Jacka/ interview by black dog bone

Jacka/ interview by black dog bone photo by/ marcus hanschen

Everybody I talk to says Jacka is the hottest artist in the Bay right now. In 2008 you were heavy on the radio with your song “All Over Me”. You have so many good songs, why do you think that song took off the way it did?

The radio stations in the Bay Area and the Sacramento area, all over Northern Cali, they always show me some love. I put the song out, but it could have been any song that I felt strong about, I just decided to push “All Over Me” real hard. For one it had Matt Blaque on it, Bay Area R&B singer. A lotta people didn’t really know who he was, but his fans love him. The people that know Matt Blaque really love him. You go to his myspace, he’s getting 8,000 hits a day. My boy Jethro, the producer, new names on the scene. When “All Over Me” hit the radio the DJ’s was lovin it. They loved to put that song on. We needed a fuckin change out here. And it gave all the young dudes hope. All my boys, J-Stalin and the whole Livewire, Beeda Weeda, Shady Nate, Young D-Lo, it gave them hope to see a nigga like them fuckin doin this shit. They know we all partners and they know they on their way. It ain’t no doubt that they’re gonna make it. That was a real good lift for the Bay.

I might not be saying the best shit in the world, but I know that it sounds like the best shit in the world. I knew that the sound was important. As I got better lyrically I realized that you also need a sound. Your sound’s gotta be good. You gotta sound good. You could be the best rapper in the world, but if you don’t sound good you ain’t shit. It’s more than just rapping good, it’s a bunch of different things that make music sound good.

You worked with Jeffro on “All Over Me”. Who are some of the other producers you’ve been working with?

I been workin with Traxamillion, The Incredibles, they from Sac. Bannin, he from Sacramento too—dope. J Millionaire and J.I., they from Ohio. My boy MG—super dope producer. Young L from The Pack, Droop E, they all got straight heat. Trent, he raw! My boy DEO got dope beats and M.A., they from Frisco. I know I’m forgetting somebody. Every person I named, I got some music from them and it’s all comin out on my shit. These are all muthafuckas who are hungry and workin hard at it. They’re doin good. I just did a song with my boy Young Mackee; him and Roblo are in the same camp. Did a song with Deedra the Giant and Dub 20. They’re from Pittsburg, California. Dub 20. That song is a fuckin hit! It’s gonna come out on “The Tonite Show”, so look out for that.

There’s so many producers and so much good music. I’m surprised I’m the first person to start fuckin with a lot of these dudes.

What’s unusual about you as an artist is that you’re from the Bay, but you don’t sound like any other Bay Area artist. What makes you so different?

I don’t know, maybe it’s the influences. When I first started doin music, I was real young and I was like: I might not be saying the best shit in the world, but I know that it sounds like the best shit in the world. I knew that the sound was important. As I got better lyrically I realized that you also need a sound. Your sound’s gotta be good. You gotta sound good. You could be the best rapper in the world, but if you don’t sound good you ain’t shit. It’s more than just rapping good, it’s a bunch of different things that make music sound good. That comes with listening to all kinds of different music, that all helps you with your craft. You’ve got to have an open ear and know what people like. You’ve got to understand that Rap is dope, but it ain’t the only good music that’s out there.

Something about the beats and melodies you use give your music a weird, floating, psychedelic feel.

It’s a mysterious thing. I don’t know what makes it so different, but people like it. They like it. All good music is like that. When you listen to Indian music or Arabic music, African music, Jamaican music, different music outside this country, you realize it’s all good melodies. They’re all using different melodies. At first you might just hear some strange shit, but they’re actually saying something with that flow. You gotta listen, you gotta understand. You can put your lyrics out there with a different flow from what’s out there. There’s endless different melodies and sounds you can do and make your shit dope. Even with a real hardcore Mobb track, you can still do that. You gotta make it stand out. I don’t like to follow what everybody else is doing. Whatever the beat make me do, I like to become a lyrical instrument.

When you make music your whole being is like a drum or a flute? Is that what you’re saying?

Yeah. It’s just another element, another way of approaching the music. I can rap good any way. I don’t have to have a melody either to make it good because my voice is dope. I realize that it’s a gift, I was given a nice voice. Whether I’m talking to you or making a song, my voice has a quality that people like.

Your voice is hard but it has a melancholy feeling. That type of emotion doesn’t happen much in Rap music.

