I Did It My Way

Tahoe tells a story about his life and losing his best friend to a tragic accident. 
TRIGGER WARNING ..this is deep.

Listen on patreon ad free at Patreon.com/soshamelesspodcast

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
All right, I'm just gonna start recording and wherever the
fuck this goes, just goes. All right, I'm here by
myself today because I lost my best friend. I lost

(00:41):
a part of me that I don't even know how
to describe. Right, I'm listening to jay Z all morning
and I went from like one album to the other.
And by the way, jay Z has some amazing music.
It's different from the music of now where people just

(01:03):
talk about killing each other and all that. The jay
Z that I grew up to, he described your life.
He described your wants, He described your troubles, your thoughts,
your motives, the outcomes, the possible outcomes. Right, So that's

(01:23):
why we took to him because it wasn't like y.
You know, you had your Di's Effects rapper like bums
did bumstdy bum Hunt. And then you had the the
the the niggas that you didn't feel y like they
it was just whatever. And then you had the tribe
called Quest Dudes w which is cools great music and
you know, uh, Daylight sold great music. But Jay he

(01:47):
spoke about a certain type of nigga that was going
through a certain type of shit, and there's a lot
of us mixed in with them. Trib called quest niggas
right and demonized, bottom trap called quite not demonized, but
like they were scared of. I was scared of the
jay Z niggas, you know, the thirty and thirty niggas

(02:10):
on the corner deep. I was scared of them niggas well.
I'm gonna ramble a lot. I'm gonna ramble a lot today.
Stay focused. If you can't stay with me, it's going somewhere.

(02:32):
When Jay dropped four four four and he spoke about
you can't heal what you don't reveal, I've been trying
to figure that out all weekend. I've been trying to
figure out how to feel about losing my friend all weekend.
I haven't cried, I haven't broken down. I sat here

(02:55):
and watched The Hunting Wives. I just didn't feel like
answering the phone. I didn't feel like talking nobody. I
haven't felt like doing much by the way you Hunting
Wives did. Some horny bitches, y'all are horny, and I
fuck with it, Okay. I just feel really bad for
women that don't have ass. I'm sorry, it's just I'm

(03:19):
speaking from my truth. I feel bad for women that
don't have ass like that's it's a travesty, it's an injustice.
And when you meet your maker, no matter what you've done,
I would say, but you started me off like this,

(03:39):
and that's not fair. So whatever I've done in life
should be this should be taken into consideration. With whatever
crimes or whatever things I've done, you didn't give me ass. Okay.
I had to walk around with no ass my whole life,

(04:00):
and it bothered It bothered me, It affected me, so
you know, you know, hey, that's just some advice that
I would give the ladies out there. If you don't
have ass, I'm sorry for you, you know. And that's
how I felt watching The Hunting Wide. I was just
sitting there, like, goot, these ironboards rubbing on each other. Anyway,

(04:23):
dope show, great, great show. You can't heal what you
don't reveal. I need to tell y'all a few things
that you know I've been. I started writing a book
when I was in jail years ago, and a lot
of my stories go back to being in jail and
being back to being when I was in the street.

(04:44):
And we all know that's not who I am anymore, right,
we all know, I don't come off as a nigga
that was doing all that. And the reason why is
because that was never really me, if I'm being honest.
Came that and I lived it, but it wasn't essentially me,

(05:05):
and the streets knew that. The streets knew twhoo you
not a street nigga. I was never like I could
never be like, yeah, you know what I'm saying, give
off that energy that. But when you live a certain lifestyle,
you take up a flag that's you. You got to

(05:28):
hold that, you got to earn that, you have to
live that, and sometimes you die by that. At some point,
I dropped my flag, but it's never going to erase
the time that I spent the things that I've done,

(05:48):
a lot of it I'm not proud of, but they
still are a part of me. But all of this
starts there's a reason why, right people would say, well,
if that wasn't you, then why When I was in jail,
my aunt, my aunt val wrote me a letter. I
probably still have it in the other room, and I

(06:11):
was so disappointed. I was so hurt when I got
this letter, right, because here I am. I just beat
a trial for attempted murder by the way, I didn't
do it, So it's not even like I am celebrating
the fact that you know I didn't do it. So
I beat this trial, and I took this one to
three because I could not go back to court. I

(06:32):
was broken by this trial. I lost twenty pounds, I
had my hair like grown, all of my faith. I
was just I looked nuts. When I got to Ryker's Island,
I was one hundred and thirty eight pounds. My regular
weight most of my teenage to young adult life was

(06:54):
one hundred and seventy pounds. I was one hundred and
thirty eight pounds. And how much weight I lost going
to trial for something that I didn't do in upholding
street values of not talking to the police. Well, actually
it's still a lawyer. The lawyers like nigga, you are
being charged. There's nothing to talk about. Not that I
would have anyway, but I ain't really have no options.

(07:15):
It wasn't even like it was an option, you feel me.
But when I beat that trial, I still had two
drug charges and I was just like yo. When I
came home, when I got acquitted for that for that trial,
for that crime, and I came home, and I saw

(07:38):
all of my friends gambling and drinking. Not that a
few of them did come to the trial at the
last day and they were there when I got to
quit it. I must shout out the people that was
there that was my crew, right, But a lot of
them wasn't. The niggas I hustled with every day. The
niggas I was risking my life for niggas that I

(08:00):
had shootouts for niggas that I did all of the
dirt with, they wasn't there. It was the niggas that
knew Sakai and knew what my heart was and was
telling me for a long time, get out of this,
get away from this. You know, them niggas was there

(08:22):
and they were still street niggas, but they wasn't committed
to it like I was, you feel me. Not a
lot of them wasn't. Some Some may be like yo,
I was there niggas sit I wasn't corner in respect
to y'all niggas that did. But y'all know what I'm
talking about. If you was there, you know what I'm
talking about. You know how dark it got for me.
So this is this is my story. When it comes

(08:42):
to that when I walked back outside and I seen
the crackheads still buying crack on my corner from other people,
from a corner that I shot people, that I shot
at people over, that I shed blood over, that I
you know, made people bleed over whatever. Right, they were
still moving, the cars were still driving, the niggas were

(09:06):
still hustling. Nobody cared that I wasn't there. That means
I could have got convicted of that moment and did
fifteen to twenty five. Nobody would have cared, bro And
I held this like code of honor that I had

(09:27):
to felt that I had to live by so high
to walk down the block and realize, nobody cares, nigga,
what you thrown your life away for. You thrown that
away from us. We don't care. We don't care. And

(09:53):
that was a grim realization. That was a grim realization
because I had spent time on rikers for witness tampering
and whatever while I was going through the trial, so
I had time away to think and asked myself, why

(10:14):
what are you doing to yourself? Why are you here?
What is this for? What are you trying to prove? You?
Feel me? And I didn't have no answers for that,
so I started making plans to leave from right there.

(10:39):
One of the plans that I made was I called
my lawyer. I said, tell the DA give me a year.
I'll take it. Give me here. He was like, why
would you? I said, because I need a vacation anyway.
And he's like, but you're gonna have a feeling me.
I said, I don't care. I just didn't have it
in me to fight no more. She broke me down

(11:02):
with this fucking trial. I did not have the energy
to fight her anymore. Okay, and it was serious. Now
all of this, as I said, the book tells a
whole bunch of stuff, so I'm not going to go
into all of this too much. But basically, I got
out the game, and I disappointed a lot of people

(11:24):
by doing that. Specifically my friends are young. But let
me let's get to that. We'll be back to that.
This story starts, I think years before. It starts with

(11:48):
a young boy growing up on De Catus Street. Right.
My mom had left my dad, and I was such
a happy life little kid. Bro Right from what I recall,
just laughing and joking and watching Falcon Crest in Dallas
with my cousin and you know, running around the house

(12:11):
and life was good. Man. My moms would come running
down walking home from work and I could see her
all the way down the block, and I'd go running
down the block mommy, Right, it was happy, and you know,
unless she was beating my ass for whatever the hell
I had I did wrong that day, And let's be clear,

(12:31):
I did a lot wrong. I got a lot of beatings.
To those who want to call CPS, it was a
different time. It was a different time. We parents actually
kicked their kids' ass back then in the name of love.
So it's like stepping the name of love. No, it
was whip your ass in the name of love. That's

(12:54):
the song they played back then. It changed over time.
Right now you just be like, you know, you need therapy.
I don't know why it wasn't more than that era.
I would have much rather the therapy era than to
go get my belt, because that's some horrible shit. You
make your kid go get the belt, Like what kind

(13:14):
of lazy beating? Like how the fuck is you that lazy?
You're mad? But I that's torture in itself. I wanted
to see this Sigall movie once and they said, anticipation
of death is worse than death itself. Why do you
making me walk the green mile to go get your belt?
And I can't even bring you the wrong one. I

(13:36):
got to bring the belt, the big belt with the
holes in it, or the plastic one. By the way,
you should go to jail if you beat your child
with that plastic belt. I don't care how old you are.
I don't care how old your child is. If you
beat them with the plastic belt, you deserved your all time.
That's how I feel. I'll testify for you because I

(13:58):
got beat with the plastic belt before, so I can
testify as to how painful that is, and then we
can weigh that pain versus the egregiance that the thing
that you really got before, was it really worth the
plastic belt? Probably wasn't. Sorry, y'all, I laugh at funerals.

(14:23):
I don't know how to express myself other than that.
I laugh, I smile, and then I go cry in
the dark. Let me write that down. Give me a second, y'all.

(14:43):
This is this is this is kind of stressful for
me for real. So whole week and I've been trying
to figure out how to deal with these pain. I

(15:08):
think I don't really know how to express it, but
I'm gonna just keep going. When you're a young kid,
you don't understand the world. Your world is your house,

(15:32):
your family, and then it becomes kindergarten, right, you don't
know what's going on in first grade, second grade. You're
not able to process that. You don't have the experience
to process the world. You just know your class, you
know the cafeteria, you know the school bus. That's it.
You don't understand that you're driving through Bedsty or that

(15:54):
your school is in Bushwick. You don't get the world.
But when my mom left my dad, I started to
understand the world more because I started going outside and
Decatur Street was my grandmother, my grandmother who just passed

(16:17):
that was in Bedsty, and Bedstye is a community thing, right,
you go outside, you play in the street, whatever, whatever.
And it was probably the first time I got beat up.
These guys that my sister was cool with, my cousin
that I called my sister was cool with. They like

(16:39):
chased me to the house, and I didn't want to
fight them because I didn't even understand what fighting was.
Because I didn't have brothers. I didn't have My dad
was barely around. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't have that.
I was told you. I was playing with my fucking
cousin all the time. My girl cousin and I played
dolls with her house, the dollhouse, and she had the

(17:02):
kitchen thing with the stove, whatever the fuck that is that.
You know, y'all know that the stove. This is what
I did with my day. So these two fucking niggas
come wanting to fight, and I'm looking at these niggas, like,
why are you so angry? The fuck is wroach you? Niggas?
Like I thought. We was trying to play double Dutch.

(17:26):
And it was the first time that I got scared
to go outside. I stood in my doorway when they
chased me, and my cousin was still outside because they
didn't want to fight her. They want to fight me,
and I was scared to gossid. I live a lot
of my life like that. Growing up with your mom,

(17:47):
no brothers, no real male friends around, you don't you
don't really know how to deal with fear. It became
a part of me. It became a part of how
I looked at the world, let alone. The fact that
my mom beating my ass every other day. So it
was just like, yo, I'm just getting beat up everywhere.

(18:07):
I fucking go, like, god, damn it, another beating, you
know what I'm saying. I grew up like that. But
she still had to go outside. You're getting beat in
the house. Min's will go outside and play, Skelly, You're
going to get beat up mine as well. Have some fun,

(18:31):
all right. And I ain't trying to say that my
mom's was abusive, but she was doing her best. You know,
she was struggling, trying to figure life out. And a
lot of times your parents struggles become your struggles or
you feel the shit that they're going through, and it
just happens. And of course shit. I remember one time

(18:51):
my mom got a beating in front of me, So
it wasn't even yeah, and it wasn't even like a beating.
It was like my mom when she left my dad.
I guess she was just trying to figure out life
herself because she was bored in her relationship, and so
she started clubbing a lot, started going out a lot,

(19:14):
and I guess she was leaving me with my grandmother
a lot. I suppose I don't remember that. I remember
my mom being around. But you know, when you're a kid,
you don't understand all of that, right, you don't see
what's happening. And so one day, I guess we're all

(19:35):
supposed to go to church, and my mom wasn't there,
and so my aunt, my sister's mom, had to take
me to church. And you could tell she was mad
at something, but you didn't know what. Right, She's black. Sorry,

(19:55):
a lot of people are always mad. I'm sorry. Sorry,
I didn't even I wasn't. I wasn't going to say
what y'all think. I was gonna say. Okay, it wasn't
going to be good either way, and I didn't say it.
I caught myself, so, but yes, she was mad, and
a lot of the experiences I had in that house

(20:17):
with with people that were mad, smoking her cigarette out
the window on the way to the church, smoking her
cigarette out the window on the way back from church. Me,
I'm just in my own little world, right. Me and

(20:38):
my cousin were just in the back seat, you know,
doing whatever. And when my aunt brought us in the house,
she made a bee line for my mother's room and
she whooped her ass in that room. She whipped my
mother's ad and I'm just screaming at and apparently my

(21:02):
family was tired of my mom leaving me there and
partying and coming home early in the morning and not
being around, and apparently this was the lastra. It was
the elastra for her older sister. She was like, I'm done,
I'm not doing this no more. And you know, she
got real and my mother apologized to me. And I
didn't understand what the apology was for, because I love

(21:24):
my mom. I didn't understand none of this, right. I
thought that looked at my aunt like she's just evil
because she beat her kid. Now you're beating my mom.
She even beat me sometimes It's like, yo, this we
fucking just handing out with ass whippings in this house.
Like somebody called the police on this person, Like why
she's just what the fuck is this wiley kyote of

(21:46):
bed sty this lady? All right, but my mom changed
after that and you know, started, you know, being around more.
But that sperience because this is my protector, This is
the person who loves me the most in the world
is now getting beatings, and you know that does something

(22:10):
to you, bro, Like there is no safe place nowhere
is safe. I don't think that y'all understand what that
did to me. This people fighting you in the street.
I'm growing up in the crack era. I'm scared. Bro.

