Speaker 1: You tuned into the Gangster Chronicles podcast with Saints McDonald,
Speaker 1: Rachie Ray Jr. And you Hunter, one of the dicks
Speaker 1: of soap Bus Network. You don't come do you think
Speaker 1: you're something new? I absume kind of fact the moha right, boys,
Speaker 1: I want to shoot their way at the top of
Speaker 1: the class. You gotta like Nijia, you gotta wear around
Speaker 1: matter of fact on my lovevation. Right now, you are
Speaker 1: gonna wake up one morning with your best part up
Speaker 1: into your mon I like to welcome everybody to another
Speaker 1: episode of Against the Chronicles. My name is Big Steel
Speaker 1: with my host James McDonald, and we've got a special
Speaker 1: brother here to nightmare all the way from Harlem World,
Speaker 1: the world famous Harlow Boy Cavario. What's correcting with your
Speaker 1: broke man? Everything is everything, loved one. I'm just head
Speaker 1: happy to be here and honored to be amongst men
Speaker 1: over sure, man, I'm glad that we have you in here. Man,
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of UM Done. I'm a big
Speaker 1: fan of Don Deva magazine, man, huge fan. I probably
Speaker 1: have about fifty UM. I probably have fifty of the
Speaker 1: magazines in my closet right now. My wife always gets
Speaker 1: mad until I don't you throw those magazines away? I
Speaker 1: got you know, you guys man the source in there,
Speaker 1: you know, just classic magazines. Man, I figured it would
Speaker 1: be a value one day. Well the games brother, the
Speaker 1: information that was captured in Don Diva magazine, Um, it's
Speaker 1: only chronicle there. There's nowhere else that that. There's no
Speaker 1: other historical record. And you know, I spent my time
Speaker 1: in the midst like like really in the um the
Speaker 1: point of birth for a lot of things during the
Speaker 1: time and doing that. So the stuff that I got
Speaker 1: was very like firsthand and it doesn't exist anywhere else
Speaker 1: but in my publication, on my formal publication, so you
Speaker 1: know it's valuable and that you won't find that information
Speaker 1: and we else. And it's definitely full of information, not
Speaker 1: just stories, exactly a lot of a lot of information.
Speaker 1: And um, I won't lie. When I first started thinking
Speaker 1: about the richinal like premise for the Gangster chronicles, Don
Speaker 1: Deva Magazine was one of my blueprints. You know, it's
Speaker 1: one of my blueprints. I kind of took a blueprint
Speaker 1: a used proof from from down Devon always get people
Speaker 1: their credit, you know, from Don Diva from um the
Speaker 1: where's the guy, Heraldo Rivera just the whole investigative type
Speaker 1: of journalism thing. And so I wanted a specific skill
Speaker 1: set when I was looking for the host, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. I wanted specific you know, skill set forward.
Speaker 1: So I'm like talking to my glass, you talking to
Speaker 1: glasses alone, and I'm telling him, I'm like, man, I
Speaker 1: got an idea for this show and we kind of
Speaker 1: just started perfecting it. And so I'm like, man, I
Speaker 1: probably never be able to find a host that can
Speaker 1: pull that, you know, pull that kind of thing off.
Speaker 1: So I'm looking at YouTube one day and uh, I
Speaker 1: see this guy right here, and so I'm listening to
Speaker 1: the story and use, y'all look at something, you know,
Speaker 1: you look at people. You kind of getting number to media,
Speaker 1: you know. So ILL used to look at something for
Speaker 1: the first two or three minutes and just kind of
Speaker 1: just whatever. But it's like, um, I'm looking at this
Speaker 1: guy right here, and it's almost like I got a
Speaker 1: wondering to his soul. It was just like like I
Speaker 1: was it was almost like he was having a conversation
Speaker 1: with me, but it was through the screen. I was
Speaker 1: listening to it. I said, that's the guy right there.
Speaker 1: So I gotta go find him. And when I get
Speaker 1: in that mode, like I gotta find somebody, I usually
Speaker 1: i'm using successful. So you know, here we go today.
Speaker 1: Um damn, I appreciate that. Um I can. I can,
Speaker 1: honesgely say. I don't look at much stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't all of this. It happened, but
Speaker 1: I'm not taking my shop to be big hitted or
Speaker 1: none of another ship like that. And I'm just the
Speaker 1: nature of the thing is the nature of the thing, man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm choking it in. I'm loving it, and I mean
Speaker 1: it's good for me. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. It's cool,
Speaker 1: you know. So in you forming don Dieva, Man, how
Speaker 1: did you come up with that concept? Like what was
Speaker 1: your thought? I'm going to start a magazine and I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna be about the Illers gangster ship ever, like,
Speaker 1: like what was the premise? Man? You know? It's interesting, right,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stories from what I heard really
Speaker 1: in the periphery because I don't pay attention to the bullshit,
Speaker 1: but about how the magazine came to be. And there
Speaker 1: are stories where somebody implied that it was their idea.
Speaker 1: It's the furthest thing from the truth. There was no
Speaker 1: one's idea to create Don Diva magazine at all. I
Speaker 1: write about that. Uh, the I called the accidental birth
Speaker 1: of a brand um in the beginning of this this
Speaker 1: is the Non Divil book or Gangsters and Young Guns.
Speaker 1: And to give you a brief synopsis without giving too
Speaker 1: much away, in that particular thing is um. The product
Speaker 1: that people thought was a magazine was really a promo
Speaker 1: for an entertainment company that we intended to go into
Speaker 1: film and television. That's why the first logo that I
Speaker 1: created was a half of Film Real and half a CD,
Speaker 1: or a half of c D and half a Film Real.
Speaker 1: So if you take a circle, cut it in half,
Speaker 1: you gotta d make you know what I mean, boom
Speaker 1: half the CD boom, half the film Real entertainment. So
Speaker 1: all of the first magazines say Don Diva Entertainment because
Speaker 1: that first promo we made for the Don Diva Entertainment Company,
Speaker 1: That's what the logo was on it. So when people
Speaker 1: thought it was a magazine, they started asking, you know,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do another magazine. I was like, oh uh,
Speaker 1: this was December of ninety nine. Oh, next month, in
Speaker 1: January two thousand was our first actual, conscious, deliberate effort
Speaker 1: to create a magazine. It a little too loud, A
Speaker 1: little too loud? Is that music I get out? So
Speaker 1: this magazine and you had, this magazine was floating through
Speaker 1: the prisons and all that heavy heavy. I had five
Speaker 1: thousand subscribers in the present system here on New York,
Speaker 1: all over the country country. I started in December ninety nine,
Speaker 1: but the official launch was January two thousand, and I
Speaker 1: did it from two thousand, January two thousand to August
Speaker 1: of two thousand and six, when this was like, h
Speaker 1: this is not going any further than it is, no
Speaker 1: matter what effort UP put in your money. No, I
Speaker 1: was making just enough to keep it growing, but not
Speaker 1: really to support a lifestyle. Listening to this ship and
Speaker 1: I get a little noise in the factory, Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought that that juju was somebody's phone. But that's
Speaker 1: what I was thinking, Is it my phone? Because I
Speaker 1: still hear it. You hear you know, you had the
Speaker 1: phone that shipping on the floor in the dough. That's cool,
Speaker 1: but that ain't pick up? Okay, cool cool where um?
