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0:31

I'll be teaching jujitsu at

0:33

10th Planet Nashville, June 15th,

0:36

and at 10th Planet Livonia in the

0:38

Detroit area, July 20th. Sam

0:41

Tripple and I are doing Tin Foil

0:44

Hat Comedy Night in Jersey, June 21st,

0:47

and Connecticut, June 22nd. Go

0:50

to samtripple.com for tickets. Hook

0:52

Thieves will be playing in Venice,

0:54

California at The Rose Room, August

0:57

9th. This episode is brought

0:59

to you by Cellular Performance Institute. Is

1:02

your body beat up and broken

1:04

down? Look into stem cells today.

1:06

It could change your life. Go

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to cellularperformanceinstitute.com. You

1:46

can tell it's real because it looks so fake. Hello

1:52

everybody and welcome to another episode of

1:54

Look Into It. Tonight we're going to

1:56

get into some crazy stories with rapper

1:58

slash country singer. Struggle Jennings.

2:01

What's up, Struggle? What's

2:03

up, brother? How you doing? I do good,

2:05

man. Before we start this, I wanna

2:07

explain to the audience how we

2:09

know each other, because I'll be honest, I

2:12

don't follow modern music

2:14

that much. I'm like stuck in the 80s and 90s

2:17

and shit. You know what

2:19

I mean? Me too. Little 2000s and shit, but you

2:21

know, it's hard. Everything is just, has

2:24

been decentralized musically. Like there's all, there's huge

2:26

bands out there and I have no fucking

2:28

idea who they are. But we have a

2:30

mutual friend. Yeah, we have a

2:33

mutual friend. His name is Ed Clay. Ed Clay

2:35

owns the Cellular

2:37

Performances Institute in Tijuana where people

2:39

go to do STEM cells,

2:42

CPI. I've

2:45

been friends with him since man, 25

2:47

years. Met

2:49

him in the jujitsu world. He got his black belt. He

2:52

did some MMA, opened up MMA,

2:55

Jim Nashville, MMA, and

2:57

Nashville. He's from Nashville. And

2:59

as most people know, Nashville's

3:02

huge in regards to

3:04

music, especially country and blues and all

3:06

that shit. So

3:10

Ed Clay is very successful man. He's

3:12

very well known in the Nashville area.

3:14

People, he knows a lot of people.

3:18

And he knows Jelly

3:20

Roll, and Jelly Roll's best friend,

3:22

Struggle Jennings. Struggle Jennings, big rap

3:24

star doing country. So

3:27

it's Jelly Roll. And so I didn't

3:29

know who you were. So Ed

3:31

Clay invites me to the Grammys. I've never

3:33

been to the Grammys in my motherfucking life.

3:35

I'm like, he goes, dude, you wanna go

3:38

to the Grammys? I'm like, oh, yeah, what?

3:41

How are we going to the Grammys? Don't you have to

3:43

like know people? And he goes, yeah, dude, I

3:45

know Jelly Roll and Jelly Roll's best friend.

3:47

And I go, oh shit, okay.

3:50

And he goes, yeah, Jelly Roll's being nominated

3:52

for a Grammy. I'm like, oh, let's

3:54

do it, let's go. So, you know, I

3:57

never buy any nice clothes or anything. Ever, ever

4:00

shoes. I don't do any of that shit. Every

4:02

now and then if I wanna go, I'm gonna

4:04

go, you know what? You know, what

4:06

would little Wayne spend on shoes? Every now and

4:08

then. About a thousand dollar shoes. And

4:10

I bought like, you know, I just wanted to

4:12

look all. You were sharp. You were fucking sharp.

4:16

And then, so I'm like, fuck. I

4:18

bought that shit eight

4:20

years ago for Lila and Compelos wedding,

4:22

two of my black belts. They got

4:24

married. And then I, you know, I

4:27

went to their wedding, wanted to look all pimped out.

4:29

I was like, fuck it. And then I ended up

4:31

finding that shit deep in the closet. You know what

4:33

I mean? And then all, you know, we show up

4:35

and we all meet at the

4:37

W in Hollywood. And

4:40

I knew Ed was gonna bring his girlfriend

4:42

and a bunch of other, you know, friends. And I knew,

4:44

you know, Scotty Nelson, that's his partner at CPI. He was

4:47

there. So we all meet at the W and then we're

4:49

gonna take a shuttle van to the Staples.

4:52

I thought the Grammys were gonna be like

4:55

that Kodak little theater, you know, in

4:57

Hollywood like 2000, I didn't know there was

4:59

gonna be a fucking Staples. So we drive

5:02

to Staples. It's a long drive. It's a

5:04

Sunday night. It's, there's a lot of traffic.

5:06

Everyone's trying to get in. They close off

5:08

downtown. It's insane. The Grammys

5:10

are at the Staples. It's

5:12

like, you have to know people to get in. It's sold

5:14

out. There's like 15,000 people. That was

5:17

crazy. And we meet

5:19

at the W first. And I mean,

5:21

struggle. I had no idea what struggles. He shows up with

5:23

cowboy hat. And then we all meet, we

5:25

all take some pictures, have a drink or two. Then we

5:27

all jump in the shuttle and then

5:29

Ed Clay throws on some music. And

5:32

now we're like, who's this? And it's like

5:34

a struggle. And I struggle collaborating with Daily

5:36

Roll and Yellow Wolf. I'm like, oh shit.

5:38

And I'm like digging it and loving his

5:40

voice going, holy shit, this is a bad

5:42

motherfucker. I had no idea. And

5:44

then he told me, then he started telling me on

5:47

the way to the Grammys, like

5:50

crazy ass shit about, you

5:52

know, his life is crazy. And I'm like, you know what?

5:55

Let's do this on the podcast, man. I wanna

5:57

put you on the podcast. And I wanna know.

6:00

I know your story. I know you just released

6:02

a new video like a few minutes ago, right?

6:04

Yeah, a few minutes ago, literally. How crazy is

6:06

that? Cause I was like looking at your shit,

6:08

I wanted to like, you know, get more familiar

6:10

with your music. And you played like maybe four

6:12

or five songs and fuck man. I'm like, God

6:15

damn, you have like a BMX country voice. I

6:17

love that shit. And

6:20

so then, you know, we exchanged contact

6:22

information and here we are. I want

6:25

to know your whole story from height,

6:27

from the beginning, man. Where were you

6:29

born? Where were you raised? Tell me

6:32

about your crazy ass life. Cause it

6:34

gets insane. Yeah, real quick. I

6:36

just want to interate on what you said. It

6:39

was my first time going to the Grammys too. And

6:42

I had done Ed's, I had heard Ed's name forever.

6:45

And they reached out and I

6:47

was going to do his podcast or I went and did his

6:49

podcast. And he,

6:51

he calls me a couple of weeks later. He's like, Hey

6:53

man, are you going to the Grammys? I know your best

6:56

friend. Jelly Roll is up for nominations.

6:58

I was like, no, man. I think I'm going to

7:00

sit it out and watch it from home. Like, you

7:02

know, those tickets are

7:05

crazy fucking expensive. And

7:08

I just got back from LA and he was like,

7:10

no bro, I got you like, come

7:12

on. I got a booth. And

7:14

I was like, fuck it. Here I come.

7:17

So I get there and meet

7:20

all you guys, you know, and I walk

7:22

in and I'm like in a Western varsity

7:24

jacket I got from H4C and a

7:27

cowboy hat. And you guys are all

7:29

like to the T's just dressed super

7:31

sharp. I was like, fuck. I was

7:33

like, well, I'm standing out tonight and

7:36

I'm starting with you. Like I had heard your name,

7:38

but I wasn't really familiar. And as soon as you

7:42

posted me and you on your story, I started

7:44

getting just bombed by

7:46

text messages. Like, bro, do you

7:48

know who you're with right now? Cause

7:50

like all my homies are big

7:53

jiu-jitsu guys. And so many MMA

7:55

and UFC guys that I'm friends

7:57

with. So everybody

7:59

was like flipping. out. So it's kind of

8:01

my friend, my when that photo

8:03

was posted initially like during the Grammys, like as

8:05

we were going, people were taking pictures and posts.

8:07

We walked that like that red carpet for like

8:10

the lower level people. There was like the red

8:12

carpet for the good people and they give they

8:14

give you a red carpet for the normal people.

8:17

There's levels to the red

8:19

carpet. We

8:21

were on the not so big side, but yeah,

8:24

but yeah, a buddy of mine, one

8:26

of my students, one of my brown belts, Logan,

8:29

he goes, you know who that guy is? And

8:31

this is this. And this right when you started

8:33

telling me your story, I'm like, yeah, he goes,

8:35

dude, that guy is a huge, like he loves

8:37

you, man. He goes, he's a rap star, him

8:40

and Jelly Roll and Yellow Wolf. He knows, I

8:42

mean, he's he's like, he can't wait to listen

8:44

to this podcast. Yeah, man.

8:47

So his name's Logan. He loves you. He's

8:49

like, dude, I love you too, Logan. So

8:53

go on. Yeah.

8:55

So it was a crazy night,

8:57

super excited and so

9:00

good to link with you. You're one of those

9:02

guys that's like you meet and you feel like

9:04

I've already felt like I've known you for 20

9:06

years. You know, just like

9:08

a motherfucker that I would hang out with

9:11

in real life, you know, and you never

9:13

know when you're meeting somebody that's bigger,

9:15

that's, you know, got a lot of cool shit

9:17

going on. You never know how they're really going

9:19

to be. So it's always fucking super

9:21

exciting when you meet somebody and you're like, oh,

9:24

man, I would really hang out with that guy

9:26

any time. You know, I was I was

9:28

at a I was I trip out. I

9:30

feel I mean, I I'm I get starstruck.

9:32

Guys get starstruck because I was at this

9:34

party. This one

9:37

of this female singers because I

9:39

produce female singers to occasionally. I love

9:41

the female voice. So me too. There's

9:44

this girl, Hannah and her ex-boyfriend, Danny,

9:46

Danny Loner from Nine and Snails. That's

9:48

one of my best friends. And that's

9:50

his girlfriend and their ex-girlfriend.

9:52

And they're still best friends. They're just

9:54

like really good friends. They broke up

9:57

like two years ago, whatever, but they're

14:00

After like a year of fucking around, two years

14:03

of fucking around during the scam demagon, I thought,

14:05

you know what, maybe I'll record these like I

14:07

record my other shit and like put some like

14:09

effort into it and see what happens. So we

14:11

did it and you

14:14

know, thank God for Charles because Charles

14:16

plays cajon. It's just Charles playing cajon,

14:18

me playing guitar, our mom playing piano.

14:21

We got a couple backup singers, Darren

14:23

and Hector. And then

14:25

Hannah's, but Hannah's, I asked Hannah to sing on this

14:27

gig. We got this gig, first gig. I go, Hannah,

14:29

you got to come in and sing back, background I'll

14:32

pay you. I need you to learn these songs, like

14:34

the songs that you're heard, like baby, I

14:36

need her to do that. Cause I need like perfect

14:38

bass, perfect pitch. And she's perfect. She's like super

14:40

pro. I go, I need that in the background

14:43

so that we're all keeps us all in line.

14:45

You know what I mean? Add that extra layer.

14:47

So I'm like this. And then I needed a

14:49

bass player too. And I had like three guys

14:52

in mind that a guy that could, you know,

14:55

add to the song, not add to the song, but

14:57

compliment the song and not overplay shit and

14:59

learn it quick. And Danny Loner, he would be my

15:02

first, you know, he's

15:04

one of my best friends and, but he's

15:06

so busy. He's, he just got into Marilyn

15:08

Manson. He also tours with the singer for

15:10

Ramstein till he does his, he's like the

15:13

musical director for his like touring band. And

15:15

he, so he's super busy. So I'm like,

15:18

you know, Danny will never do, but he's

15:20

been, you know, him and Hannah, Hannah's been

15:22

working on the songs. Hannah and

15:24

Danny are super close and Hannah's been working

15:26

on the song. She's all

15:28

in. And then, so

15:30

then I asked Danny, I go do

15:32

the guy from last night, that bass player for a perfect

15:34

circle with me or for Billy Howard. Can you give me

15:36

his number? He says he would do session work. And I

15:39

got, I need a bass player for the gig coming up.

15:41

And then Danny says, I'll do it. And

15:45

I was like, you'll do it. Didn't

15:47

you just join Marilyn Manson? And

15:50

he goes, dude, I would love to do

15:52

it. You know, fuck, I'll do it. Hannah's

15:54

doing all doing. I'm like, oh shit. So

15:56

now Danny's playing bass for that gig. He's

15:58

not like in the band. No, no, no,

16:00

no. Those are the fucking special ones though.

16:02

Yeah, yeah. So thank God I went to

16:04

that party, right? You know, it all went

16:06

down just perfectly like having Danny playing bass

16:09

at my fucking gig. I don't

16:11

believe in coincidence. You know, I believe in

16:13

fucking, we fall into shit that we're supposed

16:15

to be into, you know? Yeah, yeah.

