Drakeo The Ruler | Before They Were Famous | Troubled Life of Darrell Caldwell

Drakeo the Ruler is a West Coast rapper who’s been called one of the most singular artists to come out of Los Angeles since Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar. Drakeo first earned a boatload of attention for his music that featured a laidback easy style, distinct delivery, offbeat cadence, and more coded vernacular than you can shake a stick at. Unfortunately, those same enigmatic lyrics would come back to haunt him in a big way after his life spiraled out of control into a Kafkaesque battle with the California state legal system that stemmed from a 2016 serious crime charge that he was eventually acquitted of. The problem is — in California there’s a law that states if you’re a gang member, you can be charged for the crimes other members of your gang committed – even if the only “gang” Drakeo was ever a member of was his music collective, Stinc Team, who, needless to say, is no gang at all. And yet still, Drakeo was forced to spend nearly three years in prison that threatened to cut short his once-promising career at its most precarious stage — directly in the middle of his come-up.