(22:37):
My dad ain't want me. You know what I'm saying.
I know, listen, I'm just giving. I'm listen a lot
of times I recall for y'all. This one is for me.
You feel me. I could not record with Dodge and
TROUMP this week. They asked. Dodge calls me every day
when we recording, and I didn't answer. I couldn't answer.

(22:58):
I couldn't couldn't fucking talk about some people dating or
some fucking dumb sh I just didn't have the energy.
I locked myself in my house and I watched the flatboard.
But white women hump each other and didn't kill people.

(23:19):
That's that's what they did. And they killed one beer
or boar that they I don't know. I guess they
was hunting pussy because I don't know. I don't know.
So now I'm doing this episode by myself, and I
thought about it this morning when I was listening to
A Whole and the Hill, which you can't reveal, you
can't heal what you don't reveal. And I was like,

(23:43):
but it was hard for me to record this episode
because I thought about it. But me, okay, I'm not
ready to get there. I'm gonna take my time with this.
I'm gonna take my time with this. So I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, y'all. This is a little it's a little

(24:04):
difficult to go down this road. In any case. I
lived a lot of a lot of part of my
life and I was smart, right, I was intelligent. And
so although I was a happy little kid that was
extremely intelligent, that fear turned to something else in my chest.

(24:29):
I needed to I needed to get rid of that fear,
and through that I became mischievous. I became angry. And
for a long time, my mother looked at me and
she was like, what happened to you? Why are you

(24:50):
so mean? Why are you so like angry? And I
couldn't tell her it's because I keep getting beat up
every time i'm gonna go outside, right, Because you don't
want to admit that as a boy, as a man,
you don't want to admit I'm scared of the world,
because then now your moms won't even let you go outside.

(25:11):
And the shit. I remember my mom forcing me to
go outside when I would run in the house. I
remember her saying, you have to go out there and fight.
I don't know how to fight, lady, they do. What
the fuck is you talking about? They're beating me up,

(25:31):
you fuck come out help me? You fuck like, what
are you talking about? Go fight? I can't. I'm trying
and I keep losing. What the fuck? How many black
eyes you think I got to give out? I don't
want to fight no more? What the fuck? What I mean?

(26:03):
And so you hide because you don't want to, you
know what I mean? You hide those feelings. You don't
want to admit that you're scared. You don't really have
nowhere to turn to. And every time you walk out
the house, they're waiting for you. The world is waiting
for you. And so you put your clothes on, you

(26:27):
put your face on, you put your mask on. Remember
walking down a block. One of my homeboys once, Jeff Keno, right,
a little Jeff. He was nice in basketball, super nice
in basketball, and he happened to live on my block.

(26:48):
And you know, everybody knew that I wasn't like that,
but hey, I lived there, and you know it was
what it was. So they, you know, took me in
once we moved over there, and he was he was
walking somewhere. He was walking down Holsey Street one day
and he said, Yo, Ki, that's what they called me
back then, Kyle. They was like, Yo, if you're gonna walk,

(27:12):
if you're gonna be scared to come outside, don't come
outside because they they can smell it on you. Whatever's
gonna happen is gonna happen regardless. You got to walk
like you mean that shit, you gotta. They was training me.
Although they was fighting me and beating me whatever it was,
they was also trying to toughen me up. And with

(27:35):
that there's a camaraderie that comes with that. Right. You
take the whoopings, you take the bullying, You take it
because you start feeling more part of it. Somehow, you
start feeling more masculine somehow, you know what I mean,
Once they're not beating you up. I don't know how

(27:57):
to explain that, but it was something to do it,
and so I started feeling like crew, but I was
still scared. At the end of the day, did some
shit like you know, some you know, I was still flinch.
You know what I mean. And he was like, yo,
if you're gonna be scared to come outside, you can't
walk these streets. You can't. And for a long time

(28:22):
I was scared. But I started getting tougher and I
started to become more like them. I went to a
smart school, Bronze High School of Science, and while I
was at that school, I met Tromp and I was
able to hide with Troum. Troum and his family. You know,

(28:46):
they have a great family. It was him, his older brother,
his mom, his pops. They lived in a really expensive house.
And my anger was getting thing was really fucking up
my relationship with my mother, and so I ran away

(29:07):
a few times. But at some point traum Let and
his family let me stay with them. The problem is
they're very peaceful. And if for anybody that watches this show,
you can tell the difference between me and Traump, you
could tell the difference. I'm sure his parents could tell

(29:29):
the difference. I'm sure his brother could tell the difference.
When I went to Bronx Science, which is a very
gifted school for y'all out there is one of the
three top specialized schools in New York City. I did
not fit in these kids were in. These kids, their

(29:53):
lives were just different than mine. I was naturally intell,
but I didn't socially fit into this hemisphere. This wasn't
my place, right because I'm taking more to the street,
I'm taking more to being mischievous, and I'm hiding behind

(30:17):
this mask while everybody else there can be theirselves because
they don't live where I live at. They don't go
through what I go through. Their parents shelter them, their
parents keep them in, like these Jack and Jill. I
don't know if y'all know about Jack and Jill, but
it's like this elite black community thing, right. It's like

(30:40):
it's literally like a black Illuminati in New York City.
I don't know if it spans anywhere else, it probably does,
but it's literally like you gotta kiss the ring type shit.
It's Illuminati. And a lot of them were in that
and in that community, and they grew up in that
community where I grew up on Decatur Street, running down

(31:00):
a block from these two niggas. They had a different
life than me. Everybody, and there was only maybe two
hundred tops black people in that school, and the school
maybe had two thousand people in it, and I just
didn't fit. I didn't fit in right. And I also

(31:28):
didn't fit in Troum's house. I didn't fit there. I tried,
I tried, I wanted to, but it was hard for
me to look at how their life was and then
go back to my mom's house and see how my
life was. That's something I remember clearly. Resentment maybe towards

(31:56):
Troman's family. I don't think so, because they took me in.
You know, I've never really thought about that. They took
me in, and I appreciated them immensely for that, but
a resentment that why I'm not my life not like that?
Why is my life like this? That's not fair. I'm

(32:22):
being honest as a young person. I'm not sure if
any of y'all ever felt that way. I felt that
way because my mom and dad wasn't together, and she's
doing her best, but that's not this. This best is

(32:47):
just not equitable to this. I never heard their parents yell.
I never saw them beat. I never saw them have
a moment where they couldn't afford shit. I never seen
their house dirty. They just seem so cosby right, everything's together,

(33:14):
And then when I leave out of there, I'm going
back to this hood type reality. So I didn't fit
and so there's only so far I can go. There's
only so far Trauma and I could walk together. There's

(33:37):
only so far that he could take me with. He
could protect me from myself and the demons that I
had in myself, and I think he knew that. I
think he did his best, and he might still be
trying to do his best to save me from myself.
But I was gonna win regardless. There's no way you

(34:05):
could beat You can't beat me at this, nigga. I'm
determined to ruin my life. The fuck is you talking about?
The nigga? The minute you turn your back, I'm gonna
fuck all of this up, you know what I'm saying.

(34:30):
I wound up going to college. The only reason I
went to college was so I could go be around
Trom's older brother. I didn't go to college to go
to class. I didn't even know what the fuck college was,
just saw them getting letters. Trom's brother was like in
the year ahead of me. Trom was in the year
below me. So I saw his brother go off to college.

(34:53):
I ain knew my mom's didn't have money to go
to college, know what I'm saying. So I didn't even
think about it for real. I fucking I only applied
to the school his brother went to. That's when you

(35:14):
know you don't know what the fuck you're doing, and
you also know that you don't even really believe it, right,
I was just dick rotting. I just wanted to be down,
and I went to the school his brother went to.
I got accepted. I applied for Pelgrim. I still owe that,
fucking I still I still owed him for that one

(35:35):
semester that I went to that school. And like I
told y'all, I fucked that up because while I was
there in that school, I immediately flocked to the street niggas.
And y'all know those niggas. Y'all know the niggas that
go to school, And as soon as you get the

(35:56):
freshman year, they all bunch up together and they all
running rampant to be as thugged out as they possibly could.
Right while everybody else is doing their homework, these niggas
are drinking and smoking and trying to fuck and fighting
their ops. How the fuck you found an OP already?
It's freshman year? How do you have ops already? Because

(36:18):
that's the thing, and that's I flocked right to them.
It was the NAS error, it was the camouflage and
forty below tames Era, it was the Onyx Service, trying
to get live, live, Live like a wire. We was
live like a wire. That's what we did. We acted tough,

(36:39):
and we fucked our lives up doing that shit. Got
into a fight. I was from Brooklyn, so you know,
you waved that I'm from New York. Nigga from the York.
Fuck everybody, We're from New York. And I set it
on somebody, and that nigga did not take likely to

(37:00):
get his ass kicked that day. He showed up the
next morning with a fucking crew of niggas and when
me and my friend walked into a building, them niggas
jumped the shit out of us, and my friend did
not take kindly to that, so he stabbed him in
the stomach with a butcher knife on campus. Damn, they

(37:24):
killed that nigga. They had the helicopter him to a
hospital where they sold up his intestines and he survived.
And that was my college experience. In a nutshell. They
expelled us. I fell out with them because my mom
and my lawyer told me I had to write a statement.

(37:45):
I think. I took the stand and his grand jury thing,
and all I said was, I didn't I ain't see shit.
I wasn't there. I said, I was there, I didn't
see shit, and the nigga stabbed him and apparently that
was snitching, and that's which in my recod election. But
I didn't understand the court system. I legit didn't understand

(38:07):
none of this. But I didn't. No, I didn't understand
that I wasn't supposed to say nothing. I didn't. I
didn't know, but but my mom and my lawyer told
me to do. I thought my life was over, and
that's what I did. I forgot all about that shit
for a long time until I spoke to the nigga
a gaen years later and we chopped it up or whatever.

(38:29):
But whatever, I was seventeen years old. I graduated early
from high school and went to the school. I'm skipping
a lot of shit, but anyway, let's get back to
where it is supposed to be at. I wound up

(38:51):
coming home and I got a job, and I got
a girlfriend, and I don't know if y'all remember the story,
but me following her and finding her cheating, and I
was ready to kill and all that stuff. In the
midst of that, I was kind of lost here in
Brooklyn because now all of my friends were in college

(39:12):
and I'm back in Brooklyn and I don't have no
real friends. Bout myself again. Now I can't say that
I didn't have friends. I had these two friends, Mike Fabe,

(39:32):
my other friend Damien, and we was a little crew.
But we hung out on the dark side of my
block right and over there. There's no women, there's no cars,
there's no traffic. You do shit in the dark, like
you just like little rats, like doing a lot of

(39:54):
shit in the dark. It's a little quiet ass block
and the midster bed sty. But it's literally between two
lit ass blocks. Lit. You got Franklin, Ave, you got
no string av We're hanging out on Bedford, which is nothing.
There's nothing there. There's nothing there nothing. I understand the
word nothing, there's nothing there. Meanwhile, you go to Franklin,

(40:15):
it's lit. You go to no street lit no stringing.
Was like Broadway right, Broadway literally thirty niggas on every corner,
cars just lit crazy right. But we was scurrying down
Bedford Avenue selling that little fight out of the week.
Do you know what I'm saying? Staying out of the

(40:38):
way somehow one day I'm walking down the block. Let me,
let me let me before I say that when I
speak about No Straight Avenue. Everybody was scared of No
Straight Avenue. And you niggas out there wherever you at,

(40:58):
don't tell me shit, nigga. Yall niggas know what No
String was. My mom's moved me from one avenue right,
which is Trup Avenue, and Troup Avenue was fire. Probably
the best neighborhood I've ever lived in, but it wasn't
No String. No String was. It had a name. It's

(41:21):
called Na Rock, you feel me. And No String had
a name for itself. You go down there, I'm telling you,
it's lit over there. You walk over there, it's thirty
niggas on this corner. It's thirty niggas on that corner.
These niggas is banging it out. It's crazy. It's the
home of Maino, It's the home of j Z. It's
the home nigga, No String nigga, And that's where my

(41:45):
mom's moved me to the fuck tone death. Hello, you.
I'm already terrified of the world. You fucking you have
moved me here to where all of these other streets

(42:06):
is telling you, don't go to no stron Let's go
around no string, Let's go this way. Whatever, whatever it was,
I ain't gonna say that again. I'm I ain't gonna
say that your niggas out there, they're living on your
other blocks, was not gully. I ain't gonna say that.
Y'all niggas ain't do what y'all did. But y'all know
the vibes, especially in eighty nine ninety Let's keep come on,

(42:28):
y'all know the vibes. That's where she moved me to.
Nineteen eighty nine, nineteen ninety. A lot of y'all wasn't
even alive at that point. Right, So, while I'm scurrying
around on no string on bedforit, no string had its

(42:49):
whole own thing. Now I'm about to take this to
another level. Right now, this is where the story actually begins.
I'll be giving y'all like a preview with it. Ever again,
those early years I skipped so much. When you read
the book, you'll see all of this stuff that was
going on. You know, cars, getting blown up or just

(43:09):
all types of shit, all types of wild shit that
was going on. But this this is I have a
destination here, so I'm trying to get there. I didn't
even speak about the crack era. You know, I ain't
speak about There's a million things I ain't speak about, right,
But nigga try to rap my cousin. There's a million things, right.

(43:33):
All of this stuff is gonna be in the book.
But whatever. When I walk home from school sometimes on
no string, there was this crew of niggas that hung

(43:55):
around the corner. When I said they were thirty deep,
these niggas was fly scary niggas hardy are capital hard
R and the they I don't understand. I don't know
if y'all don't remember this right because the world has

(44:16):
gotten so Kanye Polo shirt, book bag. Everybody can wear jewelry,
Everybody can go on in and and talk about each other,
nobody scared. There was a time that I grew up
in and I don't really mean to you know. You know,
back in my day, y'all, you couldn't do all that this.

