Considering your background, what specific moment do you consider to be pivotal to your success and the "turning point" of your life?
Well, getting locked up was a turning point. Sitting there in jail, I thought, 'Oh, my life can't be like this. There's got to be another way.' You know what I'm saying? That's when I even got the idea of making a record called "Locked Up," creating a new vision for the future, like, 'When I get out, this is what I plan to do.' It opened up doors for other things that I wanted to do. Music was relevant at that point. That's when I knew exactly what time it was.
"Locked Up" was definitely an international smash. Everybody was singing it—everywhere! Throughout your travels, has there been a particular place in which you were surprised to hear your music playing?
Yeah, places like Germany, where they don't speak English whatsoever. They were singing the lyrics from beginning to end, and then they would come up to me and say, 'Hello.' And I would be like, 'I don't understand!' [laughing] A little situation like that, that'll really trip you up, you know what I'm saying? When the record came on, fans went bananas.
How did you end up getting that big break? A few years ago, I came across some reports about you linking up with Devyne Stephens, CEO of Upfront Entertainment.
D was always there since the beginning. He was always one of my partners, always looked out for me. When I was locked up or whatever, he would be the one to buy me out, you know what I'm saying? He was the one who was always steering me towards music. Situations happened and it's like, 'You know, dude, this is the last time I'm buying you out.' And then he'd buy me out again. He was there from the very beginning. Once he told me, 'If you put as much hustle into music as you do on the street, boy, you'd be out of here.' It took me to get locked for a long period of time before I realized what he was saying.
Your first album, Trouble, was released under Universal and your next two, Konvicted and Freedom, were under your Konvict Muzik imprint. At what point did you feel like 'Okay, I need to branch out and just have my own imprint?'
When I was locked up long enough to see so much talent. I was just trying to figure out why they were in there. 'Why, with all this talent, you still end up in here? You need to figure it out. That, right there, is your gift; it's your way out.' You know what I'm saying? Of course, I turned the same voice to myself. 'Why the hell am I in here?' So as soon as I got out, that was the first thing I was going to do: start a record company, Konvict Muzik, and start signing a whole bunch of these gifted people. That was the idea.
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