Bobby Shmurda just had his most extensive interview since coming home. Sitting down with Maino on the Kitchen Talk podcast, Bobby dives into everything one would want to know about the GS9 rapper, who recently came home after doing six years of a seven-year prison sentence.
The 26-year-old rapper seems to be in a mature place, as he repeatedly references trying to set a positive example for the youth, and discusses the foolishness of artists deliberately getting into trouble once they achieve fame. Throughout the 90-minute conversation, he talks with Maino about the limited options many people feel in poverty, and how that can manifest the arduous lifestyle he once lived.
Bobby talks about it all with Maino, from his prison stint, to the making of the “Hot Nigga” video (which almost didn’t happen), to his exploits since coming home (including “orgies” and “shrimp sandwiches”). The interview veers from insightful to poignant to hilarious, making for a comprehensive discussion between two artists who met in 2005 when Maino used to come on Bobby’s block and give the kids game. Now they’re giving the next generation some jewels together. Here are six things we learned from the conversation.
Some fans may scratch their heads at why his stage name is Bobby when his real name is Ackquille Pollard and his nickname is Chewy (which he says was given to him when he was still teething as a kid). He tells Maino the name change was simply about choosing the “most civilian name he could think of,” because Chewy was infamous in Brooklyn and he was trying to distance himself from that reputation. He jokes to Maino about people in his neighborhood talking to him about what Chewy did in the streets, not realizing that Bobby was actually who they were referring to. Hence the random choice of “Bobby,” which he says sounded like “a white boy name.”
Fame came really fast for Bobby, as he explains to Maino. He was still transitioning out of the streets as his music career took off, and he admits that in some ways he was initially reticent to it.
He tells Maino that he recorded his first rhyme in a friend’s studio after running from cops in his neighborhood. He was still getting into mischief in the streets even after recording “Hot Nigga,” and didn’t realize how the song and video were blowing up. He tells Maino a story about realizing the song was serious when a car pulled up and he was about to reach for a gun, but the passengers ended up being fans who recognized him from “Hot Nigga” and asked him to do the Shmoney dance.
That moment inspired him to fully devote himself to music, but he says he still felt “paranoid” because he and some of his comrades knew they had been under investigation by the NYPD since 2010. He recalls actual cops from his neighborhood, who dealt with him before rap, surveilling him in New York.
The crew was arrested in December 2014, which Bobby thought was “extra early,” simply because they wanted to get him before he became too famous. He says he ultimately only had “five months” of fame before the indictment came down.
Like so many great things, the “Hot Nigga” song and video seemed to happen spontaneously. Bobby says he was on YouTube searching for beats, came across the beat that eventually became “Hot Nigga,” then freestyled it the next day in the studio. He was unaware that Lloyd Banks had previously used the beat for “Jackpot.”
The story behind the video is even more happenstance, as he recalls friends “harassing him” about shooting a video at a time when, as he jokes, he was thinking about “[taking] somethin’ out of town.”
But he says the friends “bribed” him with the promise of weed and a shopping trip, and he ultimately agreed to do the video. The actual shoot happened days later and out of the blue, as his friends were hanging on the block and randomly got the urge to shoot. The rest is history.
Bobby says that the New York prosecutors who sentenced him and his co-defendants pulled a dirty move and “leveraged” Rowdy Rebel’s sentence to make him take a plea deal for seven years. He tells Maino that they wanted him to do extensive time so badly that they said, “We’re gonna give Rowdy 12 if you don’t cop out with him.” Bobby could have initially been home in 2017 or 2018 if he didn’t take the plea, but says he did so out of his Brooklyn nature to “jump in front of bullets for ours.”
Bobby goes in-depth about his time in jail. He says that he had previously been incarcerated, but this time “felt different” because he was a famous artist. He recalls women COs who knew him from previous bids “slapping him” out of tough love because they were disappointed in him seemingly squandering his fame. There was also a letter from a young child who told him to “behave so he can put some more music out,” which he says touched him and made him reflect on how he could come home and help youth break the cycle of violence.
He was also locked up with infamous Queens drug dealer Lorenzo “Fat Cat” Nichols in Clinton Correctional Facility, and credits Nichols with keeping him out of trouble and once grabbing him to keep him from doing something that would have resulted in more time. While he was incarcerated, he says he read books about real estate and the music industry in an effort to “know the game more.”
Fellow artists Maino and Jadakiss visited Bobby while he was incarcerated, and he also saluted Meek Mill and Quavo for supporting him throughout the prison stint.
Bobby tells Maino he’s been in the studio “every day” since he’s been home, and has been working with several artists. Near the end of the episode, he divulges that he has records with Maino, Quavo, DaBaby, 42 Dugg, Lil Uzi Vert, Rowdy Rebel, and also mentions a “Jay” before the conversation transitions around the 1:19:15 mark. Unfortunately, the hosts don’t ask which Jay he was referring to, but it seems likely that he was referring to fellow Brooklynite Jay-Z (who he says he has talked to on the phone since coming home). “It’s going to be a hot summer,” he says.
