Inside The Mind Of 03 Greedo

“No days off,” 03 Greedo says definitively, hopping into a car in Philadelphia. He’s almost at the midpoint of a massive, month-and-a-half-long tour, and I’ve managed to get him on the phone on a day without a show. There’s a lot of noise in the background: the chatter of his team, the low hum of nearby traffic, the beeps of a backup guidance system. “If we don’t got a show, we’re shooting videos and shit. I got a lot of artists, so I don’t waste no time. Every day.” When I ask how he maintains that energy, he explains, “Music is what I do for fun. The work is never work.”

Plenty of ink has been spilled about Greedo’s indefatigable grind, much of it focused on the marathon of 12-hour sessions during each of the last 60 days before the start of his prison bid on June 27, 2018. But Greedo’s prolificacy predates that rush. A scan through the YouTube page for Greedy Giddy, the moniker he used up until 2016, reveals an already robust collection of mixtapes and loosies. Internet sleuths have tried to piece together Greedo’s entire body of work, but gathering every scrap he’s released across various streaming platforms and archival sites is a near-impossible task. While serving what was to be a 20-year sentence for gun and drug possession, some of the fruits of that pre-incarceration torrent of creativity — purportedly more than 3,000 songs — popped up at regular intervals.

After his release in January 2023, Greedo immediately returned to the studio, with neither his creative desire nor ability diminished in the least. That year, he put out four projects, including the 33-song opus Halfway There. He was on pace to have a slightly quieter 2024, culminating with October’s Hella Greedy, a full-length collaboration with Detroit producer Helluva. The two worked on Hella Greedy for three days in Houston while Greedo lived in a halfway house after his release, and later finalized the record in Detroit. It’s a dazzling album, a swirling blend of syncopated Michigan thump and Greedo’s purple-hued, pan-regional approach. Then, a week after our phone conversation, he surprise-dropped the staggering 36-song mixtape Crip, I’m Sexy, a mellifluous Molotov cocktail reminiscent of his anarchic late 2010’s period. It solidifies Greedo’s status as a peripatetic auteur, a deeply influential voice able to pull any sound into his orbit to remake in his own image.

There’s something otherworldly about 03 Greedo’s music, a consistency that feels anointed, preternatural. The fact that he’s potentially thousands of songs deep with vanishingly few duds feels nigh impossible, but it’s a testament to how deeply he lives his craft. Greedo seems to find inspiration any and everywhere, keeping his mind open and available to channel whatever frequencies he encounters. He’s always in search of an ineffable feeling, like a runner’s high or meditative state, and is quick to move on if what he’s working on doesn’t provide that transcendent quality. Listen to Greedo’s Phil Collins-esque melody on “Kill Me,” an early single from Hella Greedy, or the gorgeous, melancholy crooning on “Empty Pill Bottles & Bottega” from Crip, I’m Sexy. Now, imagine watching him lay those vocals in a matter of mere minutes, immediately pivoting to the raspy, hard-nosed verses of “If I’m Scared” or “Good Timing.” The key to it all, according to Greedo, is to stay attuned to the universe’s signals. “I just wake up and try some shit,” he says coolly. “I try to stay tapped in, and it’s been working for a while now.”

Are you a spiritual person?

03 GREEDO: I am definitely religious, but I don’t really like to talk about it too much because people be weirded out. I know I’m tapped into the universe in a deeper way than a lot of other people. I wish I could put my finger on exactly what it is and what I’m channeling, but I can’t. But it be fire! Even when I listen to other people’s music, if I really like the song, I can tell that it has — I don’t really know how to explain it. It’s like a sensation you’d get if you did drugs.

I’ve read before that you freestyle everything when you get into the booth, and I’m curious how it relates to that feeling. How conscious are you when you’re freestyling? Are you in a flow state?

03 GREEDO: I don’t play the piano, right? But, have you ever watched somebody play the piano and be like, “How the fuck…?” A person could walk in the room and be 60 years old, like, “Yeah, I used to play the piano,” and just start going off. So, I guess I’ve just recorded so much in my life that it’s automatic. Super, super easy. We were just recording in Atlanta and made six bangers, and the speed that I was coming up with the material was way faster than when I first came home. I’ve been out for like two years, and it only takes me about three sessions to do a tape. I don’t literally have millions of songs, but I got millions of songs, you know what I mean? It’s like painting; you just do all types of shit. Sometimes, I freestyle a whole song, and sometimes I punch. You go in the booth, turn the lights off, and just go. Everything’s an experiment with music.

Do you keep any notes? Like, voice notes for melodies or scraps of verses?

03 GREEDO: Sometimes, but not really. The music won’t be fun if I have something before I record it. When I turn [the beat] on, I gotta do it right there. That’s why I be trying to tell people that they should shoot videos of songs that they make the day that they make it. You’re still excited about it, and you still know all the lyrics. Once you get away from it, you done made so many other songs or did so much other shit, it’s not even the same excitement [behind it].

