I was making sure photo shoots went right. I was cutting people with wack verses off hot songs. He ultimately became the group’s manager. So, a lot of songs went unfinished and album release dates kept being pushed back,” Wook writes. “Niggas never used to come to the studio to record, or at least they wouldn’t come how I wanted them to come. Bay was the main artist, and Wook began as a producer, eventually shifting into more of a business role as the realities of running a record label began to sink in. But we was so deep in the streets that we didn’t take it serious at first.” “When me and my brother, Bay Dilla, started ODC, we was just looking for something legal that would provide us with the money to continue living the lifestyle we was used to living without the chance of going to prison. “Out Da Cutt was a music label that was founded in the living room of a trap house,” ODC co-founder Wook writes from Fort Worth Correctional Institution. However, their affiliation only went as far as music.) (A common misconception was that Tubby was a member of ODC and UNDB. Skitzo Scoe-now just known as Scoe-all grew up together. Lil Tee, and Rock Edward Phelps II, a.k.a. Bay Dilla, Dilla’s brother Antonio, a.k.a. Its core members consisted of siblings and childhood friends. In more ways than one, ODC was a family business. And, granted, I get it, from their perspective, are the bad guys.” They made these fools look retarded in the newspaper. “That was one thing that I had a grudge with. “ story hasn’t been written fairly,” Tubby says. A lofty drug conspiracy charge, involving 14 co-defendants, warranted the eventual arrests, searches, and seizures. The guys Tubby shared a recording studio with, the group collectively known as Out Da Cutt, weren’t so lucky when it came to the Feds knocking on their doors. Tubby got off on a technicality-the Feds put the wrong address on the warrant, rendering the raid null and void. For a long time, violence habitually followed the Alaska hip-hop scene-mostly because, by and large, the state's most prominent rappers were, in some capacity, affiliated with the Alaska drug trade. And the part that makes it worse is they could walk up to me right now and I wouldn’t know who they are.” It’s a concern that comes with the territory. “Now, I’m in a situation where these guys tried to take my life. To this day, Tubby has no recollection of the incident and therefore no idea who cut him. To this day that shit gives me fuckin’ chills.” The track “Stronger,” in which Tubby addresses his throat slashing, is just one example of the Long Island rapper's stygian influence: “I’m a one-man army / Fuck you and your thugs / You’re gonna need more than a box cutter / Better hit me with slugs.” “His verse on 'Uncommon Valor' is my favorite rap verse ever. “RA The Rugged Man is probably my favorite white rapper,” Tubby says. Then, maybe as a side effect of recalling his slashing, he starts reminiscing about his own musical influences. said I turned around-I’m blackout drunk-and I’m laughing, like, ‘what just happened?’ Meanwhile, my cheek is just hanging down.” “But then after he punched me, they both just ran, got into a vehicle and drove off. His girlfriend was one of the only witnesses to his throat slashing: “She said she saw me and this Samoan guy grabbing onto each other, and some other guy runs up behind me, and, I guess, it looked like he tried to punch me from behind,” Tubby tells me as he ashes a candy-bar-sized blunt out the window of his Chevy Silverado. But, before dropping into the music, the drugs, the conspiracy, and the arrests, he finishes explaining what happened to him on that cold night back in 2012. He explains how arrests broke those crews and careers up and how the local scene has started bouncing back in recent months, finding renewed energy. He tells me about guys like Joker the Bailbondsman and Bay Dilla, and connected crews Out Da Cutt (ODC) and Up North D-Boys (UNDB), who helped briefly put Alaska hip-hop on the map with songs like Joker's “Money In A Ziplock Bag” and Bay’s “That’s My Hood,” as well as an entrepreneurial attitude necessary for musicians coming from such a far-flung locale. In that time, he fills me in on his career-explaining how he got his start in Fairbanks, Alaska, at the age of 15, moved to Anchorage in 2000, and linked up with his longtime producer and engineer Raw Beatzz-and tells me about the rise and fall of early local rap empires, particularly one in which a group of his peers landed at the heart of the largest cocaine bust in Alaska history. Today, he’s proving this point by leaving no silence between the two of us as we drive around Anchorage for an hour and a half. When he’s on one, you can’t shut the guy up (just check his blog). Tubby is a rapper who’s known for his local hip-hop wherewithal and commentary.

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