It’s people who do songs for the club; it’s people who do songs to be famous; and it’s people who do songs just because they’re good at it. That’s why I do songs. I do ‘em because I feel that I can contribute something, not only for the Bay but everywhere. Anywhere across the world, I feel that I can bring something to the table. To the South cats, to the New York cats, to the Middle Eastern cats, to people in UK, Africa, everywhere. I can relate to them so I’m pretty sure they can relate to me. It’s different nationalities all across the world. My brothers are all over the world, and we all relate to each other. That gives me a sort of universal identity. I can get out there and reach those people too.

I hear that in your music. You manage to create a universal sound, you’re not limited to what’s happening just in the United States, or just in the Rap world. You cross those boundaries. Do you listen to a lot of international music, music from other countries?

Yeah man! That’s what I’m saying. I can’t understand the words a lot of the time, but I can feel the vibe, I can feel the beat, I can feel the emotion of what they’re sayin. And I can see how I could even use it in my music, turn it into English if I really wanted to. It helps me grow as an artist. It opens so many doors for when I go to make my music.

A lot of times you don’t have to understand the lyrics to know the essence of a song, the emotions come through.

Right. You don’t even need the words. If it’s good, you just feel it.

for a long time I just wanted to let the music speak for itself. I was the least popular guy in the group. I was the last one. Everybody liked the other Mob Figaz, but I was the last one. Because they wasn’t actually listening. Because the sound was so new they were going off of who they already knew in the group. Once they started buying the album and listening to it, they were saying “This nigga Jacka is dope!”

When you say your brothers are from different countries, what do you mean?

My African brothers. We’re all brothers, we call each other brothers. They’re in many different places, but we all relate to each other. I’ve been around different cultures ever since I started studying Islam. I had to adapt and learn how to relate to my brothers all across the world. I give them my music. I let ‘em know I rap and say, here check this out. And they always like it. They say, you talk about some deep stuff and I appreciate it. Even White people tell me that. This White girl called me and said she was feeling down the other day, then she started listening to “African Warrior”, a song that I got. She said it made her feel better. So I asked her, how could a song like that make you feel better, a White girl? And she said when she heard about what I’m goin through she realized that what she is going through is really no problem at all. She compared her problems to what I’m saying in the song and she said, I’m just trippin off of something real small. It made her feel better.

When did you start listening to music from different countries?

From an early age. A lot of that stuff was forced on my because my family, they listened to different music. My mom used to play a lot of Reggae music around the house. Rap was big at the time, so I decided that was the music I wanted to listen to. I didn’t wanna listen to Reggae, but I didn’t have no choice. I started payin attention to it one day and I thought, Wow! This dude is saying more honest shit than a lot of these rappers be sayin. He’s sayin some shit that rappers can’t even say for some reason. They don’t have the insight to talk about this kinda shit. Some of these Reggae dudes study the history, read books, and they wasn’t brainwashed fully like Americans are. It shows in the music, you can hear it. I started payin attention to that, comparing Reggae to Hip Hop. It’s a lotta rappers out there that are real deep too, but they don’t get heard because it’s not what the radio wants. With Reggae it’s set up for that, they get deep. It’s worth the money. It makes people wanna pay for your music. I wanna make the type of music that people actually go out and buy. They don’t play it on the radio, so you just have to go get it. You don’t wanna just download it off the internet because it’s so good—you wanna see who made the beats, you wanna read the notes and see the pictures. And if you do wanna download it you’ll go to iTunes and pay for it because you wanna support the artist who made this.

You were talking about American people being brainwashed. One thing I’ve noticed is that because African people were never fully accepted into American society, some Africans were not thoroughly brainwashed. That’s why so much great music has come out of the Black community. African American people still have some connection to the ancestors, to their African roots.

The Mob Figaz, we’ve always been together because it’s more than the music. We were friends way before we was a group. That wasn’t even our plan, our plan wasn’t never to become a group. We were all solo artists anyway. This is probably what’s best for us, because before we got together as the Mob Figaz we were solo artists. Me and Feddy was in a group, but I’m with him every day still. We go to the same studio, we do the same thing.

