Gorilla Nems: Selling Drugs, Rikers Island & Going Viral
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So I used to hop in a dollar cab and tell the cab, go to 35th and Surf Avenue. Don't pick nobody up. I'll give you $10 when we get over there. They would get there and I would just, if I had a weapon, I would use it. If I didn't have a weapon, I would just beat them until they gave me the money. Some people would just give it. Rapper Gorilla Nemz grew up in the heart of Coney Island.

Violence, addiction, and survival were just part of life. From selling E! across the borough and going on the run to getting locked up in Rikers Island, Nemz lived it all. In this raw interview, he shares how the streets nearly killed his dreams until he got sober, signed a record deal, and went viral with Bing Bong. This is the unfiltered rise of a New York legend who turned the hustle into a movement.

Nems, the mayor of Coney Island. What up? Welcome to Locked In, bro. Pleasure to be here, man. Thank you for having me. Yeah, it's an honor, man. If you would have told me, you know, when I saw that viral clip of you years ago that I'd be sitting in front of you years later, I would have been your freaking crazy. Yo, it's funny how life works. You know what's funny is that I was looking through my TikTok and

But I don't follow nobody. And I've been following you. Really? Yeah, yeah, your TikTok. Absolutely. That's awesome. We were just talking about the butt-ass guy. Yeah. That was the clip that just totally blew everything up last year when that went viral. That went crazy. And you can tell he's a dirtbag. Yeah.

You can tell by just the shit he's wearing, the fucking rings, the fucking cross-eyed. You can tell he was a scumbag CO. Do you remember him at all from Rikers? Nah, I've never seen him. No, you never saw him. Definitely not. You know what? I don't remember a lot of my time in Rikers, in jail. It's been long. I came home in 07. Bro, it's fucking almost 20 years at this point. Yeah. You know, I'm not a big...

Like, I'm not a big thinker of past times. Like, I'm always trying to move forward and get on with shit. Like, I'm not a... I don't dwell on shit. You know what I'm saying? I just be focused on what's next. Yeah. I don't even think most people even realize you went to jail. Like, when you do a search on you, barely anything comes out. Yo, you know what's funny? So I work sanitation for the city of New York. When I came out of jail, my mother, I was paroled to her house. I was...

No, I spent my whole 23 locked up, so 24. She was like, yo, I got this. I signed you up for this city test to be a garbage man. I was like, I'm not trying to be a fucking garbage man. I was like, I don't want to take that shit. She was like, listen, you're paroled in my house. If you don't take this test, you can't stay here. I was like, all right. I was on mad drugs. I took that shit. I got 100, right? They called me later. They called me six years later.

I had already stopped doing drugs for like four years. And I got this city job. And I had a felony. So through the years working that job, you know, we talked with other guys. There's other guys that was in jail and stuff like that. And I told them, yeah, you know, I did a bid for robbery. And they looked it up. And it was like, are you lying? I'm like, what do you mean? It was like, oh, we looked up your name. I remember my DIN number and all that, 06R2495. And they looked it up and it wasn't there.

So I'm like, how is that possible? But then I realized I did the shock program. So, you know, that's like for first time felons. And I'm not sure, but I think it's a stipulation that if you do the program and you stay out of, you know, you finish parole.

And I had to get it expunged from my record when I got the sanitation job. So maybe that's the reason, but I don't know. Yeah, you got lucky. Yeah, facts. You searched my name and it's hit. I never really searched my name. That's the only time it came up. They was like, yo, you was lying. I was like, bro, I don't got to fucking lie. You know what I'm saying? Why would I lie about being in jail? I'm a grown man now. You know what I'm saying? So did you grow up on Coney Island? So I grew up in Coney Island my whole life. I grew up...

In O'Dwyer Gardens Projects, which is on West 33rd Street, Coney Island is like three avenues, 21 blocks. There's Mermaid, which is the main avenue. There's Surf Avenue, which is the beach avenue where the beach is. And then there's Neptune Avenue, which is kind of like the way out of Coney Island. And then there's 21 blocks. There's Stairwell Avenue, the train station, up to Seagate. That's really the hood part. So I'm all the way deep at the end of the hood.

And I lived there till I was about 12 or 13. And then my mother bought a house in Staten Island. And she bought the house, so I went to, started going to high school in Staten Island. Then I got kicked out of high school for setting a fire. I got a superintendent suspension, couldn't go to any New York public high school. So I had to go to the Poconos to stay with my grandparents. And that's where I started writing raps, because I didn't have nothing to do.

Then I stayed there for like a year after the suspension was up, went back to high school there. And then about 17, my mother...

who was a drug addict, relapsed, because she was clean my whole life, and then she relapsed, lost the house, and then we had to move back to Coney Island. So, you know, I've been... And then I was in Coney Island until probably a couple years ago when I bought my house. Were you always passionate about music as a kid? Always. My father died at four. So my father passed... Both of my parents were drug addicts. My father died when I was four years old from aplastic anemia, which was...

His body didn't make enough white blood cells. But that was through complications of having HIV from shooting drugs. Luckily, me and my mother didn't have it. So when my father died at four, it was just me and my mother in the projects. My mother has to work. You know what I'm saying? So I'm home a lot alone. And I'm in the hood. This is like...

The late 80s, early 90s. So hip hop is not new, but it's like coming into the golden age. I just always was into hip hop as much as I like renting Fatboy's DVD. I mean, not DVDs, videotapes. And I always used to just rap.

As much as I can remember, I always used to freestyle. And then it took, when I went to Pennsylvania, where I started actually writing my raps and then just found a studio. My boy had a studio. So as long as I can remember, I always was rapping, writing graffiti. I was just all elements of hip-hop. Was music like an escape from your life, would you say? See, now looking back, now that I'm a grown man,

And looking back, it 100% was. Because at four years old or growing up, you know, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 18, you don't think of it as an escape. You don't know what you're doing mentally. But of course, my father passed away at four. I was running around with a single mother who was, you know, not home a lot. A father who passed away.

In the hood, it's like you got to be a fucking gladiator. You got to put on your fucking gladiator vest when you come outside to cope with shit. So, you know, a kid don't know how to cope with death, especially of a parent. So I'm sure that music was definitely a coping mechanism. Now, everyone knows your personality now, but back then, was it the same? Was it like how it is now? I think it wasn't as it is now. Now it's like...

Everything combined made me this way, all my life experiences. But I would, you know, growing up in Brooklyn, especially before the internet, made me this way. Because I remember before there was cell phones, before there was the internet, what we used to do to hang out is go outside. You know, like if you call my house...

And I'm not there. You can't get in touch with me or anybody, any of my friends. So it'd be like, yo, we meet outside the building or, yo, we meet by the corner store at 8 o'clock. Everybody's meeting there. And then we're going to find out what we're doing for the night. Some nights we didn't do nothing. We just hung out by the store drinking 40s, smoking blunts and just joking on each other. That's that's what we do, you know, to have fun. So you got a picture, a group of 10 guys, high, drunk, nothing to do.

We're joking on each other. So if you don't have jokes to come back to reply to people, then you're just going to get fucking roasted every single night. And then you become the herb of the group. And then you become the herb of the block. And then you become just a herb your whole life. So you just got to, you know, you develop a tough skin. You develop a sharp wit. And then also I feel like...

Drug usage warped my brain. You know, there's negative effects of drugs. You don't really think of any positive effects, but I think that's a positive effect of years of drug use in my adolescence is it warped my brain to be a fucking jokester where I could watch something once on TV and remember the information, and then when I see somebody...

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to it. Share with us the first time you took drugs and what that drug was. Shit. Well, it was weed. I started smoking weed at 11. So again, my mother wasn't home. I came out of school. I'm hanging out on the block. One of the older guys had to be probably 16, 17, because I was always bigger for my age. I was bigger and I had a late birthday in December. So I was always hanging out with the older kids. So if I was 12, I was hanging out with the 15, 16 year olds. So they're already smoking weed.

They passed me some weed. I smoked. I went home and I fucking went to sleep. I fell asleep. But that, you know, developed. Hanging out with the older kids always got me in trouble. Heavier drugs. My earlier years was ecstasy because this is the years that I lived in Staten Island. So when I lived in Staten Island, when I was in the hood, it was crack, dope, cocaine and weed.

There wasn't ecstasy, Xanax. When I moved to Staten Island, now all these high school kids are doing fucking ecstasy. Now they're doing fucking Xanax. What the fuck is a Xanax? Oh, my mom got Xanax sticks. It's a muscle relaxer. Start falling in love with Xanax. Now I start fighting when I'm on fucking Xanax. Wake up the next morning, can't remember nothing. But it also makes you cool. You smoke a blunt with a Xanax, you're fucking chilling. I fell in love. It took all my anxiety away. The ecstasy shit,

But hang out with the white guys in Staten Island, some girls. You know, the girls talked me into it one night. For a couple, the first couple times, yo, we're doing ecstasy. Nah, I don't do that. I'm good, I'm good. And hanging out, girl was like, oh, I'm only going to take half. Hey, Nemez, you want half? I was like, nah, I don't do that. Come on, we're all doing it. I took it. Wounded up being in the back of a car, a fucking Nissan fucking Maxima.

With this girl that I fucking liked, but I was scared to talk to. Now I'm pouring my heart out to her. She's pouring her heart out to me. Now we're fucking best friends. And I'm like, yo, I fucking love this shit. And before you knew it, now I'm taking ecstasy every weekend. Now my mother relapses. We moved back to Coney Island. Now I got a whole ecstasy connect.

In Staten Island. So now I'm like, yo, give me 100 pills. Take it back to Coney Island. Nobody in Coney Island is doing ecstasy at this time. So my daily routine from 17, 18 years old is wake up in the morning, pop a half of ecstasy, hop on my bike in the summertime, just ride through Coney Island. Yo, yo, yo, got ecstasy. We don't take that. Here's my beeper number.

If you change your mind, boom. Then people started taking it in the hood. I was like the first person in the hood with ecstasy at this time. Started getting mad customers. Now I got a nice little flow going on. But while I'm selling it, I'm also taking it. Half in the morning when I wake up. Half...

When that wears off. Now I got a true ecstasy pill habit a day. But I'm making mad money as a teenager. My mother's in the streets going to fucking rehabs. So I'm all alone. And then my whole family is hustlers. So they're giving me pointers. Yo, do this, do this, this way, this way. And before I know it, I'm fucking chilling. I'm not a fucking kingpin. But I'm making good money for a 17, 18-year-old. But I also have a habit. I would keep five ecstasy pills in my sock.

Sell. When they sell, go back upstairs, grab another five so I wouldn't get caught. If I got caught, I wouldn't have that many on me. And I remember one day the D's rolling up on us and I had maybe like four in my sock. I was already on like fucking three. And before they could find it, I just popped all of them. And this is also when I first started getting into rapping. And as soon as I started rapping, I started having deals with Def Jam. So I remember going to Def Jam on Saturdays.

Once I took those seven ecstasy pills in one night, I didn't know it, but I was dehydrated. Every time I would stand up, I would be dizzy. I would fucking be out of it. And I remember I had a meeting with Def Jam, and we went up there, and they was like, yo, Nemz, you all right? And I'm like, yeah, just had a long night, and I was fucking... I couldn't even stand up. I don't know how the fuck I survived. But yeah, shit like that was my first experiences with drugs. But then I got into...

heroin when I was 18. And that shit changed my life. You know what I'm saying? When you bring drugs into a new market like that, how do you even figure out the price point? Like what to sell it for? I already knew from Staten Island how much the prices were. So they were $20 a pill. I would get them for $6 a pill in Staten Island. I would get 100 pills, $600, sell them for $20. So I sell fucking...

15 of them or 30 of them out of this 100. I sell 30 pills out of this 100. That's what I got to give back to my man. You know what I'm saying? And now I got 70 pills to fucking do what I will. So I would wind up probably taking 20 out of that batch. So now I got 50 pills that I'm making money off of. 50 times 20 is fucking... I don't fucking know.

Well, 100 pills would be a $1,400 profit. Yeah, so I'll make a $1,000 profit off every 100. Now, do you feel like you did drugs in order to be liked early on? Nah. That one instance that I told you about with the girl was like a one-time thing. I wasn't easily peer pressured. But once I took these drugs, it made me a person that I liked.

You know what I'm saying? And plus, you got to understand, I come from a mother that's a drug addict, a father that's a drug addict. So that shit is already in my DNA. You know what I'm saying? And then once I take these things, I'm like...

I like who I am. I like who it took my inhibitions away. It took my insecurities away. Because you also got to not growing up with a father. So I don't have a strong male father figure in my life. Then moving from Coney Island to Staten Island, I was like a fish out of water because the hood is Coney Island. That's a whole different set of rules. Staten Island now is upper middle class.

So I'm coming through with Ava Rex jackets and fucking Timberlands in a place that wears Abercrombie and fucking Jordans. You know what I'm saying? And I was just, I stood out like a sore thumb. I had fucking big trav in the back of my head when I'm in eighth grade. Like, you know, I wasn't Nems at that point. And I just stuck out. And, uh...

That cost me dearly because being out there 16, I caught a gang assault charge. We jumped some kid, put him in a coma, and all the kids from Staten Island that I jumped them with all ratted on me. You know what I'm saying? And luckily, I was facing like 15 years, but I went to the grand jury and I fucking...

I put on the performance of my lifetime, bro. I cried and everything. Like, yo, I was just trying to help this kid. Because I remember, I remember specifically, the Yankee parade was two days before we jumped this kid. We got into a fight. We were punks. Got into a fight on the Staten Island Ferry. Beat, you know, it was like a fuck, the whole ferry was fighting. Me, my crew versus, I don't know who we were fighting, but I was beating people up. And I don't know what happened, but I twisted my leg jumping off a fucking train.

one of the seats of the ferry or something. The next day, I went to the hospital. I was like, yo, something's wrong with my shit. It was just sprained, but they gave me a leg brace and an arm sling because my fist had swole up. The next day after that, when I went home, I was like, I'm not wearing this shit. The next day, we jumped this kid, put him in a coma. So when I went to the grand jury, it said that I have medical records proof that I was in an arm sling and a leg brace.

So I said, how could I jump off a car onto this fucking kid's head and crack his skull open if I'm in a leg brace and an arm sling, which I wasn't in. But medically, it said I was supposed to wear that for three weeks. And then I cried trying to help this kid. So the grand jury didn't indict. And I think back to that moment like, yo, my life would have been fucked right there at that point. 16 years old, 15 years. I would have been fucked.