Speaker 1: So officially it was January two thousand that it became Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do this magazine. But no one that was involved,
Speaker 1: which was my my, my, my ex of many many
Speaker 1: many relations, many exes ago at that, you know, at
Speaker 1: this point. But UM, my ex and I and a
Speaker 1: friend of ours, UM named Susan Hampstead, we were the
Speaker 1: three that started this magazine. Um. The funds that came
Speaker 1: that were used to get the few pieces of equipment,
Speaker 1: you know, the programs and the computers to do it.
Speaker 1: Once we decided this is what we're gonna do. Once
Speaker 1: it was determined that the intent of the first promo
Speaker 1: piece failed and people didn't pick up on the fact
Speaker 1: that it was a promo for an entertainment company, thought
Speaker 1: it was a magazine. It's like that didn't work out.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, wait, it did work out. So that
Speaker 1: that bread that we initiated came from we initially started
Speaker 1: when it came from older Jamaican gentleman, a friend of
Speaker 1: mine named Tyrone. It was a week King Pen and
Speaker 1: he got popped by the FEDS just before we started
Speaker 1: the magazine. But my ex at the time was running
Speaker 1: his record labels, independent record label, you know, so he
Speaker 1: would hit her with funds like you know, every soul
Speaker 1: every night ninety days or so. He just hit her
Speaker 1: with a few hundred thousand dollars. So he had just
Speaker 1: hit her before he got locked. And once he got locked,
Speaker 1: he told her, well, take the money in transferred from
Speaker 1: my account to your account whatever this and you know,
Speaker 1: get you know, moved out the way whatever. Happy and
Speaker 1: so he he just recently told me it's like maybe
Speaker 1: like six months ago, you know, now this is in.
Speaker 1: He just recently told me. It's that, he said, Yo,
Speaker 1: I left. I left with three thirty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: I know I did, but it was not my business
Speaker 1: that she worked for the guy, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And we weren't together what it was two years after
Speaker 1: our relationship was over, you know what I mean. We
Speaker 1: owned cars and home together whatever ever. But you know,
Speaker 1: other than that, we're just family. So you guys just
Speaker 1: kind of just at that point then, no, this is
Speaker 1: at the beginning of don Diva. But when I when
Speaker 1: when I ultimately left, when I left on Diva, that's
Speaker 1: when I was like, you know, yeah, I'm I don't
Speaker 1: want to continue to be entangled with this person going forth.
Speaker 1: So I immediately changed my numb and everything, and you
Speaker 1: know that was that. Then later we saw the Hip
Speaker 1: Hop Weekly. This was away from it. There was nothing
Speaker 1: to it. The value in it was it was the
Speaker 1: adventures of me. Anybody that knows, Anybody who was around
Speaker 1: and saw me saw it anywhere. If you saw it,
Speaker 1: you saw me. So what you saw in Don Diva
Speaker 1: was whatever I was doing, whomever I was hanging with,
Speaker 1: right and when I uh, you know, when I was
Speaker 1: doing what I was doing. Um, every dime that came
Speaker 1: in went to the bare minimum of my maintenance and
Speaker 1: back into the magazine, just just to give it, just
Speaker 1: to give it this edge. This is this is right here.
Speaker 1: It's called a perfect bound. Right now. When I first
Speaker 1: started the magazine that I had no idea perfect bounds,
Speaker 1: saddle stits saddle stitches, the one where you see it,
Speaker 1: it's folded, it's increased end, sharp end, just to go
Speaker 1: from that look to a more official magazine look and
Speaker 1: give it this perfect bound. That was an additional three
Speaker 1: thousand dollars added to the cost of printing. At that point,
Speaker 1: we weren't even doing more than fifty tho magazines, but
Speaker 1: I was selling every single one of them myself out
Speaker 1: of my own hand, and I wrote a hundred percent
Speaker 1: of the magazine UM nine of the time every picture
Speaker 1: did all the distribution myself away from because I know
Speaker 1: what it's like to start something. I know the cost
Speaker 1: that goes into it, and I don't think people ever,
Speaker 1: they don't think about the exponential costs. They don't think
Speaker 1: about it. Most people have never created anything. Most people
Speaker 1: have only worked for other people. They've come to a building.
Speaker 1: They never thought about how did this building come to
Speaker 1: exist and how did the businesses within it become to exist.
Speaker 1: They don't think about that. It's it's just here. So
Speaker 1: most people never had the experience of taking something from
Speaker 1: a thought to bring it into fruition. They never had
Speaker 1: that experience. So you can tell them anything about how
Speaker 1: how you got what you have. You can tell them anything,
Speaker 1: and they don't know what the process is. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: because you know, I think people they don't think about
Speaker 1: just like websites, for example, Like we got about ten
Speaker 1: different websites that we run, and they don't think about
Speaker 1: how much that cost per month. They don't think about this,
Speaker 1: they don't think about that. It's just a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff that goes into it. So it's not just as
Speaker 1: cut and dry because it kind of pissed me off
Speaker 1: from people think, Okay, you just got a podcast, so
Speaker 1: you just go somewhere every winds they go talking come home. No,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of work that goes into that through
Speaker 1: the week, and it's a seven day a week thing.
Speaker 1: It's not just um at that moment. It's a seventh
Speaker 1: day a week thing. So tell me, man, So you
Speaker 1: say you just walked away from it, man, mm hmm.
Speaker 1: What don't regrets or anything? None. Bro. When I started
Speaker 1: Don Diva, I was fresh off the streets. I was
Speaker 1: you know, my last few years in the street. I
Speaker 1: spent my time, uh, picking up bread, meeting a cat
Speaker 1: with a bag in the gym three four hours a day, uh,
Speaker 1: and and reading four or five hours a day. My
Speaker 1: last four years in the game. Huh. He was good. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was on the block like every day. Like I
Speaker 1: had spots in different cities, and I was I'd go
Speaker 1: to blocks and be on blocks. I'll go out there
Speaker 1: and do twelve hours on the block with my crew.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows that. So you educated yourself. I educated myself.
Speaker 1: I read three thousand books since nineteen and have not
Speaker 1: been to Nobody's prison, and I read everything what they
Speaker 1: called polly Man. I read everything. I study everything, every subject,
Speaker 1: quantum physics, metaphysics, history, biology, chemistry, everything that. I was
Speaker 1: going to ask you if you had any type of
Speaker 1: journalism background, because the magazine doing Don div Yeah, because
Speaker 1: it was very well written. I was doing Don Diva.
Speaker 1: But I've always had an appreciation for writing. I always
Speaker 1: had an attraction to it in my um, in my
Speaker 1: intro um I opened up with then just to put
Speaker 1: this into perspective, this is this is my autobiography, right,
Speaker 1: raised by wolves. I began writing that as like an
Speaker 1: introspection when I decided I wasn't gonna, you know, sling
Speaker 1: drugs anymore, right, And I did it very suddenly. You know.
Speaker 1: I was home one day, had just come home off
Speaker 1: the street, and I was like, I was doing my
Speaker 1: thing in North Carolina and I was living in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: and I was like, you know what, I'm tired. I
Speaker 1: don't want I don't do it anymore. It was seventeen
Speaker 1: and a half years, three generations in. I think the
Speaker 1: streets have gotten enough of all blood, sweat and tears.
