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Mr. Pookie's pains and gains
HIP-HOP: Dallas artist hits the charts, says he's learned from his stint in jail11:04 AM CST on Thursday, December 8, 2005
By THOR CHRISTENSEN / The Dallas Morning NewsIn a perfect world, Mr. Pookie would be celebrating right now. Instead, the Dallas rapper is locked up in Lew Sterrett Justice Center, serving 20 days for pot possession at the very moment his career is taking off."I can't believe they convicted me. It was just a blunt," he said last week, the day before he went to jail. "They should be spending their time catching real criminals."Maybe so, but there's a potential upside to Mr. Pookie's time behind bars. In the image-conscious world of rap, jail time is a badge of street credibility on par with getting shot – a topic that, unfortunately, he also knows about firsthand.From a marketing standpoint, his latest jail stint could be good publicity for his thug-life hit single "Don't Test Us" – which hit No. 10 on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop sales chart and is now at No. 15 – and his upcoming CD, Return of tha Rippla, due out Jan. 24."I won't say jail is good, but I guess it's kind of good that I've been in there and I know how it works and I can tell 'em what goes on," he says. "It's experience."And for better or worse, experience is something Mr. Pookie has plenty of.Born Bryan Jones 27 years ago, he grew up in Pleasant Grove listening to the Fat Boys and LL Cool J and dreaming of being a rapper. Assigned to write a poem about the ocean, he stood up in his fourth-grade class and rapped about what it's like to be a shark."I got a standing ovation, which tripped me out. I thought, 'I should do more of this.' "So he did. While attending Berkner High School in Richardson, he began recording – at first, at a local Incredible Universe electronics store where customers could cut a song for $2 a pop. Later, he guest-rapped on a friend's CD, and in 2000, he scored a regional hit with "Crook for Life" from his debut CD, Tha Rippla.Mr. Pookie went national last year after teaming up with his Dallas pal Mr. Lucci for My Life, which hit No. 59 on the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop album sales chart. The duo signed a deal with the New York-based Boss Entertainment, which is releasing Return of tha Rippla , followed by Mr. Lucci's The Golden Child.But as Mr. Pookie makes his name as a rapper, he's well-known to local law-enforcement officials. He admits he used to sell pot (but says he quit dealing years ago), and his lengthy criminal record includes an arrest for assault and convictions for pot possession."The longest I spent in jail was a month and a half for a weed case a long time ago," he says. "I learned back then jail is not for me."But he continued to run into trouble. In November 2004, he was shot during a 2 a.m. robbery at a Lake Highlands-area apartment complex in an incident that left one man dead. Mr. Pookie says he was an innocent bystander hanging out at a friend's apartment."When one dude walked out the door, another pushed the door open and said, 'Everybody don't move!' and the dude ended up shooting me," he says. "I put up my arm to block it, which probably saved me. It went through my left arm, into my chest and out my back – but it didn't hit nothin' vital. The Lord saved me."To some fans, the shooting gives Mr. Pookie legitimacy as a gangsta rapper – which is fine, he says, as long as people realize he's only describing the crime he sees, not encouraging it. He says his thug days are history."I'm talking about the 'hood from my point of view – the fun parts and the stuff I was doing back then, but also the bad consequences of what happened to me," he says. "I'm not glorifying it. I'm saying, 'You don't want this to happen to you.' "Yet he admits some fans "think we still do this stuff, and that's the big misconception. I ask them, 'Did you actually hear the music? You must not be paying attention to the whole song.' "But it's often a blurry line between fan perception and artist intention. His new tune "Ride, Roll and Smoke" could be interpreted as an ode to getting high, but Mr. Pookie insists he's no longer pro-ganja and he doesn't want his four children with partner Nakedra Smith influenced by the song."The biggest mistake I made was 'Smoke One,' on my first album, which was glorifying marijuana. My kids got a whiff of that song, and my daughter likes it, but I don't want her singing it," he says. "It paints a picture I don't want her to see."I got a whole new vibe going on with me now."Fans might have to wait awhile to hear the new vibe show up in his lyrics, but he's working on it."I'll be locked down for about 20 days with just a pen and a pad," Mr. Pookie says. "I'll have a lot of time to come up with ideas." http://www.nimbitmusic.com/mrpookiemrlucci
