- To me at this point,
if I get a bad tattoo, it's like,
you ain't gonna notice it.
I got so many tats, like,
I'm just like, aight, bet,
we just gonna put
something else around it,
so it don't stand out,
no, I never covered up nothing.
[trap music]
This is my first one,
only God can judge me,
you know what I'm saying,
like the most cliche tat you ever had,
but that was my first one.
I ain't even think I was gonna
be able to get it honestly.
I was staying with my Pops at
the time in North Carolina,
and in North Carolina
everybody got tattoos,
I'm talking about high
school, I'm like 16.
So I remember just sitting
down and just being like,
"Yo Pops, I've been
thinking about getting this,
[mouth noises]
"this tattoo, you know what I'm saying?
"Like mad nervous about it."
and surprisingly, he was like,
"What you wanna get?"
and I'm like "Oh shit,"
you know what I'm saying,
so I got a old school Pops,
I ain't think he's gonna be with it,
but he was like, "Yeah, aight, cool."
It's probably like my worst tattoo now.
I get the tattoo, and the next,
I'm saying, like the next two days
we went on like a class trip
to like some water park,
and I was like [bleep] I'm
not missing this water park,
and I get in the pool with the tattoos
and I pretty much ruined it,
I had to go get it redone,
just like, whatever.
By the next year, I had gotten three more,
I got two stars, and then
one on my chest, right.
To make it symmetrical,
you know what I'm saying.
Two stars on both shoulders.
Though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death
I will fear no evil,
so I got that kinda stapled on my chest,
like, just whatever I was going through,
you know what I'm saying,
I know I could do it.
And then I didn't get another tattoo
for probably like, seven years.
Those years when I didn't have tattoos,
like, I had like a whole iPad
of screenshots that I wanted,
and I basically got all of them now,
[unintelligible]
I've been mapping this out for years.
I'm not even gonna lie,
the feminist tat was the
most painful tat I ever got,
and I don't know why,
the feminist with the eight
ball and a heart, right here.
Thought it was gonna take me out for sure.
Cause I got something on the other side,
but it didn't hurt nothing like that.
Like, I got neck tats, all of that,
but when I was getting this done,
like, yo, I'm , no, nope.
When I first had my daughter,
I was having a conversation with somebody,
and I was just talking about how,
how like my outlook for women
had changed a little bit, right,
and he was like, "so what,
you like a feminist now?"
and I'm like, "nah, you joking, nah,
"I just feel differently, you feel me?"
But then when I looked
up what feminist mean,
like you ever look up what feminist mean?
I feel like everybody
should be a feminist,
you know what I'm saying,
it's just basically
women's rights, human's
rights, you feel me,
so I feel like everybody should be that.
- [Interviewer] How many eight-balls
do you have tattooed on you?
- Ooo, I wanna say, one, two,
three at the moment.
The eight ball is for Section
8, you know what I'm saying.
That's me, that's my
company, that's everything.
Another term is like, if
you behind the eight ball,
you know what I'm saying, when
you behind the eight ball,
like you under pressure,
you know what I mean?
And that's what I feel like I was,
I felt like I was behind the
eight ball, under pressure.
The Section 8 thing is from the bottom,
that's all of us, you know what I mean,
everybody where I'm
from is from the bottom.
The back is the big Section
8, you know what I'm saying,
it's doing [unintelligible]
my mom think "Ah, it's crazy,"
you know what I'm saying.
When I got this etched out on my back
she was like, "Yo, my son has
officially lost his mind."
Anything you believe in,
you know what I'm saying,
you gotta carry it on your back,
you gotta be able to brand it.
The back was the most annoying,
I got a big ass back, so having
to sit there on this table,
[tattoo needle noises]
it was annoying, but glad I got it.
The gorilla right here,
this is like being a beast,
this represents being a beast.
Am I a fighter?
Every day, I gotta fight for something,
we all fighting something.
Right here at the top, there's
a ski mask with a halo.
I feel like that's me,
I feel like I'm either the worst angel
or the best heathen, you
know what I'm saying,
I'm right in between there somewhere.
It's a New York license plate,
you know where I'm from.
845 is the area code, and the SEC
with the eight ball, Section 8.
The checkerboard is for
Nipsey, you feel me,
I got Nipsey right here.
I got the opportunity to meet
him once on a few occasions,
he really inspired,
like, this whole section,
[unintelligible].
Like, I seen what he did with the--
with the Crenshaw shirts and what not,
and I'm like, yo there's people in my hood
wearing these shirts,
they might not ever been out there,
you know what I'm saying.
I just liked the way it was unified
and you seen it and you know it was him.
So basically, all that
leaves is [unknown].
All of my murals and
portraits, right here,
this is Mount Rushmore,
my boy Keith right here in New York City
did these over at Bang Bang.
Shout out the Keith.
You know what I'm saying,
he laced me with all of
these, he's nice as shit,
Malcolm, Martin, and Pock, you feel me,
it felt like it was only right
to put Nipsey on the same arm.
We got Mohammed Ali on the back,
and Bob Marley all the
way on the other side.
St. Luke's is the one hospital
that we got in Newbery,
you know what I'm saying, everybody came
to that same hospital.
I don't care how old you are,
what part of town you live in,
people typically don't leave Newbery,
you know what I'm saying,
they typically don't get out.
So you end up dying in that same hospital.
This whole arm right here is
basically dedicated to Africa,
you know what I'm saying,
heritage and what not.
I just knew I wanted to represent
like the beauty of the land,
and what better way to represent that
than a beautiful woman,
you know what I'm saying.
I got the Nefertiti that [unintelligible]
right here on the wrist,
and then "To die for,"
on across underneath.
I like [unknown] tats so much
because he was getting tats in a time
where people wasn't getting
tats, you know what I'm saying,
and it wasn't like a real
thing in hip hop culture,
you know what I'm saying,
so I feel like he was
one of the first people
to really brand that
tatted look as a artist.
The most recent is probably these three,
there's the broken heart up here,
my daughter's name across, and
the feminist and eight ball,
I got those all in LA.
Tattoos is like therapeutic,
you know what I mean,
like you don't know how
to deal with the pain
like what you're really going through,
you can kinda just get
a tattoo, you feel me,
cause you know how to
deal with physical pain,
you know what I'm saying, if
you can't deal with emotional.
So sometimes I do that.
Mercy is my daughter's middle name,
you know what I'm saying,
she's a flower, she's precious to me,
so I got that right there.
And this right here,
this is my good angel,
you know what I'm saying,
you got the angel over the shoulder,
this is my good angel.
My ideas is bad enough, so
I don't need a bad angel,
you know what I'm saying,
I just try to balance it
out with the good one.
Yo bro, I'm scared as
hell to get my legs tat,
my [unknown], they all
got their legs tatted,
I'm like how you do that?
Especially the shin bone right here,
you feel this shin bone?
Like I can't imagine.
I'mma try it though, I'mma
try it at least once.
I still feel incomplete,
I got all of this real estate right here,
prime real estate.
Yeah, I'mma get "underrated" probably
like right across the cheek
Lil Xan style, you feel me,
cause this tape is that fire,
I'm gonna put it right here
My mom would hate me,
but I actually gonna love it, so we good.
- [Interviewer] You really gonna do that?
- No.
[laughing]
