#Drakeo the ruler software#

In the end, Drakeo says, the title was a no-brainer. It took hours of careful postproduction with Drakeo’s engineer, Navin Upamaka, to sew it all together. But the connection was riddled with lags. Drakeo nailed his verses over the course of a day and a half, somehow managing to stay more or less on beat.

#Drakeo the ruler software#

The producer would run the audio he was getting out of the receiver straight into the recording software on his laptop. Joog would play the beat over the phone, along with a metronome that helped cue Drakeo in. The recording process was straightforward, Drakeo says: “As long as it was quiet and, shit, man, I’d just sit there,” next to the phone, “and rap. But if I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna do it all the way.” I wanted them to think, ‘Okay, he going hard like this?! I can only imagine what it’s gonna be like when he’s out.’ Most people that do jail songs, they don’t wanna do all that. I wanted them to feel like I’m talking to them.

“I wanted to make sure they heard every word. It was about a commitment to his audience, Drakeo explains. My shit is different than everybody else.” “I’m just the person who did it the best. “I’m not the first who did it,” Drakeo says. There’s a long lineage of rappers, including Gucci Mane and Max B, who have recorded from prison, but the pair insist they didn’t take direct inspiration from anyone in particular. Every few minutes, a recorded female voice cuts in to offer a reminder: “This call is being recorded.” His producer, JoogSzn, is patched in via cell phone from elsewhere in L.A. Drakeo has been incarcerated ever since he’s facing 25 years to life. His case has become a nexus of notorious prosecutorial tactics: the “ institutional racism” of California’s gang laws, and the mind-boggling use of rap lyrics as evidence. district attorney decided to reprosecute Drakeo on two “gang”-related charges that the jury had been hung on. Rather than dropping the case, however, the L.A. In 2019, he was acquitted on charges of murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy to commit murder. In the years since breaking out as the inimitable new star of California rap, Drakeo, 26, has been through a legal nightmare. “What are the odds of that, bro? Two days before court? Like-what?” Then, as he does with improbable regularity, he starts laughing, loudly and warmly. I’m trying to figure out what’s going on.

RIP Drakeo.On the phone from L.A.’s Men’s Central Jail on a Wednesday afternoon, Drakeo the Ruler says, “My judge has coronavirus. Drakeo the Ruler’s voice could be found alongside any number of his LA contemporaries (03 Greedo, Bino Rideaux, Remble, Blxst), but he also counted some of the biggest names in hip-hop among his fans-like Drake, who, in learning of The Ruler’s fatal stabbing, posted a picture from the MC’s time modeling for his OVO clothing label, writing that his “Talk to Me” collaborator had “always picked my spirit up with your energy. Another bout of incarceration, ending in November 2020, sparked a remarkably consistent creative tear for the MC, with Drakeo releasing We Know the Truth, Because Yall Asked, The Truth Hurts, A Cold Day in Hell, Ain’t That the Truth, and So Cold I Do Em 2 in the span of a year. His reign as the voice of LA was marked by intervals of incarceration, Cold Devil having been recorded in 10 days of freedom that followed a nearly year-long stint in jail. Drakeo’s rap style was both menacing and conversational, the MC rarely emoting beyond a sort of ransom-call whisper. Mosely tape, but established himself as a force whose impact would be felt far beyond Los Angeles city limits with 2017’s Cold Devil. Born Darrell Caldwell, Drakeo earned his first round of buzz from 2015’s I Am Mr. Before his untimely death at the age of 28 in December 2021, Drakeo the Ruler was unequivocally the voice of Los Angeles street rap.