It’s no secret that some of the biggest rappers in the game
are gang-affiliated,
with most being with either the Bloods
or Crips.
Here’s the breakdown of which of your favorite artists prefer to flash red or blue.
Young M.A
Katorah Marrero
came into the rap scene in 2014
under the stage name Young M.A,
which stands for Me Always,
and as her name says,
she’s never shied away from being herself.
When she came onto the rap scene in 2014,
she rhymed about the same kind of things the boys in the industry were
sex,
violence,
and money.
As a female rapper,
she made waves with Brooklyn Chiraq
because people were apparently not ok
with a woman rapping about negative things in the world.
Luckily,
the controversy pushed her into fame.
But she’s not just talking a big game
this girl is affiliated with a Brooklyn set of the Bloods,
so she probably has some first-hand experience with the topics of her raps.
Pop Smoke
Pop Smoke was taken from the world in February of 2020,
at the young age of 20,
but not before he could make a big impression on the rap world.
Another Brooklyn native,
Pop started his musical career in 2018 after dropping out of school.
To make ends meet before making it big,
he spent time as a drug dealer on the streets
and two years on house arrest for weapons charges.
Like others who dropped out of school,
Pop Smoke found a family in the streets
and joined up with the Crips in Brooklyn.
But when he found fame in music,
he started telling kids to not get into gangs
and to avoid all the drama of the streets.
6ix9ine
One of the most infamous rappers at the moment,
Tekashi 6ix9ine is no stranger to making a scene.
Sporting the notorious rainbow hairstyle
and a face full of tattoos,
this young rapper was recently released from prison
due to health concerns.
But it was his first stint in prison that saw him join up with a gang.
While in Rikers for illegal drug activities,
6ix9ine started associating with the Bloods street gang
through a prison clique called the Nine Trey Gangsters.
He was only in for a short while
because as we all know by now,
he snitched on other members to get a shorter sentence for a few of his own crimes.
He spilled all their secrets,
names,
and activities
and then decided
he didn’t want any part of it anymore.
Lil Loaded
Lil Loaded is pretty new on the rap scene,
so not much is known about him,
but we thought he deserved a mention on this list
because he’s been pretty open about his affiliation with a gang.
He’s talked about how his hit song “Gang Unit”
speaks to those who are caught up in the gang lifestyle,
something he knows a lot about
since he’s a member of the Rollin 60s,
a notorious LA street gang
that made its way to his hometown of Dallas, Texas.
He’s pretty loyal to the group,
which is a set of the Crips.
Trippie Redd
At only 21 years old,
Trippie Redd has made a name for himself with hit songs like
“Love Scars”
and “Dark Knight Dummo.”
But it’s probably his never-ending feuds with Tekashi 6ix9ine
that have brought him even more to the forefront of the hip hop scene.
Along with some arguments on Twitter,
Trippie has also been exposed by the rainbow-headed rapper
as being a gang member when he was snitching on the witness stand.
He claimed that Redd was part of the Five Nine Brims,
a rival Blood set.
The rapper didn’t deny those allegations,
but he also hasn’t made it publicly known that he’s affiliated.
But, you know,
he goes by “Red,” so we can only assume.
Tay K
Best known for his 2018 hit
“The Race,”
Tay K is one of the most notorious rappers in the world at the moment,
thanks to the nationwide search for him
when he went on the run after some pretty bad crimes.
But before he was charged with four counts of aggravated robbery,
and two counts of capital murder,
he was Taymor McIntyre of Long Beach, California,
a regular kid attending high school in Texas.
And even though his Crips-repping father wanted his kid to live a better life,
the fact that both of Tay’s parents were active Crips members
meant that he didn’t really stand a chance.
While the crimes that got him locked up weren’t directly gang-related,
his activity in the gang probably didn’t help him much.
Lil Keed
Growing up in Atlanta Georgia
as the sixth of seven children,
Raqhid Render,
now better known as Lil Keed,
started taking rap seriously in 2016,
with the support of his parents and siblings.
In between shifts at Subway and McDonald’s,
he’d head to a nearby studio to record music with his younger brother.
But even though he had a pretty healthy home life,
the draw of the streets is strong,
and Lil Keed soon started expressing interest in the gang life
and joined up with the Bloods.
Blueface
With a name like Blueface,
we’re pretty sure you can guess who this rapper is affiliated with.
Crips, obviously.
Add in his 2018 single
“Respect My Cryppin’”
and you’ve got a heavy-handed confession of his loyalty to the gang.
He grew up in Santa Clarita, California with his mother
before moving to Oakland to live with his father.
And before he was gangbanging with the other blues,
he was playing the saxophone with the marching band
and playing as starting quarterback with the football team.
And he was pretty good at both of those.
But at some point,
he hooked up with the School Yard Crips street gang
and never really let go of that loyalty,
rapping about it every chance he got in singles and albums,
like Famous Cryp.
Bobby Shmurda
At just 25 years old,
Bobby Shmurda has already got a pretty hefty criminal record,
including charges of conspiracy to murder,
weapons possession,
and reckless endangerment.
He’s currently locked up but is looking at a release for December 2020.
With even more charges while he was a teen,
he’s got some serious street cred,
which probably helps him out as the ringleader of a criminal gang called GS9
a group that is known for its violence and drug activity.
The group is a subset of the Crips,
and Shmurda is so involved
that he has reportedly gotten into Bloods vs. Crips fights in prison.
Lil Wayne
There have always been rumors that Lil Wayne has been a gang member,
but even though he has been active in the music industry since 1995
when he was barely a teenager,
not much was known about his specific gang affiliation for a long time.
When a video was released online in 2014
that shows an alleged Crips member confronting Lil Wayne,
people started assuming he was in fact in a gang,
and probably the Bloods.
And it turns out they were right.
A couple of years later,
an interviewer with Dateline started asking questions about drug use,
so he just came out with a red bandana from his pocket
and said he was “connected to this flag right here.
I’m connected.
I’m a gangbanger, I’m connected.”
So yeah, the rumors were right
he’s a Blood.
NLE Choppa
NLE Choppa is most known for his breakout single “Shotta Flow,”
which eventually went platinum.
And as one of the youngest rappers in the game today,
the 17-year-old has made a big impact with his unique musical style
that is described as melodic and heavy-hitting.
We don’t know much about his gang affiliation,
but he has stated that most of his friends are Crips
and it’s widely understood that he does have close ties to the infamous gang.
Roddy Ricch
Born Rodrick Wayne Moore, Jr. in Compton, Californiain 1998,
Roddy was familiar with the dog-eat-dog world of the rough streets.
He also spent time in Atlanta and Louisiana while he was growing up,
but even getting out of the old neighborhood for a couple of months of the year
wasn’t enough to keep Roddy away from the dangers of the street.
At a fairly young age,
he began associating with the Crip gang in Compton.
He blames a lot of desperation
to find a group on the religion that his mother instilled in him.
As a Christian,
she was pushy and critical.
Years later,
Ricch would comment that a lot of the fellow inmates he met in prison
also joined gangs as a way of escaping religion.
Well, that’s all for today!
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