But it wasn't in the cards for me. You know what I'm saying? But it also made me realize none of these kids out here in Staten Island have your best interest at heart because all of them snitched on me. Were you in an actual gang that was known? It was just a group of young fucking punks. It wasn't a gang. I was in Staten Island. There was no gangs out there in the part of Staten Island I was in. It was all fucking white, Italian kids. Italian, mostly. Why do you think you getting off didn't deter you from getting into future trouble?

because I was going through a lot myself, you know, internally that I didn't realize. At that point, when you're a kid, 16 years old, you don't know that you're going through grief. You don't know that you're going through fucking embarrassment, that your mother that grew up your whole life taking care of you, now you got to provide for her because now she's a drug addict running the streets. I never saw that. I always had a strong, supportive mother. And at this point, now my mother's a fucking dope fiend.

How the fuck did this just happen? You know what I'm saying? What do I do? My father's dead. Where do I go from here? And also my security blanket, this house that she bought in Staten Island, now we're back to square one in a fucking project apartment but living with my uncle. So now we're in this one room, me and my mother and a cat that we had from the house. And she's all fucked up. I'm fucking telling her every day, just stop because I don't understand addiction.

So, you know, I was hurt. I was a hurt kid and hurt people hurt people. You know what I'm saying? So I just wanted to get the anger out. So I'm fighting all the time. I'm fucking doing anything I could to make money because I don't have any money. I'm not going to be a bum. And then also I'm back now in the hood where now is life or death. Staten Island is not life or death where I was living. It was suburbs. You might get jumped.

But they don't play with guns out there. They might stab you, but that's very rare. Back in the hood, now they're playing with guns. Now they fucking, you know, it's not a game. So that didn't deter me. It actually made me worse. Was college ever on the cards for you? Nah. I dropped out of school early.

I dropped out in fucking 10th grade, not because I was great at school. When I did that one year in the Poconos, I was an honor roll student because I had nothing to do. I didn't interact with the kids in the Poconos because every weekend I came home. So I would just go to school out there, come home, do my homework, study for tests, and then write raps. So school wasn't, it wasn't that it was an issue. I was good. Even in elementary school, I was fucking honor roll.

But once I got the chance to be, you know, I had a lot of other things going on in life. So I just didn't go. I just would go to lunch periods, smoke weed all day, and fucking, you know, dropped out in 10th grade. How big of a factor did environment play on your life? Huge. Huge. Again, so that's why a lot of people think I'm Puerto Rican and Irish. A lot of people think I'm Italian because of the way I talk. But it's...

From the upbringing, growing up in a poverty environment, which is Coney Island in Brooklyn. But then a lot of people's formative years of high school. So then you take me out that poverty stricken hood environment and now you put me in the upper middle class, mostly white suburban environment. Now it's like a clash. Who am I as a person?

And then my family still lives in Coney Island, runs things in Coney Island. So now it's like, am I a hood booger or I'm a fucking suburbanite? I don't even fucking know. And then I go back. Then right when I'm getting acquainted, accustomed to being a fucking suburban kid, now I'm thrown back into Coney Island. So that environment, and then besides the point, that's when I started rapping, when I went back to Coney Island.

Besides that point, no rapper ever came out of Coney Island. Like, there was no rapper with a major record deal that ever made it from Coney Island. You got parts of Brooklyn, Marcy, that's Bed-Stuy, that's Jay-Z, Biggie, East New York, fucking Uncle Murder, fucking mad other rappers. Every part had a rapper. Nobody from Coney Island made it, ever. So now I got this chip on my shoulder,

I got a rep. Nobody's ever come out of Coney Island. I'm going to make it big out of

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And fast forward 20 years later, and that's what we're doing. What happens after you drop out of high school? I know you got that charge that you beat with the grand jury. So what happens is I turn into now a full-fledged drug addict, heroin addict. So right at the time my mother starts getting clean, I'm living with my uncle. It's just me and him. My mother's in rehab. She's getting better. And she stayed clean from that point. She got like fucking...

20, 30 years clean now. Probably like 25 years clean. She stayed clean from that point. But right when she was getting clean, I was living with my uncle. I already had done the ecstasy. I already had done the Xanax, smoking weed all the time. Drinking wasn't really my thing because when I first got drunk, I threw up. So I didn't do it. I didn't like it. I'm living with my uncle. He's hustling. He's selling bundles of dope. And I don't know what that is though because I'm from now...

My upbringing, where I'm growing up, is in Staten Island. They got ecstasy and fucking Xanax and shit like that and weed. I know what crack looks like. I know what cocaine looks like. But I always thought heroin was something you fucking shot in your fucking arms. I'm naive. Moved back to Coney Island. Living with my uncle. I'm seeing people come to the door, him serving them. I know where his stash spot is. And one day I'm going to hang out with a girl, and I'm like...

Let me dip up in this little stash. Let me take some of this. Think of this cocaine. I do. I do a bag. Cool. Take another one. My uncle always had garbage. He always cut his shit. You know what I'm saying? So most people say when they do a bag of dope, they throw up. My uncle always cuts his shit. It's always trash. So I didn't throw up. Maybe if I would have threw up, like when I drank, I threw up. I didn't like it. His shit was always trash. So I do another bag. Do it. Go hang out with this girl. I start stealing from his stash. One bag out the bundle.

Here and there. Not every day. Boom, boom, boom. Then I got this other girl I'm dealing with who winds up being my girlfriend later on. She tells me, yo, Nemz, you do more than weed? I'm like, yeah, I do a little coke here and there. Matter of fact, I got some on me. She said, let me see. Pulled it out. She was like, yo, that's not coke. That's dope. And I was like, by that time I was already turnt out.

If somebody would have came to me and said, yo, this is heroin, try it. I would have never in a million years did that shit. Knowing that it killed my father, knowing my mother fucking did it and got strung out. I would have never did that shit in a million years. Once I found out what it was, it was already too late. I was already hooked, not getting sick, but mentally hooked. And then from the for the next eight years, I was a heroin addict.

You know what I'm saying? Homeless. Sleeping on the lifeguard chairs in Coney Island in the wintertime. Sleeping in the project staircases. Because as soon as my mother got clean and came home, my mother became a drug counselor. All my aunts were drug counselors. So as soon as they found out what I was doing, they were shipping me to rehab. I've been over 40 detoxes, like fucking 10 rehabs.

Like, therapeutic communities, like fucking Phoenix House, been a bunch of those. Never got clean in none of them shits. Why didn't those work for you? I wasn't ready. I didn't have enough. I wasn't at the bottom yet. It wasn't painful enough. I didn't go through enough. And it took me eight years. Now, when I went, the robbery I did was to get more drugs. And I wound up doing a one-to-four for a strong-arm robbery. And, um...

They tried to put me in drug programs first. I had to hook up my aunt, her friend. They put me in fucking drug programs. I left. And then I went on the run for four years.

And while I was on the run, I did the fight club where I started battling and I started beating everybody. And that's where I started getting my buzz up from the rap shit. But I always knew I had to do this time because the judge told me, yo, I'm going to give you one more. I left like two different drug programs. He said, yo, I'm going to give you one more chance. If you leave this drug program, I'll make sure you do the full amount of time that that is available for me to give you.

So when I left that drug program after the first day being there, I knew. I was like, I'm not turning myself in. I got to do this time. Fuck it. Catch me when you can, bitch. You know what I'm saying? And I went on the run for four years. I didn't hide out. Just lived life. They would go to my mother's house, the Mormon squad. I would be at my girl's house. They would come to my girl's house. I would be at my mother's house. It was just the luck of the draw.

And I was just living life, getting high, being an addict, but also rapping, trying to live my dreams, battling. And I had nothing to do with life but get high and rap. So I started honing my craft and becoming good at it and battling and winning. All these fucking battles I would win. The Fight Club shit that wound up coming out on MTV, I was like 25 wins and like three losses. Like I'm the all-time champ up there.

