You may have seen Compton artist JohnBoyCOOL for a couple of seconds in our Bompton episode of the Noisey show on VICELAND. He's friends with a lot of the artists and characters we met while making the film on the West side of the city—people like Lil L, Hitta J3, Jay Worthy, WS Boogie, and Earl Swavey. A lot of them are on the cover of Kendrick's To Pimp a Butterfly.His video for "OG's & OP's" (with production by The Klassiks) is premiering below, and also features cameos from the majority of the Bompton cast. Most importantly this song showcases a vocal from local legend G-Weed, who's one of the pillars of the community at the Campanella Park projects where some of this was filmed. The track features Weed telling stories of when he was 14 and a wild kid doing wild things that involve the police and firearms, which contrasts with JohnBoy's story of how life in Compton is now. It also features a hook from a special member of the community that we never got to shoot with, named Sir Rooster Chuck Rosekrans. We talked to JohnBoyCOOL to find out more.
Noisey: So how did this team up come together?
JohnBoyCOOL: Well Sir Rooster is an older, funny, eccentric character and a rapper from Campanella. Everybody like that's a rapper, right? And so he was always bugging me like: 'When you gonna put me on a song JohnBoy'?
Sounds funny, kinda?
Yeah it's funny, so I say OK turn up at the studio and we'll work something out and the day he's supposed to do it he turns up four hours late with a bottle of Seagrams vodka when I'm about to leave and he just hops in the booth and starts singing stuff like, 'I'm always turnt up! I'm always turnt up!' and it sounded kinda good. And then he's like 'OK I'm done. Gimme $20 the next time you see me!' and he bounces.
Turned out well then?
Yeah and then we got G-Weed to tell this story that happened back in 1990 when he was 14 and messing around with the cops and I put that story against my story with Sir Rooster in the middle of it all.
It sounds wild.
It's an OG passing down a lesson to a young guy, which is me and then I'm passing down a story to the even younger guys and it all works together.
There are a lot of stories that happen in Compton.
There's always some situation. Last Saturday I heard gunshots 'cos I'm right in the heart of it every day. Hearing violence every night. Some people got shot right next to my baby mom's house, she stays on Rosecrans Blvd and somebody killed somebody from their own hood.
This track is from JohnBoyCOOL's upcoming tape MindGames&MixedSignals coming out January. Check out the video below.
Noisey: So how did this team up come together?
JohnBoyCOOL: Well Sir Rooster is an older, funny, eccentric character and a rapper from Campanella. Everybody like that's a rapper, right? And so he was always bugging me like: 'When you gonna put me on a song JohnBoy'?
Sounds funny, kinda?
Yeah it's funny, so I say OK turn up at the studio and we'll work something out and the day he's supposed to do it he turns up four hours late with a bottle of Seagrams vodka when I'm about to leave and he just hops in the booth and starts singing stuff like, 'I'm always turnt up! I'm always turnt up!' and it sounded kinda good. And then he's like 'OK I'm done. Gimme $20 the next time you see me!' and he bounces.
Turned out well then?
Yeah and then we got G-Weed to tell this story that happened back in 1990 when he was 14 and messing around with the cops and I put that story against my story with Sir Rooster in the middle of it all.
It sounds wild.
It's an OG passing down a lesson to a young guy, which is me and then I'm passing down a story to the even younger guys and it all works together.
There are a lot of stories that happen in Compton.
There's always some situation. Last Saturday I heard gunshots 'cos I'm right in the heart of it every day. Hearing violence every night. Some people got shot right next to my baby mom's house, she stays on Rosecrans Blvd and somebody killed somebody from their own hood.
This track is from JohnBoyCOOL's upcoming tape MindGames&MixedSignals coming out January. Check out the video below.