Digital Social Hour
“They Tried to Bury Me”: King Yella on Street Life, Survival & Growth | DSH #1631
20 Nov 2025
Chapter 1: What does King Yella say about snitch allegations?
So a lot of people, uh, because I had that came out, these people, oh, y'all a snitch, or he wootty woot. I never got nobody convicted. I never sent nobody. I never testified on nobody. That's a snitch. You have a conversation. Nowadays, you can't even. People think you get pulled up by the police, you say some ,, they going to call everything snitch. Yeah. You conversated with them. Okay.
Sometimes you conversate with the police and run them in circles and see what they know so you can know how to move, what they're doing, you know what I'm saying? Yep. But a lot of people not from the streets, they don't understand how it go. They're going to think, oh, you said this, that made you tell him.
Chapter 2: How has fatherhood influenced King Yella's perspective on life?
All right, whatever. Call it what you want to call it. That's your opinion. All right, guys, we got King Yella in the building. Let's go, man. What's the big old deal, man? What's happening? You been staying busy? Yeah, man. Trying to. Staying out the way. You staying out of trouble? Yeah, yeah. These days, right? I had gotten some little bullshit, but I'm all right, man.
Chapter 3: What challenges did King Yella face growing up in poverty?
I'm all right. If it ain't nothing I can't handle. As long as I ain't in prison. As long as I'm out here to be able to take care of my kids and, you know, be a father and, you know, stay out of the way. Six kids, right? Six. Six. I got six that's biologically mine, then four, which is my girl, but they're all my kids. Dang. Ten kids. You want more? I ain't stopping until God stop it.
When he end it, then it is what it is. I mean, you know, we meant to produce it, you know, keep it going, man. You know, when I leave, I want my legacy to be here.
Chapter 4: Why do people turn to drugs according to King Yella?
I don't understand when people go, I don't want no kids. Well, when you die, you just going to die. There's no legacy left. I mean, unless you got other stuff going on, but you will still want to be able to, you know, That's the purpose. That's what God did. If he didn't, it wouldn't be all us here. 100%. You know what I'm saying? Did having kids change your perspective on life? Yeah.
I had my first kid when I was 17, so. Damn, that's young. Yeah. Even though I was still doing stuff, it still gave me a way to
Chapter 5: What insights does King Yella share about federal prison politics?
damn i gotta you know it motivated me to i gotta get some money i gotta stay free i gotta stay out the way i gotta you know be on my but when i was in the streets it was like what you know you know when people in the streets they don't really think like that you feel me so like well i went from selling drugs you know robbing doing everything whatever to to survive my life.
You know what I'm saying? So that's what, you know, and that's majority, you know, they ain't, even if like young, they ain't giving nobody no jobs. And I was filling out applications before I even had tattoos and all that, before I even had felonies. And still wasn't getting hired. So it'd be like, what am I fucking supposed to do? And at that time, you know, your parents get to,
buying you what they want to buy you and doing shit like that, then, you know, I want the best of the best. You know, Jordan's coming out. We still in school. People, other people wearing them. So that, you know, that forced people. People don't understand. They look at a person like a person, a bad person, because he's selling drugs or he... Oh, it's to survive.
Chapter 6: What is the significance of the Black Hand in prison culture?
It's not really... You know, you're not thinking that it's harming someone or it's doing stuff like that. You know? You're not thinking like that. Even when... robbing people or doing, that really wasn't my MO, but it done happened before though, but you know, or they probably was like somebody flashing and I'm fucked up and I ain't got it and you showing out and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.
And then, you know, just being ignorant at the time and being, you know, then and shit like that happened. But, you know, even though it's not a good thing, it's not now that I'm older, you know, all that shit is, you know, But even for the drugs, I ain't gonna say it's a, life is so hard. It gets so hard, I understand why people do do drugs. It's not like, life get hard, shit get tough.
You know what I'm saying? And people back, you know, people lose, you lose people, you go through so much trauma. And that's how I realized that people like, I was like, hey, they smoking crack and dah, dah, dah. Or they doing this and not realizing people do things to, to cope and run and hide from reality.
Chapter 7: Why does King Yella avoid returning to Chicago?
You know what I'm saying? Numb the pain, right? Yeah, numb the pain. So, you know, I understand. I understand what folks' grandma or somebody was smoking crack and doing that shit. Probably at first she probably was going through something and then didn't realize it was going to eat her alive like that or, you know, do what it did. Yeah. With kids, stay away from the drugs. It's not a good thing.
I was a dealer in college. You was? Yeah. See? I didn't know. I was broke.
Chapter 8: How does King Yella view the role of media in street culture?
Yeah. It's to survive. I got to eat. I learned a lot of business skills, don't you? Yeah. I learned a lot. That's what I'm saying. From drugs, people don't realize, okay, I'm selling drugs. Okay, if I could do this, which is illegal- If I take the formula of what I know from doing this and put it into some positive or something that's legal, what's the difference? What's the difference?
And that's how a lot of people do. That's why a lot of people that do be drug dealers or whatever they be, they turn out to, oh, real estate. Okay, I was flipping birds. Now I can flip houses. I can do this. You learn. It's still a skill. At first, it might be illegal. And I ain't going to say that because what you're going to say that, it's just from experience. Drugs on the street.
But the pharmacy and all that shit still selling all type of drugs that got people fucked up. Legal drugs. It's legal drugs. Percocets and all of that shit. It's killing people. All these drugs that they selling over the counter. Everything. And this shit just a business. And the only reason that is illegal because they're not making money off of it.
If they found a way to make money off of it and to legalize it, they will. The same way they did with weed. Oh, everybody smokes weed. Now they legalize it. Come on, man. Yeah, there's people in prison for weed. That's crazy to me. I don't think there is now. Unless you were doing it, like, on the street. But, like, the people that got it. Fetty Wap. Fetty Wap in prison for weed? Yeah.
He probably would sell them both. Yeah, there's people that sold it years ago. They're still in prison, you know? Well, a lot of people's shit got overturned. I saw a lot of people, like, that had life. Because you can't. How could a person sit in jail for a hell of a time and y'all legalize this? It's legal now. That means... It's not federally legal, though. It's not federally legal.
So the people in the feds, it's people in the feds. Yeah. The people in the state, then, them the ones that probably done came home. Right. But, yeah. Were you in fed or were you in state when you were on? Both. You were both? Yeah. Fed was worse, I bet? Fed was worse, but more militant and more structured and more... make you be like, I don't want to go back to jail. That's what it's real about.
Shit. I was in Victorville, USP. You know, I just saw shit, man. People don't, like, they don't play. You got niggas in there. Niggas got life, you know what I'm saying? The politics is very, very, very strong. In what way? Meaning you see everything. You know, it's different.
I'm seeing all races that you like probably don't see like, okay, damn, you got the Indians, you got the whites, or you got, you know, you seeing people and you just seeing how they move and seeing how, I done saw whites kill each other and stab. I saw different shit that I never saw before. And I'm like, damn, I didn't know they, You know? Well, now some motherfuckers be like, okay.
Or people say people racist or whatever. Okay, now I'm seeing, okay, they saying black on black. Well, these other motherfuckers killing themselves the same way, too. You just wasn't around to see it.
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