Conversations About Rappers Part 1

it's gray and it's raining. I oh, it's gonna be cold, and then walking outside and it's still hot. Yeah. Yeah, that's a mental adjustment for me. That humidity out in uh Florida is like crazy. But again, complaining about the weather is a waste of time. Did you um, did you see uh what happened with kid Cutty? Did you watch? It was a short clip about like I watched like Friday night or Saturday morning. It was like he was saying something about, you guys, do any of this again.

I'm leaving it and they did it again and he left. Yeah. I don't know what he was thinking. Um. And it's funny because I was talking to somebody about it, and they were telling me like, uh that him and Kanye are ops, and I'm like, Kanye put Cutty on how the fund would they be ops? And he felt like that matter, Like Kanye went out ahead of time with Dirk and it was like, oh, Kanye, you know, did that on purpose? And I'm like, what's going on today

in society? There's a lot of people that are trying to have a mental ununderstanding of what other human beings are going through without ever asking questions. Like I even noticed that when we watch sports and people will tell you, oh, this person is mentally weak, and I'm like, how would

you know if you never talked to that person. But they were talking about Kanye's motive, about why he didn't headline and why he came out on Dirk set, and then we could talk about cutties mentality or his mental you know, dealing with it and walking on stage. But I'll tell you one thing, walking on stage is the worst thing you could do. Um don't get me wrong. I think we're at this really tender place in society

to where they make cater to your emotions. But for the most part, humanity has shown to be pretty much dicks all the time. Yeah. Yeah, I've been not pleased with how well received a number of athletes over the last couple of years. As who are you know, I'm not gonna do this. I need to take a mental health you know, vacation from whatever. Like what was her name was? Osaka the tennis player? Like, I've been a

test fan for a lot of years. Um, I remember Monica Celli is getting stabbed literally courtside, you know, and coming back and playing, not with the stabbed shoulder, but like once the wound healed, she was playing. She didn't take at the time off from having to recover from being stabbed in the middle of a match. You know. Even Nancy Carrigan came back and got a silver medal after they clipped her leg with the pipe. Yeah, I mean, well, rap is in a weird place. Um, wrap is in

a super weird place. Like hip hop and rap are different. Hip hop is the culture. Rap is the language. M you know what I mean, Like you could sing things in hip hop. I mean you can sing about experiences, you can sing hip hop experiences and it's still be hip hop. But like Nick Dogg a hip hop artist, Yeah, Nate is a hip hop artist and Future is a

hip hop artist. But it's it's weird trying to explain that with every to everybody, right, because what you have now is a generation of kids coming into this genre that they call hip hop and be like, well, I listen to hip hop music, so I'm hip hop and I'm like, that's weird, and I respect it, like I get what they're saying, but it's like, you don't have to be hip hop too, Like I don't know if Dicky Vitale would give a nigga fifty points in the

game or Skip Bayless would give somebody seventy points in the game, Like, you don't have to be, you know, actual player to know the game. But for some reason, I listened to of people who cover hipop and they're like, why cover it? I'm a part of it or I am hip hop, and it's like, no, you cover the culture, right, But I wanted to focus more on the language and the actual people who focus on the language and what's

going on currently. Um, another kid got killed in Florida and people so the way the media outlets reported it, I forgot the kid's name. Um, let me don't be rude first, and we find out because nine fob he was a rapper, all right, Huh he was a rapper, Yeah, exactly, And this is my point, right, Um, he's a rapper. And I hate to do this because I don't like calling people's name, but it's for a greater point. Uh God damn. They got this whole article on him on

Fox News. His name is ROLLI Bands Okay out of Florida, and he posted something on this social media to the effect of, like, my enemies know where I'll be at or where I'm sleeping at. Whenever they're ready, they could come see me. And he died. You know, we got killed within the within you know, a window of that time, five to ten minutes. And everybody assumed that, like his ops followed him on Instagram, as they say, the ops, his opposition followed him on Instagram and decided like, okay,

he's putting that up, let me go kill it. And that's pretty quick. Yeah. I'm like, as somebody who's been a part of the criminal underworld for a lot of years before I started making music, and even during that time, most likely that's not how it goes, you know what I'm saying. Um, and it forced another conversation. Somebody kept asking me, was being a rapper the most dangerous job in the world, And I'm like, like, ideally, it's the easiest job in the world, right to be a rapper.