People want to see me enjoy myself. They want to see people enjoying themselves to my music because that’s how they originally jumped on my shit. [Folks] saw girls shaking to it, people driving and just living to it, and that’s what made people attach to it. And once they saw the video for “Mafia Business,” I looked like the Grape Street they could come and actually meet.

Now it’s past that surface stage, and they don’t really care where I’m from no more. It’s just like, “We want Greedo the Artist,” so why would I keep on talking so negatively on my albums? I still get on someone’s and talk my shit on features and Drummer Gang albums. But for what I want to make — you know, authentic pieces of art — why would I do that? I ain’t mad; I’m happy as fuck. I can’t even come up with no mad shit. If it’s not fun, I just put on another beat — and my beat selection is immaculate, so it never takes long to find a new one.

What do you find appealing about working with only one producer on a project?

03 GREEDO: That’s what Michael Jackson and all them folks were doing. The only Usher album I really know word for word is Confessions with Jermaine Dupri. [Usher] did the whole shit with Jermaine Dupri, and it’s his biggest thing on the urban charts. He might have something bigger, but I don’t know none of that shit. [Starts singing “OMG”] “Oh, my God” — see, I don’t know none of that shit! I know that Confessions. That’s the shit I wanna do.

I don’t always like joint albums, though, because it stops me — I have so much new music, but since my label was already investing in this Helluva album and it takes a process to get everything together, I couldn’t drop my shit that’s produced by Cash Cobain, or the shit produced by whoever else, you know what I’m saying?

How did you first link up with Helluva?

03 GREEDO: He pulled up on me when I was in the halfway house. I had a pass to go to work like everyone else, but luckily, my job on paper was being signed to Sony and Alamo. So, I would go to Sugar Hill Studios in Houston, and he would just slide down there so we could work. I was only with him for two or three days in Houston. Some time had passed, and they were still working on so much paperwork — or whatever they be doing — so I met him again in Detroit to put the finishing touches on it.

What were those Detroit sessions like?

03 GREEDO: I’m tapped in with the world, so when I go to other states, the way that it feels inspires me to make different kinds of music. I make some of my best songs on the road. I went to Detroit to absorb some of that real Michigan energy. Detroit, Flint, Compton, Watts, we all connected, so it’s a Cali-Michigan convention; we link up because they’re all similar environments and attitudes. The way that we rap now is inspired by the Detroit [and Flint] sound. So, if I was going to add that into my shit, I wanted to be respectful and do an album with one of their biggest producers, and I wanted to put some Detroit and Michigan artists on there.

Do you have a favorite city to record or a place you feel most inspired?

03 GREEDO: You know what I be trying to tell people lately is that “the best,” “the favorite,” “the top five,” all that shit is just confusing. Fuck all that. I’m not the type of person where that matters. I like all types of shit — I like recording in New York, but I like being in the A, too. I like being at my house, looking at the ocean. There is no favorite anything. Aston Martin is my favorite car, but again, when it comes to musical shit? No favorites.

I don’t think anybody was ever trying to say that Queen is better than Elton John. It’s just certain times when people do that, and then it becomes a thing. The Michael Jackson and Prince [rivalry] was a real thing, but nobody’s ever like, “Who’s better between the Weeknd and Future?” Nobody gives a fuck; just a few people make it that way. That’s why that Drake and Future shit, if it was fake, worked so well. And they say hip-hop was down because that’s what America feeds into. I know in other countries, the culture is different. I really be getting tired out here, especially since I’m from California. Our state is in a bad state of emergency right now.

How do you mean?

03 GREEDO: California been cooked. I’m not in the trenches [now], but people from there, or people connected to the streets, or people with a past — any of that shit — they’re cooked. They’re thinking wrong. The strippers don’t even have cars in California. How does that work? How the fuck you butt naked, and there’s no car? You’re naked! And they’ve messed up our weed because they came out there with all that sprayed shit and all that funny ass, stupid packaging. So now, it’s just a finesse; it’s not the Mecca like it was. Cali is cooked cooked.

At the end of the day, why do people live in one place their whole life? People think they can’t even get a passport. N***a, yes, you can! You know how many people don’t get their license in California? I’m gonna move to show all my Californians the next stage — what you do when you get it. Live life, go to these islands, get on these yachts. I want to experience life to the fullest without going against my morals. You just gotta get outside and experience shit.

If you could go anywhere right now, where would you go?

03 GREEDO: Italy. I’ve been fiending to go to Italy forever. I think about how the culture of my neighborhood is inspired by the mafia and shit like that; I’ve dug even more deep into my fascination with Italian food — anything Italian. I got a fucking problem. That’s why my name Greedy: When I do one thing, I overdo it. If I beef with a n***a, he gonna get 40 fucking posts on the day that he bothered me. Even every time I have a trend — like Wolf Of Grape Street: That shit was supposed to be based on Wolf Of Wall Street. And then the kids in LA took it to more of a Halloween-themed shit, and I’m still the Wolf to this day. That was just supposed to be one mixtape! That shit became a whole persona.

