Criminal Minded

When you first lay eyes on Jediah, you can't help but notice the teardrop-shape tattoo on his upper left cheek, not to mention the barrels of two smoking shotguns inked on either side of his neck. "I got a lot of tattoos," Jediah says, lifting his pant leg to display a few more. "That's what we do in the hood: get tattoos." From the sailor-style "Dade County" inscribed across his index fingers to his zig-zag cornrows, this 26-year-old gangster-turned-recording-artist looks every bit the part. Quite honestly: He makes 50 Cent look like Martha Stewart.

At the moment he's also half-drunk and half-asleep, having just emerged from 24 hours straight inside a recording booth at North Miami's famed Studio Center. These days Jediah is hard at work on his debut album, Confessionz of a Thug (the "z" being the preferred gangsta spelling), which is set for an early May release. The disc offers a mix, from Southern crunk-tastic flavors to Tupac-inspired love songs, including the auto-erotic single "SUV," in which Jediah croons, "This one's dedicated to my SUV/You're my own personal hotel, mami."

For a guy who's only been rapping steadily for a couple of years, Jediah has generated plenty of hype. By his own account he's already been offered a multimillion-dollar record deal (and turned it down) and gotten into a high-profile beef with Miami's beloved Trick Daddy.

"He's like the chico version of Rick Ross. Maybe even better," enthuses Hector Mendez, owner of Studio Center, where superstars such as Shakira and Wyclef lay down tracks. Mendez, a keen observer of the local hip-hop scene, and one who's seen Jediah in action both on and off the mike, tags him as the next rapper to watch. "Jediah's style is so rugged, so grimy. He's the real deal, 'cause he lived it."

Jediah Arteta was born in Opa-locka, to an Italian mother and a Colombian father. He named his record label La Cosa Nostra as a tribute to the ruthless mob presence in both of their native countries. The eldest of nine siblings, he was raised mostly by his grandmother, his mom being only fifteen years old when he was born. He grew up in the heart of Washington Park, a section of North Miami Beach infamous for its high crime rate and gang violence. As Jediah puts it: "I was raised in the hood, by the hood. I wish I had a charmed life, grew up in the suburbs, not having to worry about gunfights and shit, but it just didn't turn out that way."

In fact there was a point in Jediah's teendom where he could have gone on the straight and narrow. A natural athlete, he won a baseball scholarship to attend Dade Christian School, one of Miami's top private schools. But his other extracurricular activities — in particular his partying — didn't go over so well with school officials. After expulsions from numerous district high schools, Jediah stuck to one thing he was good at: being a thug.

This path, not surprisingly, led to a series of arrests, from minor assaults to (his personal favorite) weapons possession. "In the hood, we wear guns like we wear socks," Jediah explains. "That's just how it is. I'd be lying if I said I'm not packing right now." Jediah says he was eventually arrested for attempted murder, though the charge was reduced to a lesser charge, improper exhibition of a weapon.

It was the prospect of major jail time that led him to pursue the path of his hero, Tupac Shakur. "Tupac raised me," he says flatly. "My father wasn't there all the time so when I needed to know how to talk to girls, Tupac taught me how you handle business on the streets, Tupac taught me. Man, he was my older brother."

His own experience on the streets also turned out to be a great teacher. "The music industry is just an extension of the streets," he insists. "The hating, the politicking, the backstabbing, the money, it's the same shit I was a champion in the streets, I knew that game like the back of my hand. So this music game, it ain't so hard."

Aside from hot beats and catchy lyrics, Jediah knew he needed to join forces with a talented producer. He teamed up with a local up-and-comer, Carol City's Michael Chin, better known as Merk Traxs, who is responsible for Jediah's raw and uncompromising sound of machine-gun rhythms and bombed out bass. Think Dirty South music in a mud bath.

Jediah found himself laying down his first rhymes back in 2004 at the coveted Circle House Studios. "Everyone that's anyone records at Circle House," Jediah says. "If you want to play with the big boys, you gotta go where the big boys play." How did the fledgling rapper pay for studio time, which can run up to $1000 per day? "You gotta do what you gotta do," Jediah says.