A Salute To Weed Carriers

You gotta give props to the dub c’s in the world. The good ones are loyal and willing to take one for their weed owner (no homo). Lil’ Cease, for example, is a great example of a good w/c. His services for the Notorious B.I.G. (RIP) have led to Cease being rather well-known, despite his lack of success as an artist. He also carried for 2Pac (RIP), or at least was in a situational w/c’ing role with him. After Biggie’s death, Cease maintained his loyalty to Biggie by carrying for the new Junior M.A.F.I.A. leader, Lil’ Kim. It’s reports like this which fill my heart with inspiration (no homo):

Lil Cease was in court last week to answer to charges of possession of marijuana.
…
Cease and Larceny were rolling in Lil’ Kim’s 1999 Jaguar and were stopped after narcotics officers saw Cease come out of a building with an undisclosed amount of weed in a bag.

I wish I had a friend like that. No homo. A weed carrier is a successful man’s (or woman’s) best friend. We hope that one day Cease will be a weed owner who introduces us to more weed carriers who have studied under the master.

NWA had no shortage of weed carriers during their reign at the top, and most of it’s members continued to be weed owners during their solo careers. The diggy-diggy Dr. Dre started out carrying weed as a member of the World Class Wrecking Krew, who despite making some good songs such as “Cabbage Patch” spent too much time on sappy love jams decked-out in fruity lace shit that even Prince wouldn’t fuck with. When the late, great Eazy-E recruited Dre to make beats and carry weed for him, Dre jumped at the chance, taking the opportunity to bring his own weed holder along for the ride (DJ Yella).

As the group started to blow-up, many of the crew’s early weed carriers soon found themselves replaced by more talented holders, which explains why Ron-De-Vu and Arabian Prince got cut. Ice Cube and MC Ren were both happy to carry Eazy’s weed for a while, but before long, Cube got restless and went to New York to carry for Public Enemy and The Bomb Squad for a minute (at least long enough to get a New York-sounding record out of ’em).

Ren continued holding for Eazy, and even employed Boss Hogg (aka CPO) to carry Ren’s stash. Hell, even DJ Yella had weed carriers at one stage! (Yomo & Maulkie, anyone?). NWA as a whole also spawned several weed carriers who worked for the whole group, such as Above The Law, the D.O.C., Michel’le etc. The least talented of these weed carriers was Tarrie B, an Italian broad who modelled her look on Madonna and was really, really awful at rapping, but was able to carry huge quantities of weed through airports and such without any trouble.

By the time NWA fell apart, Dre had found a new guy to carry weed for – Suge Knight. For some reason, Dr. Dre seems to enjoy being both a weed carrier and weed owner at the same time, as during his Death Row stage he had a young Snoop Doggy Dogg holding for him, as well as The Dogg Pound, Rage, RBX, the D.O.C., etc. Not to be outdone, Ice Cube had also gathered an extensive group of weed carriers to serve under the Street Knowledge umbrella, including the Lench Mob, Del, Yo-Yo, Kausion, Kam and K-Dee (who had been in the group CIA with Cube in the early days). Since he goes through weed carriers at a frightening rate, it wasn’t long before Cube had fired that entire group and enlisted WC (for whom Coolio carried weed as a member of The MADD Circle) and Mack 10 as his official holders (aka Westside Connection). By this point I stopped paying attention, so I have no idea who’s been holding for him in recent times, although I think there was a guy called Short Khop or something.

Post-NWA, Eazy enjoyed the services of Bone Thugs-N Harmony, as well as weed carrier lifers such as BG Knoccout, Dresta and some other guys I forget. Dre has soldiered on, and now has everyone from Eminem to the G-Unit to The Gayme (who also carrys weed for NWA, even though the group no longer exists) to hold for him, as well as studio weed carriers like Mel-Man and all the guys who appeared on Chronic 2001. From time to time he also carries for Em and 50 Cent, just because he seems to enjoy it for some strange reason (?!).

A Salute To Weed Carriers has gotten several requests to tackle the subject of weed carriers in the world of rock. While many rockers have been known to be partial to a lot more than just cheeba, some needlephobic folks still enjoy a good lah session.

Since my knowledge of rock doesn’t extend far beyond my copy of AC/DC’s Back In Black and my prized collection of Motorbooty magazines, I thought I’d reprint this great rock round-up by Ian from Sexy Results:

There’s questions as to whether rockers have weed carriers, which is kinda tough, seeing as how it’s a lot more difficult to give your mans ‘n ’em some shine. Guest verses have a “what the fuck?” air about them that doesn’t really translate in this genre. Nonetheless, I’ll make what is likely to be a poor attempt to make thumbnail sketches of a few weed holders in the world of gee-tars (and no links because that would take forever)…feel free to add.

Gwen Stefani: No Doubt is Exhibit A of weed carrier-ness. I mean, when the lead singer goes solo without disbanding the group, that’s about as clearcut case as you can get. You know Gwen’s got a steady hand when she can convince her ex-boyfriend to hold her green.

Amy Lee: I guess since Evanescence is from Little Rock, “meth jockeys” is a more appropriate term. In fact, let’s just say that any female fronted band is comprised solely of weed carriers, although I highly doubt the members of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have trouble accessing their own drugs.

Robert Smith: He’s probably had to replace members of the Cure twenty times for poor weed carrying performance, which probably explains why he outsourced to Siouxsie & The Banshees.

Courtney Love: For a while, she did a little stint carrying Faith No More’s izm, and one might say she was holding for Kurt Cobain, but I seriously doubt he’d let her hold anything except the shotgun that ended his life. Sly devil that she is, Courtney definitely got creative in her search with Hole, as we all know that women have more places to hide the stuff. Melissa Auf Der Mer has the honor carrying for two of the most notorious weed holders in rock, the other being Billy Corgan (more below), and after going through that, she has failed to exhibit weed ownership in her solo career.

