X-Raided
X-Raided biography and full discography: Garden Blocc, Psycho Active, lyrics used at trial, albums recorded from prison, Black Market Records and his 2018 release.
Garden Blocc
Anerae Brown was born in Sacramento in 1974 and grew up in South Sacramento's 24th Street area, the heart of the Garden Blocc Crips. His mother worked as a clerk at the county courthouse. As a teenager he started recording with Cedric Singleton's young Black Market Records.
Psycho Active
His debut album, Psycho Active, came out in April 1992, produced by X-Raided with Brotha Lynch Hung and Singleton. Violent, paranoid and packed with samples, it helped launch Black Market and the Sacramento sound. Weeks earlier, in March 1992, he had been arrested with four others over a killing during a home invasion. At his trial, prosecutors used his lyrics as evidence. He was convicted and sentenced to a long prison term. He has always maintained his innocence.
Records from inside
He kept making music anyway. Xorcist (1995) was recorded during his trial, and its track “Collect Call” uses a real call from Sacramento County Jail. The Unforgiven: Vol. 1 (1999) was recorded inside Salinas Valley State Prison on smuggled equipment and became his first charting album. Vengeance Is Mine (2000) finished his Black Market contract, and he went on releasing albums through his own imprint while still incarcerated.
Free
X-Raided was paroled in September 2018 after 26 years. He released California Dreamin' (2019) and a run of albums after it, signed with Strange Music in 2022, and in 2025 released new music with his longtime Sacramento peer C-Bo. His case remains one of the best-known examples of rap lyrics being used in court.
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