Keep it 4 HUNNID at All Times
In the early 80’s, inner-city LA street peeps changed urban music like a shitty diaper on an unsuspecting infant – nasty but necessary: call it Hip Hop hygiene. Cali gangster’s started rappin’, Gangsta Rap was birthed, and a certain radicalized left-wing brand of no-nonsense left-coast truth was told via ghetto militancy.
But “things just ain’t the same for gangsters” rapped Dr. Dre on “The Watcher”, which was released in 1999 when the good Doctor’s Compton neighbor, YG, was only a fourth-grader studying the fast life from school bus windows and BMX bike seats. Later, YG’s 21st Century demographic of generation-Y Millennials would introduce a new wave of LA rap - Jerkin’ street dancers, backpacking Black hippies, skinny jean skateboarders, and a band of auto-tuning Nickelodeon TV stars whose raps were more likened to Comedy Central than South Central.
The good news is YG just re’d up and rap is ratchet again. The Pu$haz Ink co-CEO sat down with DOPE MAG between stops on his national “Just Re’d Up 2 Tour” to discuss clubbin’ with Jeezy, Def Jam debuts, and why gangbanging is simply a fact of life in Lost Scandalous, Balifornia.
Read an Excerpt from the Full Length Interview
(Tone Swep: TS) You arrived on the scene back in ’09 with a hit single in “Toot it and Boot it”, and a Def Jam deal. No artist on the West Side really has that situation. What in your opinion made a Cali artist stand out from the pack to a label with such a storied New York legacy?
(Young Gangsta: YG) When I got signed it was because the label saw that the people at my shows were going crazy. They was rocking to my shit and the shows were always packed. Def Jam, Warner Bros and different other labels were all interested. Def signed me right after that.
(TS) I interviewed DJ Quik years ago. He said growing up in Compton was like living on top of a Volcano; never could predict when a situation would erupt to interrupt the calm. What was the climate of violence like for you growing up in Compton?
(YG) It was just like that. Just how Quik described it then. I was born in Compton. Always lived there. So that’s all I knew. It’s different when you come here from somewhere else that ain’t like that. Somewhere where that isn’t the everyday thing. We used to be outside posted on the block and n!99as just pull up and start shooting. Then you gotta get back and do you, feel me. The sh!t is like a movie when you watching it but when you living it, it’s just life. It’s crazy than a muphuka. Crazy for real.
(TS) An artist’s debut album is thought to be their most important – usually sets the tone for the rest of their career. What can we expect from “I’m From Bompton”?
(YG) You can expect my story. I’m going to be telling my story. You haven’t heard from me like that before. It’s going to turn up. I’ma let it be known that I’m a young n!99a from Compton and what all came with that. What I went through. My life. And I haven’t really brought people into my life, how I grew up and what went on. So expect that side. And for it to be turn’t.
YG is too DOPE
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