Sacramento may be the capitol of one of the largest states in the country, but it’s far from being the hub of California’s hip-hop scene.
Over the years, rappers like Brotha Lynch Hung and C-Bo have briefly put the city on the map, but Oak Park native Timothy Patterson, better known by his stage name, Mozzy, is quickly becoming Sac’s rap king.
To better understand what life is like for an up-and-coming rapper in a time when a tweet or YouTube video can spark street violence, ABC10 embedded with Mozzy and his crew for a few days as they made their way from Los Angeles to play a show in Humboldt County.
Saying Mozzy’s had a good run the past couple years would be an understatement. Since 2015, he’s put out 17 albums and collaborations, and has drawn the attention of critics from Rolling Stone and Complex Magazine, who’ve hailed him as a “shooting star.”
But is he the best rapper to come out of Sacramento?
“Period,” Mozzy says, sitting on stoop the steps of an abandoned warehouse in West Oakland. “Nobody out of my jurisdiction's doper than me. Ain't nobody out of Sacramento doper than me. This ain't nothing new, like, I been the dopest [expletive] in my region.”
Judging by his swift rise to stardom, it’s entirely possible Mozzy’s reign extends far beyond northern California, but up until recently, run-ins with the law, and a stint in state prison, kept him from leaving the Golden State.
In March 2014, as part of an ongoing feud between the Oak Park Bloods and the STARZ gang,
Mozzy posted a music video called "I'm Just Being Honest," which called out a rapper allegedly affiliated with the STARZ. According to court documents, that video ultimately led to a number of shootings between the two gangs in the weeks to follow. On March 21, Mozzy was picked up by
Sacramento Police and found in possession of a .40-caliber handgun.
At the time of his arrest, Mozzy was already on probation for a prior weapons conviction he received in 2008. He’d ultimately plead guilty to gun possession and was sentenced to two years in San Quentin.
That’s when the letters started coming in.
“I was getting letters and they was telling me I was poppin’,” Mozzy said. “They was tellin' me my videos was doing tickets, easily. They tellin' me that the checks, the CD baby checks, is rolling in. I got they attention, you know what I'm saying? So when I get out this time I'm fiendin' to blitz the market, I'm fiendin' to blitz the market. Chow time. Feel me? Soon as they cracked the gates it was nothing but bite-down.”
Simply put, now that Mozzy was out of jail, he wasn't going to let anything get in his way of making a name for himself.
Despite what you think about his music, and its often raw, unapologetic depiction of gang life, there’s no denying Mozzy's work ethic. If he’s not in the studio, he’s shooting a music video, and if he’s not doing that, he’s playing a show or promoting his brand, which explains why he’s been able to amass the amount of work he’s recorded over the past couple years.
While his prolificacy is impressive, we were curious as to how a city like Sacramento was able to inspire the violence Mozzy raps about. When Chicago rapper Chief Keef says “I’m from Chiraq where they be killing y’all,” it makes sense -- 746 people were murdered in Chicago in 2016. But when Mozzy raps “Gangland landscape it’s murder where I live,” we wanted to find out if a city like Sacramento, particularly Mozzy’s native Oak Park, has a underreported gang problem.
Jim Hernandez, a professor and gang expert at Sacramento State, points to the construction of Highway 50 and 99 as one of the sources that transformed Oak Park from a once thriving neighborhood into a hotbed of gang activity.
“It was traditional community, long-term community,” Hernandez said. “But then they started building Highway 99, it became a freeway, so basically what you had done was cut-off Oak Park from the rest of the city. It just became kind of a separate world.”
Hernandez said there are many reasons why such environments produce gangs, and it all comes back to an embedded culture of survival.
“(The gang’s) all you got,” Hernandez said. “You don't have a car to get downtown, all you got are your friends, and your friends basically have that street corner, or that section of the park. And, if you lose that, maybe the alternative would be out in the cold. You don't have anything else.”
For people like Mozzy, who was able to survive the streets, and ultimately avoid long-term incarceration, Hernandez said the 28-year-old rapper has a long road ahead of him if he’s serious about staying out of trouble and focusing on his craft.
“You grow up in a particular environment that requires a particular response,” Hernandez said. “If you grow up on the streets, the response is physical. So, in a sense, you have to change, your reactions have to change.”
Following Mozzy’s stint in San Quentin, he moved to Los Angeles to further his music career, and distance himself from what he calls “Sacramento politics,” meaning gang relations and beefs. Sacramento, he said, just didn’t offer him the opportunities to grow as an artist.
“(Sacramento artists) got the [expletive]-end of the stick,” Mozzy said. “We the capitol, but it don't feel like it, as far as musically, when you speak on the music scene, like, we overshadowed. They overlook us.”
Now that Mozzy's probation's has run its course, he's finally free to leave the state and perform, but his first gig in 2017 wasn't New York or Chicago, it was Redway, California, a small town in Humboldt County barely registering 1,200 residents. But venue sizes mean nothing to him. It’s all about his fans, whether 10 show up or 10,000.
“Without them it wouldn't be Mozzy, so, I'm going to make sure, man, I'm going to leave an impression on each and every last one of them,” Mozzy said. “I'm going to let them know, you understand me, I'm going to let them touch me. I'm going to let them feel me, I'm going to let them vibe out with me, you understand me? The fans is not a big factor, it's the main factor, straight up.
“There's people who don't understand this lifestyle, and there's other rappers who talk about this [expletive], but they do it in a glorifying manner,” Mozzy said. “I'm going to bust it down for you and let you know the consequences. I'm going to let you know I cry, I ball up and cry in the corner.”
Those emotions are evident in Mozzy’s lyrics, which is just one of the reasons his music gained so much attention.
“We just going to stay consistent, we going to stay out of trouble, we going to tour, we going to get on these roads,” Mozzy continued. “We’re going to beat up these streets. We going to pull up in your city, we going to pull up in your residence, in your trenches, in your neighborhoods. Bounce out, shoot videos with you, you know what I'm saying? Let you know a [expletive] touchable. I'm just going to touch my people, that's it. Two-thousand seventeen. I'm just going to bleed and touch my people. That's it.”
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