Talk about going to jail.

My man, Castro, I was at his crib and we was just talking and kicking it. And he was talking about how we had a lot of friends that they didn’t even make it, like they gone - a lot of our friends. And we’re not that old - I’m only 34, son is like 32. That’s serious. We was going down the list, like, “damn, damn, damn.” You count off two hundred mother fuckers you knew that’s dead. That’s serious.

Far worse than death is jail.

Well, if anybody’s familiar with George Jackson, it’s like being in jail where basically your soul is on ice, you a slave, you a product, a number. I’ve done been to jail all over the place, I been to the worst jails. They consider Fulton County Jail as the worst county jail in America. This is the jail where they don’t even lock your cells at night, the inmates run the jail. And I’m from New York, imagine that shit. But see I’m a wolf and I’m a warrior so my shit is gonna be respected ‘cause wherever we gotta go that’s where we gonna go and wherever we gotta come back to, that’s where we gotta come back to. And I’m prepared for whatever that means. So it’s like after a while your shit is respected, like “homie’s good, yeah alright, you’re good.” We gotta exist in here and you not playing me. But I’m looking at other dudes and I’m going “damn, shorty, you letting dudes just run up in you like that. Wow, this shit is serious, man.” Yo, I was the youngest inmate at Elmira Prison, that’s a Max A prison, I was 16 years old. The system sent me there ‘cause they wanted me to get raped; they wanted me to get broke down. But it didn’t happen. And it taught me a lot. I was in there with dudes who had triple life, they ain’t never coming home. You know who else was in there with me? Black Rob. We used to battle and shit. But on some serious shit, like that shit really opened my eyes up going in there. My shit was serious. I had ni--as trying to rape me, that shit is real. Where I had to go out with a pencil, you understand where I’m coming from. These little dudes be thinking… like, yo, you not even built for war. Then they gonna go down cause they not built for it, and when they come home, it’s gonna be a wrap. Their whole spirit is gone - they broke it. The system will break you.

How has going to jail affected your music?

It basically gave me the concept for “Intelligent Hoodlum.” I met a dude in Elmira, named Hicks. He had double life, young dude. He was two, three years older than me. But this dude, like he didn’t look old but his whole aura was like, “wow, son is a General.” I was like 16, and like he was schooling me on how to live. But his whole science, the way he moved was ill. And he would just hit me with mad jewels, books to read. And in my mind this ni--a looked like a fucking intellectual hoodlum cause he always had the specs on. He was so articulate. And I was like “how do you know about all this shit? He was a gangster. He told me, he showed me what a gangster really is. It ain’t no dude with a bandana on. Che Guevara was a gangster, Fidel Castro was a gangster, mother fuckin’ Malik El Hajj Shabazz was a gangster, Johnnie Cochran was a gangster, Mumia is a gangster, Mottola is a gangster, Russell Simmons is kinda gangsta. Word up, on some real shit. I respect that - those are gangsters. Basically, Hicks educated me, showed me you know how to eat to live instead of living to eat. And I learned a lot of valuable lessons in there. Serious shit. Continued on page 5 »