“We take our jokes seriously,” says Alex Gvojic of the Peddy Cash moped gang. We’re standing in Chicago’s Warbux Mopeds storefront, staring at his appropriately named “Peddy Kruger,” in the style of the villain from A Nightmare on Elm Street—complete with a metal-clawed leather glove resting on the headlamp and a striped army green and crimson sweater stretched over the seat and frame. The Peddy Cash crew was founded in 2002 by Warbux co-owner Patrick Turner and Flosstradamus DJ Curt Cameruci, both natives of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Kalamazoo is home of the 19-branch Moped Army, and, according to Turner, “the mecca of the modern moped movement.” But Peddy Cash is no movement, unless its members are uniting to flummox small town locals like a band of moped carnies. “To them, we’re assholes,” says Cameruci. “But it’s fun.”

What’s the first thing people need to know about mopeds? 

Pat Turner: If you want to get into vintage mopeds, you definitely need to know that your level of involvement goes up drastically. If you buy a new moped, it’s like getting a new car. You can jump on it in the rain and it will take off whenever, wherever. Vintage ones, your level of involvement goes way up because it’s 30-something years old. But that’s one of the things that attracts people to it.

Curt Cameruci: Another thing to know, too, is anywhere you go you will be asked so many questions about it—“Where’d you get that? How much does it cost? How fast does it go? How many miles per gallon? Is that an engine?” There are tons of questions that you get asked about it, but every red light you stop at, there’s always someone, like, “Whoa!” It blows their mind.

Why mopeds?

CC: Originally, because it was fun and it was so cheap. Back when Pat and I started doing this, we could buy a ’ped for $75. And you’d just have to tweak it a little bit to get around. No one really even cared about mopeds except for 40-year-old guys in the suburbs.

You two are responsible for getting moped culture off of the ground here in Chicago, and it’s a major scene right now.

PT: I would have never seen it going this way, you know? Like, we’re standing in my moped shop right now, but I would have never seen it going that way.

CC: We were doing this just for fun, and then it got bigger from all of that. Me and Nigel [Hollywood Holt] were both touring all over the place—all around the world—and started getting in magazines and everything talking about this whole moped movement. And then we got the Cool Kids on mopeds and it really started blowing up from there.

PT: We kind of pushed a lot of things within the Moped Army and people stepped their game up. More gangs saw what we were doing and started getting into it. Chicago has definitely become a hotbed for mopeds since we started.

Rapper Nigel “Hollywood” Holt is the architect behind Murder Club, the first black-founded moped gang in the country. He’s also the kind of kid who will kiss your girl in front of you. But it’s nothing personal. It’s just passion—the same passion that leads his peers to grant him spokesperson status as Chicago’s moped hypeman.

“Murder Club is the illest shit ever,” says the spirited MC with conviction. And if that statement alone isn’t convincing, then “Throw a Kit,” the unofficial moped anthem recorded with his cousin, producer Million Dollar Mano, certainly is. “I single-handedly make mopeds look cool,” Holt continues. Believe him.  

Do you ever have beef with other crews?

Hell naw, man. The whole Moped Army is afraid of us.

What about Bloody Spokes, the crew you dissed on “Throw a Kit”?

Them pussy-ass niggas ain’t shit. They weren’t even a real crew. Only one or two of them had bikes, and it was, like, four of them altogether. I heard one of them was talking shit to Pat, and Pat is the nice dude in the crew. He’s the mechanic—he just chills. That’s not somebody you look for confrontation with. I’m the dude you look for confrontation with. If you want to fight, fight me.

So Murder Club is a gang? Because a lot of moped crews refer to themselves as gangs, but they don’t take the same approach that you do. 

Murder Club is a gang, not a fucking club. We beat niggas the fuck up. Motherfuckers used to disrespect your shit. Motherfuckers would come through and sit on your bike and shit like that. I’ll come out and hit a nigga in the face with a fucking brick, just to drive the point home, like, “Nigga, that’s my shit. You don’t sit on another man’s motorcycle, so don’t sit on my motherfucking moped, nigga.”

How does it feel to have everything that you envisioned become a reality?

It’s dope because now it’s a solidified deal. When you create something, and it works and it’s great; it’s so sick. All these cool-ass dudes who would never ride mopeds before are completely into the shit now. It’s like the tightest thing ever because it has the toy aspect, like, you got a cool little toy to fuck around with, and it’s also like a motorcycle gang when you’re rolling with your crew. There’s no way you cannot have fun with a moped. Just riding it is fun, and I want niggas to have fun.

See, now you sound kind of nerdy.

It does sound nerdy, but when you see eight cool-ass niggas all G’d up with fresh gear, fucking tattooed up, chilling on bikes that are custom as hell, you can’t front on that because the shit is so tight. You want to be a part of that. I love it. It completely embodies my whole personality—tough, but still dorky. I’m cool, but I ain’t that cool.