A FIRESIDE CHAT WITH GOLDIE LOC OF THA EASTSIDAZ


Are you familiar with the Mac Ten Commandments? If you want to be a straight G, you better start learning them. They are called off by Goldie below. Memorize them. Live them. Then you too can be an Eastsida. Good luck. Lord knows, with all the P to the pizzo, U to the uzzo, S to the sizzo, S to the sizzo, Y to the yizzos, we need more Gs. Here he is, Goldie, unedited and in his own words. Holla.


FRED JUNG: Let's start from the beginning.

GOLDIE LOC: I'm from Long Beach, California, down on 15th Street. I met Tray through Long Beach. I knew him through Long Beach. We was from opposite gangs so we really didn't conversate. I already knew him through Long Beach, through my city.


FJ: How long have you been rapping?

GOLDIE LOC: For like ten years.


FJ: And you're just twenty-one.

GOLDIE LOC: Twenty-two.


FJ: Twenty-two, not bad for the LBC.

GOLDIE LOC: Yeah, it just came along. I can barely figure how it came long. It just happened.


FJ: So when did you hook up with Snoop?

GOLDIE LOC: Like about a year and a half ago. We all got together to just you know.


FJ: So who came up with Tha Eastsidaz?

GOLDIE LOC: Oh, Snoop Dogg.


FJ: How much time did you spend in the studio working the record?

GOLDIE LOC: Like nine months.


FJ: A lot of people came out to lend a hand, Dre and Warren G to name a few.

GOLDIE LOC: Yeah, that's right.


FJ: Does pussy sell (reference to a track on the record)?

GOLDIE LOC: Yeah (laughing). It sells a lot.


FJ: What are the Mac 10 Commandments?

GOLDIE LOC: Oh, man, I got my own.


FJ: Don't keep me in suspense.

GOLDIE LOC: Never trust a girl. Never trust a girl, man. Never trust a girl. My second one is be true to yourself. And the third one would be never tell her mother. My forth one is don't trust your homeboys. Fifth one would be keep what you do to yourself. Six, wash your hands before you piss.


FJ: Whoa, back up the truck. Goldie, the signs on the bathroom walls say wash your hands after you piss.

GOLDIE LOC: (Laughing) Cause you touch a lot of stuff and then you touch on these girls and then you touch yourself. You know what I mean (laughing)? Seven is, and if she's broke, don't lend her any money. And eight, be cool with her father. Be cool with the woman's father. Number nine, when you havin' sex with them, don't let them tell you and talk you into slippin' the condom off. Usually, they want to try to talk you out of your condom.


FJ: Commandment nine, keep your hat on your head.

GOLDIE LOC: Yup, keep your hat on your head. Ten is fuck a bitch.


FJ: Goldie, I am looking at your list here and you don't trust ninety-nine percent of the population. Who do you trust then?

GOLDIE LOC: Just me. Me and my son.


FJ: Would you rather be respected or loved?

GOLDIE LOC: Respected.


FJ: Why?

GOLDIE LOC: Because love comes and goes. I'd rather be respected.


FJ: You getting paid?

GOLDIE LOC: Oh, for sure, man. I don't miss a nickel. That should be Commandment number eleven. Don't miss a nickel.


FJ: What did you indulge yourself with?

GOLDIE LOC: I bought me a car, a Yukon Denali. Hell, yeah. Now I got this house being built and I just needed a vehicle to get around in to do all these things that I'm doing and to get to where I'm going. Now I got this house being built.


FJ: With Snoop, having lived the thug life, fronting the label and not some guy in a suit, you know he'll always do right by you.

GOLDIE LOC: Yeah, hell, yeah. That's like my father. Yeah, even though the age bracket is almost neck and neck as far as him being still in his twenties, but I still look at him like a father because he knows much. He knows a lot about this game that I'm in. Like he done coached me through my first deal, first record, first video, first everything, movie. He helped me do all that. I done did a movie already. I've done an album, videos. What else can he be there? How else can he be there helping me? What type of shape or form? I don't know. He did everything for me. But you've got to stay in tune with your business. Business comes first. Even though Snoop is my main man and I respect him and he respects me, I still like to check up on my own business. And I understand that he's not going to do me wrong or fuck me, but just to make sure that nobody else he deals with can fuck me. He's not going to do it because he helped me come up. He's not going to pull me down now. He's established. For the rest of his life, he's established. Now it's time for me to get established. I feel Snoop wouldn't take a dime for me.


FJ: You have done the things, what's left?

GOLDIE LOC: Shit, kick back and watch the show. And just try and help everybody else that's trying to come up and get on the top ten of Billboard. For next year, I'm just going to help everybody else.


FJ: So you want to produce?

GOLDIE LOC: I do produce. I do produce.


FJ: You have a label?

GOLDIE LOC: Of course, Little G Shit Records, yeah, Little Gangsta Shit. You can expect that within three months.


FJ: Who are you bringing out?

