November 21, 2006 @ 11:41 am

Lil' Scrappy: Walking The Line

by: Laura Checkoway

Lil Scrappy’s twenty-two years have been rough. So should it come as any surprise that the Atlanta native speaks with God daily—sometimes even out loud? “I go into the corner and talk to God, like, Help!” Scrappy says. “I treat God like He’s my best friend in the world. Like He sits right next to me.” After emerging as the "Prince of Crunk" alongside Lil Jon with 2004’s gold-selling The King of Crunk & BME Recordings Present Lil Scrappy (BME/Reprise), Scrappy is now perfectly positioned to be rap’s next big thing with his solo follow-up, Bred 2 Die, Born 2 Live (BME), executive-produced by Lil Jon and 50 Cent. With two of the hottest producers in hip hop backing him, nothing should stop Scrappy from climbing the charts and achieving his dreams. Except maybe those dark spirits and shadows that have been running through his psyche since he was a boy, the ones he’s still struggling to leave behind in the dust. Vibe.com: Scrappy, you seem like you’ve matured since your debut album. What’s new? Lil Scrappy: Damn near the whole industry is thugged out right now; everybody’s rappin’ about killin’ or sellin’ dope. But a year ago, when I had my little girl, Emani, I was like, Do I wanna stay here with her, or do I wanna go out here with these mackin’-ass niggas and get killed? I’d rather stay here with her. I’m sure Biggie would love to be here with his son and his daughter right now, watching them grow up. That makes a lot of sense. Lil Scrappy: I’ve always been the type to see both sides of the situation. If a nigga just robbed me, I ’d be like, Well, the nigga needed it. I done had to rob somebody before. I understand. A lot of niggas out there just got ’hood backgrounds, a lot got nothing but spiritual backgrounds. I had both; I’m in between the two. Your mother was a pimp and hustler, and your father was a preacher. Have you always walked the line between your spiritual and hood sides? Lil Scrappy: Yeah, all the time. I been like that since I was little. Mama don’t give a damn. Mama fin’ to go make this shit happen. My daddy, on the other hand, he’s like, “At the end of the day, you wanna go to heaven. Ain’t no pistols in heaven. Ain’t no real niggas in heaven. No hard boys in heaven. It’s only who God picks.” So is it difficult to be caught in between the two? left Lil Scrappy: My whole life, I was trying to get on the right path. I’d fall off, then I’d try to get back on, because I know the bad path ain’t shit. But the devil was trying to get me. Something bad was always happening. Niggas trying to fight me outta nowhere when I ain’t did shit to nobody. Even if I won the fight, I always looked back like, Damn, why did I even fight him? So the devil was trying to get you—what about God? Lil Scrappy: The devil’s got crazy shit going on, certain shit we can’t see, because God blinded our eyes. Some people can’t take that shit. They’d have a heart attack if they saw certain shit I see. I done seen spirits before. I hated it. I was like, Why am I the only mufucka seeing this? Whoa. What did you see exactly? Lil Scrappy: It’s like a shadow. My stepmama said certain spirits—the ones up here—you can feel them looking at you, and when you turn around you can see the shadow move out the way. I was seeing it already, but after she told me I was like, Damn, that’s what that is? Your parents split up when you were 1-year-old, and you grew up with both your dad and your mom, moving around Atlanta a lot. Lil Scrappy: The streets was getting real heavy. After shit got hot, mama had to move again. And when you were 14, you and your mom moved to the suburbs, right? Lil Scrappy: Yeah, I moved out there thinking shit finna change, like, Man we done moved to the suburbs, not knowing mama still got the house on Section 8. At my new school, I’m seeing a whole bunch of niggas trying to be hard. I’m like, Man, if niggas from the ’hood rolled out here, we’d be lawyers. We wouldn’t be selling weed, selling drugs, or nothing. Niggas would be straight college. But we ain’t have no future like that in the ’hood. Did you try to fit in? Lil Scrappy: I was always different. I was always trying some shit. My mama had me dye my hair blond. She was like, “Nigga all the bitches gone love this shit!” You bleached your hair blond? Lil Scrappy: Yeah, it was a ’fro. Everybody was looking at me like, “What the fuck? What is you doin’?” I’m like, I’m doing what I wanna do. If I want to bleach the hair on my nuts, I can bleach the hair on my fuckin’ nuts! That’s what