A chance encounter would change the course of Young Buck’s life. Buck began rapping at 12-years-old and then a couple of years later, he received the opportunity to perform in front of one of the leading forces in the rap game: Birdman. The Cash Money mogul took Buck under his wing and began developing him as an artist, and Buck recently spoke about what led up to him making the decision to turn to music.

“Changed my whole entire life into the music business. That’s where my journey started,” Buck told VladTV about performing for Birdman. “At the age of 13, man, I was in these streets in a real way as far as trying to find a way. My mom was blessed to graduate and come out of college and have a good job. My mom’s actually a social worker. She’s kinda one of them ladies who poured her life into school and into work and she got so many different degrees and stuff like that, my life started to change once my mother lost her job in the middle of a hospital merger.”

Young Buck also explained that his mother had taken in her sister’s children, and while disciplining one of the kids with a phone cord, the young child decided to call the authorities. No one expected what followed: Buck’s mother was charged with child abuse and because it was on her record, she was no longer able to work around children, which her job required. Soon, Buck’s family went from a middle-class lifestyle to struggling to make it day-to-day. Buck was determined to get his mother out of poverty and by the time he entered his teens, he was making moves on the streets.

“I had already grown adapted to getting money,” he said. Music was just the next step and the rest is history. Watch Young Buck speak about his childhood below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC2ouf_c-KU