Kevin Gates Shows Life Through His Eyes in 'Had To' Video

Following the release of his new mixtape By Any Means 2 in September, Kevin Gates drops another video, this time for the song "Had To." While Gates is currently still behind bars for a gun charge, the video takes a first-person perspective through the eyes of Gates and chronicles his life.

The video starts off in 2008 and features a young Gates hustling drugs and selling his third mixtape, All In, hand to hand. After showing the rapper going on a shopping spree, the video then moves to the second time Gates was shot.

The "Had To" visuals then jump three years ahead, when Gates is working on the I Don't Know What 2 Call It Vol. 1 mixtape. The video moves ahead another three years to 2014 and shows Gates with wife Dreka getting his hands tattooed.

We then see a flashback of when the rapper has a run-in with police before the video cuts to present time to show Gates kneeling on the floor, praying. The visual ends with a message from the rapper, who says, "At one time, people used to call me the devil. They say I was a monster. But through the grace of the most high God, God saved me from myself and saved a lot of people in the process. Allahu akbar."

Gates is currently serving a 30-month prison sentence but may be out by summer of 2018. The website for the Illinois Department of Corrections reveals the rapper is up for parole next year, so if Gates is well-behaved, he may be home sooner than later.

Check out the "Had To" video below and in honor of the video, check out a timeline of Gates' life from his first mixtape to today after that.