S. Samuel
[SOHH highlights a hot record each Tuesday and offers a unique look at the track in Singled Out. Today, Brooklyn rapper Gliffics exclusively premieres and breaks down his new "Candy Girl" music video for SOHH.]
Like Jay-Z, he was once affiliated with the cocaine business and he no longer is. That’s my situation too. I’m not going to sit here and say it was my claim to fame because it certainly wasn’t, but I came from nothing, I came from poverty and I was given an opportunity to change my life around and started in the banking industry and did really well.
When I cleaned up my act, because I was making money from banking, the economy collapse happened in 2008 and I lost my job amongst 5,000 other people and I was working with the number two largest bank at the time and I found myself without a job. I was making 6-figures and I had to support 6-figure debts with a 20,000 and 30,000 income.
I basically found myself in a situation where my back was against the wall and I had no other option. I was working in the Empire State Building at a dead end job and the people over there reminded me of Boiler Room because it was very high-energy and people were doing a bunch of drugs. I just hit up my man and I didn’t even have the money to pick up the weight, he just gave it to me off the arm and I had to pay him back. I cleaned out in just a couple of hours and then boom, one after the other. In a matter of two weeks, I was pretty much able to work myself back up to normal. I got my car back, I’m still in the same apartment I almost got evicted from, I paid my friend’s family back and the credit cards, so I don’t owe nobody nothing.
That’s not exactly what “Candy Girl” is about, it’s how I got into the business. In music, especially hip-hop, people glorify drugs and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that but I don’t think people touch on the other side, like how it can become you.
For me, I’m speaking on experience here. I got into it for one thing and it turned into something else. One of the lines in the song goes, “I thought I said I would quit when my problems get solved/Then my problems evolved and now my problems are I’m too involved.” So I found myself in a situation where I said, “I’m going to quit when I get back” and then once I did, I didn’t quit. I was doing this for years on after. That’s really what it is.
It’s kind of like a message to the hustlers. You’re never really certain what the outcome’s going to be until the end. That’s why at the end of the video, it’s a cliffhanger. That’s why I say, “Is she with me for the love or the money and the blow/Are the cops gonna come or how I’m gonna go? Guns blazing, sometimes there’s no way to win and on the other hand, it’s just no way out.” That’s real talk for a lot of people.
In the video, you don’t know who’s setting me up. You don’t know if it’s my customers, if it’s the girl that’s setting me up, you don’t know if those are D-Boys coming to get me or if they’re just people playing D-Boys trying to get me. It’s to let the listener and viewer to use their own imagination on what the outcome is going to be.
That’s to anyone who has remained in the hustle gang. You really don’t know what your outcome is going to be.
Gliffics’ music is motivational and powerful; a layered introspective that gives just enough of his raw and rough past to acknowledge – but not glorify – his struggle. “Candy Girl” is a very strong and personal truth to Gliffics story of survival. From being in and out of group homes/institutions to emerging as one of New York’s accomplished licensed mortgage bankers is proof that where you start is not where you finish. Produced by Gliffics and Eddie Montilla (Lil Wayne, Lady Gaga, Quincy Jones), “Candy Girl” is sure to grab the attention of music lovers and his fans – affectionately called the indivisuals – everywhere.
Check out the “Candy Girl” music video:
