The last 11 months have been a life-altering time for Cedric “Alfamega” Zellars. After The Smoking Gun reported on May 5, 2009 that nearly 13 years before, in October of 1996, a then incarcerated (after pleading guilty to a Federal Firearm Possession charge in June of 1995) “Big Ced” gave testimony against an alleged local Atlanta drug trafficker, Ali Baaqar, and in turn received an 18-month reduction in his original nine-year sentence, the ex con-turned-rapper and onetime enforcer for T.I. and the Grand Hustle Records camp – who with seeming disregard to his own safety doled out beat-downs in defense of The King of the South-led squad at 2008’s Dirty Awards – was unceremoniously (via radio-read statement by T.I. three days after The Smoking Gun report) booted from Tip’s team and immediately labeled a “snitch” by most in the Hip Hop community.
Now, in his most candid and detailed discussion with the media to date since his expulsion from the Grand Hustle crew, Alfamega explains to HipHopDX why forces more powerful than a federal prosecutor are what really led to him admittedly lying about drug deals he claimed to have done with a man he has since acknowledged he had actually never met prior to testifying against him, how T.I. knew about Alfa’s falsified testimony against Ali long before The Smoking Gun published those facts, and why Alfa is just now, after nearly a year of exile from T.I.’s inner circle, launching his first on-wax assault directly aimed at the former ally he now dishearteningly refers to as “the queen” whose “persona’s so fraud.”
HipHopDX: Let’s just get right to it: “I said I’d never make a diss or mention a nigga name / But this pussy-ass nigga done made my change.”
Alfamega: “Made my mind change.”
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DX: Why? What did [T.I.] do of late to make your mind change?
Alfamega: [Continues verse from “Green Light”] “Expose some thangs, turn it all the way up and just ride on this lame.”
DX: And why? Why now; what changed?
Alfamega: What, [that led to me] making the song?
DX: Yeah, yeah, yeah, ‘cause I mean people misconstrued your “Round” [records released last summer as your initial] disses – those “Round 1” through…
Alfamega: [Interrupts] The rounds wasn’t for him. It was like, I tried to rectify the situation to get it squashed and it seem like he still don’t wanna squash it [and so that led to this first official diss record, “Green Light”]. Instead of being the bigger man and say, “Hey” – Instead of him saying, “Hey, you know I fucked up, homie,” he would rather tell people that he don’t wanna talk right now. He tell people to tell me that. If you know you wrong, you know, be a man and admit you wrong… You got the people believing one thing when me and you both know, and the people around us know, that it’s another thing.
DX: Can you give any clarity to what that other thing is; why you think he should apologize to you?
Alfamega: Because of how he handled the whole situation – the whole situation, how it went down, you know. Slim, he know what really went down with that whole situation, with that Ali thing. He know what it was. Like everybody try to say – man, they got people who say [I was] snitching, I ain’t never snitched on a nigga a day in my life! Particularly the niggas I did dirt with and still walking around. But I was told to lie [about drug deals with Ali]. I saved the boy life by lying on him, ‘cause niggas wanted to take his head off his shoulders. It was bigger than what niggas on the Internet know.
DX: [And] now you’re saying that T.I. [is] just kind of dragging his feet on rectifying this situation…
Alfamega: [Inaudible] instead of being a man about it. But it’s the same thing he did with every beef he had been in that he know he was wrong in.
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DX: I gotta ask, did the attack on your kids at Club Crucial on Christmas Eve play any part in your change of heart and wanting to [go after T.I. with “Green Light”]?
Alfamega: Nah, nah, because he didn’t have nothing to do with that situation. If I come at you, it’s for a reason. If like me and you – If I ever come at you, you know what it’s for. You know what it’s for; I know what it’s for. [But] the people, they gon’ speculate [and] say whatever, they don’t know [what’s really going on].
DX: “And somebody said you put some bread on my head (What?!) / Well if I was you nigga, I wouldn’t even pay it.” Are you genuinely concerned for the safety of you and your family?
