Image via Complex Original
Recently, a video hit YouTube showing a rap battle in Compton, California. During the battle, one rapper pulls out a syringe and injects a liquid assumed to be heroin. Nearly half the audience members in the video raised their phones and began recording. Some cheered. Others shouted, “That’s ratchet,” or “That’s gangsta.” When the video surfaced, it immediately started making rounds on the Internet.
For L.A.-based battle rapper Cadalack Ron, a.k.a. Robert Paulson, hard drugs are nothing new. He goes by aliases such as The Methadone Don and Black Tar Rock Star and he’s commented throughout his battle career on a life of hard drug use. Yet, there’s something about a man taking out a syringe in a room full of spectators and shooting up that’s startling—even in battle rap, where startling is the norm.
Lately, the niche of battle rap has been garnering more attention thanks to a forthcoming Eminem-produced reality show. Antics, stunts, and spectacles have pervaded the sport. One of battling’s most viral videos, the famous Math Vs. Dose battle, consists of a punch thrown mid-round followed by a melee. Battle rapper Daylyt has made his initial mark on the battle scene almost exclusively via spectacle. Memorable Daylyt stunts include wearing masks, dressing as Batman, and stripping naked.
In battle rap anything you say or do can and will be used against you. Rappers create personae and characters to carry the flack they absorb in their battles. Usually these characters are infallible: They deal drugs, have guns bigger than yours, and all of them have slept with a woman you love. Cadalack Ron has taken a different approach. His character is a white-trash junkie who’s done every drug in the book. For Ron, airing these shameful truths acts as a kind of shield. It’s a risky strategy, and it doesn't always work.
Cadalack Ron’s next record, Krokodil Dundee (named after the especially pernicious opiate derivative that rots the skin of its users), will be released on Full Psycho Records. I caught up with him to find out exactly what happened in the now infamous heroin video. According to Cadalack Ron, he wasn’t so much showing a moment of weakness, as making a point. Click through for the interview.
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What happened that day? Was it planned?
“I wouldn’t say it was planned. I didn’t know the situation I was walking into. It started as a battle I didn't want to do. This guy Syfer1 had started trolling me on Twitter, saying I was a piece of shit, this and that. Finally I said, ‘If you want to battle me, lets do it. I’ll come battle you in your backyard. I don't care.’ Somehow he talked to some janky promoter who put enough money behind it to get me to come down there. So it's just this dude with 40 of his friends, and I don't care, that kind of thing doesn’t get me shook or anything, but these kids were just so thirsty to use me as a stepping-stone.
“In 2010 I was being paid well for battles and being flown around the country. So then these smaller leagues start hitting me up and they’d lowball the hell out of me, and occasionally I’d say yes. With this kid Sypher1, the money was decent enough, but I didn't like his approach. I didn't like the way he came at me, and I was just unmotivated about the battle, I kept putting off writing it. So I got there and went inside, and I already had the heroin rig in my pocket. I figured, since he had all these people with him and I was alone, I had it in case they tried to jump me. People tend to get scared when you pull out a syringe, like, ‘Oh shit! He's got AIDS! Watch out.’
"So, I did the battle and I wasn't doing well. I hadn't prepared and I didn't really care. After the second round I turned around. I had a cup in my hand full of fruit punch Gatorade. I turned around, took out the syringe and pulled some of the liquid into the syringe. Then I pulled up my sleeve, and injected a little bit of Gatorade. Then I did kind of a dramatization of what I figured they'd think someone would look like if they shot up. So then the battle was over and I chopped it up with a couple of people afterwards, took some pictures and whatnot, and that was it. I didn't really think much of it.”
How did it go over?
“At first, only a couple people tweeted about it. Then a video dropped and suddenly all these people were talking about it, magazines, and other rappers, people saying it was shifty or whatever. Everybody’s calling me for an interview. What people don't know is when I started battling in 2009 I was completely sober. During that time, all the other battlers would come at me with drug-related insults, and they were true, but I was actually sober when everyone was calling me a junkie. Then I'd relapse and do a couple of really bad battles. It got to the point where people could tell the difference between sober Ron, and fucked up Ron.”
What was the reaction like in the room that day?
“These bush leagues are pathetic. What’s funny is it wasn't even heroin. These fucking idiots have no talent and want to capitalize on somebody's downfall. I mean people were cheering and shit. They’re acting like that's the most excitement they've had in their lives and the sad part is probably half of them have relatives in jail behind this shit. The truth is, I'm not clean. I'm not in peak physical condition. I cut off all my hair. I’m skinny. But nobody there came up to me at that battle and was like, “Hey, man you, all right?”
Is there a connection between your life as a battle rapper and your drug use?
