Geechi Gotti stopped by Genius to discuss his song “Letter to the Blocc.” The song is a homage to the Compton natives childhood neighborhood and giving game to the younger generation. On today’s episode of Verified, find out the motivation behind the battle rapper’s latest hit.
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MusicTranscript
00:00 I think a lot of times, you know, when you a kid, you see rappers, you see people on
00:04 TV in these movies and it's just in the facades that it's all fun and games.
00:07 You know what I'm saying?
00:08 Like, it looks good.
00:09 Everybody outside drinking, smoking, it's women, it's fly cars, it's big chains.
00:13 A lot of expensive paint behind all that.
00:15 These dudes is buying all this to mask all the hurt.
00:17 For me, I feel like that letter to the block is like what says it all.
00:19 You know what I'm saying?
00:20 It's a letter to every block out there.
00:28 I made "Letter to the Block" on New Year's Eve.
00:30 I wanted to bring it in with friends and family, so I had as many of my homies, homegirls,
00:34 family members in there.
00:35 Shout out my guy J. Norrie and THX.
00:37 They produced this beat and I never wrote nothing to the beat.
00:40 You know what I'm saying?
00:41 I kind of just was listening to the beat, listening to the beat.
00:43 We blowing buzz.
00:44 We just vibing around each other.
00:45 Them words just came out just like that.
00:47 The energy was right.
00:48 The music was right.
00:49 The song was done probably right around 12 o'clock.
00:50 You know what I mean?
00:51 Turning into the new year, so you know, that's why that record was so special to me.
00:56 A hundred thousand was the first step.
00:59 The next step was the millions.
01:00 I want my name on some building.
01:02 Spread the game to my children.
01:04 In this day and time, it's so easy for us to get caught up in letting social media raise
01:08 our kids or letting the TV raise our kids and not really schooling them ourselves.
01:12 We are their first teachers.
01:13 You know what I'm saying?
01:14 They sponge it, so I want to be able to tell my kids that game so they can, you know, years
01:17 later their name will be on buildings.
01:19 A hundred thousand will be their first step.
01:20 Expensive pain is the feeling.
01:22 We mafia like Sicilians, La Costa Nostra.
01:25 I print my name on a wanted poster.
01:28 You ever shot a nigga and it wasn't over?
01:30 Went to the funeral, I just wanted closure.
01:33 I signed to the gang when they wanted soldiers.
01:35 We started at a young age.
01:37 I'm talking 11, 12 years old.
01:38 That's basically what we was.
01:39 We wasn't generals.
01:40 We wasn't leaders.
01:41 We was just the soldiers.
01:42 So we was the pawns of the game.
01:43 You know, we get sent on missions.
01:44 We outside when people coming through, we taking the shots.
01:47 We going to jail.
01:48 But that was something we already understood when we took the job.
01:51 Every verse is still giving game to them.
01:53 Like this is what goes on with this lifestyle.
01:55 You know what I mean?
01:56 Memories, they begin to fade.
02:12 So even though we poured out liquor for them, seeing so much of this, you know what I'm
02:15 saying?
02:16 I'm feeling like Michael Jordan.
02:17 Like, you know what I'm saying?
02:18 Like everything fading away.
02:19 Like the best parts of my life and my game was fading away.
02:22 You know what I'm saying?
02:23 And the best parts of Jordan's game was to fade away.
02:24 Sometimes I say protect me from my ways because I might need protection.
02:42 You could be your own worst enemy at times.
02:43 You know what I'm saying?
02:44 So protect me from myself.
02:45 Continue to guide me the right way.
02:47 You know what I'm saying?
02:48 You could easily go wrong.
02:49 You know what I'm saying?
02:50 So I'm asking for protection over me.
02:52 Forget everybody else.
02:53 I might be the one that caused my own detriment.
02:55 We see so much death that we forget to cry about it.
03:07 It happens so fast.
03:08 Like we don't even get a chance to reflect on these deaths.
03:11 Like it happens so much back to back to back that like tears don't even get to fall no
03:14 more.
03:15 It's like we numb to it.
03:16 And then I said, "You could live a lie.
03:17 You could get two choices, live or die."
03:19 So that goes all the way back to the game that I'm giving my kids.
03:21 You could live a lie.
03:22 You could think that it's a gang of other stuff going on around you, but you really
03:25 only got two choices with this lifestyle.
03:26 You can either live your life and go do great things with yourself, or you can put yourself
03:30 in these positions that all this stuff I'm talking about.
03:32 And death is at the end of that.