Speaker 1: And you hadn't got correct at that point. MM hmm. See,
Speaker 1: so you escaped the game man what they call a
Speaker 1: statistical anomaly. Yeah, and that's a till that very few
Speaker 1: people get to tell, you know, anybody level that you did,
Speaker 1: because it's not like he was out there just moving zones,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? M hm, Yeah, absolutely, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: and I came from a very organized system, so we
Speaker 1: were very very systematic in our destruction, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Um. So, you know, when I kind of
Speaker 1: fall into this whole journalism thing, it all comes quite naturally,
Speaker 1: and it's like everything that I did before had especially
Speaker 1: equipped me to be effective in doing that. So when
Speaker 1: I began writing this as my diary and just thinking
Speaker 1: about what I was gonna do with the rest of
Speaker 1: my life, and the self help books which I read
Speaker 1: everyone that was created between eighty five and ninety five,
Speaker 1: every self help book there was, I read, right, And
Speaker 1: I don't just read it. I studied, like books of
Speaker 1: my own that I've written in a response to the
Speaker 1: information I was taking, because a lot of it said
Speaker 1: engage with the information, you know, meaning you read something
Speaker 1: that it impacts you know, people highlight Why why do
Speaker 1: you highlight? You highlight? Because there's something about this particular
Speaker 1: sentence or statement that resonates with you. So instead of
Speaker 1: highlighting right it right the phrase or the paragraph, I've
Speaker 1: written the whole pages, several of them, because it resonated
Speaker 1: with me like that. And because I did that, and
Speaker 1: writing is a psycho neural you know, activity, muscular activity, writing,
Speaker 1: it imprinted on my sulbconscious it became me. So it
Speaker 1: wasn't just something I knew it. It came something I
Speaker 1: did because I understood the connection between what's happening in
Speaker 1: here and what I'm doing in the world like that. Dude,
Speaker 1: most people don't learning can pick up that concept. It
Speaker 1: would take you so long to even condition yourself to
Speaker 1: do that. Well, the thing is, I became aware of
Speaker 1: that right and it became first my unconscious then conscious
Speaker 1: um drive and motivation to figure out a way two
Speaker 1: share exposed what I had become exposed to, which was
Speaker 1: that information was the only thing that was truly gangster.
Speaker 1: Knowledge is the only thing truly gangster. Everything they think
Speaker 1: it's period. So I wanted to um extend and expand
Speaker 1: the whole concept of gangsterism since I knew they were
Speaker 1: so so attracted to it. You know, and that's why
Speaker 1: Don Diva read the way to read. I wrote stories
Speaker 1: or articles in Don Diva in two thousand about the
Speaker 1: the chi and chipping plantation and where the chip came from.
Speaker 1: You know what the chip, who created, what they created for,
Speaker 1: and what it was then used for after the creator
Speaker 1: created it. Remember reading an article? Right, that kind of
Speaker 1: information never makes its way to uh those of us
Speaker 1: who will be most impacted by the lack of information. Right.
Speaker 1: So I knew there was a thousand a million of
Speaker 1: the means out there who just needed to have somebody
Speaker 1: who understood that information and understood them well enough that
Speaker 1: they could convey the information to them and they can
Speaker 1: understand its relevance in their life. That's all. That is
Speaker 1: my purpose. That is the reason I get up every day,
Speaker 1: to the reason I opened my mouth, because that is
Speaker 1: most important. That there's nothing. Here's the big problem to that.
Speaker 1: Solutions I'm trying to and and I'm gonna give you one.
Speaker 1: The problem with that is a lot of people in
Speaker 1: the hood today can relate to the way you explain
Speaker 1: things and and certain things they he he's thinking like this,
Speaker 1: He's thinking, I don't understand what you're talking about. So
Speaker 1: they not let me turn from this. Let me not
Speaker 1: what you mean you mean, because I'm not saying you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, my nigga, like check this ship out,
Speaker 1: but do like on some real ship. You gotta think, son,
Speaker 1: when you're going out there and doing this ship you're doing,
Speaker 1: you gotta be like, yo, so I'm gonna gona he
Speaker 1: get this motherfucker back right what I'm saying, like when
Speaker 1: you go get that motherfucking back, Like just understand something, like,
Speaker 1: my nigga, I'm only talking away. I'm talking because I
Speaker 1: like to express myself in that way. But I'm from
Speaker 1: that thing like that for real though, Like for real though,
Speaker 1: So I know who to say what to and how
Speaker 1: to say it to him to make sure I don't
Speaker 1: just talk to hear myself. I want the mother to
Speaker 1: underdig me. I don't him up. That's what I'm talking about. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I mean initially I didn't. So it was a lot
Speaker 1: of things that I put out there that I thought
Speaker 1: would resonate with people. And because and this was the
Speaker 1: advantage of dogging myself like I did you know, um
Speaker 1: writing all the articles and doing all the distribution and
Speaker 1: setting up all the retail locations and you know, just
Speaker 1: doing everything. You know what I'm saying, like realistically, you know,
Speaker 1: um um, my partner she handled you know, the stuff
Speaker 1: inside the office, the business I generated being out on
Speaker 1: the street. She was there to receive that and manage that.
Speaker 1: And she was competent and responsible and capable of doing that,
Speaker 1: which is why after our relationship I would continue to
Speaker 1: have anything to do with her, because she had a
Speaker 1: practical purpose and not for nothing. That's one of the
Speaker 1: main tenants of gangsterism. If you're around me, you serve
Speaker 1: a purpose. Period. You could be my girl, mana, whoever,
Speaker 1: but you gotta serve a purpose because I don't have
Speaker 1: time for people who don't serve a purpose. I just
Speaker 1: don't have time. I may love you and everything, but
Speaker 1: you will rarely see me the purpose people won't. They're
Speaker 1: the ones who have my time and attention because I
Speaker 1: got one mission. Get to the money. That's really what
Speaker 1: it was, you know, get to the money, and maintained
Speaker 1: the think I don't care well, you know, I want
Speaker 1: to go back to a partners. You mentioned something that's deep, man.
Speaker 1: You said that you were a third generation hustler. Man
Speaker 1: and talk us talk about that a little bit, because
Speaker 1: that's deep, man. So that was kind of like your
Speaker 1: family trade. You know, you have some families there and um,
Speaker 1: they may own seven elevens, they may own the chain
Speaker 1: of restaurants. You guys were into cocaine and heroron distribute
Speaker 1: cocaine and Erwin distribution, to my correctness, heroin primarily. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that means you guys probably go back to the
Speaker 1: late fifties and sixties with that three generations. Tell me
Speaker 1: about that. Who was the first one that kind of
Speaker 1: got off the boat that because obviously if people weren't
Speaker 1: getting cracked like that, if you were able to elude
Speaker 1: capture for that loan, that means you had a hell
Speaker 1: of a system. I mean, you know, it was a
Speaker 1: it was a different time. First of all, when we
Speaker 1: did the things we did, and y'all can relate to this,
Speaker 1: We did the things we did acting in our neighborhoods.
Speaker 1: Who gave a fuck, We can get away with a
Speaker 1: lot of ship, nobody care, and anybody who was unfortunate
Speaker 1: or foolish enough to interlope into our space, they would
Speaker 1: subject to those same rules. Now they were two light
Speaker 1: of complexion. Then somebody might come around asking some questions,
Speaker 1: but there was always one of two of them that
Speaker 1: had the okay to come in and you caught for
Speaker 1: everybody else and bring it back to them. So the
Speaker 1: things that uh, we're being done back then to the
Speaker 1: magnitude that my family was doing it like it was
Speaker 1: happening in Harlem. I mean, you talked about the time
Speaker 1: when they were maybe uh half a million herointics in America,
Speaker 1: eighty percent of them were in Harlem. This is a
Speaker 1: statistical historical fact, you know what I'm saying. He was
Speaker 1: a whole different animal, heroin man to the devil. And
Speaker 1: that's why I could never dabble in it man, because
Speaker 1: there was the German for us who was the company
Speaker 1: that made it, patented it and then sold the people
Speaker 1: and told the doctors that tells people that it was
Speaker 1: for headaches and stress, and people are going and get
Speaker 1: it over the counter, and then people got strung out.
