There’s no doubt that YG’s popularity has led to an uptick in a certain offshoot of Blood slang entering into—or resurfacing in—mainstream hip-hop culture. My Krazy Life was originally called I’m 4rm Bompton, and even the more quote-unquote “palatable” title excises the ‘C’ from ‘Crazy.’ That album had songs called “Bicken Back Being Bool” and “BPT”; he’s often performed in front of all-red backdrops in all-red outfits to crowds that are, overwhelmingly, dressed head to toe in red. Your Twitter timeline is full of “brackin” and “bool.” It’s a phenomenon he’s keenly aware of, and one that he examines from several angles at once.

“You got the fans that’s not out here, they’re up in their house watching this shit online, and it looks like it’s cool cause it’s dangerous,” he says. “The most dangerous shit be the shit that everybody wanna be a part of—from a distance, though. So for those people at the crib, the little white kids, the young motherfuckers, that be playing with this shit, throwing up Bs and wearing red and playing with it? I don’t feel no type of way about that, because I can’t—I’m the reason why they’re doing it.”

YG lets that point linger before he turns his attention to his peers in hip-hop who claim affiliations they haven’t earned. “But for the motherfuckers that’s really with the fake, acting like they’re really with this shit, but they’re not from nowhere over here, their name never been out here, they’ve never been in any real situations—they’re making this shit watered down. So once again, I’ve gotta say something, because if I don’t it’ll look like I’m allowing it.”

Though there have been gangs as we know them today occupying territory in many major cities for decades, L.A.’s gang culture has a unique hold over the public imagination. Part of that is the easy blue/red dichotomy that the Crips and Bloods supposedly pose; part is how the expansive L.A. landscape lends itself to complex subdivision. In any case, rappers who claim or even imply affiliation have long been cause for moral panic in middle America.

Fear of gangs—and young men of color—is so entrenched in the country’s DNA that law enforcement agencies often treat groups of young black and Hispanic men as gangs for the sole purpose of charging multiple people with felonies under conspiracy laws, which generally would not apply without the gang label. What’s more: in California, being “registered” as a gang member, or as someone who associates with gang members, can tack an additional two years to life on to the end of a sentence for an underlying felony. The way by which teenagers in targeted areas of Los Angeles end up on the registry is wildly arbitrary, and those who do are seldom informed of their status until they show up in court.

“They say it’s ignorant, but there’s gangs everywhere, bro,” YG says. “People pay attention to [Los Angeles] because they make it seem so ignorant, because it’s red and blue type shit. But the police are a gang. You’ve got the military, you’ve got the government, you’ve got the fucking mob, the mafia. The gang is just like motherfuckers in college in a frat. It’s the same type of shit.” The difference is a matter of consequence: “It’s just that gangbanging on some street shit—you can get murdered. You can get life in jail. That’s part of it. But you’ve got motherfuckers in the military killing people all day long. They just feel like if the president or someone says it’s OK, then it’s OK.”