Project Blowed

What the people who ran those places like Ben Caldwell really had in mind

The Good Life was a health food store and had huge 'conscious' vibes. You were not allowed to curse at the Good Life. It promoted creativity above negativity.

More than that it was a very real alternative to gang culture, and the type of music that was more celebratory of that.

I mean the Blowed at a definite tension to it, especially in the ciphers outside but it was always released artistically. Cats like Ellay Khule were involved in that life. Mikah Nine never spoke about his gang ties or neighborhood until he got on a mixtape with Jim Jones, turns out dude was tight with BPS in the Jungle. He neeeever talked about that shit in his years rhyming in LA.

The article says Volume 10 was similarly 'street' or whatever, but his music was so far beyond that mentality. Should he have instead, like you said, been a faux gangsta in order to sell records and promote an image of Los Angeles that was ultimately self-damaging instead of uplifting? I think it speaks more to his integrity that he turned all of that down because of how he viewed himself as an artist.