How did you come up with the name BloodRaw?
I came up with the name in Holmes County Prison Correctional Facility. Basically, it was already a Florida slang. I used to do a lot of rapping on the rec field. I ran the camp, and older cats were like, “Shawty blood raw.” It grew on me. Blood stands for life, and Raw is just uncut. The truth.
What were you in prison for?
I was in prison for trafficking cocaine for five years and four months. My mother died – I’d never seen my dad before in my life. At first it was just like, a couple [breaking and entering charges] and as I grew I started seeing my friends, age fourteen, fifteen, coming to school fresh. You know, I wanted them thangs. I lived in the house with my grandma. She had five grown kids, plus me and my sister made seven, eight nine people under one roof. I just used to run away. A couple my friends would give me money to watch out for the police, but I wanted to get the real money.
What was the first time you got arrested?
I first seen bars when I was eleven years old. It was a big charge: extortion. I was coming home from school in elementary school, fifth grade. We had this path coming through the trail – it was like a wooden board. It had been raining, and I had new shoes. I wasn’t used to getting new stuff. This kid moved the board, and I fell in the mud. That was serious. I beat him up. I told him, “If you don’t bring me money to pay for my shoes, I’mma beat you up until you do.” I really wasn’t no bully, but my shoes was messed up. They was Pro Keds. I had to stay at the detention center that night until my grandma got me.
Getting into the drug game, did you worry about the consequences?
Not really. At the time, they were giving out so much gain time that I wouldn’t really do no time. I figured I might get a few years.
Did you have any other goals or plans in life?
Nah, I never really had no career goals. But my sister, me and her was like night and day. She was like the perfect school girl. I ain’t really have no dreams until ’98 or ’99, when I got out of prison.
Do you think the prison system is designed more to hurt or help?
I don’t think it’s designed to help somebody, but I think it’s basically up to the individual. You’ve gotta want it for yourself. One thing about temptation, in our world, it’s so easy to be led astray. You don’t even think about going back to prison. You coulda just did ten years, but if you see something you think you’ll get away with it.
What did you spend those five years in prison doing?
When you incarcerated, you just basically working. You get magazine subscriptions, watch TV. They have educational programs, too, I received my GED when I was in prison. The majority of my time actually was cool because I went to a minimum custody camp. I was able to work with free-world people. The only thing that was different was that I didn’t have a female, and I couldn’t hang out. Other than that, I didn’t really feel locked down. The camp is actually right off the highway. It ain’t have no fence or offices around the perimeter with big guns or nothin’ like that. But, I have been to the rough prisons. My first two years was in maximum security. I was in with adults. Sometimes you’ll be brought in through the youthful offender program youth camp, but once you’re tried as an adult like I was, you don’t get sent through them programs.
How old were you when you got out? What did you do?
I was 21. I basically ain’t really have no plans. Luckily, I had a sister that cared enough about me and she was established. She wanted me to move away from Bay County, Panama City. She lived in Atlanta. When I got out I was in Panama City for like 24 hours and then she came and got me. When I moved to Atlanta, I was surrounded by nothing but positive people, so basically I ain’t have no choice. I didn’t know people that was doing wrong. It was like, everybody was willing to help me. And the pay was decent, it wasn’t like I was slaving or working for a low amount.
So after you got out of prison, you started working a regular job?
Actually, I started working with something to do with music. There was this popular spot near Stone Mountain, Hip-Hop Café. My sister had some friends who took me in as family, and basically I helped them create the whole sports bar theme. The Hip-Hop Café, it has 32 TVs, a live DJ, every artist in the game came through. I was bartending there, actually.
When did you start rapping?
I always rapped, probably since back when Tupac first came out, but I never was serious. I never really sat down and said, “This is what I’m gonna do.” I never tried to be creative with it or none of that, I just did it here and there. I actually had like two or three albums in prison. When you’re incarcerated, you don’t really know what’s going on in the free world.
So after you got out of prison, did you consciously decide that you didn’t want to go back, that you wanted to turn your life around?
Oh yeah, I have that mentality. I never want to go back to prison. I never thought I’d go back. But success don’t come overnight. I never thought the music industry would be this hard, neither.
When did you start taking rap seriously?
In 2003 I came back to Florida to work with my group, NFL Ridahz. We did a lot of shows and put out an album independently. We had some creative differences and I decided to work on my solo project. When I came back to Panama City, I actually fell back into the streets. That was my income, that was basically all I knew at the time. I started talking to people who were like, “This is what you need to do: you’ve got the skills, the look, the voice, everything.” I started meeting a lot of people and utilizing them, good folks like different producers who were working with major artists. I stayed friends with everybody I needed to be friends with. My first song really inspired me to stay focused on my solo album. The first song I recorded was with Bread & Water, the in-house producers for Bonecrusher’s label, Break ‘Em Off. “You Don’t Know” is a prison tale of somebody who goes to jail and got an old lady that ain’t stick around.