Speaker 1: Then they made it illegal after creating a demand for
Speaker 1: something that it hears itself to you human gooing, so
Speaker 1: you can't function it. You figure, heroin is a different drug,
Speaker 1: and the fact than it sticks to your receptors, so
Speaker 1: when you don't have it, it's almost like you're burning alive.
Speaker 1: So because most heroin addicts, they don't take heroinin to
Speaker 1: get hid the functions. So when you that's right, So
Speaker 1: when you start out, my sister was the heroin atic.
Speaker 1: My first cousin of four of my first cousins were
Speaker 1: heroin addics, you know, like I grew up with it
Speaker 1: in my home, right, so I lived with this reality.
Speaker 1: I overstand it a very personal, you know, perspective like
Speaker 1: for real, right, running souls and ulcers, the size of
Speaker 1: pieces and ship like that. Mother could fallen asleep nodding
Speaker 1: off in Millie conversation, and you're like, I'm hungry. You know.
Speaker 1: My mother left to go hand love business and got
Speaker 1: me sitting with my sister to make sure that she
Speaker 1: don't go nowhere. But she's a dophing right When when
Speaker 1: that when you first started messing with it, right, you
Speaker 1: develop yourself what they're called a little chippy, you know. Right,
Speaker 1: so you're weaken warrior, you're good, you can function, you
Speaker 1: go out. You're actually getting high, all right, three or
Speaker 1: four times in especially back then. We need a thing
Speaker 1: that was taken, you know, Like I grew up on
Speaker 1: a hundred fifteen Street. I'm from Huntret Street, sixty Street,
Speaker 1: fourteen Street, eight Avenue, seventh Avenue. Blue Magic was being
Speaker 1: sold right on the corner of my block, Frank. But
Speaker 1: I know Frank. I knew Frank. And so it would
Speaker 1: be so much people on the corner copping and bopping.
Speaker 1: They used to have to run the bus down to
Speaker 1: Manhattan Avenue to get up past sixteen Street and come
Speaker 1: back up to the Avenue. There was that much activity, right,
Speaker 1: So that's that's the environment that these people were in.
Speaker 1: And it was like that. So if anybody not to
Speaker 1: get high back then I got one cousin that I
Speaker 1: know too, that I knew for sure, never messed around.
Speaker 1: Everybody else messed around. Right, So now you've got this
Speaker 1: this environment where these young people are coming up and
Speaker 1: they don't really know what the heroin is actually doing,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, only know is that this
Speaker 1: is the high and they're getting strong out of the
Speaker 1: four uses, strung out, you're strong, you're stuck. So it
Speaker 1: used to be you take it and you high. Then
Speaker 1: is you take it and you're not so high, But
Speaker 1: then it's you down. Here is your norm and getting
Speaker 1: high is your old norm. Now you're taking it just
Speaker 1: to feel as good as you used to feel before
Speaker 1: you started messing around with heroin. And that's where the
Speaker 1: overdose and that's where the overdoses coming in. That because
Speaker 1: we're trying to get yeah, because it's really big in
Speaker 1: the Midwest, and New Orleans has a fifty of the
Speaker 1: people in New Orleans before I know, before um then
Speaker 1: trained thing of them were on heroin. M that's huge.
Speaker 1: And they started as young as nine years old. Oh yeah, man, man,
Speaker 1: why why do you think that's so cold? But this like,
Speaker 1: don't feed larceny. Right, it's a level of larcity that
Speaker 1: is like unfathomable. Bro, Like you you won't even be
Speaker 1: to get your mind around about. Okay, right, Why do
Speaker 1: you think those young people in New Orleans are so
Speaker 1: cold blooded and vicious some of your if you don't
Speaker 1: tune into those places, you don't know how crazy some
Speaker 1: of the crimes that go on there with a pretty
Speaker 1: regular degree, you know, a great degree. Well, it's pretty
Speaker 1: easy when somebody needs to fix, when somebody needs their fixed,
Speaker 1: it's easy to tell a kid there's thirteen years old.
Speaker 1: Hey man, I'm gonna give you this, Graham, but I
Speaker 1: need you to go in there and shoot all the
Speaker 1: motherfucker's in that room and they're head it's gonna go.
Speaker 1: Get that's done. Ship, that's done. Right back back, come back,
Speaker 1: it's still hot. Yeah, come on, let's go all day
Speaker 1: teams of them. I just talked to b G and
Speaker 1: all of them about this way you back twent years
Speaker 1: ago he was talking them about this like yo like
Speaker 1: because they was all working around. Yeah, which you know,
Speaker 1: not to get into the whole thing with baby, because
Speaker 1: that's actually my man, you know, shout out the bird.
Speaker 1: But but that's how Bird was able to kind of
Speaker 1: keep them dudes at the place where they was at
Speaker 1: because all of them, you know about if I'm good,
Speaker 1: I got I got some jewels on, I could dip
Speaker 1: any time I want to when acase somebody else got
Speaker 1: my back and all that. I ain't never dreamt of
Speaker 1: nothing better than this. Are you kidding me? Hell? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It was good. Yeah, you can get whenever you want to.
Speaker 1: You know, you got a couple of thousand in your pocket.
Speaker 1: You know you got a car to ride around. Not
Speaker 1: stand the mad because you're the bag. Because I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people, you know, if you looked at
Speaker 1: B G. Back then, though, a lot of people thought
Speaker 1: that was just They thought that that was the New
Speaker 1: Orleans swagger to be just kind of just like falling
Speaker 1: asleep doing the interview, and they thought it was just
Speaker 1: a swag. No them dudes, was they're so cool? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was not enough, you know what I mean, It
Speaker 1: was not enough. They was on that you know, on
Speaker 1: that show. You you lived on the block watching all
Speaker 1: this ship Jo, how you didn't get in? I mean,
Speaker 1: what you had to to keep you away from all that,
Speaker 1: um to the degree I kept what you mean in
Speaker 1: terms of my own use. Yeah, uh, what I just said,
Speaker 1: just watching swords and just the whole there was nothing
Speaker 1: attractive about it, nothing sexy about it. See, my generation
Speaker 1: got the opportunity to see what happens to the people.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the aids, man, the aids before a wait
Speaker 1: before hid wow man, but even then before then, man,
Speaker 1: like you talk about the swords, we used to have
Speaker 1: them in Cleveland. They will walk around down a hundred
Speaker 1: and five, man, you would see the most beautiful black women,
Speaker 1: you know, just the most beautiful black women to be hookers.
Speaker 1: Like you just walk down a hundred five and see
Speaker 1: these beautiful, like fine women and they were just different
Speaker 1: back because you had real pimping going on. So the
Speaker 1: girls was just really just they was just fine. You know,
Speaker 1: they stepped out of the Mercedes or Rose Wars and
Speaker 1: then you know the man sitting down the block. But
Speaker 1: then you saw that go from that to where the
Speaker 1: pimp started getting more raggedy because he was on there.
Speaker 1: And then you see his girl she kind of just
Speaker 1: springing it up. Then you see that same dress he
Speaker 1: had on, his raggedy and she kind of walking like this.