Kurt Cobain: probably the most illustrious weed carrying family tree. After he died, there was so much Bobbby Brown left that Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic automatically inherited enough to go around to their minions. Krist tested out a few no-names in Sweet 75, but decided to go with Curt Kirkwood (formerly of the Meat Puppets who were up to their eyes in hydro on “Unplugged”) and Bud Gaugh (still holding postmortem for Brad Nowell) to form Eyes Adrift. And Dave Grohl must’ve liked what he saw when Pat Smear was carrying for Nirvana, so he just brought him over to the Foo Fighters, originally composed of two of Jeremy Enigk’s holders from Sunny Day Real Estate (talk about a small-time hustle) and one from Alanis Morrissette.

Thom Yorke: Got his little brother’s shitty band (Unbelievable Truth) on a major. What up, gangstaaaa?

Brandon Boyd: You know there’s a lot of sticky icky icky going around in Incubus, so the shirtless one has that Jewfro’d guitarist, a Roots weed carrier on bass and that DJ who does nothing, likely because his turntables are filled with weed. In a straight hip-hop power move, he even got his brother’s band a major label deal (Audiovent) and had a potential weed kingpin carrying for them on tour (Hoobastank).

Dave Matthews: Whatever Dave’s on, Tim Reynolds is definitely stashing it.

Scott Weiland: Actually, it’d be more fair to call STP “heroin mules.” In a shocking turn of events, the rest of the guys started Talk Show, which is notable for being the first band where the lead singer is the sole weed carrier.

Axl Rose: Shannon Hoon’s blue flanneled appearance in the “Don’t Cry” video is as hip-hop of a weed carrier move as you’ll see on this list. Of course, it’s hard to call the rest of Blind Melon weed carriers since whatever Hoon had, he was carrying it in his bloodstream. Slash and Izzy would later have Snakepit and the JuJu Hounds to hold it down for guys who make up 2Pac-like conspiracies on how Stevie Ray Vaughn isn’t really dead.

Billy Corgan: Might be the only guy on this list who started two bands specifically to hold trees.

Ben Folds: Whether his bandmates were holding is up for debate, but whether the “missing two” in the Ben Folds Five were drug mules is not. Currently moonlighting as guardian of Shatner’s stash.

Conor Oberst: Let’s put it this way: if you’ve ever been affiliated with Saddle Creek Records, you’ve held Conor’s weed and probably fucked him too.

Maynard Keenan: Not so much for the guys in Tool, put for A Perfect Circle, which is like the ’96 Bulls of weed carriers. The roster is astonishing: two who held for Billy Corgan (James Iha in Pumpkins, Paz in Zwan), one who held for Marilyn Manson (Twiggy), another from Nine Inch Nails (Billy Howerdel) and a drummer who’s like the Mel Man of rock music (Josh Freese). Astounding.

Trent Reznor: Depending on who you believe, Marilyn Manson had Trent’s nuts on his tonsils for about five years until he went Johnny Sac on his boy. Filter, on the other hand, has indisputable weed carrier credentials.

Jack White: Hard to tell whether Meg’s holding, because on the one hand, she makes Ringo Starr sound like Neil Peart, but on the other, she has an enormous rack. Jack did have the Von Bondies hoding his stash, until the lead singer refused to carry anymore and got his ass kicked for all his troubles.

Jeff Buckley: The guy from Ours was tuning Buck’s guitars before he got on some “Single White Female” shit.

Fred Durst: He’s like the Samson of this shit. Recruited a DJ with extensive training in the field, then started his own label to have the biggest weed-holding army in rock music (Puddle Of Mudd, Cold, Revolution Smile, etc.). You saw what happened when the guitarist tried to get his own stash. Say what you will about the man’s music, but thankfully for his scrawny ass, he won’t be in prison on possession.

It goes without saying that no mention of weed carriers would be complete without addressing the Soul Assassins crew. Cypress Hill built-up an enormous crossover audience as a result of their constant weed anthems, as corny Pink Floyd fans had a new, “cool” band to provide the soundtrack to their college boom sessions. Don’t get me wrong, that first album was hot shit when it came out, but within a few years every unwashed bong-fiend at school was jocking the Latin Lingo something savage.

As their success grew, so did their weed stash, which in turn meant they needed a truck-load of weed carriers. This led to the creation of the Soul Assassins crew, which featured Funkdoobiest (aka “The Baby Cypress Hill”) and House of Pain. The House was Everlast‘s second attempt at weed carrying, since he had been the token “Amazin’ Caucasian” for Ice T’s Rhyme Syndicate (yes, Ice’s weed carriers). This time around, not only was Ev holding for B-Real, Muggs and Sen Dog, but he managed to perform the unusual feat of having his own weed carrier while holding weed for other people himself! That’s right, Danny Boy and DJ Lethal (aka The Latvian Marvel) was carrying whatever weed Muggs let Everlast keep. Confused?

I guess Muggs had a pretty huge weed habit at this stage, since not only did Cypress have two groups under their wing for the express purpose of holding their weed, but he also recruited The Alchemist to produce for him and carry whatever weed he didn’t want to share with B-Real and Sen! Sen Dog also had a brother called Mellow Man Ace, who wasn’t really trying to carry anyone’s weed, which led to him falling out with Cypress and later getting hit with a pool cue by Kid Frost.

Eventually, both Funkdoobiest and House of Pain tired of their weed carrying responsiblilites, and tried to go it alone in the big, bad world of the record industry. Not suprisingly, both groups broke-up not long afterwards. The ever resourceful Lethal soon found a new weed owner to serve under, as he joined Limp Bizkit and has been happily carrying Fred Durst‘s weed ever since.

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.”