The Story of 'Because I Got High' by Afroman

[Music] when I wrote Because I Got High I was ready to experiment with the power of Simplicity I just happened to get high and realize that stuff wasn't getting done you know like I'm doing now I was gonna clean my room until I got high it was funny to me it's amazing it's like Billy Joel if he was stoned it was rap it was comedy it was incredible it's like I can't believe he just said that and then at verse later I can't believe he just said that in the early 2000s there wasn't really any song that talked us explicitly about smoking weed it's illegal to get high so how you gonna stand up there and say you guys I think all of us had a little hesitation about it initially but he was still smoking I was like we're all going to jail we had the number one song all over the world everything came to a screeching halt Afroman went from top of the charts everywhere to zero spins on radio the world changed completely so I had to start over I'm gonna be back daddy gonna be back okay baby it's the classic Cinderella story of an artist from nowhere who looks at others who do a thing and says why them why not me people say you want to hear Wonder well how many hits do you need [Music] foreign how long have you had your afro it's like the economy it goes up and down but they started calling me Afroman in 95. the old days it's been a long because I got high Journey it's a real sentimental house a classy weedy look this is the first house that I ever said I want the walls like this I want the trim like that a little something I put together it's a positive Vision something therapeutic I do I see stuff I like I cut it out I put a vision up so I don't get high and forget about it pro G Kush why why ain't tasting you know what I said yeah this is my first card this is Rodney King because me and Rodney been through everything you know what I'm saying the society was to put me up against the wall and look at my life and look at where I come from I feel great I feel like I'm the highest and I am but I come from the lowest I was born in LA but went down in Mississippi I got a good foundation you know church God learn how to sing on key learn how to have rhythm coming from Mississippi when I got to La as the youngsters say everything was turned up I grew up in the north side trades is what they call it South Central is the character former it was like the boot camp of my life I realized that if you was a gang member from a respectable set people treating you differently I became a g and a hustler and a rapper I picked my lifelong Styles in South Central Got my swag this is like my first good custom maze too if I go to a breast cancer awareness event if I go to a strip club I stepped my game up so now when I pick out an outfit I got a cup to match that outfit I invented the hemp hip cup they can screw in a jar and then I could keep my weed Colt 45 to baby that's all you need church I wrote my first song in the sixth grade there was a girl named Carrie she stood at the gate and she would clown everybody as they came through her and her friends they used to call me Kunta Kinte because I came from Mississippi I had hoes in my Wranglers and she used to kill me man and I didn't know what to do and she had a slight mustache I said Harry Caray ate her own cherry that's why her lips are very very hairy and all the kids was falling out now that's corny right now but back then rapping was a craze if you attempted to do it people would gather around you quickly like a fight or something and there she is in all of her nice clothes and I have a hole between my legs and she can't do nothing and she's not cool I became a rapper at Raymond Elementary School sixth grade 1986. so I learned how to record learn how to make a tape then I started making money from the tapes I was making I made this tape in the ninth grade teachers was pulling up to my house after school can we get 10 of those when I dropped out of high school my dad and my mom was breaking up my dad was going to Mississippi I hit the street I was like I know what I want I want rapping I started smoking weed when I was selling CDs in South Central LA that's probably the lowest point of my life no parental support no job yeah one day I was broke these girls gave me a ride and they had a joint and I hit it and I mellowed out and I was like hmm I'm broke but I'm okay I'm high when I started smoking weed I began to ponder and reason I became a better chess player I became a better businessman I realized that my salary in Los Angeles was capped it was hard to get my tapes in stores in La everybody want to be a rapper you know and then just a California cost of living it was a challenge so you know I had to start over I'm gonna be back daddy gonna be back okay baby when I left to come to Mississippi in 99 I left La broke my house went in foreclosure for up and coming rapper I was embarrassed I just didn't know if I could make it but I'm on my way to Mississippi to do a Reaper reminisce tour we're headed into Hattiesburg going home to say hey to everybody check on all my peoples and do a show Hattiesburg is like heaven man you can party with the college kids people from all over the state of Mississippi and all over the country come to the University of Southern Mississippi I'm not in L.A no more so I'm not trying to appeal to the G's and the hustlers I'm down in Hattiesburg it's Drinkers and they're some kind of drug experimenters it's good times down here you know so I started writing good time songs songs about drinking smoking weed and self-deprecating songs and because I got high was one of them this is the house right here man this is my house the last back right rumors where I wrote Because I got hot October 1999. when I wrote Because I Got High I was ready to experiment with the power of simplicity [Music] I just happened to get high and realize that stuff wasn't getting done you know like I'm doing now I was gonna clean my room and I got you ever see those comedians they come back to something every time they come back to it it gets funnier my room is still messed up I know why yeah I was gonna go to class and then I was gonna go to work it was funny to me I laughed and I recorded it on an eight track had my digital age rack and instead of a p popper I had a dirty sock so that's when I knew I was rapping too close to the mic when I could smell that dirty sock let's jump back I wanted to hit kind