Sheff G is one of Brooklyn’s most promising stars.
But before the music, Sheff G was really in the streets,
battling opps inside the courtroom and even getting stabbed in the head.
Let’s get into the come up and career of Sheff G, Brooklyn’s “Top Opp”
Sheff G is from the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY.
His mom is from Trinidad while his pops is from Haiti.
Some of the slang he uses in his music comes from his Caribbean roots,
including the word Breesh, which means money in Creole.
Growing up,
Sheff lived in a one-bedroom apartment with his whole family, including his grandmother,
aunts, cousins, and siblings.
Living with his extended family helped expose him to his Caribbean roots,
but it also made him want to escape the poverty he grew up in.
So he started making moves in the streets at an early age to make money.
Coming up, he was inspired by Chicago drill as well as New York rappers
like 50 Cent and Biggie Smalls.
But he never took rapping seriously and instead became focused on hustling in the streets.
At age 12 he joined the Eight Trey Gangsta Crips, also known as the Movin Gang.
He constantly got into fights at school and got arrested for the first time for fighting
just a week before his 16th birthday.
Sheff even met his best friend Sleepy Hollow after trying to jump him with a group of his friends.
Sheff later told Hip Hop DX he was with a huge group of like 50 dudes
and Sleepy was walking all by himself.
They were about to jump him and started screaming at him,
but Sleepy turned around and stood his ground.
Sheff liked this and instead of beating him up they became close friends
But coming up in the streets of Brooklyn, Sheff continued to get into trouble.
He dropped out of high school just before graduating 12th grade
after getting arrested for gun possession.
Sheff had been chilling at the mall, when a dude approached him
and said something disrespectful.
Sheff dissed him right back
and the dude left and came back with like 12 or 13 friends.
Sheff decided to just walk away, but they followed and threatened him.
So, he pulled out his burner and pointed it at the group.
But what Sheff ain’t notice, was two cops parked right across the street.
NYC has real strict gun laws so Sheff knew it was over once he saw the cop car.
Instead of trying to run away, he turned himself in to avoid being chased.
He dodged jail time and just got put on probation for five years.
But Sheff continued to get in trouble
and ended up doing 16 months in jail for a felony gun charge and robbery.
He said sitting down that time really made him reconsider his decisions
to avoid going to jail again.
Once he got out, he decided to start rapping
and booked some studio time.
His first song No Suburban produced by AXL Beats, went viral
and cemented Sheff G as one of the main rapper’s leading Brooklyn’s drill wave.
Even though Sheff has denied it in interviews, the song is supposedly dissing
another Brooklyn drill pioneer, 22Gz, who has a song called Suburbans.
22gz is from the Brooklyn set of the Gangster Disciples
who have a long history of beef with the Crips.
Sheff and 22Gz have gone back and forth multiple times on social media,
with both accusing the other of being a snitch.
This is the beef that got Sheff stabbed in the head, but not by 22gz.
In the video for No Suburbans, Sheff is seen rocking pigtail braids.
He said in an interview with DJ Vlad that he had to cut them off
after an opp caught him from behind and stabbed him.
According to Sheff, he just left a meeting with his probation officer in an area of Brooklyn
where everyone meets with their PO.
He ran into one of his opps and got into a fight.
He ain’t realize until he felt the blood that he got sliced in the head from behind
and had to go to the hospital.
He’s careful not to say who it was that cut him in any interviews.
But, it’s rumored it was another rapper associated with 22Gz and the Blixky gang,
named Nick Blixky.
Nick Blixky was one of Blixky gang’s biggest up-and-coming rappers
before he got shot and killed in May 2020.
Even though Sheff never confirmed if it was Nick, he dropped a bar in a recent song
called Start Some Shyt, where he raps
“member I got cut, the opps is all in a spliff”.
This suggests that whoever stabbed him is now dead.
It don’t really confirm the rumor but it fits if Nick was the one who did it.
Sheff ended up going Live on Instagram from the hospital after the stabbing
with his face all bandaged up and his hair looking crazy.
He said they had to cut a part of his hair so that they could stitch up the wound,
so he told them to just cut it all off
so he ain’t have to walk around with half his hair long and half short.
After the success of his first track, Sheff took some time off from music.
He says he got locked up again between October 2017 and January 2018,
which was the reason for the break.
He returned to music in 2019 with the mixtape The "Unluccy Luccy Kid",
which featured hits like "We Getting Money" and "Flows".
The mixtape was pretty hot in New York
and proved Sheff G was one of the leading voices in Brooklyn and not just a one-hit-wonder.
But his short temper and gang affiliations continued to get him in trouble,
even while he was blowing up in the music industry.
