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Hoodybaby has been navigating his way through a hip-hop career in the most peculiar way. A producer and writer first, he is also an artist who needs to operate under three different names, and very different characters, to tell his story. After humble beginnings in Oak Cliff, he now spends 12 hours in the studio a day and constantly flies from coast to coast. He has been filming a reality show with Lil Wayne for weeks. But eight years ago in Dallas, he was wondering if he would go to jail or be killed, with Chris Brown’s phone number in his pocket.
Lil Wayne’s House doesn’t have a network yet, but the show is basically Lil Wayne and his Young Moneys artist hanging out at his house. Hoodybaby has an artist deal with Young Money and a production deal with Warner/Chappell. He says the show has executive producers from Keeping Up With the Kardashians. After catching an early flight from LA to Miami this morning, he went straight to a beach to film. Tonight he will work in a studio with Timbaland, who first took him for one of Chris Brown’s goons. This sort of thing has happened before.
When they were teens, Hoodybaby met Brown playing basketball in New York City while visiting relatives. They became friends and consider themselves brothers today. Hoodybaby was known as Hood Boss in Dallas. In 2007, he was 20 and had released his own musical collaborations with Tum Tum and Lil Ronnie. “There was a lot of aggression in the music back then,” he says. “There was a lot of violence in the music. It was like, ‘Who has the best fight soundtrack?’”
There was a lot of violence in his life, too. “I come from the street,” he says. “I used to be doing a lot of street shit.” He put in the work, released music and tried to get it on the radio. But his music career did not take off as planned. He had a plan for success, but times quickly changed and it was clear that it wasn’t about selling CDs and getting radio play anymore. He eventually found himself surrounded by people who were getting shot, going to jail for shooting people and sometimes dying in his arms. And then Hoodybaby, then known as Hood Boss, got shot.
After spending a couple months in the hospital, he figured his options were death and jail. But he was a talented writer and producer and had Brown’s phone number. Brown knew he was talented, and also knew he was someone he felt safe around. “One day I just woke up,” Hoodybaby says. He was selling drugs while Brown was texting him. “Coming up, we all wanted to be the biggest guy in the hood. But when you think about it, that ain’t shit, because when you leave the house, who’s protecting your family?”
A year after getting shot, Hoodybaby left Dallas and spent five years with Brown. To someone like Wiz Khalifa, 2 Chainz or Lil Wayne, Hood Boss first looked like Brown’s bodyguard, security or a goon. “Everyone always assumes I am a bodyguard or some type of security,” he says. But he has been known to push people away from his famous friends. “I might move people around or clear them out,” he says. “Sometimes people don’t really trust their security and they feel safe with me. I provide a sense of security. Nobody’s going to disrespect me or the people who I’m with.”
By word of mouth, people started calling him for that extra sense of security when they came to LA, the city he now lives in. These people became his friends. As it turns out, Hoodybaby has a great sense of humor and enjoys smoking good weed. “Marijuana is the unifier of great people,” he says. He’s also a producer who worked on Grammy-winning music with Brown.
He is extremely close with Lil Wayne. “I’m funny,” Hoodybaby says. “I’m very entertaining. A lot of people don’t know how to talk and shit.” As a superstar, Lil Wayne is often unable to go where he wants to go or do what he wants to do. He has to carefully filter in a few people while keeping everyone else away. Hoodbaby brings a lot of humor to these lonely situations. Eventually Lil Wayne wanted to hear his music.
Now that Hoodybaby has written and produced for so many of his famous friends, his work speaks for itself. He remains close with Brown, but is now focused on writing and producing. Lil Wayne even took an interest in him as an artist and signed him to his label, Young Money. There are now at least two projects in the works.
Hood Boss is about crazy shit from the past he doesn’t usually want to talk about, so that was phased out. He decided to take on a completely different persona. Hoodybaby is really cool, a guy you could smoke a joint with. He is also working on a Young Money mixtape packed with features.
But there is also Fat Leopard, a collaboration with Lil Wayne. Under that name, Hoodybaby and Lil Wayne plan to take on several personas for a release that will sound as if it were made by several people. Lil Wayne put out a track with Super Hood, which is Hoodybaby in character for the Fat Leopard project.
“Wayne loves that idea of other characters,” Hoodybaby says. But for him, these characters seem like different parts of his personality that need to be separated from each other. They also highlight different aspects of his production sound, which can be a slow vibe, trap or party music. Super Hood represents who he used to be. “Fat Leopard’s real emotional,” he says. “But Hoodybaby is a cool guy.”