Alfamega: I ain’t worried about that! I fear Allah. That’s why I said what I said, “If I was you I wouldn’t even pay it.” [Continues verse from “Green Light”] “I just smoke a blunt slow and say ‘Fuck being scared!’” I do what I gotta do. But what I said [in the song], it’s the same thing I said in the letter [T.I. made me write to him last July]. I said in the letter, I say somebody said that [T.I. put some money on my head], my nigga. But you know how rumors get started. I’m in the hood everyday. I’m out [in the hood] right now as we speak.
DX: “A little something to let the queen know the muscle ain’t shook / And if you try to respond, you gon’ get your crown took.” Are you preparing yourself for response records from T.I.; you think he’s gonna respond to you?
Alfamega: If he do respond he already know I’m ready! But me knowing shorty, shorty ain’t gon’ respond ‘cause shorty know who I am. He know who I am and he know what I do. So I’m not – No disrespect to these dudes, it’s no disrespect period to these dudes, but I’m not Shawty Lo, I’m not Ludacris, and I’m damn-sure not Lil Flip.
DX: You said on the record though that this is just the first song, are you planning on recording more songs [on your end] or just falling back [if he doesn’t respond]?
Alfamega: Nah, I got a gang of stuff. You know it’s a gang of people that don’t like him. There’s a lot of people that’s in the industry that got names [that don’t like T.I.] I ain’t gon’ call no names [out], but they reached out to me. And they like, “It ain’t cool what shorty did. We know what you done did for him. We know how you rolled for him.”
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DX: Can you elaborate for our readers on why you said in “Green Light” that T.I.’s “persona’s so fraud”?
Alfamega: You been doing this thing for awhile…you been covering entertainment for awhile, right?
DX: Yessir, yessir.
Alfamega: Have you ever noticed a lot of these guys in this business are frauds?
DX: Yessir, yessir. [Laughs]
Alfamega: There you go. My thing is [to T.I.], if I know something do you really want me to let the people know this, mayne? Because you know I know for a fact [Inaudible] rolling around in $300,000-400,000 cars when the people around you ain’t even got a car. You got a $5 million crib when niggas around you ain’t got that. I ain’t talking about me per se, ‘cause I’m straight. I’m straight, but the thing is, man, do the right thing. When the camera come on you say it’s one way but then behind the camera it’s another way. Like, let’s do the right thing, let’s keep it gutta if we gon’ keep it gutta.
DX: Now this next question kinda ties-in to that [alleged fraudulence]. Let me just ask you flat out, do you believe T.I. cooperated with the government to get his reduced sentence?
Alfamega: Man, c’mon man, is pig pussy pork? Does a ten-pound bag of flour make a very big biscuit? Is Ed “Too Tall” Jones too tall? [Laughs]
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DX: I just never could figure it out though, because we would of heard of him testifying at [other people’s] trials [in exchange for his year sentence], unless he was just testifying to sealed grand juries or something like that.
Alfamega: What some people don’t know about the Feds – I did Fed time. I was in the Fed with dudes who were billionaires. The money can’t get you out of shit, man. The Feds print money. They locked Martha Stewart’s muthafuckin’ ass up [and] she’s a white woman, and she had more money than he gon’ ever see. So what the hell, man, c’mon.
DX: Now, I gotta ask you this tough question just because I don’t think anybody has ever asked you this, why weren’t you charged in that case along with T.I. and bodyguard-turned-informant Corey Williams [for allegedly on one occasion transporting a gun to T.I. that Williams purchased and gave to you to give to T.I.]?
Alfamega: ‘Cause I never was involved with that case. See, the security guard, bodyguard dude he said me and [fellow Grand Hustle artist] C-Rod name [as having allegedly aided him in buying and transporting weapons on T.I.’s behalf]. Hearsay is a muthafucka.
DX: So [the Feds] weren’t like trailing [Williams] at that point and saw [you go to The Gun Store with him]?
Alfamega: Never. Nah, they never had came at me or C-Rod because hearsay is a muthafucka. Muthafuckas say what they wanna say out they mouth. Well okay, you [can] say this or that, [but] it don’t add up. How was you dealing with this man one-on-one on getting some guns but he told me to go pick up [just] one gun for him? It don’t sound right.