of hard I hit the bass string with the drum dude one track for drums one track for bass that's all the music in it and the rest is six vocal tracks so I got on six different tracks it made it sound like a party [Music] I sell sound so if it sounds like a party it's a party I wrote Because I Got High I pressed up the CD I was trying to hustle it and everything and I said I'm gonna do this album then after this album I'm gonna go get a job so it was like my last strike at a hit and you know I faced a lot of rejection hostilities one of the problems I had was stores wouldn't put my CDs in their stores I'm selling them on the street but I'm only one man one man can only do so much after you get to a certain level you need help when I started T-Bones records in 1998 in Hattiesburg my goal was to become a nucleus for local music in 1999 Joseph Afroman walked into the record store and at that time Afroman was playing mostly frat parties backyard barbecues he was working full-time and selling his CDs out of the trunk of his car when Afroman first walked in it was easy to be interested in the guy he had a giant afro some huge Shades he's got his walk and he's got a CD and he's like I got some new music you got to check out Timmy so I tell him let me get in your store I'm gonna let everybody know to come get my CDs over here and you're gonna make all this money boom boom boom boom boom absolutely we'll sell your CDs and give you the money when we sell them he did me one better because I got T-Bones records at night we shut down and made music local artists would come in and we recorded and I helped Joseph edit the songs Master the songs turn them into a digital format this is probably 10 times the equipment that we had for Because I Got High we had no money to buy software we had the dude you got a Dell computer I think that was actually the name of the model that we had thousand dollar jobber but we recorded all of our music there and it didn't have a sound card so we were going in with a tiny plug I mean the sound quality was low we were just really winging it we edited out a little talking in the beginning and we fluffed up The Equalizer we finalized them in the Dell computer and then we got artwork done we'd send the digital file to the printer they send us back a thousand copies of Because I Got High this is the original Because I Got High that we released in 2000 on T-Bones records got all the tracks it's got a little T-Bone and the barcode and we sent them to our distributor Afroman's music was starting to sell just out of the record store it was very slow in the beginning we sold 10 copies one week 13 copies another week and it was all his doing going to shows playing any show sometimes multiple shows a night just to sell CDs but eventually I started noticing the sales ticking up first it was 10 a week through the distributor and then Afroman was selling 20 a week through the distributor and then after men sold a hundred a week through the distributor he started to get to New Orleans and he got to mobile and Birmingham it started getting out and out and out and that's what caught the eye of universal in the year 2000 I was an anr guy at Universal records our Focus was finding hit songs that already existed a radio station in Hattiesburg started playing this song by this guy named Afroman called Because I Got High we would talk to record stores in the area asking you ever heard of Afroman you ever heard of this song Because I Got High and they would laugh they were like have I ever heard of Afroman everybody's heard of Afroman it's like that's all anybody wants we'd listen to the whole album it's like what is this it was rap it was comedy it was incredible I'm getting Goosebumps thinking about it it was really exciting at that time in the early 2000s there wasn't really any song that talked us explicitly about like smoking weed at that time marijuana was criminalized it may not be to my advantage to stand in public with a microphone being a black man in the white Society yelling out I got high so yeah I think all of us had a little hesitation about it initially but I think part of the Brilliance of that song is on paper it's a cautionary tale about all the bad things that will happen to you if you smoke weed all of the lyrics that are like not safe for work were just pure gold I was gonna eat your I can't believe he just said that and then a verse later I can't believe he just said that now I'm jacking it up and I know why I probably got the record deal from the jacking offers okay he's crazy fly man yeah he's a all right sign right here this yeah I got in contact with Tim he said I want to fly you and Joseph up and we want to talk to you we'll send you first class tickets just come up here and talk to us I mean who are we to refuse I woke up to a pounding on the door to Universal records just wanting you to come to New York City it was Tim Raymond us when Afroman and I went to New York it was like The Beverly Hillbillies it was amazing we're so excited running on zero sleep going into the universal offices and we were just swept off our feet I fantasized about that moment on the playgrounds of Raymond Elementary School and then I'm in New York at the big building I'm about to sign the big deal we took the first deal they offered us and it was like Hook Line and Sanger was probably six months that it went from selling a hundred a week to signing a million dollar publishing deal once the deal was signed we started having radio singles made as quickly as possible so there is a vinyl radio single of Because I Got High it's the afrolicious edit and the afropical gold and dirty edit and then of course Kevin Smith came into the picture Kevin Smith was essential in the successes Because I Got High a great promoter of the song I was a good clap right for the last two decades uh people have wrongly given me credit as the guy who discovered Afroman and Because I Got High I'm just the guy that was lucky enough to put that song in a movie in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back my fifth film Universal soundtrack group Kathy Nelson this is who deserves all the credit she gave me a CD and she was like I need you to listen to this immediately he's going I just heard this song and I think it would be perfect for your end credits I spin the song and you know instantly it's Bliss it's amazing it's a story song it's like Billy Joel if he was stoned he tells an