“I BASICALLY TOLD HOT ROD, ‘MAN, YOU AIN’T FROM ARIZONA. YOU GON’ NEED REAL NIGGAS BEHIND YOU. IF [50 CENT] ASKS YOU ABOUT YOUR CREW, TELL HIM ABOUT YOUR BOY.’ AND HE DID IT.”
WILLY NORTHPOLE
ESS N SI U B TLY C STRI
“POPS USED TO GIVE ME MONEY ALL THE TIME, BUT HE WOULD COME BACK LIKE AN HOUR LATER AND ASK FOR IT BACK ‘CAUSE HE HAD SPENT ALL HIS MONEY.”
So you were born in a helicopter. Did they take you up because of the flood or how did that work? Well, the floods in Phoenix are crazy and they couldn’t get to the hospital. So they had to send a helicopter to come and get me. Just picture a helicopter landing in the hood, right in front of my grandmother’s house. They threw a nigga in the newspaper and all that shit. It was crazy.
I was young but I understood that whatever he’s doing, he’s going to ask for his money back anyway. Then he would leave crack residue all on the kitchen counter. That nigga was smokin’ in the house. I used to pick that shit up off the floor. I remember one time I tasted it and it was like a little numb feeling. I thought it was candy, like a weird lookin’ candy, ‘cause we fuck with Ese’s out here. So I brought it to my mama and she snatched it out my hand.
How long did that event stay with you? I’d imagine you were pretty popular. Shit, I was the helicopter baby ‘til I was like 8 or 9. That shit was big. It was that kind of flood to where they had to come and get me. It stayed with the media ‘til I was like three or four.
Was he living with y’all or was he just kinda in and out? He was living with us faithfully, but the thing about it, he was a strong alcoholic. I’m talkin’, liver just toasty right now. He on the bed right now cause of alcohol. Crack ain’t killin’ him, alcohol is. I remember we used to take him to work and my moms would just start cryin’, cause she knew he was about to down a whole bottle of Thunderbird. He did that every day before he went to work. He was a car salesman. I never understood why moms was cryin’. She’d usually do it when we stopped at the store before we actually dropped him off. I don’t think he was a salesman. I think he was a mechanic or a janitor or some shit. But he’d down the whole bottle, give the family a hug and bounce. We did that every day for years. You mix that crack with alcohol, and you already know what time it is.
And once you got off into music I understand you thought you were Michael Jackson. Yeah, hell yeah. I was singing and rapping. I thought I was him when I was a kid, but once I started doing talent shows I was rapping. I was seven, eight years old and knew every word to “Self Destruction.” I started with that. Moms had me rehearse that shit all day. She had me in all the talent shows and I used to lip-sync shit. Them little fake ass gold chains you used to put on the Christmas tree? She cut one of them and put it on my neck and put some big ass glasses on me and threw me on stage with a suit. I just started doin’ that shit from there. I really started rappin’ after my cousin passed away though, cause he used to do that shit. He influenced me to do it, kinda get me to take it to another level. During the time when you were doing talent shows, was that when you began to realize that your father was addicted to drugs? Around that time he was already smokin’. I was a young nigga that didn’t understand. I never knew what crack was. You gotta understand, I was born in 1980 and crack came in ’85. So I’m only eight years old and I just started noticing shit in the house was missing. And I remember at that age he used to give a nigga money all the time. He still worked, but he would come back like a hour later and ask for it back ‘cause he had spent all his money; in a nice way, though. Then it got to the point where I wouldn’t even take it no more. 22 // OZONE WEST
At what point did you start kickin’ it tough with your cousin? Salt was a sixteen year old pioneer. He was sixteen but he was always with the older niggas cause he had a fast life. He was in and out of jail, but he was a real family dude. He didn’t never call me by my name, he called me “cousin.” He was that type of nigga. I started hangin’ out with him when I was ten and he was fourteen. But he was into gangs strong at the time – lil nigga with a pistol and all that shit. But I remember he used to get quarters from his parents and we’d go to the video game store and then I’d get quarters from my parents and we’d just share quarters all the time playin’ video games. I never understood why he kept a gun on him. I remember one time I saw him shoot at somebody and he told me to walk home, while he walked away and I just heard gunshots. He was really into the streets like that. He was basically like the older homies’ lil shooter, their lil’ flunky. He was the one answering the door, pattin’ niggas down, shit like that. But he was only