X-Raided

Born Anerae VeShaughn Brown in Sacramento, California, X-Raided launched his recording career at age sixteen with the 1992 album Psycho Active. That debut aligned with the extreme gangsta-rap aesthetic popularized by the Geto Boys and N.W.A., and it featured multiple appearances by fellow Sacramento rapper Brotha Lynch Hung. Already active in a local Crips chapter by his mid-teens, the artist faced arrest alongside other members soon after Psycho Active appeared; prosecutors introduced its lyrics as evidence of premeditation in the ensuing home-invasion and murder case, marking the first time an emcee’s own words were used to secure a conviction. While serving more than twenty-six years behind bars, X-Raided kept releasing music, capturing 1995’s Xorcist via jail telephones and 1999’s Unforgiven on a contraband recorder supplied by a guard, followed by the 2002 set These Walls Can Talk, 2012’s Sacramentally Disturbed, and 2014’s Psychoactive 2. Freed in 2018, he reentered the scene with a markedly reflective outlook, issuing California Dreamin’ the next year and guesting on tracks alongside Tech N9ne and Kurrupt. In 2022 he joined the Strange Music roster, which issued his 2023 album A Prayer in Hell and showcased the more enlightened perspective gained during his long incarceration.