Some stories don’t start with a business plan. They start with a phone call, a feeling, and the kind of confidence you only have when you’re young enough to believe anything is possible.
This is the story of Ruffside Entertainment — a 90s independent hip hop movement born in Eastern North Carolina — and how the music, the memories, and the mindset still live today through Real Crookz and everything that came after.
A Phone Call That Started Everything
It was a Saturday afternoon sometime around 1995. I was driving down Highway 158 in Roanoke Rapids near Halifax Memorial Hospital when my brother Shawn called me.
His first words were simple:
“Let’s start a record company.”
At the time, I was already making money online, and we weren’t scared to try anything. Life felt wide open. I had just finished four years in the Army, and ambition was driving every decision. Back then, you didn’t overthink moves. If it felt right, you did it.
That moment became Ruffside Entertainment.
No investors. No label backing. Just belief and momentum.
Building Ruffside Entertainment From the Ground Up
Ruffside Entertainment was Shawn, Darrell, and myself — funding everything ourselves. Studio time, CD production, press kits, travel, food, promotion. Every dollar came from us.
Looking back now, the investment was 1/3 from me alone would easily exceed $60,000 in today’s money. “Remind you this was 1995-1999”. But at the time, it wasn’t about return on investment. It was about building something real.
We traveled across North Carolina performing in Greenville, Rocky Mount, Fayetteville, Raleigh, Durham, and anywhere else that gave us a chance. Some shows were in clubs. Some were in open fields with 18-wheeler flatbeds as stages.
It was raw. Unfiltered. Pure hip hop energy.
Nobody was competing against each other. Everybody was trying to make it together.
The Real Crookz Sound and the Carolina Influence
Real Crookz consisted of:
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M. Shawn Clements
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J. Wendell Clements
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Tremain Lashley
The sound was heavily inspired by the grit of 90s hip hop — groups like Mobb Deep, Wu-Tang Clan, and the raw East Coast storytelling that defined the era. But the perspective was Carolina. Real life. Real experiences.
Everything was produced through Ruffside Entertainment Inc. and recorded in the projects of Garysburg and mixed and mastered at Master Sound in Virginia Beach, VA.
Written by:
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C. Johnson
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K. Ramsey
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S. Clemonts
- J. Wendell Clements
The music reflected where we came from — Garysburg, North Carolina — and the reality of growing up, moving through struggle, and trying to build something bigger than your environment.
Living Fast, Learning Early
That time period came with lessons. Nights at Encore Club on 301 in Pleasant Hill. Fights in Rocky Mount. Situations that came with moving through life at full speed.
We never started trouble, but we never ran from it either.
Those moments shaped perspective. They taught resilience. They taught awareness. And they taught one of the earliest lessons in business and creativity — sometimes the people who pretend not to notice you are watching the closest.
Years later, you realize influence travels quietly.
When the Music Comes Back Around
One of the reasons this story came back to me recently was pure chance. I searched YouTube and found people still posting Real Crookz songs. Comments from listeners discovering the music decades later. Likes showing up as recently as 2025.
That’s when it hits you — music really does outlive the moment it was created in.
Then came another surprise. Vinyl copies of the Real Crookz EP being sold through collector markets. Want lists growing. Hip hop heads still searching for records that started in small-town North Carolina.
Seeing executive producer credits tied to names that weren’t even us anymore was strange, but it also showed how important it is to preserve your own history.
So I rebuilt the original Real Crookz logo from screenshots, remastering it in Illustrator to protect something that meant a lot to us.
Some legacies deserve to be kept intact.
Memories, Loss, and What Remains
We shot videos on railroad tracks. Traveled city to city chasing opportunities. Lost people along the way. Jerome (Salt) was the last person I remember holding copies of some of that history, and now he’s gone.
Back then, there wasn’t constant documentation. No social media timelines. No cloud backups.
Just moments.
And like Tupac once said, sometimes all that’s left are stinking memories.
But memories build foundations.
The Sound That Still Holds Up
The Real Crookz catalog still resonates:
Listening today, the lyrics still feel relevant. The flow still feels authentic. That’s the difference between chasing trends and telling real stories.
Real music ages differently.
Ruffside Entertainment and the Mastuhree Mindset
Ruffside Entertainment was never just about music. It was about investing in ideas before you knew how they would turn out. Living in the moment. Taking risks without guarantees.
That mindset carries directly into Mastuhree today.
Real experiences turned into creativity. Trials turned into purpose. Pain turned into expression.
Success doesn’t always look like fame or charts. Sometimes it looks like longevity — knowing that decades later, people still press play.
And if you know hip hop, you know that means everything.
What Ruffside Taught Me About Legacy
Looking back now, Ruffside Entertainment wasn’t just about music or chasing a deal. It was about learning how fast life moves and how important it is to create while you’re living in the moment.
We didn’t know what the outcome would be. We just knew we believed in what we were doing. Every dollar spent, every mile driven, every late night in the studio was an investment in something bigger than ourselves. Not just success — but expression.
That same era and mindset eventually inspired pieces like the Real Crookz Vintage Frayed Hoodie, designed as a tribute to the Ruffside Entertainment years and the independent grind behind the music.
That lesson never left me.
Mastuhree comes from that same place. Real experiences. Real wins and real losses. Turning trials into something meaningful instead of letting them define you. The clothes, the designs, the stories — they all come from lived moments, not trends.
When I hear Real Crookz records still playing today, it reminds me that legacy isn’t always loud when it’s being built. Sometimes you don’t realize what you created until years later when it comes back around.
The music survived. The memories survived. The mindset survived.
And that’s really what this story is about — creating something real enough that time can’t erase it.
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