(44:38):
You wasn't walking around the block with no jewery on. Niggas.
What Niggas was taking your shoes off your feet, nigga.
Niggas is taking your Jordan's off your feet, nigga and
chasing you in your socks. Niggas is still mad that

(45:00):
they robbed you. Niggas is niggas. Niggas is. Niggas is
taking whatever you have on and your pops better not
come around here because we're beating him up. To what

(45:21):
you understand, this is a real thing. It was a
thing to walk past niggas and don't turn around because
when you walk past, they staring at you, and the
minute you turn around and look at they still staring,
they go, what you looking at? And now you're running
for your life or you're fighting eight nine niggas. And

(45:42):
that was just every day. That was just wreck. That
was just what niggas did. It wasn't like it had
to be beef. It means if I see you walking
this way and you look at us and Niggas is
talking to you with your corny ass nigga, nigga that
and you turn around and look, oh, what's up for you?
And that's if they didn't like your sneakers, that's just

(46:05):
if they like just niggas. You ain't even to turn around.
They was coming up to you. What size is that?
What nigga boo boop. That's how it went every day,
all day. Niggas ain't had nothing else to do but
beat niggas up and take things. That's what it was.

(46:27):
Let's not even talk about the decepts. Let's not even
talk about niggas that join these little crews. You had
to decept the cons that run around. They had hammers
in their hands. These niggas was hitting people with hammers.
I told y'all about this. I'm in fucking one thirteen
downtown Brooklyn. I'm trying to tell you how scary Brooklyn was.

(46:50):
I'm in one thirteen. We're in the yard running around.
The Decepts come into the yard twenty deep and beat
up a teacher. They didn't beat up the kids. They
beat up a teacher. This is not supposed to be happening.

(47:20):
This is the people that we listen to. Why is
he getting asked whipped by the gang of the hood.
You gotta think how that impacts the children. We're not
safe from nobody. Nobody can keep us safe. They hit
you with hammers, They come on the bus, they open

(47:41):
the window on the bus and they throw you out
the window. This is your life. Imagine that. Well, they
would throw your book bag too, Like get all this
nigga shut off this bus, so they would take you.

(48:01):
They'd throw you off the bus and then you see
the window open and out goes your book bag too. Understand,
this was every day. This is not sometimes. This is
every day you're counting your days walking through Brooklyn. This

(48:25):
was every day. There's people in this chat right now,
that stick that's talking, They're gonna vouch for this. This
was every day. This niggas was finding a vict every day,
every day. And it wasn't just one all that wiling
going to the Central Park five and niggas just going
down through the village or going Niggas was getting together

(48:47):
to go beat random people up every day. And this
was my life. No brothers, no fathers, nothing. Need I
say facts, So I need you gotta understand this. This

(49:10):
is razors cutting niggas face. This is its nigga young.
It's a fucking war zone. There was a time let me,
I mean, let me just explain a little bit more.
When I moved to No Stren. I'm in the park
playing basketball about eight nine. I don't know. It was niggas.

(49:36):
It was just a bunch of niggas. I don't know
how many of it was. It was just a bunch
of niggas walked through the park, guns in their hand.
Where are we? This is this fucking Afghanistan. How are

(49:59):
you niggas walking through the whole park?

Speaker 2 (50:02):
Guns out walking like this is not it. It's a
fucking fucking bottle of beer. Nigga, y'all not scared of
the police.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
Nobody's scared. These niggas walking through the hood, guns in
their hand to go handle what they gotta do. Nobody
stopped him. You want to know why there wasn't enough police?
David Dinkins When I was growing up, he was a
week old man. Respectfully, I don't really know. I wasn't
in the politics. But it didn't get lit with police

(50:37):
until Giuliani, which had to be mid nineties or some
shit like that. But growing up, none of that was happening.
The police was terrified. I remember, I'm in the crib,
I'm upstairs. You had a shoot out of the corner.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
Oh wa, dooom boom boom a doo boom boom, boom boom,
boom booom boom boom boom.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
Niggas is getting it in. Doo dooo doo doo doo.
These are the days where your parents tell you don't
stand by the window because they scared the bullets is
gonna come through the window. This was an everyday occurrence,
asks your parents, this was real. You couldn't stand by
the window because they were scared bullets might just come
flying through. This is a lifestyle. Your parents knew about it.

(51:19):
Everybody knew. Right. I'm going somewhere just chill. These niggas
is banging it out on the corner. I don't do doom.
How don't doo doo doo doo doo doo doo banging
it out. We're in the crib like, oh shit. But me,
I'm getting a little desensitized to it because it's always.

(51:41):
It's just happening all the time. I go to the corner, right,
you hear the police, Oh do do do? Do? Do
do do? They come to the middle of the block.
I'm watching. I didn't hear it. I'm watching the shit
is going off from the corner. A doom doom. I
know I sound like soldier boy right now, But at

(52:02):
least I'm not the one shooting right. This is a
real story. I swear to God. They got to my
right before my house, maybe a house or two before
my house, lights on, They stopped the car, they turned
the lights off, they backed up down the block. Bruh,

(52:30):
What what you niggas supposed to do? The police go
stop the shootout? These niggas like, nah, bro, you hit
it artillery. I got a thirty eight. What what am
I supposed to do? These niggas turned the lights off,
they stopped the car, turned the lights off, and backed

(52:54):
up down the block. I'm watching. I wish I had
camera cell phone to show, like, imagine, imagine if that
happened today. Imagine if that's if that happened today. Yes,
Albany Projects, Yes, Fort Green, Yes, Red Hook, Yes, no strength,

(53:19):
We're talking crazy. I need you to understand. I'm building
this up. I need you to form this in your mind.
This is crazy. This is where you're raising your children.
This is crazy, which is why I was hanging out
on Bedford Avenue. It was quiet. You know what I'm
saying Now Before I hit the notion, let me explain

(53:42):
Bedford Avenue. Mike and Steve and I we became little
problems on our own little thing. I really don't want
to get too much into that right now, that's a
whole different story. But Mike was from Brownsville. He goes

(54:04):
by Nino now and he was Pop Pop from the
barber shop, you know, bigg. He used to talk about
Pop from the barber shop. That was That was his nephew.
And so he was a troublemaker because his pop, you know,
that was his family. That that's how they gave it up.
They was troublemakers or whatever. His cousin ran Brownsville houses,

(54:24):
so he felt he had a name to uphold. So
we used to get out. We used to get into stuff, right,
and a lot of things happened over there, but we
did it in darkness. Robbed people, you know, we robbed stores, uh,

(54:45):
shit like that. We got our hand on this one shotgun.
I forgot where we got it from. I'm gonna talk
to them about it and remind myself where we got
it from. But I kept the shotgun. I had the guns.
We started getting guns, and we were itching to use it,
I guess, because that's what was happening around us. One

(55:07):
day something happened and we backed the gun out on somebody,
or I backed the gun out on somebody, and the
gun didn't have no bullets. Not only didn't the gun

(55:30):
have bullets, it was a thirty thirty. I think it
was called a thirty thirty, and so I think you
had to load it like once and then like do
some shit. I can't really recall, but I had it
in the duffel bag. I remember backing a nigga down
and then the nigga disappeared, and then he came back
with like four niggas in the guns. And so now

(55:54):
I'm running from these niggas with the shotgun and the
double back, and they're chasing me. I run into the
corner store. I throw the gun somewhere. I'm hiding behind
the popcorn right and just when they come in, Mike
runs up. And Mike was Stocky Diesel. He was the
knockout king, and he stopped them niggas from killing me.

(56:18):
He stopped the niggas from killing me right there in
the corner store, right here in the corner. He's like, Yo,
that's my man, Hold up, yoever whatever and stop the
whole shit. I come peeking out from behind the popcorn
like and you know, because I really wasn't like that, right,

(56:40):
I was trying to be like that, but I really
wasn't like that. Mike was more like that. Steve was
more of a man. He lived with his dad, so
he knew he had man principles and living with your father,
you just had that shout out to his father, God blessed.
You know what I'm saying. I think his dad passed.
But they both was trying to train me to be

(57:01):
a man. They used to hit me in my chest,
punch me in my chest. Stop flinching, Stop flinching, stop flinching. Right.
They would put the weight bench out in front of
my crib and we would lift weights and try to
man me up. They was trying to man me up. Right.
It was a lot of that going on. It was
all around the time when I left, when I when
I got kicked out of college and shit like that.
They was really trying to do any best to like,

(57:22):
you know, give me a little body like give me
like when I say body like an essence like, nigga,
you're n you can't be a scared little kid out here,
you feel me. But we're still on Bedford and the
world is still going on around us, you feel me.
Long story short, One day I'm walking down No Stream

(57:48):
and something had happened between Mike and Steve and I.
We just wasn't really banging like that for whatever reason.
It wasn't like I just deserted them, but we wasn't
banging like that for whatever reason. Mike and I had
gone through a lot of stuff that'd be on the book,
you know what I'm saying, But I ain't going to
address that right now. At the end of the day,

(58:11):
I'm gonna address one thing with Mike and Tromp because
that points too. I think I've spoken about this before.
Trauma and I used to go to stores and rob
the stores of Polo. Polo was big in New York, right,

(58:33):
Polo Ralph Florent was big in New York. So we
would go to Long Island or we'd go to these
different stores that had Polo and we would switch to tags.
So now one shirt might cost two hundred dollars, we
would switch the tag with a pair of socks or
a different shirt that comes up as nine ninety nine,
and we would do the whole thing, and the shit

(58:55):
would come out to like seventy nine dollars and we
would get the fuck out of there. We'd always pick
a cash that don't know what the fuck going on,
it's some old lady, right, we would switch to tags
book it out of there. Now we got a whole
wardrobe for seventy nine dollars of dope. Polo shit right,
and it was a big deal. Mike used to want
to wear my clothes right, so he would come grab

(59:16):
the shows because Polo was big for us all. And honestly,
we shared everything. We ate together, we smoked together, we
did everything together. We hung around chicks that we had
sex with together. We all did, you know, the same things.
So it really wasn't a big deal. But at some
point I believe I got too big for my breeches.
When it became to Mike and me, we always had

(59:40):
a competition, but at some point I became too big
for my breeches and he showed up around here. I
had jewelry on and shit, and he showed up around here,
and no, we when it comes to the gun, we
just didn't have any bullets. We didn't have access to that.
We just had the gun, didn't Some people asking why

(01:00:01):
didn't the gun have but we didn't have any We
didn't even know where to get him from, and nobody
was going to do all that we didn't. You have
to understand when you grow up around certain niggas is
like certain shit, they'll teach you how to do shit
when you just trying to be like that, you don't
even know. I think jay Z had a song right

(01:00:24):
on the American Gangster. We need a pitch, we need
a mound like I can't remember the song, but that's
true when you don't know, when you have no idea,
you just don't know. There's no way. You know what
you want, but you don't know how to get there.
And that's kind of where we was on Bedford Avenue.
We knew what we want, but we didn't know how

(01:00:46):
to get there because we wasn't really part of the
Brooklyn community. And that'll come. That'll come in a minute.
I'm tell that story. This is gonna be a long story.
I can't believe I'm talking for an hour and now
I hope y'all are entertained. It's actually my heart was
palpitated when I started this, and I feel myself breathing
more so I must be I can't. I'm still talking,

(01:01:09):
talking for a fucking hours. Crazy. I felt the jealousy
from my friend or some type of malice. He just

(01:01:33):
didn't like me anymore. For whatever reason, we didn't like
each other. I'm not even gonna say, let me take
that back. We didn't get along anymore. We was going
through something, a real rift. The Bishop the Q, the
thing where you got the pack of niggas that hang
with each other and too these niggas is just going
at each other all the time. You could feel that

(01:01:54):
it's going to go left. Any moment. That was me
and Mike, we was having a moment. We was having
a real issue, you feel me. And so Mike had
moved away. I was hanging out with niggas from the hood,
you know what I'm saying. And one of them came

(01:02:15):
They used to store their guns here, and one of
them came here and was like, Yo, that nigga around
the corner he talking about he's gonna rob you. He
got some niggas with him. He said, when you come
outside today, they gonna rob you. And I was like, yo.
I was in the crib smoking with Tron. Tron was downstairs.
Were in the crib smoking and down you know, you

(01:02:36):
get together, y'all smoke whatever, whatever, And I was like,
don't even worry about it. I ain't coming outside today anyway.
That's what I said. That's exactly what I said. He
was like, all right, right, and the nigga walked off.
I go back in the room. I'm smoking with Trom.
I'm smoking with Tron, and the training kicked in. I said,

(01:03:01):
I can't have this nigga on my block talking about
he gonna rob me. Bro, keep in mind, mic is
the stocky knock every nigga out. That's what he did everybody.
He's known for a dead arm, knock you right out
off your shoes, right out your shoes. This is who
this nigga was. You feel me? And I was a

(01:03:24):
skinny ass nigga, same as I am right now, all right.
But something inside me said, I can't let that nigga
say he gonna rob me and not pull up. I
don't care who over there. I ain't have no guns.
I think I had given them the guns, right, so

(01:03:47):
I didn't have no guns. I get in the car
and Troum or Trum is at some point it's like, yo,
I'm gonna come with you, and I looked at Trump
and I said, nah, you can't. It's not your life.

(01:04:07):
I thought about Tromp's family, his moms, his pops, his brother.
I thought about my friendship with him, and I knew
this wasn't. I can't do that to you. This is
real what I'm going into. These niggas got guns, these
niggas is serious. This is serious shit. You go home,

(01:04:32):
THEO go home, you feel me? And he did. And
that's the difference between me and Traum. And I think,
I don't know. If I don't know where this sentence
is going, I wouldn't have went home, nigga. You going

(01:04:57):
over there, I'm going over there. But that's a difference
in our upbringing and our knowledge of self and the
way that we friend, and that is not I don't
mean that as a judgment towards him. That all I'm
saying is I was not leaving my friend to go

(01:05:22):
die or whatever the fuck is about to happen. That's
all I'm saying. I would not do that. I understand
how he was raised, and you know, this is not
his life, and this is obviously a life that I
chose for myself, and I understand the initial like yo,
I'll go, but there's a certain sacrifice with I'll go

(01:05:43):
with you to this hood environment that I don't come from.
That he didn't have to do. It just wasn't. So
the offer was fine. But I dropped him off at
his girlfriend's house. I went and got me a forty, yes,
a big ass forty bottle of beer, and I started

(01:06:05):
drinking it in the car. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah,
oh e, y'all know it. I was drinking old e
And I pulled up and I sat in the car.