I didn't know it was going to be an MTV show. Wind up, after these four years, I got caught. The judge, she must have had it written down. She remembered what she told me. But because I stayed out of trouble for four years, she says, I'm going to drop this down to nonviolent. And then I went to Rikers. But while I go into Rikers and then go up north, I'm fucking on MTV every day. So the one and a half to four and a half I got, they offered me this shock program. I stay in Rikers for like eight months.

They lost my paperwork. You know what I'm saying? And then they go, yo, since your charge now is nonviolent, you got this thing. Anybody that has less than nine years on the back end, like a three to nine, anything with, if it's your first time felon, you're eligible for this program called Shock, which is like a boot camp for first time felons. And if you do it, if you complete it, you can get out in six months. It's a no brainer. Six months, one and a half to four and a half.

So I go into this fucking program. First of all, you're in a month. First you go to Ulster County. Then you go to Lakeview, which is a month. They're trying to find out where they're going to put you. And then I go to Summit. Summit is a minimum. So in the jail, my uncle's coming down. That's in jail. He's in the jail part. I already have my GED at this point.

So now I'm in the kitchen. So now I get to talk. Now my uncle comes, you know, I'm serving him. He tells me what's going on. Because shock is a different animal, man. The only commissary you could buy is shaving products and deodorant and soaps. There's no food, no snacks from the commissary. You only get a visit, one visit every two weeks or one phone call every two weeks. My mother came every fucking visit. My mother came every visit.

That I had when I was in shock. In the beginning, it was miserable. So you start your day at 5 a.m. Like you're in the fucking military. Whatever. Fucking. No, no, no. That shit is horrible. You're in a fucking platoon is what it's called. Wake up. You got to go immediately and shave your whole face. Then you go, you work out.

You got to stretch, do fucking calisthenics, and then run five miles every day. Come back, eat, go to program or work, eat lunch, come back, do school if you need to or whatever the case, and then you're going to sleep by fucking 8 o'clock and do it. Same thing every day for six months. And now this is a separate building at Rikers? No, this is in Summit, New York. Oh, so they send you separately. Summit Correctional Facility. Okay. Yeah.

Which also has a jail, though. They have a minimum security prison for people coming down or for low charges. So my uncle was coming down from Clinton. He was on the end of his fucking eight year bid or something like that. How old were you when the robbery happened? I was 19. And what exactly happened? So my daily thing to make money to feed my habit, my heroin addiction was.

was I would wake up every day, wherever I would wake up, staircase, some people's, sometimes I would stay in people's houses.

and walked to Stairwell Avenue at the end of, you know, the beginning of Coney Island. They always had dollar cabs there. That's where the train station is. So they would have dollar cabs. A dollar cab is an illegal cab that just waits, charges people a dollar to take them anywhere in Coney Island. Like dropped them off on Mermaid Avenue. So I used to hop in a dollar cab and tell the cab, go to 35th and Surf Avenue. Don't pick nobody up. I'll give you $10 when we get over there. They would get there.

And I would just, if I had a weapon, I would use it. If I didn't have a weapon, I would just beat them until they gave me the money. Some people would just give it. This particular instance, this was an everyday thing for months. My thing was like, yo, they're illegal. They're not supposed to be giving these rides anyway, so they're not going to tell police. This one shit, I think I robbed a cab for like this one day.

I beat the guy up, took his money. I might have took like $30. You know what I'm saying? Embarrassing, now that I look at it. He told the cops. As soon as I ran off, he went and got the police. And after I ran off, I went somewhere. I didn't change my clothes. That was my fucking main thing that I fucked up.

They caught me later on in the day. The cops fucking caught up with me, and they charged me with fucking felony fucking strong-arm robbery. Wow, over $30. Ridiculous. Embarrassing now. $30 is like fucking 30 cents to me now. But $30 was everything when I was getting high. That's three bags. To start the day, I'm waking up sick.

So it's not like I wanted to do these things. It's I had a fucking habit. And this habit made me a fucking monster that anybody, anytime, anywhere could get it. In the beginning of this habit, I did a lot of gangster shit. I stuck people up. I fucking had a code. I'm not doing this. By the end of my habit, man, I was robbing fucking family. I was stealing fucking PlayStations when somebody would let me in their house. I was doing fucking coward shit.

And that's the animalistic level that this drug had brought me to. So I came home from this. I'm going to fast forward. Came home. I'm thinking I'm good. I was in this shock program. I fucking, I'm good. I didn't use for like 10 months, but I didn't work on myself. I come home, do parole. I start getting high again. You know what I'm saying? Because I didn't work on myself. Like after like two weeks of being home, I started getting high again. It's like, yo, I ain't do it in man long. I just do one.

Nah, that shit brought me right back and even worse this time. And now people are like, yo, you good. You came home. You got your weight up. You're looking good. And then they was like, damn, you back to it. Whatever people in my corner had ceased to exist because it was like, damn, you back on this bullshit after all this time. Now you got your buzz up. You got hope. You got your MTV every day. Now you back homeless. You back a fiend.

What the fuck? Everybody gave up hope on me. My mother that visited me every time, it became so bad. She just had told me, yo, my son, I love you, but I wish you would just die already. You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm worried about you every day, man. I think I'm just waiting for the call for you to die. Like, you can't stay at my house. Don't call me. Like, I wish you would just die already so I could stop worrying about you. The one person I had in my corner that came to every visit,

Every rehab would give me socks or, you know, had told me, you know, I wish you would just die. And that's when it really got bad, bad for like the final couple months of my using. And I remember the last couple months. I remember the last month of my using because at this point it wasn't fun anymore. In the beginning, it was fun. I was high at the end. I didn't get high anymore. I just got off the E. I just wasn't dope sick no more. And, uh,

I remember I went to a doctor and stole his prescription pad. He had stamped every one already, so they were valid, empty. So I was selling them for, I think, $75 or $100 each. But I also was writing myself scripts, Xanax, fucking Suboxone, all types of shit. This pad was keeping my addiction going. But at this point, I didn't want to get high no more, man. I just couldn't stop. I couldn't fucking stop.

And I remember I sold the last page, $75. And I had been up for like three, four weeks, didn't sleep. Because at the end of my using, my addiction had brought me to two bundles of dope a day, five 20s of Coke, and five Xanax sticks every single day. I don't know where the fuck I was making the money, but I was getting it. So the habit was bad. So I didn't sleep for like fucking three weeks. Probably hadn't showered for fucking a week.

Maybe it was psychosis going on. But I saw myself from the outside looking in. And this one moment of clarity that I had, man, I saw myself like I'm looking at you, but it was me looking at myself. I was 26. I told myself, yo, if you keep going how you're going, you're going to be dead by the time you're 30. Guaranteed. Or you're going to be in jail for the rest of your life for doing some dumb shit. Some shit that...

It's super avoidable. Or you can stop everything right now. You're 26 and live your fucking dreams. Like I said, I've been to fucking 40 detoxes, 10 rehabs, fucking like three or four long-term programs. I've been to church with people praying over me. I've been to jail. Could never stop. That night I went home. I went to my mother's house, knocked on her door because she wasn't talking to me, answering calls, nothing. I said, Ma,

I want to change. Like, I want this. Can I just stay on your couch? She let me stay on her couch from that date, November 3rd, 2009, to this date right now. I have not had a drink or drug, anything in my system since that point, and I didn't go nowhere. I did it all. I just stopped.

