Choc Nitty

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I met Choc Nitty on Skid Row. I was in the Gang Enforcement Task Force in the Central Division Police station in downtown L.A. when a cop pulled up a six-pack on a computer screen and showed me his picture. He told me how he used this rapper from Jordan Downs‘ website to make him take a plea after he got arrested slanging on San Julian Street. The rapper was Choc Nitty from Snowman Cliq. On the site they had the lyric from a track called “Get them chips“. It said, “Sell my weed/Sell my weed/Sell my rock/Sell my rock/Gotta get my chippy on… San Julian is the block/Where I used to sell my rock.”

I noted the web address and emailed Snowman Cliq to interview them for the story I was working on for the L A Weekly called Super Dope Cops about cops and thugs on Skid Row, but they didn’t respond. I finally reached out to the guy who made the site; a producer named Doobie Dave. He set up a meeting. Oddly they wanted to meet  at some place called The Pig’n Whistle on Hollywood Boulevard.

Choc Nitty thought I was a cop and was less than receptive, but let me interview him. I asked him  about the cops on Skid Row… if he’d been arrested. “Nah. I don’t know what officer you talking about,” he says. “I don’t do much talking to polices so it’s like, nope. I asked him what “chippy” meant.  “My chippies,” Choc says. “Chips is money. Cheddar. Whatever … dollar signs. Whatever money is to you, that’s it.”

I’ve know him for years by now.. written a bunch of stories about him including a cover story for the LA Weekly called The Brand New Grind, wherein I follow him all around the projects in Watts and meet up with a bunch of mixtape artists.

Choc Nitty is hood-famous. One foot in the gutter, one on higher ground, he’s managed to create a life for himself out of dust. He has a magical ability to make his way into all sorts of places and situations and always gets asked back because people love him. From Malibu  to Watts and everywhere in between. He know a lot of people. He introduced me to Guerilla Black and Jay Rock… one time I met him at Star Bucks in Ladera Heights where he ran into The Game… it goes on and on.

He’s on the radio in L.A., has mix tapes and DVD and CD’s out, plays to sold out houses in Hollywood and a reality show in development. Choc Nitty goes hard in the paint and aparently he  isn’t going to stop till everybody knows he’s here.

Choc Nitty has an alter-ego… of course; D.J. Squeak.

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