(01:06:29):
The nigga came up to the car. YO, get out
the car. Uh, It's like I am in the second.
I had a knife with me, but I stuffed the
knife in the side seat because I wasn't about stabbing
my friend. I wasn't gonna stab him, you know what
I mean. I didn't know what I was gonna do.
To be honest, I just knew I couldn't let the
hood see me go out like that. And I got

(01:06:56):
out the car and I stood there. Everybody's around, everybody,
it had to be thirty twenty something like that. The
girls niggas old ladies. Everybody's around, right, But this is
a backstreet this is Jefferson A. This is a backstreet.
There's not no real action going over there. Remember this

(01:07:18):
is around the bed for the Avenue days. This is
around the time where that kind of ended for me, right,
But I'm telling this for a reason. At some point,
Mike comes up to me and he's like, Yo, you
think you all ad Yo? This something of a he

(01:07:41):
talking mass shit. I'm just looking at the nigga because
this was my brother. This was my brother. Like, nigga,
we didn't funck chicks together. When you gonna warm my clothes,
you feel me like everything, bro, And you over here
trying to show off in front of these niggas who
wasn't like we had a core group, Me, Steve, Fabe,

(01:08:02):
Damien like it was like four of us. We was
a core group. And now you over here with these niggas.
With all respect to the other niggas that we hung around,
but we had a core group and you basically trying
to like throw me out, like you're trying to like
bitch me out. Like so I'm just looking at the
nigga like I'm just looking at him like you know

(01:08:23):
what I'm saying, Wow, this dude rather look crazy without
the glasses. But I'm just looking at the nigga like,
and the nigga turns to his man and he's like, Yo,
get this nigga right. I don't know what you know
what I'm saying, Now, get this nigga. I don't know

(01:08:44):
what that means. I don't know if y'all know what
that means. But that means rob this nigga. In the eighties,
nineties and the nineties, that means rob this nigga. That
don't mean like beat you up. Get you got to
be like, Yo, get this nigga is more beat you up.
But get this nigga. Like the change of tone means
robbed this nigga, you know what I'm saying. So the

(01:09:05):
nigga's standing there with the gun and I'm looking at
his man and I'm kind of just screw facing his
man like like what you're gonna do? What are you
gonna do? This man's just standing there, And so the
nigga might go back to the nigga, Yo, get this
nigga because he's trying to make his man rob me right.

(01:09:28):
That his man is not from around here. His man
is from Brownsville. Him his man and the other person.
I don't know. I think it was a girl or said.
It was like two of them. I can't remember right
right now, but they was from Brownsville, right, So he
had brought them over here to rob me, you feel me.
The nigga leaned in. He spoke something to Mike, and

(01:09:51):
Mike says something back to him. Meanwhile, this is supposed
to be a robbery, but now they're communicating. They're like talking.
I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's
going on, you feel me? And the nigga might grabs
the gun and puts it to my face, Yo, take
all that shit off, and I just look at the
nigga no, he like, he like starts acting like he's

(01:10:17):
gonna do it, and he gives the gun back to
his man. He said, Yo, you lucky. I love you, son,
And I just hit the nigga with the forty and
just start fighting the nigga. Keep in mind, I forgot
to tell y'all have a full leg cast on because
I broke my knee. So I start fighting this nigga,

(01:10:38):
and this nigga's big, so I'm trying to fight him,
but I don't really have no stance because my leg
is fucked up, but I cracked him in the head
with a forty, so he's all disoriented. So I'm just
trying to get to the nigga like we fighting, and
my other nigga just kind of walks up behind his
man and it starts, just knocks the nigga out boom,
and then somebody slapped the bitch and Mike now he he,

(01:11:02):
he stops fighting me, and he sees the whole hood
is starting to fight fuck up his niggas like boom.
And I'm just standing there looking at the nigga like, Yo,
you're a fucking cow with nigga. You're a fucking cow
with nigga that you really like. And niggas start beating
his up. Man's up and this man start running. They
grabbed the gun or they backed out the him, and

(01:11:23):
they shot the nigga bow and they shot shorty bow
but they you know, they didn't fall, They just you know,
shot them boom boom as they ran up the block.
And then they looked at Mike and said, Yo, so
corny shit, you just did Bro. It's your brother, bro,
and don't you ever in your life brings somebody else
around here? To rob one of us nigga. Y'all handle

(01:11:44):
that like brothers and the nigga Mike was just standing
there like, oh shit. The reason I told that story
is because now I'm me that more moment changed me

(01:12:06):
because in that moment, I was in the house and
I wasn't even gonna come outside, and then I protected
my brother from coming outside, from coming to the block, Tromp.
I protected him from coming and then I fought my
other brother, no matter the consequences, gun in his hand, everything.
For them, something changed right there. Something clicked. The respect

(01:12:34):
and the hood changed too because them niggas. Earlier when
Mike came around talking about he was gonna rob me,
these niggas was like, all right, cool, we're gonna wait
for the nigga come out. But I guess they must
have convened with each other, like what you' gonna rob?
You know we're gonna rob tw Like that's crazy. I
wasn't tie who yet, by the way, but you're gonna

(01:12:55):
rob me. So these niggas told Mike, Yo, the DS
is down the block and the detectives down the block,
give us the guns. We're gonna put the guns in
the crib so that they don't run up on us.
So Mike gave the nigga the guns. These niggas took
the guns in the house and took all the bullets
out the gun. Then they came and got me. Then
they went to me. So these niggas was testing me

(01:13:15):
the whole time. Bro, this was all a test. I
was never in danger. Then they came to my crib
and was like, yo, the nigga around the corner talking
about hes gonna rob you. At that point I had
already told them, yo, I'm not even coming outside, you
feel me? So they went back around the corner whatever.

(01:13:40):
But they never put the guns bullets back and then
the guns. So when the nigga Mike told the nigga, yo,
get this nigga, the nigga must have known wasn't no
bullets in the gun. So he was probably standing there like, Yo,
I think we're in danger. They took the bullets out

(01:14:01):
the gun, were keeping my eyes I did. I didn't
know none of this right, So the nigga must have
been like, why would they take the bullets out the gun?
Right when he gets the gun to go back me down,
he realized ain't no bo gun so he tells Mike,
he probably like, Yo, they took the bullets out the gun.

(01:14:23):
He's like, what you know, they took the bullets out
of the guns. And so the nigga Mike tried, you know,
he tried to finish the thing just off of fear.
But this is my brother. If it was another nigga
that did it like that, but this is my brother.
So I don't feel that same type of fear. You
feel me gun or not. And so when he went

(01:14:47):
to get a nigga a gun back, that's when shit
got rocking. But all in all, now I have respect
from this block and he's just killers. These niggas are
Stone Colt killers. These are niggas that later on in
this book, I went to war with you know what
I'm saying. So whatever, anyway, I lost my friend that day,

(01:15:09):
and then I also knew I couldn't hang out with
Trauma more. It wasn't like that, like I wasn't mad
at him. But we lived two different lives, my nigga.
You know what I'm saying, I lived two different lives
and I'm caught up in this and you you can't

(01:15:30):
be around this. You feel me so so hanging out
by myself a lot more. Stop going around the corner more.
You know what I'm saying. Once in a while, I
go over there, we do a robbery, some shit like that.
But you know, stayed around myself a lot more. Then
there's other stories happen whatever. But finally to get to

(01:15:55):
where the stories actually going, that was the hell of
a fucking intro. Right. One day, I'm walking down the
block with this girl, the girl that I was ready
to kill for Denise, and I'm on the crutches because
of my leg is still in the cast. And it

(01:16:16):
was this guy I had seen around. Now, this guy
was a pillar of the neighborhood, super pillar of the neighborhood.
And I'd had seen him. He was scary, he was icon,
he was an icon. You saw him, You saw a Burger, Yes,
the nigga name was Burger, and you saw Ron Duke.

(01:16:40):
These eventually became my friends. Burger at one point saved
my life. That's all in the book. But I knew
Burger from before that. But they'll talk about that later.
In any case, this guy, his name was g Young
and and you would see him walk through the hood

(01:17:05):
like it was his for so long right. You would
see him playing basketball in the tournaments, and he was
the nicest nigga by far of any nigga in the
Tournament's nice, crazy cut niggas up, making niggas run into
each other and shit, you're just going crazy on the court.
And then with the swag too, right, And he was
somebody that you admired but you were scared of. He

(01:17:29):
wasn't scary though. He was just Brooklyn. He was extremely Brooklyn.
And there's a difference between the real Brooklyn and the
niggas that lived there, like the niggas that just lived
in Brooklyn. Like there's the difference between the niggas that
were the block. You are, this is you and the

(01:17:52):
niggas that live on the block. There's just a difference.
You feel me. And he was the block. There's a
few of them. There's a few of the people over
there that were the block. They know who they are.
You know what I'm saying. You got dB, you got DRE,
you got a few of them, and you name them
just in case they're listening. Yes, we know, we know.
Don't don't fuck that nigga. Yeah we know. You was

(01:18:14):
the block too. Nigga, Chill, chill. We already know why
we here. You know what I mean, Relax what I'm saying.
But you would see these niggas as I'm growing up
around here. You would see these niggas everywhere. They were
the block, and while you doing your little Bedford thing,

(01:18:34):
these niggas come through and shut it down. And then
they keep it moving. Whatever it was basketball, whether it
was hustling, whether it was talking niggas, where it was
grabbing chicks, you knew the niggas that was lit like that.
And he was one of them. And so I stayed
away from them niggas because whatever I'm pulling off on
Bedford is definitely not this right. These niggas could call

(01:18:56):
my I went to Bronx Science like you could call
my card. These niggas is the street you could. I
might be selling my little weed over here. I might
have this little thirty thirty with no bullets. But you know,
these niggas got it like that. These niggas is down.
They know everybody, all of it. And this is this
is the thing about Brooklyn back then that I don't
know if it's the same now because I'm not outside,

(01:19:19):
but everybody in Brooklyn knew each other. I mean everybody,
But that's it, that's wrong. The real Brooklyn knew each other.
All the real Brooklyn niggas knew each other. And Brooklyn
is huge, right, But if you was a real nigga

(01:19:42):
in all many projects, you knew the real niggas in
LG you knew the real niggas in Fort Green, you
knew the real niggas up on this side, on that side,
on that block. All the real niggas knew each other.
And whether they got into it at one point or
there was to respect level, but to real recognize real

(01:20:03):
everybody knew each other, right, And then you had the
rest of the Brooklyn who just lived there. I was
part of the rest of Brooklyn that just lived there.
But these niggas, your Dre, your dB your g Young,
your Burger, your wrong dudes, the niggas from Fort Green,

(01:20:24):
like the fifty Cent, these niggas all knew each other, right.
These are the niggas that when Big got got on,
when Biggie got on, they all went with Big two parties.
They all went and celebrated with Big You feel me
when shit was going on, real Brooklyn shit, they was

(01:20:45):
all there, so I'm just getting introduced to this life. Well,
I didn't explain how yeah, yeah, yeah, the real Brooklyn

(01:21:11):
niggas knew where to get bullets. As somebody said, the
real Brooklyn niggas knew where to get bullets, so they
actually had working guns exactly exactly. Thank you, Christina, Thank
you for that. Oh shit, Let me hit my vibe, y'all.

(01:21:31):
Y'all got me stressed today. Leave me alone because I
know you're watching me hit the vabe and you're thinking
he said he was gonna quit. Just not right now, Yo.
They're time and place, Time and place God, huh, Jesu

(01:22:00):
God meet. In any case, Gung was this iconic figure
to me. One day, I'm walking down No Stren Avenue
with my girl and the only reason I was walking

(01:22:21):
down O Strian Avenue at this day was because I
had to walk her home or some shit, and I
had my crutches. And he came over to me and
he said, Yo, why you don't come around the corner.
And I said, huh, I didn't know him. He said, Yo,

(01:22:42):
come hang out with us. Come to the corner. Bro.
You ain't gonta sit on that block all day. You
know what I'm saying, I don't know what you got
going on over there, but this way it sat, bro
come over here, and I was like, all right, all right,
all right. And although it sounded like an invitation, it
wasn't because if I didn't, it was like now I'm

(01:23:06):
avoiding them, right. But I was intrigued because why me
this thousands of guys my age around here? Why me? Right?
Do you want me to hang out on this corner
with these thirty niggas that I used to be scared of.