I still have my grandmother here, and she schooled me. She let me know that there is a difference. She told me that America is where we live now, but that’s not who we are. She said, you’re African and you should be proud of that. People might try to make you feel like you’re the lowest, but don’t believe that. When you look at African cultures there’s so much deep knowledge in them, but we never hear that side. She’d tell me stories about how a European soldier might return from war and make love with his wife as soon as he walks in. But like a Zulu warrior, when they come home from war they go through this whole psychological process. They have to calm down and get back into reality before they can even see their women. Not only do you have to clean your body, you have to go through mental and spiritual cleansing before entering back into the tribe. That’s how my grandmother would show me that we’re not savages. They want you to think that, because here in America it’s built on hate and corruption. People here who really stand for this country and believe in it, they have to corrupt themselves. Everybody knows that you can get away with the worst crimes here, if it’s done according to the laws it’s OK. You can gamble, cheat, have sex with anybody, you can worship the devil—you’re free to do anything you want. It’s up to you to make good choices; you have to realize who you are and where you come from. It’s a real long story. I can’t even get into it right here.

When you first started rapping who was making your beats?

My boy Roblo from Pitsburg was making the beats. He’s a real creative and talented producer. He started with a keyboard, he just had the ear for music. Roblo is one of the people who helped me find my own style. He had his own style, he was the only guy who was making beats like that. He’s really like a Dr. Dre type dude, because he makes beats that he could be getting some serious money for, and at a young age too. And he’s a great musician too. He can play all the instruments. There’s certain beats that I like, I like a lotta samples and different things. People might think that’s the only kinda beats Roblo makes, but that’s just what I like to get from him. He can do it all. I haven’t seen a producer that can make a better beat than him. There are other people who come close though, I ain’t takin nothing away from nobody.

For all projects you’ve done lately, including “The Street Album” that just came out, who did the production? Roblo isn’t doing all of your beats.

Yeah, I got like 20 different producers I’m working with.

In 2008 it’s like you came with a new energy. You’re releasing so much music and the Jacka is just everywhere. Let’s hear about some of the projects you were involved in.

You just gotta stay busy, especially when you’re independent. It’s not like there’s anybody paying you or telling you what to do. You gotta mentally prepare yourself to get in the studio and do shit that you won’t get the backhand off of. You gotta really be ready, because you’re putting it out yourself. It ain’t like every time you go in the studio you’re getting paid. You’re doin it outa love and because you’re good at it. You just get some good beats and knock the shit out. Yeah, I did some different projects—with Lee Majors, the Gobots. That’s a group album we came together and put out. We’ve got a part two coming out on that beginning of 2009. That’s got a real eighties feel, like late eighties. It’s D-boy eighties, not no fuckin coke-snortin eighties, square job-having muthafuckin eighties. The D-boy era when dudes was getting rich sellin crack, that kinda scene. It’s a lotta up tempo beats. It’s crazy cause it’s party music but it’s grimy at the same time. It’s something for the youth, fo’ sho. And I also came out with an album called “Drought Season” with Berner. That album’s got a few of my kinda beats on there, some samples and shit. Berner came to me, wanted to collaborate on something. I like working with all the up and coming artists—it helps them get their name out there and it helps me keep a level head. I always remember that there was a time that I woulda begged to be in the studio. You gotta realize that and keep this shit going because this was your dream, this is what you wanted to do.

With the collaboration projects you’ve been doing the thing is that, rather than just featuring on a project, you take it on like one of your own albums. That way quality stays high and you make a deeper impression. When an artist starts doing features for some quick cash without caring for the quality is when they start slipping.

Exactly. I’ve got another project called The Devil’s Rejects with Ampachino from Ohio. He’s a real lyricist like myself. We got together on that just to kill all sides of the coast. Just to let ‘em know that ain’t nobody could beat us. How could you beat us? We’ve got the dopest beats, we’ve got the dopest rhymes. This is what Rap is all about.

Everybody has been waiting for the real Jacka solo album.

It’s been a long time coming. When is it coming out and what’s it called? Is it called “African Warrior”?

The solo album is called “Tear Gas”. The song “African Warrior” is on the album that I did called “Mob Trials Part 3”. That’s with production by Nick Peace of Million Dollar Dream. That was me, Fed X and AP.9. “Tear Gas” is the name of my solo album. It comes out in June. I have another solo album out called “The Street Album”. It’s like a mixtape with all original beats. It’s like a real album but it’s hosted by a DJ. It’s ugly! Cause I got the music. If you ain’t got this kinda music you better join us, otherwise you gonna fall off. People are gonna have to step it up again and start making dope songs again. I don’t mean just in the Bay but across the world. If you rap you’re gonna have to come with some dope songs or we’re gonna take the whole show over.

