yuzivert

[yuzivert]

Christian: Business Man w Blood On His Hands.

SBS Interviewer: So introduce yourself.

( ` christian cleared his throat and adjusted himself in the hot seat. the words he practiced over and over again on his way here today seemed to skip him all at once, but maybe it was for the good )

- I’m Christian Yu, but most people know me as Yuzi. I’m the creator and founder of DPR, which is a small company where I make music videos.

Interviewer: As I’ve researched, DPR is a newer company, isn’t that right? Congratulations, by the way. Could you tell us where your nickname, Yuzi, came from?

( ` he nodded in perfect timing to her questions, even silently mouthing thank you as she showed her gratitude. a small grin crept up on the corner of his lip at the flooding memory of how his nickname came to be )

- Mm.. In middle school, I went by my second name, Barom/Rome. I dropped it when I moved to New York. One day, an ex of mine jokingly called me Lil Yuzi Vert and it just stuck. So now I go by Yuzi. I liked it and I’m a fan of Lil Uzi so I found it fitting.

Interviewer: Similar to Uzi, you just dropped a SoundCloud track called, “Fatal Attraction”, about your recent heartbreak. You also deleted it after 24 hours. Why was that?

( ` christian never really tied the similarities together. however, it was now sitting on him heavily. speaking about his past was always something hard for him, but now was the time to lay it all out )

- I deleted it because I felt like I just needed to get what I was feeling off my chest. I just wanted everything out there so I could let go of the anger that I had against her, yknow? I didn’t put it up there for her to hear it, but it was for people to relate to.

Interviewer: Are you going to put put another one? Or at least put this one back up?

- Nah, music isn’t really my thing. It was just something I had written and wanted to get off my chest. I couldn’t sell the song to anyone because it was too personal. I think I’ll just stay focused on the music videos.

Interviewer: I see. So, there was recent news about a incident that took place in America. The media has a bunch of different stories out about you right now. Could you clear the air and tell us what really happened?

( ` at that very moment everything in the room became so suffocatingly silent for christian. the night playing over and over again his head as he sat with his eyes glued to the floor. it took him a while to gather himself before he could begin to respond. he scratched his head and shrugged, finally ready to tell the uncensored truth )

- Ah, damn. Can I tell the full story here? From the jump to the landing? Alright so, when I was 16 I joined a gang. I had been in New York for quite some time before all this happened. It wasn’t supposed to go down the way it did.

- I met this guy, Dom, at school. He and I were like brothers for the first two years after high school. The summer of 2012, I’m fresh in my 20s cuz it’s my birthday, right. My boy says we’re gonna do something big and celebrate my 21st birthday. The night starts off with girls and alcohol all over the place. People start pouring into my apartment all at once with their own bottles and whatever. My buddy had been hooking up with this dudes girlfriend, right? It had been going on for a while year before it escalated to that night.

- It’s around 2 in the morning. The party is still going. I’m hanging out with some girls by the pool downstairs when Dom calls me. I could tell he was angry by the bass in his voice, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I got the gist that he wanted me to come back upstairs and help him with something. I’m not thinking too much about it, right? I’m chilling and enjoying my birthday, yknow?

- I get upstairs and my apartment is a mess. Cups spilled, tables flipped, girls drunk and passed out on my couch. Dude calls me into his room, right? So I’m walking down the hall and as I’m walking.. I start to notice the blood on the carpets and on the wall. I look into the living room and there’s a big ass hole in my wall. He pulls me into a room. I’m asking him like, “what’s good? you good? what’s going on?” but he’s still mad and going off. Finally he hands me this bag and.. let me just say.. this bag was heavy as shit.

( ` he sighed, rubbing his sweaty palms off on his jeans )

- I had never seen a gun before in real life, so when I took it out of the bag I didn’t know what to think. It was a bunch of confusion at first cuz everything was good before I went to the pool. I guess that girls boyfriend ran up in the party and started fighting. My guys against theirs. Most of the party took off, except the ones who were too drunk to move off the couch. It got out of control and the guys said they would come back for him and that they had something waiting for him.

- Keep it real, It was something out of a movie honestly. I didn’t know what to do or say, but I knew I trusted him because he was the only friend I had made. He took me into his home and showed me how to live on my own in a big city. Now he was teaching me how to survive.

- I took the gun and tucked it away without hesitation. I knew what I had to do to protect my brother. We didn’t even have time to throw proper clothes on before they came back into my apartment causing commotion in the kitchen. Dom ran out first and started shooting…

- It was loud then it got real silent.

- You could smell the powder everywhere.

- I’m still sitting there with this big ass gun in my hand. Practically shitting bricks now. I didn’t hear anything from anybody for a minute and I sure as hell wasnt about to go investigate that shit all by myself, but I couldn’t hear Dom anymore so I knew that I had to.

( ` the cameras cut just as he choked up. he requested brief intermission to collect this thoughts and calm down. with his eyes his eyes brimming with tears, he took a deep breath and began to speak again )

- I make it to the hallway and see two bodies laying in the middle of my living room. I didn’t assume either body was Dom until I started calling out for him and I didn’t get a reply. Once he didn’t answer me, I already knew what happened.

- He was dead and I was standing there with a gun in my hand and dead bodies all around me. I didn’t know what to do. My adrenaline was going so fast that I pacing back and forth. A dude came out of my kitchen, but he was from the opposing side. Like I said, my adrenaline was crazy fast, yknow? I shot him. I actually shot him twice because I was afraid that he would wake up and try to kill me.

- I called my mom back in Australia to tell her what happened and she told me to call the cops. At first, I took my time hiding all the weapons and drugs I had around the apartment. I flushed a bunch of shit down the toilets, threw most of the stuff away in dumpsters across the way. I didn’t know if what I was doing was illegal, but I thought I would go to jail anyway so it wouldn’t matter.

- The shit was crazy. It was like a movie. One of those First 48 episodes I used to watch as a kid.

- It was ruled a home invasion homicide since they came into my house. The DA dropped charges and I was free to go.

Interviewer: Let’s run back to how your apartment was full of drugs and guns? How did you manage to acquire so much?

- My boy, Dom was heavily into that gang life. I wasn’t, but he was. The last two years of his life were spent selling drugs and doing all kinds of crime.

- But like I said, it wasn’t supposed to go down like that. I told him to stop messing with that girl when we were in high school, but I guess he loved her.

Interviewer: Is his death the main reason you’ve moved to Korea?

- Well, obviously. He was all I had in New York. Once I lost that, I quickly realized that lifestyle wasn’t for me anymore.

Interviewer: What changes have you noticed in yourself since his death?

- I’ont know. I just know I’m doing better out here than I was out there. I can’t be the same person I was a few years ago. I have a kid now. I gotta show him what life is really about, yknow? His mom keeps him out of trouble. He’s only two, but I’m going to raise him up the way my father should have raised me.

Interviewer: Can we talk more about that? I saw a comment that your mom left under your recent Instagram update. What’s the relationship with your parents?

- My mom, I call her LJ. It’s short for Lady Jane. she’s my world. The typical tiger mom, but she loved me with everything she had. As for my father? Ain’t much to talk about. He left my mom when I was 14 and I haven’t seen him since.

Interviewer: Ahh… Yuzi, you’ve come quite a long way. I hope you keep this promise to yourself and to your son. As always, it’s been a pleasure talking with you. Do you have any last words or advice for viewers?

- I will, thank you.

- Last words? Uh, don’t wear a white sweatshirt to a gun fight.