A nation of millions knows his name. Now, after a couple of setbacks, one fact is clear: Tony Yayo is home. More hype than hip-hop’s greatest hypemen, G-Unit’s true soldier has  a few things to get off his chest.

50 Cent didn’t walk for a month after being shot nine times in May 2000. Young Buck needed a blood transfusion after taking two bullets that same year. The Game was flat on his back for five months after five rounds found him in 2001. Even G-Unit’s baby, Lloyd Banks, got hit by stray fire in his hood. Marvin “Tony Yayo” Bernard is the only member of the G-Unit rhyme family with no bullet holes. But don’t think he’s had it easy. Yayo’s been through his own ordeal—a longer lasting one.

He was 50’s right hand during the Queens hustler’s last days as a hood terror, his road dog during the “How To Rob” era, there for the famed studio scuffle with Ja Rule & co. He stood by 50 through the lean years, sat at his side as he recovered from the murder attempt and provided spice on G-Unit’s premier mixtapes.

Before he could reap the rewards of his loyalty and perseverance, a month before the release of 50’s seven-million-selling classic Get Rich Or Die Tryin’, the 25-year-old Yayo was incarcerated for jumping bail on weapons charges. A mere 12 hours after his release a year later, he was re-arrested for, of all things, passport fraud, and sent back to serve an additional four and a half months.

Now, two weeks after his second release, XXL catches up with G-Unit’s prodigal soldier in his Midtown Manhattan apartment for an exclusive convo on time lost and found.

Let’s start from the beginning. Why were you sent to jail the first time?

In the midst of the signing [50 signing to Shady/Aftermath], niggas was still in the hood, still hustling, still had pistols on them. Somebody got killed on my boulevard and I happened to be in the neighborhood with my gun on me at the time. I don’t know what it was, but on the description they said it was me—so I had the whole fuckin’ precinct chasing me. Them niggas was fuckin’ chasing me through backyards; I dropped the pistol. They found the pistol, but they found out it wasn’t me. They did ballistics on the gun and it wasn’t the murder weapon, so they let me go. So more or less they just knew I had a gun on me at the time. 

So you got a simple charge for weapons possession. How did that turn into such a big problem?

This is 2002. Like spring. During the time I got the charge, we started doing the mixtape shit. The mixtape shit was buzzing before that a little bit, ’cause 50 did [the Guess Who’s Back album] through Landspeed. Everybody wanted to sign him. Then he signed with Em. From there, I was going back and forth to court. And one day they called me to court early, and I knew from there they was going to remand me. But shit was poppin’ now, ’cause we just signed with Em and Dre, so I was like...

Fuck that, I ain’t goin’ in…

Yeah. I was like, Fuck it, ’cause I realized that if I was to turn myself in, my career wouldn’t have even started. ’Cause Em and Dre didn’t even know me. So then we started flying to Detroit to go do songs for Em, flying to LA. So I would have never built a relationship with Em and Dre if I would have turned myself in... I had two choices: turn myself in and nobody know who Tony Yayo is? Or stay on the run and fuck with bitches, smoke weed, hang with my niggas and handle business? I think if you ask any nigga what they would have did on this Earth, the nigga would have told you: I’m not turning myself in.

How did the cops finally catch you?

New Year’s Eve at the Copacabana [in NYC], we performed. We pulled up in front of the Copacabana and one of the security guards jumps out to go check out the spot. Comes back and puts his pistol in the front with the other security guard, on the passenger side. From there, the police was behind us. I guess they was watching us the whole time, ’cause they knew 50 Cent was going to perform. So the [security guard] puts the pistol on the seat. And police pulled up on the car and told us to go around the corner. Soon as we pull around the corner, five unmarked cars pull in on us. From there, I thought everything was going to be alright, ’cause the gun was licensed. But now the pussy-ass security guard is telling the police, “The gun is not mine.” So we all looking at this nigga like, “What do you mean the gun is not yours? You’re supposed to be licensed to protect us.” Police took us in and it was a rap. They gave 50 and Banks bail—$10,000 apiece—and they got bailed out that same night. They was trying to see if I could get bail, and then that’s when they was like, “You got an outstanding warrant in Queens.”

What was your mindset when you realized that you had to do a bid?

To give you the honest truth, I was upset. But I knew it was coming. It was so much going on that I forgot I was on the run. When I was on BET and MTV, I didn’t feel like that. I flew to Barcelona, I was going everywhere, man. My whole thing was, I wanted to go to Barcelona for the MTV Awards with Em and 50—it was real important to me. It was real important to me! So I… you see how me and my brother look alike? I basically went to the passport agency, took his birth certificate and his social security, and gave it to a nigga that was damn near blind at the line. Banks came the next day, and he said he had a harder time than me, ’cause I was in and out of there in five minutes. Me and my brother look so much alike, that nigga gave me the passport the same day.

You didn’t wanna take the chance of getting a real passport, ’cause you were on the run?

Nah. I wasn’t going to take the chance of some kind of warrant poppin’ up with my name. So I went and got it in my brother’s name. If anything, he was going to get arrested—not me, ’cause I was low. The police couldn’t find me, ’cause I was flying to LA with 50 and working with Dre. Going to Barcelona. I was in Detroit with Em. But Em and them never knew I was on the run. You can’t tell a nigga that sells 16 million records, “I’m on the run right now,” and expect him to take anything serious from you. Not even Dr. Dre.

So the passport mess was all about you going to Barcelona?

Yeah, I got the fake passport for the MTV Awards in 2002. That’s when 50 first signed with Em, and he came out, and I believe Em got like two or three awards that night. Then we went to the strip club with Linkin Park and Marilyn Manson and that shit was crazy. That was my first experience with overseas women. It’s crazy, ’cause they don’t speak no English—all they know is how to fuck. I fucked about three bitches there, and we only stayed two nights. Everybody got some pussy.

Serving a bid is rough. But serving a bid with an entertainer’s name can be even rougher. Were inmates aiming at you crazy because of that?

There was a so-called “20-grand hit” out on me, but this is a rumor that went on for like three, four weeks. I would speak to my man that went to court, and niggas said I got jacked for my sneakers. So niggas started mad rumors. That’s word to my daughter: I never got G-checked [Rikers slang for being robbed]. I could say 60 percent of the niggas hated me, and 40 percent are niggas that fuck with me. But I was in population, so a nigga looked at it like, Yo this nigga is in population, kid. This nigga ain’t no chump, ’cause another rapper would probably be in fucking PC [protective custody] with the homos, or been in some high-profile house. But truthfully, it wasn’t hard for me to build relationships ’cause niggas was feeling G-Unit in jail. But there’s going to be haters too. I had to smack a couple of niggas, but it never got far. Niggas knew I had paper and niggas is going to try you. I got weed coming in there, I’m eating pizza, looking like an Italian…