Episode 50 - Akbar Pray Homecoming (pt 4)

Dr. Vanessa Tyler shares a conversation with convicted drug kingpin - turned writer and mentor Akbar Pray. In 1990, Akbar was sentenced to life in prison for non-violent drug offenses, only to receive a compassionate release in 2024 partially due to his conflict resolution and counseling work with inmates while incarcerated. Akbar Pray, along with his non-profit The Akbar Pray Foundation for Change offers initiatives for re-entry programs for the formerly incarcerated, social justice reform and mentorship to at-risk urban youth. The story of Akbar Pray is one of redemption, perseverance and advocacy.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And now as a brown person, you just feel so invisible.
And where we're from, brothers and sisters, A welcome you
to this joyful day.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
We celebrate freedom. Where we are.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
I know someone heard something and where we're going. We
the people means all the people.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
The Black Information Network presents Blackland with your host Vanessa Tyler.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
We're talking with Akbar Prey, the reformed notorious Newark, New
Jersey kingpin. So how does one grow up to be
a kingpin? His upbringing was like a black exploitation movie.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
I grew up in a drug infested environment. People were
selling drugs out of my house when I came into
the world. They kept the drugs in my pajamas. When
I was four or five, and the people came to
buy drugs all night. They woke me up all night
to get two or three bags. The dope fans that
came there thought that I was lucky with helping them
to find a hit, so they would tie up and

(01:03):
ask me to find a vein for.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
A quarter, finding a drug fiend's vein for a quarter.
It grew into much more. His path was written. Going
into the family business was inevitable, except this ending has
a twist.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Although I was in that world I had, it wasn't
attracted to me. And my quest in the street was
to get myself out of the environment that I was
born in. So that's really what I hustled.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
For, to make the money to turn it over.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
To escape that world.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Once inside, he turned off the noise of prison. He
always knew he'd get out despite that life sentence.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
In my particular case, I've always sort of lived inside
my head. You know. Although I was into jail, I
was always doing a lot of stuff outside of the prison,
and I am a voracious reader. Every day I wrote
four I read four or five newspapers a day, and
magazines that went to New York Times, the Wall Street Urinel,

(02:03):
the Washington Post. So I did a lot of reading
on AI chat, GPT, you name it, anything along in
the artificial intelligence, because I knew that one at some
point when I hit the streets, that all of these
would be with all of these would be necessary tools.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Now in a new world AI sleeker, cell phones, battery
powered cars, and children of his children now have the
grandfather they are just getting to know. During our chat,
one of his grandchildren heard in the background just couldn't
stay away.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
That is my my grandson who is autistic.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Oh okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
He was coming to hub up hug up on me.
But but the timing is good. But he's my beating
heart and oh my god, he's nonverbal.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
He was born when you were away. Absolutely, this is
kind of your first being around. And he doesn't want
to let you go.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
No. Yeah, he was hugging up on me.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Keeping that prison promise to give back is his focus now.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
So along those lines, I talked with some of the
some of the organizations that they have in Newark, One Hood,
New Directions, and some of the leaders in the so
called shot callers in these communities, and they were already
involved in stopping the balance, you know, and also trying
to deter some of the young guys from being engaged

(03:32):
in balance. And I said, we're going to do that.
I'm going to work with y'all to do that. But
I want to expand the platform to community empowerment. I said,
let me ask you a question, how many of you
know Kobe scores stats? And virtually every hand out there
went up. I said, how many of you know where
the trade line is? No hands went up. I said,

(03:56):
how many of you know your former credit score? No
hands went up. I said, how many do you know
how to balance a checkbook? Some hands went up. I said, homie,
there's something wrong with this picture, and we're going to
try and correct it. So I said, I'm going to
start a series of classes. We're going to teach credit repair,
We're going to teach trade lines, we're going to teach

(04:16):
business startups. We're going to conduct mock job interviews, public speaking,
and resume preparations. We're also working with the youth House
where we're going in there and bringing in some of
the mentors, some of these guys that are urban legends
in their own right and at least recognized by some
of the young guys, and we're going to help them

(04:36):
to navigate not just what they're going through in the courts,
but also the challenges that life is going to face
them if they go inside the prisons. When I went
there maybe about four days ago, I got a chance
to talk with ten group of young men. Eighty percent
of the young guys in there were in there on homicides,
and some they hadn't been convicted, So I don't have

(04:57):
to say alleged homicides, but I talk with ten groups
of them. In one group, all the guys in that
particular group had murders or is a list, have had murders,
And I told them about my story, and I told
them not to be hopeless, you know, not to be apathetic.
Because we were working on some things, one of which
was to try and bring parole back. I'm working to

(05:17):
do it in the federal system. At some point we're
going to try and pen on trying to bring it
in the state. When you have paroles, you're incentivized to
have good behavior because all your options are on dead.
How can we help, Well, by nonprofit, you can go there.
We need money to operate. I've been doing most of

(05:38):
this out of my pocket. There's a site over there
where if you're a donor, you can contribute to this
effort and help us to facilitate these programs. There's nothing
there for me. I don't need anything. I'm good, but again,
we have to be funded, so that's one way you
can help. Also, if you're an expelling, we have an

(05:58):
old organization called the Relation of Formerly and Closer Rated Men.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Check out achbar Prey on social media and go to
the Achbar Preyfoundation for Change dot org for more.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
In the past, I've often shown examples of power. Now
intend to show the power of example.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
The life and the journey of Akbar Prey. Thank you
for sharing your story and your vision.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
You're welcome. Look forward to talking to you again. Be
welcome to stay safe.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
I'm Vanessa Tyler. Like and subscribe to Blackland. Check out
past episodes. A new episode drops every Friday.