(01:23:27):
But I wind up dropping her off. And maybe a
week or a couple of days later, I pulled up
on the corner and he asked me my name, I Sweart.
This is how it happened. I did not know this nigga.
He asked me my name and what I'm into. I
told him my work and shit like that. Whatever. He's like, yeah,

(01:23:49):
I'll be seeing with Shorty whatever, right, And it was
cool at that time. That block was so lit. The
lady like the ladies were hanging out in the yard.
They used to have a table out front. They would
play like cards and Domino's and they was doing all
of this movement. It was just so much movement. It
was thirty forty people. I keep using the words thirty,

(01:24:10):
but you'a understand when I say thirty, it's just a
lot of motherfuckers, right, But it was a lot of motherfuckers. Literally,
it was a lot of motherfuckers. It was more than ten.
It was I don't know if it's more than twenty.
I would say around thirty because we're talking about the lady,
the girls, the niggas hustling. It was just so many
people everywhere. It was completely opposite from Bedford Avenue. It

(01:24:30):
was fucking crazy, right, And he started introducing me to everybody. Now,
Burger was over there, and me and Berger knew each
other from when I played basketball. I used to play
basketball and Burger. Burger was like a With all due

(01:24:52):
respect to Burger, Burger wasn't young. He was more reserved.
He was He had like a scowl on his face
and he would always say, like, hateful shit. You know
what I'm saying. He would always say like hateful, corny shit. Bro.
And me and him ain't just ain't We ain't take

(01:25:12):
to each other because he knew me from when I
was playing basketball. I knew him. He wasn't no lit
niggo on befort. So I looked at him a certain way,
like you know what I'm saying. But now he hangs
out over here, and now you something you that nigga
and I don't know. We just didn't take to each other,
you feel me. So me and him always had a thing,

(01:25:33):
and you know, started coming around more and more, and
I just met so many people over there that it
became my home. That became my home. Everybody call me
Kai because my name is Sakai. That was my real name.
That is my real name, Sakai, actually Sakayi. But if
you call me that and we haven't had sex, I

(01:25:56):
will smack the shit out you. I promise you don't
go throw on my name around like that if we
have not fucked. Call me what you know me as,
don't disrespect me, Okay, leave that alone. I'm just in
a very vulnerable moment right now. Don't fuck around, Okay,

(01:26:18):
you have been worn in any case, Me and Berger
is outside one day and all of us is outside.
This the whole block of people for a lot of
people that keep asking you, where'd you get the name
Tahoo from? Whatever? And this fucking girl here we go,

(01:26:43):
these motherfuckers don't listen. Yeah, they get a chance, come
find me. Nigga, you ain't gonna do shit. Fake fuck
out of here, fake Brooklyn nigga, you ain't gonna do shit.
We outside one day and they're like, yo, we gotta

(01:27:04):
give you a name, my nigga, we gotta give you
a name, and Burger this was going on for weeks,
and then Burger like he must have seen the Tahoe
truck passed by and he was like, Yo, that's what
we're gonna call. Because the nigga kept calling me Tai,
but everybody called me Kai because my name Sakai. Everybody

(01:27:27):
he was calling me Tai. But I felt that he
was hating when he would do that, because you know,
that's not even my I don't even have a tea
in my name. Why you keep calling me Tai? Bro?
You know what I'm saying. And so one day he's like,
I know what we're gonna call you. We're gonna call

(01:27:48):
you Tahoe. And I'm like, my, nigga, that don't even
make sense. First of all, I don't have no tea
in my name, y'all. Keep you keep calling me Tai.
You know my name is kai. You know what I'm saying.
This turned into a whole thing. Bro. Me and Berger
was out there arguing, yelling for fucking hours, and that's

(01:28:12):
one thing I could do. I could argue, and I
was trying to prove myself, you know what I'm saying.
So you're not just gonna disrespect me. I didn't. I
was never no sucker. Well I was when I was younger,
but at some point I wasn't no sucker, no more. Right.
I was still scared of niggas in a way, but
I was. I had to stamp from g young. So

(01:28:33):
now I'm you know what I mean, I'm acting the
part to me and him arguing, arguing, arguing, you feel me?
And that just that went on for the rest of
the day. And then the next day I come outside

(01:28:53):
and like the old ladies on the corner or walking by,
it's like Tahoe, can you come help with these bags?
And the little kids is running by because everybody's seen
the spectacle from the You know, this is entertainment for
people on the corner seeing two niggas arguing and out
of it, going back and forth, other fuck you nigga
out going back and forth. I tell you, And then

(01:29:15):
the kids is running by, Hey Tao, and all of
the hustling niggas going to yo ta yo. Come in here,
yo yo yo yo, walk me over here, yo Tao,
And it just became a thing. And after a while
I accepted it because it felt like acceptance. It felt
like I finally belonged. That's the story about my name,

(01:29:36):
and so that became my shit, all right. But getting
back to me and g Young Young was an enigma.
He was an enigma to me. He always had on
new clothes, he always had words of money, this big
but he never left that corner. Now I understood weed selling,
but weed selling is a very slow process, right, It's

(01:30:00):
not a fast thing. Well back then it definitely wasn't
you know what I'm saying. So you would get a
little bit of money, maybe you had this much money.
But he had this much money. And he dressed in Iceberg,
and he dressed in Kuji, and he dressed in like Gucci,
like he had all of the fly shit, right, and
Berger did too. So one day I come home from work,

(01:30:24):
this is when I'm working in the city, and Young
is like Yo ta yo Yo tahoe or kai whatever
the fuck my name was At the time, this is
very early in me hanging out over there. Me and
him just started hanging out more and more, me and him.
There was thirty people over here, but it became a
me and g Young thing, and I don't I was
attracted to him, not physically, but his energy, his glow. Like.

(01:30:49):
I was so attracted him. I started talking like him,
I started walking like him. I was literally emulating his
whole thing. And it was very noticeable to people out there.
They was like, Yo, this snack, think he young, this nigga,
think he young. Look look at you, look look right.
It is a thing. And I'm just being I'm being
super honest, like because that's really what happened. I found

(01:31:14):
direction in G Young and camaraderie and everything that I
was scared of. He kind of protected me from everything
that I had avoided my whole life. He was and
made me feel like I was too. He spoke about

(01:31:37):
me to everybody out there with love and protection, like
you not gonna fuck with him, Nah, you ain't gonna
do nothing to him, And they listened. They welcomed me
because he welcomed me, and so shit. There were times
when we would be outside. I remember one time he

(01:31:58):
was like, yo, hold these for me. It was these
little white packs of plastic with like a powdery substance
to him. He was like, you holdies for me. And
I didn't know what that was. I ain't know. I'm
just holding to it. He's like give me two, and
I give him two and he and he'd be like,
give me one more, give me one more. But he
would never bust the licks in front of me. So

(01:32:19):
I didn't even know what this was. And because he thought,
you hold it, don't don't let nobody see it, I
would just hold it and do not let nobody see it.
So even when not letting nobody see it, I was
never looking at it neither. You gotta remember, this is
a there's a brilliance about no stren Avenue. It's busy,
it's Broadway, there's a million shit going on. So I

(01:32:40):
was still getting acclimated at that point so that I
was just kind of doing whatever he told me to do.
But we started doing things together, like he'd be like, yo.
One time. I remember he was like, yo, yo, you
got your car. And I used to have a I
don't know what kind of car. I had to think
I got my grandmother's car some shit like that car.

(01:33:02):
And I was like yeah. He was like, yo, drive
me somewhere, come on, roll up. And we got in
the car and we smoked and we smoked and we
drove all the way to the fucking Bronx. And when
we got to the Bronx, we went to like an
auto dealer and he was like, I'm buying this car.

(01:33:26):
And I was like, huh how He was like, I'm
buying it and I'm driving it back right now. The
nigga's gonna put the plates on the car and I'm
driving it back right now. And I was like, you
got a license? He was like no. I was like,
you know how to drive? He was like no. And

(01:33:49):
this nigga, he said, just drive slow in front of
me and I'm gonna figure it out. And when I
tell you I'm a driver, I've always been the driver
because even when I was on it, I was a
getaway driver. Like there's a whole bunch of that, right whatever.
But I'm good at that. I've always been really good
at that. And this nigga's behind me and the car

(01:34:10):
is like swerving off the road and it's like putt
putting along and you can see who he speeds up
and when he breaks his mad heart. But he drove
that car back to Brooklyn. And that was crazy to
me because I'm drying, I'm running around with a gun
that even got no bullets, and this nigga is doing
whatever the fuck he wants with life. Bro, whatever the fuck,

(01:34:33):
you just wake up one day and buy a car.
That's it. You just woke up one day and buy
a car. You have no job, How you got a car? Money?
You just there had to be like three four grand.
You just bought a car. That shit was. It was
like mind blowing to me, right that this is real.
And I know the world is different now. We was
part of that. The world is different now, and i'might

(01:34:57):
explain why we was part of that on the highway. Yes,
the world is different now. The world, the Internet and
everything is has educated so much, and hip hop and

(01:35:18):
the expectation of luxury and a certain lifestyle has made
everybody kind of grow up faster than we were growing
up back then. We I didn't back back then, nigga
probably now niggas a lot of niggas didn't even cross
the Brooklyn Bridge. You stayed on your block. You hustled there,

(01:35:39):
you died there. That that was your life right there.
Now you see niggas in Atlanta, you see niggas in Dubai,
you see niggas in fucking You're all over the place.
Niggas got g wagons like niggas was. That wasn't a thing, bro,
It wasn't a thing. You stayed on your block. If
I well, I was a working nigga, right So remember
I wasn't a nigga. I was a nigga that lived there.

(01:36:01):
So me seeing one of them niggas in the city,
I remember, I've seen Ron doing the city. One day,
I was like, what the fuck because them niggas never
did shit like that in any case. A couple of
days after he bought the car, he was like, Yo,

(01:36:22):
get dressed, We're going to a concert tonight. And I
was like, what okay, because I ain't have concert money.
But I did what I was told, and the nigga

(01:36:42):
Burger comes around. Burger got shopping back. So Berger became
a booster from wherever he started from to now. He
knew how to boost and he would go out and
get these niggas him. Ron du G Young clothes. So
that's where the iceberg and all of that shit come from.

(01:37:04):
Berger would go in the stores, he would do whatever
he'd do. This particular day, he comes out. He has
a bag with shoes in it, or sneakers. He busts
out these Balley sneakers. Young gets the Bally sneakers. He
busts out these other sneakers. Ron du got those. He
has different bags with outfits in it. These niggas get fly.
We all get in g Youung's car. Hodge was another

(01:37:30):
guy that was down with that. He had a bottle
of champagne in the car. And I ain't gonna lie
to y'all, bro I was drinking forties. Matter of fact,
when I got over there, the niggas made me stop
drinking beer. They was like, nigga, fuck you think you
doctor Dre. I never forget that. He's like, is this
nigga drinking beer? Like what the fuck is wrong with you? Nigga?

Speaker 3 (01:37:53):
You're like twenty three? Why are you drinking beer? Nigga,
we drink liquor, Like, why are you you fucking your
fucking video niggas. Niggas said, you know your music.

Speaker 1 (01:38:04):
Video, Like nobody drinks beer. My, nigga, what are you doing?
That's not even fly That's not fly shit. And this
is what no stream was that Bedford wasn't. No stream
was fly shit, you feel me. No stream was like
you get fly, you bag chicks, you drive dope vehicles,
like that's what it was. Bedford was you just did
whatever because you was in the dark, and it wasn't

(01:38:26):
no bitches over there. You didn't even know, right, I'm
i'm i'm a, i'm a, i'm a. This is all
gonna end soon, y'all. I just want to explain to
y'all the difference. And Hodge has a bottle of champagne,
and I'm like, what are we celebrating? And He's like, life, nigga,

(01:38:50):
And they pass out the cups in the car and
were drinking champagne riding to Madison Square Garden. And I
didn't understand that. I did not understand that, because why
are we drinking champagne at six o'clock at night on
our fucking Thursday Friday? Whatever? It was, right, like, what

(01:39:14):
do we why? This is just what niggas do? You
just ride around drinking champagne? Obviously, nowadays maybe you might
do that, but back then, we drank old E. We
drank sixty four gallons of old E. Was the big
one with the fucking hook on the side and you
pour your cup with that and it was a big
ass thing of beer. And these niggas was like, nah,

(01:39:37):
that's not us, nigga. We fly and we got to
the concert. We parked the car and we walk in
and this again thirty niggas. Oh shit, I just I

(01:40:02):
just realized that the name of the shit gonna be
hold on these niggas is the scariest looking niggas I've
ever seen. These niggas is from Albany, projects, Fort Green,

(01:40:28):
all different types of places. I wanted up finding that
out later, but this is when I found out that
all of these niggas knew each other. This is when
I found out how extensive the network of real Brooklyn
niggas are and how connected they are. And you know
what I mean, Like this is this is just crazy, right,

(01:40:52):
And I probably told this story before on here, but
if you've heard it, you're gonna hear it again. Fuck it,
it is what it is, and then you'll read it,
hopefully if you get the book, read it. Right, But
these niggas start dapping each other up right. Oh, matter
of fact, I forgot. It wasn't even there yet. So

(01:41:15):
when you walk up to Madison Square before we meet
the niggas, right, we parked the car. We walk up
to Madison Square Garden. Anytime you go to a concert
arena in the city, well, Madison Square Garden, I can't
say any time. But they have the gates, like the
police gates that control crowds, and you form a line
along that gate. You feel me. Now, when you walk

(01:41:37):
in up Madison Square Garden, there's stairs to walk up
and then you walk through the courtyard to get to
the actual building. But because this is a rap concert
and it's back when rap concerts weren't even like that,
there's probably one or two before that, I think there's
no way out tour right. Police barricade, you feel me, Yes,

(01:42:00):
a police barricade. You have to walk up that step.
There's an usher at the top of the step. You
show him your ticket in order to walk through the
courtyard to get to the building, and then you go
through you know that whole process at the building. So
there's like a line outside that's crazy. So we skipped
the line. Of course, we don't do lines. We skip

(01:42:21):
the line, and we have one ticket. Yes, we have
one ticket. Berger has one ticket. So what the play was?
Gung says, stay with me. Berger shows the usher the ticket,

(01:42:45):
then like bumps the usher and passes with his with
his So he bumps the usher with his with his
right arm and passes the ticket behind him with his
left arm. Right Hodge grabs the ticket. He switches it
to his other hand. He shows the usher the ticket.
Somehow he does the same thing, passes it right. Everybody

(01:43:10):
does that except until it gets to me. And you
want to know why. I'm gonna tell you why as
I'm walking along this police barricade. I don't know if
y'all remember the farmer's pants back in the day they

(01:43:30):
had they were like jeans, and on one side of
the pants they had like two small pockets around the knee.
Right around the side of the knee cap there was
like two small pockets. And on the other side the
other leg, around that same area or so was a hoop.
I don't know why that hoop is there, but it was.

