that the cocaine era left a lot of kids to just raise themselves. Tell us about the dope case you caught that eventually led to the break-up of 415. In ‘88-‘90 we just popped, we were on fire. Then in ’90 or ‘91 I got caught up with the dope. I did 240 days in county. They offered me a 90-day option in the pen or a county year, which is 240 days. I took the county year and everybody thought I was crazy. Even my attorney was like, “Why would you take the 240 days instead of the 90-day opt? Go to [San] Quentin for 90 days and you’re out!” It wasn’t about the prison facility, it was that I wanted probation over parole. You can’t get off that parole, that parole is cold. And once again, that goes back to the youngsters who don’t have nobody to tell ‘em. They don’t tell you what CJS means. You go to court and they tell you, “We’ll let you out today and you take the CJS.” All they hear is “let you out today.” CJS means “county joint suspended,” so that means if you get busted for something else, that automatically means 12 months in the pen. A lot of people don’t know that shit. I wanted probation over parole. If you’re on parole and a nigga comes over and shoots you, [as] soon as you go to the hospital and leave there, your ass is goin’ to jail. You’re not suppose to come in contact with no police, no nothin’. That’s hard to beat when you gotta live in Oakland. Probation is longer but it’s easier to beat. Niggas don’t know that. What did you take away from your experiences upon your release from prison? Shit became like camp. What I didn’t dig was
when a muthafucka gon’ tell me to eat, when I’m gon’ shit, when I’m finna move over here. If this nigga in the pod doesn’t have his bed made up then everyone in the pod suffers. I wasn’t really feelin’ the way they ran it so I told myself, “Either you gon’ have to quit hustlin’ or you gon’ have to get a whole lot slicker ‘cause the jail shit just ain’t for me.” I’m not sayin’ it’s for nobody but it wasn’t for me, fo sho! It’s like playin’ tag -- if you could you’re never “it” and you get away every muthafuckin’ time. That’s when I started changing damn near the way I did everything. You said you didn’t want to get into too much detail about your take on the Bay movement, but your opinion matters considering that you are one of the veterans in the rap game. What was it about the movement you didn’t like? Not that I didn’t like it; the shit knock, it slaps, but that ain’t what I do. So I woulda been feelin’ like I was fakin’ tryin’ to do [hyphy music]. To put it in terms where you can understand me, basically if we were to categorize rap as food, you’d say, “Richie Rich be spittin’ that chicken” and then people want to [eat] pizza next month, I’m not just gon’ start makin’ pizzas. When niggas get back to wanting some chicken, that’s what I got. But with the hyphy shit, I don’t think they should’ve done so much copyin’ each other. I think that’s what slowed down the Bay Area’s creativity. It ain’t a bunch of different shit no more. Back in the day 415 was hard and gangsta, Short was pimpin’, Dangerous Dame was real smooth radio-type shit, and we were all cool. When we were kids, I had 4 or 5 niggas -- one of ‘em had braids, the other nigga had a fade, the other one had long ass hair and I had a ‘fro. It
wasn’t so much clonin’ and copy-cattin’. There’s no originality [now] and I think that’s what fucked the music up. What I hate the most is that when the Bay Area did have its last little glow, the last little hooray, shit was gettin’ played [on the radio] but niggas didn’t have nothin’ in the store. Niggas burnt up good radio play. Once again, it goes back to nobody teachin’ these youngsters. [They think], “I gotta get my shit out there so my shit can be heard.” But the truth is, that’s like me standing on the corner tellin’ muthafuckas, “This nigga has the most potent weed in the world, right down the street.” And all these cars are pullin’ up, like, “Where he at?” and I’m like, “The weed is right down there.” People pull up, like, “Let me get a fifty or hunned sack,” and he says, “I ain’t got it right now.” Now do you think they’re gon’ come back after they just heard this nigga broadcastin’ this weed ova here and can’t nobody get nothin’? That’s the same thing as burnin’ radio play when you ain’t got nothin’ in the market for sale. You’d be better off gettin’ your records ready, gettin’ them in the stores and then approaching radio. What’s good with the new album? Are you ready to come back? I got so many songs; I got about 50 or 60 good songs done. What I’m doing right now is entertaining my options on what channels I’m gon’ use to put that thang out. This shit is like a crap shoot, and I feel like I’m a hot nigga. And if I can’t come in hot then I might just come in from a whole different angle. I’ll go work my thang from the other side of the world, heat it, and then come back. There’s different ways to do shit. //
OZONE WEST // 17