http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/features/id.788/title.underground-report-pigeon-john-musab-redcloud/p.7
Redcloud’s story isn’t your everyday tale. How does a gangster become a Christian? How does a kid who wants to drop out end up graduating with a high grade point average? How does a local “Christian rapper” get Kurupt and Jayo Felony to appear on his album? His life’s been unpredictable, but he’s made good.
His childhood is such a compelling story, that it’s better if he tells it.
“A lot of people out here in L.A. got single moms. But not only did I have a single mother who had me at like 18, she also gave me up for adoption when I was like 8 months. So, I was raised by an entirely different family who started out as my baby sitters and then just ended up taking the parental guidance to raise me. My birth mother slowly stopped coming around and before you know it, the family that was baby sitting me ended up being the family that raised me to this very day.
Growing up in Hawthorne (California) is just really, really, tough. I never got to meet my birth father but the father that raised me, who taught me how to talk, walk and carried me on his shoulders…he grew up in Redondo Beach. He was in a gang called Redondo 13. When he had my two older brothers, he moved four blocks east to a city called Lawndale. And the kids of that neighborhood came up to my older brothers and boom, my brothers were up in Lawndale 13.
By the time I came in, he moved to Hawthorne. So, the gangs in Hawthorne hit me up to be part of that set. So, at a very young age, I was exposed to the gang lifestyle, the gang culture by my older brothers, my pops, my cousins, my family. I was getting tattooed by sixth grade. I had already gotten in mad trouble by seventh grade. The street life out here swallowed me up as soon as it could. When you’re a kid out here and you feel like you don’t belong to nothing and you feel like you don’t have a family and you feel like you’re on your own and you’re questioning your entire existence, and you got these cats out here like ‘Yo, we’ll be your family, homie. We got your back…’ Loyalty means everything to me. Man, I’m just loyal to my crew, my hood and Hawthorne since sixth grade. That’s how I saw it in my older brothers and my Pops and my family. I got jumped into a gang in sixth grade, dude. In 8th grade, I already decided that I wasn’t going to go to high school and that I was gonna run the streets and do the business.”
But life had other plans. As he explained, he was about to ditch school when a Hip-Hop assembly was held at his school. Little did he know, the assembly would hold inspirational emcees that looked like gang members of his neighborhood. Their message of peace over violence had a deep impact for the students in the school including classmate and current NFL player Dennis Northcutt, who stood up against the gang violence as well that day. When the MC’s passed flyers, Redcloud only saw “Free Hip-Hop Show.” Inspired, a young Redcloud walked to the address on the flyer, unaware that he would arrive at a church.
This introduction to Christianity and God changed his perspective on life and gangs. In a room filled with rival gang members and former gang members, bloods and otherwise, Redcloud found a new family, that he felt was sincere. He felt he was saved.
The new life came at a price.
“To get jumped out, I hit up my homeboy Bam-Bam. This dude got the High School cats and the Samoans from high school. I’m in 8th grade, getting jumped out by these high school cats. They smashed me up! Half the school was there…It was terrible, dog. It was like three Mexican dudes and three Samoan cats. You know what Samoan cats look like, dog. They were kicking me when I was down. Just when I thought it was over and I heard them say ‘Yo, stop! He’s had enough,’ I was ready to get up in a push-up position on the floor. This cat named Stomper stomps on the back of my head right into the concrete and puts this huge knot on my forehead.
They had busted all of my blood vessels/blood capillaries. Just the white of my eyes were blood red. They were both blood red eyes with little black pupils. I looked like a demon. The knot on my head was like freaking Rahman!
That takes forever to heal! Most fools don’t have the courage to get jumped out, but I did, man.”
While he suffered through ridicule, in the streets and at home, for leaving the gang life behind, he later proved he was a survivor by honing his freestyle battle skills. His success in murking cats in rap battles got the same gangsters who ridiculed him to give him props.
Those props later earned him a record deal with Syntax Records. Through this, he kept proving his skills and sharpening his sword through various lyrical battles. Finally, he reached out to mainstream radio at Power 106 in Los Angeles. He battled on air and won notoriety to the point that Kurupt decided to give the station a ring. “We’re definitely looking for cats like you on the Row,” he said, noting legendary label Death Row. Suge Knight was present as well, showing praise.
Later, Kurupt and Redcloud got to speak about how they went to high school together and a track came out of that connection. Kurupt reached out to Felony and that track was made. His connections with The Visionaries put together another track. Little by little, this new album was formed. With production by Tim from Syntax, Pigeon John and others, the new album comes with a host of new topics most don’t speak about, as well as a nice mixture of appealing bounce-driven hits to balance it all out.
Redcloud’s unique style of complex, yet down-to-earth, every-man rhymes appears on his new LP Hawthorne’s Most Wanted, full of thought provoking songs, as well as enjoyable West Coast bounce music.
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