Do you see yourself carrying the mantle of departed California rap innovators like Drakeo, Ketchy, and Young Slo-Be? I’m curious how you feel about building upon their legacies or if you feel you’re doing something adjacent, or even completely different.

03 GREEDO: I just feel like it’s my duty to do anything for anybody in the music world, especially if they’re from the left side of the country. Not just Cali, but Oregon, Seattle — we have an artist from Seattle in Drummer Gang. Rest in peace, Quincy Jones — I’ve always said that I want to be the hip-hop Quincy and executive produce records, so that’s still my goal. They gonna have to come see me in whatever country I end up living in, though, because, honestly, due to my criminal record, on or off parole, I just can’t really do much out here without getting into some more trouble.

How do you help develop somebody? What do you do with the raw materials of an artist that you sign?

03 GREEDO: First, you gotta respect what they’re already doing. You can’t go in there like, “Oh, I can make you better.” But I can show them some of my techniques in the booth. They need to see the type of cars and chains a n***a got to know it can get like that. I’m an authentic person, and I’ve really been through some actual things that they’re used to seeing, like, you know, jail time, or anything that they can relate to from the past.

So, artists like Babyfxce E from Flint, or G6reddot from Florida. I like their shit. I get them working on beats that they wouldn’t normally work on, [connect them with] producers they couldn’t get in touch with. Even before I left, I remember the last day I was out, I was in a mansion with Lil Pump, and he hadn’t met Lil Uzi yet. I called Uzi over, and Uzi jumped on his album right then and there. I just like doing shit like that. I feel like that’s my duty. I never saw nobody do that on our side. If the artists from California put out artists from California, we would have had the industry a long time ago. Even the Mustards and the YGs and that camp — we all had to crawl our way up there.

Why do you think the West Coast has less reach than the East Coast or the South?

03 GREEDO: The labels and everybody just be saying and doing dumb ass shit. I make a point of going to all these places that California people don’t usually go to and building these relationships. I sit in meetings like, “I don’t like those types of beats you keep sending. I’m not from fucking LA, come find out who the fuck I am.” There’s a low ceiling for California artists, and they change what they mean by West Coast artists [all the time]. Sometimes, the West Coast artist is just Cali n***as. Sometimes, West Coast artists are only LA n***as. Sometimes, the West Coast means n***as is from [Arizona], Seattle, whatever.

That’s interesting because it seems like so much of the attention in rap media has been going towards more regional scenes, and you seem to be saying that that only matters to a certain degree.

03 GREEDO: I don’t know where Frank Sintra’s from, you know? I don’t know where Stevie Wonder’s from. I just fuck with their shit. Why the fuck do it matter where an artist is from? Treating artists differently because of what region they’re raised in is crazy. And n***as be saying dumb shit, like, “Oh, yeah, they ain’t gonna hear that shit past California.” What? How? I don’t understand that. Why would you say that? When certain California artists get big, they stop considering them West Coast artists. I guess they don’t consider Tyler, The Creator and Doja Cat West Coast artists. Katy Perry was on American Idol for years — she’s from California. Gwen Stefani, she’s from California, bro.

People just be saying shit, but instead of being mad or trying to be violent to people or diss them, I’m gonna just show it with the work. I’m definitely one of the best musicians ever. People get it faster now, but that’s why it’s called creep music: You’ll get it some years later. “Substance” took like three years to catch, and when it caught, it caught. It’s over with.

You’ve talked before about buying a house and living more off the grid, in seclusion, out in the country. Do you still want to put that kind of distance between yourself and other people?

03 GREEDO: Not really in the country, but somewhere pretty. Man, I’ve had a rough ass life. N***as don’t really be realizing, like, I had a life sentence, and I’m back. And they took my sidekick while I was gone, so it’s like, leave me alone! I want to chill, man! I want to be out there with some bronzed, tanned titties. You ever been around some bronzed, tanned titties? Why the fuck is everybody just sitting at their house? Even the people that raised us — the babysitters, the cousins, the aunties, some of the mothers — they was just in the house, watching TV. Hell nah, not me. Why wouldn’t I want to be somewhere where it’s beautiful? I’ve been out of the country before, and it felt like bliss. I want to make movies and find new, creative ways to release my music so people say I’m an artist — not just a musician. I just want to show people like, ” I’m a Basquait, I’m a Picasso,” type shit.

So, not necessarily a life of solitude but a life fully dedicated to art and experience. That’s the goal.

03 GREEDO: Right, right! House painted all crazy on the inside. I want to just make enough money to keep making my art, but one day, build a big ass palace-type compound for my family. And just live. Get the fuck away from it all. Grow some fresh fruit, run in the morning. Get one of them big-ass Tibetan mastiffs, million dollars a pup. Never looking back.

If you get to that point where you’ve built this palace, would you ever stop making music?

03 GREEDO: I don’t think I even ever started. I was always musical before I even recorded. The music’s always been there.