Thugged Out | February 2004
Interview by Black Dog Bone
Photos by Matt Sonzala

How did your EP do on the radio and clubs?

It did good. Like we got this one song called "Rollin the Club" on the EP and it’s blowin up. Like they doin it in schools. We went on tour in the schools out here and they had to barricade the place cause they was rushin us and shit. They doin it in beauty pageants and everywhere. That one song is hot. But in Gary they don’t look at us like that. The industry ain’t lookin forward to what we gonna bring to ‘em. They look at Gary as some kinda murder capitol, and they ain’t focusing on us right now. If they give us a chance it’s over with. We gonna take the game. But people ain’t givin us the chance to do it.

When I first heard what was coming from Gary I was amazed. The music was so unique and so good.

That’s one thing. We really different. We listen to all artists that’s out and we vibe off ‘em, the ones that’s hot and the ones that’s not, and we come with our own style. We try to be original. We try to be like nobody else. We got like a little Bone in us, we’re on the harmony tip. We’re three brothers that’s seeking.

The music in Gary is real street, but you can play it in the club too.

We send the clubs up. When our songs come on in the club everything go haywire.

Where do you perform mainly?

Just in Gary because we ain’t really got no money to do no other clubs outta town. What we’re doin now is buildin up. We work with our city and we go to the lil cities behind us. Eventually we gonna work on the big cities. Everybody know us, but we ain’t got the people and the money to go far. We willin to do whatever we gotta do. We got the willpower, but we ain’t got the money to go get a rent-a-car and go all over or have a street team or nothing like that. But we hot though. We hot to death. We ain’t got no business behind us. That’s all it is.

All three of you are blood brothers?

That’s right. Me and my brother Mutt Dog, we twins. We 24 and my brother Boosy’s 26. His Rap name’s Mafioso, but we call him Boosy

How did you all get into doing music?

Me and Mutt Dog went to the penitentiary. Boosy was always rappin, but me and Mutt was some dancin muthafuckas. We was out in the street, Boos was out in the street, everybody was doin shit, we was young. We was 15. Boos was rappin before we went to the joint, but it weren’t really no big deal. When we was in the penitentiary I was rappin. I ain’t never seen Mutt, but when I seen him he’s like, "I’m rappin." But we in the penitentiary, Boos was in the streets, and we didn’t know what the fuck Boos was doin. Don’t nobody write us or no shit like that. When I got out I see Boos was rappin; Boos had a group with another muthafucka. So I was just Booze’s backup muthafucka. I knew how to rap, but I was just lettin ‘em do they thing.

How old were you when you got locked up?
I was 15. I did three and a half years in the joint. I got out when I was 19. And Mutt did two years, then he came for three month, went back and did two years. We was always street bound. Then when Mutt got out me and Mutt formed a group. We was twins, so we was on each other. Then Boosy joined our clique and we made it Thugged Out. It’s been like four years that we been on strong. No hold back.

How did the name Thugged Out come about?

I was tellin my brother, What best describes us? I was like, Thugged Out. He’s like, Why Thugged Out? I’m like, Wherever we at and when we grow old we still gonna have the thug mentality in our body, regardless if we doin wrong or not. We always gonna be thugs. So we like, We Thugged Out, fuck it! We on some bigger and better things, professional things. We ain’t out here stickin up niggaz and shit. This our life. If we don’t make it in rappin I don’t know what kinda life we gonna have. I feel we got what it take it to make it, man.

Why did you get locked up when you were 15?

Cause we was robbin people. We ain’t had shit. Muthafucka had to get it the way we get it, so we got it. We weren’t robbin for just anything, we was robbin for like shoes on our feet, clothes and coats and shit. We didn’t give a fuck, man, shit!

You were growing up in Gary with your mom?