And I'm like, what you're rapping about is everything, like nobody to come funk you up, watch what you say about people. Did you ever have any of your find yourself in the mix of any rap or hip hop music, general music? Nine? You know basic regular one, seventeenth related ship. You know that that occurred as a result of of your artistic career solely that you were in the mix of that didn't get out really um where you were like this is getting a little temperature in the room,

a little warm. No, I never got that far. But there were certain times, like my neighborhood and a neighborhood that I grew up pretty much like looking up to every g person there. I'm on a part right coolios from onnaport a lot of a lot of niggas I looked up to my whole life, just like my older homes from neighborhood for me, um, they were from monapart compter crypt like it's a really close neighborhood to where I'm from, and they started, you know, my generation or

younger um started. They started having issues over a dice game and it went bad. And even though we pretty much been thinking Steves as long as I could remember, for that time being, it was like problems. I mean, people was getting shot at, people was getting shot. They got bad. The long story short, I had put out that good, and that good became like my biggest party song. And there's a line in the stone where I say, um something about mashing like potatoes or mashing like tatoes.

And I was getting calls from people over there or certain homies that was like, glasses, is this in the

hood and this new song? And I guess culturally that's how you dissed the neighborhoo, which is weird because I've never beef with them as long as I can remember, like since a kid, So I never even knew how to this mo on the park like again, firm, different people, Big Mike, you know so many geez I look up to from over there that I never really realized that's how you dissed them, And uh, it was just weird, And I was like, bro, why would y'all be thinking,

why would y'all be thinking I would be this in y'all community, like in a song about sleeping with girls or a period like like y'all know we know each other our whole life. Why would I Why would I be dissing y'all in a song like I don't care what's going on? Like if that was a real issue, I would see somebody in person and have my issue. I wouldn't make a rap record in like, you know, performing like I don't think that's really the thing for me.

Long story short, it got resolved real fast, But it was just weird to me, um to think that somebody would be thinking I would be thinking about them in a rap record when I'm talking about sleep over women. That it was really strange, was there? Like does your neighborhood really or is it a little too far down the street to have any type of relationship or interaction with Bounty Hunters because like Jay rocks from there and you you have a professional relationship with him, right, Yeah,

I mean we're close enough to have problems. I mean we had social issues before, something with chocolate, something with a couple of homies, but it's always been amicably resolved. I mean it was always resolved in a really you know, excellent manner. You know, Um, really it's some my younger homies got some crazy ship going on, but I'm not tapped into it, you know. I mean, I wouldn't know what the fund is going on, but it wouldn't be

with the Bonny. And it's just always been pretty much fruitful relationship with the Tommies from the pretty much from the Jordan's Downs, Imperial Courts, Nikolason Guards has always been cool. Um, no sense you had to have had a thing was for the pj's. I mean my older homies did, but not my interation like that was like a perpetual thing. Yeah no, no, um, really, most very few gang wars are perpetual like that, Like the sixties and the Eight

Trades are like that kind of situation. But then they'll go it'll it'll be months and close to a year, and nobody may get shot in that incident. What I'm saying, they're not going at it. But then sometimes it heats up and something bad happened and they go at it. But no Sillers gl Peter Bias for me in the spot and we're doing what we do. Um, but I wanted to talk to you about rapping, and I feel

like it's a conversation that needs to be had. Um wrapping is is a particular language that almost anybody could speak. It's not like like hip hop is street urban, right, So that's it's the culture of street urban people, right. And whether you're criminal or not, you know that that lifestyle shaped your life. Like if you listen to Good Kid Man City, it's the exact opposite of maybe my experiences as a participant, but it pretty much shaped his life,