Speaker 1: It's like they're leaning, man. You know, you can see
Speaker 1: people leaning on on air. You see a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of people leaning on air. You know, a bunch of
Speaker 1: people leaning on air. They hundred five just like you know,
Speaker 1: and they just like this, and you know they're running
Speaker 1: up to your car. You're like, oh no, and they
Speaker 1: got the things. And then I'm gonna tell you, man,
Speaker 1: it hit hard in Cleveland to because it was one
Speaker 1: of them cities. I had a whole bunch of friends
Speaker 1: that got impacted by hair and one of stuff. Just
Speaker 1: really man, this I'm talking about man like eighty five, man,
Speaker 1: eighty six man, just like I'm talking about young people man,
Speaker 1: just and you know if you it kind of went
Speaker 1: from the heroine to the crack because you're talking about
Speaker 1: something that's easily attainable, and it's a mass distribution, and
Speaker 1: it's cheap. You can go get a fixed air on
Speaker 1: for two dollars. Man, you can get for two dollars
Speaker 1: real quick, you know what I mean. And you see me,
Speaker 1: you're going um on the way to school. Man, we
Speaker 1: would walk past this. You know, you got all the
Speaker 1: vacant lots in the Midwest, you walk through, take shortcuts right,
Speaker 1: you know, dunk up under the fence, walked there, needles
Speaker 1: all over the crown because at nighttime you can just
Speaker 1: see the lighters flicking. Man, a little music playing. They're back.
Speaker 1: They're just getting wasted. And that's when the murder rate
Speaker 1: just And I tell people, man, ocine what nothing like heroin, Dude, nothing.
Speaker 1: It's no compati the world. It makes cocaine look like
Speaker 1: what we do it comparatively giving the shame that the
Speaker 1: same ship happens. Cocaine take yours, Damn you lose everything,
Speaker 1: just like heroin. Cocaine is just you mean users or
Speaker 1: sell users, showers and everybody else, everybody that showed cocaine.
Speaker 1: If they showed cocaine and got away with it from
Speaker 1: ten years and went to prison or did whatever. When
Speaker 1: they come home, they don't have ship, they don't have nothing.
Speaker 1: Someone fuckers showed dope all their life right now in
Speaker 1: the day and they ain't got bailin, got nothing. But
Speaker 1: but it's it's well, it ain't. It certainly isn't because
Speaker 1: there's no money in the business. It is because it's
Speaker 1: because people do not have any sort of financial education.
Speaker 1: That's that's what it is. It doesn't matter what you
Speaker 1: give them. You know, my uncle, the leader of our
Speaker 1: family man, this guy used to tell me. You said
Speaker 1: you took every dollar and you distributed it evenly across
Speaker 1: the planet to every man, woman, child, make its way
Speaker 1: back to its original owners. People are in the condition
Speaker 1: they're inn because they don't know anymore to do any better.
Speaker 1: And what you currently know can only take you as
Speaker 1: far as it's taken you. Yes, so let's go back
Speaker 1: to my question. Man who was the first person off
Speaker 1: the boat, man who jumped out the car first as
Speaker 1: far as the hustler man and said, this is gonna
Speaker 1: be our family trade. We're gonna do it, We're gonna
Speaker 1: do it well. And we go do it efficient my
Speaker 1: mother and my uncle's um. To my knowledge, it was
Speaker 1: just something you guys did. So you just County, just
Speaker 1: woke up, count like I said, like the guys that
Speaker 1: may own a restaurant, a family restaurant, or have a business.
Speaker 1: It's just it's kind of something that you just adapted
Speaker 1: to naturally. So if if they had, then I said
Speaker 1: this in in my book, you know, Amazed by Wolves.
Speaker 1: I said that if they had been locksmiths, I would
Speaker 1: have been a locksmith. Now how I would have adapted
Speaker 1: the skills and the teachers that they gave me. You know,
Speaker 1: it could have went anyway, but it would have been
Speaker 1: around that, right. So if I was a guy that
Speaker 1: sold people the plans or how you circumvent all lock systems,
Speaker 1: then you know that might have been an advent of
Speaker 1: my generational or or neighborhood influence or whatever you know.
Speaker 1: So they could have been legitimate locksmith, real quick man,
Speaker 1: hold up, real quil we almost run. You call that
Speaker 1: a gainst by natures and not my children. No, I
Speaker 1: thought the whole world was like my world, bro, the
Speaker 1: whole world where I was totally underfites society, and I
Speaker 1: did not know it quick man. Hold on, we go
Speaker 1: back in this netfleicks. Let me pull it up that
Speaker 1: really we ganges that on to that, to the to
Speaker 1: the well. They want us to start doing a different
Speaker 1: together like they wanted, like you know within the show
Speaker 1: instead is being cut in. We were doing that. We
Speaker 1: do the thing now, well we didn't go do it
Speaker 1: right right now? What is that you're talking about? It's
Speaker 1: a read, it's a commercial. Oh, I need the money man.
Speaker 1: You got to get got to get the money man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let me see that. I need something that that catch
Speaker 1: my attention. I need something good to read. All right,
Speaker 1: try this on. This is my newest book, my fourth book.
Speaker 1: And you remember how A We's saying that I engage
Speaker 1: with the books that I read. I write like I
Speaker 1: read it, And what if I think about it or
Speaker 1: feel about it, I write about it. I write my
Speaker 1: thoughts about it, or I righted itself or whatever. That
Speaker 1: had a lot to do with me being able to
Speaker 1: assimilate and and incorporate the information, not just be aware
Speaker 1: of it and be able to get check it, gurgetated
Speaker 1: or you know whatever, you know, like to really become
Speaker 1: it right like I had become all the information I
Speaker 1: had gotten before that from wherever the fun it came from. Right,
Speaker 1: So this is something that I created after um I
Speaker 1: started teaching in South Carolina and in the prisons out
Speaker 1: there after they had that riot when the seven brothers
Speaker 1: got murdered back in two dollar eight team, And so
Speaker 1: I was teaching violent offenders in maximum security prisons how
Speaker 1: to think critically, because if I were able to get
Speaker 1: through seventeen and a half years of blood mutton ship
Speaker 1: and walk away a lot healthy, pin functional, then there
Speaker 1: must be something. It wasn't the fact I carried two
Speaker 1: guns everything I never wanted. I would say, Man, it's
Speaker 1: a good thing I had my guns. Only that never happened.
Speaker 1: My guns never saved me. They were there, but there
Speaker 1: were a tool. And you know, every job don't call
Speaker 1: for Himmer. Most jobs don't call for him in that game, right,
Speaker 1: So you know, um I felt that if if I
Speaker 1: could create a system like you said that they could
Speaker 1: relate to and it not put too much of an
Speaker 1: imposition on their attention and their time, they could slowly
Speaker 1: get into it and start to see how having information
Speaker 1: being information would be useful. So this is what I
Speaker 1: came up with. So these are fifty of my quotes, right,
Speaker 1: These are fifty of my quotes, And I write the quote,
Speaker 1: then I write the elaboration, basically the explanation of what
Speaker 1: it is I'm I'm intending to convey with this quote.