And ever since then my life has just fucking elevated. Fucking, and it's a whole life changer. I'm William Gouge, a viewer, collaborator and professional ultra runner from the UK. I love to tackle endurance runs around the world, including a 55 day, 3064 mile run across the US. So I know a thing or two about performance wear. When it comes to relaxing, I look for something ultra versatile and comfy.

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One moment. When you got out of prison, were you still on the rise? You said before prison you were doing MTV and stuff. Yeah, when I got out of prison, my buzz was crazy. So how does someone with that much buzz still feel so empty and wanting to use drugs and be at rock bottom? I didn't, those, that year and change in jail didn't fucking, I didn't work on myself. I didn't work on what the issues were.

I didn't work on anything. I just stayed abstinent from drugs because there wasn't any drugs in that fucking shock program. But I didn't work on what made me do this, what are the reasons, what is so fucked up about me that I can't function without a drug in my body. I didn't understand that. And then...

The parole shit, I got the Wizardnator. My man had just got off of fed parole. Said, yo, you know, because when I first came home, like I said, I was good for like two, three weeks. So I had a friend, Nicky Fly. He died. Rest in peace, my man Fly. But he got me a job as an electrician's assistant. So him and his crew...

One guy just got off a federal parole. Just finished. It was like perfect timing. I was like, yo, I'm getting high. I got high or whatever I need. I don't know what I'm going to do to take this. Oh, no, I got the Wizenator. I just finished parole too. Here, take this. The shit was like, it wasn't my skin color. It was darker. Do you know what the Wizenator is? It's like the fake. The fake penis. Yeah. So a Wizenator is basically a fucking dildo with a fucking tube in it.

That you strap under your balls and around your shit with it. And you got to get somebody's pitch and put it in with a syringe. And you keep it on your waist and it keeps it body temperature. And then when you go to parole and they're behind you and the mirror's there, you press the button and the clean piss comes out. So it looks like a real dick. So you press this. But the only thing is, this guy's fucking wisdom that he gave me was a different color. It wasn't black, black.

But it wasn't my skin color. It was a little darker. I don't know how I got away with it, but I got away with it. One time, they didn't take my piss for a couple weeks in the summertime, like weather like this. I had the piss in the pouch. I didn't know you were supposed to change it, the piss. So I would wear this to parole every week, thinking he's going to take my piss. He didn't take it for like two months. So I didn't change the piss. Bro, when he finally asked me for the piss, I was like, yeah, no problem. I got it.

I pressed the button for the piss to come out. I had the cup here. Press the button on the dick. But that shit came out like applesauce. I was like, shit, I'm caught. The parole officer, yo, he checked it because it was like liquidy, but applesaucey a little. Put the check. He was like, you're good. I said, but I need you to go right now to the hospital. There's something wrong with you. I was like, yo, I'm going right now. See you later. Peace. And I was out of there.

But yeah, I had the Wizard Nader. That shit was crazy. But the buzz was up. The buzz was up. I got signed with this guy, Necro. He took me on tour with him to the West Coast, I guess. And then they seen I was a real junkie. It was like, damn, this guy's fucked up. We might have heard people say it, but we didn't believe it. But then that fucked up that. Def Jam, I fucked that up. Shady Records, I was dealing with them. Fucked that up.

And what's crazy is with the Shady Records shit, I was dealing with Riggs Morales. He's a big A&R at Shady Records. When I came out of jail, I was already dealing with him before jail. I started fucking with him again when I came home. And it got to a point where he was like, yo, Nims, we love your music. We love who you are, but you're going in and out of jail. You're robbing people. You're on drugs. You're more of a liability than an ass, and they just stopped returning my calls.

And that's when the addiction got real bad, too, because I was like, yo, I had my shot and I fucking blew it. But what I didn't realize is at some point I must have wrote NAMM's Fuck Your Life on their door of Shady Records. And Paul Rosenberg, Eminem's manager, attorney that's on his albums, y'all, this Paul banned me from Shady Records. Like I could never go there after this. Right. After I did that.

And fast forward fucking 10, 15 years later, he just signed me to Goliath Records, Virgin Records, fucking three album deal. And now that's my guy. I talk to him almost every day. That's incredible. You know what I'm saying? Wait, so you were using the fuck your life term all the way back then? Back then. Fuck your life is, I've had fuck your life since the late 90s. I've been yelling out fuck your life. People just catching up with it now. Wow. So I bet you if there was social media back in the 90s, it probably would have popped. 100%. 100%. Listen.

I always knew I got something. When it comes to rapping, I might not be the best, but I know for sure I'm not whack. I can rap. You know what I'm saying? And I know that just who I am as a person, like I'm a personable person. When I meet people, I'm not an asshole. Especially now, I'm a stand-up individual. I'm a man of my word. I have morals, principles. But even back then, even if I didn't have morals, I might have been a grimy motherfucker. But I still was a personable person.

And I knew that I had something with this shit. That's why I kept going. I knew Fuck Your Life was popping because when I was saying it, people would yell it out. You know what I'm saying? I would perform and people loved that shit. I knew that. I got other shit. Bing Bong was just one of my words that I make shit up all the time. People are just catching up with that shit now. You know what I'm saying? But I've been doing this.

Been doing this Just Some people are late To the party And I don't do a lot of Sucker shit That a lot of these artists do A lot of these artists Fucking meet somebody They just want a picture They just want a clout shake Nah man

If I fucking meet Jay-Z today, I'm not even going to ask him for a picture. I got it right here. Yo, what up? Pleasure meeting you. You know what I'm saying? If somebody takes, yo, Nams J, get in a picture. I'll take one. But it's not about that, man. I'm living life experiences, man. Whatever's supposed to happen is supposed to happen, man. I'm not into doing corny shit. And that's why I feel like the shit takes longer as well. But I do it on my own terms. You know what I'm saying? And when you do shit on your own terms...

It's way better. Like, I've been trying to do the rap shit forever. You know what I'm saying? Record labels turned down, you know, fucked around. It took me saying fucking bing bong to take me to the fucking next level. And the best part about it is all these rappers... I'm a rapper. Like, anybody sees me on social media, oh, he's a fucking don't ever disrespect me guy, the bing bong guy. Yeah, that's cool, but I'm a rapper. That's what got me into this game. That's what put me into the position...

To say bing bong. That I was on side talk. And I said bing bong. Because I'm a rapper. So. The best part about it. Is these rappers got to put on an image. And be somebody they're not. The best part about bing bong. And don't ever disrespect me. Is it brought me into the game. Being myself.

It's not an act. When you meet me, I'm the same guy you see on the internet. It's not an act that I put on for the cameras to fucking say fuck your life or bing bong or don't ever disrespect me. Like, that's not an act. That's who I am. You see me in real life. I laugh. I joke. I have a great time at life. And that's who I am in real life as well. The best part about that shit is I came into the game on my own terms. These motherfuckers got to wake up and put on an image every day. I don't have to do that.

When I walk into a room, it brings happiness to people. You know what I'm saying? Like, we joke and we laugh. I just met you. We fucking joke. We laugh. I met your people out there. We fucking joke. We laugh. It's not. I've done so much dirt and been through so much shit in my life, negativity, that at this point of life, man, I just want to have fun and enjoy life. I'm not a thug no more. I'm a fucking adult.

You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm a fucking decent taxpaying citizen that just wants to live life right and have a fucking great time while doing it. And that's what we doing. You know what I'm saying? I've been to the bottom, to the bottom, to the bottom, to the bottom, where a lot of people don't make it out of. So at this point, I'm on fucking house money right now. You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm chilling now. I love that. I got a house, bought my mother a house. I'm looking to get another house. Yeah.