you know, Kendrick's life as an observer. But then there's other genres like what Jack Harlowe is doing, right, which is a level of mainstream rap. And rap is a wide open thing because it's it's as simple as words, being witty with words, but the times when being witty with words can be dangerous. That's what I want to talk to you about. I felt like that was a

conversation that we don't have um right now. Thug is Thug and Gunna and their team is fighting uh a Rico charge right down in Georgia, and people are talking about them using their rap lyrics as evidence in the case. And it's a bit misleading because they have real evidence and real snitches in that case, you know, but they know it's sensationalized to say we're using rap lyrics. Mm hmm, you know what I'm saying. So wrapping is a language

that anybody can speak. And you know, especially in today's time where all the equipment is cheat you can get free beats off YouTube. Anybody can rap. But I'm not sure I like the concept of calling everybody a rapper, like particularly this kid rolling bands, rest his soul, shout out to his family. I pray for them, you know what I mean, to find piece with what's going on,

you know what I'm saying. But somebody could work at In and Out you I mean Burger or they could work at Guineas for ten years and if they make ten songs, right, somebody would consider them a rapper once they die. Like I've never heard I've never heard the name Roaldi bands. I don't know too many people that posted this music before. I'm pretty avid on new stuff coming out, like I always hear names, but I think they use the term rapper because it's sensationalizes the genre itself.

It's like, oh, up and coming or a rapper another rapper gets killed, and it's like then I heard Charleston White saying that, you know all the rappers, and it's like, bro, this ship is just a job. It's just a job, like being a postman, you know what I mean. Does the postman have influence on the community? Fuck? Yeah, you know. Does the president have influence on the community. Yes, that's

doctor just have influences on the community. Yet but for some reason, rap is singled out consistently, you know, amongst the financially valuable or elite, like it's some kind of extra influential thing versus a movie star. And I just wanted to see where you really set with that. How did you feel about that? Well, I think I've said before that I find it odd the way music has always been seen differently as an art form by critical media in regards to what happens outside the confine of

the piece of art than movies have. You know, like you could be like Miami rip Ross not l Across, to the best of mine understanding, is not a large scale drug trafficker. He's making content about that in the same way that Mario Puzzo was never a godfather, don you know? So, so you look at the way certain artists, even like Ozzy Osborne getting blamed for like kids committing suicide or something like that, you know in the eighties,

like having to go to court over it. There's a different perceived responsibility or perceived parallel between music and between movies and television. You make like Sevestal Slone all his movies incredibly violence. Somebody's a big Rambo fan and goes crazy, I was going after Sylvester, you know, I really don't know.

I mean, I think maybe because of the target audience and because people kind of go like a lot of stuff happens statistically between like say those ages of like fourteen fifteen and like early twenties, right, and there's a lot of people who historically or once certainly once the invention of the headphone or the portable music device came around, that would go to their room and listen to music. And people would think, oh, they're going to listen to

music and becoming weird. It's like, no, they were, they were weird. They were going to listen to music to deal with it, you know what. Whatever, Yeah, I agree, music is not the inspiration. Music is the soundtrack of life for some somehow rappers are being blamed like they're

the inspiration versus the soundtrack for existing things happening. Like rappers don't really create as much lingo, Like usually the streets are talking a certain way, or humanity is talking a certain way, and rappers pick up the lingo and it could get popular because of them, but rest as

sure somebody's talking that way. Yeah, totally. I think Also, like because of the nature of the way music is always coming out all the time, so like rap music tends to come out in a pretty steady stream, and it's to a degree largely like if if we're bringing it up into movies, it's always like say an action movie. You know, It's not like one albums in action movie and the next one's like some Aliens movie, you know

what I mean. So if if you're Sony or if you're Paramount and you own a record company and you own the news channel and the cable company, it would behoo view two market something that might create more parallel interest in other spaces that you also own. Mm hmm. Do you feel rappers have that type of responsibility now, all the rappers, but it's not on the rappers. I mean the lag time between content creation and the point where the content has been released and listened to and

something could be possibly derived from that content. It's pretty significant. It might be six months to a year. You know, that's a lot of foresight. Mm hmmm. I don't know. It just gets weirder and weirder to to listen to people. Yesterday,