16:19

So, so Del, take me through

16:21

your story. Like how I want to know how you

16:23

grew up and how you ended

16:25

up rapping and then turning and then the

16:28

whole thing. And then you evolved into, now

16:30

you're doing country and your country voice is

16:32

awesome, dude. Don't stop doing that. Keep doing

16:35

that. No, I'm not. Hell yeah. I'm

16:37

not, but I am coming out with another rap album

16:39

later this year. Just, you know, I was talking to

16:41

Brent McGilbert and he was like, man, this country shit

16:43

you're doing is fire. He was like, well,

16:46

just don't forget to dance with the girl that brought you

16:48

to the party. Yeah, exactly. You know, you

16:50

got all those rap fans that have been riding with you

16:52

for 15 years. You got to

16:54

feed them too. Yeah, you're alternate. Yeah, and

16:56

I'm fucking independent so I can do what

16:58

I want, right? I'm not tied into any

17:01

major corporations or sponsors or

17:03

record labels or anything. Have you been, I

17:05

mean, is that purpose? Is that purpose? I

17:07

mean, yeah, yeah. It's better, right? I've

17:10

definitely had offers and business situations

17:12

that I could have probably took

17:15

some deals that would have, you

17:17

know, helped expedite or, you

17:19

know, put me in a different position. But I'm

17:21

not, at this point, I'm not willing to give

17:23

up everything that I've worked for

17:26

in the last 20, but really the last seven

17:28

years since coming home from Brisbane. I've built this

17:30

shit from the ground up. I've got an independent

17:33

label. I got five artists on the roster,

17:35

you know, I'm producing them, I'm paying for it. And

17:37

even last year, I took a fucking stand

17:39

against a distribution company because I

17:41

went to get a little money to, you

17:43

know, a little advance

17:46

to put the albums out there. Like, okay, cool,

17:48

we'll give you some more money, but we

17:50

want to own the masters. And I was like, nah,

17:52

fuck you. Like, I'm not giving up the masters.

17:55

So like last year, I just buckled down, paid

17:57

for the whole label myself. And

17:59

which... which I never intended to be a label. It

18:02

was just 2020, I had, you know,

18:04

couldn't tour. I had a bunch of artists

18:06

that I believed in. I'd already been putting out albums on

18:09

a couple of my friends and producing and

18:11

writing with other friends and shit. And I had a couple

18:13

of artists that I really believed in. And I was like,

18:15

you know what? I want to give them a platform and

18:18

make some really cool music and give them a shot, you

18:20

know, see if we can make something happen.

18:22

And it turned into a full

18:24

independent label called Angels and

18:26

Outlaws. And yeah, man,

18:28

we're just doing it, you know, like

18:31

fucking, we don't get the big

18:33

ads. We don't have huge marketing budgets, but we

18:35

just fucking put out music that's real to us.

18:37

We got a bunch of incredible fans

18:40

that have been riding this whole time. Or

18:42

even if they're new, they, most of my

18:44

fans, I like to call them survivors because

18:46

it's all people who have been

18:48

through some shit, you know? So

18:50

then they automatically relate to my music

18:55

and find a way to hold onto it for inspiration,

18:57

you know, seeing what I went through and

18:59

seeing where I'm at now and

19:02

getting that motivation to just stick to

19:04

their fucking guns and one

19:07

foot in front of the other and

19:09

don't fucking accept no and keep pushing,

19:11

you know? Hell yeah. Hell

19:13

yeah. How many bands do you have in your label?

19:16

So I've got five all together. I've got my

19:18

daughter, Brianna Harness, who she drops in

19:20

blues. This is my 24 year old daughter. She went

19:22

through the fucking wringer, you know? She

19:24

was 12 when I went to prison and

19:27

she was on her own for a while and,

19:29

you know, her dad was a drug dealer. Her

19:31

mom was a stripper. And so she just has

19:33

this crazy story. So she gravitated towards

19:36

what she called blues and

19:41

super, super crazy,

19:43

smoky, beautiful

19:47

voice that's just like haunting. Like she's

19:49

just got an incredible thing. She's herself.

19:51

There's nobody else like her. about

26:00

four years old, they moved to Nashville. And

26:05

so then my dad was old, West

26:07

Nashville, country boy,

26:11

street hoodlum dude, you know, just grew

26:13

up super poor. And

26:16

him and my mom met at the skating rink

26:18

in West Nashville. I was actually conceived

26:20

in the back of an El Camino under

26:23

that Westside City Lights, you

26:25

know, and new album coming

26:27

out, it's called El Camino because of that.

26:30

So they

26:33

fell in love. My mom got pregnant, 16 had me.

26:40

We moved into a little house in

26:42

Franklin, Tennessee, right outside of Nashville. My

26:45

mom and dad, you know, just kids trying

26:47

to make it work. My

26:51

mom, when I was young, they

26:53

should split up when I was about four and

26:56

my mom started working singing backup for my

26:58

grandpa Waylon. So

27:01

she was gone a lot. I had like a lot of

27:03

babysitters and, you know, people that I stayed with while she

27:05

was on tour. And I got to go out on some

27:07

of those tours when I was young, spend

27:11

the weekends in West Nashville, my dad, when

27:14

I was 10, my dad got murdered. And

27:17

they originally told me it was suicide, which

27:20

like super fucked with me because he had called that

27:22

day and was like, you

27:25

know, I only talked to my son, my mom, he

27:27

had outside, hey, your dad's on the phone. I was

27:29

like, tell him I'll call him back later. You

27:31

know, I was outside playing football, just being a

27:34

boy. I'm in that night.

27:36

And all of a sudden all these cars start pulling up

27:39

and my grandfather Waylon came in and you know, my mom

27:41

came in the room and I could tell she was just

27:43

tore up and they sat me down and told me that

27:46

my dad didn't make it. And

27:50

so I took that year off of school and when he stayed with me.

27:53

And hold on right there. So

27:56

at that point, you're 10, your

27:58

mom and dad split. you were

28:00

four, your mom started

28:02

singing. Yeah, she became and she

28:04

was on the road. And

28:07

she didn't take you along the road. She left you

28:09

with like, who? Yeah, well,

28:11

I was it like babysitters or then

28:13

I went to my other grandparents houses.

28:15

Okay, okay. And then like, were

28:18

you was your dad coming around after

28:20

the split? Yeah, he'd come around.

28:22

He'd come get me like every other weekend was the

28:24

schedule, you know, okay. And what did he do for

28:26

a living? Uh,

28:28

well, he was a hustler. You know, he

28:30

worked at a big mulch company. But

28:34

his main job on his main thing

28:37

for money was just hustler. He was that type of

28:39

guy that he was best friends with

28:41

all the street dudes best friend with all the cops,

28:43

he'd sell stolen guns to his cop buddies, you know,

28:45

the man like he was just that good

28:48

old boy, get it how you live.

28:50

West Nashville born in poverty, kept a wallet that

28:53

you couldn't close because it had a bunch of

28:55

$100 bills and it probably never had a bank

28:57

account in his life. You

28:59

know, one of those kind of just old street guy.

29:03

But uh, here's

29:05

my hero and in that process of

29:09

my mom and him

29:11

splitting up, she got into some other relationships, she

29:14

was with this guy for years, big

29:16

bodybuilder that was, you know, beating

29:20

the fuck out of her. And, and so

29:23

I grew up around watching my

29:25

mom get her ass kicked and

29:29

raised by a single mom, you know, in between

29:31

those periods. So, and one

29:34

of the last things my dad told me before

29:36

he passed was he was like, son, it's your

29:38

job as a man to protect

29:40

the women of this earth, like the women

29:42

that you love, women in general, like

29:45

they're the ones that bring life into the, into

29:47

this world, you protect them at

29:49

all costs. And for a long time, I was super

29:51

young and couldn't do anything about it,

29:53

you know, and it came to a

29:55

point where one time I was watching my mom,

29:57

you know, I came home

29:59

from school, saw her car, she had been gone

30:02

for a while. So I was all excited, I

30:04

run up, look in the window and she's getting

30:07

her ass handed to her. You know, he's earned

30:09

her matter, fighting me. Been

30:12

just while I ran to the neighbor's house, calling my dad.

30:15

My dad came, beat the hell out of him. Then

30:18

they got a divorce right

30:20

before my dad got killed, her

30:23

and the other guy. And

30:26

so that kind of threw us into a tailspin because

30:28

my dad had got murdered. She

30:31

had just got out of a divorce and

30:34

she started dating this other guy and Waylon

30:36

was like, hey, baby, like, you

30:39

know, you need to chill out a little

30:41

bit, like take a break from relationships, you

30:43

know, like work on your career, focus on

30:45

your son. Like, and so

30:47

they kind of fell out. And

30:49

she was like, she always had that mind

30:51

state where she didn't want handouts. She

30:54

wanted to like show them that she could do it on her

30:56

own. So shortly

30:59

after my dad got killed, we

31:01

uprooted from the house we had lived in, you

31:04

know, my whole life at that point and

31:07

moved into like lower income areas, shit

31:09

that my mom could afford. And she

31:11

quit singing for Waylon. She

31:14

started working two jobs, going to cosmetology

31:16

school, still trying to work on her

31:18

music, you know? So it

31:20

was a complete culture shock because I went from, you

31:23

know, I said I grew up in and, you

31:25

know, this life that I had

31:27

known, which I had always

31:29

seen the other side because I went and spent

31:32

those weekends in West Nashville in the nations with

31:34

my dad and my dad's side of the family. And

31:40

so then we moved into these same type

31:42

of neighborhoods. You know,

31:44

we moved out to a hermitage right

31:46

outside of Nashville. And I got thrown

31:48

into a school that was completely different.

31:50

You know, a lot of

31:53

gangs, drugs, and

31:55

I'm at that coming age period

31:59

too, you know? And when

32:01

my dad had died, I took the whole year off of

32:03

school. Whelan had walked into school and said, yeah, he's not

32:05

going to be back the rest of this year. We'll

32:08

see you next year. And they were like, ah, yes, sir, Mr.

32:11

Jennings. So I didn't have to go back to school. So I'm like

32:13

at home and I'm riding

32:15

my bike because I got to pass. I don't,

32:17

I don't get it. I'm not going on truancy.

32:19

I'm not going to have to run from the

32:21

police because I'm skipping school. Like I got to

32:23

pass. So that's when I like

32:26

started. The

32:28

only other people that were out of school, the

32:30

high school kids that were skipping school. And

32:33

since I had a pass, they'd run me to the store so

32:35

I could go get shit for them, you

32:37

know, on my bike. So I started hanging out

32:39

with the older crowd, dealing with a lot of

32:41

anger and resentment myself because I

32:44

had that stuck in my head. What if I had answered the

32:46

phone that day? Would be

32:49

still be here. You

32:51

know, so that kind of set up for

32:54

the next phase, which was moving

32:58

into this lower class area and

33:01

into like based on your income, housing

33:03

and apartments and stuff. You

33:06

know, it's just different group of kids. And

33:10

I immediately joined a gang. I

33:13

immediately start started, you

33:15

know, dabbling with

33:17

like hustling and, you know,

33:19

hanging out with guys that were selling drugs.

33:21

And my mom was going

33:23

through super financial issues. You know, there were

33:25

points where she would like break down crying

33:27

if I asked her for lunch money, you

33:29

know, because she just didn't have it. And

33:31

she was working her ass off trying to

33:33

make ends meet, trying to prove to everybody

33:35

that she could do it on her own.

33:39

And and just being a

33:41

single mom, you know, she was just a baby man.

33:43

She was 16 when she had me. So you

33:46

know, by this time, you know,

33:48

she's still only 26, 27, you know, trying to raise

33:52

a teenager and

33:54

trying to, you know, she's working two

33:57

jobs. She never gave up on her

33:59

music dreams. So she's still writing songs,

34:02

trying to get gigs, and

34:05

spending her money booking studio time, whatever

34:07

she can do to try to

34:09

chase that dream as well. So

34:12

she was gone a lot. So then

34:14

now my house becomes the one where

34:16

everybody comes to after school, or

34:19

if we skip school because there's no

34:21

parent there. So

34:23

then you know how that goes. It's just a cycle

34:25

of just opening those doors. So

34:29

by the time I was 13, 14, I'm already

34:31

carrying a gun. I'm

34:34

already hustling, buying

34:36

a little weed, breaking it down in the bag, selling

34:38

it, trying to make some extra money so that I

34:40

don't have to put that extra stress on my mom

34:43

when I want stuff or need stuff. And

34:46

I was straddling those tracks, right? Because I

34:48

would go to Waylon's house on the weekends

34:51

to go see Shooter and hang out with my Uncle Shooter.

34:55

And I'd see the Cadillac and

34:57

the Mercedes and

34:59

the Jaguar and the driveway on the big house in

35:01

Brentwood. But then when I went

35:04

back to my neighborhood, the only people that had

35:06

Cadillacs and Mercedes were the drug dealers.

35:11

But I always found

35:14

inspiration in the two because I knew Waylon had

35:16

never had came from nothing. But

35:18

then I also heard the rumors that Waylon was like,

35:21

got busted with a key of cocaine and

35:23

all the stuff that was going on in

35:26

his life. So I always gravitated towards that

35:28

outlaw side of things from

35:30

as early as I can remember. And

35:33

my dad and that whole side of

35:35

the family had ingrained a

35:37

real by any means necessary mentality.

35:42

Like you feed your family by any means, it's

35:44

okay to do wrong as long as

35:46

you're doing it for the right reasons. I

35:49

used to always say my path to prison was paved

35:51

with good intentions. It wasn't until

35:53

I was older and had to really look

35:56

at myself that I started breaking those. irrational

36:00

beliefs and having to go back and

36:02

unlearn that shit and

36:04

reprogram myself with a

36:08

different objective, right? So

36:11

going into high school, my mom also had that

36:14

thing where every six months she was like,

36:16

oh, we need a fresh start. You

36:18

know, so we moved to like a different side of

36:20

town or we'd find a different place to live. So

36:22

we bounced around a lot. And

36:24

so I never really, I wasn't

36:29

one of those kids that had like a group of

36:31

friends that I've known since I was little, you

36:34

know, like I was always the new guy

36:36

in school, having to try to

36:38

prove myself or feeling like I had to try

36:40

to prove myself. And

36:42

I went to five different high schools. By

36:45

the time I was 16, I

36:48

was getting in a bunch of trouble. My

36:51

mom had actually like she was super worried. I

36:53

had been on the run a couple of times

36:56

and, you know, I

36:59

had the door kicked in for Grand Theft Auto

37:01

and, you know, just being a wild

37:04

boy. And she

37:06

was doing everything she could, you know, in

37:08

hindsight, looking back, I put her through hell.