I’m assuming that’s based on a personal experience, Five years is a long time, though, could you blame her?
Yeah, I could blame her. It’d be different if she tried to break it off and was going about her life. But she was there telling me, “I’mma be there, I love you, I love you.” And I ain’t even mad at her, but you know, I just can’t be with you. Now that I’m out, you wanna be with me? Naw.
So would you wait five years for your girl?
I’d honestly tell her, “I don’t think I’mma be able to wait on you.”
How did you link up with Grandaddy Souf as your former manager?
Grandaddy and I actually did a song together as a group. He started listening to my music and was thinking about managing me. At first, he was like, “I don’t really wanna manage you, just roll with me and everything be straight.” I kept asking him, and basically he just came to me one day and said he would do the management thing. Then we recorded the “Gameroom” song. I was excited. I recorded it in Panama and sent it to him in Memphis, then they added the Three 6 Mafia vocals and the song came out jammin’. Ever since then, wherever he went, he was like, “This is my artist, BloodRaw.” He just showed me a lot of love. But it started getting to the point where I knew he was frustrated with his own label, so I came to him like, you know, handle what you’ve gotta handle. Everything cool with us. C Wakely is my manager now. I had did a song with his group Dirty South Mafia, and we were talking about the management thing. It was my decision, and Grandaddy was like, “If that’s what you want, that’s cool.” It ain’t nothing personal. We still niggas, regardless. We got a project coming up called The Residue.
So are you currently independent? Are you looking for a deal?
Yeah, BloodRaw Entertainment. I’m trying to get whatever’s in my best interest. Whoever I sign to, it’s got to be top-notch. It ain’t got nothing to do with no money, ‘cause I love my music. It’s got to do with my longevity. We’ve got a couple people hollerin’ though. If the labels ain’t talkin’ right, we gonna go ahead and drop the album in June. All the stores, the whole Southeast.
How did you link up with Grandaddy Souf and Pastor Troy for your single, “My Block Burn?”
Me and Grandaddy [Souf] came up with the concept just ridin’ in the car. A lot of people say “my block burn” in Florida, but nobody had put it in a song. We was bobbing our heads to a beat CD and we just said [the hook] at the same time and it fit. Me and [Pastor] Troy had been hollerin’ every time we bumped into each other, like, we gon’ do something together. Actually, my homeboy, a security cat, was in Vegas. He called me telling me about the All Star game, and he was out there with Troy. He put him on the phone, so I was like, “Troy, this BloodRaw out of Florida, I wanna go ahead and get this song done.” So he said, “Hey, man, you know I’m finna shoot my video, so come up to the A.” I was coming up anyway to do a song with Bohagon at Bread & Water’s studio, so that was his homeboys too. We hooked up, everybody was out there. It was all love. Troy came and did his vocals. Ray Seay mixed the vocals in Miami, and it was a wrap.
What’s the meaning behind the name of the album, Everything Look Good Ain’t Good?
For instance, let’s say I got on all this jewelry, I dress nice, I got gold teeth, I ride fancy cars, but I’m broke as hell. You never know. It goes for females too. Just because her body look good and she look nice don’t mean that she what you lookin’ for.
What are your favorite songs on the album?
“Definition of a Real Nigga” is definitely gonna be one of the most anticipated songs on the album. What’s the definition? That’s what I wanna know. I’m tired of people using that word everywhere I go. “I’m real, dawg.” Come on, man, if everybody real, then who’s fake? The definition is big. I can’t even sum it up. It’s basically just somebody that don’t just look at you ‘cause you got money and wanna leach off you. It’s somebody that just do stuff out of love and don’t look for nothing in return, somebody that you know gonna give you they real opinion. They ain’t gonna lie to you and say something sound good and then go around the corner and say, “Man, get that shit outta here!” It’s somebody that could honestly tell you, “Hey, man, go back to the drawing board.” You know, it’s just a whole heap of different things that make you real. And the song about my mama, it’s called, “Miss You.” It is a tribute, but it’s also just BloodRaw dealing with his personal feelings. I feel like I hold a lot of things in, and I express them in my songs. It’s basically a revelation. If you listen to the song you’ll know what I’m talking about. All my songs deal with my emotions. And I ain’t gonna lie and tell you that I always had money. I been broke, my lights been off. I ain’t gonna tell you that I could give you the world. You know, I could do a couple things for you, but I ain’t no bullshitter. I don’t believe in telling you that I’ve got a Bentley or a Jaguar or a 745 when I ride a ’94 Cadillac. It looks like a 2000 (laughing), but you know, I ain’t into lying and blowing things out of proportion.
Any shoutouts you wanna give before we go?
Shoutout to the whole Bangin’ Bay: Panama City, Florida, all the mixtape DJs, all the radio stations, my manager C Wakely, Grandaddy Souf, TJ Chapman, NFL Ridahz, my sister Maja, and the most important person in the world: my son Cypress. Rest In Peace to my mom, my grandma, my aunts, and my uncles. Florida, I got us.
