Photo by Virginia Turbett/Redferns

When I was 15, I was still in Memphis, in the hood, broke. But I met this dude named D-Magic. A friend of mine was like, “Man, I got this friend with all of the equipment, we should go over there and record.” So I went over to his shotgun house—where you look through the front door you can see the back door—with this dude named Vasco, who was rapping with me. [D-Magic] had turntables, mics, everything I couldn’t afford. I immediately ran to a turntable and started scratching, and D-Magic was like, “Damn, you cold as fuck.” He was an old-school nigga, so he was like, “I just play music, I don’t know how you’re doing all that shit man.” Immediately, he was like, “We should get together and start a business. I’ll set the equipment up, you DJ, and we split the money.”

I thought I was the shit. I was getting little gigs—birthday parties, weddings, stuff like that. I would get in so much trouble at school though. They would always have me in the principal’s office, in detention, sometimes I got kicked out, and I was even arrested for trying to sell some weed. But eventually the principal was like, “Look, if you stay out of trouble, I’ll let you DJ the next school dance.” So I did, and when the school dance came, I was going crazy. I was spinning behind the back, underneath the legs, all that. It was like some Juice shit. That’s when I started to make a name for myself.

But from a young age, I wanted to be versatile, just like Prince. He could produce, sing, and rap. That’s why, for a little bit, I wanted to be an R&B singer too. But I settled into the background DJing. One day, Vasco and I had a gig. He would always be back and forth in jail. He would steal cars and pick me up, then we would ride around until he got caught and locked back up. So, before the gig, Vasco went to jail. I was like, “Man, fuck it. I’ll rap myself.” Although I never wanted to be a rapper, I let the instrumental play, grabbed the mic, and just started performing.