Here’s a guest contribution from djxplicit, who more than makes up for my lack of Tupac knowledge with this extensive run-down:

2Pac may hold the world record for most “weed carriers ever”. His weed carriers go from the incredibly talented and famous Biggie Smalls to the widly untalented and unknown Napolean. He, like most famous rappers, began as a weed carrier himself. He carried weed for Shock G of Digital Underground, who later would produce his earliest hits. In 1994, he assembled his own band of weed carriers, named THUGLIFE, which included Big Syke (AKA Mussolini), Macadoshis, his half-brother Mopreme (AKA Wycked AKA Komani), and Rated R. In 1995, Dramacydal was born. This included ex-THUGLIFE members Mopreme and Big Syke as well as E.D.I. Mean (then known as Big Mal). The famed first shooting incident occured, which led to him parting ways with weed carriers Stretch of The Live Squad (who later died) and the Notorious one. It is up for debate whether Lil’ Cease carried weed for him at this time, but 2Pac’s first words to him after being shot were “Shit, roll me some weed”. Around this time Dramacydal became the Outlawz, 2Pac’s final weed carriers. They were all named after dictators. They were (name of dictator in parentheses):

Kadafi (Muammar Qaddafi) - now dead
Kastro (Fidel Castro)
Komani (Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini) - AKA Mopreme, Wycked
Napoleon (Napolean Bonaparte)
E.D.I. Mean (Idi Amin) - AKA Big Mal.
Mussolini (Benito Mussolini) - AKA Big Syke
Storm - AKA the female Outlaw
Macadochis

The Outlawz, even after the deaths of Makaveli and Kadafi, continued recording and even added members, but alas, they could never fullfill their main function anymore: to carry weed for their “general”.

Due to his popularity after his death, many rappers have been acting like his weed carriers or claiming to have been his weed carrier, such as 50 Cent, Domination, Ja Rule, etc.

There is an elite group of rappers that actually skipped past the weed carrier stage directly to weed owner status. One of these individuals is Fat Joe. In the early stages of his rap career, even Joe admits that he was a pretty bad rapper, but due to his intimidating stature he never had any problems getting on at open mic spots, since “kids were too shook not to applaud”. Diamond D (aka The Best Producer on the Mic) knew Joe, and produced a couple of Red Alert promos for the big guy before inviting him to appear on Stunts, Blunts and Hip Hop. To the untrained eye, it would appear that the plodding posse cut “Pass Dat Shit” from that album should have been titled “Meet The Weed Carriers”, since it featured Mike GQ and Whiz One, who I believe were part of The Pyschotic Neurotics (Diamond’s weed carriers), as well as Fat Joe Da Gangsta’s first appearance on record. But to suggest that Joe carried weed for Diamond at any stage is ridiculous, since D already had the Neurotics holding it down and I can’t imagine many kids having the nerve to ask Joe to carry ANYTHING, even if they’re producing his shit.

Before long, Crack started putting out his own albums with modest sales until he met his brother from another mother Big Pun. Not only did Pun help Joe improve his rap flow, he also brought him a whole team of weed carriers! Cuban Link, Armaggedon and Triple Seis were originally in a group with Pun called Full Eclipse, but Pun’s star power and new partnership with Joe saw them become the Terror Squad (which meant that they were now Pun and Joe’s weed carriers). Since Pun passed, the Terror Squad has undergone some changes, with Cuban catching a bad one from Joe for reasons not related to his weed carrying duties and then being replaced by female weed carrier Remy Ma. Since broads are often more effective carriers than the fellas (primarily because they’ve got more places to hide weed), this seem like a wise move on Cook Coke Crack’s part.

Despite the fact that Terror Squad’s “Lean Back” was a huge hit, it seems that the record-buying public is well aware of their weed carrier status, since the single’s popularity didn’t translate into big numbers on the album. This indicates that the Squad won’t be relived of their weed carrying duties any time soon.

“Rapper” Nas has had more weed carriers in his long, patchy carer than just about anyone (with the possible exception of Tupac). It’s even been said that if Nas didn’t fire all of his former weed carriers like a QB version of Donald Trump, he’d have a pretty great squad of rappers under his wing. Considering the fact that he’s had everyone from AZ to Cormega working with him, he really could have locked shit down if he wasn’t such a fickle ego-maniac.

While it’s true that he rolled with MC Serch and the Large Professor early in his career, Nas didn’t really carry weed for either of these guys, since Extra P already had K-Kut and Sir Scratch holding for him and Serch was rumoured to stash his weed in the frames of his Buddy Holly-style glasses. After he revived the Bridge’s diminishing reputation with Illmatic, weed carriers were literally lining-up to help keep God’s Son lifted. AZ The Visualizer served on -again, of-again stints as his weed carrier at various times, before he got his own deal and moved on. He’s yet to have any weed carriers of his own, but at least he’s not holding for anyone else. Cormega was down with the whole Firm project, but he refused to carry Nas’ weed, since he’d just served a bid for carrying a bunch of other shit. Actually, I think Mega would’ve refused just on principle. This led to him getting kicked out of the group - which was a blessing anyway since that album was trash - and be replaced by Nature.

