The First Hispanic Piru Blood Who Became The Most Feared Man In Inglewood: Big Tako’s Story
He came out of El Salvador, a country torn apart by war, and landed in Englewood, right in the middle of the crack era. By his teenage years, his name carried weight across Rogers Park. Big Taco wasn’t just another gang member. He stood out. One of the first Hispanics to rise inside a black blood set, he had a presence that demanded respect.
But respect brings enemies, and power always comes with consequences. This is the story of Big Taco. How he built his legend and how it all came crashing down. 722 West Beach Avenue. The name alone sounds like it should come with ocean views and palm trees, right? Like one of those picture perfect SoCal postcards where everybody’s sipping pina coladas under the sun.
But reality way different. Rent in that area was skyhigh and 722 wasn’t even close to the water. Anyone who pulled up there knew what time it was. The house was like a non-stop carnival, but with way darker rides. Inside, you’d catch dice games in the corner, women chilling in the back rooms, and 40 oz bottles wrapped in brown paper bags sitting on the table.
Smoke from backwoods and cheap weed hung heavy in the air. Some of the homies would crash there so long it felt like they paid rent. on the porch. Neighborhood lookouts sat on a beat up couch like it was their command post. Sometimes they were just watching the street. Other times they were loading up for retaliation missions. With the crack game in full effect, fiends wandered the block day and night.
The candy shop was next door, but the only sweets being served came in plastic baggies. The thing that made 722 different from the other trap spots, it never got shut down. This spot itself belonged to Juan Martinez, better known as Big Taco, though technically it was his mom’s. She had escaped El Salvador during one of the most violent chapters in that country’s history.
This was when death squad leader Roberto Dobuson ordered the killing of Archbishop Oscar Romero, a priest who stood up for the poor. That assassination ripped the country apart. Writer Joan Ddian once described it best. Terror was just a way of life there. Families like tacos had no choice but to run. His mother survived the journey north, dodging coyotes and border agents, and landed in Los Angeles.
But survival wasn’t freedom. She worked non-stop cleaning the mansions of wealthy families just to keep a roof over their heads. By the time her son, Big Taco, grew up on Beach Avenue, the crack era was already booming. Fast money was everywhere, but so was the risk. rival gangs, police kicking indoors, and constant paranoia. Taco had spent his earliest years back in El Salvador with his grandparents before finally reuniting with his mom around age seven.
She was living near Rogers Park, the stronghold of the Englewood neighborhood Pyuse. The neighborhood Pyuse were mostly black, but they were known across the city. Now, here’s where things get tricky. Even though they shared the same name as the Compton neighborhood, Py Ruse, they were a completely different blood set, different area, different politics, different enemies, their turf was Rogers Park, stretching across Beach Avenue between Hyde Park and Ivy.
The crews roots ran deep, starting back in the 1970s when they were known as the Hyde Park Boys. Over time, they linked into the bigger neighborhood Pyu umbrella alongside sets like the 151 original block Pyou and the 145 Pyru from Compton. Within Englewood, the oldest clicks were the 700 block and the 500 block, also called Hyde Park.
Their allies included the Rolling 20s neighborhood Bloods, Avenue Pyroo gang, Queen Street Bloods, 145 Pyroo, and the 20’s Outlaw Bloods. But they also had a long list of enemies. They clashed with the Oage Legend Crips, 102, Raymond Avenue Crips, Tongan [ __ ] Gang, and the Rolling 60s. Even other blood sets weren’t safe from conflict.
Factions like the Crenshaw Mafia Bloods, Denver Lane Bloods, and the Ingleerwood Family Bloods were just as dangerous. Juan Martinez fell into that world early. By his last years at Latahara Elementary, he was already flagging red. That’s when the nickname stuck, Big Taco, a nod to his Salvadoran roots.
Now things were heating up between the neighborhood Pyuse and their rivals next door, the Englewood 13s. The streets were tense, ready to explode. But up north, it was a different story. The Martinez family was settling in, living calm, and building a new life with their extended relatives. After dropping out of high school, Taco met Angela, a girl from Palmdale who had moved to the city as a teen.
By that time, Taco’s name was already ringing through the streets. By the mid 1980s, everyone knew him. Bold, aggressive, and the kind of guy who wouldn’t tolerate a hint of disrespect. Big Taco had that mobster aura about him. But unlike the mafia types who chased money, he stood on honor and loyalty.
To him, silence was sacred and betrayal was the ultimate crime. His reputation spread far beyond Englewood. Ask anybody in South Central and they’d tell you the same. Big Taco wasn’t just active. He was respected everywhere. One of the first Latinos, Salvadorian at that, to make a name for himself in a black gang. He stood out.
