03 Greedo Is Running West Coast Rap From Prison - Dazed

Nipsey, an influential Crip-affiliated gangster rapper, was a vocal supporter of 03 Greedo, hyping his album Money Changes Everything before it was released in interviews, and opening Eastsider Jackson’s music up to the Westside of LA. He was murdered in 2019, outside his Marathon clothing store in Slauson, all while Jackson was sitting in jail. He says he learned so much from Nipsey, even if some of their values were different. “One of the first things I’m going to do when I’m free is buy a Ferrari F-40,” Jackson says. “I’m already in the process of buying one. People from my neighbourhood need to see one of us who made it to drive these foreign cars and wear these icy chains! Some people, like my bro Nipsey, didn’t do the flashy shit. I understand why, but if you been homeless and slept on floors and air mattresses that was deflating and shit then, man, you need jewellery! I went from dollar menu at McDonalds to eating whole lobster and wagyu beef. Yes, I want to continue the positive social work Nipsey was doing – but I feel like I deserve to enjoy this, too.”

Having spent most of the 2010s building up his name locally, dropping classic mixtape after mixtape and getting to the stage where his songs were being played out of just about every car in the hoods of Los Angeles, Jackson looked ready to take a leap similar to artists like Lil Wayne and Future by turning an eclectic street mixtape run into a gargantuan pop career. “I feel like Future, making Dirty Sprite to Black Woodstock, his shit always sounds different, even though he is the same artist,” he says, welcoming my comparison. “If you can’t hear the influence of Weezy, then you crazy. Those legendary mixtape runs those two had were always something I wanted to emulate. I knew if I could achieve that then I could take my career to the next level and be bigger than any rapper that came before me.” 

One of the albums that was supposed to consolidate Jackson’s climb into the mainstream was 2019’s Netflix and Deal, a collaborative project with the brilliant rap producer Kenny Beats. It had a cinematic sheen that suggested Jackson was ready to occupy a similar lane in the mainstream to rap outliers such as Young Thug and Lil Uzi Vert (who is a big fan of 03 Greedo’s, and appeared on the excellent “Never Bend” remix). It was a critical success, with a lot of its music recorded while Jackson was on the run and trying to record as many tunes as humanly possible before surrendering to the authorities. Although its big name guests were plentiful (Vince Staples, Freddie Gibbs, Maxo Kream, KEY!), nobody outshined Greedo, whose Auto-Tuned vocals sliced through each track with an addictive waviness. 

“He’s a special artist. All the UK guys I work with, like slowthai, Headie One, and Octavian, ask me what he’s really like” – Kenny Beats

Sadly, Jackson’s sentence softened its commercial impact. Jackson hasn’t even had the chance to listen to the album on a pair of headphones yet. “I want to listen, but knowing I had this case and was fighting against a life sentence means I had to rush a lot of this music out,” he says. “I was just listening to Money Changes Everything the other day and it created flashbacks of the circumstances in which it was recorded. It was so stressful. I don’t want to work like that anymore. I want to be able to enjoy my music.”

Kenny Beats laughs lovingly as he describes Jackson as his wise uncle. “He’s got the perfect voiceover voice!” Kenny says. “Greedo is like a cartoon character for just how animated his voice is. There’s a super villain lion thing going on that’s so fucking cool. When you’re in the studio with him, his eyes look like he is really mad, even when he’s smiling real big. It’s a crazy juxtaposition, but that’s because of the pain that sits so deeply within him.” He adds that he’s never seen anyone with his work rate, either. “He’s a special artist,” Kenny says. “All the UK guys I work with, like slowthai, Headie One, and Octavian, ask me what he’s really like. Look, he could record 20 songs in one day and nearly all of them are street anthems or music capable of making me want to cry. The way he brings you into his life story is so unique.” 

Jackson says he’s actually capable of completing 30 songs in a day – it’s just that not many engineers can match his pace. It sounds exhausting, but he knows he has to squeeze life out of every single moment in the studio. Meanwhile, Kenny believes that the “Genius.com dudes” who dismiss Jackson as a top tier lyricist aren’t listening properly. “He talks in a language that’s very unique. His melodies are layered and textured in a way that’s sophisticated as fuck. He has full creative control of his sound; everything is planned. If people did a session with him then I’m sure their minds would be blown by the Creep Music.” ‘Creep Music’ is how Jackson describes his sound, which intentionally shifts between a feeling of giddy euphoria and bone-chilling paranoia, symbolising how Black men in America continuously need eyes in the back of their head.