Young Buck has done more dirt in his tumultuous 21 years than, than most will endure in their entire life. Hell, one might think he’d be labeled “Old Steed” rather than Young Buck based on life experience.
Regardless, as one of the celebrated factions in G-Unit’s lyrical militia, he’s the next bullet out the chamber to blast you with more of the patented gangsta we’ve come to expect from the crew that made bulletproof fashion vogue.
Young Buck’s upcoming album, Straight Outta Cashville, is dropping soon and the Nashville native tries to kill any preconceived notions about his hometown. With dues paid, Buck is ready to reap the rewards as he tells AllHipHop why he deserves to be let in.
AllHipHop.com: Ok, let’s start with the name, you’re 23 years old. How long are you gonna be a young buck?
Young Buck: Till my dying day, I’m always gonna be young at heart. That’s why tattooed it on my chest over my heart.
AllHipHop.com: When you get older are you gonna drop the young and just be Buck?
YB: Then I’ll be Uncle Buck. Or you can call me Daddy Buck. (laughs)
AllHipHop.com: Are you daddy buck right now? You have any kids?
YB: Yeah I’m daddy buck, I have a little girl.
AllHipHop.com: How does being a father affect your career?
YB: With her being a little girl, she brings out a side of me I didn’t even know I had; ya know that ole sensitive side.
AllHipHop.com: Thugs and gangstas aren’t supposed to be sensitive. So do you consider yourself a thug or a gangsta?
YB: I consider myself as someone who handles his business, if that’s what a thug and a gangsta is, then it is what it is. I just get down.
AllHipHop.com: To be so young you have been getting down for a while. Do you think it’s good for someone to start in this industry at such a young age.
YB: Hell yeah the sooner, the better.
AllHipHop.com: It hasn’t been easy on you personally or professionally.
YB: No, I wouldn’t recommend the lifestyle I lived on nobody. It was far from f##### “Silver Spoons” or anything like that. I come from nothing. My father was a crack fiend and my mother was a single parent and she did whatever she could to provide for. Me and her two kids, plus she got custody of her sister’s kids because her sister was a crack fiend too. My house was always full from the beginning so there really wasn’t a childhood for Young Buck, it’s like you’re the man of the situation from the very beginning, so that’s where the whole drug selling thang and all that extra s### came from.
AllHipHop.com: Knowing what drugs did to your family, why is that the way you chose to take care of your family?
YB: That was the quickest way that I could take care of my family. You can work a 9-5 but you gotta wait a week for a paycheck. It only takes 24 hours for someone to starve to death, ya heard?
AllHipHop.com: Do you regret having done it?
YB: Naw, I don’t regret nothing, I don’t regret one piece of crack I sold, I don’t regret one n#### I shot at, and I damn sure don’t regret the m#### f#####’ police I ran from. I feel like the s### you go thru in life makes you who you are.
AllHipHop.com: So who are you from having gone through all that?
YB: I’m David Brown aka Young Buck. All the s### I done been through makes up who I am, all of that before the age of 21. Buck is about the situation. A lot of people are like damn that n#### was shot and everything. People think that s### is gangsta, that s### ain’t.
AllHipHop.com: Is that what it takes to get street credibility these days is to get shot?
YB: I think maybe people think to get credibility you gotta get shot but that ain’t the s###.
AllHipHop.com: That’s because they’ve never been shot.
YB: I think what’s gangsta is being able to overcome that, handling it from that situation and then coming back and taking care of your business, that’s gangsta.
AllHipHop.com: Did you jump right back into the same thing that got you shot once you recovered?
YB: Hell naw, I realized that that s### wasn’t really for me. It wasn’t like it was a life threatening shot or anything I only got shot in the arm and the leg, but the way that the s### happened caused me to say f### that I’m about to really get off into this music thing and see what’s up.
AllHipHop.com: So that’s when you hooked up with Cash Money. Do you think if you had’ve stayed with CM as opposed to rolling with G-Unit that people would still label you as gangsta or would you be more of a party type artist?
YB: People get that from my real life experiences, I’m not new to these streets or the street life period. I’m young I’m only 23 years old but in my life I’ve done some s### and I’ve maneuvered like a 29, 30 year old would all before I was even 21. The gangsta side was there even when I was with Cash Money, no matter what I’m gonna get that thug outlook because of the s### that I’ve been through so I’m always gonna be looked at like that. I’m not no n#### who ever had a job or nothing like that, I really sold drugs, I really did this s### and got down how I say so in a sense it’s thug or gangsta or whatever but I don’t like to label myself like that. I let you be the judge of calling me what you want. I’m just a n#### who handled his business.
AllHipHop.com: What are you about if you’re not about the gangsta stuff?
AllHipHop.com: I’m all about the gangsta stuff when it’s time for it. As far as all that other s### I feel like it’s a gimmick. Them motherf**kers portraying the gangsta image that’s a bluff. I’ll laugh and smile and joke and everything else but when it’s time to get up off that I’m gonna handle mine like any gangsta would.
AllHipHop.com: As far as you’ve come with your success if you’re at a club or something and someone comes up to you to test your gangsta so to speak you’d risk throwing it all away instead of just walking away?
YB: I really don’t put myself in a vulnerable position to allow something like that to happen.
AllHipHop.com: But just because of who you roll with, doesn’t that put you in a vulnerable position?
YB: Yeah but, you probably wouldn’t even catch me in a club, but to answer your question yeah I would, if my life is on the line, I’ll do anything to protect it.
AllHipHop.com: What about your little girl, wouldn’t you think about her?
YB: I love her to death but daddy gotta be here to be able to tell her he love her and take care of her so if my life is threatened I’m gonna do whatever I gotta do to protect it.