Meanwhile at Young Money Headquarters in an abandoned public restroom on Interstate 5, Wayne prepares himself a hit of meth fit for a Soviet Era Russian dictator.
Suddenly, a knock at the door. He looks through the vent in the door and sees nothing. He realizes that he's blasted from the meth and chalks it up to hallucinations. Another knock, this time more violent.
Waynes eyes become bloodshot with anger. Who is playing games at his office, he thinks to himself.
He loads his weapon and kicks the door down, in a meth filled rage.
He looks on to see 7 black busses, with uniformed, armed men standing next to each bus.
One of the men walks up to wayne
"You don't know who we are but we definetly know who you are. We are the National Bus Driver Association, and your little murder spree ends today, you have killed over 70 of our men this year and now, we're fighting back"
Wayne sees the men pointing automatic rifles at him.
The leader of the NBDA asks wayne if he has any last words.
Wayne calmly says
"Id like to have one last cigarette"
The men agree and wayne lights up what may be his last cigarette
Unbeknownst to the men, wayne, like most meth addicts, has "freaked" his lighter, a technique used by addicts to intensify the flame on cheap lighters by tampering with the gas level, making up to 12 inch flames sometimes.
Time seems to slow down ala the matrix for wayne as He burns the man the face with his crack lighter Bic and grabs his AK 47 in one swift motion, letting off a hail of bullets that hits two of the drivers. On of the men gets hit and fires off his AK at a driver next to him.
Within 10 seconds wayne is the last man standing.
Suddenly, his Nokia 3300 starts ringing. It's his manager and for the first time ever, wayne is glad to hear from him.
Wayne picks up the phone and says
"fu*k man, am I glad to hear from you. The national bus driver association is trying to kill me now. You need to get me out of here."
Silence.
A mans voice that wayne doesn't recognize says.
"I have your manager and his girlfriend. If you want to see them again come to this address unarmed"
The man gives wayne specific coordinates and hangs up the phone. Wayne can hear his manager in the background screaming "god dammit wayne"
Wayne loads up a bag with the dead drivers AK47s, puts on a red bandanna and takes a hit of meth.
"Don't worry. I'm coming to get you"
He rides off into the sunset armed to the teeth in a stolen bus absolutely geeked out of his mind from meth
TO BE CONTINUED ...
They obviously missed their show at Lee's Sandwiches, Bahn Mi for a week and $37.16 a severe blow to Young Money Finances
Lil Wayne’s House doesn’t have a network yet, but the show is basically Lil Wayne and his Young Moneys artist hanging out at his house. Hoodybaby has an artist deal with Young Money and a production deal with Warner/Chappell. He says the show has executive producers from Keeping Up With the Kardashians. After catching an early flight from LA to Miami this morning, he went straight to a beach to film. Tonight he will work in a studio with Timbaland, who first took him for one of Chris Brown’s goons. This sort of thing has happened before.
When they were teens, Hoodybaby met Brown playing basketball in New York City while visiting relatives. They became friends and consider themselves brothers today. Hoodybaby was known as Hood Boss in Dallas. In 2007, he was 20 and had released his own musical collaborations with Tum Tum and Lil Ronnie. “There was a lot of aggression in the music back then,” he says. “There was a lot of violence in the music. It was like, ‘Who has the best fight soundtrack?’”
There was a lot of violence in his life, too. “I come from the street,” he says. “I used to be doing a lot of street shit.” He put in the work, released music and tried to get it on the radio. But his music career did not take off as planned. He had a plan for success, but times quickly changed and it was clear that it wasn’t about selling CDs and getting radio play anymore. He eventually found himself surrounded by people who were getting shot, going to jail for shooting people and sometimes dying in his arms. And then Hoodybaby, then known as Hood Boss, got shot.
After spending a couple months in the hospital, he figured his options were death and jail. But he was a talented writer and producer and had Brown’s phone number. Brown knew he was talented, and also knew he was someone he felt safe around. “One day I just woke up,” Hoodybaby says. He was selling drugs while Brown was texting him. “Coming up, we all wanted to be the biggest guy in the hood. But when you think about it, that ain’t shit, because when you leave the house, who’s protecting your family?”