37:11

But she, she had called

37:13

the police and said, you know, she had a friend that was

37:15

a cop and she was like, hey, you know, if there's

37:18

stuff in this house, will I get in trouble for

37:20

it? You know, and they're like, oh, yeah. So then

37:22

they talked her into letting them come search the house.

37:25

And so then they like bombard the high school arrest

37:27

me for all the shit they found in my room,

37:30

trying to charge me with like gang activity and drug

37:33

trafficking at like 15 about to

37:35

turn 16. So

37:38

they put me in juvenile and I'm

37:40

sitting in the courtroom and they're like

37:43

going to probably send me away till

37:45

I'm 18 to 21, you know, put

37:47

me in DYD custody department of youth

37:49

development. And cause they're, you

37:51

know, with me as unruly and saying my

37:53

mom can't handle me or whatever. And

37:57

right before I'm about to get sentenced, it's literally like

37:59

a scene out of a movie, the court

38:01

doors swing open. You hear

38:04

those footprints, coming

38:08

to courtroom and my grandpa Whelan

38:10

came in there with my uncle

38:12

Tadpole. And, you

38:15

know, they went back to the back chambers

38:17

and they come out and they're like, hey,

38:19

you know, after talking to Mr.

38:21

Jennings, we think that, you know, he just

38:23

needs a

38:25

father figure in his life. And

38:27

so they put me in a custody

38:29

of my uncle Tadpole, who was my dad's brother

38:32

from the West Side. And

38:35

so then I came out of my mom's custody

38:37

and went to go live with my uncle Tadpole.

38:39

And like, at first he was super strict on

38:41

me. He's like real deal looks like Patrick Shwayze.

38:45

You know what I'm saying? Like one of those

38:47

just like, good old

38:50

boy, fucking ripped, works

38:52

on cars, builds houses, you

38:55

know, so we like he was just like, you

38:58

know, one of those good old boy fucking street

39:00

dudes from the West Side. And

39:02

he was super strict on me at first, had

39:05

me out there working, rebuilding a motor

39:07

in a car and, and

39:10

doing hydraulic work on dump trucks and

39:12

then doing construction work in the summer,

39:14

like he put me through it. But

39:17

he also, you know, taught me

39:19

what it meant to work and what to take

39:21

care, you know, how to take care of your

39:23

family and to be a man and, you know,

39:25

not be afraid of hard work because I never

39:27

really had that kind of influence. I was always

39:29

just in the streets, learning

39:32

whatever I was learning through the

39:36

neighborhood and rap songs, right. And

39:39

because I was an 80s baby, and I grew

39:42

up in that rap era, rap always is what

39:44

spoke to me, you know, it was always the

39:46

voice that, that I

39:49

felt would come out of me

39:51

and she was like

39:53

Tupac fan, you know, UGK.

39:56

So that was kind of the backdrop. That

39:59

was kind of the soundtrack to my life. But

40:02

then the backdrop was like country, southern

40:04

rock, you know, the shit that my uncles were listening

40:06

to. So that was kind of where

40:08

my music ended up going is because of that. So

40:13

when did you think you

40:15

could be a rapper? Like when did it start happening? And when

40:17

you were 15, 16, how

40:20

old were you when you wrote your first song? I

40:23

was probably 12 when I wrote my five wrote.

40:25

I remember writing a poem. I'm

40:27

Eddie Bravo, founder of 10th Planet Jiu

40:29

Jitsu with over 150

40:31

schools and over 30,000 soldiers worldwide. Music

40:35

has always been my deepest passion.

40:38

Without that musical

40:40

journey that I took, I

40:44

probably wouldn't be here right now.

40:46

I can't tell my music story

40:48

without having my musical

40:51

partner my whole life and best

40:53

friend, Mr. James Watson.

40:56

I said, I want to be in a band and

40:58

no matter what. Oh, well

41:01

there it is. I got to move to Los

41:03

Angeles. I said, I

41:05

gotta go to that place. If

41:07

this California is supporting metal. Me

41:10

and James are making music. Mastering

41:18

the metal, the story of James Watson and

41:20

Eddie Bravo, print and audio

41:23

book available now. And

41:25

then as I was writing, writing,

41:28

writing, I write these poems, I

41:30

write these songs, rap verses. And

41:32

then back then they had the tape that

41:35

would have the single, it would have the song on

41:37

it. You flip it over and it had the instrumental

41:40

to all the rap songs, right? So

41:42

I would always put that on and I would

41:44

take that little square tape player

41:47

that had, I put it in, hit play and

41:51

then I'd take one of those little tape cassette

41:54

recorders and I would record

41:56

myself rapping. Yeah, over the end of

41:58

the album. Yeah, today I did. I should have met

42:00

her probably like 14, 15. Nice.

42:04

And she was always something that I said

42:06

I wanted to do, but of course it was one of

42:08

those things also that back

42:11

then nobody thought was a reality.

42:13

They'd be like, you'll never make it, you're a

42:15

white boy, you're just way before him and them

42:17

and shit, right? How you're a white boy,

42:19

you're not gonna make it in the rap. You're

42:23

just a kid from the streets of West Nashville, you

42:25

ain't never gonna be shit. My neighborhood in

42:27

the nations is surrounded

42:29

by factories and prisons. So

42:32

it was like four or five state prisons and

42:34

then just factories all the way around it. So

42:36

like growing up, it was kind of like you're

42:39

stuck in between either working

42:41

at the factory or going to prison. And

42:44

that was the mentality of that neighborhood. So

42:51

going through high school, my uncle

42:53

Tampa was like, he raised me up

42:55

to work hard, but

42:58

he was also a hustler. So once he got comfortable

43:00

and felt like, okay, he's doing good, we

43:02

got that shit up out of him where

43:05

he's fucking being wild and acting stupid. Now he's

43:07

acting like a young man. Then

43:09

he started showing me what he

43:12

did. He'd

43:14

have fucking weed plants all pretty

43:16

in the backyard and he'd have them

43:18

hidden and have this big contraption

43:20

that like came up and it was

43:23

at screens and shit and it would block in

43:25

case the helicopters flew over. And

43:28

he's just plastic

43:31

fucking, like someone out of a movie,

43:33

man. He was definitely

43:35

one of the biggest inspirations in my life as far

43:37

as taking care of your

43:40

family, but it was also those same mentality

43:44

that I eventually had to break free

43:46

from because it kept sending me back

43:48

to prison, just that it's okay to

43:50

do wrong. If you're doing it for the right reasons, feed

43:52

your family by any means, which feeds

43:54

your family by any means unless it's at the cost

43:56

of ruining your family by going

43:58

to prison forever. Yeah. Yeah. Uh

44:04

yeah. So, by nineteen, I

44:07

was already pretty

44:09

big in the in the drug game. You know, I

44:11

had a face in my

44:14

late teens where I was

44:16

wild. I was, you know, on

44:19

cocaine, kicking doors in, you know,

44:21

just wilding out being a cowboy

44:24

and found out I was gonna have my

44:26

first child and just I put the

44:28

brakes on all of it and settling down in

44:30

my neighborhood was like stopping

44:32

with all the crazy **** and like becoming

44:34

a weed dealer, right? And I

44:37

was like settling down was, you know,

44:39

not doing cocaine, not **** running around

44:42

with a pistol shooting at people. Yeah,

44:44

that's that's like a like a stripper

44:47

when a stripper has when she has

44:49

a new boyfriend, like a brand new

44:51

boyfriend. Oh, her lap dances get real

44:53

real tame and she's like, yeah, you

44:55

know what I mean? She she won't

44:57

she won't grind that much. She won't

44:59

grind that much. You know, just a

45:01

little bit not too crazy. She ain't

45:03

trying to make no nobody bust but

45:05

yeah. Oh man. When her when her

45:07

man pisses her off, damn, she shows up

45:10

with the bottle of vodka ready to work.

45:12

Wow. Eight hours of of

45:14

the dances and she's mad dog.

45:17

She's and she does like thirty-five

45:19

dances goes home two

45:21

thousand dollars cash. Yeah.

45:25

Yeah, same thing. Like so you become a

45:27

weed. Okay. I'm just gonna stick with weed.

45:29

Yeah. Yeah. So settle down

45:31

and be a weed dealer and

45:35

you know, get a job to cover it up

45:37

and you know, work six,

45:39

eight hours a day and ten

45:41

hours a day and then you know, catch all

45:44

your plays after work and you

45:46

know, so

45:48

it went

45:51

on like that but as in everything, it's snowballs, right?

45:53

When when I started selling weed, I was like, you

45:55

know what? I'm gonna make enough to just

45:58

get us a good dependable car. You

46:01

know, responsible as a

46:03

responsible drug dealer. Yeah.

46:05

And then, and then you get to that much money and

46:08

you're like, oh shit, I can't even buy a house. So

46:10

you're like, okay, I'm gonna make enough money till I

46:13

can buy a house. And then I'm done. And

46:16

then it's like, you know, it

46:18

just keeps going and going to the point where,

46:21

you know, eventually it got to the point where I

46:23

was moving hundreds of pounds of weed a week and,

46:25

and I had this whole organization with,

46:28

you know, 50 people working for me

46:30

and I'm like 20. And

46:34

hold, this is your daughter. Did you have your daughter yet or

46:36

still pregnant? Yeah, I had her when I was 19. Okay.

46:39

So as you're blowing up and

46:41

moving like a lot of weight

46:44

your daughter is three, four, five,

46:46

six. Two, three. Yeah.

46:48

Like born to two, three. And then,

46:51

were you with baby mama at the time? Yeah, I

46:53

was together with baby mama. And there was a family.

46:56

It was three of you. Okay. Yeah.

46:58

And she was, we were

47:00

a train wreck together. You know what I mean?

47:02

She was, she was

47:04

wild and fucking stubborn and hard at it. And,

47:07

you know, I was the

47:10

same, you know, so

47:13

we were super fucking toxic, but

47:15

we were raising Brianna and you know, Brianna

47:18

was just a fucking light. My like at

47:20

that point it was like, there

47:23

were a lot of things that I would second have

47:26

a, you know, hesitation or think differently about,

47:28

you know, because I had this beautiful baby

47:30

girl now that I had to protect and

47:33

watch out for. But

47:35

shit around me was getting super wild. Ended

47:39

up catching a case for selling

47:41

25 pounds to

47:44

undercover. And it wasn't me that

47:46

sold it, but it was a friend of mine and he had got

47:48

it from me. And I had, I

47:50

had made the initial, you know,

47:52

I had a guy that came to me that was a

47:54

good friend of mine. It was like, hey, you

47:56

know, were you, I'm

47:59

super struggling. right now when you throw me some weed,

48:01

and I'm like, man, I don't really want you to

48:03

do that. You know what I mean? I'd rather just

48:05

help you out and give you some money for your

48:07

kid. Like, you don't really want no part of that

48:09

life. And he was like, well, I got a

48:11

cousin that sells big amounts out in the

48:14

country. Would you at least hook him up? Cause then he'll throw

48:16

me a little bit of money. And I was like, yeah, I'll

48:18

do that. Motherfucker set

48:20

me up with a stone cold

48:22

cop. Wow. Did he know it?

48:25

Yeah. Yeah. It's live. So it was

48:27

his cousin, him and his dad had gotten some trouble

48:30

and nobody really knew about it. And

48:32

so, you know, they let him

48:34

go. And then it was like, well, go try

48:36

to get some people busted. And they had a

48:38

target on my back, you know, damn between the

48:42

newer cops. Cause all the old cops in West Nashville,

48:44

like grew up with my dad. So

48:46

they didn't give a fuck, you know, as long as

48:48

I wasn't, you know, getting in

48:51

shootouts and shit was cool. Like

48:53

they weren't really tripping about what I did. As

48:55

long as it wasn't coming across the radar, but

48:58

you know how it is. The newer cops come in, the

49:01

young guys, they're fucking hungry. They're, you know, they want to

49:03

go. And

49:05

then a lot of shit started happening, you

49:07

know, with that life, people started trying to

49:09

plot, rob you and then your guys getting

49:11

gun fights. And you know, there was

49:13

a lot of violence that started happening around that time.

49:15

And they finally come and got me. And

49:18

they charged me with a two

49:21

class D's a

49:24

sale of 10 to 70 pounds, you know, it

49:26

was 25 pounds in total. I took

49:28

the rap because the guy that I had had

49:30

delivered, he had just had a new baby, you

49:33

know, and I had, I had just paid him to

49:35

go drop it off. So it was like, I wasn't

49:37

going to make him eat that, you know, so I

49:39

ended up pleading guilty to it. And

49:41

at the same time, the mother

49:43

of my kids, a friend

49:45

of hers had set her up, a

49:47

friend of mine and hers, it was a couple, but the

49:49

girl that came to her, you know, and

49:52

then they had, they

49:55

set her up on a big bus and

49:58

it was federal. So

50:00

they're trying to drag me into this case,

50:03

but I was never at the scene. They never saw

50:05

me. I never made contact with

50:07

the people, but the guy who set

50:09

it up, he

50:13

was oblivious to it. Like somebody else had

50:16

set him up. So him and

50:18

his girl set it up. My girl goes to

50:20

with them one day to make one of the sales.

50:22

And now they've got her dead to the right and

50:27

they're trying to pull me into it. And

50:30

there was even a point where I was like, fuck

50:32

it. Let her go. It's all me.

50:35

But there was no evidence of that. And

50:37

it was one of those things where it was like, let's

50:40

just fight this case. So she

50:42

ended up as I'm getting,

50:45

while I'm doing, I had a three year sentence,

50:48

which I had to do 15 months on. I'm

50:50

doing that time. And she's out

50:53

there by this time, she had my second

50:55

kid, my son, while I was

50:57

in jail. So I have

50:59

a newborn son and then my daughter Brianna,

51:01

who's like three at the time. And

51:05

they come pick my baby mama

51:07

up on the Fed case. She

51:11

gets out, but she's got a court date.

