When you meet or interact with others for the purpose of building a business and etc, it’s really important that you are not there for the wrong reason and wasting too much time and money for nothing with no tangible progress in the long run. While it is not easy to tell in the beginning how things such as a business or project will turn out later down the road, but you should always pay attention to people involved in the project and just simply observe what they do and how they go about their jobs. That should be good enough to figure out if you are at the right place with the right people. After all, you are the person who has to take care of yourself mentally and physically. You shouldn’t burn yourself out and end up in a hospital for somebody else. They are most likely not going to be there for you when you are on a hospital bed.
When Poppa G was hanging out with Prime, White and Chief for their rap group – Fraction -project, it wasn’t hard to tell that they would fall apart just like the name eventually as a group and they would never get to enjoy the success of being rap superstars. Regardless of unexpected outcome, it is also important to note and give credits to those guys for at least trying and putting in some efforts.
When they performed their amateur rap songs on a small stage in a small venue for the first time, they all looked like a bunch of newbies who were willing to listen and learn. Their first album project was probably the best work by far in their amateur catalog. It was something different and unique. While it didn’t have the commercial appeal, but it was marketable and promotable. It definitely needed better mixing and mastering, but that wasn’t a big deal.
After a few shows from different venues after performing to variety of crowds, their behaviors and mentality changed drastically and suddenly everyone in the group was a superstar with years of number one hits on the chart. Their egos were really getting in the way of their path to becoming rappers and making a living. They didn’t even have a hit single playing on the radio. And yet, they thought they were some kind of rapstars.
Poppa G knew Prime and Chief from the same high school, so G already knew this music venture won’t really happen like the way they both wanted as a group. Aside from their personal values and personalities, Prime was rapping like an English teacher reading a Science textbook. On top of that, they hated any rapper that sounded and looked like Drake and 50 Cent. To make things interesting, Chief was a heavy conspiracy theorist who believed in Illuminati and etc. While they did have some kind of talent, but it just wasn’t enough to top the chart with countless radio plays with endless groupies following them.
Poppa G definitely knew this rap music venture was going to be a big waste of money and time when Prime met another rapper – Itchy Dog on the street who also beat box for years. They became close in order to pursue their rap career and dreams. It was written from the beginning. Word on the street was that Itchy Dog was living off of a disabled girl with government cheese while rapping and beat boxing on the street. While they both shared the same dream and lifestyle principles, their countless efforts to become rap superstars was a big waste of time and money for the most part. They did have fun along the way, but they never got to make it a viable career. They have done a lot trying to make it in the music business from travelling to making music videos. They did somehow managed to get gigs time to time in many different places. However, working with people who lives off of a disabled girl or have a tendency of screwing others over for their own stupidity will usually never work out well in the end. Nobody knows what or who they owed in the name of becoming rap superstars with fancy cars and supermodels.
In the very beginning, Poppa G, P, Prime, Rogue, Chief and many others spent countless hours hanging out at house parties and apartment complexes. It was Rogue’s family condo party that G got to know all of them except P and Prime. Prime was very close to Rogue during those days along many others around the neighborhood. When P was hanging out with Prime, Rogue and others, it was only natural that G would eventually be introduced to the group since G was spending so much time at P’s family house which was few steps away from the group. After so much time partying and hanging out, eventually some of them moved into an apartment together. Poppa G was homeless by his choice at that time. He left his mother’s condo due to frequent arguments for usual Asian culture family issues. So he spent many days and slept on the couch at their apartment before finally trying to find his own place to settle and live with a guy named Apoc who was a straight up liar and fraud in the end.
Apoc would say his father owned a strip club and bullshit about all kinds of things. G gave some rent money to Apoc in order to find an apartment, Apoc took the money and spent it on drugs with a girl and then disappeared. He just vanished and G had nowhere to go. And during that time, Chief started to play with beat making program on PS2. It was a simple program with a bunch of loops of sounds. While trying locate Apoc to retrieve rent money, G spent hours watching Chief making beats on PS2 to understand how it all worked.