I was talking about so it's one thing, right. I was telling nucle trash like right, and were talking about rap music and hip hop in the mix of everything, and I was trying to express to him how like it's one thing to rap, like somebody right, it's a it's a kid named Slim Jesus that like came out and admitted like, yo, you know, I'm not a part of drill culture. Like I didn't grow up like that. I just like the music, so I wrapped like it.

But it would be different if he's like, yeah, I'm a I'm a drill artist, like I'm I'm I'm really a part of a culture. So I think rap is dope,

you know what I mean? Um, when it's like that, But the problem is when you have people rapping about lifestyles that they actually are not familiar with, and no matter how many times they do it or how convincingly they believe they are, it always comes across a bit parody is if you didn't grow up next to it with like like like like you could wrap about being a drug dealer if you live next to a drug dealer, like if you knew him and experienced it, and you

would represent him and wrap even if people mistake it to be for you. You can get it off culturally. But the problem is when everything you're rapping about is something you see through a screen. You know, maybe you see it through a phone screen, maybe you see it through a TV screen, and then you're like, Okay, I see that. I'm going to wrap about it, you know what I'm saying. And that's where it comes across a bit parody is and you could tell like it won't

fit on no level. And I was expressing to the to him about this about up and coming Latino artists, and he he asked me, he was like, well, do you think like black people can notice it in black artists? I'm like, hell, yeah, we always know when somebody is not you know, when they're just rapping and they're truly a part of that culture. I used the line I

was talking. I had the same conversation like five days ago, and I said, yeah, there's there's a lot of artists right now that are really popular, and you can if you listen to hard enough, you can hear the quarterly reports and the records. How hard is it for you to tell when you're listening to rap was legiti and what was not legit? I mean to me, it's not It's not hard. Um, I don't. I don't. I haven't listen to a lot of newer stuff closely enough to

pay attention. I'm just kind of listening to drum beats at this point in time. You know, it's background noise. But like when I was younger, yeah, it's it wasn't challenging that, you know, tell a lot of a lot of the stuff that like like PMC talking about guys spitting fake dope prices on the ozone, you know interview back way back in the day, that wasn't new necessarily

news to me. You know, I'm just like these you know, some guy says I I some guy originally got very popular because he came out and said I made a hundred thousand dollars I bought five of these at this and I moved him for that, And then another guy came out and said, well, that made have a lot of money. I sold twenty and bought a million dollar house and a chain, and I sold mine for blank It's like you only said that because he said that. Wow. Um, it's not as easy for the general public to be

able to tell though. Yeah, that's that's yeah, that's true. That's true. And I noticed early in my career I never felt the pressure to to be over expressive about who I was because you know where I come from. If somebody says something, it's easy to check up on who that person is, Like any rapper in California, not just at l A, any rapper in California. Hell, honestly, for me, any rapper across the country. Fear me. I

could tell. I could find out it's one degree of separation if at best two or three, and I can tell you how legit that person street activity is. Yeah. I don't think I've ever cared about it, you know, Um, long as they're not trying to overpass it off like it's legit, Like if they're just rapping about it, I'm not super vesting in it. Like if your music is good. I'm cool with it. But it really became important to me over the last three years to separate hip hop

from rapping. Like Debbie Harry from Blondie was rapping. I mean it, rap is different. So I just think about that a lot, and and and yesterday I was on No Jumper and I was talking to them about it, and I was really trying to explain to them why it was so important to to identify rapping as his

own you know, um, just vocal expression. Because you know, over the next thirty six months, we're going to get an on slot of people who are not culturally connected to any urban street appearance, but they've listened to certain hip hop artists and they decided to become a rapper. They may not be rapping the culture itself, but they decided to become a rapper. Mm hmm. Well you gotta go where the money is. I guess. Yeah, I'm real. Though you don't think that's crazy, It is crazy, for sure.

