Photo: Keem Griffey
My mother named me Randall, but somehow people just call me Juice. The name Juego came from a drunken attempt to translate "Juice" into Spanish (should be Jugo but that shit sounds weak). I fell in love with rap when I was 9 by watching "The thong Song" video, directly followed by "the real slim shady" video. That was one of the first times I had watched a music video and comprehended what was going on in it, so I was intrigued and watched music videos for about 4 more hours straight on MTV jams (or "the box"). So time went on and I started liking rap (well, music in general) a lot more and became obsessed with 90s west coast gangsta rap. By 8th grade I used to force anyone around me to participate in freestyle cyphers on the black top at recess (yeah we had recess in 8th grade). We were all kinda ass at the time but that was just fun to us. I remember writing that I wanted to be a rapper in the school year book and other kids' parents were laughing to mine about it. Like it was funny to them that I didn't write that I wanted to be a teacher or a doctor or a cop or some shit. Fuck it, I laughed at their kids for wanting to be doctors so I guess it was even. Come to think about it, that whole middle school time period kind of shaped what I wanted to be as a rapper. I just wanted to do and say what I want, especially if I knew that people didn't want me to do it. Now I make music knowing that it's not gonna fit the sound that everyone wants to hear, but it's always something that I know will provoke an emotion or thought. Whether they like it or not, they remember the shit I say.
Follow JuegoTheNinety on Twitter- @JuegoTheNinety