Speaker 1: And the quotes come from my life experiences. They come
Speaker 1: from me being around my elders and constantly being in
Speaker 1: class and being expected to retain the information that they
Speaker 1: were giving me. So I'm talking about at like six seven,
Speaker 1: eight ninety these this, I'm being taught the tenants of gangsters, right,
Speaker 1: So um, I'm expected to be able to respond to
Speaker 1: certain ships in a in a way that says you've
Speaker 1: been paying attention. And it was a lot to keep
Speaker 1: track of. And you know, there are no more dysfunctional
Speaker 1: motherfuckers than gagses but forever so there their their inappropriateness
Speaker 1: had no limits. You know, I'm a five year ol
Speaker 1: kids six year old kids. And then after I response,
Speaker 1: and motherfuckers are talking to me like I'm a midget
Speaker 1: or something. Organize I'm a child, right, So um, I
Speaker 1: am trying to keep track of these lessons, you know,
Speaker 1: and I just as a response and wanting so badly
Speaker 1: to belong I created a system where they would say
Speaker 1: something to me and I would take an in turn
Speaker 1: into something rhythmic, you know, and short to basically like
Speaker 1: put a pin in that. So whenever I found myself
Speaker 1: in a situation where, you know, something like this piece
Speaker 1: of information, a piece information that I got from them
Speaker 1: would be useful, my subconscious automatically access that quote and
Speaker 1: then it was like boom, hit the quote and boom,
Speaker 1: this is what you do. I didn't recognize that that
Speaker 1: was happening. I didn't recognize that was happening until I
Speaker 1: started immersing myself in psychology and Babel science. So you
Speaker 1: just evolved. That's what I evolved to the understanding of
Speaker 1: how we work. You know what I'm saying, So much
Speaker 1: of what we do is not what we think of
Speaker 1: this consciously get there, I mean, so do me if
Speaker 1: this is something I do. When I introduce this book
Speaker 1: to people, I say, open it. Just arbitrarily, spick a
Speaker 1: space and just open up and see what court it
Speaker 1: opens up. To me, it's it's it's the Ganges prerogative.
Speaker 1: The hottest hand, the path of least resistance usually leads
Speaker 1: to the point of most regrets deep right, So when
Speaker 1: somebody reads that, the purpose of that other page opposite
Speaker 1: is for them to you know, of course you you
Speaker 1: can either read my elaboration when I intended for to
Speaker 1: be conveyed, or you can make your own and then
Speaker 1: compare yours to mine, and you know, kind of learn
Speaker 1: from You know what you're being exposed to, how it's
Speaker 1: impacting you, and you know how to incorporate some more
Speaker 1: of this, you know, understanding that's didn't being exposed to.
Speaker 1: And but they don't know, they don't know that that's
Speaker 1: what's happening, because I didn't know that's what was happening
Speaker 1: until one day I heard myself responded to somebody in
Speaker 1: the way that I was like, who the fund is
Speaker 1: that that? Where that come from? I don't know where
Speaker 1: that came from? And I recognized that was what I
Speaker 1: was doing. And that's that's what you do in school.
Speaker 1: The only thing is they give you what they want
Speaker 1: you to know to make sure that you're a good
Speaker 1: assimilated worker and not somebody's gonna be a critical thinker
Speaker 1: and operate autonomously to the system. Right exactly, Well, you
Speaker 1: know what I wanted take this time, a real quick
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Speaker 1: put them on. All right, but flawless. By the way, Man,
Speaker 1: after a while, you get you you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: You get used to it because you know that at
Speaker 1: that with you practice. Yeah, exactly, That's really what everything
Speaker 1: we're talking about. Man, I just I need helping and
Speaker 1: I'm just so used to talking street. I'm so used
Speaker 1: to understanding only that. But I try to identify with
Speaker 1: how you talk and listen and I'm absorbing it. But
Speaker 1: and I get what you're saying, but I just can't.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you that this point that I wanted
Speaker 1: to fish before, speak to that. Right, if you practice
Speaker 1: any behavior, you become better at that behavior. When people
Speaker 1: improving things typically adds to their sense of worth, which
Speaker 1: makes them more inclined to do it, because that's what
Speaker 1: ultimately drives human beings, a sense of value, validation exactly.
Speaker 1: And a lot of times when we improve upon those areas,
Speaker 1: we actually don't know. It's because I tell James all
Speaker 1: the time. I go back and I'm listened to the
Speaker 1: earlier episodes, right, and I laugh. You don't have a thing, man,
Speaker 1: I said, Look, listen to James May. I don't want
Speaker 1: to talk. He's not saying a word. But I see this.
Speaker 1: You know, I've seen him go from the point of
Speaker 1: doing that to actually put off episodes by itself, and
Speaker 1: some of our best performing episodes. So you do pick
Speaker 1: up that stuff. I was. I was so gang bangage.
Speaker 1: I couldn't write no other way but in gang writing. Uh,
Speaker 1: I got just got a quick story. I remem death
Speaker 1: Row at the office and we got that exotic cars
Speaker 1: and all kind of ship. Right, So we had the
Speaker 1: office phone ring, pick up the phone and I'm writing,
Speaker 1: you know, a message. So I'm so the dude come in.
Speaker 1: I said, you you got a message here? So he
Speaker 1: look what the fund is this hitting up? Like like
Speaker 1: that's all I knew, my couragey, I didn't do noneing.
Speaker 1: I had to actually sit down and get myself back
Speaker 1: to it, like writing. You know what I'm saying. I
Speaker 1: was just so far into being a gang member, a
Speaker 1: proficient game member. For me, it was a graffiti graffiti
Speaker 1: in the seventies, right and and bro like you couldn't
Speaker 1: make out anything or what I was writing, like a
Speaker 1: schoolwork was already graffiti, and I like to write. That's
Speaker 1: why I was when I first referenced my my book
Speaker 1: and my intro and I asked about the writing thing,
Speaker 1: you know, um, something about you know, the like how
Speaker 1: did I become you asked about the journalism thing, and
Speaker 1: basically became profision and the writing or whatever. Happy. But
Speaker 1: I always had an attraction to write. I was one
Speaker 1: of those kids with the teachers that we got the
Speaker 1: writing side of day and I'd be like yeah. Everybody
Speaker 1: was like oh, and I never understood why. But I
Speaker 1: didn't understand that there feelings about things were different from
Speaker 1: my feelings about things. Right, So, um, I always always
Speaker 1: liked writing. And when I began writing this as my journal,
Speaker 1: I began with my earliest memory, right whatever, my earliest
Speaker 1: memories were. So it's just random things I remembers. I
Speaker 1: was just writing them, just writing different And I wrote
Speaker 1: about when my first grade teacher told me that I
Speaker 1: could be a writer, and I totally forgotten to bud
Speaker 1: it into That was first grade, so holy in first grade.
Speaker 1: First grade. So I was five in the first grade, right, um,
Speaker 1: twenty five years later, I remember that I hadn't thought
Speaker 1: about that ever at all. I remember that when I
Speaker 1: was sitting there writing, figuring out my life, where I'm
Speaker 1: going in this beginning, at the beginning for myself and
Speaker 1: I'm writing about this period in my life and this
Speaker 1: comes out of me without me having a conscious recall
Speaker 1: of it. It's just that's what I'm saying, that writing,
Speaker 1: the psycho neural muscular activity, this ship, it was just happening.