Somewhere along the line, Nature lost Nas’ weed or something and got he shit kicked out of him. He tried to recruit his own carriers, but he never really had enough weed for all of the Wild Gremlinz to carry, so that didn’t really work out. 50 Cent was another one-time weed carrier for Esco, but after a while he was like “Fuck it, I’mma smoke dude’s shit” and he got cut-off. He learned a valuable lesson however, and followed the blueprint to gather his own crew of weed carriers, better known as G-Unit, with enormous success.

After firing all of those guys, Nas finally decided that The Bravehearts would be his “official” weed carriers (while I’m aware of the Mel Gibson reference, every time I hear that name I think of the Care Bears for some reason). I’m pretty sure he chose these guys because there ’s little risk that they’ll ever have weed carriers of their own, thus ensuring their loyalty.

When Jay-Z was getting his solo career off the ground, he expressed interest in carring for Nas a one point, but Nas realised this was just a ploy to get Biggie Small’s number so he could carry for him, which spawned the seeds of their whole conflict years later. There are also hundreds of unknown weed carriers who have held Nas’ stash over the years, but since they never made it to the booth their story will go untold.

More recently, the Street’s Disciple has pissed-off Lakey The Kid, although I don’t think this situation has anything to do with weed. Nevertheless, Lake’s “Why (Nas Diss)” is pretty good.
Foxy Brown has also carried for Nas, although that may have been a different type of bag entirely….

What happens when a Weed Carrier graduates to the level of Weed Owner? He then recruits his own weed carriers, of course! A prime example is the story of Young Hov. As a youngster in the 80’s, he maintained his position as weed carrier to The Jaz (some might suggest that he carried dude’s name as well), which saw him travel the world - or at least England - and get his first taste of the studio which he grew to love. When his services were no longer required - possibly because The Jaz could no longer afford any weed and therefore had no use for a carrier - Jay-Z started holding Big Daddy Kane’s bag (no homo). A few years later, he enjoyed a brief stint as Biggie Smalls’ weed carrier, which he seems to feel entitles him to guilt-free access to BIG’s rhymes as well. Or maybe Frank White had his weed stashed in his rhyme book, and he foolishly let Jay carry that shit.

Things eventually came full circle, as the rapper once known as The Jaz was reduced to carrying Jay-Z’s weed while his former student grew in rap stature. During this period, which must have been confusing and no doubt a little demeaning for “The Originator”, The Jaz also changed his name a number of times for some reason, first becoming “Big Jaz” and later “Jaz-O” in an effort to baffle whatever remaining fans he still had. One day, Jaz must have either lost or smoked the weed he was carrying for Mr. Carter, as he found himself cut-off completely, replaced by a new breed of weed carriers such as Beanie Seagel, Memphis Bleek and Freeway. Rather than giving up, The Jaz figured out that all he needed to do was recruit a new squad of his own weed carriers, and thus The Immobilarie Family was created.

Some might say that every single member of Boogie Down Productions - with the exception of the late, great DJ Scott La Rock, D-Nice and DJ Doc - were really just KRS-One’s weed carriers. I mean what else did McBoo, Robocop and ICU do? Channel Live took on this position in the mid-nineties, and were granted a record deal and beats from KRS as a reward for their weed carrying services. At least these guys were honest about it, as their first (and only) hit was called “Mad Izm”, and even featured KRS on vocal duties. I mean how obvious can you get? Sadly for Tuffy and Hakim, having The Blastmaster produce your album is a commercial kiss-of-death, and it wasn’t long before Station Identification found it’s way into the dollar-bin, right next to Ms. Melodie’s album.

I’m not sure of who originated the phrase “weed carrier”, but it pops up a lot over at The Mindset of a Champion, so I guess I’ll credit Bol and Combat Jack with the term. It can be used in a number of ways, but the most appropriate is when it’s used in reference to when a successful rap group gets their (usually far less talented) friends a deal. Think Junior Mafia, D-12 or Funkdoobiest. These guys are classic examples of weed carriers. When you really think about it, almost half of the rap CD’s on the market are made by current or former weed carriers. It should be noted that not all weed carriers go onto to make records. Some, like the guy who got shot in the leg while carrying for The Gayme, just have to be in the right place at the wrong time in order to make headlines. Regardless of the situation, A Salute To Weed Carriers promisies to bring you the “real talk” on these folks.

UPDATE:

More information has developed regarding the origin of the term “weed carrier”:

Bol: “Actually, I’m not really sure who invented the phrase “weed carrier” either, but I’ll accept credit for introducing it to the world of hip-hop. I first started hearing it back in the day, probably from guys like Fitz and The Station, in reference to the basketball player Allen Iverson’s entourage, who would sometimes get arrested for carrying his weed.”

Fitz: “I’m so proud to admit that I am, indeed, the inventor of “Weed Carrier”. It’s actually a reference to Damon Stoudemire, who had something like 3 weed arrests while employing about 12 dudes to be his entourage.

It’s a true honor to have invented a term that seems to be gaining importance.”