(01:43:53):
And we bought these jeans. This is just what it was.
I don't know if they was jebowls. I don't know
what the fuck that they was, but they had a
hoop on it, and that probably wasn't the best thing
for me to wear that day because as I'm walking
up the steps, as I get to the usher, right

(01:44:13):
when Young grabs the ticket, my hoop got stuck on
the connecting thing of the police barricade. So you know
how the police barricade has that bar that goes through
the hoop that keeps it together. My hoop gets stuck
on the police barricade and now people are pushing, you

(01:44:34):
know how lines are. Everybody's trying to get through, trying
to get through, So now my hoop is stuck on
the barricade and people are trying to push me through,
but I can't move. Young grabs the ticket. All you
see is him trying to fucking give me the ticket.
He's reaching. You know this nigga on was this And
that's love because this nigga really was trying to give
me this. Nigga's really trying to get me the ticket

(01:45:02):
so I could get in. But I'm stuck on the barricade,
so I can't get I can't get off, right, so
Young has to keep going finally I ripped my pants.
So now I got a hole in my jeans because
the bar that fucking hoop was strong as fuck. So
I ripped the whole shit ripped my pants. I got

(01:45:23):
a whole inside of my jeans now, right, and I
go up to the usher. I go up to the usher.
I'm looking for the ticket. I don't know where the
fucking ticket at is. I just do some shit like
this here, I got this and I try to bump
pass and move. He's like, Yo, that ain't no ticket.
Where's your ticket? And I'm like, this ain't the ticket.

(01:45:46):
Oh shit, all right, hold on, let me look. Damn
my bad, bro, I don't know. Hold on, I don't know.
Here come young yo, stupid nigga. I got your ticket
and he gives me the usher is so confused. I'm like,
oh my bad, he must have had my ticket. And
we just bust a move. We go through. This is bro,

(01:46:08):
Just think about how crazy this is that this one
move worked for four niggas. Right, and then they hustled
so fast and hard that even in that moment, he
wasn't giving a fuck about that usher. He came back
with the ticket and was like nigga, I got your
ticket here man and got me in. This was the lifestyle, bro.

(01:46:32):
We figured it out. We figured it. It was always
a like, yo, there's nothing stopping us, nigga. We're gonna
figure life out. That's what it was. You feel me? Boom,
This nigga fucked up the ticket trip. Yes, I fucked
up the ticket trip. Now we go inside again. Thirty

(01:46:58):
niggas Albany, Fort Green Food and Projects Gates Avenue. You
know what I mean. The star just niggas, just mad niggas.
Young says to me again, yo, these niggas dapping each
other up. These niggas like, yo, y'all ready, They're like, yeah,

(01:47:19):
let's do it. These niggas dapping each other up. Young says,
stay with me. I'm like all right, holding my pants
and everything. These niggas walk up so as you know,
if you're going through the any constant arena, you gotta
go through the turnstile right and then you're in your
show security. You know, you know whatever you got your

(01:47:43):
you take whatever out your pockets, whatever. These niggas walk
right up to that. Just start hitting niggas, but doom,
but doom, just start dropping ushers and I'm talking about
they dropped all of them boot bop boot bop and
just took off through the arena. I'm like, and I

(01:48:06):
just start running. I'm just running. I hop the shit,
everybody hop the shit. I'm just right behind. Young Young
is just going through. Everybody's going through. Every time they
see a usher, boom, just knock them out, boom boom.
Off the escalators. More ushers coming out. This shit like
a motherfucking John Wick movie. They just knocking niggas out.
Doop doop, doop, bro bro. This is not Bedford Avenue.

(01:48:33):
What the fuck am I doing? These are felonies. What
the fuck am I doing? I'm running through the escalators.
Watch just stepping over niggas. They trying to grab you, nigga. Now,
Madison Square Garden is interesting because you can't just run

(01:48:54):
into the bottom deck. You have to go all the
way up and then you work your way down somehow.
I don't really know, right, but you have to go
all the way up. So we're running up the escalated.
Thirty niggas running up the escalators, punching people in the face, right,
and then finally you open the doors and you hear

(01:49:14):
Foxy on stage, ain't no nigga like the one I got,
ain't whatever that song was or whatever she was singing
at the time. I think it was ain't no nigga,
like what And I'm like, oh shit, bro, we are
in right, but these niggas not done. Now. You know,
when you come out, you open the door, you're in

(01:49:37):
the hall way where you're fucking you buy your popcorn
and your beer and your drinks and everything. You're in
that area, right. But now you go into the concert
arena and once again we start running. These niggas running
down the steps, hop over to the thing below, hop over.

(01:49:59):
This is what we was doing. Anybody that goes to
concert rings, you know, if you're in the upper mezzanine,
you get down to the thing to the brail, and
then you gotta hop over to the next thing. Nobody's
doing that. We was doing that. We hopped over, and
then we did it again, and we hopped over, and
we did it again, and anybody had gotten our way

(01:50:19):
got knocked out to the point where we at the
very floor. Bro, we hop over. We get to the floor.
Now we just merging to everybody else. We walk up
to the stage. I'm standing at the stage. Bro Mace
is on the stage with the fucking his diamonds. I

(01:50:40):
I can see the diamonds in his watch. I'm at
the stage, Bro were Thurty. We're about thirty deep at
the stage and Hodge passes me to champagne and I
just look at Hodge and he's just like, yeah, nigga,
this is what we do. And I'm drinking the champagne

(01:51:01):
bottle at the stage. Niggas got weed. I My world
opened up so much. Bro Young showed me this life.
Keep in mind, Young never wanted me to hustle. He

(01:51:21):
never wanted me to hustle. He always told me, Yo,
you're working nigga. Stay a working nigga. You don't need
to get involved with this shit. So we'll be here
when you get out. We'll wait for you. These niggas
used to wait for me whenever we went and did
something at night. They waited for me to get home
from work in my suit and tie. Then they would

(01:51:43):
be like, go get dressed. He would give me some clothes,
Go get dressed, Go put this on right. The problem
was these niggas is dressing in iceberg and shit, and
I'm dressing in like Polo and I couldn't keep up

(01:52:03):
like that. I needed more, you know what I'm saying.
It took me weeks to save up for an Iceberg shirt,
and I'm buying that with working money, and these niggas
is making thirty five hundred dollars a day selling crack
on the corner. Got to a point where the chicks
might have found me cute. I remember, I've told the

(01:52:25):
story before I started selling weed and shit all of
this like I'm speeding through right now. But we was
messing with these three girls, and I had the baddest one.
Well Mika was the bad. Well, they was all bad.

(01:52:45):
I'm gonna keep it real I think about it. All
of them was fire in their own way, right, there
was all fire. But I had this one that I
really liked. I liked them, but whatever I'm taking to
my I used to knock her down there once in
a while, and she was like, y'all, I really like you, yo,

(01:53:07):
like I fuck with you, but like I need things
and you don't have the things, Like you can't like
your man's in them, got that, you know, but you
you don't have it. And I'm like, well, they sell
crack and I sell weed. And she was like, so
why don't you sell crack? And that influence or the

(01:53:30):
influence of basically the outside or the life, it dragged
me in. It drew me in to the point where
I started hustling. But Young never wanted me to hustle.
Bro We would, we would talk about all things all
the time. We would, we would. He became so human
to me. It was my best friend. He would call me,

(01:53:54):
he knew my mom's if I needed help with something,
he would come help me. Like this is a nigga
that I grew up being scared of or like, you know,
not anxious around. But you understand what I'm saying that
you look at somebody with hesitance like you know, it's
just off putting their presence. And now he's my best
friend and he would you know, nigga, We never slept

(01:54:17):
in the same room. We done had sex with chicks
together and just just wiling you feel me wilding. They
had times when I saw him crying and you know
where nobody else would see him like that. Nobody else
would see him like that, And you know that all
of that goes into this situation, but into the you know,
when I tell this story, when I tell my life
story for real because so much I skip. But he

(01:54:41):
became superhuman to me. But also he taught me everything.
He taught me how to dress. Shut up, Shut up,
I know how to dress, Okay. I just don't really
care about it anymore because I want to take care
my family. I haven't been a super get jiggy nigga

(01:55:05):
in a long time. I'm more concerned about getting two dollars.
That term getting two dollars. I got that from Young.
He taught me what I was missing in life with me,
not just like anybody, but like what I was looking for.

(01:55:27):
And I've said this a few times. I didn't have
a father, an active father, I didn't have a brother.
I didn't feel at home in Brooklyn. He gave me
all of that. They gave me my name. They told
me how to degal with so many different situations. Young

(01:55:49):
when he went through some shit, I was right there
fucked that. And the fact is is that because I
had that training on Jefferson and Bedford. See that's the difference.
Though Young was a pretty boy, he was ugly. I'm
gonna keep it real. Young was not attractive in the face,
but he knew how to talk to women. He had

(01:56:12):
this aura about him that women just flocked to him.
He always had the baddest chicks, always, no matter how cute.
This other nigga was young, was getting the baddest chicks.
He knew how to talk to them, he knew how
to game them. I remember one time he's in the
bar or a club. Right at this point, he has
like the S five or some shit like that. He

(01:56:36):
sees the chick he likes. He just walks up to
her as she's walking by or something like that. He
just puts his car keys in her hand, and she
looked at the car keys, and he just said, Yo,
don't leave without me, and he walked away, and that
shit worked. It worked. She come up to him him later,

(01:57:00):
why did you give me your car keys? And he
starts smiling at him, flirting at it. Yo, Come get
a drink, yo. You know what I'm saying, Yo, It
was a risk. I was willing to take whatever, whatever,
And the next thing you know, she's in the passenger seat.
I'm in the back seat, and he dropped me off
and he went off with shorty. It worked. Don't leave
without me? What with the S five key? Huh of

(01:57:27):
course the shit say bends on it, so you know
what I mean, Like, that's already gonna be like a
drawer for a chick. But don't leave without me. What
fire fire son, fire son. But he just had that
swag with chicks, you know what I mean. And over

(01:57:49):
time though, I learned too much, I think, because me
and him started having problems. When I started hustling, I
hustle big. He showed me how to hustle big because
he didn't want me to hustle. But once I did,
I'm out here. I'm out here. So funny. The first

(01:58:12):
time I hustle, I got arrested for selling crack. The
very first day that I started selling crack, I got
arrested for selling crack. And I was going to jail. Absolutely,
this is a fact. I'm on a bike, like something happened.
I got at work. I got just they wouldn't give

(01:58:33):
me a promotion. I was tired of working twelve hour day,
seven day week, and I went and got me some crack.
I got fired on purpose or whatever. They made sure.
They was like, well, we're still going to give you
unemployment because we like you, but you can't work here
no more acting the way, you acting fine. And the
next day or two days later, I went out and
got some crack and Young didn't even give it to me.

(01:58:56):
He did not want me to do that. And the
block is hot. I don't understand what the block is
hot is because I'm still very green, although I'm standing
out there with him. You got to be in it
to really know. You got to be in it, Like
you could stand around or you want, But that don't
mean you understand what's really going on, you know what

(01:59:16):
I mean? So I was around a lot, but I
didn't understand the inner workings of what's happening on this
block with this drugs and with the customers and with
the police. Like I didn't get it all. I was
just there, you feel me, And they come they catch me.
They caught the whole bomb too, the bomb meaning every

(01:59:39):
bit of crack that I had on me. They found
it when they caught me. I was on a bike.
They knocked me over. The crack goes everywhere. They locked
me up for all of the crack. Why would you
have all of that crack on you? I don't know,
nobody does that. Why would you just have a handful
of crack or a bomb full of crack, like nigga,
put that away and you go get you know what
I'm saying, like you have somebody hold it for you

(02:00:00):
go get one. You go get to like I told
you the story, and no, I had the whole thing
on me. So when they knocked over the bike or
whatever that was on, I was on a bike and
they arrested me. They took me down to the present,
to the precinct and they questioned me. They questioned me.

(02:00:20):
They have a whole folder on niggas and they see
me there, but they don't have nothing on me personally.
So they're like, yo, what are you doing? Like we
see you here, you gotta suit on, you know, we
see you around, but you're not one of those. So
and I'm like, yo, I got I got it. I
got fired yesterday and my girl is pregnant, and you know,
I just feel I didn't know what to do. I

(02:00:42):
just kind of like I'm panicking. I'm trying to figure
life out. You know. I'm telling the police officer that
because I don't even know that you're not even supposed
to be talking to police. But at the end of
the day, I'm talking right whatever, And they're like, you
gotta snitch. Tell us where you got the crack. And
I'm like, I'm not doing that. Yah, niggas and niggas,

(02:01:02):
that's not I don't even know I found it. I
don't know. I can't remember what I told him, but
there's no way I was telling him that I did
tell them. I told him, like weare, there was some
weed spots that like, yo, y'all want something. That's all
I know. I smoke weed. Bro, you go to the
weed spots. You know what I'm saying. That's They're like, bro,
we don't want no weed spots whatever. So I'm like, yo, honestly,
I don't know what to tell you. I really don't

(02:01:24):
know what to tell y'all. And that's all my kids.
That's on everything in life. I did not rat on nobody,
but I did tell them where the weed spots was at.
And so the niggas was like, well, you ain't giving
us no no option. You're going to go to jail
for selling crack. And I was like, So one of
the cops was like, yo, is it any way we
could verify your story? And I was like, call my

(02:01:45):
baby mother. I live with her right now. Call her.
They called my baby mother. They asked her, but does
he have a job. She's like, no, he got fired yesterday.
Are you pregnant, yes, I'm seven months pregnant. They're like, okay, okay,
this makes sense. So they come back in the room

(02:02:07):
and the cop says that same cop. He comes back
in the room and he says like, Yo, I'm gonna
let you go because you're your baby mother, verified your story,
but I don't want to see you no more. I
don't want to see you no more. You don't want
to get involved in this life. And I was like,
all right, thank you. I really appreciate that, not really
understanding what kind of this. Nigga did not have to

(02:02:32):
do that, Like that ass. He has a collar, a
good collar with crack, with all the crack, this is
an easy arrest and easy conviction. He went out on
a limb for me. So when y'all say cops ain't
like they used to be, this one cop he really
looked out because he did not have to do that.
But at the time that nigga walked out the jail,

(02:02:58):
a nigga walked out the room and left me in
the room. They took me to a holding cell, and
they left me there. So I'm like, Yo, what the
fuck going on? This nigga said he was gonna let
me go out? Like what. They take me from the
different hold the cell, they take me down to Central
Bookings and they processed me that Central Bookings. The whole time,

(02:03:22):
I'm like, Yo, this nigga told me he was gonna
let me the fuck out, Like, what the fuck, nigga?
This bitch ass nigga, Yo, what the fuck? Right? So
I'm about to see the judge and the lawyer comes
up to me and he's like, so, what are you

(02:03:44):
in here for? And I'm like, m I got caught
selling crack. You know what I'm saying. They caught the
whole bomb or whatever, So yeah, that's what I'm here.
And he's like, you got caught selling crack and I'm
like yeah. So when he comes in, he had as
your deposition papers, He has the papers that you have
to walk in front of the judge with, right, So

(02:04:05):
he's looking at the papers, He's like, Yo, I don't
see no crack here. I'm like, what you mean. He's like,
this says you got caught with eighteen grams a week.
My eyes open. The fuck out, like, what, let me
see he shows me. He's like, there's no crack on this.
You go home, don't worry about it. You'll be releasing
a couple of minutes. I go, I get released, I

(02:04:29):
go outside. I don't even smoke cigarettes, aks, nigga, let
me go on. I'm smoking the fuck out this cigarette,
bro smoking the fucking cigarette. I was so excited. I
walked from downtown Brooklyn back to No Stron Avenue. When
I get to No Strin Avenue, the d's is back outside.