Speaker 1: It's just coming out things that I had forgotten, should
Speaker 1: I had subverted. We had a lot of ship, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean anything that goes against the preferred narrative we
Speaker 1: have of ourselves, whether it's be bad, or be tough,
Speaker 1: or we kind anything that does not fit in that
Speaker 1: narrative that actually happens in real life. We over time
Speaker 1: will rewrite that or completely erase that ship from our
Speaker 1: conscious mind. That's how we as human beings, as mammals,
Speaker 1: that's how we basically survived, would be we couldn't do that. Yes,
Speaker 1: natural adaptation, you know you selectively just come times, just
Speaker 1: stuff in your memory. Just you ever noticed that cognitive
Speaker 1: this will go crazy? Yeah? You ever noticed when you
Speaker 1: go back home sometimes you'll go back to certain places
Speaker 1: and to bring you to a point. I remember, man,
Speaker 1: I had this dude. It was a dude. Leon. Leon
Speaker 1: was about man. You remember, they wouldn't they would hold
Speaker 1: people back in high school back in our day. This
Speaker 1: dude was actually about likeab eighteen years old and we
Speaker 1: were liking seventh grade or something like that. But he
Speaker 1: was a grown as man sitting at the desk for
Speaker 1: being stuff with big Swoll. Motherfucking man. I remember that dude, Man,
Speaker 1: he would punk everybody. He was. Man, he was my
Speaker 1: eighth grade he was eighteen, you know, called me quick, motherfucker,
Speaker 1: come on and hang out with me. And he probably
Speaker 1: been over there with you button. I remember, Man, its
Speaker 1: seven grade, eighteen years old. I guess his mama said,
Speaker 1: so you stopping to school? You getting that out of here?
Speaker 1: I remember, man. Anyway, I was walking past this liquor store.
Speaker 1: I was back at the house, right, and I was
Speaker 1: back walking past. You know, the little hood story has
Speaker 1: been there forever, right, same dude, still working in everything.
Speaker 1: I remember walking past there. That dude Leon had embarrassed
Speaker 1: me that day in school. Man, I was talking to
Speaker 1: this chicken shell Morrigan and he just came past me
Speaker 1: and slapped the shell of me, like from the side.
Speaker 1: And I was so mad, man, And so I thought
Speaker 1: about that the whole day. I said, I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: this motherfucker, because you know, you get embarrassed. I had
Speaker 1: a lunch box, and I remember, man, I saw him
Speaker 1: out there smoking weed in his little weeds outside the store,
Speaker 1: and I went to cracked his ass and helped my
Speaker 1: lunch box, and everybody kind of paused, and that motherfucker
Speaker 1: did like this and blood square if we're out his head.
Speaker 1: And then it's like, man, every kid in the neighborhood
Speaker 1: just started piling on this motherfucker's once they saw me
Speaker 1: take off on him. Yeah, everybody started just started taking
Speaker 1: off on his ass. And I was walking by the
Speaker 1: store and I remembered that, and I hadn't thought about
Speaker 1: that in years, and I was like, this is what
Speaker 1: Leon's asked that that day, and it wasn't more asked.
Speaker 1: What was after that? Why do you think you remember
Speaker 1: Michelle's first and last name? Because Michelle lived behind me,
Speaker 1: Like you know, we got our backyard is right here
Speaker 1: in her backyard was right there, and we would sit
Speaker 1: on top of the garage and talk to each other
Speaker 1: all the time. Yeah, and that was my home, independent school. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it turned out to be I should think things. I
Speaker 1: liked it, But she turned out to be just a
Speaker 1: really good friend of mine. A girl that's a friend
Speaker 1: of you know, a friend of mine. On this day,
Speaker 1: she hit me on Facebook. She married at the homie
Speaker 1: and they got kids and stuff, and we you know,
Speaker 1: we're friends, but you know, you think you gotta crush
Speaker 1: on somebody, and she's like, no, you're my friend. I
Speaker 1: can't you know what I mean. I got put in
Speaker 1: the friends on real quick, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So so we just became friends, man. And she was
Speaker 1: just real cool people, you know what I mean. She's
Speaker 1: just real cool people. Man. And uh, it's funny man,
Speaker 1: that the human mind is something else. Man. And it's
Speaker 1: like I've had a big educational psychology man, just as
Speaker 1: far as doing this, man. And uh, that's one of
Speaker 1: my gifts is to be able to just deal with
Speaker 1: people on where they're at. I never get mad, I
Speaker 1: get upset idea what people where they are? You have empathy? Yeah,
Speaker 1: only empathy can give you that. You have to train
Speaker 1: in the world. You can't replace empathy. You have to
Speaker 1: have empathy, though, man, because there are some people they
Speaker 1: just are who they are. Man. And I'm gonna tell
Speaker 1: you once somebody, I think it's the age by the
Speaker 1: time you or thirty, dude, whoever you are, you can change,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, but you can evolve and grow.
Speaker 1: You can evolve and grow. We can change. But if
Speaker 1: we evolve and grow, then what the world knows of
Speaker 1: us as us changes. Because I'm I'm still the same person.
Speaker 1: I'm still the same person. I've just evolved to a
Speaker 1: person who I sold many more options and recourse that
Speaker 1: I don't have to like the hammer is the last
Speaker 1: thing I think about. Well, but that's the thing man,
Speaker 1: And I noticed man by me always being physically bigger
Speaker 1: than everybody. I learned very quickly. Man. You know that
Speaker 1: I could go out there and squad, but motherfuck up.
Speaker 1: But I had friends that was my size, that was
Speaker 1: playing that bully ship that was getting gunned down. So
Speaker 1: I learned to be more of um. Now I wouldn't
Speaker 1: back down from the ship. If mother want to knuckle up,
Speaker 1: we can knuckle up. But I would rather be the
Speaker 1: type to talk out, you know, like, you know, hey, man,
Speaker 1: what's going on, Like what's the problem. Let's let's find
Speaker 1: out what the problem is. That we gotta fight. We
Speaker 1: gotta fight, but what's the problem. But I've learned, man,
Speaker 1: that um people that are gangsters. Man I would rather
Speaker 1: deal with them over of the so called civilized society
Speaker 1: because one thing about a gangster, if he gives you
Speaker 1: his word about something, that's what he's gonna do, and
Speaker 1: he's gonna remain most most people like like they're true
Speaker 1: to the nature of that thing you speak of exactly
Speaker 1: all of those if they're true to it, man, their
Speaker 1: word is gonna be their bond. Man. You can call
Speaker 1: him at twelve o'clock at nights and if they're there,
Speaker 1: they're gonna be there. And because because it's important for
Speaker 1: them to carry on, to have their word, their word
Speaker 1: is everything in their name is their name, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. So everything else is passing through a
Speaker 1: borrowed That right there, that a stick with you. So
Speaker 1: if your name is good, you can have it all,
Speaker 1: lose it all, name, and get it back. But if
Speaker 1: your name and you have it all, you lose it all.
Speaker 1: You won't get no opportunity to get your ship back
Speaker 1: because motherfucker's remembers your name exactly. And I try to
Speaker 1: make it um even with me. I try to. It's
Speaker 1: a thing with me. Yeah, I have a thing man
Speaker 1: with um. Sometimes I like to manage people's expectations because
Speaker 1: sometimes people would try to force you in position to
Speaker 1: do something they want you to do, and they get
Speaker 1: mad because I may not necessarily be biting for it.
Speaker 1: But I've became very proficient that looking ahead of things,
Speaker 1: that being kind of um kind of three steps, you know,
Speaker 1: six or seven months down the line of where I see, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't do this right now because it's not gonna
Speaker 1: turn out right. If it don't turn out right, nine
Speaker 1: times the team you could be mad at me. So
Speaker 1: let's wait until I'm in position. So when I give
Speaker 1: you my word, it actually means something. You get what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So basically, don't let somebody put you in
Speaker 1: the position where you're going to be where you can
Speaker 1: potentially undermined when he hear something right now yea. And
Speaker 1: they could never be put in a position to do
Speaker 1: something when he don't want to do. That's only by choice.