“The fact is battle rappers are real people, but we lose ourselves so much in the characters we create. When I come home at night, sometimes I can't take off the Cadalack Ron mask. My chick will be like, ‘That's not Robert, that's Cadalack Ron. He's a piece of shit.’ Cadalack Ron is a scumbag fuckin’ white trash junkie. But that's shtick. Although it wasn't my direct contention to show people this schizophrenic relationship battlers have to their characters, that's what has happened. The lines get blurred. Then I realized I could use it as an opportunity.”
So what did you want to come of this?
"The whole thing was basically a performance art piece. I know there's no way to not sound pretentious when I say this, but I consider myself more of a performance artist than a battle rapper. I had this one battle with a guy named AB Hoggish, and I came out with my head bleeding and there was blood all over my shirt, with no explanation. Everybody wanted to know why my head was bleeding. Afterwards everyone was asking me why, and I kept saying, ‘Don't worry about it.’ Then after the battle that's what everybody was talking about, all over Twitter. Compared to this, the blood thing was nothing. You grow up seeing Necro and Eminem and Ill Bill, but dude, there's a lot of people really going through it. I'm not saying I did this to shed light on drug addiction, because that's not what it was about at all. But it is to say, this is real, this is how some of us really live. I may not have been shooting up at the battle, but I definitely was getting high earlier that day. It wasn't heroin though, I haven't done heroin in two weeks.”
Can you tell me about your background?
"I'm from Echo Park, which is right next to Melrose, and when I grew up it was all graffiti and hip-hop and that was just how my style developed. My father was head of the west coast ad department for the Economist and a published novelist. My mother is a screenwriter and she was a staff writer for Sabon Entertainment back when they did Power Rangers. When I was a kid, I got to be an extra on the first season of Power Rangers. My family is ‘in the business’ so to speak. My brother is an actor. He's been in all kinds of stuff.”
What do you think made you start using again?
“Complacency and a lack of gratitude for life. I have to appreciate it. I have to remember to appreciate it. I'm not clean now. I can't pretend that I am. It's tough man because all of my family has seen the video. Every other phone call I get is somebody telling me to go to rehab. I'm finishing a record then I'm going to take it easy for a while and get my shit together.”
Do you want to be clean?
“I really do want to stop. I need to get healthier and I'm with a woman that doesn't want me to be on the hardcore street drugs. I have a tendency to lie about being on them because I don't want her to reject me, but she always knows. I can't function on heroin. For a long time I thought I could do meth and function, but the sleep deprivation would get to me and I'd start loosing my mind and hallucinating. I always have to take it to the edge. I overdose, wake up, and keep going.”
Do you think this stunt will be used against you in future battles?
“Probably. People used to say I was racist in battles. But every battle you watch has racism. There’s a double standard in battling. You can't get mad if someone says, ‘Fuck your dead mother’ in a battle. You can't let it get under your skin. I had a guy named Pariah tell me, ‘I heard you shot your kid's mom up with heroin when she was three months pregnant.’ And I looked at the camera and I said, ‘No, she was six months pregnant.’ But it's true. There's no shame in my game. I'm not saying I'm proud of that. But that's me. It's my life. I live this shit. I'm a con artist. I'm a petty thief. I'm a gang member. This is what it is.”
Could anything stop you from using drugs?
“I like the effect produced by drugs. I like taking shit to the edge, and I like feeling fucked up. I always have. Dirtbag Dan talked to me about going down to Peru. He said he wanted to fund an ayahuasca journey or an Ibogaine trip. And I said, ‘Fuck yeah, man.’ Dan is a real dude. He walks it like he talks it. He'll do that. I'm not opposed to it. At the end of the day those five years that I was sober were pretty fucking good, but first I want to write the darkest thing I 've ever written in my life.”
Did you worry about your parents seeing the video before you did?
“I could tell my parents it was Gatorade, but they probably wouldn't believe me. Anyone with any knowledge of heroin would know that it wasn't heroin. First off there was almost no liquid in the shot, and you can tell by where I put the needle that it wasn't in a vein. Still, my brother kind of disowned me. My other brother said if I wanted to go to rehab, he'd get me bed. Today I don't I want to go to rehab. I want to finish the record. If you follow the history of my music it goes from Black Tar Rock Star, to Dead and 27 to The Last Known Photograph of Robert Paulson, each time it's just one step closer. I'm just putting it all out there. I'm very literal.”
Do you have a death wish?
“I haven't overdosed since February. I haven't done heroin in two weeks, but I came pretty close to overdosing last week. Who knows? I tell everybody that I'm recording with to make sure the stuff comes out in case anything happens to me. On any given day I might not make it back. I have a six-year-old son. A lot of people like to throw that in my face, like, ‘What about your kid?’ Every time I say goodbye to him, I treat it like the last time I'm going to see him. I tell him, ‘Remember more than anything in this world that your father loves you.’ I hope that I don't die. But would I be surprised if I do? No.”