51:13

So she's doing her own thing and she's

51:15

kind of like, I'm fixing to

51:17

go to prison, so I'm gonna live, do

51:19

me. You know what I mean? So I

51:22

get out of jail, take a bunch

51:24

of probation to get out early. I had

51:26

like three months left to flatten, but I couldn't get

51:28

in touch with my kids when I was calling home,

51:30

I couldn't find my kids. I didn't know where they

51:32

were at. They were getting bounced around from place to

51:34

place. So I hit my

51:36

lawyer and was like, hey, I gotta get out and get my kids.

51:38

He was like, all right, I'll put you in front of a judge. We're

51:41

going for the judge. I'm like, look, I

51:43

did the little program in here. He

51:46

was like, all right, I'll let you out, but

51:48

I want you on three years community corrections, which

51:50

is like the strictest probation you can be on.

51:54

And if you mess up, they can double your

51:56

time, right? They can turn your three into a

51:58

six. So I took

52:00

it, got out, got my kids. I was a

52:02

single dad on

52:05

this strict ass probation. Got

52:07

out, started working immediately. Uh,

52:10

jobs. What was your first job out of prison?

52:14

I was working at a country club. Because,

52:17

you know, as a bouncer. Now

52:21

I'm doing like

52:23

kitchen work and banquets because

52:25

it's one of the things I like, I've

52:27

got a super huge passion for cooking and

52:29

I had a apprentice under a chef for

52:32

years and, uh, so

52:35

like I've waited tables, I've done bartending, I've

52:37

worked in the back of the kitchen, busted

52:40

tables, you know, whatever. Because

52:43

one of my big dreams was always to own a restaurant.

52:47

So I got out, I was

52:49

working at the country club, kept that job for a

52:51

second, um, needed something closer. Uh,

52:54

my family had, uh,

52:57

went in partners with, uh, this

52:59

other family and got a, um,

53:02

restaurant. And I went to go

53:05

work kitchen manager, dining

53:07

room manager. Um, so

53:09

I'm like literally taking the trash out, sweeping

53:12

the floors, counting the money, you know, doing

53:14

just about everything at this restaurant. So

53:17

I've got, I'm a single dad, got the two kids, um,

53:20

mother of my kids ends up getting three years,

53:24

um, in the federal penitentiary. So

53:27

now she was in prison when you got out,

53:29

when you, you made that deal and you got

53:31

out, she was already in prison, right? No, she

53:33

had got arrested, but then they had let her

53:36

go. Okay. So when I first, when I first

53:38

got out, I got the kids,

53:40

got an apartment, she'd come and stay sometimes

53:42

and like act like we were going to

53:44

work on our relationship. But then she'd

53:47

be like, I'm finna go to prison. So fuck

53:49

you. I'm fixing to have fun. You know, she

53:51

was a shot with that mentality. So she was

53:53

like in and out a lot. Um,

53:56

so you get out of prison. prison

54:00

and the kids are mostly

54:03

in your custody and baby mama coming

54:06

back and forth. It's like the opposite of what

54:08

you usually hear. Right. Exactly. Because usually the woman

54:10

at home stuck with the kids and the guys

54:13

in and out. Yeah. It was a complete opposite,

54:15

you know. But

54:17

I loved her and I always had that

54:20

dream of like white picket fence family, you

54:22

know, so I was in the few relationships

54:24

that I was in that I have kids

54:26

by, I held on for a long time.

54:29

And I gave them a lot of a lot

54:32

of chances and room, you know, because I

54:34

was always I've always been a family

54:37

man at heart. Even when I

54:39

was in the depth of

54:41

hell moving kilos of

54:43

cocaine and pounds of weed, I

54:45

always had that dream

54:47

of just that family home.

54:50

Because I never had it right. I was raised by a

54:52

single mom. I love the

54:54

big family that my dad's side of the family

54:56

had, you know, so I always wanted that like

54:59

big family, a bunch of kids in the house.

55:04

But I never had it. So that was

55:06

something that I always wanted to give my kids. And

55:08

that was really one of my biggest dreams is just

55:10

to have a big family.

55:12

From the time I was 12, I was saying I

55:14

want to have eight kids, you know,

55:17

which I got seven. So, Devin

55:19

now. Whoa. Okay, so we're at two right now.

55:21

Take it through all of them. Yeah.

55:24

Yeah. So she

55:27

ends up going to prison for a while. I meet this

55:30

other girl, Chula, who

55:32

I ended up having three kids with

55:34

her. The first five,

55:37

six years I was out, I was shooting

55:39

straight. You know, I was on that strict

55:41

probation. Wasn't

55:43

hustling. I was working, getting eviction

55:45

notices. But

55:48

figuring it out, you know, when

55:51

I got with Chula, it was about the same time. That

55:55

I met Jelly Roll. I was,

55:57

you know, recording my own

55:59

CD at the time. house, pressing them,

56:01

going downtown, selling the CDs. And

56:05

we met downtown, he was hosting a

56:09

rap battle because he was like the

56:11

freestyle king, right? He'd go in these venues

56:14

and they'd be

56:16

having these rap battles and here come this

56:19

little fat white kid with cornrows and

56:21

just go in there and smoke everybody. And

56:25

so he was hosting a rap battle and he

56:27

was out there passing out his CDs, he had

56:29

just dropped a mix tape. I was out there

56:31

selling my CDs. We met a friend of ours,

56:33

a mutual friend, a guy had been locked up

56:36

with named Alex King. He introduced us and

56:38

me and Jelly just became best friends

56:40

like immediately. And

56:43

this is like 2004. And

56:45

this before he got signed? Oh

56:48

yeah, no, he was just, yeah,

56:50

yeah, I knew him. He just, he just

56:52

got signed a few years ago and we've

56:54

been best friends for 20 years. Like I've

56:56

got Jelly tattooed on my hand that

56:58

tattoo was like 17 years

57:01

old. He

57:03

slept on my couch for like four years, bro. Like

57:06

that dude was like my little brother and like, you

57:09

know, grew up

57:11

in super poverty. I

57:13

want that upper body clench. That's what

57:15

I'm going after. With the

57:17

underhook, looking for double underhooks. Fucking,

57:19

that's a juicy ass clench though.

57:21

Perfect double underhooks on your side.

57:24

That's all perfect. That's huge.

57:27

And my guy, for me, I'm like, I've got this one.

57:30

First fight in Abu Dhabi 2003

57:32

against Gustavo Dante's. I got

57:34

him right in and got double, perfect double underhooks. So

57:36

I'm like, Oh my God, I had him in a

57:38

locked down perfect double underhook really quick. He

57:41

just gave it to me. And I

57:43

was just sitting on, Oh my God,

57:46

he just gave it to me. That

57:48

was just off the front headlock. 100%

57:52

push into him. You

57:54

want to smash him and then jump on that leg.

57:56

You want to rush him so

57:59

they don't have a. So they're off balance, you jump on

58:01

that leg, try to, you hook that leg, you're

58:03

gonna take their back and put them in the truck, either

58:06

one. Does that make sense? You

58:12

know, that- So you

58:14

meet him at this rap battle event? Yeah,

58:17

well, I'm on 2nd Avenue, downtown Nashville, and

58:20

I'm selling my CD, promoting a show that

58:22

I was trying to book. He

58:25

was hosting that rap battle and

58:27

passing out his CD. So

58:29

you guys are both passing out CDs at this

58:31

rap battle? And then you guys meet? Okay.

58:35

Yeah. And he shot to

58:37

my house a couple of days later, came

58:39

recorded a song, and

58:42

he actually, that night he invited me. He was

58:44

like, hey, man, won't you pull up over to

58:47

the studio where I record at? It's

58:49

in Joe Johnson Projects in the alley.

58:52

And I was like, yeah, I'll be there. He was like, I'll be back

58:54

over there about midnight. And he said, he still

58:56

says his days, like, I didn't think you were gonna show up. He

58:59

said, he's like in the middle of North Nashville projects, working

59:02

out of this studio that's like in the

59:04

back alley, like super, you

59:06

know, it's going down out there, right? And

59:09

should I pull up? Big Chevy Caprice, got a

59:11

couple of my guys with me, sitting out there

59:13

playing my whole song, my

59:16

whole album, you know, song by song. And

59:19

he was like, man, we gotta, let's do some shit. Let's

59:21

cut a song. I was like, yeah, I got a studio

59:23

at the house. It's in the closet, but like, you

59:25

know, and he came over, recorded

59:28

a song, and we became

59:30

best friends. And then when

59:32

we released that song, he started gaining steam. So

59:34

like me and him were doing all these shows,

59:37

which we weren't getting paid for them. They were

59:39

free shows, but we're showing up. All

59:42

kinds of people from the city are coming out, like

59:44

we're packing all these clubs. And

59:46

we had a song together called, I Ain't Biting. And

59:49

every time that we would perform it, the whole

59:51

club would break out in a fight. So

59:54

then we got this like stigma of, you

59:57

know, uh, that's what I'm

59:59

saying. what happened in our shows, which of course,

1:00:01

you know, it blew our name up, but

1:00:04

we got to the point where we're like, wouldn't nobody let

1:00:06

us come perform in their fucking club. And

1:00:10

so we were best friends through all that. You

1:00:12

know, I ended up getting

1:00:14

to a point, a breaking point where

1:00:16

I just had another kid,

1:00:19

right? I'm still fighting.

1:00:22

I'm still facing all that federal time that

1:00:24

my baby mama did. Like, I still think

1:00:26

they're gonna come indict me. The

1:00:29

feds, when they picked her up, of course

1:00:31

they came and questioned me, but

1:00:33

nobody was telling on me. The

1:00:36

one guy that was trying to put a statement against

1:00:38

me, he was the main guy that had done

1:00:40

the sale, and he's trying to

1:00:42

tell them that I was involved. They

1:00:45

don't really have any proof that I was involved.

1:00:47

The mother of my kids was there, but I'm already

1:00:49

in jail now for the same thing, like

1:00:52

so. But

1:00:55

for years after that, I

1:00:58

felt like they were

1:01:00

still threatening me. Like, if you don't

1:01:02

fucking help us, we're gonna send you to prison. I'm like,

1:01:04

yeah, well, I don't know anything. I don't do anything no

1:01:06

more. I don't know nobody. I'm over

1:01:08

here raising these kids. So

1:01:11

I get with this girl and-

1:01:14

Nuke, there's a third baby mama

1:01:16

now? This is second baby

1:01:18

mama. Second baby mama? Yeah,

1:01:21

Chula. Second baby mama, she's about to

1:01:23

be my baby mama. Right. And

1:01:26

so she comes to me and she's like, hey, I've been

1:01:28

praying that in case you gotta go to prison, I

1:01:32

have a kid, so I have a piece of you. And

1:01:36

I was like, I literally went in the other room.

1:01:43

What are you doing over there? You

1:01:47

should have opened that up. My guy, Seth,

1:01:49

just walked in the room and

1:01:51

he's out here just like, I'm like, what in the fuck are you

1:01:54

doing? And he's fucking trying to

1:01:56

open a protein bar and like probably

1:01:58

get it outside. I'm doing it.

1:02:00

All I get is, cuck, cuck, cuck, cuck, cuck,

1:02:02

over in the corner. All right, so,

1:02:07

she was like, I've been praying that I have baby

1:02:09

by you, so in case you gotta go to prison,

1:02:13

I got a PCU. And so I literally

1:02:15

went in the other room and I was like, God, do

1:02:17

not give me another fucking kid. I'm about to

1:02:19

leave two kids, I'm about to leave two kids

1:02:21

out here already. If you do, fucking

1:02:26

make it to claim to my innocence. You

1:02:28

know what I mean? I have another kid, fucking

1:02:30

get this fucking charge up off of me. And,

1:02:33

because they had never actually indicted me. They just kept

1:02:35

threatening that they were gonna indict me and watching me

1:02:37

super heavy. And,

1:02:40

find out the next day that she's pregnant. I

1:02:43

named my daughter Innocence, and

1:02:45

I've never heard from the feds again. Wow.

1:02:49

Like they never popped back up to my work, they

1:02:51

never fucking called my phone, they never showed up, because

1:02:54

they would just pop up and roll up on me,

1:02:56

I'm taking the trash out at work, and they're like,

1:02:58

hey, got any information for us? I'm like, no, man,

1:03:00

I told you. And they're like, well, you need to,

1:03:03

or we're gonna send you away for 25 years, we

1:03:06

got you tied up in that case too. And I'm like,

1:03:08

I knew they didn't have nothing on me, but I didn't know

1:03:11

how much people were

1:03:13

gonna break and talk. So

1:03:15

I just stuck to my guns, and

1:03:18

it ended up working

1:03:20

out. So I had my third daughter,

1:03:23

my third kid, second

1:03:25

daughter, Innocence. And

1:03:27

by Chula. What

1:03:30

year was that? Oh,

1:03:32

five. And

1:03:34

so at this point, I'm working,

1:03:37

but my baby mama Chula,

1:03:39

she's got custody of her two brothers,

1:03:42

because their mom's an addict. So

1:03:45

now I've got my two kids, my

1:03:48

girl, she's pregnant, I got her

1:03:50

two little brothers, two

1:03:52

or three sprains living with us, jelly in and

1:03:54

out, you know? And

1:03:57

there was literally times where I

1:03:59

would have to like walk. to Wendy's

1:04:02

after after I got dropped off from work with

1:04:04

$20 bill to get fucking

1:04:07

$18 cheeseburgers to feed

1:04:09

the house. Yeah. You know,

1:04:11

and it got to a point where I was just

1:04:13

fed up with it. And so I started hustling again

1:04:15

and it was the same snowball effect was like I'm

1:04:17

just going to make enough to get us out of

1:04:20

this situation. Put a little bit in the bank and

1:04:22

it just kept going kept

1:04:24

going kept going. By

1:04:29

the time we get to oh, eight, I'm

1:04:32

making trips back and forth from Texas getting

1:04:35

two, three, 400 pounds at a time. I've

1:04:38

got a good friend of mine that's, you

1:04:41

know, got truck loads of

1:04:43

cocaine coming up and I'm just

1:04:45

completely engulfed in it. You know,

1:04:47

I'm making a lot of money. At

1:04:50

this point is

1:04:52

peace of mind even possible like

1:04:54

when you're every night you go to sleep that you

1:04:57

have to be fucking freaking

1:04:59

out like that in any day. All your shit could be. I

1:05:02

got I got I got fucking two guys that

1:05:04

are at the house that are living in the

1:05:06

guest room at all times that run errands for

1:05:09

me and also literally sit up

1:05:11

all night with guns in case somebody tries

1:05:13

to come in, you know, and I've got all these

1:05:16

kids in the house. I'm

1:05:22

dealing with real cartel motherfuckers that it

1:05:24

can be getting

1:05:26

busted by the feds again and that do that. Yeah, that

1:05:29

would fuck you up. You must be trying. How do you

1:05:31

sleep at night at this point? You

1:05:33

had to like drink yourself to sleep every night

1:05:35

drugs. Yeah, no drugs for sure. You know, I

1:05:38

guess what would put you out like value. Well,

1:05:42

I didn't I had quit smoking weed. I didn't

1:05:44

smoke weed for a long time. You'd be too

1:05:46

paranoid man. You'd be way too. There was a

1:05:49

point where some

1:05:51

guys tried to rob me and a friend of mine. And I wasn't

1:05:54

paying attention because I was sitting there in the

1:05:56

car in the front seat of the car smoking and

1:05:58

they ran up and I didn't

1:06:00

see him. Put a gun to him,

1:06:02

he fucking wrestled with him, they grabbed a bag out

1:06:04

the car, which ended up just being a

1:06:07

bag of clothes and it wasn't the weed. They

1:06:09

shot into the car as I pulled off, blew

1:06:11

the headrest off, like almost blew my head off.