In the end it doesn’t matter what’s happening with the economy or the music industry, if you come with an album that’s so exceptional, so mind blowing, it’s going to sell.

Right. And I’ve got a lotta songs on the “Tear Gas” album that aren’t the typical shit. I’m working with some really good people on there too, like major artists who wanna support it. They’re fans also. Even I’m a fan of good music. No matter what it is, if it’s good I want to support it to the fullest and help to make sure it’s heard. I’m tellin you, this album is the best work I ever did. I can’t wait to drop it. Me and my boy PK are doing everything we have to do to make sure it comes out the way it should. This is like the first project that I’ve pushed like that. All my fans are behind me, but this is the first album that’s going to reach people all over the world.

How do you go about writing a song? Where does the process start for you?

I just get the beat first and then I think real deep. I don’t just start writing, I take my time. I could just write something down right away when I’m trying to get something done hella fast, or I could think about what I’m saying and consider all the different ways I could come, and then come with the best thing. Once I do that, I just flow. I make sure I’m gonna definitely stand out on the track. Also, because I listen to a lot of different music, different ideas come to me that other people wouldn’t do.

Do you write your lyrics down?

Yeah, I write ‘em down. I type them in my phone. I sit down and write and I come up with shit that it ain’t no way in hell nobody can come up with. We all say the same shit, but the way I’m puttin it, ain’t nobody doing what I’m doing. Everybody’s just listening to the beat and writin the rap. I’m thinkin so fuckin deep that I’m gonna murder the track. That’s what I’m tryin to do. I’m gonna use the sound, I’m gonna use the swag, I’m gonna do whatever I can to make what I’m saying sound better than you’ve ever heard it before.

It’s a mysterious thing. I don’t know what makes it so different, but people like it. They like it. All good music is like that. When you listen to Indian music or Arabic music, African music, Jamaican music, different music outside this country, you realize it’s all good melodies. They’re all using different melodies. At first you might just hear some strange shit, but they’re actually saying something with that flow. You gotta listen, you gotta understand. You can put your lyrics out there with a different flow from what’s out there. There’s endless different melodies and sounds you can do and make your shit dope. Even with a real hardcore Mobb track, you can still do that.

Do you think your fans know you more as a part of Mob Figaz or more as The Jacka, the solo artist?

They all know who the Mob Figaz is, even the new fans. They know the Mob Figaz. It’s something that their uncles or their older cousins or whoever was listening to, and they definitely passed it down. Even though we all stand on our own as solo artists, the Mob Figaz are always respected and remembered as a force. We always stayed in tune with the young dudes. Even though we’ve been around, we still young. We still relate to the kids comin up. We stay in touch with our young brothers and sisters and all our young fans. I don’t feel like I’m any older than them, but at the same time I know more than they do because of the experiences that I experienced through time.

The kind of respect you have in the streets is hard to get. The streets don’t get sold on hype, you’ve got to come with the quality music to get that respect. I don’t think anybody thinks of you as an old rapper. You keep that edge.

My boy Roblo asked me the other day, “How do you keep it so young and fresh? You don’t go with the regular flow.” Biggie Smalls said, if you’re a decent rapper then there’s no way you shouldn’t make it. If all you gotta be is decent, then we gotta be amazing! I know I’m more than decent, so let’s go!

What was it that influenced you to be a rapper?

Maybe the drug dealers and shit—that was a big influence for me to want to be a rapper. When I’d look at them and when I’d see the rappers on TV, they all looked like drug dealers. They looked just like the niggaz that I’d see on the streets. The big donkey ropes and flattops and dope-as-fuck clothes. Goin to the mall and seeing how the dope dealers would spend money, see what they buying. All that influenced Rap. Rappin is easy really, it’s the concepts and the stories and the metaphors and the punch lines that you gotta come up with. If you ain’t never really lived out on the streets doing street shit, then you ain’t gonna be a good rapper. You can only go so far, because Rap came from the fuckin streets. It came from all of that shit. When you look at the rappers of that time or any time, a lotta them niggaz is in the penitentiary or died from some gangsta shit. Somebody killed them or they got locked up, cause they was real street muthafuckas. Then you got the rappers who ain’t from the streets, they make some little bullshit song, but then they’re gone—they disappear. Because they don’t have all the elements, they don’t have what it takes. I might be able to get down and break dance for you, but I’ve got a lot of the elements.