Fucking drive a nice fucking $170,000 car. Got jewelry. Got everything I fucking want. Got good people in my corner. I'm already up. If I never fucking go viral again, so be it. I'm happy. And the people around me that matter are taken care of. That's what this shit is about. That's why we do this. That's why we do fucking podcasts. That's why I drive out here to fucking do this with you. You know what I'm saying? What else is there, man? Fuck your life.

Bing bong. Bing bong. Share with us your experience, what you thought of Rikers Island. I'm sure a lot of the audience is going to be curious of your perspective. She was miserable. She was fucking miserable. When I did Rikers Island, the first time when I was 19, when I got caught for the robbery, you could still smoke cigarettes in there. You know what I'm saying? You could buy Newports from commissary or Kool's. You could buy Kool's from commissary.

So, when I first got there, I was scared to death. I didn't know what to expect. You know, as a 19-year-old going into fucking Rikers Island, your whole life you just fucking hear about Rikers Island. And you hear about jail movies, rape. You don't know what the fuck to expect. But I learned quickly early on in prison or in jail, in Rikers, that if you keep to yourself and you don't fuck with nobody, I already knew from my uncles, don't gamble, don't

Don't do drugs. Don't fuck with homos. You know what I'm saying? Three, three, that's all my uncles are jailbirds. All my, I have a huge family. They all been to jail. All of them told me that same thing. Don't do drugs. Don't gamble. And don't fuck with homos. And you'll be all right. So in the beginning, when I first went, commissary was good. You know, had cigarettes, had all my little commissary in my little bucket. I stayed to myself my first little bit.

Even the old timers came to me and was like, yo, yo shorty, you like your style. Don't fuck with nobody. You stay to yourself. Stay in your little shit.

We fuck with that. You know what I'm saying? Because I had everything I needed. I didn't have to juggle or none of that. Now, when I came back after the four years, cigarettes are banned now. Now I'm a drug, super drug addict. So I come in, I'm on methadone. Now they're taking me off. So I'm on 100 milligrams of methadone when I'm coming. And when you go up north, they don't have methadone maintenance up north.

So now they're taking me off 100 milligrams of methadone in a fucking four-month period. So now because my classification was high, I was in the dorms when I first went in. Then they put me in the one-man cells. So now I'm with fucking murderers, fucking all types of fucking crazy motherfuckers. And I'm mad. I'm going through it. I'm mad sick. Going from 100 milligrams to nothing.

So the majority of the time I spent on that bid was in my cell locked in. Not because I was scared, none of that. Because I just stayed in fucking bed sick as a fucking dog. And luckily, like looking at the moment, they lost my paper or whatever. That was horrible. I had to stay eight months. But looking back...

You know, seeing the whole picture, hindsight is 20-20. I had to go to shop. If I was dope sick then, I would have never did that. I would have had to do my whole bid. That, losing my paperwork, what it did was get me taken off of the methadone. I was fucking sick of myself for like the first six months. Then I started getting my shit back.

and being okay, you know what I'm saying, and starting to fucking feel, and be able to move, and act regularly, and think properly, so by the time they sent me up to shock, I was ready, but at the time, it's like, damn, I'm getting fucked over here, and you don't know why, when you look back, there's been something looking over me my whole fucking life, but prison, you know, Rikers was scary at first, but also, you know,

A lot of people knew who I was the second one because of the rapping shit. When I went up north to Rikers, I mean to Ulster, and when I was doing Shock, they knew who I was from rapping. It was like, yo, we just was watching you on fucking Fight Club on MTV. Yo, battle me. I was battling people in the yard. We was chilling. It wasn't a bad thing. Do you think going to prison derailed your career at all? Oh, nah. Nah. I think it gave it some fucking validity.

And also, listen, I needed that at that point. Everything happens for a reason. That shit built up my buzz. Had fucking mad people screaming free NEMS while I'm on MTV every day. And at that point in life, who knows? Maybe that year that I was in jail, the year and the change, who knows what I would have been doing on the streets. Could have got killed. Could have overdosed. Could have done a million other things that...

Maybe there was a reason that I was in there for that time period. Maybe it was something that I needed to be locked up in there for. See, people don't think of shit like that. You know what I'm saying? People don't think of situations like that because they don't have the hindsight at the moment. But now me, right now, at this moment, looking back at that, it was like, thank God all that shit happened. Because I see a lot of people now...

Get addicted in their older age. I would have much rather be addicted to something than 18 to 26 when your body is fresh, when your body can recover easily. Being in that situation now, bro, would be fucking insane. You can't get off of shit like that. And you're fucking the older you get, the harder it is to recover from anything mentally. And then and at that young age, I had more. I knew what I wanted out of life. And that wasn't that.

So jail was necessary at the moment. Tell us about your journey after getting sober. Everything went up. Everything got better. Within the first 10 months of me being clean, I was in fucking tour. I was on tour. No, the first 10 months, on the 10th month, I had put out my first album under an independent record label. Within the first two years of me being clean, I was on tour in Europe.

Belgium, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, all over France, Scotland. And I knew that I couldn't just go to people and be like, yo, I'm good now. I'm clean. I'm fresh. I'm out of jail. I'm not a burden to you. I just knew to keep my head down and just keep putting in the work. And eventually it'll show and people will see. And that's exactly what happened. And then it wasn't quick.

But I enjoyed it because when I got clean, everything was brand new to me again. Everything. Feelings were brand new to me because I had masks for eight years, almost a decade. And I say eight years. That was my heroin addict shit. But even before then, I was an ecstasy addict. I was on fucking Xanax. I was on... You know what I'm saying? So it was longer than probably like a good...

12, 15 year period where I masked all of my feelings every day. I was happy, I got high. I was sad, I got high. I was down, I got high. So when I got clean, all my feelings came back, bro. That shit was crazy. I would be fucking sitting in the house watching the...

TV, the fucking dog commercial. In the arms of an angel. I would start fucking tearing. What the fuck is going on? What the fuck is this? Why am I crying at a dog commercial? I started getting all my feelings back, man. I would wake up at 6 in the morning and just go on. Now the internet's out. Now I'm going on YouTube, listening to fucking music, fucking loving it, fucking just getting everything back. And just now...

Now I start fucking, I just started hustling again. I just got on my grind. The fourth year of me being clean, I started hustling for somebody where I had a cocaine and fucking Percocet route. Just do that from the sun up to sun down. And then I became a drug addict. I mean, a drug counselor. I became a drug counselor right after that. And I started seeing the fiends I was serving in the rehab that I was their counselor. And I'm like, I can't be doing this no more.

And then sanitation called me. And I did that for fucking eight years. And then bing bong happened. And fucking I quit sanitation. And I've been living off of fucking living off the land for the last fucking couple years. So you went back to selling drugs even after getting clean. Yeah. And you were able to do that without having any temptation. Yo, once I stopped.

Once I put some time between me and getting high, I knew. Because at the end of my using, at the end of me getting high, I knew that I didn't want to get high no more. I just couldn't stop. I don't know. You know, it was a burden. Everywhere I went, people looked at me like...

A piece of shit. I was a piece of shit. Everything they said about me was true. He's a thief. He's a fucking liar. He'll rob you. He'll fucking scheme on you. He's grimy. All of that shit was true. He's a dirt bag. All of that shit was true. So I knew that I didn't want to get hired no more. I just couldn't stop. Once I got clean, I was like, I'm never doing that shit again. I know they say never, you know, one day at a time, shit like that.