1:06:13

And so at that point I was like, oh, I'm not smoking weed no more.

1:06:16

Like I came that close to getting my fucking

1:06:18

head blown off because I wasn't paying

1:06:20

attention, you know? And then the

1:06:23

paranoia, all the shit that comes along with it. Yeah.

1:06:25

So I had gotten shot

1:06:28

in, 2006

1:06:31

and got addicted

1:06:33

to pain pills. And

1:06:38

that was the point where that

1:06:42

addiction went on for a

1:06:44

long time, the opiates, you know? During

1:06:51

that time when I was at the height, I

1:06:54

wasn't really doing cocaine much, but

1:06:57

I was popping 20 lure tabs a

1:06:59

day, you know? And

1:07:01

I had a plug on the lure tabs, a girl that was

1:07:03

bringing me 20,000 of them a week, you

1:07:06

know, in the big

1:07:08

sealed bottles from the manufacturer.

1:07:12

And so

1:07:15

like, yeah, any kind of pills, I would

1:07:17

pop fucking a handful of somas, Xanax. Otherwise

1:07:20

you couldn't sleep, no way. No

1:07:22

way. Not at all. Too much

1:07:25

stress. Even with cameras around the house,

1:07:27

goons in the house, you

1:07:29

know, dogs in the yard, like

1:07:31

you still, you know, it's still hard

1:07:33

to- Yeah, they can't guard you against

1:07:35

jail. You know what I mean? They guard you against

1:07:37

like cartel members and stuff maybe. But- Yeah,

1:07:40

well, even that, you know, that's always, I

1:07:42

hadn't a lot of times where shit would pop

1:07:44

off and, you know, we would

1:07:47

be at odds with the plug or

1:07:49

with, you know, somebody and

1:07:52

friends would start getting whacked and, you

1:07:54

know, everybody be on high alert and

1:07:56

cause you know, you get involved with

1:07:58

those cartels, like them motherfuckers. amp

1:10:00

up on Xanaxes and popping Xanaxes

1:10:02

for two months after she had

1:10:04

a baby. And

1:10:08

so we were

1:10:12

still two kids in our 20s, just

1:10:16

0.4 kids in the house. Hundreds

1:10:22

of thousands of dollars, moving

1:10:25

drugs, watching out for the police, just

1:10:29

that crazy chaotic mess

1:10:33

that we had

1:10:35

gotten involved in and got completely

1:10:37

engulfed with. I

1:10:42

ended up, said the one that's

1:10:44

overeating fucking protein bars and making all this noise

1:10:46

while I'm trying to do this podcast, he

1:10:49

came down from New York and was going to

1:10:51

shoot a movie on me because

1:10:53

I had friends that had pitched

1:10:55

this idea to him and shoot this movie on

1:10:58

me, the life that I lived. It

1:11:00

was kind of one of those things where we made

1:11:02

Get Richard Die trying to look like a fucking Disney

1:11:05

film. And

1:11:07

I was trying to still do

1:11:09

the music, trying to hold onto that dream.

1:11:12

I was up in the streets, four

1:11:14

kids in the house, six at some

1:11:17

points, right? Jelly roll on the couch.

1:11:21

And Seb came

1:11:23

down and we

1:11:26

started talking about doing this movie. We

1:11:28

started, that was how

1:11:30

I met Yellow Wolf. Yellow Wolf got the script

1:11:33

and was like, man, I want to be a part of this

1:11:35

movie. So me and him met,

1:11:39

started, got the script

1:11:41

written and everything was going on. Sebastian also

1:11:43

owned a record label at the time, independent

1:11:46

label. He had Mike Geronimo

1:11:48

sign from New York. And

1:11:51

he was like, man, let me sign you to a record

1:11:53

deal as well. I was like, fuck, yeah, let's go. So

1:11:56

I took a step back from hustling because I was like,

1:11:58

man, I'm going to do this. I was like, hey, I

1:12:01

finally got this opportunity. I signed

1:12:03

a record deal, like let me chill out, let me

1:12:05

not fuck this opportunity up. So

1:12:09

we went to Atlanta, recording

1:12:11

records with Drummer Boy. My

1:12:14

whole thing was like this, the white

1:12:16

Rick Ross, kind of

1:12:18

thing, because I was really living that life, that's really

1:12:20

who I was. So it was coming out

1:12:22

in the music. But I'd always

1:12:24

said that I wanted to one

1:12:27

day have gold teeth and sing country music. That

1:12:30

was my dream. It's just the

1:12:32

complete opposite

1:12:35

of what anybody was doing or

1:12:37

what anybody thought. And

1:12:42

Jelly actually brought that up the other day. He was

1:12:44

like, man, you told me 20 years ago to cheer

1:12:46

up gold teeth, sing country music. He said, I thought

1:12:48

you were fucking crazy, but now I beat you to

1:12:50

the punch. But

1:12:54

so Seb signed me to

1:12:56

his independent label called Mass Bomb.

1:12:59

And we were just moving and shaking. Took

1:13:02

a step back from the streets, kind

1:13:05

of passed it off to some of my friends. They're

1:13:07

kind of still running and working shit. And

1:13:12

we get an album almost finished. And

1:13:14

then Seb deals with some

1:13:16

super big trauma and his dad gets killed

1:13:19

on a Ducati, like racing

1:13:21

motorcycles. Yeah. And

1:13:24

so Seb kind of goes, the label

1:13:27

kind of disappears. He's like dealing with

1:13:29

family trauma, trying to get everybody together.

1:13:32

I go back to the streets. About

1:13:34

a year later, I'm back at it, 100%

1:13:36

full throttle. And

1:13:40

that girl that

1:13:43

I was getting those 20,000 lore tabs from

1:13:46

a week, she comes back into the

1:13:49

picture like, hey, I'm back. We

1:13:52

had been talking about six months. It

1:13:54

was like, you

1:13:56

want to get back at it? And I'm like, yeah, I'll move

1:13:58

some shit for you. She was like, well, I got the. I'm

1:14:00

O.C.'s now. And I was like, I

1:14:02

don't fuck with those. I don't fuck with the Oxycontin.

1:14:04

I've seen a lot of people get strung out on

1:14:06

good people, getting drugged down

1:14:08

by the O.C.'s. I'm

1:14:12

sick to cocaine and weed. You know

1:14:14

what I'm saying? I don't wanna fuck.

1:14:17

At that point, I was like super

1:14:19

against big farming shit. Like, I

1:14:22

was just seeing what the pills and that opiate

1:14:24

shit was doing to people, right? So

1:14:27

I was like, I'm not gonna fuck with it. Why had

1:14:29

a homie that had just got back from Iraq? And

1:14:33

he was like, man, dude, my benefits ain't

1:14:35

kicked in yet. Like, he had lost his

1:14:38

lung over there by some chemical warfare shit.

1:14:40

He kicked the door and some shit went

1:14:42

in his face. Five

1:14:44

months later, his fucking lungs shut down, you

1:14:47

know? And they

1:14:49

had to remove part of his lungs. So

1:14:52

he was dealing with that, coming back from

1:14:54

two tours in Iraq. And

1:14:57

he was like, bro, please go get those O.C.'s.

1:14:59

I can sell them, you know? Like, that'll be

1:15:01

big for me. So I go

1:15:03

to make the deal, literally just

1:15:05

gonna get them and pass them off to him, you

1:15:08

know, so he can try to make some extra money. And

1:15:10

it's a fucking setup by the feds. He

1:15:13

was involved in the setup? Nah, he wasn't

1:15:15

involved at all. It was the girl who set

1:15:17

me up. The girl set me up. Yeah.

1:15:20

And she had got caught up in some big meth

1:15:22

case, her and her boyfriend. I didn't know anything about

1:15:24

it, you know? If

1:15:27

you get busted, like low level people, they

1:15:30

pretty much, it's automatic. We'll

1:15:32

get, well, the sentence will be less

1:15:34

severe if you give us someone higher

1:15:36

than you, right? Oh, bro, it's so

1:15:38

crazy. It got so great. Yeah,

1:15:41

automatic. And it got so crazy that

1:15:43

they even started going to people that

1:15:46

weren't in trouble and saying, hey, you're

1:15:48

broke right now. We'll pay you

1:15:50

X amount of dollars for every pill, X

1:15:52

amount of dollars for every pound of weed,

1:15:54

X amount of dollars. And

1:15:57

they'll hire these informants.

1:15:59

Whoa. through money

1:16:02

and they'll even do it to the point where it's like we'll

1:16:04

give you $100 a

1:16:06

pound you buy from this person $1000

1:16:08

a kilo you buy from this person and

1:16:10

when they get busted you get 10% of

1:16:12

the estimated worth of

1:16:15

what we confiscate. So

1:16:18

you got motherfuckers riding around in Mercedes and ****

1:16:20

that are just stone cold racks. You

1:16:22

know, they're just getting paid to be racks. Wow.

1:16:26

And they'll find

1:16:28

any way that they can

1:16:30

of course, you know to.

1:16:32

Earn trust right like yeah

1:16:36

cuz if

1:16:38

you're not in the game and you get offered hey check

1:16:40

this out you can make some money if you bust people

1:16:42

out. If you weren't already in the

1:16:44

game, it would have

1:16:46

to it probably work better on people that had

1:16:48

already connections and had some kind of trust with

1:16:50

someone right then they go back and go okay.

1:16:53

Yeah, they like you said they

1:16:55

they didn't catch your case, but they

1:16:57

are involved in the scene and they

1:16:59

could just make it you know yeah

1:17:01

**** okay

1:17:03

go on. But.

1:17:09

So they don't find

1:17:11

anything on me. We

1:17:13

pulled up into the parking lot and

1:17:16

she comes up she gets in the truck and

1:17:19

I've got the dude with me from Iraq that

1:17:22

had just done the tours and one of my

1:17:24

best friends at the time. And

1:17:27

then. My brother

1:17:31

who's my brother-in-law at the time they're

1:17:33

both with me. I

1:17:36

went stash spots and all the vehicles like

1:17:38

behind the hydraulic arms where you

1:17:40

hit a code like you made look at

1:17:42

that it was cool. I don't

1:17:45

know what just happened, but you

1:17:48

may you like turn

1:17:50

the blinker on turn the heat up hold

1:17:53

down the volume

1:17:56

button or something you know what I mean

1:17:58

on the radio and the. where

1:18:00

the airbag is, it would come out on hydraulic

1:18:02

arms. And you'd have that whole

1:18:04

dash to stash stuff where we had ones that the whole

1:18:07

dash came up. Seats popped

1:18:09

up, false bottoms in

1:18:11

a truck bed where the whole bed would come

1:18:13

up on hydraulic arms to

1:18:15

transport shit. So we're

1:18:18

in a parking lot. She is

1:18:20

in the back seat. I'm talking to her and

1:18:24

I pull the money out. I put it on the

1:18:26

dash. I'm like on the console. And I'm like, here

1:18:29

goes this, this for this, this, this. And

1:18:32

she goes, OK, I'm going to get the pills. And

1:18:34

she jumps out and strikes out running across the parking.

1:18:38

And I'm like, oh, here they come. I'm going to get the

1:18:40

spot. Some arms come out. Everybody

1:18:42

that's with me is like, what the fuck's

1:18:44

going on? I'm like, they're

1:18:46

coming. And about that time, you see 100 blue

1:18:48

lights, bro. They get

1:18:50

us. They take us down there. Take

1:18:54

me back in the room. They're like, you

1:18:56

know, we picked you up because people are

1:18:58

breaking into cars. I'm like, bro,

1:19:01

we're not breaking in no fucking cars. Like,

1:19:03

I already know that, you

1:19:05

know, old gal set me up. And

1:19:08

so why did they say that at first? Why

1:19:10

did they say some person like that? I think

1:19:12

it's just their way to kind of like fish

1:19:14

and see what they can get out of you.