AllHipHop.com: Are you and your child’s mother together.
YB: Naw, but we cool we don’t beef.
AllHipHop.com: I’m sure she’s happy for your success.
YB: I’m sure she is (he laughs).
AllHipHop.com: So you’re single?
YB: I’m single like a Pringle.
AllHipHop.com: How is your relationship with Cash Money?
YB: We see each other speak and keep it moving. We’re cool though no love lost.
AllHipHop.com: How do you think your career would be different if you had stayed with them?
YB: I probably would’ve never came out.
AllHipHop.com: What’s all that about? I read that you were with them for about 4 years just waiting for your turn, why?
YB: I don’t know, honestly I feel like if I was still there I probably wouldn’t have an album or any material because I know it’s a few cats that was there before I was there and are still there and still don’t have any material out.
AllHipHop.com: Why would they invest time and money into bringing you out there just to have you sitting around?
YB: That was my question for a long time until I realized I wasn’t gonna get an answer to that question, it just don’t make sense to me. I would record songs but when it came time for the material to be dropped no song that I did was on none of them tracks. But I think they’re careers took off and that was half the reason I was pushed to the back.
AllHipHop.com: What was it about Juvenile that you all clicked and made you go off with him?
YB: During my time with Cash Money, me BG and Juve was real close. They were the oldest one’s and I never really hung with nobody in my age range or younger. I was always hanging with the older cat’s so me and him kinda clicked from the beginning, so when it came time for him to do his own thang, we was already partners. They used to come and hang in my city and everything for like a year, it was different.
AllHipHop.com: Speaking of your hometown- when I think I Nashville I don’t think ghetto or hip-hop even, naturally you think country or Johnny Cash, tell me a little something about where your from?
YB: I think the first thing when anybody says Nashville they think that, that’s why I don’t say Nashville I say Cashville and I put a dollar sign on the s. I don’t say Tennessee I say Ten-A-Key (as in kilo) at the same time I come from a city that’s shielded with this country music s###, you’ll f### yourself up thinking it’s like that and you get there and realize that the hip-hop overshadows all of that. I’m only that made it out of a big bubble, there’s thousands more young bucks out there. I think I have a new sound that has the world paying a little bit of attention to me but once they get a hold of half the other talent that’s down there that has this new sound then they’ll start understanding where I’m from and my environment more.
AllHipHop.com: Are you going back bringing people up?
YB: Definitely I already started, I got a cat named D-Tay, he’s on my project he’s presented on my album and he started the music thang with me from day one.
AllHipHop.com: Speaking of your album, lets talk about that.
YB: It’s definitely finished I just shot my first video; “Let Me In” and I shot the video in Cashville. I named my album Straight Outta Cashville. I got that concept from Straight Outta Compton, (NWA) I feel like out of that album they established who they were and what they were about, you know they was like f### the police and even if you wasn’t from LA you knew the s### they was going thru and that’s really what I want to do with my album. I really want to let you know where I’m from, what I’m about, the s### I’m going thru, what I think I’m going through or what I think I’m gonna go through.
AllHipHop.com: Being from the west coast I think its dope that you recognize West Coast influence what other influences are on your album.
YB: Music period, but you get a lot of west coast influence out of me I’m a big west coast music fan as a matter of fact Snoop and the whole Dogg Pound are on my album. I love the west; yall got some little thugette’s out there too.
AllHipHop.com: Yeah we do, so what other collabo’s are on the album?
YB: I got Lil Flip, David Banner, and a new cat just signed with Shady/Aftermath Stat Quo, my homeboy D-Tay, the regulars Tony Yayo, Game, 50, Banks, Snoop and the whole Dogg Pound (Soopafly & Daz Dilinger) and T.I. I got a lot of features.
AllHipHop.com: How would you describe it?
YB: I think Southern artists are more respected for our slang and the way we say s### you know like ‘”right thurr,” ya know, n##### be really on the slang. That part is natural with me, because I’m country to the heart. But I focus mainly on my lyrics and that together gives me something different.
AllHipHop.com: How is it working with Em and 50 and who do you spend more time with?
YB: I spend more time with 50 but I work with them both, it’s a pleasure working with someone you never thought you’d work with so when you get the chance you cherish the moment.
AllHipHop.com: When does the album drop?
YB: July 13.
AllHipHop.com: Is the success everything you dreamed it would be and how are you adjusting to the fame?
YB: It really is everything I imagined, the adjustment has been good. It’s been a long time coming for me and I had a lot of time to think about what I’d do when I got to this point and it happened. I hate to be arrogant but it’s the truth. I was one of those cats who knew I would be successful doing something. I didn’t know it would be this right here in this way but I knew it would be something. I always prepared myself for having finances I’ve been able to have a little something coming up as far as finances but it was illegal so it’s not like having something is entirely new to me.
AllHipHop.com: But doesn’t it feel so much better when it’s legitimate money?
YB: Oh yeah.
AllHipHop.com: So what’s next from here, if you could choose what you wanted to do from this point on what would it be?
YB: I’d be over at your house.
AllHipHop.com: Something you’d get paid to do.
YB: You know I really just want to use this as a stepping-stone to get into movies and all that. I really like cars so I want to do my own rims. I’m in the process of making that happen right now, so I can be sitting on my own 26’s (rims). Anything that’s with making legal money that fits in my jurisdiction, holla at the kid. Maybe I’ll even run a couple whorehouses.
AllHipHop.com: Well you’ll have to got to Nevada or Amsterdam for that. What final thoughts about Young Buck do you want to leave the people with?
YB: Just remember that he came from nothing and made something, took the rap game and used it to branch off and make things happen outside of rap.