What’s happening now is rappers are making grimy gangsta songs, but with a dance beat. Dance is a crucial part of any music. Look at Indian, African, Arabic music, that shit makes you dance. Do you think about that?

Yeah. I make some songs that you can dance to. But my main thing is making songs that get you focused. Every song that I do, I probably smoke like a half ounce. Every single song, we’re gonna smoke a half ounce. My music is shit for when you high. Even our club songs, like on the Gobots, you listen to them when you’re high and you’re psychedelicked out! But the slow songs, you can pop it in and even if you don’t smoke weed you gonna get high. Because we smoke so much that that energy is coming out through them speakers and it’s getting you high.

When you smoke it opens your mind up to different ways of seeing the world. You go places you wouldn’t normally go, and all the control is gone.

To the point where when you hear the songs again you’re like, “Fuck am I actually sayin this shit?!” When you in the car and not smoking, you just chillin and the CD’s on, you can’t believe the shit you were sayin. And you feed offa the energy of people around you who like to hear the shit. You feed off their energy and see that they go crazy at a part when you say that. I know I said it and I know it’s dope, but I’m feelin like somebody else said that shit. Cause when you high to do actually go into altered states, then when you come down you kind of forget what went on. You relive it and it’s like, fuck that was big!!

You’ve been doing music as solo and as a member of Mob Figaz for many years, but in 2008 you just took off all of a sudden. What made you get so hot last year?

It’s been building up slowly. It was a certain amount of work that we had to do. We had to put out a lotta albums, had to get to know the DJ’s, had to get to know the club promoters—all the stuff that I didn’t want to do at first. It all paid off. It was a reason we was doin it, a reason we was goin clubbin, a reason we was meeting all these people. After a while I started actually knowin the guys. It all eventually worked out. That’s what usually holds an artist back, when he don’t get out there and holler at the people. If you’re gonna do it you gotta hit all angles of it. You just can’t rap and leave it at that. You gotta network too. We just started networkin a little more. The music was speakin for itself. The people on the streets knew it—the music was there. We just had to step our networking skills up. It all pieced together, but it took some time. It wasn’t an overnight thing. And we’re still independent. We’re still searching for that big score.

Did you see this coming? Did you see things change when you started really connecting with people and promoting?

Yeah, after a while I knew all the DJ’s, I know all the girls, I know all the promoters. I’m cool with them, and my boy PK, he cool with them. Every time somebody throw a party and they need support from us, we’re there.

Basically you started getting to know the music community and be part of that.

Yeah. Before that we’re just hanging out with our friends. We could be out. Instead of bein on the corner at night we could be somewhere actually makin something happen. I started fuckin with the community a little more and it works. When they like you they wanna see you. You gotta get out there and get with ‘em.

What’s going on with the Mob Figaz now? Are you still together as a group?

The Mob Figaz, we’ve always been together because it’s more than the music. We were friends way before we was a group. That wasn’t even our plan, our plan wasn’t never to become a group. We were all solo artists anyway. This is probably what’s best for us, because before we got together as the Mob Figaz we were solo artists. Me and Feddy was in a group, but I’m with him every day still. We go to the same studio, we do the same thing. Huss, he’s locked, but he’d be doin the same thing we be doing right now if he was out. And Rydah, he’s doin his thing and he’d always been a solo artist; same with AP.9. Before I even started gettin known for rappin, the boy Rydah was already big in Pitsburg. He was hot on the streets—they was fuckin with him, they loved him. The boy Hussalah was right under him, he came right up next. Me and Feddy always been boys, so when we all hooked up it was the best thing for me. We always gonna be cool, we always gonna be together even if we’re not makin music. If Rydah calls me and tells me anything, I don’t give a fuck what it is, I’m there! If Feddy called me or P.9 or Huss, and tell me something went wrong or they need something, anything—I’m gonna be right there. Period. We all feel that way. That’s more than a group of music. We really kept it Mafia. We really follow the code and did this Mob shit for real. We follow the code of the streets and we have to move in silence. It’s more than music to us.

All of the members of Mob Figaz are from Pitsburg?

