03 Greedo
is one of the most influential West Coast rappers of the new generation.
But, just as he was getting the fame that he deserved,
the rapper was sentenced to 20 years in prison for drug trafficking and possession of a firearm.
Let’s take a closer look at the wild story of 03 Greedo,
the Legend of Grape Street.
Greedo was born in West Los Angeles
but moved to Gardena when he was just a kid.
But, right after they moved, his father was killed in a motorcycle accident.
Greedo has also said that his dad was one of the very first cripps
and used to run with Tookie Williams, the co-founder of the gang.
My father was one of the first cripps
you know what I'm saying?
My father ran with Tookie so.
But despite his father’s legacy,
Greedo didn’t get sucked into the street life right away.
He was getting into trouble when he was younger
and claims that he was addicted to cocaine at just 13 or 14 years old.
He also said that he never wanted to be in the streets
and always had bigger goals for himself
than what he saw going on in his neighborhood.
No I never wanted to be in the streets.
I never wanted to be a street *****
I don't like that **** it's not tight, it's not tight
I'm surviving
But, after getting his girlfriend pregnant at age 17,
he struggled to get by and worked multiple low-wage jobs
at places like Best Buy and Robinsons May.
When I got my baby momma pregnant I dropped out of school
and then I started trapping and then when I turned 18
I went and got a job at, uhm,
Mervyns, Robinsons, and Macy's over there
the galleriI where there was Robinson May,
and I also worked at [unintelligible] as cashier and manager.
And at Best Buy, cashier manager.
He even tried selling his own beats to support his new family.
But it just wasn’t enough to make ends meet
and he had to start selling drugs to feed his daughter, who was born just after he turned 18.
He had also recently been kicked out of his mother’s house for being disrespectful
and was forced to stay with friends,
his baby mama, and even spent a period of time being homeless.
He eventually found a place to stay in the Jordan Downs Housing Projects
on Grape Street in Watts, one of the roughest areas of the city.
Jordan Downs is famous for being the headquarters of the Grape Street Cripps,
one of the most legendary cripp sets in all of LA.
Their beef with the Bounty Hunter Bloods, who are also based in Watts,
is one of the deadliest wars in West Coast gang history.
Greedo ended up joining the grape street cripps after moving to Jordan Downs
and spent the next few years hustling to provide for his family
and create a better life for himself.
He started releasing mixtapes in 2010 under the name Greedy Giddy
and was known for his crazy work ethic,
dropping a total of six mixtapes between 2010 and 2012,
including Bipolar 1-4, Money Power Regrets
and Everybody Week.
But his rap dreams would have to be put on hold for a while,
after he would be forced to plead no contest to two burglary charges
and two felony firearm charges.
He would end up being sentenced to two years in state prison,
where he would continue to work on his music.
This gave him time to reflect
and decide that he wanted to make rap his full-time career
after being released from prison.
But prior to being locked up,
Greedo hadn’t built much of a buzz with his music.
So he had to start from zero again once he got out.
This meant that he had to find another way to support himself
and finance his career in the meantime,
which forced him to return to selling drugs.
On June 28th, 2016, Greedo would get wrapped up in another legal situation
that would eventually lead to the 20-year prison sentence he’s currently serving.
He and an accomplice were driving through the city of Amarillo, Texas
along I-40, when they were pulled over by police,
who uncovered drugs and illegal guns in the trunk of the car.
The Grape Street Cripps have ties to a satellite cripp set in Memphis.
Rappers like Blocboy JB and NLE Choppa
are affiliated with the Memphis-based set of the Grape Street Cripp
and they have a big presence in the city.
So, the cripps in Los Angeles are known to do business with their allies in Memphis,
including drug trafficking.
On the day he was released,
Greedo and his associate were driving through the Texas panhandle
on the way back to California, after picking up some product in Memphis.
While they were driving through Texas,
they were pulled over by police who claimed that they could smell weed coming from their car.
The cops searched the entire vehicle,
where they eventually uncovered 4 pounds of methamphetamine in the trunk.
In addition to the drugs, the police also found two pistols and ammunition,
which had been reported stolen in California.
Greedo was charged with unlicensed possession of a firearm by a convicted felon
and possession of over 400 grams of a controlled substance.
He spent about a week in jail but was later released on bond
and was allowed to return to California.
Potentially facing decades in prison,
Greedo decided to go twice as hard and make a name for himself in the music industry,
while he could still enjoy his freedom.
He changed his rap name from Greedy Giddy to 03 Greedo,
because the set of the crips he was part of were based on 103rd Street,
which runs parallel to the Jordan Downs projects.
By this point, he had already gotten the words Living Legend tattooed across his face,
so music was pretty much the only legitimate route he could take
to make a better life for himself.
Luckily, around that time, his music first started to buzz,
after he popped off with the song Mafia Business,
a track dedicated to one of his fallen homies Mafia Ray.
Mafia Ray was an older dude from the neighborhood
who was a big brother figure for Greedo growing up.
When Greedo started making music,
Mafia Ray was one of the first people to encourage him to keep grinding
and even helped him build a bigger fan base
by reposting his songs to his own social media.
Mafia Ray was gunned down in a barbershop in 2016,
and Greedo wrote the track Mafia Business in honor of his legacy.
The video - which was filmed at the Jordan Downs Projects,
also features clips of Ray’s gravesite
and even his image made into a cardboard cutout.
Mafia Business was one of the lead singles off the project Purple Summer,
which he released later that year.
He followed up with two sequels to that project, Purple Summer 2: Sun Don't Shine
and Purple Summer 03: Purple Hearted Soldier.
With each project, Greedo was doing bigger and bigger numbers
and he was starting to build a solid fanbase who were attracted by his raspy, melodic sound.
But just because he was beginning to build a buzz
didn’t mean that he had made it out of the streets entirely.
