Mitchy Slick: rapper in exile
San Diego’s biggest hip-hop artist loves the city, but a gang injunction keeps him away
By Quan Vu
music-a
Charles Mitchell, aka rapper Mitchy Slick, doesn’t exactly feel welcome in his hometown. Despite being San Diego’s most famous rap export, his visit home in April was extremely low-key. He didn’t perform in town. He didn’t announce his arrival. He was only here because he’d performed in Brawley, in Imperial County, the night before. He was just passing through.
Mitchy doesn’t hate San Diego. On the contrary, his music reveals a deep hometown pride. When he meets with CityBeat for an interview at a friend’s condo in Point Loma, he even sports a red-and-white baseball tee with the popular local slang phrase “Yeah Dat!” splattered across his chest.
But Mitchy, who now splits his time between Los Angeles, the Bay Area and other locales, grew up a member of the Lincoln Park Bloods, one of the city’s most notorious gangs. In 1999, the San Diego County District Attorney’s office issued a gang injunction, a measure aimed at curbing gang activity, against a list of purported high-profile LPB members. Mitchy was on the list, and he feels he’s faced police harassment ever since.
“The gang injunction is wack as shit,” Mitchy says. “The police and the powers that be, they know what they’re doing. Not only are they keeping us from doing bad shit—they prevent the ones that’s positive from being able to do good shit.”
This year, Mitchy strives to do a lot of good shit. Since dropping his 2001 debut album, he’s been San Diego’s most renowned rap artist. He’s launched his own label, Wrongkind Records. Last month, he released Feet Match the Paint, his first solo effort in eight years. He also plans to drop three more projects this year.
Mitchy grew up in Lincoln Park, a neighborhood in southeast San Diego that’s seen its fair share of crime. As early as the third grade, he was pressured into the gang life when a sixth-grade bully told him to change his wardrobe—from “argyle socks and penny loafers,” he says, to the more street-appropriate “Levi’s, Pendleton [shirt], hair net.” He claims that when he was playing Pop Warner football, the colors of local teams reflected the color of the gang in each team’s neighborhood.
“A lot of people don’t understand how strong that is, especially for an only child,” Mitchy says. “It was just natural to want somebody to catch my back or to be there for me.” He joined a gang, he says, “damn-near for survival.”
Related content
San Diego Troubadour turns 10
Related to:Mitchy Slick
Full Story Below
Speak On It!