DX: I appreciate you clarifying that ‘cause I remember when the indictment came out…
Alfamega: [Interrupts] When Tip caught his case me and Tip had just got off stage from doing sound-check for the BET Hip Hop Awards – me, him and Busta [Rhymes]. When he got caught up, [it was] Busta who called me and told me [T.I.] had just got caught. Busta knew before I knew. And see that’s another thing that pisses me the fuck off too, because you got the people out here that don’t know [that I wasn’t involved in T.I.’s arrest], homie! Man, the people don’t know this. Now you know you going through your court thing all this time with your court shit – I’m still around you – [that] they got to give you all your discovery motions and all that, dog. If somebody talking on you you’d know it then.
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DX: You think [T.I.] shoulda stepped out there and said Alfamega wasn’t involved in any of this shit?
Alfamega: Maaan, he shoulda – You know what he shoulda did, how he ‘posed to played it. Niggas do what they do. But like his folk said – One of his folks told me, “You know, hey, niggas get caught up in the money, man, and they forget. Niggas do industry shit they don’t do real nigga shit.”
DX: But let me just [play devil’s advocate], do you think T.I. had the right after what happened with his bodyguard to be leery of you once he learned that you [falsely testified against Ali back in ‘96]?
Alfamega: How you got a right to be leery with me my nigga when you know who told me to lie on the nigga? You know the nigga who told me to lie on a nigga. If [the nigga who told me to lie] breathe hard nigga he a shut damn-near half Atlanta down. So nigga, then [after your year sentence] I went to the street and lied for you [and told people you didn’t cooperate with the government]. I guess it was cool for me to lie for you but not for another nigga. [Laughs]
DX: So you stand by your previous claims that you told T.I. before The Smoking Gun story about what you [claim you] were forced to do [against Ali]?
Alfamega: Man, that man know – He know what I was locked up for. He talking about, “Man, I ain’t never [know what Alfamega did].” What record company [don’t] ask you what you done did in your previous times? Man, c’mon man, the people don’t understand. People don’t understand all this shit, the people just run with [T.I.’s version of the situation]. But hey, everybody got that choice of how they wanna do shit and think about shit.
DX: But I mean just to be clear though, did you specifically tell Tip [before you started rollin’ with him that you had testified against Ali and gotten 18 months cut off your sentence in return]?
Alfamega: Man, know this, it’s a known fact, it was in the street [that I testified against Ali]. It’s in the streets. I’m in the streets still every day! If that woulda came out [that I was somehow a snitch] I wouldn’t be allowed in the hood, right? Niggas know [what I did] ‘cause niggas know. Nigga, I don’t be snitching on no nigga! That ain’t homey’s M.O. Homey don’t get down like that. Nigga you my nigga I’ma ride for ya. Like [people say], “He lied for eighteen months [to be shaved off his sentence].” Nigga, these niggas don’t even know what the fuck going on. Niggas just talk… I could give a fuck about a 18-month [downward departure sentence reduction]. I was [already] doing my muthafuckin’ time when the shit happened [that someone approached me to lie about Ali]. If that [wasn’t] the case [and I was really a snitch] I coulda fuckin’ told from the rip and not did one day in jail.
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DX: So you’re saying that somebody in the street put the pressure on you [to testify against Ali]?
Alfamega: Nah, he wasn’t in the street [at the time], the dude was locked up too. Man, it’s bigger than what y’all think it is. Before I was Alfamega I had a name in the street, dog. Y’all just know me as a rapper. I’m a long way from a lot of dudes. And that ain’t braggin’, [but] I’m a long way from a lot of dudes. The shit I done did [will] give you grey hair.
Stay tuned to HipHopDX for the jaw-dropping conclusion to our conversation with Alfamega, in which he explains why the false testimony he gave against Ali Baaqar doesn’t constitute snitching, reveals how (or if) the friction between he and T.I. can be resolved, and much, much more.