entire tale we need to put that at the end of the movie before the movie comes out Universal's like they're gonna shoot a video for Because I Got High and you and Jay get to be in it and I was like fantastic I was gonna clean my room until I Got High music video was crazy that's my first video man it's with Jay and Silent Park and at this point Man this ain't even real you know I'm high Universal is keeping me with some good ass weed man when I hung out with Afroman that day on set mind you it's in 2001. weed is still illegal everywhere but he was still smoking outside I remember being very impressed by that and scared where I was like we're all going to jail but it worked out that video Gonna Last Forever Universal Music Group they started blanketing radio stations with the single and it started blowing up Howard Stern started playing it on his Morning Show and he just played the out of it this uh great song Because I Got High blew the roof off the whole thing and we realized this is a mainstream radio Powerhouse hit when our movie came out the single was bigger than our movie already the song was lightning in a bottle lightning in a bottle is a cliche everybody knows that but imagine lightning in a bottle it is so out of control it is a crazy ride he went from playing backyard barbecues and frat parties to playing stadiums overnight we were just like a couple of Mississippi bumpkins through forced immersion it became our element it ended up being popular overseas we did a radio promo tour of Europe This is Afroman we'll topped the pops which was huge we was in England and I'm in the back of this cab this big TV screen is just facing the freeway then because I got high cups I'm getting high in front of this whole city London Bridge is falling down looking at this big screen that was everywhere man it was hard to believe that it was that popular we went number one in 11 countries around the world there's like a global phenomenon it was the summer of 2001 that because I got high really was all over the place showing no signs of stopping and it was probably at its peak on September 10th and the next morning of course was September 11th Afroman went from you know top of the charts everywhere to zero spins on radio and stayed there the word from Radio was the country has changed you know simply like that it's not funny anymore it cut the legs out from underneath it instantly the world changed completely suddenly everything was much more dire it was frivolt went right out the window it was almost an insult to be that silly at a time of such you know despair I do funny I don't do serious I don't do good when I do serious you know what I'm saying it shut me down they say send us a song I sent it to him since another one it looked like they wasn't gonna do nothing with me the music business had come to a crashing Hall after 9 11 and I think Universal was just trimming the fat Universal had kind of had it with us they had at one point brought Joseph and I into a meeting and told us to please stop smoking weed that was because I got high a guy should smoke weed when he wants to smoke weed I nobody Minds seeing the Because I Got High Guy high as long as I was on universal they had to approve everything that got released but if I can't put out a record with you can I go put out one with myself I mean on the street I at least had me and they didn't want to release nothing so I said release me and then and they released me and I was allowed to set up a label and begin making the music again Joseph is still touring still making new music he's a prolific artist he's very creative diligent artist I feel like that's his true Essence and it's what he wanted to do then and it's what he wants to do now and I feel like it's what he'll do for the rest of his life I'm a Loner so I function alone I do good I write music alone I record along to me lonely is the wrong mindset a lot of good things happen when you're alone I wrote Because I Got High when I was alone you know what I'm saying when I'm on the road the world is mine all of this is a table with everything on it it's a big Golden Corral and I can just pick what I choose man you know I see the world I see my Mississippi tour I see my Oklahoma tour I see my vice TV episode coming on it's the classic Cinderella story of an artist from nowhere who looks at others who do a thing and says all right why then why not me something really pure unadulterated about that and that's what people connect with because of that song I don't never want to sing another angry song because every time I sing that song I get happy again if you go to an Afroman show today 20 years later it is all college kids who were maybe just born at the time the record came out and they know every word of every song there's a lot of stuff to this song that isn't just your simple frat boy Anthem even though that's what it appears as it's actually a moral song yes it's R-rated and it's funny but it's got the moral of the story is you will get nothing done if all you think about is getting high you won't be able to achieve anything even eating it's got all these deep meanings and it's funny and it's human and it sounds unlike any other hip-hop song that's ever been done there will never be a time when people aren't getting hot you're going to have kids singing this song forever man it's a magical song when that beat drop they get to looking around rolling up all the beers all the hands go up people say you're one here Wonder well how many hits do you need foreign [Applause] yeah yeah I live happily ever after [Laughter] [Music] till I got high I'm bigger now than I was 20 years ago literally both ways I just need to do some sit-ups that's all I'm working out and I'm working out right after this [Music] sounds familiar come on check it out

Channel: VICE

Views: 3,591,500

Keywords: documentary, documentaries, docs, interview, culture, lifestyle, world, exclusive, independent, underground, videos, journalism, vice guide, vice.com, vice, vice magazine, vice mag, vice videos, short films, afroman, because i got high, i got high, weed, cannabis, music, music video, new music video, napster, music 2022, afroman reaction, because i got high clean, because i got high instrumental, because i got high live, because i got high vice, because i got high lyrics afroman, afroman live

Id: a0cDdo-H5Vo

Length: 22min 33sec (1353 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 05 2022