He rolled with the heavyweights of Englewood, most notably Big Dulo, the man everybody called Mr. Inglewood. Together, Dulo and Taco became a force. Their names carry weight not just in their hood, but across the city. From their teenage years, they earned respect the hard way. Squaring up with rivals at their schools, putting in work on the streets, and never backing down from action.
By the time the ‘9s hit, Taco’s life had shifted. He had kids now. His most well-known child was born in 1994, a boy who’d grow into the rapper Roocci. Now, Roocci came up right in Englewood, California, raised by his mom and stepdad. His mom was a single mother for a long time, overworked and always stressed about the influence of his dad and uncle.
She tried hard to keep him away from that side of the family. But the truth is, their presence was already stitched into who he was. His connection to a neighborhood Pyroo Bloods became a piece of his identity. Not so much about putting in work, but more about the look, the feel, the energy he carried. One of his earliest memories takes it back to Disneyland, only 3 years old, standing on a picnic table and wrapping Sugarfree’s fly fold life in the middle of Mickey’s Kingdom.
Roocci would laugh about it later, remembering how his mom just shook her head, not knowing what to do with him. Growing up, everyone called him [ __ ] because he was the spitting image of his dad and his uncle Anthony BD Martinez, better known as P Funky, a rapper and producer. He joked that all the Martinez’s looked alike, light-skinned, chubby, with long hair.
Around five years old, the baller blocking VHS hit the streets and it changed everything. They wanted to be like the Hot Boys, so they turned Taco’s house into their own little version of the projects. Ruchcci was right there watching, soaking it all in, even if he was too young to get pulled fully into it.
Nobody dared involve him in anything heavy. His dad’s name carried too much weight, and nobody wanted those problems. Roocci and his little brother, Angel, were project babies through and through. His mom, trying to keep him on the right path, made sure he went to Hawthorne Elementary Schools. He stayed close with her and his stepdad, but the pull of Beach Avenue was too strong.
That street energy called to him, and no matter what, he wanted to be in the mix. High school brought a shift. His mom sent him to Santa Monica to follow his older sister, a star softball player, and to get him out of Englewood. Truth was, he wasn’t even welcome back home for school. His dad’s reputation had gotten him banned before he could even enroll.
Suddenly, Ruchcci went from Beach to Ocean Avenue. What sounds like a short move on a map was really a whole different world. The project kid was now lining up on defense for a well-funded football team, going to proms and fancy oceanfront hotels, and hanging out with rich kids whose lives look like TV shows.
To keep him steady, his mom handed him $50 a day. But Ruchi being Ruchcci, he’d sometimes skip class and hang out at the prominade or ride the big blue bus past Montana, catching a glimpse of the Brentwood lifestyle. He made friends with white and Persian kids running around neighborhoods filled with mansions and moms with fake boobs who didn’t care that they weren’t in school.
To him, it felt like living inside a movie. But every story has its turning point. By 2010, the family was still rooted deep in Englewood. His grandmother had moved from Beach to Victor Avenue, but that didn’t stop the streets from following. The Pyuse even turned her place into what they called the PS2. Meanwhile, the city itself was changing.
Developers circling, the NFL eyeing a return, and police tightening their grip with heavy gang injunctions. Tensions kept rising until one morning, everything snapped. A SWAT team stormed his grandmother’s house, taking down his dad, his uncle, and other NHP members. Ruchi stood there watching them get cuffed as sirens echoed away, realizing his world had just shifted for good.
Because the truth is that raid wasn’t about what police hoped to find. It was about what had already gone down. On April 25th, 2010, just as the sun was coming up in Englewood, a man named Jorge Cervantes was walking down South Avenue. The streets were quiet, but not for long. Two cars rolled up. A red Explorer and a white Camry.
At first, they just passed him by, but then they whipped a U-turn and stopped. Someone inside the Explorer leaned out and shouted a slur, and before Ho could process it, a pistol was aimed his way. The first shot cracked through the morning air. Ho dropped flat to the ground, heart racing. When he looked up, another shot went off.
He scrambled to his feet, sprinted into a nearby alley, and the shooter let off four more rounds as he ran. Hi stayed hidden until the police arrived. That same morning, officer Adam Butler from Inglewood PD got a call about a shooting involving a red explorer. He immediately thought about a guy named Hakee Rasul, who was known to drive one.
Butler also knew Rasul hung around Anthony Martinez and Big Taco over on North Victor Avenue. Butler went straight there and sure enough, the Explorer and Camry were both parked outside. A quick glance at the Explorer revealed a spent bullet casing sitting right on the luggage rack. Backup was called in and the house was surrounded.
