
How Drakeo the Ruler recorded an album from jail - firloop
https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/how-drakeo-the-ruler-recorded-thank-you-for-using-gtl-from-jail-joogszn-interview/
======
genieyclo
This interview hints at it, but the much bigger story is LASD & the DA’s
insane crusade against Mr. Mosely [https://www.thefader.com/2019/07/11/drakeo-
the-ruler-murder-...](https://www.thefader.com/2019/07/11/drakeo-the-ruler-
murder-trial-los-angeles-report)

[https://www.thefader.com/2019/09/03/drakeo-the-ruler-
charges...](https://www.thefader.com/2019/09/03/drakeo-the-ruler-charges-
refiled)

Acquitted of all counts pertaining to murder and attempted murder and still
remains incarcerated in solitary confinement inside the COVID-wracked county
jail — without the option to post bail.

~~~
cocaracer
I actually served on the jury panel for this case. I would agree that his
solitary confinement is excessive and cruel, but that article is incredibly
biased. He's still incarcerated because there's a fairly strong case for the
two remaining charges he faces .. has nothing to do with a vindictive crusade.

~~~
devin
I knew nothing about the case before reading this. Could you post a link that
you think better represents the facts?

~~~
cocaracer
There aren't any articles I'm aware of that are written neutrally on the case.
The media I've seen is either from rap news sites or his defense attorney ..
both of which have obvious bias. The public record from the case would
probably be the best source.

There seems to be a concerted effort to push the narrative that Drakeo is a
victim in all of this. That wasn't true from my perspective (and I think for
most of the Jury). The issue we had with the case was that the facts didn't
rise to the level that the DA was charging. I can try to shed some light on
the other side of the argument that seems to be missing. This is by no means a
complete summary .. there were over 46 charges in the case including murder,
burglary and witness intimidation.

Drakeo ran what was referred to as the "burn house" for the 2Greedy group.
Apartments that were used as a gang house. Notable to the case, these
apartments had communal guns that were furnished by the group for anyone to
use. Solo confirmed this via testimony. The murder weapon Boyd used was one of
these communal guns. There was also video evidence of Drakeo and his brother
stealing guns from businesses on separate occasions for communal use (note
neither was the murder weapon). The second iteration of this burn house was
raided by the police. They recovered around 8 or 9 illegal weapons (including
an AK variant). Then there were the group text messages found during
discovery. Drakeo sent explicit messages calling on 2Greedy members to bring
guns with them and to be ready to use them when they were with him. He called
for members to "step up" and be proactive. There were lists of core gang
members, the criteria seeming to be who was willing to proactively commit
crime.

The night of the murder, there did appear to be a plan to go to a party with
the express intent of killing another rapper. This was confirmed by Boyd
(shooter #1) in jailcell recordings. Solo, Drakeo and Kellz (shooter #2) were
in one of the cars. Boyd had his own car. Cell phone tower records, testimony,
and video surveillance all corroborate. The video evidence taken from the
parking lot where the murder occurred shows coordination between the group to
position themselves strategically near the only exit. In the video, they wait
around .. a group from a rival gang of Kellz's walks by .. Kellz and Boyd open
fire. The general consensus of the Jury was that this was a case of Drakeo
"playing at being a real gangster" without the actual intent to kill. One of
the reasons being that they were targeting someone (another rapper) who was
very clearly not going to be at the party. Given that the person who was
murdered was not the person who was intended to be the target, we couldn't
find the intent to kill prong of murder applicable for Drakeo.

The two remaining charges he faces are Gang Conspiracy and Shooting From a
Motor Vehicle. Gang Conspiracy because he very clearly contributed to, if not
created, the environment in which the murder took place. Shooting From a Motor
Vehicle because he was in the car that one of the shooters shot out of. The
law is incredibly broad on that second one .. he doesn't actually have to fire
the gun.

The DA overreached with the charges, but make no mistake these guys are
criminals ..

~~~
sneak
So, to be clear, Drakeo didn’t shoot or otherwise harm anyone?

And he’s being held in solitary awaiting a second trial after already being
acquitted?

------
hnzix
In a similar vein, Vybz Kartel (who's worked with Diplo in the past) has been
releasing music from jail since 2011.

[https://www.dancehallmag.com/2020/06/25/news/just-how-
does-v...](https://www.dancehallmag.com/2020/06/25/news/just-how-does-vybz-
kartel-record-music-from-prison.html)

------
pessimizer
What's the earliest example of this? I remember being astounded when I heard
that "Sacred Love" by Bad Brains was recorded the same way in 1986.

[https://dangerousminds.net/comments/sacred_love_the_bad_brai...](https://dangerousminds.net/comments/sacred_love_the_bad_brains_song_that_was_recorded_over_the_phone_from_priso)

~~~
3131s
Drakeo probably got this idea from Mac Dre, an earlier California rapper who
also recorded an album from prison. Drakeo talks about Mac Dre in his lyrics
and both share some stylistic tendencies like creating their own lingo.

~~~
Ccecil
Yeah...I was thinking the same thing. "Romper Room Gang"

Mac Dre got a lot of respect due to his refusal to inform on the others (even
though supposedly he had nothing to do with it). Sad story. He died in a car
which was shot at after a show. Very ahead of his time musically.

------
Hasz
03 Greedo is apparently also releasing music from jail.

------
apalmer
I mean a lot of this seems to be human creativity... Wasn't so much they were
able to record cleanly or clean up the vocals afterwards as applying effects
that really distorted his voice but in an enjoyable way.

------
3131s
Wow! Do HN people actually know Drakeo? I never expected to see this here.

