Hoover Street

Album: Oxymoron (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song finds Q detailing his loss of innocence growing up on Hoover Street. He spits rhymes about his grandma's gifts of Jordan shoes, Tommy Hilfiger underwear and video games, but also recounts his uncle stealing money out of his mom's purse and how he helped him cheat on a drug test.
  • Q also chronicles the negativity he was forced into upon joining the 52 Hoover Crips at the age of 12 when "every last one of us had a pistol in the room." As he recounted on "Gangsta," it was his grandma who showed him his first gun.

    The Crips were founded in 1969 by Raymond Washington and Stanley Williams after they decided to unite their local gang members from the west and east sides of South Central Los Angeles in order to battle neighboring street gangs. Their sign, Cs formed with the thumb and forefinger of both hands, has become well known and today they are one of the largest and most violent associations of street gangs in the United States, with over 30,000 members.

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