1:19:17

Yeah. Because then their next

1:19:19

move was, you know why we

1:19:21

were really there? These. And they

1:19:23

pulled all these pills out. Big old

1:19:26

fucking block of fucking oxygons. I'm like,

1:19:29

I ain't never seen those because I had

1:19:31

no deal that went through. They jumped the gun

1:19:34

and there was nothing there. You know, they

1:19:36

didn't find the money. So

1:19:41

they take me there and Terry gave me. I don't tell

1:19:43

them nothing. Give them my name. Fake

1:19:48

phone number, fake address, you

1:19:50

know. And so

1:19:52

then they take my wife's brother

1:19:54

in there. He's in there about five

1:19:56

seconds. And then all of a sudden they got in handcuffs,

1:19:58

right? They were running. I'm gonna roll him out in

1:20:01

a fucking roller chair and he's in handcuffs,

1:20:03

he keeps flying out the back room and

1:20:05

crashes on the ground. And they're like,

1:20:07

you better get a fucking lawyer because he went in

1:20:10

there and told him to fuck off. And

1:20:12

they take my buddy back there, two

1:20:15

tours in Iraq, best friend,

1:20:17

I watched dog tags while he was in Iraq,

1:20:20

fucking watched out for his kids. They take him

1:20:22

back here. He's back here for two and a

1:20:24

half hours. They take him Chinese food, bring him

1:20:26

a pack of cigarettes. We in home here over

1:20:28

there like, holy shit, what is going

1:20:30

on back there? They

1:20:32

let us all go. And

1:20:36

on the ride back, because they confiscated the

1:20:39

vehicle of course, right? Put us out in

1:20:41

the hood of Memphis and

1:20:44

tell us to, you know, pretty much

1:20:46

find a ride, thinking we're gonna get beat up or

1:20:48

you know, something's gonna happen to us. We

1:20:50

got people in Memphis, so we got picked

1:20:52

up immediately, taken back to

1:20:55

Nashville. They

1:21:00

had wrong phone number, wrong address on

1:21:02

me. So he starts, I

1:21:06

tell him, I'm like, hey man, you gotta switch your phone number.

1:21:08

Like I'm not gonna talk to you on the phone with

1:21:11

you the phone and he wouldn't change

1:21:13

his number. So at this point, I'm

1:21:15

starting to really catch on, like he's working with him, you

1:21:18

know? So I distance myself with him. And

1:21:23

I keep my husband, I'm doing my thing. I

1:21:26

find out they kicked in one of my old doors,

1:21:28

the address that I gave him. So I knew they

1:21:30

were coming for me, right? And

1:21:34

he calls me one day, I hadn't talked to him about three

1:21:36

months. He calls me and he's like, man, I really miss you.

1:21:39

Your nephew wants to see you, you

1:21:41

know? I was

1:21:43

just scared at the time, but I didn't tell him

1:21:45

nothing. And I was

1:21:48

like, all right, man, well, you know, meet

1:21:50

me at this store and you can follow me back to

1:21:52

the house and your son can come over and play with

1:21:55

the kids and shit. You know, and we can catch up.

1:21:58

And as soon as he... I go meet him, he

1:22:00

comes back to the house, soon as we pull up to the house. He

1:22:03

walks in, he's like, oh man, the house is beautiful. Well,

1:22:06

I forgot, I gotta go watch the

1:22:10

house while my mom does

1:22:12

something, comes up with this

1:22:14

excuse and he's leaving. And I'm like, he

1:22:17

literally just drove an hour and a half. And

1:22:20

so I knew right then, I was like, dad motherfucker just

1:22:22

came to get my address and set a fence. And

1:22:24

sure enough, next morning they kicked in the door. And

1:22:29

they took me in, but at this point, they really don't

1:22:31

have anything but his testimony. And they got a couple of

1:22:35

phone conversations, but the phone

1:22:37

conversations weren't super

1:22:39

incriminating. There wasn't no like real drug

1:22:41

talk. A

1:22:43

lot of it was text messages. And

1:22:46

even the wiretap they had, I had the

1:22:48

radio on lightly, right?

1:22:51

So you couldn't really get out what we were

1:22:53

saying. But

1:22:57

so they come and arrest me. I

1:22:59

get out on a bond, they do

1:23:01

this, this whole process where they're

1:23:03

like, you give them all

1:23:05

your work info, references, all this shit, and they just

1:23:07

make sure that you're not gonna run. And then they

1:23:09

let me go. And I was fighting my case from

1:23:12

the street. Well,

1:23:14

during that time now, I'm like, okay, now I'm

1:23:16

fixing to go away. Like I got to really

1:23:18

fucking hustle. I got to really figure this out.

1:23:21

So I went into overdrive. With

1:23:25

the music and with the drugs, you know,

1:23:28

with the hustling.

1:23:31

Good friend of mine who ended up

1:23:33

catching the other case with me. He

1:23:38

was just, he was the man at the time, 24 years old, bringing

1:23:42

in more coke

1:23:44

than, you know, you can even imagine.

1:23:48

And so as I

1:23:50

was fighting that case, I had doubled

1:23:52

down and I was just putting it all into going

1:23:55

and recording a new album, but

1:23:59

also hustling. same time, more

1:24:02

than I ever had. Couple

1:24:07

big busts happened. They

1:24:10

got my guys super

1:24:13

nervous. Like the house that I was living

1:24:15

in was under the fake alias that was

1:24:17

all over the news. You know,

1:24:19

my best friend's name at the time and shit. And

1:24:23

so me and the wife and the kids,

1:24:25

we like pack up, get out of the

1:24:28

house, we're like hiding out in hotels, you

1:24:33

know, hiding money, trying to, you know, trying to get all my ducks

1:24:35

in the row because I think they're going to come get me. A

1:24:38

few months go by, I get a little bit more

1:24:41

comfortable because they haven't came and arrested me yet. You

1:24:43

know, I'm still going through the federal

1:24:45

office to take piss tests and fighting

1:24:47

that whole case. And

1:24:52

get a call from, you know, I'm talking to

1:24:54

my guys in prison because like 11 of them

1:24:56

got busted. And they're like, yeah,

1:24:59

man, all the feds are, feds dropped the case.

1:25:02

We're about to get out, you know? And

1:25:04

then- That must've been the happiest day of your life.

1:25:07

Yeah, I'm like, yes. All my guys

1:25:09

are getting out. Now you can- So

1:25:12

I got, I'm scheduled to go take a

1:25:14

piss test. And Edward Crow, the one that

1:25:16

was with us, Zilla, there was

1:25:19

at the Grammys with us. Yes. He

1:25:22

was the one that took me that morning to go take

1:25:24

a piss test. And I go in, I piss in the

1:25:27

cup. I go to leave and they're like, oh, hold

1:25:29

on. We got somebody

1:25:31

wants to talk to you.

1:25:34

And here comes the US

1:25:36

Marshals. They take me, put me in a holding

1:25:38

cell. And here

1:25:40

comes two Metro cops. Take me

1:25:43

over to the county jail. And I

1:25:45

go in, I'm like, what's going on? What am

1:25:47

I being booked for? And they're like, oh, you're

1:25:49

charged with conspiracy of 200 kilos of cocaine, 300

1:25:51

pounds of marijuana. And

1:25:55

money laundering. And there's like a list

1:25:57

of fucking charges. And

1:25:59

so what- What happened is the feds had dropped

1:26:01

that case and the prosecutor for the state, they

1:26:04

said he had used too many resources. He wasn't going

1:26:06

to let it go. He had got

1:26:08

one of the guys to turn and they pointed

1:26:11

out my voice on a phone conversation. So

1:26:13

still I wasn't caught with anything. Like when

1:26:16

the bus happened, there was one

1:26:19

of the biggest drug deal bus ever in

1:26:21

national history. Like we had

1:26:23

a lot of shit. They got a lot of guns, a

1:26:25

lot of cash, a lot of cocaine. But

1:26:30

nobody actually got caught with anything. You know,

1:26:32

like it was in different

1:26:36

vehicles, plane, houses.

1:26:39

You know, there's a lot of different places

1:26:41

that these bus were happening and they were

1:26:43

just getting tied back to us. So

1:26:46

I go in and I sit

1:26:51

down in jail and it was like

1:26:53

a fucking weight was lifted off my

1:26:55

chest. All

1:26:58

that chaos, all that fucking watching my

1:27:00

back, all that shoot

1:27:04

outs and fucking this

1:27:06

person getting busted, having to make

1:27:08

their bond and wondering if they're going to snitch. And

1:27:11

then, you know, like all the shit that comes with that

1:27:13

weight on me,

1:27:15

so heavy for so

1:27:17

long. And

1:27:21

so I'm finally sitting in jail and I'm like,

1:27:24

here I am. I

1:27:27

got a little money out there, so the kids are going to be

1:27:29

okay. Hopefully

1:27:33

I learned real fast that I couldn't control

1:27:35

what was going on out there. It didn't

1:27:37

matter how many friends I had to pull

1:27:39

up, how much money I had,

1:27:41

I couldn't control what was

1:27:44

going on outside of those walls. And

1:27:46

I realized that the only thing I had control of

1:27:49

was who I became and what

1:27:51

I did with the time that I was about to do.

1:27:55

I go in there, the mother of my

1:27:57

kids starts dating a friend of

1:27:59

mine. She gets strung out

1:28:01

on drugs, kids are getting drugged through trap

1:28:03

houses. I

1:28:06

got sentenced 57 months in the

1:28:09

feds. And then I

1:28:11

got a 13 year sentence in the state for

1:28:15

cocaine special amounts, conspiracy

1:28:18

of cocaine special amounts. All

1:28:23

my guys that were in there, they were on

1:28:26

the case with me. They all

1:28:28

sat in county jail and fought the case and

1:28:31

ended up beating it right before trial.

1:28:34

They all got super lesser charges and sent

1:28:36

back to Honduras, sent back to El Salvador,

1:28:38

sent back to Mexico. And

1:28:42

I went off to prison and

1:28:47

turned my life completely around. You

1:28:50

know, I had to watch the mother of

1:28:52

my kids struggle with addiction and fuck her

1:28:54

life up. And then the kids ended up

1:28:56

in foster care. And the whole

1:28:58

time I was just focused. I was like,

1:29:01

I'm coming out to be the best motherfucker that I can.

1:29:03

And I'm gonna be the best fucking father. I might

1:29:05

have a fucking career. I'm gonna go

1:29:07

out and fucking kill shit. I trained

1:29:09

every day. I was 330 pounds, man. I

1:29:12

was fucking obese. I

1:29:15

had a fucked up way of

1:29:17

thinking. I was riddled with fucking

1:29:20

violent intentions and insecurities

1:29:23

and, you know, feeling like I

1:29:25

had to prove something. And

1:29:27

I went in there and let all that shit go, stripped

1:29:29

myself all the way down and

1:29:31

started from the roots and

1:29:34

pulled them up, found out why I felt this way,

1:29:36

why I thought this way, why I kept doing this,

1:29:39

why I kept doing that. And

1:29:43

came out a completely different person. By the time

1:29:46

I came out, my kids were in foster care.

1:29:48

The mother of my kids was, you know, in the

1:29:50

streets, strung out. Came

1:29:55

home, hit the ground running. Got

1:29:57

custody of all my kids. The mother of my... She

1:30:00

passed away from a drug overdose. Chula?

1:30:03

Yeah, Chula died from a heroin overdose. God

1:30:07

damn. Yeah, I got

1:30:10

with my best friend of 20 years, right? That's

1:30:13

my wife now, Taboo. She

1:30:15

helped raise my kids because she was my best

1:30:18

friend and she lived with

1:30:20

me for a while, lived with me and Chula for

1:30:22

a while. And when Chula was all strung out on

1:30:24

drugs, Taboo would be there

1:30:26

helping, you know, take care of the

1:30:28

babies while I was out hustling and shit. So

1:30:31

she was always my best friend and just, you know,

1:30:33

my rider. And when I was

1:30:35

getting out of prison, I was like, hey, girl, you know

1:30:37

I'm coming for you, right? I

1:30:39

was like, I'm gonna get out and do some really fucking

1:30:41

cool shit and I want to share my life with you

1:30:43

and share the success with you. And

1:30:45

she's like, boy, you're fucking crazy. I ain't fucking with you.

1:30:49

I know how you are. And I'm like, no, I'm

1:30:51

telling you, I'm coming. Now,

1:30:54

what was, what did

1:30:56

you do different while you were in

1:30:58

prison this time as opposed to the

1:31:00

other times? The other times, what was

1:31:02

your daily activities in

1:31:04

prison? Well, so I

1:31:06

got in prison and this time was the first

1:31:09

time in like big boy, big boy prison. Okay.

1:31:12

You know, the time before was like

1:31:14

in town prisons, you know, like

1:31:18

step up from county jail but not sent off

1:31:20

to prison yet. There's

1:31:25

a lot of architecture in the

1:31:28

world today on every continent

1:31:30

of buildings that are much, much

1:31:32

larger than you would think people

1:31:35

of our height would build. Cities in

1:31:37

America that look as though they

1:31:39

were constructed in medieval Europe.

1:31:42

The outside's incredible, but

1:31:45

the inside is built like a palace. I'm

1:31:48

not sure if there were even any schools of architecture back then. How

1:31:51

did they know how to do this? We're at the pinnacle

1:31:53

of our civilization now. This is the best it gets, the

1:31:56

best we've ever done. Look at the quality

1:31:58

of these walls. Now you're good, Lord. a

1:32:00

neighborhood and every home looks the same.

1:32:02

How do we know we're going backwards?

1:32:04

Everyone would be pissed. As an architect

1:32:06

of 20 years, I like

1:32:08

to look at a building as telling its own

1:32:10

story. I'd like to say that stones don't lie.

1:32:13

And they're giving us timelines of like a year.