Speaker 1: If you choose to do that, then you accept all
Speaker 1: the all the back ends and all of that other
Speaker 1: ship that can win it. A man gonna be a man.
Speaker 1: My grandfather told me, what you tell this man, and
Speaker 1: what did you tell that man? Your word is everything.
Speaker 1: By say I'm going to rolling with no problem. Nothing
Speaker 1: else should be said. Don't have the questions. So that's
Speaker 1: what you that's what we go off and we're seeing
Speaker 1: the same thing. Brother, Everybody don't possess that. Everybody don't
Speaker 1: understand that that's that's well. The thing is, we have
Speaker 1: had experience enough at this point, beyond our developmental stuff
Speaker 1: to know that, um, that is the majority of humans.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of us having what we
Speaker 1: have the way that we do. Uh, those of us
Speaker 1: that are of the thing that we are. I think
Speaker 1: it has a lot to do with the fact that
Speaker 1: we made to understand. The consequences for anything else are
Speaker 1: extremely severe. Have you ever been put in a situation
Speaker 1: that that made you want to go back or revert
Speaker 1: to how you used to get down? Yeah? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: But like I said, the toolbox is much more full now.
Speaker 1: When I first left the street and stumbled into this
Speaker 1: don this don diva thing, um, I didn't. I had
Speaker 1: a very naive perception of the world. Right, So I
Speaker 1: thought that squares followed all the rules in their lives
Speaker 1: are governed by rules, and right that's what I had
Speaker 1: no clue. I had no clue because I never dealt
Speaker 1: with them. I never interacted with them, so I didn't
Speaker 1: have any clue. I didn't have no clue about that,
Speaker 1: and it didn't matter to me, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So at the point in which I got into the
Speaker 1: space where I'm dealing with these people, UM, I have
Speaker 1: these unrealistic expectations. Right, So I'm dealing with def JAM
Speaker 1: or Universal or whatever the labels were back then or whatever, right,
Speaker 1: and um we're doing this thirty net thing. So for
Speaker 1: people who don't know thirty net and you're in the
Speaker 1: magazine business, it's like, okay, the advertiser, your client, they
Speaker 1: will um run and add in your publication, and thirty
Speaker 1: days after that ad hits the market, they pay you
Speaker 1: for it. Okay. So you know I'm I'm busting my
Speaker 1: ass to get this thing, you know, going keeping going, right,
Speaker 1: I'm writing under the twelve pseudonyms, right, so people don't
Speaker 1: think it's as small as it is. And so when
Speaker 1: it's time for me to get my money, you know,
Speaker 1: old habits prevailed. I still want my money. When I
Speaker 1: want my money, and I want my money was supposed
Speaker 1: to show up because you told me that's what you do.
Speaker 1: So I told you I would put the magazine, the
Speaker 1: ad in this particular magazine, it would come out of
Speaker 1: this particular time, and I did, and it did. I
Speaker 1: did as we just said. I kept my word as expected,
Speaker 1: especially for you squares, right, y'all follow all the rules, right,
Speaker 1: So I did my part. So that check is as
Speaker 1: good as in the mail. Thirty five days later, my
Speaker 1: check ain't there. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, up,
Speaker 1: discivariy man, you when much check at bro every everything,
Speaker 1: But no, where's my check at thirty five days? And
Speaker 1: I knowing they're going, this motherfucker's crazy. What the fun like?
Speaker 1: How you think that's I got no clear, no idea
Speaker 1: how it works. I'm thinking, you guys do everything on time.
Speaker 1: And right, I'm so glad I'm not in the street,
Speaker 1: no ball, I ain't gonna bust nobody in the head.
Speaker 1: And you know, trying to figure out my mother. You
Speaker 1: know that what this is the decent the nine thoughts
Speaker 1: I'm having. So I'm on the phone. It's like you're
Speaker 1: trying me. You've got millions of dollars, so you must
Speaker 1: be trying me. So my old instincts are let me,
Speaker 1: let me, let you know where the line is before
Speaker 1: you get a toll cross that motherfucking lose the leg.
Speaker 1: Let me let you know. And it took my man
Speaker 1: Jeff Dixon, who is responsible for ludicrous career from my hood,
Speaker 1: to tell me you gotta you gotta slow down. Here,
Speaker 1: you go down, it will black boil your ass. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean. I'm like, you know, I shoot straight,
Speaker 1: bro like. I don't bullshit nobody, and I've never accepted
Speaker 1: it from other people. I give to people what I
Speaker 1: want and I don't make no exceptions. And Princess the pulpous,
Speaker 1: I treat people like people. I treat them like I
Speaker 1: would want to be treated, period. So it took some
Speaker 1: you know one thing. Another thing about gangsters. Gangsters are
Speaker 1: very sensitive, Oh yeah, highly sin and I don't mean
Speaker 1: in a sissy fied way. I mean highly attuned to
Speaker 1: bullshit in the slightest degree. And those of us who
Speaker 1: are committed, we are very preemptive about bullshit. Minute in
Speaker 1: a second, save your fucking life, because you seem to
Speaker 1: be entertaining the idea of going down a dark path
Speaker 1: and changing the trajectory of both our lives. So let's
Speaker 1: not do that. Let me let you understand something right now,
Speaker 1: All the motherfucker's that you love. They love you too.
Speaker 1: Don't undervalue that ship. I'm committed. Are you committed? I'm
Speaker 1: ready to go. I live for you. That's what you want.
Speaker 1: You want me to live for you. I live for you.
Speaker 1: That kind of commitment has always been rare. We have
Speaker 1: all away. He's been rare, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Like for real, for real? You know, so this this
Speaker 1: whole thing about you know, everybody's gangster and everybody's a shooter,
Speaker 1: and this is mass insanity, bro, mass insanity. Ain't we
Speaker 1: in a month of the world that that particular genetic
Speaker 1: trait is suddenly everybody got it. The funk out here,
Speaker 1: everybody don't got it. Everybody is doing it. Everybody's doing
Speaker 1: and then when they got to deal with the consequences,
Speaker 1: that's when they've been oh wait a minute, that's that's
Speaker 1: actually not me. And you see it every day because
Speaker 1: they break down crime kid on on on Instagram. That
Speaker 1: one kid, he's about six four and he's standing there,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, chest out and the judge
Speaker 1: that two years and he said, now your lord is
Speaker 1: standing in the same distance you standing from The judge
Speaker 1: heard the same things that you got ask what are
Speaker 1: you saying? You didn't hear him? He said two years,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, and folded like a shutar Chinese launchy man.
Speaker 1: Now anything he knew? They know, yeah, two years And
Speaker 1: I bet you his big ass was giving him the
Speaker 1: business on the street though. But she had a big
Speaker 1: old silk striped down his back when he was running
Speaker 1: around them off of the street. You know what I watched.
Speaker 1: I'm a very big friend, big fan of forty eight hours.
Speaker 1: Oh that's the running nine of the cat that walk
Speaker 1: in there. I could have went home that night, but
Speaker 1: they don't because I know he was weighing heavy on
Speaker 1: your chest. Brother, come on and talk to me. Don't
Speaker 1: get it off your chest and be done with it. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, if I tell you what happened, I ain't
Speaker 1: going home. But then just they see that that what
Speaker 1: that in the in the clinical space, they call that
Speaker 1: cognitive dissonance. That's believing too things that are the opposite
Speaker 1: of one another to be true. Right, that I can
Speaker 1: be honest in this situation and go home. And you
Speaker 1: know why they're so successful to that ship because they
Speaker 1: are not