Jorge Cervantes was brought to the scene and when he saw the two cars again, he identified the explorer’s driver. Inside Martinez’s residence, police found an arsenal, four handguns, a shotgun, and plenty of ammo. DNA linked one of the handguns to Anthony Martinez, and gunshot residue was also found on him. That was all the police needed to move in.
Both Big Taco and Martinez were arrested. Taco ended up cornered by the system and took a plea deal, 5 years in prison. Martinez, though, wasn’t trying to fold. He fought it out in court. But this was America. Without a high-powered lawyer, beating a serious case was almost impossible, especially when prosecutors painted him as a tattooed gangbanger with no conscience.
The key witness, Hoy Cervantes, never even testified. By the time the trial came around, he had been deported to Mexico. US marshals tracked him down in early 2011, and though he said he wanted to testify, fear kept him away. As the trial dragged on, Cervantes eventually gave up completely, telling the marshals he no longer trusted the system.
In Martinez’s defense, his lawyers brought in a psychiatrist, Dr. Ronald Markman, who broke down how memory and stress can distort eyewitness identification. His mother also testified, claiming that around the time of the shooting, she had asked her son to drive her to work. She admitted under cross-examination, though, that he had no license and she ended up taking the bus instead.
Martinez himself took the stand, saying he was at home working on music until about 2:00 a.m. and fell asleep there. He claimed he only woke up when his mother asked for a ride to work. Around that time, his brother and some friends came over with weapons, which they left on a table. Martinez said he immediately told them to take their guns and leave.
He denied owning the firearms police later found in his studio and insisted he was nowhere near the scene of the shooting. But the jury wasn’t buying it. They found Anthony Martinez guilty of attempted murder with the added weight of gun enhancements. The judge handed him a heavy sentence. 15 years to life for the attempted murder plus 20 years to life for the gun.
35 years to life in total. He was shipped off to the state prison in Lancaster. From that moment on, the streets of Inglewood shifted. Nothing felt the same again for Ruchcci. But in 2013, everything changed for Roocci. His break came through his old football coach’s son, a well-connected LA figure known as Bossman.
The moment Bossman heard him rap, he was all in. He brought Roocci into his circle, gave him steady studio time, and placed him around other hungry artists chasing the same dream. That’s when Ruchcci really started leveling up his craft. By 2016, Ruchi had become one to watch in LA thanks to his partnership with another Englewood native, Shawn Mack.
Their connection went back years, first crossing paths when Mack was put on the hood in Taco’s backyard around the time Wipe Me Down was popping. Mac, just a year older, had already lived fast. Caught in the same gang sweep that sent Taco and his brother away, then spending a year on the road with Walker Flocker’s Brick Squad before circling back home.
When Mac and Ruchi finally linked, the bond was instant. Ruchcci had taken his rap name to honor an OG in a wheelchair with flashy rims. And when Shawn introduced him in the studio, he blew everyone away. Even 211 remember being shocked, thinking Maka’s dad would shut it down. But instead, Ruchcci went off so hard that Mack himself had to step back and cosign.
From there, they were inseparable. They lived together in what people called the Macaruchi mansion, spent endless hours recording, and stayed in constant communication even when Mac was on the road hustling. to Ruchcci and the Bass Squad. Mac wasn’t just a collaborator. He was family. Mac had the vision.
He was the creative engine of Bass Squad. Unpredictable, but brilliant. And Ruchcci often compared him to Tupac. Restless, productive, and ahead of his years. Their joint energy birthed some of Inglewood’s best music in decades, blending gunk and hy into something fresh. Together, they came like a two-headed beast, aggressive and sharp, delivering raw murder raps over sinister beats that sounded like they were carved with a blade.
Their self-titled project Machi showed they weren’t just making local noise. They were the real deal with features from G Perico, Draco, Ezu, and the Sue Whoop Justice League of Joe Moses 211 and Free Acrite. The album stamped them as the fiercest LA duo since the dog pound. Ruchcci brought the bark while Mac’s rapid high-pitched delivery made him sound like the street prophet.
One talked the talk, the other preached the truth and together they were unstoppable. But everything changed for Roocci on July 7th, 2017. That day he got a call saying his close friend Shawn Mack was gone. Just hours earlier they had spoken. When Ruchcci pulled up to the scene, the flashing lights, the yellow tape, and the cops standing around hit harder than the reality of Shawn’s death.
What came rushing back to him in that moment was Shawn’s words. Lessons about being sharp, about knowing better, about how in their world friends didn’t exist. It was either family or you were nothing. Shawn Mack was only 24 when a bullet ended his life. A flashy hustler taken out allegedly by people he trusted. No arrests, no justice.
