This closer to home, because East is closer to my age (a year and a day older), and he spent time in Richmond, a city I frequented as well once upon a time, and being so close in age, and being out on the East Coast with NYers spread up and down the coast, you meet guys in our age bracket with six degrees of separation type shyt to him...
He's another guy who it's pretty common knowledge he's not that kinda guy from the soil. I don't even remember hearing anyone question it, not NYers I met in passing, not Richmonders I met on the way. The biggest controversy about this dude was him claiming he Spanish and downplaying his blackness, and nobody knowing what hood he from, remember that fiasco of dudes in both Harlem abd Queens saying they didn't know fam?
I don't know if everybody remembers this but at the time there were cats from VA and NY clowning dude on social media...
His street credibility has never been controversial to anyone I ever met because people know he not a dude who was in it like that...
Dudes touch success from legit artistic talent and funnel that into more inappropriate behavior and affiliations, and craft these images. And because the success brings popularity, income abd a modicum of power, aint a whole lot of people around to check these dudes, lotta nikkas just gassing these nikkas and they believe their own hype, and so does the general public...
The DaBaby dude is a similar case, said it before and it bears mentioning because of the relatability to East, the context of this thread, and many other rap nikkas. This nikka has NO reputation in the streets of Charlotte other than dealing trees with one of his brothers...
When dude was really blowing up locally it was a common joke for nikkas to ask where he was from (in the city of Charlotte). He never identified it on wax, not once. He was hot though, and at that time his public persona was well-liked locally, we're talking 2016-2017 era. His rapping was also different, not so much stylistically (he got the same style today he had 6-7 years ago
), but his content was different...
There was no American Gangster bravado from fam early, he would talk about being sticked up, but he was a pretty boy who rapped about bytches and his money. There wasn't all this shoot em up shyt, he couldn't do it, it would have needed some verification...
He started getting major label attention after the SXSW diaper stunt, his team fractured over artistic and managerial direction, and he came back with a flow clearly aimed at talking about being a killer. By this time though his popularity was already beyond just Charlotte, the labels had noticed him...
Dude and his brother made some decent bread selling weed, they weren't considered broke dudes. But no one ever saw this dude in any of the hot areas, none of the nikkas who are actually like what he portrays know of his name as being the same, him and his bro are from a really suburban area in far North Charlotte, and made they money out that way and in Cabarrus...
This nikka has no credibility in the actual streets of Charlotte as who he says he is, anybody from Charlotte from that side knows this. It's not even disputed, other than cats have left open the possibility he may have got Into some gun action out in the burbs, but even then it's never been something unquestioned...
Dude blows up from killing the guy in Walmart, whole lot of initial mixed reports on that, and the rest is history. It was easy for hip hop to market him as a gangster, and people who aren't the wiser could and have, always leaned on the Walmart killing, and that 21 video shoot, as proof of dude's gangsta...
But he's a nobody, reputation wise, in the streets of Charlotte, preceding that killing, besides being a successful mid-tier weed man. There are no stories of Baby clapping anything, no stories of anybody being afraid of this dude, no stories of this nikka putting in any street work in any hood in Charlotte...
He once had hella Stan's on here who couldn't believe this
...
My underlying point is they are far from the only two nikkas like this. Alot of these younger rappers these dudes think are more active than past eras, fall into the same categories as East and Baby...
I've always said this: anyone with common sense knows Ross embellished his work and how deeply entrenched he was...
But dudes from SoFla don't speak ill of him, and the two or three dudes I met from there with respectable testimony, all said he did deal and he does have loose affiliations to some local legends. Everybody knows he wasn't Freeway Rick. Everybody knows he does wear a character, but he wasn't a dude who was never really involved, he was known for dealing coke...
And you never hear SoFla/Miami nikkas question his street cred...
look at all my stupid brehs in here...