I knew I wasn't going back to that shit. And once I got strong enough, when I was doing it, I knew somebody that had a little, you know, successful hustling business. Money needed to come in, you know what I'm saying? So they was like, yo, Nims, here, take this route from Sundays to Wednesdays. Here's the phone, here's the product. You make fucking $10 off every 50 a Coke, $2 off every Perk, you know, and then they had the clientele. People be buying fucking...

10, 20, 10 fifties at a time, fucking a hundred perks at a time. So I was making good money. And then I became the drug counselor. And then I was like, what am I going to do? I started, like I said, I started seeing the people I was serving. Now I'm their fucking counselor. Y'all just bought drugs.

Coke and Perks and fucking Molly offer you fucking two weeks ago. Now you're my drug counselor? What the fuck is going on? It was mad weird. It was a weird predicament. But luckily I was only a drug counselor for like 90 days. They fired me because I was fucking, I didn't like, I thought because I was a drug addict before that I could do it.

But, man, that shit wasn't for me. You stay stuck in a hospital fucking floor for fucking eight hours. People telling you their problems. I already got enough problems, bro. I don't want to solve your problems, man. I don't want to have to catch you smoking cigarettes in your room and report you. It just wasn't for me. And then, you know, I was like, I'm out. And then the letter from sanitation six years before that I got 100 on when I was getting high. I was like, yo, we're finally calling you. 100,000 a year. I was like, eh, fuck this counseling shit.

I just fucking threw out garbage for fucking six years, for eight years. Working as a drug counselor, was that the first time in your life you got to see the actual effects of drugs and what it could do to people? No, I had my mother. A lot of people in my family are drug addicts too that all recovered. So I saw the effects from early. You know what I'm saying? Basically my whole life has been seeing that. And then when my mother got clean...

See, like I said, my mother was clean from when I was a baby to when she relapsed. So all that time, she would go to NA meetings. So she would be watching me and bring me. So I was a baby seeing that shit. Growing up around drug addicts that were clean and that lifestyle. So, you know, I was around that shit my whole life. Except this time you were sober yourself. Yes. And older. 100%. Nah, it wasn't the first time. It's just...

I don't know. That shit just wasn't for me, that drug counselor shit. Now, tell us about Bing Bong. Bing Bong. So, fuck your life, always on t-shirts since I started rapping. When I was working sanitation, I was like, yo, this money is good, but it ain't enough to support my lifestyle. Like, I live by myself. I got an apartment. I fucking got a nice little car, but, like, I don't got money to do shit.

I need another hustle. So what am I going to do? I got a good city job with a pension, benefits. So I can't go back to hustling drugs. Can't do that. I don't want to do nothing illegal to jeopardize this job. So what am I going to do? I'm going to start making merchandise. So I bought 50 hats from China with my G logo. That shit sold out. Bought another 50. And I would just, on the days I wasn't working...

I knew in my mind, like, fuck a website, just DM me. If I got to ship it, I'll ship it to you. If you're in New York, I'll pull up on you. 50 hats, turning to 50, and then 50, and then I was just doing hats. And I was like, yo, I should make the matching tee with the same logo. I started flipping logos. That takes off. So now, every Saturday, I'm dropping unlimited amount of merch. Buy it now. It ain't coming back.

And I had a nice little business going. I made six figures just off the DMs for the first two, three years. So every weekend when I get the merch in, I put it all along my couch in my house. Now I bought a house between the sanitation and the merchandise. I was able to buy a house.

So I'm showing it every Saturday. Yo, this is what's available this weekend. I'm pulling up on you. Check this. Bong, bong. Check this. Bong, bong. New shit. Bong, bong. Showing it with my camera on Instagram. One day, maybe I got some pussy the night before. Maybe I was just feeling good. I don't fucking know. But one day, I was just like, check this shit. Bing, bong. Bing, bong. Bong, bing, bong. Bing, bong. Bing, bong. People was DMing me laughing. So I was like...

I got something here. And I just kept doing it. Bing bong, bing bong. Then we started, you know, I was be on the block in Coney Island hanging out. The whole block started saying it. Bing bong, bing bong. Fucking around, having a good time. Then the guys from Side Talk just hit me and was like, yo, we want to do one of our episodes with you. I was like, yeah, come through. Come on my block in Coney Island.

Had the bum, the Byron guy. I did all of that. I was like, yo, come here. You do this. You do this. Da-da-da-da. And then we said it in the sidetalk video. And that shit just took off from there. And I was like, everybody started saying it. It started going viral. It's been used over a billion times on TikTok alone. That's not even counting fucking...

There's fucking 8 billion people in the world. A billion times it's been used. So that's an eighth of the fucking world has done a video to that shit or said it or used it or heard it. And I was still working sanitation slowly, slowly because it didn't go viral immediately. We did the video in like April, that video where I said bing bong the first time. Probably then the Knicks was in the playoffs. The Knicks started saying it everywhere.

And then in November, it just started going super viral on TikTok. And then one day, on my day's office annotation, I got a fucking whole house full of merch that I'm trying to ship out. And I stop to eat something, and I look on the gram, and I see the fucking president and the Jonas Brothers doing it, doing the voiceover shit. Yo, bing bong. Hey, yo. Yo.

You know what I'm saying? And I was like, I'm never going to work again. I'm not never going back to this. I'm not throwing out garbage no more. It's over. Because now I'm starting to, now I'm going to a strip club for an hour fucking making twice as what I make in a month in sanitation. And it's like every single night. And I'm fucking, now I'm hosting the crew league in LA. Now I'm doing this and that. Now I'm in movies. You know what I'm saying? So it just became, I just called out sick.

Until they fired me. Wow, you never went back after that. I never went back from that point. It lasted, I was still getting checked for like a good six, seven months for sanitation. I was trying to hit the 10-year mark so I could keep my benefits. Because after five years, you're vested, so you'll get a pension. So I was eight and a half. So I was trying to, once you make 10 years, though, you get the pension and the benefits. I was trying to make the 10-year mark so I could fucking keep the benefits, but...

They brought me into the office. It was like, yo, bro, you're hanging out with Kanye West, Post Malone. What do you think the other fucking workers are thinking? I said, yo, I really don't care what they're thinking. My job is not to make them happy. I'm living life.

I'm sick, bro. The fuck? Can't you just let me rock? You know what I'm saying? They wasn't hearing that, and they fucking made me retire. But whatever. It is what it is. You know, I'm sure a lot of people look at you as like some overnight success or quick hit, but they don't see all the struggle that happened before that went viral. This overnight success took 20 years. It's crazy. I love it, though, because it brings people...

New people into the, like, I say this all the time, man. My whole rapping career, they always told me. By they, I mean family at Christmas parties and people on the outside giving advice. You're never going to make it saying fuck your life. You're never going to be on the radio saying fuck your life. It's impossible for you to make it big saying fuck your life. You can't do that with cursing.

I told that in my mind. I was like, fuck you. I'm going to make it. Fuck you. I'm doing it. You're cool. Shut up. You know what I'm saying? I just didn't take nobody's advice. Because everybody, when people give you advice, they're giving you their fears and their life experience. You didn't come from where I came from. You might have, but you don't live the life I live. Like, I know this shit is dope. I got this, homie. Sit the fuck back. And it became something like, I told you guys, so now this fucking...