In 2019, Sheff got pressed by his opps in court and got into a fight.
One of Sheff’s opps went live and showed himself confronting the rapper in a crowded building.
The dude can be heard saying that’s the top opp and then start taunting Sheff saying
“you mad scarry”.
Sheff wasn’t feeling the disrespect and asks him if he’s really about to do this in court.
The guy says they can step outside, but Sheff ain’t wait and just punches him in the face.
Top opp *****
Huh?
You heard me, what happened what's good
You wanna do this in court or we could do this outside
We could do this outside wassup wassup *****
You know you mad scary bro
you mad scary *****
You can’t see what's going on because the screen goes black,
but it’s obvious punches is being thrown and other people in the room
start trying to calm the situation.
Sheff later went Live and explained what happened.
He said two goons tried to run up on him and he slept both of them.
As y'all can see in the video your boy run up and got punch up
It was two of em pumped both of em
Punched both of them
A third dude they were with just stood back and watched
while his boys got their asses beat.
Ya boy stood there and watched his mans get punched up
I punched both of em Word to my mother I punched both of em
beat both of em
Sheff said they purposely did it in court because they knew it would get broken up quickly
and they wasn’t trying to fight for real.
Sheff clearly wasn’t phased and ain’t seem to have any cuts or bruises.
So it looks like he came out on top.
Sheff was quickly establishing himself as a rapper who is really about that life.
But all that attention started to have a negative effect on his career.
In October of that year, Sheff and with four other gang-affiliated rappers
including Pop Smoke, Casanova,
22gz, and Don Q
were banned from performing live in New York.
The NYPD sent a letter to the festival requesting that they all be taken off the lineup,
claiming they had all been affiliated with recent acts of violence in the city
and if they were allowed to perform, there would be a higher risk of violence.
But Sheff ain’t let that stop his hustle and he dropped his debut album,
"One and Only" in May 2020.
This featured the track No Suburbans 2, which quickly went viral
and currently has over 14 million views on YouTube.
So, despite all the setbacks, Sheff was on his way to taking over the rap game.
In August 2020, he started his own record label
called Winners Circle Entertainment through RCA Records.
The roster featured his boy Sleepy Hollow and another one of their homies Eli Fross.
He and Sleepy dropped the track Tip Toe as their first single on the label,
which featured a sample of the song "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" by Tiny Tim.
Sheff would lay low for a while and focus on his music career and business moves.
He dropped a 5 song EP in July 2020 called "Just 4 Y’all", which featured verses from King Von,
Lil Tjay, and Rich the Kid.
He followed up with another album later that year called "Proud of Me Now",
which racked up millions of streams.
So, it seemed like Sheff G was well on his way to becoming the King of Brooklyn drill.
But right when he was reaching the top, he suffered another setback.
On July 15th, 2021, he was arrested in New York City for felony gun possession.
Police reports say Sheff was pulled over back in January 2021
after police saw him busting an illegal U-turn in a car without plates.
Police searched the car and found a loaded .45 caliber Glock.
He was charged with reckless driving, three counts of criminal possession of a weapon,
and a license plate violation but got released on a $35,000 bail.
But, Sheff recently got caught with a gun again
and was booked into the Otis Bantum Correction Center in East Elmhurst New York.
He was denied bond this time and forced to sit in jail until his court date.
It’s not clear if the two incidents are related, but on the same day that Sheff was taken into custody,
his homie Eli Fross was also arrested after firing a gun
during a road rage incident in Times Square.
Fross and his driver got into an argument with a motorcyclist
and at one point Fross pulled out a gun and fired four shots.
No one got hit and no property was damaged, but the rapper got arrested and charged
with attempted murder, attempted assault,
and criminal possession of a loaded weapon.
New York don’t play around when it comes to guns,
especially in a crowded tourist area like Times Square.
So, Eli is likely looking at doing some time.
Sheff had court on August 18th and was denied bail once again.
Sleepy Hollow would post an IG Live from inside the courtroom
with a broken heart emoji and the caption
Free My Dawg, giving fans an update on Sheff’s legal situation.
Sheff dropped a video for his track "Drum Dummy" on September 23rd,
which was his 23rd birthday.
He shared the video on Instagram with the caption
“I’d rather you visit me in a cell than in a grave…”.
This is Sheff G’s third gun charge and he’s facing between 10 and 15 years if convicted.
So, it aint looking great for him, especially since he already got a pretty long rap sheet.
Sleepy Hollow going to have to hold it down for the squad
and keep releasing music so he can help out with lawyer money,
cause it’ll probably be a while before Sheff and Eli are back on the streets.