03:33 "This a letter to the block.
03:37 How I made it to the top.
03:38 Hey, this a letter to the block.
03:40 How I make it out them shots.
03:42 Yeah, this a letter to the block.
03:44 Try and take me out my spot.
03:45 Yeah, this a letter to the block.
03:48 How I do this without knock.
03:49 This a letter to the block.
03:51 I swear this shit'll never stop.
03:53 Hey, this a letter to the block.
03:55 This a letter to the block."
03:56 "Yeah, how I do this without knock."
03:57 Man, that's my homeboy, Cornell Childress.
03:59 He passed away.
04:00 I said I was about 15, 16 when he passed away.
04:02 Not even gonna sugarcoat it as if we was just close.
04:04 He was my best friend.
04:06 He seen me come up from a kid.
04:07 We got pictures as babies and all kind of stuff, rocking with each other.
04:10 So how did I make it without him?
04:12 Get to the end of the song and I'm doing a little talking.
04:14 I say, "I didn't.
04:15 He been right here with me the whole time."
04:16 You know what I'm saying?
04:17 So definitely I know he one of my guardian angels out here.
04:20 This a letter to them young niggas.
04:24 This a letter to my always keep a gun niggas.
04:27 This a letter to my never one-on-one niggas.
04:29 I was raised one fight, we gotta jump niggas.
04:32 Look, hey this a letter to my squad though.
04:35 High niggas still breathing, only God knows.
04:37 We was fucking up the streets like potholes.
04:40 We was kids, I started shooting with my eyes closed.
04:43 I'm talking to the young niggas, but also we started as young dudes.
04:45 So everything is like I'm talking to us and them at the same time.
04:48 We was messing up the streets like potholes.
04:50 You know how mad they mess with the streets out here in Cali.
04:53 We was kids.
04:54 When we first got in this, we was kids.
04:56 Imagine just a child being into that environment, being like you said, like soldiers and just
05:00 being thrown out there.
05:01 You still kids, man.
05:02 You so as tough as you are, you still scared.
05:04 You know what I'm saying?
05:05 You like this.
05:06 You don't even want to do it properly.
05:07 You know what I'm saying?
05:08 Somebody might have made you do it.
05:09 You know what I'm saying?
05:10 You didn't even have it in your heart yet.
05:11 We came from this environment, no sugar coating it.
05:13 You know what I'm saying?
05:14 Let me get all the way raw and uncut with y'all.
05:16 We ain't going to act like we got in it and we was just ready.
05:18 We wasn't ready.
05:19 You know what I'm saying?
05:20 That's what made that line so important for me.
05:23 He had got about what, like 98 years to life.
05:36 Right now, this year, he got his case and everything overturned.
05:39 By the time this interview come out, he might be home, baby wood.
05:42 That bar was just another letter to the block.
05:44 He's somebody that all this I'm rapping about.
05:46 He was a kid with me.
05:47 Somebody that was around all of this that I walked with and moved with.
05:50 I seen that I wrote letters to.
05:51 I sent pictures to.
05:52 You know what I'm saying?
05:53 I seen his struggle.
05:54 Doggy smash and drive in.
05:55 You know what I'm saying?
05:56 Those are all dudes doing real time on these prison yards that grew up with me that's been
06:01 through this and they all trying to get home.
06:02 They need a date.
06:14 First 100,000, I was shocked.
06:16 You know what I'm saying?
06:17 I never seen that much, but I swear it'll never stop.
06:19 You have to keep going.
06:20 I know there's more out there.
06:21 I say the 100,000 is just a metaphor for opportunities.
06:24 You know what I'm saying?
06:25 That was my first time touching that amount of money, but it's also my first time being
06:27 in that circumference of opportunities.
06:30 Getting that type of money from a Drake.
06:31 You know what I'm saying?
06:32 At a battle.
06:33 I know if I can meet Drake, this the next level.
06:35 This don't never stop.
06:36 There's more.
06:37 There's more coming to it.
06:38 We ain't even scratched the surface yet.
06:40 You know what I'm saying?
06:41 It'll never stop.
06:43 I made it to the top by just being consistent, being focused.
06:46 Perseverance, resilience, not giving up.
06:49 Especially with the music, it's so easy to give up because it don't be no money in the
06:52 beginning or it don't seem like it's going to take off.
06:55 Battle rap and all of that.
06:56 You know what I'm saying?
06:57 It just don't seem like there's going to be no means to an end, but you have to stay focused.
07:00 You got to just know it.