(AllHipHop Features) What happens when a gangsta grows up? Mitchy Slick knows. He’s living it. “They are gonna have to get used to it,” the San Diego rapper says about his maturation. “I’ve been fortunate enough to be around a lot longer than these cats and I embrace that you feel me?” Mitchy, a certified Blood, is the most prominent rapper to emerge out of the hoods of San Diego and has rapped with the likes of The Game, Talib Kweli, Xzibit, The Jacka, Paul Wall, Cashis and more. He is singing a bold, different song from his album debut, 2001’s Triggeration Station. “It’s a grown up Mitch right now. I still do my ignorant s##t, but we hitting some other topics,” he said to AllHipHop’s Chuck “Jigsaw” Creekmur. “ PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is a serious case in all our hoods. That’s the topic.” PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Diego – is also the name of Mitchy’s new album, which dropped this year. The album digs more than past albums from the G-spitter and he said it’s all rooted in his personal evolution. Part of that thought expansion includes business, Mitchy said. He’s now getting a foothold in the legal weed game, which continues to incarcerate people of color in disproportionate ways. “The whole judicial system, the whole penitentiary game is a game for the folks. It’s a lot of money made. It’s just modern day slavery,” he stated. “This is a 4/20 album. You know the 4/20 game is giant on the west and it ain’t no jump on while its on type of thing. I’ve been sitting up with my partner. They own a dispensary – learning the game. Not just the get high and act stupid part of the game. It’s a lot of medical benefits to [marijuana]. I captured that in the album.” “We use weed for more than just having fun,” he continued. “A lot of homies come home after work, sit down, ease the day and get the pressure off their back. A lot of mental healing is going on.”
[ALSO READ: Xzibit: Anchored By Hip-Hop, Flying In Hollywood] When it comes to healing, he talked about the issues with Xzibit, who was one of the biggest rappers on the West Coast. He, Krondon, Phil Da Agony and X had the seminal group, Strong Arm Steady. “We were the newer generation of gangster rapper, but Hip-Hop influenced. We were like a big Black Hippy. We were like Kendrick, Schoolboy Q and [Ab Soul] – just before our time. I loved to see that too. The first West Coast n###as to kick street sh#t that didn’t wear Dickies and Chuck Taylors. That was Strong Arm Steady – Mitchy Slick, Krondon, Phil Da Agony.” “Xzibit was a part of the group too. Xzibit started to do his music and sh#t, but we had to keep it pushing,” he said. He said a reunion is not out of the question, but it may not include X to the Z, who is now prominent on shows like “Empire.” The pair aren’t exactly homies anymore. “Xzibit was…uh…it’s hard to be in a group with a platinum n###a, bruh. You got three up and coming artist and…he ain’t finna do a show for 10 bands ($10k) when he can go on his own and get 50, 60, 70 somewhere,” he said. “‘Pimp My Ride’ (the hit MTV show about remodeling cars) had just came out and we had scheduled all our rap stuff around that. I would have probably done the same if I was X. He didn’t owe us that. We didn’t do everything we were supposed to do, because we were a little bit before our times.”
Here and now, Mitchy explained he is here to stay and remains fortunate to have endured several generations in Hip-Hop. “A few cats get the opportunity to stay around and still get down with the newer generations. And shout out to my big brother E-40. He gave me the game. That was my mentor first coming in and he told me like Too Short told him: ‘Don’t stop rapping.’” “I don’t chase after kids..I make the kids come up to me, you feel me?”
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