Yeah, I got three brothers and one sisters. We ain’t lived the life of a silver spoon in our mouth and shit like that. We was goddamned out here thirsty. Muthafuckas was always lookin down on us and shit. I was at my mom’s until I was 13, my grandma and granddaddy took us in. They was raisin their kids and her kids, so they ain’t really had shit. We just got steered the way in the wrong thing. It’s this and this. In the streets of GI it’s different. You gotta be down with it or get the fucked rolled over. It’s hardcore.

You didn’t have any guidance. What else could you do?

We didn’t have no guidance. We had guidance from the home as far as getting our ass when we do wrong, but you can only whup a kid’s ass for a minute. When you growin up at 14, 15 years old and you ain’t got shit, you wanna look like the other kids that got it. So we the stick-it-up niggaz. Fuck it! That’s the only way we can get it. Ain’t no jobs out here. So we lookin forward to the pistol. Fuck it!

What part of Gary are you from?

We from 5th Avenue in Gary. There’s a lotta different neighborhoods in Gary, but 5th is the gutter. This the jungle. Once you get out Glen Park it’s suburbs, getting close to those White people. But once you get down deep, when you get from 25th to 5th it’s getting uglier and uglier uglier. When you get to 5th it’s gorilla season. You gotta have it under the clip, cause it’s monkey niggaz.

When you were growing up were there a lot of rappers in your neighborhood?

It’s a lotta rappers in GI. When me and Mutt Dog made Thugged Out, we was hot. We were just new at entertainment. There’s a lotta entertainers down here in GI, but muthafuckas ain’t getting the chance to be who they really wanna be. Muthafuckas ain’t lookin for ‘em, look out down here. So when we get our chance to get out there muthafuckas gonna have problems. Cause we know how to speak the streets. These the real streets down here. I feel this the hardcore part of the world down here in Gary. It’s hard down here. If you can live down here you can live any-muthafuckin-where.

Who put out your first album, you did?

No, this one cat put out our first album. He made some noise. We sold like 2,000 copies in a month.

You made some money?

No, that’s why we left him alone. We didn’t make no money. They was thirsty for the money, but we was thirsty on a whole ‘nother level, to have fame out here. In Gary 2,000 copies sold is a lot. They wasn’t doin the business. When we started seein that shine and getting to reachin the top, they started slackin off and partyin and shit. We like, we gone. Fuck that! We can’t be puttin in a 100% of us rappin and then you got 60% business and 40% bullshit. You partying, you ain’t in it for us. So you gotta go.

What about this new EP? Who put that out?

Our lawyer, Tom Lewis, and another cat named Bizzy Willy. He did our production. Tom Lewis, he cool and he helps out. But we only got one life and I feel like we hot as fuck and we still bullshittin! The best thing we had happen since we started rappin is Murder Dog. When we started getting the interviews and all this, now we seein progress. That’s what we wanna see—progress.

When you were in Murder Dog, did some doors open for you?

Muthafuckas is callin us now after we were in Murder Dog. But still ain’t nothin goin on. Our CD’s still around this muthafucka. We ain’t goin nowhere, we still around here. Yeah, we hot, we hot to death, but what’s happening? We got families to feed. In my house right now we ain’t got no heat in the house. We cold. We tryin to survive out here. This shit is real, man. It’s been a game back in the day, but now this ain’t no fuckin game no more. We tryin to survive and live how everybody else live.

You’ve got the music, but there’s no money to get it out there.

We could make a song, me and my two brothers could make a song with no beat or nothing and the song could be straight immaculate. That’s what we do, we do wonderful muthafuckin music, the best that we know. Everything we put our hands on, everything we put our mouths on, it’s gonna be tight, A-1, no bullshit. We take it the extra mile, we don’t play. But muthafuckas ain’t got no fuckin money down here. Muthafuckas is scared to do something with us. Once they give us one shot it’s fuckin over. We goin to the top. All these muthafuckas that’s out here rappin, they ain’t got nothing. It’s time that we gotta get on the elevator.

What radio stations do you have in Gary?

