Mac Dre's Old Record Label Affiliates Arrested in Drug Bust After Federal Thizzvestigation

By Albert Samaha Wed., Apr. 25 2012 at 3:25 PM

Categories: Crime

"Can you do the Thizzle dance?" -- Mac Dre. RIP.

As the late Mac Dre explained, Thizz Face is "a look on your face like you smelled some piss."

This expression is similar to "a look on your face when you are arrested as part of a nationwide DEA drug-trafficking sweep."

So we expect there were plenty of Thizz Faces to go around last Thursday when the feds arrested 25 people, some of whom are affiliated with the Vallejo-based "Thizz Entertainment," the record label Mac Dre founded.

According to the DEA, the Thizzvestigation yielded "45,000 MDMA pills, approximately four pounds of crack cocaine, a half-pound of heroin, and $200,000 in suspected drug proceeds. Agents also forfeited 230 acres of property valued at approximately $1 million as part of the investigation."

In a press release, the agency made sure to note that "in many songs by artists on the Thizz Entertainment label, the lyrics glorify and promote the use and distribution of MDMA pills."

"Thizz" is officially defined as the feeling of an ecstasy high, though the word gets thrown around so often that its connotation has become much looser. When Mac Dre founded the label in 1996, it was called Romp Records. Many credit Dre, who was shot and killed in 2004, and his partners at Thizz with laying the groundwork for Hyphy, the movement that put the Bay Area on the national hip hop scene in the mid-to-late 2000s.

Dre himself was arrested in 1992 for a string of bank robberies by the "Romper Room Gang," which made base in Vallejo's Crest neighborhood. He was convicted and served four years in the penitentiary. While incarcerated, he recorded two albums, Young Black Brotha and Back N' Da Hood, over the prison phone.

He changed the record label's name to Thizz Entertainment to distance it from the Romper Room Gang, of which Dre maintained that he was never a member.

The drug bust led to arrests in Vallejo, Stockton, Fairfield, Oakland, Los Angeles, and as far away as New York, and Oklahoma City. Criminal complaints called this "a network of drug distributors working in the Crest neighborhood of Vallejo, along with individuals transporting large quantities of drugs outside of California to realize a larger profit."

Arrested members of the label include, Michael "Miami the Most" Lott, Major "Dubee" Norton, Gaylord "Geezy" Franklin, and Bruce "Little Bruce" Thurmon.

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