Rap is a musical genre that originates in the streets
and many popular artists in the genre are known gang members.
Not all artists who throw up a gang sign in a music video are truly affiliated.
However, there are plenty of prominent rappers who are really about that life.
Here is a look at some of the most well-known artists who are gang-affiliated.
Bloods
Young Thug
Jeffrey Lamar Williams, better known as Young Thug,
is a rapper and singer from Atlanta, Georgia.
Thug was born in the Jonesboro South Projects in the Sylvan Hills neighborhood of Atlanta,
also known as Zone 3.
Thug was 1 out of 11 children in his family.
Today, Thug is known for his outlandish fashion sense and unique vocal delivery.
But, growing up in a rough part of Atlanta,
the artist had many run-ins with the law
and is known to be affiliated with the bloods.
One of Thug’s brothers was shot and killed when the rapper was young
and another is currently serving life in prison.
He claims he was in the streets since he was 8 or 9 years old
and was expelled from the 6th grade for breaking a teacher’s arm.
After that, he spent 4 years in a juvenile detention center.
He started to rap while locked up and when he got out,
he linked up with his childhood friend Peewee Longway who introduced him to Gucci Mane.
Gucci ended up signing Thug to his 1017 label,
where he released several popular mixtapes like 1017 Thug.
But after Gucci was sent to prison,
he sold off Thug’s record contract so he could continue his career.
After that, he began an affiliation with Birdman and Cash Money
that resulted in Rich Gang,
a group he formed with Rich Homie Quan with Birdman acting as executive producer.
In 2015, Lil Wayne’s tour bus was shot up by a member of the bloods,
and Thug was named as a person of interest in the shooting.
The prosecution tried to claim that Thug’s YSL brand,
short for Young Stoner Life,
was a blood set that Thug is the leader of.
It’s unclear whether this is true,
or a surface level accusation meant to discredit the artist.
Thug doesn’t talk much about his blood affiliations in interviews,
so it’s unclear exactly which set he’s from.
But he does reference blood culture in his music
and many of his mixtape titles contain reference to the gang, like Barter 6 and Slime Season.
Thug has tried to distance himself from the streets and focus on his music career.
But he still occasionally gets caught up in the drama.
He was arrested in September of 2017 for drug possession and possession of a firearm,
after the cops raided his home and found felony amounts of marijuana, meth, and hydrocodone,
along with a variety of other drugs and a weapon.
His lawyers had the case dropped on a technicality,
because the police executed the search without a warrant,
and Thug was not given any jail time.
Since then he has been on his best behavior,
but with Young Thug, you never quite know.
Young MA
Katorah Marrero, better known as Young MA,
is a rapper from Brooklyn, NY.
The artist is best known for her viral single Ooouuu
and her remix of Chiraq by Nikki Minaj featuring G Herbo.
Young MA was born in East New York, Brooklyn.
Her father was incarcerated when she was only a year and spent 10 years behind bars.
When she was 7,
her mother moved the family to Chesterfield, Virginia
to escape the violence of the Brooklyn neighborhood.
With her father locked up,
she got very close to her older brother Kenneth Ramos,
who was a known member of the bloods.
When the artist was 16,
she moved back to Brooklyn to pursue music seriously.
Young MA is one of the first popular female rappers to openly identify as gay.
She has talked at length in interviews and her music about her sexuality
and claimed that growing up she was always interested in activities commonly thought to be masculine,
like football and rap, and she eventually came out to her family when she was 18.
In 2009, when Young MA was still in high school,
her older brother Kenneth Ramos was murdered.
He was stabbed to death by a former friend in a dispute that was gang-related.
According to case records, Ramos was the leader of the Valentines,
a local blood set based in East New York.
His killer was a man named Seamus Hayes,
who was also a member of Kenneth’s crew.
According to authorities, Hayes killed Ramos to seize control of the gang
because he felt the victim was too demanding and controlling.
He was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison for the killing in 2011.
After Kenneth was killed,
Young MA claims she went into a deep depression.
It took her several months to shake but eventually
used that as fuel to fire her passion for music.
Despite her brother’s involvement in the bloods,
Young MA has claimed that she is not an official member.
She is close with many blood members in her neighborhood who were associated with her brother
and her crew RedLyfe is thought to be a reference to the bloods.
But, in interviews, the artist has dispelled the myth
that she is an active member and claims she is more of an affiliate than a hardcore gang banger.
