• Interviews

The Outlawz have known eachother since childhood. Their parents were invloved in the Black Power movement together. This activist mentality was passed down through genes and dead homiez. It drives their music. "I think that all our music is political, man," 22-year-old Napoleon says. "We just do it with a ruggedness, so that the rugged street niggas gonna listen to it. That's the way Pac gave it to us."

Kastro, 23, is Tupac Shakur's first cousin. Pac's moms, Black Panther alumnus Afeni Shakur, is his aunt. E.D.I's father was a close friend of Kastro's mother. The fourth Outlaw, Young Noble, 22, has been a friend of the others since their days in New Jersey. Napoleon's little brother, Kamillon, 19, is an Outlawz label-mate. The group's manager, G, is E.D.I's uncle. You get the picture. A family affair.

Sitting in the lounge of North Hollywood's Enterprise Recording Studio, sporting a red shirt and caramel baldie, Napoleon reflects on the significance of being a family full of Outlawz: "It helps the group because we're like brothers, where we can just be honest," Napoleon says. "If we fuck up, we can go to one another like, 'Yo, how this verse sound?' Everything we do is honest. We just got that relationship where we can keep it real with eachother, man. You can never go wrong when ya got some real brothers around you that's gon' pull ya coat when ya out of line, gon' tell you when something's corny."

E.D.I. (Malcolm Greenidge), 26, picks up the thought and adds his baritone to the conversation: "I feel like, us being a family, us being as tight as we are, has kept us together through a lotta shit that would've broke up another group. If we weren't this tight, niggas would've been like, 'Fuck it, I'm going solo. I can get more money without you muthafuckas.' That's how other niggas roll."

The Outlawz have stayed true despite monumental tests of family loyalty. On September 7, 1996, following a Mike Tyson fight in Las Vegas, they were in the limousine caravan riding behind Tupac when he was killed. Pac had reached back and brought along some of his oldest friends. The Outlawz recorded with him on the Me Against The World, All Eyez On Me, Supercop soundtrack and Makaveli, among many other projects. It wasn't strictly business.

Napoleon (Mutah Wasin Shabazz Beale), leaning forward on the couch, blurts a mixture of pride and hurt: "When we rolled with Pac, he didn't look at it like it was a group, he looked at it as family. He was like a father to us--and a brother and a mother at the same time. He was putting us on game. Pac would say, 'This is what we gon' do man. We gon' get somebody out the crew to become a lawyer. When we get kids, we gon' put money away for college.' Our relationship with him was way bigger than the rap game. He talked to us about investments, how you keep your family straight."

A month after Tupac's murder, Kadafi, his long-time friend ("godbrother") and an Outlawz member was accidentally shot--by Napoleon's cousin. "When Kadafi got murdered, it was by my cousin. They was both fucked up. What I hear is that my cousin had some words with Kadafi while he was plauing with a gun. The gun clicked off. To me, it's an accident; some people will say it was murder. I'm going with my cousins's theory. I flew to New Jersey, talked to my cousin and made him turn himself in. It hurt me becuase that's my family. I love the shit out of my cousin. I love the shit out of Kadafi. He brought me into this rap shit."

Napoleon's emotion-filled voice crackles in the suddenly shrinking lounge, then fades into silence. E.D.I looks at his friend then steps into the awkward space. "Napoleon's cousin accidentally murdered my cousin," he says, "He wasn't my blood cousin, but I grew up with him since the dirty-ass drawers. But he didnt' have nothing to do with that shit. Napoleon wasn't even there. He was sleeping next to me when the shit happened. So not even for one second did I think about, 'Damn, I can't fuck with this nigga'. If it would have been anybody else, it would have been an automatic beef; it would have been, like, murder, know what I mean? It was like the worst possible situation, a fuckin' nightmare... but Napoleon's still my brother."

The Outlawz circled the wagons and pushed forward. They signed with Death Row Records in March 1997. According to Outlawz attorney Steven Lowe, after the masters were delivered in January 1998, there was a "discussion" about whether the group would sign over publishing to Suge Publishing, Death Row CEO Marion "Suge" Knight's company, or retain the publishing rights themselves.

"When my clients refused to sign over their publishing, they became personas non gratis," Lowe says via phone from his Los Angeles office. "They were asked to leave the house Death Row had been renting for them. [In court documents, Death Row claims that the Outlawz were evicted because of numerous neighbor complaints and because members of the group were engaged in the selling of marijuana--calims that the collective vigorously deny.] Death Row initially refused to release the album, and when Still I Rise finally was released in December 1999, Death Row engaged in practices designed to undermine the success of the project, including refusing to promote the album and refusing to allow the Outlawz to conduct interviews to promote it themselves."

This past April, Lowe filed a $5 million federal lawsuit on behalf of the Outlawz, claiming unfair business practices and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage. On June 23, the group was granted a preliminary injunction prohibiting Death Row from interfering with their professional advancement.

Despite the legal wranglings, the Outlawz insist they have no problem with Death Row. "Ain't no beef," E.D.I says emphatically. "No beef with nobody. We handled our business face-to-face. We went to see them, sat down and talked with them. Strictly business; nothin' personal. You're not gonna hear no records with us dissing Death Row, and you're not gonna hear their artists dissing us. Strictly business."

The mythology of the gangsta rapper upsets reality in the first round every year. The real human beings never even get off the bench. There are Similac receipts, child support case numbers and light bills with 5pm deadlines inside that red or blue rag. The lumpy snot of missing fathers. We unfold its tight creases and find someone we can feel. Someone pressed by the weight of judgement in the eyes of those who love him. Someone looking for someone to show him how to be a man, to be a father. Nearly all the Outlawz, including Tupac, speak often of this void in their lives.

"I ain't have my pops," begins Noble. "My mom was there, but the first 16 years of my life, she was on drugs, know what I mean? So she wasn't really there. I loved my mom to death, but I basicly raised myself. That is the influence on my music."

Maybe it's something about late night that allows young Black men to speak this way. Self-described real niggas getting some real nigga shit off their chests. They talk into the early morning, clearing a trail through concrete childhoods. A path, not to justify ill behavior, but to understand it.

"I had my mother and father in the beginning," Napoleon slowly adds in the New York accent that surfaces when difficult subject matter comes up. "A tragedy happened when I was 3 or 4. They got murdered, know what I mean? The thing is, I didn't really trip. I grew up with my grandmother and she took me through that shit so raw."

All these Black confessions, ghetto Hail Mary's, are not meant to elicit pity. They are simply part of the process of creating bonds that can survive spilled blood and green ink on legal tender. This is how loyalty goes from slogan to way of life. And this is how one creates real family.

"I didnt' look at it like I lost nobody," Napoleon continues. "The only thing that fucked me up is I got a lot of punk-ass uncles. Never been there for me like a father. I never had a father figure until I met 'PAC.