G.O.O.D. Music artist GLC recently caught up with Greedmont TV as a part of their “Better Ourselves” series to discuss his Chicago upbringing. The Chi-Town rapper broke down the Windy City’s extensive gang culture and how its presence affected his upbringing. He explains that growing up in Chicago was a turbulent experience that exposed him to the joys and pains of life.
“What life was like growing up the Chi was a mothafucka. It was a danger zone, but there was also points in your life where you had glimpses of prosperity,” he said. “You wanted to embrace that concept and find a way to indulge in it. A lot of hustlers was out there getting it, they were getting money. Some of us, we couldn’t live…like them, so we managed to get by hustling…some chose school, some chose jobs, and others chose to be entrepreneurs…growing up in [though] was a mothafucka. At the end of the day, you could be with a nigga one day, being mellow and that day be going good, and the next day he might be in the casket, and it’s all due to a mothafucka having his hat turned to the side.”
GLC also explained how gang culture took root in the streets of the Windy City. He said that gangs were initially intended as a means of protecting the community, but once drugs entered the game, the morals of these organizations went by the wayside in favor of wealth.
“The gang culture, it really started in order to protect ourselves from the mothafuckas that were coming in our community and trying to mothafuckin’ cause havoc,” he said. “When we had to go outside our communities in order to try and get a job and elevate our paychecks, [there’d] be mothafuckas trying to give us conflicts. So we came together as a community. We focused on having economic and political control of our communities…but down the line, drugs came into the picture, and when that came into the picture, fast money came into the picture. When the fast money came into the picture, a lot of the ideologies as far as involving intergrity and morals, that shit went down the drain.”
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The full interview can be seen below.
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