dealers don’t give a fuck what they’re doing to the community. It’s all about making money. If you gotta eat you gotta eat, that’s all they know. Some of these muthafuckers can’t even read or write, but they can sell some shit and make money. They’re hustlers. But that’s why the music game is fucked up like it is right now, cause all these muthafuckers got that street mentality and they just know how to flip shit. Right now it’s saturated. And the rap game is just like the drug game. You’ve got some people that’ll double-cross you real quick, some people that don’t know how to act, people that know how to quadruple their money. Hustlers that can flip shit. But the biggest comparison is that you’re out here trying to get these people hooked on your shit; your product. That’s basically it, in a nutshell.
Without naming any names, have you seen any instances where rappers have destroyed their careers because of drugs?
I haven’t had any personal experiences seeing an artist on that shit, but I’ve heard stories. A lot of these people are on cloud nine and they think it’s never gonna come tumbling down. When it does it fucks them up so bad, mentally and emotionally, that they’ve gotta turn to drugs to think they’re successful again.
Everyone has addictions. What are yours?
My problems are women, and liquor. I’m not an alcoholic, per say. I don’t drink every day, and it’s not like I have to drink when I wake up. But I got alcoholism in my blood, so I know that if I drink and drink and drink, by the time I’m thirty I’m gonna have to have that drink. I try to take it easy with that shit. I already caught a DUI. And groupies, I try to stay away from them because it’s a problem. I’ve had all my fun. I used to go on the road with Luke, I’ve seen a lot of shit. I learned a lot from that muthafucker. I know that pussy makes the world go ‘round, and like I tell women all the time, pussy is powerful. I mean, I fuck around sometimes, but for the most part I just stay to myself. I got a daughter and a son, and a baby mother that I love to death! That’s my heart, but she know I be fuckin’ around and all that bullshit. And at the end of the day, you know what’s gonna happen? Tables turn. Karma. As for these groupies out here, I just let the crew fuck around with ‘em. I think it’s usually the people that’s with the artist that fuck with groupies, just because they know they can fuck whatever’s there. And it’s fun to them. It was fun to me too, at one time. It’d be fun to me if fuckin’ J. Lo gave me a piece of groupie ass, that’d be beautiful.
Your mentality changed?
Oh, of course. Having children makes me go out there with that attitude, you know, it’s like I gotta get this shit. I gotta make this shit happen. And the way I’mma be with my daughter, it’s different. I can’t tell my daughter, “You can’t do this, you can’t do that.” She’s gonna be what she’s gonna be. I can’t ever be mad at her, ‘cause I love her to death. She could turn out to be whatever she wants to be, I just want her to know that I understand. A lot of these women out here, and it’s fucked up, I know a lot of them – even my mother – were raped as young women. Being raped, that lowers their self-esteem. They feel like they’ve been stripped of their value and they just go out looking for love in all the wrong places. All they want is that affection, feel me? I know because of my mother. My mother, to this day, she’s still traumatized by that shit.
What’s your relationship like with your father?
I love my father to death. I talk to my father about everything. My father’s a real father. Not in the sense that he was there throughout my life – ‘cause he wasn’t, he was caught up in his own shit. But he’s a real father in the sense that we can sit down and talk real shit. He talks about what he used to do in the 80’s, I can talk about what I do now and what I used to do to get money and all that shit. You know, we just relate to each other. He sees me as him, back in the day.
Now that you have kids, do you think you’ll be there for them?
Oh fuck. I gotta be there. Because I don’t want them to live like that. I used to hate my father. If it wasn’t for my mother telling me, “Look, he’s sick,” I’d hate that nigga to this muthafuckin’ day. Being an alcoholic is a sickness, and my father was an alcoholic. But the more I grow and learn and work with people and hustle, the more I see that I’m just like him. So I don’t hold no grudge against him. Me, I’m very fortunate and very happy to be raised the way I was raised and live the life that I’ve lived, ‘cause it’s built me. It build my character. A muthafucker can’t tell me shit at the end of the day: I love the fact that my life is the way it is.
If you could change anything, what would you change?
We gotta be more open. Everything is so hush-hush. Some people won’t talk about sex or drugs, like it’s not a part of the real world. A lot of kids’ parents are trying to mold them into these perfect human beings which don’t fuckin’ exist. “Don’t do this, don’t do that.” They should just be honest. Tell ‘em, “I tried that when I was in college, and here’s what happened...” The kids’ll be like, “Oh, shit.” Just let them know that it’s alright to fuck up. But no, we’re trying to breed these perfect human beings. And their son is getting fucked up, fuckin’ everything raw, just to be like, “Fuck my parents.” And the daughter? Oh, God. You don’t even wanna know about the daughter. She’s running around fuckin’ having a great fuckin’ time, like a bird out of the cage. You know?