80-year-old grandmas in fucking Liverpool saying fuck your life and this fucking two-year-old saying bing bong, fuck your life. You know what I'm saying? There's no rapper touching my demographic. My demographic is all races 2 to fucking 85. You know what I'm saying? And it makes me, it revigorates me. You're going to get burnt out at some point. Doing something for 20 years, you're going to get burnt out.

But this shit was like a fucking refresher. You know what I'm saying? So if you're just joining at this point, welcome to the show. You know what I'm saying? Like, but this is... And even at this point, man, this is still like ground level to me. Because where I see myself going is way more, you know, there ain't no stopping. So this is just like, just the introduction point to NEMS with everybody. If you're here, if you're fucking watching...

Stay tuned. Strap in, motherfucker. Do you think that if that didn't go viral, you'd be just as successful today? Maybe not as successful. But even before the Bing Bong shit, there was shit that... There's a reason Side Talk hit me up to do an episode because I already had a buzz going. That just put it into hyperdrive. Before Bing Bong, before Don't Ever Disrespect Me, there's people in Australia with...

My name tatted on them. There's people in fucking Nebraska with my face tatted on them. You know what I'm saying? Like, I had a nice little cult following just from rapping. The bing bong and all of that shit just took it into hyperdrive and took it to the next level where the masses knew who I was. But...

I would have still been successful, just maybe not. And who knows? There might have been something else that wasn't being born. I always knew there was going to be something to take me to the next level. I just didn't know what it was. All I could do is just keep putting in work and something's going to stick. What does fuck your life mean? It means like, yo, listen, if you're not with me, you're against me. And if you're against me, then stay over there. I couldn't care what happens to you. Fuck your life.

You know, just fuck your life, man. Stay over there with your shit. I don't care about you. I don't give a fuck about nothing you got going on. Your fucking family, your kid. Fuck your life. It's not like fuck your life, kill yourself. It's just like, nah, man, stay over there. Fuck you. You know what I'm saying? You're either with me or against me. And if you're against me, fuck your life. Do you try to use your platform at all to get people to stay away from drugs and from prison and that type of life? Absolutely.

Absolutely. I just spoke in Rikers last month or two months ago. I speak in rehabs on a regular basis. My music talks about what I went through and the proof is right there. Like there's fans that have been with me since I was using drugs that see the come up. And every interview or podcast I do, I don't hold back.

I don't shy away from what I am, what I was, and how I've made it out of that. There's a reason I didn't die. There's a reason I'm here sitting with you. Because somebody watching this is probably going through the same shit

You know what I'm saying? And maybe this motivates them to get clean as well and change their life. Or maybe somebody is thinking that, yo, I've been rapping 20 years. Ain't nothing going to happen. And I got the talent. And maybe this is their fucking motivation to keep going. So everything happens for a reason. But I never shy away from what I am. And I never shy away from anything, man. This is what makes me who I am. There's a strength in vulnerability. You know what I'm saying? There's...

There's a reason I made it out of that, just to help the next person. What do you think your purpose is, your life's purpose? I don't know yet, man, but it's definitely to help people out. I believe that wholeheartedly because I get messages from my Instagram all the time and all the people DM me, yo, your song Go Fish got me out of this or your song Keep On got me out of this, you know, or just your journey.

or your interview with this guy, with this, you know, has helped me out in life. There's a song I got about my mother called I Got You that one fan told me his mother was dying of cancer and that was like the song that they listened to all the time and bonded over and she passed away. Or she beat, I don't know, if she passed away or beat cancer, but they bonded over that and, um,

So it's definitely the public platform. Like you put your life out there. It's very personal, but then you give it away. And that's how it's about how people interpret it. How do you make amends with the past? With the mistakes you've made? You know, it's funny. The cab driver I robbed and did the time for. I seen him when I came home or when I got clean already. And I remembered him and he remembered me. And I spoke with him.

I gave him $30. I apologized. And he sees me now, beeps the horn and says, what up? You know what I'm saying? A lot of people, some amends isn't always monetary. You know what I'm saying? Like my mother, I put through a lot of shit. I bought her a house. She retired from work. She don't got to work. I pay all her bills.

She don't pay rent. She don't pay her mortgage. I pay all of that shit. Those are my amends to her. You know what I'm saying? I put you through a fucking almost two decades of fucking hardship. Now your last two decades has been fucking good shit. You know what I'm saying? And there's a lot of other people in my life that, and just people in general, that I may have robbed. I make sure I make amends, even if they don't know I'm making amends. I make amends.

My cousins that used to fucking let me stay at his house. I'm the godfather to his fucking, to his child. You know what I'm saying? I buy her fucking, make sure I buy her fucking gifts and, you know, even if I don't talk to my cousin, even if we're not talking, I make sure she's all right. And anytime they need, you know, as small things, just being, some people just...

I want you to be available for them, especially at this point. When everybody wants your attention, some people just want to know that they can call you and you'll pick up or hit them back. And that's nothing to be able to do that for a person. But I definitely am aware of amends. And by this point, I'm already clean for like 16 years. The majority of the amends have been...

paid forward or uh yeah taken care of you were mentioning earlier about how you would abide by certain principles on the street when you were growing up in that lifestyle how have those principles uh changed now that you are who you are now um before i didn't have any like i said by the end of my drug uses i was doing coward shit and by the end of my addiction i was i had no morals no principles i stood for nothing i would rob anything from anyone at any time

Man, woman, child, old person. You know what I'm saying? And I'm the complete opposite of that now. I stand for shit. I have morals. If I tell you I'm going to be somewhere, I'm there. If I tell you I'm going to do something, even after I tell you and my mind changes, my word is my bond. If I tell you, you know, I'm going to give you this, that's my bond.

You know what I'm saying? Like I stick to it because that means something to me at least. And because I lived that life where I had none of that, now I hold these standards to a higher standard of myself. Nah, you said that. You got to do it. And even me saying it now, that's like, you know, there's times where I'm in business with people and I tell them, all right, I'm going to give you this amount. Then we make it happen and I feel like they didn't warrant that amount.

You didn't live up to your part. But because I told them that, I got to live by that. And it feels good as well because I've been on that side where I had no morals or standards or principles. So it feels good to be able to live like that. If you could sit across from your teenage self, what would you tell them? Don't worry. You're going to be all right, man. Your dreams are going to come true. You're going to be that person that you want to be. That's crazy. That shit just got me fake emotional right now.

I look at you like me, my oldest son now. But I really, you know, everything you're worried about, don't worry about it, man. Make the mistakes. Fucking be the person that you're destined to be. All the hardships are for a reason. They're not for nothing. So go through them and live life. Do you have kids now? Nah, not yet. You want kids? Hell yeah. How will you sit down with them to have that conversation about your past? I don't know.

I don't know. But I know when I have kids, I'm going to be the best father there is because I didn't have one. So I know what it is to not have one. So when I do have kids, they're going to have a father that's there for them no matter what. So I'm looking forward to that. I love that. About to nut in everything.

Well, Nemz, thank you so much for coming on the show today, man. Nah, thank you, bro. This was a lot of fun. I'm glad we got to do this. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I love your energy, man. Likewise, man. You're a great storyteller. Yo, you're a fucking good guy, man. You're good people, man. Like I said before, man, I'm stingy with my followers. And I didn't even know you, so I followed you and...

And you put out dope shit. And even behind the scenes, you telling me your stories and shit like that. That shit is super dope. And you got a nice little compound here. Thank you. And you're doing it. And you're living your dreams too, man. So congratulations to you. Thank you, brother. Fuck your life. And let's go have a good dinner. Let's go eat. Let's go.