GETO BOYS "AIN'T WITH BEING BROKE"

Look…. I don’t know what it truly means to be broke. I was lucky enough to grow up in a middle class neighborhood in San Diego with parents who were teachers. Teachers never made much money and still don’t now but it provided my parents and my older bro what we needed in life. But I fell in love with gangsta rap in the late 80’s and all I did was listen to rappers talk about being broke and wanting to get paid. In order to get paid you were either slinging crack rock or you had a wicked jump shot. I didn’t know one thing about crack but I didn’t know all about my favorite rappers and the hoods they came from. And I learned my street cred from my Walkman. I learned about the 5th Ward from rappers like Willie Dee and the Geto Boys from Houston, Texas. And if Willie Dee told me he wasn’t about being broke then neither was I.

I’ve lived my entire life wanting to ball out and get the platinum chain with some Gucci slides just to flex now and then. But let’s be real… I still haven’t hit a lick and at the age of 42, I’m 20+ years into spending money that I don’t have. And when I get a little bit of money I end up being an idiot and gambling it all way on sports cards, crypto, stocks, cassettes, or whatever else that my addictive personality gets into. I remember being $10K in debt when I was 20 or 21 years old. Blew all my cash on throwing parties, rap cd’s, DVD’s, and whatever else looked nice… Oh yeah… Let’s not forget about the kicks, hats, gear, and everything else. $10K in the hole but with dope shit all around me. That’s how I’ve lived my entire life…. Owing cash but feeling like I’m one hit away from breaking the bank. I refuse to lose….

For the first time in my damn life I saw a bag of money. And this wasn’t on some tax return sh*t but on some oh… okay…. wow… Some cash… But let’s be real… When I say “bag of money” it doesn’t mean I’m rich. So far from that. But with a wife and a son along with rent in San Diego to take care of, it’s something. And being the responsible degenerate gambler that I am I’m finally ready to get ahead in life. Or at least pay off my debt. So what did I do with this bag of money? I paid off our car notes. I can’t keep living the way I’ve been living the past 20 years trying to get out of a hole. To keep it on the real, I need to get ahead so I have something in the stash in case I want to go live on my homie’s farm or Mexico for a few months.

After those car notes were paid off I was staring at $25K on 5 different credit cards. But 3 of the credit cards are on some 0% APR action that I locked in to buy myself some time. By the way, why don’t they teach youngsters about debt, interest rates and all of that shit when we’re coming up? The other 2 credit cards have 20%+ APR’s which make my financial advisor just shake his head when I tell him about all of the cool 90’s shit I’m blowing my money on. But I’ve never listened to much of anything that people told me… Too many opinions… I’d rather take advise from the rap music I grew up listening to and that’s why I’m up early because my players don’t sell dope after nighttime. Smoke sumthin b*tch….

RIP to Pimp C…. You will always be my role model in life. But damn… I can’t live that Pimp C life anymore… I need to live like my homie Al who game me some of the best advise of my life. He told me that I needed to pay off all of my debt NOW and then start stacking. He told me to stop being hesitant and “Just Post It” and what does that mean exactly? It means to not hold back on who I am… Just go for it. I’ve always looked up to Al and it just took me awhile to get on his page. But I soaked game from him and for 3 years I’ve been trying to get my debt down. Now I’m down to $12K but that shit’s gonna be gone by the end of the year. You know how good it’s going to feel to hit Al up with that text telling him I’m liquid? I’m trying to get on that money flow for the first time in my damn life.

I’m not there yet though so I’m trying to take all actions to make sure it happens. I’m selling off on a lot of my sports cards that I’m taking a major L on. But it’s alright because it’s money gone at this point. I can’t look back with regrets but need to look ahead and be smarter with the cash that I’m able to bring in. And I’m over trying to ball out. While I still want that Roc-A-Fella chain I’d rather stack some chips so I could try to accumulate enough for a down payment on a modest pad in SD when this market dips. And if the market never dips it’s alright, I’ll keep making my landlord rich with this ridiculous rent. But I’ll be diversified with a tiny home out at my buddy’s farm. Give me some good peeps to spend time with and good vibes for my family and I’ll be happy. And you know we’ll be smoking some hay like the Crucial Conflict fam…

If you liked the article and want to hear more tracks like this, check out the playlist below that I just put together. It’s only an hour’s worth of songs but I can guarantee it’ll take you back to memory lane with some tracks you love and potentially some songs you’ve never heard before.