Dro Fe's Hustle History Boils Down to the 'Narcowave 3' Project

Photos courtesy of Dro Fe

A lot of artists these days claim “the plug” as a title. Getting into whether or not they do or do not move the weights they say they do is a fool’s errand, but it’s always cool to meet someone who’s got a legitimate story to tell and a banging aesthetic to drape it in.

Meet Dro Fe, a veteran of the music game, though you might have missed his work in the congested contemporary hip-hop scene. He grew up in the 80s, the son of a baked goods magnate from Mexico. Around the time the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement was signed, his father made a lot of money by selling the baking business his family had owned for generations. Bimbo took over, but before that Dro’s father’s bakery business was the largest independent bakery in the US.

That doesn’t mean he had it easy—early on his father took off and started a new family with whom he shared his riches, leaving behind Dro Fe, his sister and his mother.

In Dro’s words, "pops didn’t fuck with me or my sister after he left my mom. He got a new different family with a new wife.” It did instill in him, however, a sense of hustle.

By the time he was 19, he was making enough money to focus on other endeavors. For Dro, came first: “Money always took priority for me. I invested a bunch of money in a lot of people. I started a group, and that shit sold like 50 thousand CDs out of a storefront I opened up. Eventually it became a barber shop, and we sold grills, area code T-shirts. We were called the Rockbottom G’s.”

The money came from getting his feet wet in the border game. He earned his stripes in the streets and quickly gained his own ground. He quickly skims over it now. “It’s not about moving shit around over there,” he says. “That’s minor league shit. Where we’re from it’s about getting it out. Everyone’s out here saying they’re the plug, but they can’t even scratch the surface. When I got the border I saw the whole spectrum of the business.” Therein lies the central theme of what he’s termed the Narcowave.

The Narcowave series, the third installment of which dropped on Monday, is meant to show how he got his feet wet in that world, understanding the game. "Let’s show people what we’re really doing. Getting that shit out. People still don’t really understand what I’m talking about. We got tunnels where we’re from. Tunnels from house to house, houses hiding bricks. Sheriff’s involved, congressmen involved, everyone is on the take. It’s the Wild Wild West out there. That’s what Narcowave is."

Always into rap music and seeking as much gangster rap as he could in Southern Texas, Dro recalls his early tastes: “I had to have that Tupac Strictly for My Niggas. Dre’s The Chronic was the first album I owned. I had to get people to buy them for me because of the parental advisory stickers.” Inspired by those artists—Dre, Pac, Warren G, Snoop, Screw Tapes and the shit he saw on MTV—he started freestyling with friends in high school.

Dro Fe's own music takes the massive, rattling sounds of Atlanta trap and gives it a more sinister edge. Produced entirely by Sonny Digital, who also raps brilliantly on the intro, Narcowave 3 takes full advantage of Dro Fe's gravelly voice to build tracks that hit like a brick of cocaine to the face as he spits out rapidfire, language-blending lines like "Acapulco, pints of jugo, good menudo, fuck do you know." Fellow grim-voiced Texan Maxo Kream makes a guest appearance, as do 21 Savage, Bodega Bamz, and Zoey Dollaz. Check out Narcowave 3 below:

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