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Dangerous livesa lot of rappers like to brag about leading them. But Billy Bloodshot faces more danger than most.

Any day, you could find me dead on the side of the road, says the 29-year-old aspiring MC, who, by day, drives a truck hauling petroleum, which he describes as riding around with an 80,000-pound bomb on my back.

Any situation where you know life could be over changes things, but I face it every day, he says. When youre going down a mountain at 90 mph with that 80,000 pounds behind you, it changes your perspective. I been in some street situations, but this is a whole different level.

Bloodshot spent a number of years on the street. I aint gonna lie and say I was some kind of kingpin. I was doing what everybody else in the white Ts is doing, he says of his past. The money was pretty good, and I was good. Then I had a son. I know people with five kids and theyre still jumping fences to hide from the police. I didnt want my son to come up like that. When I first got this job and got insurance and went to the doctor and it was coveredI liked that.

With this job and his family, Bloodshot says that he is in the best place Ive ever been in my life. Thats why he wants to give up the rap gamesort of.

Bloodshot is hanging out, as he often does on his days off, drinking Boh with his sister Akaia Gamble in the house she shares with her longtime boyfriend Will B. Smilardo. The house smells invitingly of Old Bay from the crab house next-door and is decorated with eclectic and antique furniture. Portraits of MLK and JFK hang side by side on the wall. A rabbit hops around, chewing up whatever it can get its teeth on.

Bloodshot and his sister are black, and Smilardo, also a truck driver, is white, and hes Bloodshots biggest supporter. He is a talker, and he wont shut up when it comes to Billy Bloodshots music.

Theres nobody out there doing anything as good as Billy, Smilardo says to anyone who will listen. He contacted City Paper about Bloodshot and maintains the SoundCloud account called da CRABCAKE . . . (BMores Best Jumbo THUMP, NO FILLERS!).

Hes obsessed with Billys music, Akaia says of her boyfriend with a good-natured eye-roll.

Bloodshot himself is a different storyhaunted by rap, he says, he can neither quit it nor entirely embrace it. He was reluctant to talk to CP, and he doesnt do live shows. He is interested in the art, but he sees little need for the business and promotional ends of the game and seems happy to take a trip to the studio every couple months.

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