GOLDIE LOC: The first guy that I'm going to bring out, Short Chop that used to rap with Ice Cube.


FJ: You guys heading into the studio?

GOLDIE LOC: I just built one.


FJ: Any advice for the up and comers?

GOLDIE LOC: I say that they stay away from these no good people. Stay away from them because all they want to do is ruin these little kids lives and influence them with negative shit when little kids don't know nothing. They don't know right or wrong. As far as what they need to know, they just need to know to do what they want to do and never be pressured by any other people. And if their parents tell them it's bad. It's bad. They are not saying it to be mean to them. They're saying it because it's bad. The ghetto is known to take you under, but then again, it can take you up, if you be yourself.


FJ: Now that is from experience, the ghetto took you up.

GOLDIE LOC: I was a kid that didn't have shit. I didn't have nothing. I had four pairs of pants and I wore them through the whole school year. You understand what I'm saying? It was crazy, like two shirts and I would have to share them with my brother. I was living with my father and my mother. My father had a job. My mother didn't. He had five kids. He had bills to pay. It's hard. So I really didn't ask my parents for nothing even though I was the baby, the one in the middle. I never asked them for nothing because I knew how rough it was. To a hit album out there from nothing, I can tell it. Living it and being right here with the kids. And they see it too. They seen how I was last year. Now when I ride down the street in a brand new truck, they see the improvement and they want to do it. They want to drive what I'm driving, but sometimes they decide to follow the wrong people to get what they want. Knowing that if they just stick to what they want to do in life that they can do it.


FJ: But it's not like this was handed to you, you had to bust your ass.

GOLDIE LOC: That's the truth. You have to. When you get here, you still have to work. You put your album out. You still have to work. It's not a sitting process. They can't do homework, they can't do this. I let them know that school comes first, man. Do what you want to do in school because that is the opportunity that you need these days. It is the schooling. You need that school, because without that school, you're nothing. It's hard to come up now without school.


FJ: But school wasn't the path you took?

GOLDIE LOC: I went out there and got it on my own. I did it on my own. I missed school and ditched school and played basketball on the park court when I could have been playing basketball in the school. It was kind of opposite the way it was, but since the school wouldn't take my grade average and I continued to want to play basketball, so by me ditching school and going to play basketball elsewhere, just attitude problems that I didn't know how to control when I was young. I had a real sick attitude and whenever something was wrong for me, I get mad and make everything else wrong, just wrong for me. My vision would just go away from what I was focused on. I learned a lot through the streets. The streets got my conscious good, my awareness. The streets will give you everything if you use it right. If you sit back and watch the show. Move when you're supposed to move. Make you money. Get a house. Give back to your family. Go buy your brother a shirt here and there. I did it when I was young coming up. And then after I got gunned down, it was like I can't play basketball no more. I've got to do something, you know what I mean?


FJ: Where were you hit?

GOLDIE LOC: In the leg. In the leg, twice. My dream was taken from me through me not realizing what was going on in my neighborhood. When I got gunned down, I had no other way to make money. I couldn't walk. So I always had, being a DJ, I knew how to scratch on a turntable, and then I started from scratching to rapping on instrumentals, rapping on other people's instrumentals and I started to sound good and so what I did was I started buying equipment. All the little drug money that I had saved up, after I got out of the hospital, I went and bought a lot of equipment and I just stay up under my equipment and learned how to work it myself. I took notes and schooled myself on the equipment. I mastered all the equipment and learned it. And back then, it was cheap equipment to now. Now, I started to learn all this new equipment coming out, just to be ahead of my game and so when it all came out, I rushed it and bought everything. I traded all my old shit and just bought everything. And then Snoop seen what I going through and my sister got killed in my studio, so Snoop seen what I was going through and knew that I just needed help and was like, "Let me grab him. Let me help him, but show him how to do it." He didn't have to show me nothing because I knew everything. It was just, "Let me give him a chance. Let me give him what was given to me." And when he did that, I just took advantage of it.


FJ: Your sister was killed in your studio?

GOLDIE LOC: Yeah, she was gunned down in front of my studio, right in front of my eyes. And that changed my whole life around. It's not all easy, man, trying to come up in this world. It's really not. I lost focus on what I was going and I didn't know how valuable I was at the time that she got killed. People were just hating me just because I knew what to do and I knew how to do it and I wasn't it for money. I was doing it because I knew how to do it. I wasn't trying to come up like Snoop. I wasn't trying to make millions. I didn't understand the game. I didn't even understand how much money you could make. I knew how to do it. I couldn't walk. I couldn't do nothing else and so I said, "I'm going to make music. I'm going to be a musician." My sister was gunned down. It was kind of crazy how it all happened, but I end up where I am now.


FJ: That puts it all in perspective.

GOLDIE LOC: Yeah, it let me know how valuable I was. I had to start thinking smart and I couldn't think smart because all I wanted to do was go kill somebody. What Snoop did was taught me how to think and taught me how to be smart and showed my how valuable I was. He showed me the mastermind of myself. He showed me how to reach back into my mind.


