“Hustling – you’ve been seeing it for so long that you start to partake in it,” Dolph says. “There were two hoods, Magnolia and Castalia; I went to Magnolia Elementary. Back then there was slick beefing – all the Castalia kids would go over to Magnolia. Shit started off early,” he explains. “Even when leaving school, you either had to go up past the two stores and the corner, where everything is going on, or walk up this long ass boring street up the hill to go home. Of course everyone’s grandmamas and parents were like, don’t walk up past that corner. But we wanted to go past where the action is. We were in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades, seeing this living hell.
“I’ve just always wanted the money,” he continues. “I told my grandma a long time ago that I was going to take my mom and dad out the hood. I was a little boy saying that shit. I ain’t never really had no dad, just the street’s ways, and I’m giving [people] game that their dad was supposed to be giving them, on these tapes and lyrics. My whole thing is about giving these folks the real.”