1:32:15

It was built in a year. The

1:32:18

history that we've been told is a

1:32:20

lie. Why would a regular sized human

1:32:22

make something so massive? How

1:32:25

did they build that beautiful, beautiful building? Was

1:32:28

that building here longer? I feel like

1:32:30

the building was the already. What was

1:32:32

actually in the towers, what kind of

1:32:34

technology was up there? These buildings were

1:32:36

built by the prior civilization. A beautiful,

1:32:38

easy, graceful method of travel. Flushed down

1:32:41

the drains. Nope, no more airships. And

1:32:43

they have to lie to us about

1:32:45

it. They had to write the story

1:32:47

books. We learn about one fire, the

1:32:49

Chicago gray fire. There were

1:32:51

fires in every major city. Burned to

1:32:53

the ground. It's impossible for any stone

1:32:56

building to be burning down. What's

1:32:58

being kept from us is huge. What

1:33:01

a world it must have been. There's

1:33:03

literally been a cover up of history

1:33:05

more than one way. You're

1:33:08

the humanity. I

1:33:29

get into prison and I see the

1:33:31

difference, right? I see the guys that

1:33:33

are gambling, smoking cigarettes, fucking

1:33:36

doing drugs, sitting

1:33:39

around watching TV, eating fucking honey

1:33:41

buns, right? And

1:33:43

then I see the guys that are going out to

1:33:45

the yard every day, training, taking every class. And

1:33:48

I was like, I want to be like them motherfuckers. I

1:33:50

want to be in good shape. I want to be fucking

1:33:52

smart. I want to have a better

1:33:56

grasp on myself. I

1:33:59

read every. that I could. Like

1:34:03

I said, I did a lot of

1:34:05

soul searching and just really became the

1:34:07

strongest person that I could mentally, physically,

1:34:10

spiritually, emotionally. I

1:34:14

took every fucking class that you could take

1:34:16

to the point where I was teaching the

1:34:18

classes. I got in the best

1:34:21

shape of my life. I'm also 120 pounds.

1:34:24

I fell in love with training, with

1:34:27

weights, with pushing

1:34:29

myself physically, which

1:34:32

broke a lot of those mental

1:34:34

barriers that I had. You're riddled

1:34:36

with insecurities and doubt, and

1:34:39

you're told for so long that you can never

1:34:41

be shit. You're never going to get more than

1:34:43

what everybody else got. You start to

1:34:45

believe that. So

1:34:47

I went in there and broke

1:34:51

all those barriers. Every fucking thing that

1:34:53

I thought I couldn't do, I fucking

1:34:55

pushed myself until I did it. And

1:35:00

watching my kids go through that and

1:35:02

thinking for so long that I was a good

1:35:04

dad, you know, and that I

1:35:06

was doing this shit for the family. I was

1:35:08

taking care of my kids. I was giving them

1:35:11

what I never had. All that bullshit. Then in

1:35:13

the end, they became the victims. They

1:35:15

became the biggest victims of all my crimes. They're

1:35:18

the ones that were out there suffering, getting drugged through

1:35:21

crack houses and fucking my daughter's

1:35:23

getting molested. And, you

1:35:26

know, my five year old

1:35:28

daughter, I'm calling home from prison and

1:35:30

she's crying because mommy's been passed out

1:35:32

all day and her brother's and sister

1:35:34

had an eight. And so I'm having

1:35:36

to teach her how to make macaroni and cheese on a

1:35:39

fucking jail phone so she can feed the other kids. Like

1:35:41

watching all that happen, I was avowed. I was

1:35:43

like, I will not let my

1:35:45

kids do this again. I'm going

1:35:47

to go out. I'm going to be the best fucking father that

1:35:50

I can. I'm going to fight tooth and nail to

1:35:52

get custody of them. And I did. I

1:35:54

came out within a year of being out.

1:35:56

I got a house. I had custody of

1:35:58

my kids. Even now to this day,

1:36:01

I got six kids under one roof. My

1:36:03

daughter Brianna, she just got her own place, you

1:36:06

know? So she's on her

1:36:08

own crushing it. When you got out of prison

1:36:10

and got your shit together, how were you paying

1:36:12

the rent? Through

1:36:14

music. So through music. You came out

1:36:16

and just. Dude, I got out. When

1:36:18

I whole time I was sitting in prison, I'm watching

1:36:20

Jelly, Jelly sleeping in vans. Jelly's

1:36:22

touring. I'm talking to Yellow Wolf.

1:36:25

And Yellow Wolf's blowing up, got to deal

1:36:27

with Shady. You know, many more years.

1:36:31

This is 2011, 12, 13, 14. You

1:36:35

were in jail that whole. How long were you in

1:36:37

prison for? I did five years from 2011 to

1:36:39

2016. That's

1:36:42

a lot of years, man. Yeah,

1:36:44

man. Five fucking years. Woo.

1:36:47

Yeah. Did you

1:36:50

usually have cellmates or was it solid?

1:36:52

Oh, yeah. Yeah, so in

1:36:54

the state pen, you have two per

1:36:56

cell, right? Once

1:36:59

you get to the feds, the Fed

1:37:01

facility that I was at, it

1:37:04

was two per cell at Terre Haute.

1:37:07

Because when I rolled out from the

1:37:09

state to the feds, I went to

1:37:11

Terre Haute from Tennessee State Prison. Terre

1:37:14

Haute, Indiana, built in 1930. Old

1:37:18

school fucking crazy

1:37:21

two tier, like you'd see in the movie,

1:37:23

just old grimy doors. I

1:37:26

had a crazy white pile, though. OK. It

1:37:30

was two per person, two persons,

1:37:33

two person per cell. And

1:37:35

then when I got to Lexington, because I wanted

1:37:37

to go do the drug program and I put

1:37:39

in a request to get close to the home

1:37:41

and shit, they sent me

1:37:44

to Lexington, Kentucky, because I

1:37:46

stepped down from a medium

1:37:50

to a lower facility. Went

1:37:53

to the drug program. And then at

1:37:55

Lexington, it started off

1:37:57

with six person program.

1:38:00

in the cell that I was in and

1:38:02

then went to the drug program. It was

1:38:04

a four

1:38:06

person. Then as you

1:38:09

go up in the drug program, two person, and

1:38:11

then once you get to the end of the

1:38:13

drug program, then you're in the final phase of

1:38:15

it, you get your own cell. So it

1:38:17

was like a one person cell for the last four

1:38:20

months that I was in prison. And

1:38:23

what's the advantages of having, besides

1:38:26

the obvious ones, the privacy and stuff, but

1:38:29

it must suck being stuck with someone that

1:38:32

you had no, you

1:38:34

had nothing, I mean, do they switch

1:38:37

you guys out or did you

1:38:39

have this roommate? Yeah, if

1:38:41

you get in there and you're in a cell with somebody you

1:38:43

don't fucking vibe with, you can

1:38:46

put them on the door, you

1:38:48

can switch cells sometimes. Sometimes you can't,

1:38:50

sometimes in some facilities, you're just fucking

1:38:52

stuck with what you're stuck with. How

1:38:54

often do they change up the, I

1:38:57

mean, do you stick with the same cellmate for a

1:38:59

long time? Oh yeah, yeah, some people can, yeah,

1:39:02

unless they get transferred to another prison and

1:39:04

the feds, they bounce you around a lot, you

1:39:07

know, you'll stay somewhere for a couple of years and

1:39:09

then they'll fly you somewhere else. And

1:39:13

sometimes, sometimes some people, you know, get to

1:39:15

a facility and stay there for, you

1:39:18

know, five, 10 years. Yeah,

1:39:20

you would think that you would think the benefits

1:39:22

of having a cellmate is that you have someone

1:39:24

to talk to, you know what I mean? There's

1:39:27

another, you know, human, but some

1:39:29

people I'm sure you'd rather just be alone,

1:39:31

right? Oh fuck, I

1:39:33

mean, you don't, unless

1:39:37

you're in solitary, you have no fucking human interaction.

1:39:40

Yeah, so that's what I'm saying, solitary confinement

1:39:42

is bad, it's like the worst, by

1:39:44

yourself, so you would think that

1:39:46

having a cellmate would be better, because even

1:39:49

if you guys didn't vibe, at least there's

1:39:51

someone to talk to or whatever, you know?

1:39:53

Yeah, well, you, but you also set your

1:39:55

boundaries, you know, you go in,

1:39:57

you say, hey, this is shit, clean the fucking sink, fucking

1:39:59

fuck. when you shit, you

1:40:01

know, don't touch my shit. I'm not gonna touch your shit.

1:40:05

You know, fucking I'm mopping the floor

1:40:07

today. You mopped the floor tomorrow with

1:40:09

keeping the fucking cell clean where I

1:40:11

ain't had no dirty ass fucking celly.

1:40:13

I can only imagine having a cell. Sometimes

1:40:16

it's sometimes in door closed and

1:40:18

it's just you and him and y'all weren't

1:40:20

vibing that day. You know,

1:40:22

you might have to fucking put your hands

1:40:24

up. You know, like

1:40:26

I've had cellies that we

1:40:29

butted heads until we fucking bang

1:40:32

fists. You know, I mean, I'm gonna accept this. Let

1:40:34

me stop right here at that point. Have you gotten

1:40:36

a real fight? Yeah, if you get caught, you know,

1:40:38

I've walked out of a

1:40:41

cell before in my cell. He had a fucking

1:40:43

busted lip and they go, oh, what happened? I

1:40:45

slipped on a fucking, you know,

1:40:48

I was bullshitting in there last night and slipped and

1:40:50

hit my lip on the edge of the bunk or

1:40:52

whatever, you know. But

1:40:55

yeah, you get caught fighting

1:40:57

and whatever they're gonna send you both to the hole, which

1:41:00

I luckily never had those situations. You

1:41:02

know, I got into situations and you

1:41:05

know, there was some crazy ass moments. State

1:41:07

Pen was like gladiator school. You know, you're

1:41:09

up at 5 a.m. tightening

1:41:11

boots. Plus I was a gang member. So

1:41:14

when I went to the State Pen, you know,

1:41:16

I still had that, I still had to deal

1:41:18

with that, you know, because I had been a gang member for,

1:41:21

you know, since I was 12. And so

1:41:23

everybody, you know, everybody in there knew what I was.

1:41:25

I had a big name in the streets but

1:41:29

also had like a lot of love from

1:41:32

the guards and shit because of my music, right? They

1:41:34

all banged out, lost shit. I had dropped out, lost

1:41:36

shit right before I went in and

1:41:39

then I shot a video while I was in

1:41:41

county jail and it made national news because

1:41:43

I snuck the camera crew in and shot

1:41:45

this video and fucking the

1:41:47

sheriff was all pissed about it. So it hit national

1:41:49

news. Is it, wait a minute, is it on YouTube?

1:41:52

Oh yeah, yeah. Let me see

1:41:54

if I can, I wanna watch it. You know, we're doing4 There's

1:41:59

always, whole fucking news thing about it. It's free fucking

1:42:02

fighting. That

1:42:14

was what this is your new video.

1:42:16

Yes, let's watch the new one.

1:42:19

And then we'll go back and watch that old one. Here's this

1:42:22

one just got dropped.

1:42:25

Anything special you want to

1:42:27

talk about this song. So this this

1:42:29

song is the epitome

1:42:31

of you know what when

1:42:34

you start to change your life and

1:42:36

you make all these changes, you become a better person.

1:42:39

People are so quick to say you forgot

1:42:41

where you come from or or you

1:42:44

know, it's like motherfucker. I forget where I came

1:42:46

from. I know exactly where I came from and

1:42:48

I ain't going back and then they see you

1:42:50

doing good. They see you being a better man

1:42:52

and they think you're soft, right? But the reality

1:42:54

is it took a hell of a

1:42:56

man for me to change. It

1:42:59

takes a weak motherfucker and a bitch

1:43:01

to stay the same and be comfort

1:43:03

in the shit that's fucking their life

1:43:05

up, right? So this

1:43:07

song was just like, Hey, man, I might

1:43:10

have changed my ways, but I never switched up.

1:43:12

I can be the same motherfucker I once was,

1:43:15

you know, like, I don't

1:43:17

want no smoke, but with gasoline, I can

1:43:19

bring that motherfucker back out of me like,

1:43:21

I don't want no problems, man. I'm trying

1:43:23

to live a good life. I'm raising my

1:43:25

kids. Don't think that I'm soft just

1:43:27

because I changed my ways. I'm

1:44:00

gonna get it. I'm gonna

1:44:02

get it twisted. Cross

1:44:18

that line, you can get right up

1:44:20

at the wage on how this goes.

1:44:22

You can roll it down. You

1:44:26

can try your luck. Make

1:44:29

the talk real tough on the car.

1:44:31

Your blood just you forget about who I

1:44:34

am. Leave it on the tape.

1:44:38

With the dead band chain. I'm

1:44:42

gonna change my ways, but in now I'm free. Strolling

1:44:44

back to me the same motherfucker. I

1:44:47

once was still with it. So

1:44:50

don't give it twisted. I'm

1:44:54

holding on to smoke, but the castle

1:44:56

ain't happy. Throw your motherfucker back out.

1:44:59

I'm holding on to it. Don't

1:45:02

give it twisted. I

1:45:05

can't proceed. I'm

1:45:08

holding on to it. So

1:45:11

ride it up. Yeah.

1:45:14

For what you're worth. Hey. Hey.

1:45:18

Change my way, but in now I'm

1:45:20

free. Strolling back to me the same

1:45:22

motherfucker. I once was still

1:45:24

with it. So don't

1:45:26

give it twisted. I

1:45:31

don't know no no no no.

1:45:33

I can bring your motherfucker back

1:45:35

out. I'm holding on to it.

1:45:37

So don't give it twisted.

1:45:41

Don't give it twisted. Get

1:45:49

it right up, cause you got a sharp fuse.

1:45:51

You got a sharp fuse, that'll even smell them

1:45:53

fumes. I'm

1:45:57

burning on down. I'm

1:46:00

going to do it.

1:46:07

I'm going to do it. Hell

1:46:18

yeah, man. Congratulations. That

1:46:20

was awesome, man. What was that prison

1:46:22

one? Yeah, put

1:46:25

in struggle Jennings sneak

1:46:27

camera crew in. Mix

1:46:31

camera. So

1:46:34

we go from the newest video to

1:46:37

the first one, right? Second

1:46:39

one. Yeah. Let's

1:46:42

see right there makes national news.

