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fter months of preparation for the heavily anticipated video for his regional smash, “Ghost Ride The Whip,” Oakland’s own Mistah FAB was given the go ahead to film. Because cable networks considered ghostriding itself “public endangerment,” FAB was forced to go with Plan B for the video concept and used the original Ghostbusters car. With MTV, BET and a host of other cable networks on deck to push the video he was accosted by Ghostbusters fanatics, who deemed his street interpretation of the ‘80’s movie “inappropriate.” Thousands of dollars later, for a project he personally financed, the Freestyle King was forced to answer to Columbia Pictures, Atlantic Records and “Hannity & Colmes,” the latter to explain antics that some claim have inspired reckless and even fatal behavior across the nation. OZONE caught up with Fabby in an effort to allow him to “air it out.” It’s kinda crazy for me cause I spent a lot of time and a lot of hard effort in the movement that I’ve been tryna create. I did the “Ghost Ride the Whip” video. I spent my own money, put a lot of time and focus into it and at first they really wasn’t tryna put it on. Then they finally came around after about seven edits of the video and let it go. We got “Jam of the Week,” got added to MTV University and a lot of other stuff was in motion. We were finna do 106th & Park, the whole shindig. You know how they got the Star Wars, the Trekkies, Star Trek diehard fans? A lot of Ghostbusters diehard fans had started this website really tryna knock me for what I was doin’. Then it was, “Man that’s not right. He’s not representin’ the Bay right,” and I didn’t even understand it. So I kinda lashed out at them and they just took it to the fullest extreme that they could take it to. I guess they got Columbia Pictures behind them and Columbia hit us up talkin’ bout I wasn’t representin’ the movie right. They got to talkin’ all type of crazy shit about what they want the movie to be remembered for. All types of shit. So they hit MTV up, hit Atlantic and told them they if they didn’t pull the video they’re going to sue the corporation. So after everything, I’m just sittin’ there like, “Wow!! Damn, I just spent this amount of thousands, went through this amount of bullshit, did this, did that, had preparations for this, for that and you just pull the video like that?” So they pull the video and they even try to pull it from YouTube. They really wanted to kill my whole momentum. But I’ve been through so much negative stuff in life that something like that could never stop me from going to the next level. We can take a negative and turn it into a positive. So I hit up all my friends that I have in high places. The media outlets, the Internet and people who got the moms and pops videos. They gon’ still keep it lit and all my MySpace friends is still gon’ keep it on they page. At the end of the day my main objective is to turn this negative into a positive and continue to reap the benefits from it and laugh at ‘em in they face. If you’ve overcome certain things in life, that’s what makes you appreciate it more. A lot of people get overnight stardom and overnight credibility and they don’t really appreciate the hard effort that you gotta put into it. In this industry and whatever else you do in life you have to put the time in and try to overcome things. I just appreciate it because I realize it’s just another obstacle in life that I have to overcome. And when we overcome it I’ll laugh at the success rate knowing there was so much opposition. I’ll be able to tell them years later that I’m still a success story. It’s wild cause the day that I found out it was funny. It was funny in a scandalous way though. It was like hysteria. You’re so in disbelief and so in awe that you can’t believe that it just happened. But people that get banned eventually became huge: N.W.A, Luke, ‘Pac, Too $hort, so that just put me in a list amongst legends. Those are all-time greats and I got banned just like they did. That’s great. It’s huge. I got a mixtape comin’ out called Can’t Ban the Ghostrider. It’s basically just 10 // OZONE WEST
me telling them that whatever they try to do they can’t ban me. I’m still gon’ be live in the streets and it’s still gon’ be people in the streets talkin’ about it. So I’m doin’ that with Dow Jones and DJ Skee and that’ll blow up and we’ll use the momentum from that until my album The Baydestrian drops May 15th. I’m really not that mad when I think about it. It motivates me and my only recourse is to do it again. If I did it then I can do it again. It ain’t like I’m one of them dudes who’s on his last leg. This whole music game is at the beginning for me. I did the independent thing. I look at it like it’s high school. High school is my graduation. When I first got at it I was in high school and I graduated and went to college. College was my second album and my senior year is my senior project and that’s The Baydestrian and then I go on into the pros. I mean, I’m only 25 years old and I’ve done a lot of stuff that people twice my age haven’t done yet. But at the same time some of those same people have done stuff that I can’t even imagine doing. So I just look at it as a learning experience. I look at the time and money I spent, but that’s promotion. Look at all the promotion I got from it!! I been on Hannity and Colmes! That’s crazy!! Just from doin’ that that’s promotion in and of itself. So the money that I spent I just look at it like it’s promotion money. It ain’t like my money is about to stop. I’m a hustler so I’ma always be able to create an avenue for myself to get money. I’ma keep workin’. I love competition and challenges. They’re always amusing to me because there’s so many critics and so many speculations as to what I’ma be able to do and whether I’ma be able to deal with the adversity. Once you face adversity that defines the character of a person. What are you going to do when you go through something? Are you gon’ curl up and tuck tail or are you gon’ come back strong. I choose to come back strong. When I went on Hannity and Comes I wanted to show that anytime somebody infiltrates a suburban area, it’s all of a sudden a problem. When N.W.A. was doin’ they thang and little white kids was wearin’ baggy clothes and tryna get jheri curls and sportin’ black on black, white America went crazy. The only reason they came down on it was because they was showin’ clips of ghostridin’ and it was all white kids in suburban areas. When it crossed over it was a problem because you’re no longer affecting your community. You’re affecting their community. They try to point the finger at people and say that ghostridin’ is dangerous, but there has to be a point in our lives when we become responsible for our own actions. If I go out in the middle of the street in the middle of traffic and get hit by a car, how can I blame you if you had a song called “In the Middle of the Street?” Shouldn’t I be wise enough to know what’s good for me and what’s not good for me? Unfortunately some lives have been lost due to some people tryna carry out this stunna ghostridin’ and that’s nuthin’ you wanna brag about. That’s on your soul. But at the same time, these were adults. They don’t need someone to hold their hand. They are grown and they should know right from wrong and they should be held accountable for their actions. Ghostridin’ is not something that’s easy to do. It is dangerous, but if you were able to put ghostridin’ in a controlled environment, it would be one of the biggest things to do. For those that don’t know the Bay Area culture, a sideshow is like a big car show and people would love to see it. When cowboys first started ridin’ bulls it was dangerous too, but when they put them in a controlled environment, they called it the “rodeo.” That’s one of America’s favorite pastimes. I study the greats. I study Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, all the greats and I realize that they all went through challenges in their lives. This is only a challenge that was meant for me to get over. If I wanna claim greatness, then I gotta overcome this, and that’s what I’m going to do. // As told to N. Ali Early Photo by D-Ray