my mama was trying to tell me: “Nigga, this is you. You can do what you wanna do. If you wanna jump off the Empire State Building, go ahead. Don’t do that shit, but go ahead. Do what you do.” It seems like your mother taught you a lot of interesting lessons. Lil Scrappy: Yeah, my mama gave me this knife. She told me if I ever get into something, use that bitch! My mama used to be a big ol’ lady. And she used to love to fight niggas; it was nothing to her. So how did you end up in boot camp? Lil Scrappy: I got caught selling weed. The principal told me, “You could go and get your life straight, and we don’t have to tell anyone about this. Which way you wanna go? Boot camp or jail?” I said boot camp. I was already thinking like, I don’t wanna grow up and be nothing. I hate people like that because they blame everybody for their mistakes. I don’t wanna be like that. I wanna be fresh. I wanna ride in the flyest car. I wanna make sure my momma and daddy and everybody eats. ’Cause we ain’t eat yet. So I need to make sure we eat. Well, now that you’re down with G Unit, I’m sure you’ll all be eating real good. How did getting hit in the face with a Heineken bottle at a show in Palatka, Fla., last year lead to your alliance with 50 Cent? Lil Scrappy: I kept getting voice mail messages like, “Man, if I see you in another G Unit video. I’ma get you.” And then I’m doing a show in Florida and the lights go out. My gums was on the floor—I spit everything on the floor, including the bottle. Niggas with guns were coming out the club shooting at us. It had to be a setup; they was really trying to get at us. Wow, that’s crazy. Then what happened? Lil Scrappy: Well, he texted while I was in the hospital and said, “I got your muthafuckin’ ass! You can’t talk now!’ Then I heard a message—the same voice from before—saying, “Fuck you, nigga. I got you. Don’t let me see you in another G Unit video. G-Unot!” I had to put it together. Who was it? Lil Scrappy: He’s a rapper. I don’t wanna say his name, but everything has been gotten back from that. There’s been some retaliation. So it’s been resolved? Lil Scrappy: After all that retally, all I could think was, You got a baby finna be born. Like damn, I’m rappin’ and I’m still in these same situations from when I was struggling out there on the grind. You may rap, but success only takes the pain away temporarily. You may be having fun and getting that money, but niggas will still hate you. 50 Cent called you while you were recovering and offered you advice, took you under his wing. What’s it like being down with G Unit? Lil Scrappy: 50 treats me like his little brother. You look at 50 and think he would be on some real dickheaded shit, but he isn’t. G Unit, that’s some real gangsta-ass niggas. And I got a lot of gangsta in me. How is 50 different from Lil Jon, who’s also a mentor to you? Lil Scrappy: Lil Jon, he’s like my big brother too. But on these tours, Jon doesn’t just come to my room like, “What’s up, nigga!” 50 would come out of nowhere. I’d be damn near asleep and he would knock on my door, “Scrap, what up, nigga?” I’m like, What the fuck, what’s wrong with you? He’d be like, “I just wanted to come see what’s up with you.” It must be exciting to have people in such great positions of power backing you, especially now that you’re a father. Who is your daughter Emani’s mother? Lil Scrappy: Her name is Erica Dixon. She was with me when I ain’t have nothing. She’s beautiful as hell. She stuck with me when the police was after me. She’d drive me around until she got sleepy. We would always just be together, some me-and-you-whole-different-world-type shit. What has fatherhood been like for you? Lil Scrappy: My little girl is so precious to me because she’s the only thing that I got in my name that’s mine. She came from me. Her mama held her from nine months, but she came from my loins. That’s my little princess. If anything happened to her, I would kill myself and everybody else in the world. I would go super nuts. It must be hard to be away from your daughter while you’re recording and on the road, promoting the new album. Lil Scrappy: I damn near drop a tear when I gotta leave her. I’m damn near finna go into tears just thinking about it. It hurts me so bad when I’m not around her because I feel like less of a person, like I’m not doing right. Even though I’m out here making money to provide for her, it just hurts on the inside. Read more vibe.com online exclusives.

Article tags: 50 Cent, G-unit, Lil Jon, Lil Scrappy 

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