Chief and G were hanging out a lot due to exchanging ideas and collaborating on making beats until G moved out eventually. Then, Prime naturally joined the conversation because it was possible for anyone to make music or beats thanks to the evolution of digital computer music technology. And because of this and hours of spending time with each other, they naturally worked together to achieve something in music business. However, in reality, this was a bad combination and waste of time from the start when it came to actually establishing and operating a business without pouring a shit load of money like a big corporation. You had to have all the right people in the team to even make some kind of tangible progress.
For about 6 years, Prime and Chief made their music in their homes while Poppa G traveled to see the world for a few years. When G was attending a school after his travels, he made a deal to stay at Prime and Rogues’ apartment which was close to his school. During this time when Poppa G was attending his school, he was forced to listen and watch countless hours of Prime making music from big speakers while Rogue was playing SOCOM online. It was a horrible experience to say the least for Poppa G. It was a borderline torture. If only way to bring the world peace was to watch and listen to Prime’s beat making process for a year again, G would rather watch the world burn down to shit. Hours of putting a bunch of random noises or sounds together and playing it over and over again was just painful and terrible to endure sonically.
Chief was a stubborn guy and stuck in his own way so much that almost everything had to be his way. He was a straight up person, so you didn’t really have to worry about him screwing people over for money unlike Prime. He was a huge Wu-Tang disciple and heavily influenced by the group. At times, he could be extremely difficult to interact with. If that was not enough, you had no choice but to listen to his conspiracy theories for hours. He wanted to be like the RZA except he didn’t have the plan, resources and support to make things work out the way he envisioned his rap career to be.
Prime was a good guy in general, but he always did something stupid thanks to his own way of thinking. That was the reason why he always owed somebody some money for some reasons. He was selfish and intentionally screwed over so many people so many times. And then, you had to think about him and his women fights and problems. Prime has screwed over so many people with money time after time. He would owe someone money and never pay back on time if not at all. There was a time when he took the rent money from his roommate, Rogue, just to not pay the rent and buy something else like PSP. Eventually, they were evicted from the apartment and the property landlord ended up garnishing Rogue’s every paycheck except Prime until paid in full. Rogue had no idea that Prime didn’t pay a few months worth of rent while acting like nothing was wrong. Since Prime didn’t have any job, there was no way to garnish him. Rogue pretty much paid everything on behalf of Prime.
Prime’s philosophy was that he would pay back everyone once he became a rich rap superstar. Unlike his way of thinking and life, Poppa G and many others didn’t want to wait until Prime became a rich rap superstar to get their money back from him. With so many chaotic things happening in Prime’s life on the way to becoming a rapstar, there was a chance that he could’ve become a pornstar instead of rapstar at one point. Though there was a great possibility that Prime could’ve become one of the greatest pornstars, he decided not to do it after thinking for awhile. He would’ve probably did them all in all categories. Straight porn, gay porn, trans porn, animal porn and etc, he would’ve dominated them all to become the GOAT pornstar. In the end, Prime found himself as a strip club DJ, so everything worked out for him in a way except not paying back the money to everyone he owed.
Watching Chief, Prime and White trying to make this music venture work was like watching Cobra Commander, Destro and Zartan in GI Joe episodes. They were always arguing with each other about which direction they had to take. In the beginning, Chief and White followed Prime’s direction because it was Prime who actually started the whole idea of performing their amateur rap demo songs at small venues. After 8 years of adding a bunch of sounds together and writing a bunch of science textbook rhymes, Prime finally performed at a small bar with a few old people in the audience. G was secretly happy for him to finally perform on a stage instead of making muzak in his apartment. The leadership of this group changed pretty quick once they spent more time in many other venues with other aspiring artists. Naturally, Chief tried to take over the leadership of the group. No matter which direction they took, things didn’t quiet work out the way they wanted in the end after hours of debating due to their egos and creative differences.
No matter what Poppa G or others had to say about their music and business didn’t matter because these guys took every negative comment as hating or being jealous. If they were really serious about their music career to make a living, they would’ve treated it as a real business. Unfortunately, that was never the case and it was just nothing more than a hobby. No matter how many times they talked about their albums and shows, it was tough to take them seriously. It wouldn’t be surprising to find out that they never had any kind of legal paperwork regarding their music venture. And yet, they were expecting others like Poppa G to buy their CDs and other stuff to support their hobby when it didn’t do a damn thing to make G’ life better mentally, physically and financially. At times, listening to their rap hip hop music was painful and you had to stay quiet not to hurt their feelings.