(02:04:54):
It was T and T. It must have been Tuesday
or Thursday, right, long story, talk about that later. But
everybody's moving spooky right because the DSUs outside. As a
matter of fact, there's a police car, an undercover police car,
parked right on my corner right, and all my niggas

(02:05:15):
is down the block, so they see the cops parked
right there. So I see them niggas right there, right.
So I walk up to the car because I'm so excited,
and I'm also so green and stupid that I walk
up to the car and I say, yo, y'all know
officers such and such and such, And they like, what,
we don't know what you're talking about. I'm like, do

(02:05:36):
y'all know, y'all know who I'm talking about. Bro. He
work and he's a police officer. He works at the
priests y'all know him. I'm like, hold on, right next
to the spot, there was a card store, right, We
sell balloons and cards and shit like that. I go
in the store, I bought a thank you card and
I wrote a whole message to the officer. And I

(02:06:02):
leave out the shop and I give the card to
the police officers and them niggas took the card and
they drove off. When I tell you, niggas was staring

(02:06:24):
at me like what the fuck? First of all, understand
how this looks. I got arrested with twenty cracks on
me yesterday. Yesterday. Nobody's coming home from that. Secondly, you

(02:06:47):
walk up to the out of jail, you walk up
to the police car. Then you go write a bunch
of shit down on a piece of paper. Then you
give it to the police and they drive off. When
I tell you, I walked across the street like yo,
I'm home. Them niggas started running across the street dispersing

(02:07:11):
niggas was you could, I could. I'm standing there trying
to talk niggas. No, everybody's keeping a weight, running away
from me, running away from me, running away from me.
I'm like, Yo, what the fuck wrong with your niggas.
I'm like, Yo, what the fuck? What the fuck is
wrong with your niggas? Like why you acting like that?
Nigga snitching? You rat it? Nigga? You ritting me? I
ain't ride on nobody. Niggas ain't talk to me for

(02:07:34):
about two months. Niggas did not talk to me for
about two months. And you know who talked to me,
who brought me back outside g and that nigga was
one of the niggas running too. That nigga, he's so silly,

(02:07:57):
he was so dumb. He's swaggy, but he old moved.
He's moving like they get away from me, Nigga Like
he's moving. Funny, he's moving, man, funny like nigga, don't
talk to me, Nigga, FuGO out of here, nigga, What
the fuck? Why are y'all acting like that? You know
what I'm saying. Went through a real depression around that
time because I felt like my whole identity had been

(02:08:19):
you know, stripped from me, my friends, going down back
in my mom's crib hiding, not coming outside, And one
day that nigga called me out the blue and he's like, yo,
you're ready to come back outside, nigga. I guess around
that time they realized that there wasn't no snitching, there
wasn't no indictments, there wasn't nothing, no like nigga, he's
just dumb. It was just the dumbest thing you've ever

(02:08:39):
seen a street nigga do. Yeah, I did that. But
after that, shit got real for me. I started all right,
I'm gonna tell this last story before I close this out.
Hold on h So, so as I started hustling more,

(02:09:52):
me and young, we differed on a lot of things
because he never wanted me to hustle. But I guess
he just like kind of like fuck it, you know
what I'm saying. Like he was like, fuck it. You
know what I mean? You here now, you're out here, now,
you're getting money now. But there's a difference in the
way certain niggas hustle. Some niggas hustle to get a

(02:10:14):
pair of sneakers. Other niggas hustle to get money, you
know what I'm saying. So a nigga might hustle. You
take your eight ball or whatever the nigga flip it.
The eight ball wound up getting you out. Let's say
eight ball gets you three hundred dollars. It costs a buck, right,
so you make your three hundred. You gotta buy another

(02:10:36):
eight ball. You got two hundred, you go buy you
a pair of sneakers. Niggas keep doing that over and
over and over again. Get a shirt. Now, now you
gotta go get another eight ball, and then you do this,
then you go get another eight ball. Right, this is
what niggas was doing. Young had he had a different
way about life. He showed me how. He showed me

(02:10:58):
what the possibilities were when it came to a lot
of things, and money was that was one of them.
Hustling was different than selling drugs. There's just a difference
between being a hustler and a drug dealer. And I'm
explaining to you why. And this would be the last

(02:11:18):
story before I close this South about everything. I save
up enough money and I want to buy a car.
But at that time, we was just getting like fifty
dollars touruses from the auction. But you know, you go
to the auction, it's like when they seize cars and
shit like that, and whatever comes up is fifty dollars,

(02:11:41):
you just buy it. You put plates on it. Now
you got a car. We was nigga. Sometimes it'd be
three tourists lying back to back. And then if cops
run up on the tourists and catch the drugs, and
we keep the drugs in the car. Sometime they take
the car and then go get another one tomorrow. Two
days later, you got to hold another car. And that's
just what it was. You just kick buying tourists. Over time,

(02:12:01):
we you know, started wanting more in life and shit,
and I went to go buy Uh. There was a
dealer right here on Franklin Atlantic. So I went up
in there one day and Young had already bought him
a range Rover. He had, you know, he had bought
him a range Rover. And you know, at this was

(02:12:25):
the time when I still looked at Young as different
than me. Right, I was still, uh, he was on
a pedestal when it came to who he was and
where he was in the game. There was a lot
of respect and stuff, and so I went to go

(02:12:48):
get accurate. Accurate was like ten years old. It was
like a white accurate or red seats. So I go
up there. But because young, as you know, he's my confidence,
he's the person, he's my mentor's person that I talked
to about everything. I went and got young, I called him, like, yo,
come over here. So he drove his cars truck over there,
palked the truck up and he walks up. He goes
looks at the accurate and he's just like m or

(02:13:12):
or and he was like, yo, take me take a
ride with me. And I'm like, yeo, I'm about to
pay this nigga right now. He's like, Nigga, this shit's
gonna be here when you get back. This shit had
like rust on the bumper and shit. He was like,
nobody's buying this right now, bro, don't even worry about it.
You could come by this later on, right, So puts
me in a range rover. We start rolling up. He's like, yo,
roll this up. So we rolling we smoke, and it's

(02:13:33):
one thing we always did. We always had to smoke,
you know what I'm saying. And he took me to
Queen's Boulevard now Queens Boulevard back in the days it
had nothing but Benz's just car lots everywhere, car lots
everywhere with people selling cars. It's just the area where

(02:13:55):
they just sold mad cars. So it was like a
car call out. On the right hand of the highway
on the street car right, you know, a lot on
the left side side. It's just carlights all up and
down and shit, and all of it is high priced vehicles,
super high priced range rovers, benzes, all of this shit.
You feel me. And so he takes me in there

(02:14:17):
and I'm like, my nigga, I'm not bro, I am
not spending all of this money, nigga. Right, So he's like, bro,
just look, man, just look bro. So we looking at benzes,
we looking at beamers, were looking at this, that and
the other whatever, and I ain't really see nothing I
liked because also I wasn't really a car nigga. I

(02:14:40):
wasn't an affluent thinking nigga. I wasn't like I was
a regular nigga. You know. I didn't even look at
life in that way. And the dealer was like, Okay,
you don't like none of this. Matter of fact, I
just got a truck. Come with me. So he takes
us out the back of the lot, crosses the backstreet

(02:15:01):
behind Queens Boulevard and there's a lot over there. There's
one truck in that lot, Arrange Rover four dot six
black on black running boards. It had the ladder on
the back, It had the ski rack on the top.
Shit was beautiful, nigga beautiful. The truck courts. I want
to say fifty grand, maybe sixty right. The niggas wanted

(02:15:25):
thirteen thousand down for it. I'm like, bro, I ain't
got no thirteen thousand dollars down. He's like, all right, todyder,
come get in the truck, right. So we leave out.
You know, they make you sign a little paperwork or
whatever just to act like you was gonna get financed.
But I'm like, I'm not getting that, Bro, I'm not
getting that. So getting the truck, He's like, YO, just
chill out, man. So he's talking to me, He's like, YO,
tell let me ask you a question. How much money

(02:15:47):
you make a day? Now, we was all hustling hard
to live big back then. It was hustling hard. But me,
I'll make maybe nine hundred day. You come out in
the morning, you make three hundred. You come back in
the afternoon, you make three hundred. You know what, I
mean whatever. He's like, yo, so you make nine hundred

(02:16:09):
dollars a day. I was like, yeah, but I gotta reup.
So he was like, all right, so if you reup,
that's three hundred. You make six hundred dollars in profit
a day. He said, that means in a month you
can make that fourteen thousand and thirteen thousand to get

(02:16:32):
that truck in a month. If you hustle super hard,
you can get that truck in a month. Bro. Ten
days time six hundred, that's six thousand, twenty days times
at six hundred, right, is twelve thousand. So let's just
take into account that is hot, whatever is going on

(02:16:52):
in the world. You got to eat whatever. Just say
it takes you thirty days, bro. You can have that
range Rover in thirty days. Bro, you would rather that
accurate that ten year old pizza shit with the red
seats and the rusted bumper, then save up for a month.

(02:17:16):
My nigga. He was like, ty, you know, I told
you a lot. I showed you a lot. This is
not this is We're not we're not out here, this
is not. This is not work. Bro. You selling drugs, nigga,
you hustling nigga, if you're gonna do this, make it
worth something, or get get out the way. He was like,

(02:17:38):
matter of fact, I'm gonna get out your way. I'm
gonna go to Atlanta for two weeks. The block is yours.
Take it. I just looked at the nigga in the car.
I started thinking, when I tell you, I didn't go
to sleep for two weeks, and I got that fucking truck. Bro.

(02:18:06):
When g Young returned to New York, that truck was
sitting on no Stran Avenue. I had a crackhead washing
the shit he pulled up in his range I had
my range. It wasn't even a thing for niggas to
have range rovers in Brooklyn at the time. You had
jay Z talking about it. But that's jay Z, not
some average niggas in the hood. Niggas was buying, like

(02:18:29):
you know what, I'm saying some shit that makes sense,
but niggas ain't buying range rovers. Nigga, we was driving
up the block up Notionran Avenue, side by side range rovers.
Niggas that was out there for years before me is
looking like, Yo, who the fuck this toddle think he is? Bro?
Who these niggas think they are, Bro, And in that

(02:18:51):
I became the nigga that y'all know today, Bro, because
I'm gonna keep it more real with you. Hold on,
I'm gonna keep it more real with you. I go
to cop the range rover. I know I've told this
story before. I don't know how to work the CD
player in the range rover. I think you had to

(02:19:14):
put it in like the you had to put the
CD I think in the arm rest, and then like
it was just weird, right, So I put the ship in.
The ship wouldn't come on. I get off Queen's Boulevard.
You got to get on the BQUI. Trom was having
a party that night. Trump. He was the you know,
still DJing in the city. So I was telling him,

(02:19:34):
you know, I want to go show out every that night.
Every week they would do the same party, and so
I throw that. I had my jay Z CD reasonable doubt,
I throw it in the thing. I can't get it
to work. I want my music to play, Bro, but
I can't get the ship to work. So fuck it.
I pull off. I get on the highway. As I

(02:19:59):
get on the highway, Bro, I'm driving a car hits
another car in front of me on the highway, which
then hit another car. This car flips over. I'm in
the middle of this in a brand new Range Rover.

