Blood Raw

Born in Panama City, Florida, as Bruce Falson, Blood Raw launched his recording efforts inside a Florida correctional facility during a six-year sentence in the mid-1990s, where he honed his lyrical abilities and adopted the alias “Blood Raw,” a regional expression signifying “the truth.” After gaining freedom in 1998 he headed to Atlanta and took a job at his uncle’s Hip-Hop Café, a hub for emerging talent that prompted him to return to Panama City the following year and assemble his own rap collective. An encounter with Atlanta rapper Young Jeezy at a shared bill in Dothan, Alabama, led him to spurn offers from T.I.’s Grand Hustle imprint, Asylum, and additional suitors in favor of aligning with Jeezy’s coke-rap trio U.S.D.A.; the affiliation produced a 2004 contract with the Atlanta rapper’s Corporate Thugz Entertainment (CTE). Two years earlier Blood Raw had again faced legal jeopardy when federal prosecutors filed drug-trafficking counts, yet every charge was dismissed in 2006, clearing the path for the official U.S.D.A. Def Jam mixtape Cold Summer released the next year. Ahead of his CTE debut he also circulated solo street projects across the Southern mixtape circuit, among them the DJ Drama-assisted Indictment Papers and the DJ Smallz-helmed The Street Love Blood Raw.