We moved to Pitsburg. We’re from Pitsburg though. Hussalah and Rydah is actually from Pitsburg. P.9 is from Fillmore, San Francisco California. He moved from there. Me and Feddy moved from Richmond, California.

That’s why I do songs. I do ‘em because I feel that I can contribute something, not only for the Bay but everywhere. Anywhere across the world, I feel that I can bring something to the table. To the South cats, to the New York cats, to the Middle Eastern cats, to people in UK, Africa, everywhere. I can relate to them so I’m pretty sure they can relate to me. It’s different nationalities all across the world. My brothers are all over the world, and we all relate to each other. That gives me a sort of universal identity. I can get out there and reach those people too.

Your parents grew up in Richmond?

My parents came from Southern California; they moved up. They from the Bay though. When I was growing up we was bouncing up and down the coast. They was just traveling-ass people. You can’t make a home in the Bay if you don’t have family. People do, but you’ve gotta be really like educated. You can’t be no street muthafuckas, just move to the Bay and try to make it. We had a lotta family members out here.

When you first came out nobody had heard about Pitsburg. It seemed like it was far away from the Bay, no rappers had come out of there. And as soon as I heard Mob Figaz I could here you had a different sound. It was not the typical Bay Area sound.

Everybody at that time was really on some independent home studio recordings. This was before Protools, so whatever equipment you got, whatever kinda beats you could get from whoever—that was the sound. Mob Figaz was comin for some straight quality. We were paying for some real studio time and get real beats from real muthafuckas. It just blew our competition clear out the water. We was the number one fuckin group in the Bay for years.

Mob Figaz were like the NWA of the Bay. You were all young and wild. When you were working together as a group did you influence each other?

We used to work together. We all thought the same way. We all thought the same shit was funny. We started realizing who each of us was, and we started noticing that we all liked the same shit. But everybody had different hustles. Huss was a real hustler, Rydah was a real hustler, Feddy—he’d get down, real grime-ball, really ready to bust a head. Me, I’m just down with whatever. Whoever say whatever, I’m right there to do it with him. AP.9—sometimes I forget to say AP.9 because he didn’t grow up with us. He had moved to Pitsburg after we already had our shit established. I was in jail when he came to Pitsburg. When I got out he had made a name for himself out there in Pitsburg. He was buzzing, he was big out there. They was callin him “Bishop”. I was like, who’s this Bishop? I gotta meet this Bishop nigga. I met him and he was so fuckin cool I couldn’t fuckin believe it. He made me feel so good just to know him. I learned how to treat people, fuckin with AP.9. Learned how to communicate with people. And I learned how to make people feel good about themselves. Because it ain’t about you really; it’s about how people fuckin feel about you. It ain’t about how much shit you got or what kinda shit you can brag on. It’s about how muthafuckas feel about you. I learned that from AP.9. Whatever you do you gotta make muthafuckas love you.

That’s a good point. You have to really like the artist to like the music they make. I always thought of The Jacka as the quiet one of the Mob Figaz. You were the less aggressive member of the crew. But now you’re the boss of the Bay! 2009 is going to be your year.

For a long time I just wanted to let the music speak for itself. I was the least popular guy in the group. I was the last one. Everybody liked the other Mob Figaz, but I was the last one. Because they wasn’t actually listening. Because the sound was so new they were going off of who they already knew in the group. Once they started buying the album and listening to it, they were saying “This nigga Jacka is dope!” Then I started getting recognized through the music. I let the music speak for me. I was always the dude that’d rather be in the background smokin a blunt while Huss and them niggaz is in the front dancing and doing whatever-the-fuck they’re doin. I don’t do that. But then when everybody started goin to jail I realized I gotta be the nigga in the front, I gotta get out there dancing, I gotta keep it fuckin lit because who else is gonna do it? They wanna see me, and I gotta start doing more shit. Now I got comfortable doin that and it’s easy, it’s natural for me. But I can’t wait for Huss to come back home so I can get back to the laidback Jack.

I see a lot of new rappers coming up in the Bay, and they aren’t affiliated with any of the established artists. They’re coming out of different neighborhoods and they’ve got a new sound.

Yeah. If you from a block or a neighborhood or you from a small town, somewhere muthafuckas is gonna pull for you—the only way they’re gonna pull for you is if you’re dope and they know some shit about you and they know that you are actually living the shit that you’re talkin about.