Free Drakeo!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lzAefl8KIs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lzAefl8KIs)

~~~
mrslave
The social values promoted in this video are appalling. I'd like to see
viewer's age demographics but I'm afraid I already know the answer.

(Also anticipating downvotes. Hopefully the set of those interested in this
article can withhold downvoting-for-disagreement.)

~~~
3131s
Ha! The video I posted is _tame_ for gangster rappers. What exactly are you
outraged by in the video? Crashing cars? Guns? Drinking lean? The lyrics?

What's really appalling is that Americans enacted stupid policies that pitted
the police in war against the gangs over drug profits. The part of Watts where
these rappers like Drakeo and 03 Greedo grew up is absolutely brutal, but the
Crip set there is well connected after 50 years of activity. I guarantee these
guys don't care whether you like it or not... but it's reality until you can
overcome your outrage and legalize the things that make gang life so
potentially lucrative.

~~~
gridlockd
> ...legalize the things that make gang life so potentially lucrative.

Oh, you mean legalize robbery, extortion, theft and burglary too? What do you
think gang members are going to do if _just one_ of their most lucrative
streams of money dries up, get a job at McDonalds?

~~~
pmachinery
That Al Capone didn't turn to flipping burgers after the 21st Amendment
doesn't illustrate the correctness of the 18th Amendment.

Robbery, extortion, theft and burglary - plus other crimes and social ills -
are all made far, far, _far_ worse by keeping the control and supply of
recreational drugs firmly in the hands of homicidal maniacs.

~~~
gridlockd
> Robbery, extortion, theft and burglary - plus other crimes and social ills -
> are all made far, far, far worse...

Really? What's the evidence for that?

I'm not necessarily in favor of criminalizing drug trade, but it stands to
reason that absent that "line of business", criminals would be under higher
pressure to make money otherwise.

Drug trade at least is more likely to only affect those involved with drugs,
whereas these other crimes are more likely to affect "bystanders".

~~~
pmachinery
> Really? What's the evidence for that?

I thought this was an uncontroversial fact everyone knew, but a two-second
search on drug-related crime would answer your question, with many links. For
example:

"In 2004, 17% of state prisoners and 18% of federal inmates said they
committed their current offense to obtain money for drugs [...] In 2002 about
a quarter of convicted property and drug offenders in local jails had
committed their crimes to get money for drugs [...] Among state prisoners in
2004 the pattern was similar, with property (30%) and drug offenders (26%)
more likely to commit their crimes for drug money than violent (10%) and
public-order offenders (7%)."

[https://www.bjs.gov/content/dcf/duc.cfm](https://www.bjs.gov/content/dcf/duc.cfm)

> I'm not necessarily in favor of criminalizing drug trade, but it stands to
> reason that absent that "line of business", criminals would be under higher
> pressure to make money otherwise.

Drug legalization is not about ending all crime, and nobody is saying it
would, so I'm not sure why you keep saying this. It's about reducing the power
of organized crime/cartels, reducing drug-related crime (see above), providing
more effective rehabilitation and safety/health, and civil liberties.

> Drug trade at least is more likely to only affect those involved with drugs,
> whereas these other crimes are more likely to affect "bystanders".

I'm not even sure what you're arguing here, but it seems to be that you think
the drug trade only negatively affects drug users and, even more bizarrely,
that criminals aren't already involved in "other crimes".

~~~
gridlockd
> I thought this was an uncontroversial fact everyone knew...

Well, obviously not.

> ...but a two-second search on drug-related crime would answer your question,
> with many links...

So, a minority of offenders claim they did their deed "because of drugs" and
if drug legalization were to happen and we suppose that 100% of these
candidates now stay on the good side of the law, we can expect, at the very
best, a 30% reduction in crime.

That doesn't answer the question about career criminals. Let's say drugs are
free, that's great, no more crime for drug money. What else do people want to
buy with money they can't earn legally? What about status symbols like
jewellery or sneakers? Don't you need these to be free too? But then how could
they be status symbols?

I have no doubts that drug legalization will reduce some amount of crime that
is tangentially related to drug use or trade. However, there's no clear
correlation between drug prohibition and crime, some countries with very
strict prohibition (Japan, Korea) are low on crime, others are high in crime
(Phillipines).

I reiterate, if you have a bunch of gangsters and take away their most
lucrative and (arguably) most benign stream of income, they need to move on to
other venues. I'd rather have them sell weed and coke and maybe get into the
occasional turf war, rather than having them double down on robberies and home
invasions.

> Drug legalization is not about ending all crime, and nobody is saying it
> would, so I'm not sure why you keep saying this.

I'm _not_ saying this.

> I'm not even sure what you're arguing here, but it seems to be that you
> think the drug trade only negatively affects drug users...

Read it again, maybe you'll figure it out. Drug trade _mostly_ affects drug
dealers, users and their peers.

Certainly you must recognize that there's a _tradeoff_ here - legalization of
all drugs would be a big experiment with lots of unknowns.

------
ghostcluster
It's not amazing sounding. Sounds like phone-quality audio like you would
expect, and the production isn't very good either. Find myself in disagreement
with Pitchfork on this one.

~~~
devin
Strongly agree. Nothing remarkable, not even a little bit. It doesn't even
sound _good_.

~~~
3131s
It's like some forms of metal and punk, being raw is part of the appeal. When
most of your songs feature long interludes of "mud"-induced rambling, it's not
that important than your prison-phone vocals sound pristine.

~~~
devin
Aesthetically, I understand what you're saying. I like muddy stuff, but this
is just poorly mixed IMO. Not like in an audiophile "but the compression!" way
or something, it just sounds like garbage.