1:46:45

Top one. Here we go. I

1:46:49

can't really hear it. Record

1:46:52

part of his new music video. This

1:46:54

one had a lot of folks shaking

1:46:56

their heads. You shall five markets Washington

1:46:58

when they're looking for answers. Now officials

1:47:01

at the jail market say they didn't exactly

1:47:03

know what was going on. No, it's crazy

1:47:05

when you think about it. But after talking

1:47:07

with the sheriff deputies over there, we found

1:47:09

out that that crew lied to get access.

1:47:12

Just like when we interview inmates, we have

1:47:14

to go through proper channels. Well, this out

1:47:16

of state film crew did too. But we're

1:47:18

told they disguise their intentions. And in the

1:47:20

final moment from inside the jail, managed to

1:47:22

record what they needed for this draft music

1:47:24

video. What

1:47:30

we often see in music videos are

1:47:32

recreated to make a certain image. These

1:47:34

images are very real inside Davis County

1:47:36

jail. And a lot of people have

1:47:39

stories to tell that might help a

1:47:41

young person change their life and make

1:47:43

sure that they don't end up in

1:47:45

jail or there are messages to be

1:47:47

told. While in jail facing drug charges,

1:47:50

William Parriss, also known as the rapper

1:47:52

Struggle Jennings, was able to arrange a

1:47:54

camera crew to come inside the jail

1:47:56

and film parts of this rap music

1:47:58

video Black Curtains. They came to us

1:48:00

saying they wanted to shoot a documentary.

1:48:03

Pearl West with the Davidson County Sheriff's

1:48:05

Office says like any request for a

1:48:07

documentary or media interview, she and an

1:48:09

officer were with the crew and inmate

1:48:11

the entire time. They sat

1:48:13

there and asked him 20 minutes

1:48:15

worth of questions just as

1:48:18

they would in any documentary about his life and

1:48:20

different things like that. And then at the

1:48:22

end, they asked as part of the documentary could

1:48:24

be now some of the words to his song.

1:48:27

And I allowed that. But West was

1:48:29

not told the final minutes would be

1:48:31

used in a music video that was

1:48:33

later posted on Hardest's blog and

1:48:36

YouTube for the world to see. Again,

1:48:38

what we're doing when

1:48:40

it seems as though now in

1:48:42

hindsight, their purpose from the beginning

1:48:45

was to try to get

1:48:47

that accomplished so it could turn into

1:48:49

a video, not a documentary at all.

1:48:52

You stand still. What a terrible act. The

1:48:54

song is a message to Hardest's son

1:48:57

about not following down the same path

1:48:59

that landed him in jail. The lie

1:49:01

completely covers up whatever the message is

1:49:03

of the song. West says the interview

1:49:05

was shot in November of 2012, just

1:49:08

days before Hardest was transferred to a

1:49:10

prison. They did not find

1:49:12

out about this video until last week. We

1:49:16

don't want people to believe we would just

1:49:18

open our doors and allow this to happen

1:49:20

and know it. The

1:49:22

harness is currently in jail at the

1:49:24

Northeast Correct and Complex in Mountain City,

1:49:26

Tennessee, when you became eligible for parole

1:49:28

at the beginning of the deathbed. OK,

1:49:31

but as far as the actual video goes, were

1:49:33

any laws broken or no laws

1:49:35

against it? Well, West tells me

1:49:37

that they are exploring those legal

1:49:40

options because the production company misrepresented

1:49:42

their purpose. Coming up tonight at

1:49:44

6, I will share with you what Sheriff Darren

1:49:46

Hall requested in a letter he sent to that

1:49:48

out of state. Yeah, clearly not

1:49:50

happy with that. Not at any point. Jail

1:49:54

in Maine. Dude, that was fucking

1:49:56

brilliant. Was that a plan? You guys planned

1:49:58

that the whole time? or just ended up

1:50:00

after. Well, it was like, you

1:50:02

know, Seb and the crew was all trying to

1:50:04

put together the video, but

1:50:07

we didn't have my performance. And a good

1:50:10

friend of mine, Phyllis, that you met the other day. Yellow

1:50:14

Wolf's manager, right? Yeah, Yellow Wolf's manager.

1:50:17

This was before he was Wolf's manager. He

1:50:21

had the plug at the

1:50:24

jail because his mom worked for the sheriff's

1:50:26

office. So he had the plug to

1:50:28

get all the proper paperwork. So

1:50:30

we brought in, and we were doing documentary shit,

1:50:32

right? Like we'd been filming my life since 07.

1:50:36

So we have all this footage from when I was

1:50:38

in the streets, going to prison,

1:50:40

coming home from prison. We've got the

1:50:42

last seven,

1:50:44

16, 17 years completely documented. You

1:50:48

know? Is that

1:50:50

gonna be released ever? Oh yeah, fuck

1:50:52

yeah. Nah, it's gonna be released. We were

1:50:55

doing episodes on YouTube,

1:50:57

and there's a bunch of them on

1:50:59

there still, but we pulled a lot

1:51:01

of them off because we're building the

1:51:03

right documentary, you know, that

1:51:06

shows this whole story and shows, you

1:51:09

know, the

1:51:14

fucking whole journey. I mean, every bit

1:51:16

of it, right? So the musical, that

1:51:19

music video that you did in jail

1:51:21

is the complete video still available on

1:51:23

YouTube? Oh yeah, we fought

1:51:25

them. I wanna watch that, that looks good, man.

1:51:27

Yeah, we fought them. We were like, you

1:51:30

know, fuck y'all, y'all gave

1:51:32

us all the right, and you know what's crazy? I

1:51:34

just saw that lady, Carla West, and

1:51:37

me and Jelly played inside of a jail,

1:51:40

performed inside of a jail at Nashville, and she came

1:51:42

with the sheriff, and she was like, oh, it's so

1:51:44

nice to meet you. And I'm sitting there looking at

1:51:46

her like, you know who

1:51:48

I am, girl. You

1:51:50

went on the news and talked to all that shit, but

1:51:54

now what's the name of the song? Black

1:51:56

Curtains. Let's

1:52:02

check it out. That one looks good dude.

1:53:00

Huh, That is 211 Siddharth. En

1:53:25

endeavtiah. Uh, That is a

1:53:28

thug. Momma's a saint, she sing a story to

1:53:30

God. Praying for change, the air stick

1:53:32

but the mics won't. Cause she

1:53:34

was chasing the rainbows right into the storm.

1:53:36

Chasing the sun cause he was out on

1:53:38

the block. Kishaw don't wanna be a thug

1:53:40

and he listen to pop. And the same

1:53:42

street pops got shot in. A legacy expected

1:53:45

for him to get it poppin'. It's Fat

1:53:47

Pitch Boyz and a fisert. Can't see the

1:53:49

world past black curts. In a fight, in

1:53:51

a fight, with a black curt. In

1:53:54

the steady streets. Black

1:53:59

group, conga. No go

1:54:01

payments, tired stuff In

1:54:08

a white room with a

1:54:10

black curtain in the streets

1:54:15

Round two You

1:54:18

stand still while the time flies Got kids

1:54:20

of his own, responsible for five lives Coming

1:54:22

late, toasting the dough You bring home the

1:54:24

bacon and the slaw to the hog A

1:54:26

father of five, so the family will rise

1:54:29

And when the feds all arrive, it's time

1:54:31

for goodbye They look in the eyes of a

1:54:33

child all alone Or make any kid give up

1:54:35

his throne, shit They look at

1:54:37

his son, he'll have it for certain So now I'm

1:54:39

tearing down the black curtains You said

1:54:42

no strength, but security in the

1:54:44

streets That

1:54:50

barn picket, restless

1:54:52

diesel Goodbye, my

1:54:55

love I

1:54:59

walked into such a sad town at the stage

1:55:08

As I walked out,

1:55:10

felt my own need

1:55:12

just begin I'm

1:55:19

waiting this way Where

1:55:23

the sun never

1:55:25

shines Down

1:55:28

in you Where

1:55:32

the shadows run

1:55:35

from themselves Yeah,

1:55:41

the streets told me what I was supposed to

1:55:44

be Because of who my daddy was But

1:55:47

if he would have been alive, he would have wanted

1:55:49

me to be better than he was So now as

1:55:51

I see my son, I say, be better than I

1:55:53

was Break the cycle,

1:55:55

like Wayna said, I leave a lot to live

1:55:58

up to, a lot to live down My

1:56:00

strength, my weakness, the truth and the

1:56:02

lies. So don't stand in

1:56:04

my shadows. Follow the light. Look

1:56:07

past this black curtain. Oh,

1:56:30

man. He's out of here. He's

1:56:32

out of here. He's out of here. He's

1:56:34

out of here. That

1:57:12

video was fucking awesome. It was genius.

1:57:15

Yeah, the way I like the way.

1:57:18

So Waylon Jennings was a famous

1:57:21

country singer, correct? Yeah.

1:57:23

And he is your great

1:57:26

grandfather or grandpa? He's my great, my grandfather.

1:57:28

And a lot of like a lot of

1:57:30

those blogs and interviews and shit, they like

1:57:33

to throw in that step. They'll be like,

1:57:35

oh, step grandfather. I'm like, no, motherfucker. That

1:57:37

was fucking Paw Paw, dog. That

1:57:39

was fucking grandpa. He fucking raised me, you know?

1:57:42

I was, he was a prominent

1:57:45

male figure in my life. And

1:57:48

did you get him? Was that a sample of one of his songs

1:57:50

or did you get him to resing it? Well,

1:57:52

so he was already passed when that happened. He died when I

1:57:54

was in jail in 2002. And

1:57:58

he, I got

1:58:00

the actual files to sample

1:58:03

those. So I got to

1:58:05

actually, I could pull his voice out

1:58:07

because Shooter had reproduced

1:58:09

a record on him. And

1:58:12

so Shooter gave me the whole hard drive. Like

1:58:15

here's the fucking actual, like you could hear his

1:58:17

thumb hitting the fucking guitar. Like it was crazy,

1:58:20

man. It was like happening there though in

1:58:22

the studio. And I used a lot of

1:58:24

his players and

1:58:26

he used like Robbie Turner on

1:58:29

Steel for that album. You know

1:58:31

that, and we'd sit in there all night in

1:58:33

the studio and it did his tell old Waylon

1:58:35

stories and shit and I'd tell stories that I

1:58:37

have. Okay,

1:58:39

so you're in jail. You're, as soon as you

1:58:42

get into prison, you're like, I'm turning my life

1:58:44

around. You start writing a lot of lyrics in

1:58:46

jail. No, I actually,

1:58:49

so I get into jail and I'm, start

1:58:52

writing and I'm reading a

1:58:54

lot. And

1:58:56

I got to a point where I was like, you know

1:58:59

what? I'm not

1:59:01

gonna write a single fucking song while I'm in jail.

1:59:04

I'm gonna sit in here, I'm gonna work on me. I'm

1:59:06

gonna fucking absorb all of this shit. I'm gonna

1:59:08

fucking soak it all in. I'm gonna smell it.

1:59:10

I'm gonna taste it. I'm gonna fucking live it.

1:59:13

And I'll tell the story when I get out.

1:59:17

And I had like one or two things that

1:59:19

I wrote while I was in there. And

1:59:22

I wrote a lot, but I didn't like put

1:59:24

them in song form and I didn't go

1:59:27

back and like, I didn't cut

1:59:29

any songs that I wrote while

1:59:31

I was in jail. Cause I didn't

1:59:33

want to, you know, I wanted to tell it

1:59:35

from the perspective of going in there, living

1:59:40

that shit and then getting out

1:59:43

so that I could tell the whole story from,

1:59:45

you know, so much shit you

1:59:48

realize in hindsight, right? Or

1:59:51

as you're going through it, your perspective may

1:59:53

be different in the beginning, halfway

1:59:55

through it. And at the end. So I

1:59:57

wanted to be able to tell the whole

1:59:59

story whole heart. and with the right outlook,

2:00:04

right? I wanted the real story. Because

2:00:07

you know how it is, like your reality is always

2:00:10

based on your perception, how you

2:00:12

see something and what you think

2:00:14

about it in that moment will

2:00:17

be your reality and it might be the

2:00:19

farthest thing from reality once you go through

2:00:21

it and look back on it. So

2:00:24

it was looking back now as a blessing in disguise going to prison.

2:00:28

It was the best fucking thing that ever happened to me.

2:00:31

Besides having fucking kids and shit, I

2:00:34

wouldn't change a single part of it because

2:00:36

now it's gave me a fucking story. I can go in

2:00:38

the trenches and I can talk to people that are going

2:00:40

through the same shit and they believe

2:00:42

me because I've been there. And

2:00:45

bro, I'm about to open 25 rehabs in

2:00:48

the next two years. We're opening the

2:00:50

first one. The door should be open in a

2:00:52

couple months. We're actually driving up

2:00:54

tonight to Pineville,

2:00:57

Kentucky to

2:00:59

the first one. We just broke

2:01:01

ground on the remodel because

2:01:04

I got some business partners that buy old

2:01:06

hospitals that are dying and then they bring

2:01:09

them back to life. You know, they give them a facelift,

2:01:12

hire new doctors, get no equipment and

2:01:14

rebuild these hospitals that are in these little

2:01:17

towns that are like dying where people are

2:01:19

having to drive two hours to get medical

2:01:21

attention. They're rebuilding

2:01:23

these hospitals. So each one

2:01:25

of these hospitals has these extra wings. And

2:01:28

so we're putting a detox program,

2:01:31

a 28-day program and then a aftercare program

2:01:34

and partnering with some long-term rehabs until

2:01:36

we can build our own, you know,

2:01:38

for the so people can get the

2:01:40

full thing. It's called

2:01:42

Sound Sobriety. So I'm implementing

2:01:44

music and songwriting into the program like

2:01:47

so the people that are going through

2:01:49

there, they can have the

2:01:51