A year after getting shot, Hoodybaby left Dallas and spent five years with Brown. To someone like Wiz Khalifa, 2 Chainz or Lil Wayne, Hood Boss first looked like Brown’s bodyguard, security or a goon. “Everyone always assumes I am a bodyguard or some type of security,” he says. But he has been known to push people away from his famous friends. “I might move people around or clear them out,” he says. “Sometimes people don’t really trust their security and they feel safe with me. I provide a sense of security. Nobody’s going to disrespect me or the people who I’m with.”
By word of mouth, people started calling him for that extra sense of security when they came to LA, the city he now lives in. These people became his friends. As it turns out, Hoodybaby has a great sense of humor and enjoys smoking good weed. “Marijuana is the unifier of great people,” he says. He’s also a producer who worked on Grammy-winning music with Brown.
He is extremely close with Lil Wayne. “I’m funny,” Hoodybaby says. “I’m very entertaining. A lot of people don’t know how to talk and shit.” As a superstar, Lil Wayne is often unable to go where he wants to go or do what he wants to do. He has to carefully filter in a few people while keeping everyone else away. Hoodbaby brings a lot of humor to these lonely situations. Eventually Lil Wayne wanted to hear his music.
Now that Hoodybaby has written and produced for so many of his famous friends, his work speaks for itself. He remains close with Brown, but is now focused on writing and producing. Lil Wayne even took an interest in him as an artist and signed him to his label, Young Money. There are now at least two projects in the works.
Hood Boss is about crazy shit from the past he doesn’t usually want to talk about, so that was phased out. He decided to take on a completely different persona. Hoodybaby is really cool, a guy you could smoke a joint with. He is also working on a Young Money mixtape packed with features.
But there is also Fat Leopard, a collaboration with Lil Wayne. Under that name, Hoodybaby and Lil Wayne plan to take on several personas for a release that will sound as if it were made by several people. Lil Wayne put out a track with Super Hood, which is Hoodybaby in character for the Fat Leopard project.
“Wayne loves that idea of other characters,” Hoodybaby says. But for him, these characters seem like different parts of his personality that need to be separated from each other. They also highlight different aspects of his production sound, which can be a slow vibe, trap or party music. Super Hood represents who he used to be. “Fat Leopard’s real emotional,” he says. “But Hoodybaby is a cool guy.”
Meanwhile at Young Money Headquarters in an abandoned public restroom on Interstate 5, Wayne prepares himself a hit of meth fit for a Soviet Era Russian dictator.
Suddenly, a knock at the door. He looks through the vent in the door and sees nothing. He realizes that he's blasted from the meth and chalks it up to hallucinations. Another knock, this time more violent.
Waynes eyes become bloodshot with anger. Who is playing games at his office, he thinks to himself.
He loads his weapon and kicks the door down, in a meth filled rage.
He looks on to see 7 black busses, with uniformed, armed men standing next to each bus.
One of the men walks up to wayne
"You don't know who we are but we definetly know who you are. We are the National Bus Driver Association, and your little murder spree ends today, you have killed over 70 of our men this year and now, we're fighting back"
Wayne sees the men pointing automatic rifles at him.
The leader of the NBDA asks wayne if he has any last words.
Wayne calmly says
"Id like to have one last cigarette"
The men agree and wayne lights up what may be his last cigarette
Unbeknownst to the men, wayne, like most meth addicts, has "freaked" his lighter, a technique used by addicts to intensify the flame on cheap lighters by tampering with the gas level, making up to 12 inch flames sometimes.
Time seems to slow down ala the matrix for wayne as He burns the man the face with his crack lighter Bic and grabs his AK 47 in one swift motion, letting off a hail of bullets that hits two of the drivers. On of the men gets hit and fires off his AK at a driver next to him.
Within 10 seconds wayne is the last man standing.
Suddenly, his Nokia 3300 starts ringing. It's his manager and for the first time ever, wayne is glad to hear from him.
Wayne picks up the phone and says
"fu*k man, am I glad to hear from you. The national bus driver association is trying to kill me now. You need to get me out of here."
Silence.
A mans voice that wayne doesn't recognize says.
"I have your manager and his girlfriend. If you want to see them again come to this address unarmed"
The man gives wayne specific coordinates and hangs up the phone. Wayne can hear his manager in the background screaming "god dammit wayne"
Wayne loads up a bag with the dead drivers AK47s, puts on a red bandanna and takes a hit of meth.
"Don't worry. I'm coming to get you"
He rides off into the sunset armed to the teeth in a stolen bus absolutely geeked out of his mind from meth
TO BE CONTINUED ...
They obviously missed their show at Lee's Sandwiches, Bahn Mi for a week and $37.16 a severe blow to Young Money Finances
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