Long Beach rapper Odis Flores is a rapper who records under the name of O.T. Genasis. He was signed by G-Unit Records in July 2011, after his track, "Jackie Chan," came to the attention of 50 Cent, released his debut mixtape, Black Belt the following year. Things didn't work out and the rapper was released from his contract with the label. O.T. didn't remain unsigned for long, signing with Busta Rhymes' Conglomerate Records after the Brooklyn MC was drawn in to the energy the Long Beach native brought to his performance at the Playhouse Night Club. "I was so turned up by what he displayed, not just as an MC but as a showman," Busta recalled to Rolling Stone. "He was jumping on the speakers. He damn near was swinging from the chandeliers in the bitch."
Despite being from the West Coast, O.T. takes pride on not having a region-based sound. "I'm from the West Coast, but you can hear in my songs that they don't really sound like they're from there," he told Noisey . "I like to put myself in the position where I'm like I can give the [listener] everything and make a record that sounds like it could be from anywhere."
O.T. released this drug ballad about his love for cocaine as the first single from his debut album. He recorded the track at the Atlantic Records studios in California. "I came up with [the concept] at another studio, one of my boys' studio," he recalled to Rolling Stone. "I just knew I had to do it on another mic and make it sound right. Usually, if I hear songs, I record it on a Voice Memo first. I have to perfect it. I'm a big fan of delivery and I want to make sure you're saying it right. I'm like, 'This has to be perfect when I do this.'"
"I was super amped up," O.T. added. "It was probably 3 o'clock in the afternoon. I had the music all the way up yelling, 'I'm in love with the coco!' I was just being young and hungry. Not just for music but in survival mode. When certain things aren't going right in your lifestyle, like, certain bills are still in effect. I didn't have a big record before this."
O.T. did the song for himself rather than other people and denies he's glorifying cocaine dealing. "That's how I felt at the time," he said. "The reaction that I'm getting from it, it just clarifies that there's a lot of s--t going on, whether that's people using it or people selling it. No, I'm not glorifying it. That's not what I'm doing at all. I just want to be a spokesperson for the people."
In late 2014, The Golden State Warriors of the NBA started singing this song on the team plane after road victories, with one of their players, Marreese Speights, posting the videos on Instagram. This practice ended abruptly, however, when Speights posted on December 7 that they were no longer allowed to do it, presumably became someone in management realized the song was about cocaine.
The song's music video shows O.T. sitting at a table with a pile of cocaine. "A lot of artists talk about this stuff, whether it's about cocaine or weed or meth. But nobody actually makes you [see] that," he explained to Billboard magazine. "If I'm going to talk about it, I might as well show you. It's the life of me chilling in the projects, chopping it up, right there in front of your face. I really don't care to be criticized. I stay in my lane and do me."
A second, cleaner video was shot by DRE Films without any cocaine chopping. The new clip features cameos by Busta Rhymes (who co-directed the visual), Timbaland, DJ Khaled, Ice T and his wife, who is conveniently named Coco.
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