Love & Hip Hop: Houston will just have to wait.
As one of the more recent viral rappers to come out of H-Town in the past few years, Chedda Da Connect has been comfortably riding his wave, initially kickstarted by his 2015 hit “Flicka Da Wrist.”
But like most native citizens when Hurricane Harvey hit, Chedda sprung to action without regard for his own personal safety and did his part in ensuring his people were straight.
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This is his story from the Harvey Frontlines.
From your recollections, what were your sights and scenes? What do you remember?
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I mean, I seen a lot of shit. It showed me people just weren’t really prepared. They be playing so many games and shit; playing with people’s heads so much. A lot of people thought it was a joke. It never really flooded like that down here, but a lot of people snapped to reality real quick and went into rescue mode.
I spoke to Bun B and he said a lot of people got trapped after watching the Mayweather/McGregor fight. Where were you when the storm hit?
I was kinda like in the Magnolia area. It wasn’t really raining out here like that. But I had a lot of people at my house and we had a little fight party and afterwards, people was calling me like, “Damn, we was flooded and had to take detour routes and shit.”
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After that fight party, a lot of people got stuck. The freeways got flooded and that shit started looking like an ocean real quick. It was crazy. It was some shit like no one expected. It was like baby oceans everywhere across the city. A lot of people just had to think for their own for this type of situation. It wasn’t just too much the news telling people what to do. People just went into survival mode on their own; went and started pulling out their boats; started coming from all kinds of different little cities with their boats and rescue teams and that helped a lot for the city [of Houston].
I saw the mayor of Houston on the news commending everyone for banding together.
Yeah, that’s what it made it dope. And the fact people out here already independent, so they already had their own boats laying around. A few jet skis here and there, so that made it even better.
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How is your family doing?
My auntie and grandma’s houses got flooded. My dad had to weed through traffic through the storm to get her! He was like, “Fuck that, I gotta put this truck on the road.” [Laughs] The water was past her thighs. She stay like in the Northeast area. Yeah, that water got high! I was driving around like, fuck it, I gotta get out here. I’m not gonna sit back and just watch. I’ma try and hop on these boats and save some people. I ain’t worried about no water. When you a nigga like me, I ain’t worried about no camera — I’ma do it from the heart. So I had to do what I had to do. I almost got sucked in a couple times too! But I wasn’t about to let that stop me.
What were some of the needs for the people that you helped?
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Food and water, for sure. But mainly, a lot of people just need somewhere to stay. I feel like a lot of these hotels should lower their prices or take two or three floors of rooms to give people … that’s what I would do. And if I was the mayor, I’d make muthafuckas do it, shit. That ain’t gonna hurt y’all! These people need somewhere to be. And really, it’s school time. A lot of people just got done getting their kids right. So [the hurricane] knocked a lot of people left for a little bit.
That’s a good point.
A lot of the money should be put towards rebuilding homes. Everybody lost their homes but the land still there. So you can put those houses right back up. If they get to working ASAP, it’ll be two or three years at the most. All that Super Bowl money, they need to start dropping it over here! They act like they ain’t just got all that Super Bowl money. If I had that money, I’d be out here building homes for the flood victims. Y’all ain’t gotta pay nothing! Just move in! Next year, we’ll talk about it!
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From what you can see, where is the best place Hip Hop fans can donate? What are the most trustworthy sources in your opinion?
The big organizations, I wouldn’t really focus on. I would focus on the hands-on people who gonna spread this money amongst everybody and do it the right way. I wouldn’t be so quick to give it to a big organization just because of their name. Embed from Getty Images
But you got people like Bun B and I know he’s gonna do the right thing for sure. You got like J. Prince/Rap-A-Lot and them. In the 3rd Ward/5th Ward; they gonna make sure that’s right.
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And me and my team gonna be out here physically! They need school clothes for kids, transportation, TV, couches — all that. I ain’t talking just one or two days.
We gonna be out here!
Check out @CheddaDaConnect on Instagram for all his latest updates on his Hurricane Harvey relief efforts.