FJ: Now you have to do the right thing and show all the shorties coming up.

GOLDIE LOC: Exactly. I'm young and by me telling them what I'm going through. Snoop can't tell you nothing like I'm telling you. He hasn't been through what I've been through. Even growing up, he had it rough, but his family was never dealing with huge gang members and he never lost a member of his immediate family. It's crazy how we grew up. Back when he was growing up, it was just drugs. Let's all get on one corner and make money. Now, it's like everybody is on every corner and everybody is trying to make the same money from the same people. So it's like when this guy comes up and he wants to buy weed then I'm going to sell it to him this time and the next time you sell. That's not a future. Now, you can't sit out there on the corner and sell drugs because the police going to get you. They see the whole turnover of my life and sometimes it is hard for me to explain my whole turnover. It's kind of hard for me to explain how I went from nothing to something, but at times like now, I get to break it down and want to talk about it. As long as the kids know that I'm doing good now and that I went through a whole lot in my life and not to go through what I went through. I didn't go through what I went through to get to where I'm at. I went through what I went through because I never saw the values of myself and I endangered my whole family not thinking smart. I'm seventeen. I know how to make this music. I can't walk. I'm gunned down in both legs. I can't walk. I'm making this music now. The kids that I know, they respect me. They don't love me. They respect me because they see what I went through to get to where I'm at. No one loves me except for my mother and my father. Everything else is just respect.


FJ: You must be getting a lot of the props now?

GOLDIE LOC: Oh yeah, because it wasn't an easy turnover. It was kind of rough. So before a person comes up and questions me, he'd rather shed tears because he knows what I went through. Nobody wants to be like me. Instead of being like me, they want to learn what I learned and be better than me. I'm easy to socialize with. I'm not a sick person or anything. I'm real easy to get along with. I feel that I've opened up a lot of kid's eyes. As far as like the ones I know and know my life and me and my family, I done opened it up.


FJ: Any tour plans?

GOLDIE LOC: Oh, yeah, we going to tour after we tour on The Chronic.


FJ: Snoop has a solo project coming out in a few months. I know both you and Tray are doing your own thing. Do you guys plan on keeping Tha Eastsidaz going?

GOLDIE LOC: Yeah, we will probably do another trio next year.


FJ: When can we expect your solo project?

GOLDIE LOC: I'm working on it now. Snoop told me to start working on it just because the way the public is asking for it. "When is Goldie going to do an album?" I'm the youngest. I produce. I got more going on, so they're like wondering where did he come from and what is he going to do next? I'm working on something now called Secondhand Smoke Kills (laughing). That's a headliner, huh? That's what the niggers can call me. When you see me, just call me Secondhand.


FJ: I know Snoop's got his SAG (Screen Actors Guild) card because I have seen him all over the big screen, any plans to do any acting yourself?

GOLDIE LOC: Deuces and Tray. Me and Tray Deee going to do a movie called Deuces and Tray.


FJ: When is that due?

GOLDIE LOC: Probably next year. We're going to do that before we do another Eastsidaz album.


FJ: Your thoughts on Kobe Bryant putting out a rap album.

GOLDIE LOC: Oh, much love to him because if that is what he wanted to do before he became a basketball player, he says that he's been doing this since before he became a basketball player, so stick to what he's doing. He's cool. I'm going to try and help him out.


FJ: Lakers are going to take it this year?

GOLDIE LOC: Hell, yeah. Hell, yeah. I need to place a bet.


FJ: It is kicking my ass that we don't have a football team here in LA.

GOLDIE LOC: I know, man. That's kind of fucked up, maybe me and Snoop should get together and do something. Maybe we get together and buy a team. Hell, yeah.


FJ: Your thoughts on N.W.A. getting back together.

GOLDIE LOC: Oh, it is a beautiful thing that they got back together and put Snoop on the team. Yeah.


FJ: The Million Marijuana March is in May.

GOLDIE LOC: Next month. Is that right? I'm going to try and make it there. March on (laughing).


FJ: Hip-hop started out in the urban trenches and now, even white kids in suburbia are wearing the FUBU and listening to Tha Eastsidaz.

GOLDIE LOC: Yeah, that's cause on the album we're united. You can tell by how many people are on it. It is a peaceful album. People want to be beside us. We can do what we do. Be as we be.


FJ: What is it you guys do, be?

GOLDIE LOC: Take over the whole world.


FJ: Now that is ambition. How you coming so far?

GOLDIE LOC: Taking over the world? Good, pretty damn good. Real good.


FJ: If you had a business card, what would it read?

GOLDIE LOC: It would say, "If you don't want nothing. Leave me alone. I be gone." It will have my numbers on there. It will say, "If you don't want nothing. Leave me alone. I be gone." Little G Shit Records.


Fred Jung is the Editor-In-Chief and is supervised by professionals and should not be attempted at home.
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