Styles: Laid Back & Going to Jail

It’s been nothing but “Good Times” for this Ruff Ryder after dropping his highly anticipated solo debut. But all that may change as he readies to serve an eight-month bid behind bars this Fall.

It’s been nothing but “Good Times” for this Ruff Ryder after dropping his highly anticipated solo debut. But all that may change as he readies to serve an eight-month bid behind bars this Fall.

“What’s your name?”, Styles questions me, as we walk into a conference room at the Def Jam offices in Midtown Manhattan. “Jessica,” I reply. “That’s funny. On my car ride over here the name Jessica popped into my head.” “Are you psychic?” I wonder out loud. “No. But I am intuitive. And I have dejavus.” Considering one of his aliases is Ghost, I get shivers. Styles, has more skills than just rhyming. “Ghost is just how I get when I start flowing. I just feel out of this world. I’m a spiritual person, mysterious. I’m here but I’m not here. I’ve been here before and I’ll be here again. I see things other people don’t see so I keep it to myself and try to let it go in my rhymes.” He’s also got numerous names like HOV. “Styles is my real last name. Paneiro is Pacino and Dinero mixed. I like the roles that they play as gangstas. I’m like both of them in one, the way I flow. If they were rappers, them two could make me-almost. Holiday I was born on Thanksgiving, Nov. 28, 1974. Every day’s a holiday. Celebrate every day. It ain’t always good, but I try.”

Like the multiple monikers he wears, Styles also sports many tattoos. 1. “Don’t take kindness for weakness.” Recognize his gangsta. 2. The letters Styles in the Godfather symbol. He explains: “The puppetmaster is the godfather symbol. He knows how to work life and people.” 3. His little brother’s face who passed away. 4. “Boss of all bosses” across his stomach. 5. His son’s name Noah on his neck. 6. Perhaps the most telling, one phrase on each forearm: “Hope for the best. Expect the worst.” “I’m a hope for the best, expect the worst person,” reveals Styles. “Things could be good but go wrong later. You have to know that in life. Like things could be wrong at certain times but they could go right later. I just try to stay grounded, take it day by day, be respectful as I can, honest and a cool person to deal with and hope for the next day to come, hope I make it.” On the “Hope For The Best” side there’s a picture of money. On “Expect the worse” there are jail cells, a graveyard, and tombstone. “I got this tattoo before I was into music. That’s what comes along when you try to get money in the streets but on the tombstone is a symbol for eternal life. I don’t want to die. But no one’s going to live forever. I live the best I can hope the day I die I get a better life.”

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“I’m a gangst and a gentleman,” Styles assures. “Most rappers are confused as good guys or bad guys. It’s an in between. I’m a nice guy. I could sit in a room full of nice workers, nice people and get along just fine. And I could fit right in with a room full of gangsta people and know how to act stupid and ridiculous. Every kind of person has a gangsta and a gentleman in them. They might not show it but it’s in everybody.” A perfect example is the diamond-crusted gun that hangs around his neck. “I can’t carry a real one,” he rationalizes. “People look at me funny but people walk around with crosses but they’re not religious. Guns don’t hop up and shoot you plus I’m a firm believer that every man should be able to have a gun because the world’s crazy like that. Me, I try to be a learning, thinking man all the time.”

Considering every song on his album is autobiographical, listeners are going to learn a lot about Styles. “I make my kind of music. I ain’t with following what everybody else is doing or what’s working for the radio. I’ll go far left. It paid off I’m alright now. For my home team sh*t, I don’t bend.” He has the same attitude with the LOX as he does for dolo. “Everybody goes out for the team. Me, I’m the laid-back one out the LOX. Kiss is the frontal figure. Sheek’s more the energy. And the roles switch some times. Everybody just plays their part and knows what we got to do to be one of the biggest groups out there. That keeps us going. Everybody respects their partner’s talent. A lot of times you don’t feel like doing sh*t or you feel fed up, then you hear them saying some sh*t and you like damn, that’s what you do it for. You do it for that recognition, for your partner, for the love of the art. It keeps you on your A game.”

“I feel hip-hop could be realer,” Styles points out. “There’s the industry and then you got hip-hop. MCs just got to step they sh*t up. I’m feeling the newcomers, the corner rappers, the nobodies. It depends what you call hip-hop. Like I don’t consider myself part of the hip-hop community. I don’t know who’s in it. If a bunch of people ain’t talking, it’s not really a community. You just got to do you. Make hip-hop for yourself. Then maybe the sh*t will start spreading and it’ll get real again.”