Crips
Lil Loaded
Dashawn Robertson, better known as Lil Loaded,
is an up and coming rapper from Dallas, Texas.
Born in California, the artist and his family moved to Dallas when he was 10.
He was raised by a single mother, while his father was incarcerated.
The artist started hustling and selling weed when he was only 12
and when he was 15 his brother was killed in an incident he doesn’t like to talk about.
His brother’s death caused him to go harder in the street
and around this time he joined the Rollin’ 60’s cripps.
When he was 18,
he had a close call and was shot in the hand.
In an interview with DJ Vlad,
the rapper claims that he was hesitant to go to the hospital to report the shooting,
so he had a friend’s mom rip the bullet out in a local residence in his hood.
After the shooting,
Lil Loaded decided to be more careful with how he moved and started rapping.
His song 6lock 6a6y was released in 2019
and currently has over 23 million plays on YouTube.
He released a remix featuring NLE Choppa in 2020
and has gone on to collaborate with major artists like YG and Polo G.
In early November 2020,
Lil Loaded surrendered himself to Dallas authorities after a warrant was put out for his arrest.
He is accused of killing 18-year-old Khalia Walker in late October.
Complex has reported that the victim’s sister
claimed to see Loaded and her brother hanging out together outside her house.
While inside, she heard 2 gunshots
then came out to find her brother dead with a wound to the Torso.
Lil Loaded claimed in an IG post that he is innocent.
He posted a bond in early December and released a 9-song project,
called "Crip Tape",On December 11th.
His case is still ongoing, and more developments are likely to come.
Schoolboy Q
Quincy Matthew Hanley, better known as Schoolboy Q,
is a rapper from South Central, Los Angeles.
Schoolboy is best known for his association with Top Dog Entertainment and Kendrick Lamar,
as well as major hits like Collard Greens and Man of the Year.
Schoolboy was born in Wiesbaden, Germany on a military base.
His father was in the army,
but his parents divorced before he was even born.
After he was born, his mother moved him back to the United States.
They spent a few years in Texas,
before eventually settling in California.
They ended up living on 51st Street between Figueroa and Hoover Street in South Central,
an area known for gang activity.
Schoolboy says he started gang banging at 12
and is a member of the 52 Hoover Gangster cripps.
He claims he joined the gang because his friends we're doing it
and he needed a way to support himself,
growing up in a single-parent household.
He started selling crack, marijuana, and oxycontin
in his teenage years.
In 2007, he was arrested for a crime
that he is hesitant to disclose and spent six months in prison
and another six months on house arrest.
Rumors have circulated that the arrest was related to a home invasion.
Schoolboy has claimed he started rapping when he was 16
but didn’t take it seriously until he was 21.
He started working with TDE in 2006
and released his first mixtape Schoolboy Turned Hustla in 2008.
He formed the group Black Hippy with three other popular LA artists who were affiliated with TDE,
Ab-Soul, Kendrick Lamar, and Jay Rock.
Even though Jay Rock was a member of the Bounty Hunter bloods
and Kendrick was affiliated with the Westside Piru bloods,
Schoolboy claims that there were never any tensions over gang affiliation within TDE.
He claimed in a DJ Vlad interview
that the Bounty Hunters and the Hoover Street cripps
didn’t have beef, so it was never an issue.
Plus, Kendrick was never truly a member of the Piru's;
he was just childhood friends with many members of the gang.
Schoolboy Q has made several references to cripp culture throughout his music.
The Song Hover Street on his album Oxymoron
is all about joining the 52 Hoover Street Gangster cripps
and how it took his innocence away.
His songs Tookie Knows Part I and II are a reference to Stanley “Tookie” Williams
who founded the first cripp gang in 1971,
the first organized African American street gang in America.
On both tracks, Schoolboy describes the gang lifestyle and all the danger that comes with it.
While Schoolboy has never turned his back on his origins
and the culture he grew up around,
he says he started rapping as a way to get out of the streets.
He formed Black Hippy to help him improve as an artist
and surround himself with people who would keep him focused on living a different type of lifestyle.
Over the past few years, Schoolboy has been laying low and avoiding trouble.
He hasn’t had any high profile run-ins with the law,
other than a minor marijuana charge at SXSW back in 2011,
and has maintained a commitment to living the rest of his life in luxury
while raising his daughter Joyce.
But, despite his decision to get away from the gang lifestyle,
Schoolboy Q is still considered one of the most authentic cripp rappers to pick up a microphone.
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