On the one hand, from an integrity standpoint, it's absolutely crazy. On the other hand, it's a lot easier two make a fole X than it is to buy the company role X. You know, just kind of, It's a lot easier to like make a fake fole X and selling a street corner than to actually, what buy a role X factory or something like that, you know what I mean, Like, it's always easier to do it, to do a knockoff that doesn't have the real substance behind it. Just less work.

Mm hmm. But is it more work when they're trying to convince everybody that it is a Rolex. Isn't that where the work come in at? No, because Rollox already

did the work for you. M hmm. That's why I like, like when I was saying earlier, if you look back at the landscape, you only see the successes as a regular person, right, So if you look around and go, okay, well, let's see guys who talk about they move a lot of drugs, move a lot of records, all I gotta do is say I do, and I'll move some records.

Because all the other ship people talk about that, nobody cared to hear, nobody even heard, so you wouldn't even get the idea They've already done the market research for you by failing their way to success, so to speak. To borrow a Kiyasaki term, like they've already done all the trial and errors, and all the errors have already been paid for, so all you have to do is pretty much key in on exactly what's going on. Yeah, it's always easier to copy a good idea than to

create one. Mm hmm. And I think that's kind of what we see happening. And I think also, you know, you you have a record label that's got the money. They go, Okay, well, this guy's got looks good enough or sounds decent enough for whatever the hell, will throw him on a mustard track and we'll have him sound sound like he's such and such or whatever the hell

he does. And uh, he wants a career bad enough, so yeah, we'll go give him a couple hundred thousand dollars to go do that, and we'll get whatever out of it. So they could pretty much create a successful rapper, just in market research, of course, and and the market does the research itself, because especially right now, and like,

look at it this way. Say you have an artist who has a huge debut album whatever, and he was either independent or signed to some small deal and it's expired, Well you can sign him again and pay forty million dollars or whatever the hell would be for his deal as he's being a big deal, or you could sign another guy for one and just make him sound like

that guy and look like that guy. What's crazy is there's a there was a white kid who sounded just like little Baby and he made uh I g post about it like it's easy to sound like a little Baby. He broke it down and start putting together the words in the rhymes and put out a song, and the fucking song ended up like you know, on Instagram. The video ended up streaming like a million, like time, like a million what news on Instagram? And I was like,

this is crazy, it's crazy. And he sounded just like

Little Baby, sounded just like him. That's funny. Well, case in point then I guess so, I mean, I think some of the question is also like there was kind of that period of time where like street kid cred really really mattered a lot in your marketability, and then I think hip hop that matters in hip hop because hip hop is rooted and like I tell you, street urban culture, hud I would say, like that's not like that with rap music, like nobody cares to know Jack

Harlow's background. I mean, nobody cares to know Drake's background. It's not really important when it comes to them just rapping. Yeah, I was. I was. That was kind of like where I was gonna go was like Drake and like maybe Kanye and similar around the same time. A few years apart kind of broke that paradigm and it seems like changed a lot of stuff where it became like you could just kind of make some music again. And nobody's really asking question. Just asked him it sounds good or not?

Mm hmm. Yeah. Well, look, we we're gonna double back on this as a part two next week. I want to bring somebody on and they don't want me to keep going further without them, so we're gonna never do a part two for the following week, but we're gonna knock it awesome. Sounds good outside, Yes, I saw a messaging happens all. Something's going on down there, so they want to be a part of the conversation. So ar

to it next week. Look forward to it, man, I'll catch yourself good looking out for tuning into the No Sellers podcast. Please do us a favorite, subscribe, rate, comment, and share. This episode was recorded right here on the West coast of the USA and produced by my homeboy A King for the Black Effect Podcast Network and not Heart Radio. Yeah.