But that year kept testing Ruchcci. Right after Mach’s death, Ruchi’s blood brother was shot in the head. Months later, his father, Big Taco, was deported to El Salvador. Even though he was a legal resident, his past felony conviction sealed his fate. The moment he touched down in San Salvador, life turned into survival mode.
With black gang tattoos covering his skin, MS13 and 18th Street members immediately mocked him as a target. He told his family over the phone how bad it was. Death on every corner, no protection, no safe place to stand. His plan was simple. Get to Mexico by any means. And he did. After hiding out for weeks, he fled north, crossed into Tijuana, and somehow managed to become a Mexican citizen.
Today, he lives by the beach, selling insurance for All State. A peaceful ending in some ways, but bittersweet. Banned from America, far from his children, forever cut off from home. Loss kept piling up for Roocci. hit after hit. But instead of letting it slow him down, he turned that pain into fuel. When Mack passed, he couldn’t just sit around. He needed to move to create.
That urgency never left him. 2018 became his breakout year. In just 7 months, he dropped three projects backto back, flooding the streets with music. Then he took it a step further with his debut album, Taco Sun. The name carried real weight. It was dedicated to his father who had been deported to El Salvador in 2017 and later escaped to Mexico.
For Ruchi, the timing had to feel right before putting it out. He admitted he held back for a while, waiting until fans actually cared about hearing his story. Naming the project after his father was his way of giving flowers while he was still alive. Even though his dad spent much of his life in and out of prison, the bond never broke.
They still talked all the time. Ruchi said his father was proud of the man he had become, proud of the way he moved and wouldn’t want his life any other way. Then came 2019 and the Lab Bomba video. It opened with Ruchi working at a fruit stand, stacking money just to visit family in Mexico. After dozing off, he dreamt himself across the border rapping on the beach with tequila in hand.
The crazy part, it wasn’t just art. It was his real life. That video shoot was the first time he had seen his dad in 3 years. Signing to a label gave him the chance to make it happen. And the reunion was emotional, not just for him, but for his little brother, too. It was a family moment wrapped inside a music video.
Through it all, Ruchcci carried his fallen partner with him, repping Sha Mack forever in everything he did. As his name got bigger, he connected with some of California’s strongest talents, AZ Chike and Ken FRFR. His bond with AZ Chik clicked so naturally that in 2021, the two came together for a joint project called Courtesy of Us.
But you see, Ruchi grew up in Englewood, and being a neighborhood pyroo automatically placed him at odds with the local [ __ ] gangs. That rivalry wasn’t just about words. It often spilled into robberies and videos floating around the internet. Everybody already knew the long-standing tension between the Englewood py, other blood sets, and the crips.
But when an Inglewood Blood named Red Bull was killed, the situation went from bad to worse. The night it happened felt like a setup. Shots came out of nowhere, fired from two angles, trapping people on a narrow concrete path. In seconds, what was supposed to be a pajama party turned into chaos. Cars screeched down Broadway.
People sprinted half-dressed through the dark and the warehouse in Carson turned into a war zone. It was December 10th, 2016, not even midnight yet, and the party had already collapsed into bloodshed. When the smoke cleared, detectives had almost nothing to work with. Partygoers weren’t talking. Nobody could point out the shooters.
All they had were two shell casings, one from a 40 Glock, the other from a 38 revolver. Some grainy surveillance showed cars pulling in and two groups crossing paths, but no clear faces and no murder caught on tape. By morning, the picture became clearer. A man had died at Harbor UCLA Medical Center.
24year-old Dave Gregory, better known as Red Bull, from Englewood Family Bloods. He had been shot five times before he could even walk inside. A GoFundMe later painted the picture of who he was. A father, brother, son, cousin, and friend whose smile lit up a room. Two others were also hit that night. One was Travis Harvey Broom, a former Florida&M wide receiver who had brief runs with the Cardinals and Giants.
The other was Quentyn Poke, a defensive back from Missouri Western State. Neither had gang ties, just the wrong place at the wrong time. Harvey actually knew Gregory from childhood football days. They just happened to reconnect in the parking lot minutes before bullets started flying. While Harvey and Poke were laid up, two detectives, Francis Hardman and Richard Bidd, popped up at the hospital.
Hardman even recorded the conversation without them knowing. Despite being groggy, Harvey remembered a tall, light-skinned black man with braids or dreads, and noticed a couple of suspicious cars, a black Mercedes SUV, and a red Mustang, or maybe a red Benz. He also mentioned they were supposedly there to see a rapper named Jay Wood, but that lead went nowhere.