Around that time, he would be shot in the leg
and almost needed to have it amputated.
In an interview with DJ Vlad, Greedo said that he told them not to cut it off
and believes that they only suggested amputation
because it was the cheaper option and he didn't have any insurance.
Well, they actually wanted to cut your leg off.
Man I don't think they was-
I don't know.
I mean I don't think if they was really going to cut it I could say no don't cut it
and they don't but it, you feel me?
I think that was probably the cheaper rout or something
and they was just like bringing it- throwing it up there and seeing if we ran for it.
You know what I'm saying? Like "Oh yeah"
But, before he could fully take his career to the next level,
Greedo would be picked up by Texas Bounty Hunters and brought back to Amarillo,
where he would stand trial for the drug and gun case from 2016.
A photo of Greedo being arrested by authorities
would become the cover art for the third installment of his Purple Summer series
– a project which would feature one of the rapper’s biggest hits Run for Yo Life.
During his trip back to Texas,
Greedo was forced to sit in a van crammed full of other inmates for 6 days,
where he wasn’t even allowed to use the bathroom
and had to relieve himself in water bottles.
His leg was still recovering from when he was shot,
so this trip was pretty painful in general.
When he finally made it to Texas, the news was even worse.
The court informed him that he would have to face trial for the gun and drug charges
and was potentially looking at up to 300 years in prison if convicted.
Texas doesn’t play around when it comes to drugs
and Greedo was caught trafficking about $80,000 worth of methamphetamine.
But he was allowed to post bail again and returned to California
to continue working on building his music career.
Knowing that he might not be out on the streets for long,
Greedo set out on a mission to record as much music as he possibly could.
He recorded an entire mixtape on the night he got out of jail,
called First Night Out, which featured huge bangers like Rude and Zoning.
Fans were attracted to his unique style of hip hop that combined street life
with the melodic sounds of rock and emo.
In 2017, he signed a deal with Todd Moskowitz at Alamo Records,
a music industry veteran who managed Gucci Mane
and also signed acts like Young Thug and Megan Thee Stallion.
Greedo himself later announced that the deal came with a $1.7 million advance.
Greedo dropped his debut project on the label, Wolf of Grape Street in 2018,
which featured appearances from PnB Rock, Yung T.O. from SOB X RBE,
and Ketchy the Great and Ralfy the Plug from the Stinc Team.
But Greedo wouldn’t take any breaks after releasing his first major label project
and would be right back in the studio,
prepared to record as much music as possible
to be released if he was sent to prison.
Greedo was prepared to live up to the words he had tatted across his face
and to prove to the world he was a living legend.
But before he’d get a chance to start releasing this deep-back catalog of music,
Greedo would be sentenced for the case in Texas
and end up spending the next few years behind bars.
In April 2018, Greedo pled guilty to the drug and gun possession charges
and was given a 20-year sentence
with the possibility of being released in 5 years on good behavior.
Fans were shocked and heartbroken
because Greedo hadn’t been too vocal to the public about the charges he was facing.
But, after being sentenced,
Greedo went on social media to apologize to his fans for letting them down.
He tweeted “Never thought I’d have to retire the year I blew up.
But **** was fun”
and “Sorry i let my fans down.
At least we got some great music before i left yall.
I wish i coulda stayed with my family but life isnt fair to some of us.
Plenty music will be released while im gone.
Promise me you will love me forever”
He also let his fans know that he had some time to get his affairs in order
before he’d be sent to prison to serve his sentence.
He dropped one final project before turning himself in,
which was called God-Level and features guest appearances from Rich the Kid,
Lil Uzi Vert, Yung Bans, and more.
Then, on July 28th, 2018,
Greedo turned himself into authorities and began his 20-year sentence,
which he’s been serving ever since.
At first, Greedo was eligible for parole in 2020,
but he was denied and will have to wait until 2021 for the next hearing.
But the prison time has not slowed down his hustle
and the rapper has continued to feed the streets while behind bars.
He dropped a collaborative project with Kenny Beats in 2019
called Netflix and Deal
and another collaborative project with DJ Mustard called Still Summer in the Projects
the same year.
He also dropped an entire album
with Ron Ron the Producer in 2020 called Load it Up Volume 1.
There’s no telling how much music Greedo still has in the vault
and it’s possible that he could continue to drop music until he’s eventually released.
Greedo has told the public that he believes his career as a rapper is what made him a target.
Getting two decades for a non-violent drug crime seems pretty crazy,
especially because he’s shown evidence of wanting to change his life.
But they don’t play around when it comes to rappers, drugs, and illegal guns in Texas,
so it seems like they hit him with the harshest sentence possible
to set an example.
In a recent No Jumper segment,
Greedo called Adam22 from prison to give an update.
During that call, he revealed that he is working on an appeal,
which may allow him to come home early.
Apparently, the driver of the car he was with at the time
hired a lawyer who was able to prove that the police
had no probable cause to search the car, so it was considered an illegal search.
Now, this lawyer is helping Greedo file for an appeal
to prove that the arrest wasn’t legitimate in the first place.
But due to Covid, the court system has been backed up.
While he was locked up, Greedo even contracted Covid
but was not allowed to be released.
Although it seems like he made a full recovery.
The streets of LA are definitely missing Greedo.
In the short time that he was free and getting recognition for his music,
he influenced a whole scene of younger artists
who have continued to keep his legacy alive.
Hopefully, Greedo will be home sooner than expected.
Many of the details of his case do seem suspicious
and they clearly had some kind of bias against him
because of how he looked and his criminal record in California.
But at least Greedo has an impressive stash of music
that has kept his carrer alive while he’s been behind bars.
Knowing the rapper’s work ethic,
he’s likely continuing to work on his music even while he’s locked up,