Fremont High School, for basketball.
Did you have brothers and sisters?
Naw, naw. My mom has four daughters
and me. I got two brothers that died
from gang violence. Other than that, I
basically grew up in a foster home.
How old were you when your brothers
were killed and how did that effect you?
came to the Bay
and that’s where I
got the grind from,
that independent
interviewbyblackdogbone E L A (( t ew bl ckdogbone X G A M E i n t e r v i e w : g a m Thirteen and Nineteen. They was murdered. Before
my brother Devon was killed I think that I was a pretty standup kid. I was real happy and having a lotta fun in life. After that I kinda got a sore spot about me. I really started to get into the streets at that point. I turned intoto to a bad kid. I started doing a bunch of the wrong things.I started to sell drugs and make drugs. Getting into shit I started to sell drugs and make drugs. Getting into shit e k . it with some of my friends. Sometimes Compton swallows f m you whole, especially when you don’t have nobody s c l u o v n o taking care in the home on an everyday basis. It seems like your brothers’ deaths put you on a certain o a path and you couldn’t get off of that. Right. I always say that. I always wonder how things a e gs would’ve turned out if it hadn’t happened like that, t ’t d k h what I woulda been doing. I think I woulda been playingu u e in basketball cause that was my first love. I still play andt t n every time I play I feel so good. When I’m on the courts, d W r that’s when I’m at my happiest. Playin basketball or a h t i s l y a k t a r playing video games with my girl or my family, my kids. k When you got into the streets, were you still in school at that time? I was stillinschool; Ithink I wasinthe eighth or ninth grade. s t i k i t e i h horn nth rade. At that time were you interested in music or writing i r y t s d n u c r ri in lyrics? Even though you’re a Gangsta/Reality West t yo e a gsta alit West Coast rapper, you are very lyrical almost like an East y r s Coast Hip Hop artist. Yeah. I was always a fan of Hip Hop. I didn’t rap until I . i was older, in my twenties, but I loved Hip Hop. I loved l i I d East Coast Hip Hop and I loved Gangsta Rap, which was what I grew up around—NWA and Spice 1, even the Geto Boys and Big Mike and all those guys Down B South. I fell in love with lyrics, people like Dougie I yrics, peopl Fresh and Dana Dane and Big Daddy Kane, LL Cool J, who were a little more lyrical than the Gangsta l t rappers. I kinda mixed that style with the Gangsta p m x wit Rap and that’s what made Game. When you first came out you stood out from a lot of West n you out m a lo f West Coast artists because you had that lyrical background. That’s who I am, you can’t never change that. I am u c r c e t a m what I am. No matter what I go through in life or t how I elevate myself ow I elevate myself or how wise I get or how old I I ow ise ge r h ol I get, the core of me is still that. You can take me out f i ill at ca take me o the hood but you can’t take the hood outta homeboy. he hood but you can’t take the hood outta homeboy. You didn’t start rapping until you were in your twenties.l l i e What was it that turned you to the music? I got shot. Once you get shot you try to figure out anything . y o g t n i you can to do, you gotta getyourself a change of life. Wheno o y u s l h n eo ife. When I got shot it was a reality check for me, it woke me up to try to do something else better with my life. I definitely didn’t o y wanna die, as much as I thought that I wanted to die. i CONTINUES NEXT PAGE
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