White was a nephew of Prime, so that itself was an interesting twist to the equation. White was about 10 years younger than Prime, but he was smarter with better discipline than his uncle in many aspects. G spent more time with White than Prime as time went on when G realized and saw the potential and hustle of White. It was a matter of time that Prime would screw Poppa G over for a beat without paying and taking the whole credit like Diddy and many others in the music business for his album that absolutely went nowhere. However, unlike his uncle, White paid a little bit of money for a couple of beats from G and then he paid Killah Priest, Wu-Tang/GZA affiliate, to be featured on his song.
This kind of move and dedication of White initially made G believe that something good might come out of his rap music venture. But the cold truth was that it takes a village and more to make this kind of miracle happen. And another reality was that White was not skilled enough and didn’t vomit his mom’s spaghetti. He didn’t lose himself like Eminem and write letters to Stan. White was hoping to follow the footsteps of Eminem along so many other kids in the age of computer music where rappers were born everyday. No matter how hard G tried to give unbiased constructive criticism or advices, White didn’t want to listen at all.
Throughout years of White’s dedication and efforts, he has met one too many conniving characters who would sell him dreams of becoming a rap superstar. The music business overall has changed many times over the years and people adapted and adjusted to it just like everything else. So called promoters were charging money to aspiring rapstars to perform on stage for a few minutes before name acts or headliners. This kind of hustle was giving some people false hopes and the false sense of being a real rapper or hip hop artist. Though these shows didnt take White to anywhere meaningful in his life, being on stage made him feel like he was somebody in front of a bunch of intoxicated people who didn’t really care about his wellbeing at all. Perhaps it made him happy and it was like a therapy to him in a way.
After years of promoting and performing around the town, White has been consistently releasing his music and videos online while organizing local shows of his own. With over 10K social media followers and countless people he has met over a decade of being around the music industry, his music videos were not even close to 10K views. In the span of 10 or more years, his music and flows have been improved, but it didn’t stand out from all others. Unfortunately and sadly, this was the reality of becoming rap superstars. The market was oversaturated to the point where it was tough to capture the audience’s loyal attention for a long period of time. Even the people who were close around him didn’t even really supported him for some reasons unknown.
According to White, he was working with G G G G G G G Unit and he was going to be shine bright in no time. However, regular people wouldn’t even know if White was a part of G Unit with a record deal or Bum Unit on the street because of his same old dirty clothes if you met him on a street. Some people around White said that he was a mental clinic patient who escaped from psychiatric ward at one point. White would talk like he was a savvy businessman/rapper while calling others moron for not supporting his rapstar venture. Maybe that was the reason why he had a beef within his new group after the Fraction.
This new group after Fraction was comprised of 3 guys again. White found an aspiring singer from his hometown to team up. The last member was a manager of the group who was a close friend of the singer. They worked together as a group in the beginning, but things didn’t work out for White and other guys because White wanted to be the main guy in the group. He had to be the man of the hour at all times. They had a fair shot at climbing up the chart if they performed as a semi boy band. It would be like Justin Bieber and Vanilla Ice combination. Before they even recorded anything as a group, White started to beef with other guys in the group over a MacBook and that was the end of that saga.
Despite many warnings of others, G would ignore those noises and help White out with his outfits and etc. Poppa G always wanted to see White do better, but White was living in his own dream world where he was a rapstar who knew everything and didn’t have to do his taxes. For that reason alone, most likely any venture with White would be a lost cause. Also, they had different lifestyle and life goals. While White wanted to stay and live his life in the basement rest of his life trying to be a rapstar, G wanted a better living conditions and ability to travel and experience other places. And because of those two different visions White wasn’t going to listen to G or anybody else no matter what as long as he had a microphone in his hand with his music videos.
White would always ask Poppa G to find out what kind of artist G was listening to and told G to check his music video out time after time. Even with his savvy business knowledge and years in the game, he still didn’t figure out that he was marketing his music to the wrong person. Maybe other people were right about White being a mental patient at one point.