A week later, Hardman caught the name Draco the Ruler on a wiretap. Talking to Gregory’s family, he heard the same street whispers. Draco’s name floating around. On January 2nd, 2017, the case picked up fast. Detectives pulled up on Draco in a parking lot, arrested him, and that same afternoon, a SWAT team stormed his spot, scooping up his brother, Ralphie, their mom, Stink team member, Too Shitty, and whoever else happened to be there.
The county prosecutors then tried to tie Draco to Red Bull’s murder, even though they admitted he wasn’t the shooter. The case dragged him into court with his life on the line. When he finally beat the murder charge in 2019, he told music writer Jeff Weiss he still felt the target on his back, convinced his death would eventually come from the streets.
Part of the prosecution’s case came down to his music. They even brought up his song Flex Freestyle, pointing to bars where he mentioned R.J., a rival rapper. The problem was that R.J. wasn’t even at that warehouse party, and prosecutors twisted the lyrics to sell their case. Draco later said he couldn’t believe they were allowed to use rap lines against him like that.
After his release, tensions heated up between him and other LA rappers. Ruchcci was one of them. Their styles couldn’t be more different. Draco’s slow grumbly delivery versus Roocci’s fast turned up energy. But behind the music was gang tension, red bandanas, and the weight of real life losses.
Draco was clashing with multiple artists including a chype, even calling out Boozy for collaborating with him. Eventually, Draco dropped Engle Weird, a diss track that went straight at Roocci and AZ Chike. Smooth beat, bouncy LA drums, and a flood of disrespect that didn’t let up. The track demanded a response. But instead of ending in music, the feud and Draco’s life ended with tragedy.
On December 19th, 2021, the world lost Draco the Ruler. He was set to perform the night before at Exposition Park, but before he could even step on stage, everything went sideways. Around 8:30 p.m., a fight broke out backstage, and in the middle of it, Draco was stabbed. He was rushed to the hospital, but the wounds were too severe. He didn’t survive.
The festival shut down immediately after. Big names like Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent never even touched the stage. The Daily Beast later reported he had been stabbed in the throat, though details surrounding the attack were still unclear. Tributes poured in across social media. Drake posted to his Instagram story, saying, “Draco always lifted his spirit and ended with a heartfelt rest in peace.
” Otto Von Biz Marky also shared his grief, writing that he was devastated and stepping offline to process it all. He described Draco as not only a genius in music, but also a caring friend who went through a struggles most people couldn’t even imagine. Draco the Ruler was just 28 years old, gone way too soon.
As for Ruchi, he didn’t let up in 2022. He kept dropping loose singles, stayed consistent, and in April came through with the I’m Still Me EP. By September, he took it up another notch with his project [ __ ] The title itself, [ __ ] came from a childhood nickname his mom gave him. She used to call him a small guy in a big world, someone who always dreamed of being bigger.
For Roocci, the name stuck, and this album carried that meaning. He explained that in earlier projects, he had already dedicated songs to his parents, but this time he was in full rapper mode. No longer just the humble nice guy, [ __ ] marked his growth into someone unapologetic about being himself, even calling it the point where he became the biggest [ __ ] in the world.
Later that same year, he dropped El Pero 2, an album shaped by family changes and inspired by his son. Fatherhood lit that spark in him again, bringing a playful, almost kid-like energy back into his music. You could hear it in tracks like Tell Your Friends, while songs like Bees Up with JRock kept his Inglewood roots front and center.
And even though his name is tied to gang affiliations, Ruchcci has always pushed for unity, linking up with artists from all corners of LA. A perfect example is What If with RJM RLI, a track that reflects on losing Nipy Hustle and the absence of 03 Greedo, proving he can go deep while still proudly repping his city. By 2024, Ruchcci returned with Forever on that, his 19th project overall and the first of that year.
Before the full release, he teased fans by dropping a string of singles like the title track Double Park and It Hit Different with Blue Bucks Clan. The album carried 15 songs that embodied the California sound. Cowbells, booming baselines, and unapologetic bars. Even with all the music out, Ruchcci still believes his best work hasn’t been heard yet.
He’s recorded so many songs that he calls some of his favorite tracks ones the world hasn’t even gotten to hear. What keeps him consistent is the circle around him. Living and creating with his producer Romo while also carrying the legacy of his late friend Mac fuels his drive. For all his achievements, Ruchcci refuses the hometown hero label.
To him, he’s still grinding like his 2016, still hungry to make his name bigger. What are your thoughts on this story? Appreciate you watching. If you enjoyed the video, hit that like button and make sure to subscribe for more.