We got 92.3, 107.5. But they work with Chicago and you gotta have money to get your shit played. They played us like 3-4 times, but we ain’t got no money to get a slot. It’s on the low key, but muthafuckas will be givin ‘em money to keep it in rotation and they keep payin ‘em. If you ain’t got no money you ain’t talkin about shit.

You don’t have a van or a car so you can go out and promote?

We ain’t got no van or no car. We walk. If we have to be at an interview or somewhere we have to catch the bus. That’s one thing about me, Mafioso and Mutt Dog, we got dedication and we believe in what we doin full force, 130%. We don’t give a fuck. If we gotta be there we’ll be there. We’ll rock a crowd dirty, we don’t give a fuck. But they don’t look at us as them boys dirty, they look at us as the next hot thing outa Gary. We gonna be the next Jackson 5, that’s what’s gonna happen. All Thugged Out needs right now is promotion and it’s fuckin over! Our life gonna speak for itself. Muthafuckas gonna have to do a movie about us. This ain’t like no 50 Cent shit, muthafuckas talkin about some fun & games. This shit is fuckin real. And I’ma let a muthafucka know when I get up there, this shit ain’t no joke. The life expectancy up in this muthafucka is 19 years old. For real. We just in this bitch, we in it together. We believe in straight up dedication.

How was it for you growing up?

I’m glad that I went through what I went through. Because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to spit how I spit real. If I hadn’t gone through the shit I went through then I’d be talkin fake. I don’t talk about bling bling because that ain’t how I live. I live with a pistol in my hand. I live goddamn scraping up change, carrying bags from the grocery store, shit like that. I ain’t never lived any other life. It wasn’t we was bad people, it was like we couldn’t sell dope cause the dope fiends was broke. We had to stick the drug dealers up, the muthafuckas who was getting money, or the job workers or old people, for that matter. Muthafuckas look at us like we was bad. We like, "Look, we ain’t got no jobs, we ain’t got no money." So we stick a muthafucka up, we got some money. We wasn’t bad, we was tryin to survive. We need to eat, that’s how it was. I’ll tell the people that I robbed right now, I’m sorry as hell. But you helped me to eat back in the day. When I robbed you I wasn’t gonna kill you, I just wanna get the money so I can go get me something to eat. That’s how it was.

When you were growing up was it easier than now or harder?
Back in the day was hard. Now it’s easier for us cause we older now, and I love my life cause we ain’t gotta look over our head no more. People be proud of us and they just want us to make it. When we get there I know GI will be so fuckin proud of cause they know we’ve been through hell and back. All the artists in GI, we have no beef no more. Muthafuckas is always say, "Keep doin what y’all doin, I know y’all gonna make it, woo woo." We thankin them, huggin muthafuckas and shit. But we got to make a way for our own. Ain’t no muthafucka helpin us do shit. What we did so far, we did that shit on our own. We know we gotta stay with this music and stick with this, it’s gonna pay off in the long run.

What are you working on right now?

We workin on an album. We just got like one song left. We got like thirty songs. We don’t got the actual date when it’s gonna come out, but as long as we do we can start workin on and progressing on the release date and all that. Basically the album’s done.

Is this your first full length album?

No, we had an album before, but we had a little difficulties. Things weren’t lookin just right so we had to start back over. Now we on the professional level. We more focused and professional now.

When did the first album come out?

First one came out in ’99. We promoted for about a year and everything was doin bad. The business wasn’t there, so we had to get our business straight. The first album was called Heat.

On the EP and your first album, was the sound similar or very different?
The first album we was tight, but we wasn’t clear as far as breakdown. The songs weren’t constructed right on a professional level. Then we went back into the booth. We ain’t been out in like two years. But we always be makin noise, doing concerts and puttin shit on mix tapes and shit like that. We was always hot, but we didn’t have the money to come up with our album. We always had Thugged Out, but we ain’t never have no money. Now we so professional on how to construct a song, how to put it all together. We like four years in the dungeon. Now we ready, we hot, everybody lovin us right here. Our city, we tryin to do something with it.