(02:20:20):
I'm swerving, swerving all over the fucking place. I think
my hood got a little nicked by something. But I
managed to get through that whole shit, right I stopped.
You see people running on the highway, cars pulled over, smoke,

(02:20:40):
cars turned on its side, all that. I'm the only
nigga that made it through that commotion. I'm looking in
my rear view and the fucking music starts. Doom doom, Doom,
doom doom. What's that? Can't knock the hustle as I what? Bro,

(02:21:02):
I'm the only nigga on the highway. Bro, and jay
Z is playing Bro and I just bought this new
Range Rover. My world, Bro Young did this like he
I can't even believe who I am right now. I

(02:21:24):
can't even believe who I am right now. Bro, I
get to trum Spot. I bought like five bottles just
for everybody else because now I know who I am.
Now I'm feeling it now, You're feeling it. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,

(02:21:44):
I'm feeling it. Yes, yes, Nigga and my aura changed
because not only did I buy the bottles. I'm not
in there on some shit like that. I'm in there

(02:22:06):
on some cool like Yeah, this is what we do, nigga.
This is what we do, nigga. And the block is mine.
You feel me. I say all that to say, there's
a question that I had in my head about all
of this. This story goes on. I have so many
of them, and I can't wait for y'all. Hopefully y'all

(02:22:26):
are entertained by this that y'all actually when I do
finally decide to write, you know, to finish writing that, y'all,
you know, take a look, because I want y'all to this.
It is a movie. It's crazy. My life is crazy.
I ain't even gonna bring up the BMF days. Young
was the coach of the BMF basketball team here and
Rutger Somehow one day I just go there and Young

(02:22:49):
is the coach. How I don't know, but he was
the coach of BMF basketball team here Rutger Park in Harlem. Facts.
Look it up. It's a fact. Coach Glenn Young, Right,
And that turned into some old other shit. But over time,

(02:23:10):
especially once I got out of prison, Young and not
separated because I became a loner again. There were things
that were happening around me and things that I had

(02:23:32):
ambition for, and him and I just didn't see eye
to eye. It wasn't no beef. But I was a
violent person. Most of the niggas that I hung around
wasn't violent or would allow certain behavior and didn't tell

(02:23:55):
me to chill or they would chill. And I don't
know if I was confused or if I was if
I had I don't know if the game turned me out,
I was still angry, or if I still had something
to prove, because I guess if you lived there, you

(02:24:16):
grew up there, you don't really have nothing to prove
because that's you. You don't really care what niggas think
about you, because that's you. You are who you are.
You are who you was when you got here. You
know what I'm saying. You was what you was when
you got here. Me. I showed up, and so I
had a chip on my shoulder. I had to prove myself,

(02:24:40):
especially now that I'm on right. Like a time when
a nigga robbed me for ten jacks. Nick robbed me
for ten jacks. He said, yo, my uncle want ten
and I gave him ten and he didn't come back. Now,
Jackson's cracks, right, So that's one hundred dollars. He walked off.
He never come back. So now I'm feeling a way

(02:25:05):
like this nigga didn't just rob me. You can't. Once
a nigga gets you in front of everybody, that's it,
you pussy, you can't, you can't, you know what I mean.
So I hopped in the truck. Booby my nigga, a
little Booby smooth. He doing about thirty years right now.
I just spoke to him the other day when young passed.

(02:25:28):
He hops in the truck with me. We catch me
Nick on the corner, Quincy and Marcy. I hop out.
Gun is tucked. Yo, what's up? Yo? He's like, Yo,
you dad, Bro? You dad Bro? You dead? Meaning that's it.
I got you. It is what it is. I got you.
You ain't getting that back. I'm like, Yo, stop playing

(02:25:50):
with me, bro, Stop playing with me. Bro. You know
what I'm saying. We'll keep it real. Bro. Nigga is
with another nigga and the crack head and the nigga.
The other thing I think is he a drunk or
crackhad or whatever. I ain't never saw no cracking nigga,
but he just looked like a you know, sketchy nigga. Whatever.
He's like, yeah, nigga, nigga, what you're gonna do, nigga,

(02:26:12):
what you're gonna do. So I'm like, facts, Booby is
in the truck on some getaway shit, like he jumped
in the driver's seat. So I go turn around with
my back to nicking them. I grab my hammer and
I go to spend and I was gonna give it
to him, I promise you, and Booby like, yo, yo.

(02:26:35):
So I look over and it's the police right there,
just parked right like, not even parked like, they pulled
up to the light and they just looking at me.
So I'm looking at them. I got the I got
the hammer in my hand, bro, and I'm looking at them.
Keep in mind, niggas still over here behind me. So
I'm kind of just looking at them like, and they
slowly pull off, and Booby's like, yo, chill, chill, chill, chill.

(02:27:02):
So I tucked the ship and I was like, yo,
I'm gonna see you later. Nick, don't even worry about it.
I got you. I pull off the next day, Now
this this happens, everybody still thinks I'm slightly green, right,
I'm hustling and I'm doing my one two. But you know,
I ain't putting no real work yet, just having you know,

(02:27:24):
fights or whatever. That ain't really nothing. Right. So that
next day Nick comes up the block with one hundred
dollars and he's like, yo, here, yo, bro, I'm sorry.
Now Nick is huge, and Nick is huge. Nickas if
I'm six foot, I'm five and eleven in five a's.
Which'all trying to do? Y'ah, y'ah, I'm talking a lot

(02:27:46):
of gangster ship right now. Y'all really want to have
y'all really want to play with me right now? Because
I'm on it right now. Okay, I said I'm six feet.
It's a problem. Hey, I'm in my bag right now.
Is y'all good? Or is you good? I'm six feet? Okay,

(02:28:09):
if you just don't go to five eleven, if you're
going to admit five eleven five a's, I'm five eleven
and five a's, but you're not going to five eleven
me because the five in the eighth there's more leaning
towards six than it is five eleven. If you add it,
it's only three more miller inches or centimeters or whatever

(02:28:32):
the fuck to get to six. I would have to
go back five to get back to five eleven. So
everybody stay respectful. I said what I said. In any case,
I was six feet Nick was like six three stocky, right.

(02:28:56):
He walks up to me. He's like, yo, you know
what I'm saying. He looks up to me, He's like, Yo,
I ain't want no I ain't mean no disrespect, bro, Yo,
you know what I'm saying. Let's just end this here
such and such and such. I'm like, yo, nigg on everything, bro,

(02:29:18):
I can't let that slide. Bro. I can't let that slide, bro.
So it is what it is. You know what I'm saying.
He's like yo, ty, But he kept it respectful. And
I told the nigga, I want to see you over
here no more. He was like, no problem, and he
kept it pushing and he ain't come around the block
for a while. And that was respect. And I'm assuming
that the block spoke to Nick like, Yo, you can't
book Tahoe. I don't know if they told him that

(02:29:41):
he was gonna pop you or Tahoe's gonna pop you,
or they said, yo, he's family. You can't rob one
of us. I don't know what you think this is,
but you can't rob one of us. But Nick was
also family, so I guess he understood or whatever. I
don't know. We never really had that conversation, but over

(02:30:02):
time him and me and him got back cool again,
and you know, shout out to him. I'm literally just
telling my story. So I hope we don't got to
go no further, Like you know, I don't. It is
what it is, but that's real. It's real. That's what happened.
You feel me. I was. I was. I was incense,
trying to prove myself, So you know, that's that's what

(02:30:24):
I came from. Guns and shit and young wasn't. Most
of the niggas I hung around wasn't like that. They
wasn't like gun shooters, you know what I mean. You
had a certain amount of niggas, you had dre You
had niggas that really gave it up like that, and
they had that, they had that about them. But most
of the niggas that I was around, they didn't give
it up like that. So you know, but you know,

(02:30:47):
you know what, Knowing who you are to me is important.
Everybody don't have to be a killer. And I wish
that had these little niggas now would know that instead
of ruin their life trying to chase some shit that
they don't have, that's not you. Don't be that that
you can. It's okay to be you. And the niggas
I was around knew that that wasn't them, and they
didn't feel they had none to prove because they was

(02:31:08):
who they was. They showed up there. They you know,
they grew up there. I showed up there, so I
felt like I had something to prove. So I respect
the fact that they didn't feel like they had to
go you know what, I'm saying that far with it,
Damn it's a long ass story in it. To me,

(02:31:31):
and Young fell out over time, and being that he
just passed, I'm gonna leave that there. A lot happened,
a lot more happened, and I was super disappointed bro
in him and the choices that he made and continuously

(02:31:56):
and I think that he was caught up in that.
I think that because he he was a basketball star
at one point, he he needed that. I think I
think so he hurt his knee at some point and
he couldn't play no more, and it was a big
disappointment for him, his family, the people around him, because

(02:32:18):
he was going to the league. He was going to
be that guy. He was going to be Kyrie, he
was going to be fucking whatever, Chris Paul. He was
going to be one of them niggas. That was like nice,
you know what I mean, the people that actually made
it from my hood. People didn't even think that they
was going to make it like that. You got my nigga,

(02:32:39):
well whatever, no reason, but you know what I mean,
Like he was, you knew he was gonna make it.
And then he injured himself and he didn't want to
go to therapy and he just kind of let the
depression from injuring himself take over. But then you have
the I miss the way they call my name. I

(02:33:00):
missed the lights, I missed the you know what I
mean attention that I got the belief that I was
gonna be that nigga. And I think he gave in
the drugs, helped the selling the drugs and the ship
like that. It made him feel alive again. And I

(02:33:21):
think he continuously chased that feeling for his whole life
and me when I got to quit it or that
that charge, I knew I didn't need that anymore, but
he did, and so he kept going along that route.

(02:33:43):
But it turned me off because there's this whole world
out here, and we're going to spend the rest of
our lives on this corner where it don't matter to
nobody if we live or die here and for you
to be my big bro. And I don't use that term,

(02:34:07):
but that's what he was. He was my mentor. He
was a person that I looked up to.

Speaker 3 (02:34:12):
And I.

Speaker 1 (02:34:15):
His opinion mattered kind of more than mine. That's how
much respect I had for him at a time. But
I grew up and I couldn't respect the decisions that
was being made. I couldn't respect that we're doing all
of this just to prove shit to other people, just

(02:34:38):
to show them that we that nigga. Like the things
that I have to say, I can't say right now
because it's embarrassing, but it's like like they just say
one of these things, like we would throw parties, right
and you know, popping bottles was the big thing, right,
but we didn't. We would stock the bar so when
we stopped the bar, we would buy like one hundred

(02:35:01):
bottles and put them behind the bar for us to
pop in the party. So while everybody else is buying
the bottles, hours were bought on you know, behind sed
So niggas is paying two hundred Nigga, we bought these
for twenty or whatever they are, you know what I mean.

(02:35:24):
So we just pop pop pop, and Nigga's like, oh
them niggas getting money? No or not, No, Nigga, we
bought these from the liquor store. We didn't buy all
this right here. And so after a while you start
thinking about the way you're moving, and this goes into
the BMF days and all of that and kind of
what turned me off to everything, and all of that
will be you know again, y'all already know I'm gonna

(02:35:45):
say it again, but it just became tired to me,
especially when I believe I'm that nigga now so young
and I fell out and we weren't that close anymore,
And that was hard for me to hear that he
passed last week. It was hard for me because I

(02:36:13):
loved him, but I also kind of was not feeling him,
not feeling the choices that he made with his life.
It hurt. It hurt me to see him in that
life the way he was when he passed. It hurt
me to my core because it's somebody that you believe in, right,

(02:36:36):
and then you think, yo, I wasted so much of
my life over there under you pause to realize that
it was all a lie or you feeding your insecurities.

(02:36:57):
And so when people think Yo, Tahoe is always talking
about you know, the community, this, this whatever and getting
off the corner, that comes from young too. All of
this comes from young My name, the who I was,
the who I am, It comes from seeing the world

(02:37:20):
through this man's eyes and then understanding it from then
to now and seeing the lies, seeing the hypocrisy, seeing
the how cheap it is to throw your life away
for a couple of years of affluence, a couple of years,

(02:37:42):
even if it's ten. Now you're fucked because that's ten
years you could have been invested into a career, going
to school, taking care of your kids. Ten years of
just doing shit to improve yourself to a bunch of
niggas that don't give a fuck about you. You think

(02:38:02):
they do, But nigga, there's been times There's been times
where nigga get locked up and you don't even know
that nigga was locked up until he come home two
years later. You just don't see a nigga. And then
the nigga come out and he all stocky and shit,
and you like, yo, damn nigga. He's like, yeah, I
just did it, dim I just did two years You like,

(02:38:23):
damn nigga. He was in jail, and guess what, you
ain't think about it because you stuck in the hustle.
You stuck doing whatever you doing. You ain't wondering about
what this nigga is unless he's part of your team.
You're little, you know whatever. And then even then that
nigga go away. You set a nigga five hundred dollars
for bail or whatever, but you ain't calling the nigga
every other day. Then nigga ain't sending nigga packages all

(02:38:44):
the time. Let's keep it real. At least the team
I was around wasn't doing that. They wasn't doing that.
So we might try to help you bail out, send
you five hundred dollars, but you in jail, You in jail,
see you when you get out nigga. That's it. That's
who you're wasting your life for. Your child is growing

(02:39:07):
up with their mother by themselves, because you want to
spend your time around these niggas that don't give a
fuck about you past the five hundred dollars that they
threw you one time. And your baby mother is going
up there every week, every week, traveling with this big
ass bag. She's walking down the block with your baby
every day, two three times a day, trying to make

(02:39:30):
sure that she is straight. She's putting food on the table.
She's the one braiding your hair. She's the one making
sure that everything is straight. These are the people that
you are not around because you believe in this lie,
because you're feeding the insecurities of your youth, or your
mommy issues or your father issues. And that's why I

(02:39:53):
am who I am today. And it feels bitter, feels grief,
me having grief for my friend. It feels crazy because

(02:40:13):
I didn't like what he became or the life that
he chose. I didn't like the life that we chose.
I don't, I don't. I don't celebrate that no more.
And I left him alone. You know what I'm saying?
Where he really valued who I became, right, he looked

(02:40:33):
up to me at a point he was like wow,
and I kind of turned my back. So that's something
I have to live with, but I can't when I

(02:40:58):
decided to change my life that man, I couldn't be both.
When y'all see, I don't have friends. I have a
lot of friends, but I can't be both. I made

(02:41:18):
a hard choice, a hard decision to live by myself
away from certain shit, and that was a hard choice
to make, but that I felt was the right thing
for me to do to avoid negative influences and little
bullshit connections to who I used to be. I didn't

(02:41:39):
want to be there no more. And now I don't
know if I regret that, because I guess I could
have still been friends. We could have still talked, right.
I didn't like what you became, so now you're gone.

(02:42:00):
It's a young man that yo. He has so much
love in his heart, but he also had a lot
of other shit. And I guess, I just I guess
sometimes you're just too close to the forest to see
the trees. You become so jaded by whatever feelings you're
caught up in right now that you don't see the

(02:42:23):
big picture no more. We've all been through that right
and break up. So whatever, you you get so caught
up over the last defense that you don't see the
big picture of what this relationship really means to you
or meant to you, whatever, and so you you you
move off of this feeling today. But life is too short, bro,

(02:42:49):
so to g young. I want to say I'm sorry.
I want to say I love you and I don't
know who I would be without you. I want to
say I preciate you so thank you.