Syracuse New York History- Sheik El

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
what's going on.
Everybody out there is ronbrown lmt, the people's fitness
professional.
I will have the co-host co-hoston monday.
You already know.
Co-host Monday, monday, tuesday, wednesday.
We're in the building.
Today is just me and brotherSheik Denim L.
Denim L, denim L.

(00:33):
You know I saw one of theguards say something about say
something under a video of yours.
Like you know a video I put outthere and he said you know, I
didn't know that some of thegods knew you and all that.
That's peace right there.
That's peace right there.
You know, I don't know how deepyour history.

(00:56):
Well, you told me last timeabout your history and things
like that, but I don't know, Ididn't know it went that deep,
like with people knowing you andall this type of stuff.
I'm thinking like just maybethe Moors might know you.
But nah, it looked like, seemedlike everybody know who you are
.
You know what I mean.
So you know that's peace.
That's peace how you doing,brother.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
All is well, my brother, I'm good man, you know.
Maintaining that's all Justchilling it's a Cincinnati.
Friday.
I'm just lounging.
Right now I was watching a KungFu flick Snake in the Monkey
Shadow, Snake in the EagleShadow.
You know what I'm saying?
Just lounging, that's all I do.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
That's peace.
So today we're going intoSyracuse.
Do you hear anything in thebackground right now, in your
background?

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, I don't hear nothing.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Alright, good it.
Yeah, I don't hear nothing.
All right, good, all right, itmight be me.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
I got to look my TV's on, but it's not, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
No, I can't.
I can't really hear that.
We're talking about Syracusehistory today, and the reason
why I wanted to talk about thisis because, like you know, I
just want to give people alittle brief history, and you
know the idea of the NYPplatform.
The NYP platform is a plethoraof different things.

(02:07):
One of them is we wanted toreally showcase what was going
on inside of New York State,because everyone talks about the
five boroughs, but me nowliving upstate, now, like I
moved outside of the fiveboroughs and I live upstate now,
this is really not upstate, butto the people from the city

(02:29):
they call this upstate, it's awhole different world up here.
You know what I'm saying and youknow I'm like man, I want to
show the different parts of NewYork.
So eventually we want to try toget out there, to these
different places in New York andkind of like show the spots
today, today, with, with, uh,the sheet we're going to build

(02:53):
on, uh, syracuse history and uh,you know, um, that's where
you're from.
So you know, let's, let's takeit away.
Let's uh go with the firstquestion what is Syracuse
history?
You know, like, let's startwith his early beginnings.
I don't know if you know thehistory about that.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Well, I mean, you know everything has a history.
I mean you know everything hasa history.
When you, when you ask thatquestion, it has to be minimized
in a way to to my time period.
In a sense, I was born in 1968,you know what I'm saying in
Syracuse, new York.
Now I can go from there.
You know what I'm saying, frommy birth.

(03:33):
I mean I can go from there.
But in that regards, the placecalled Syracuse, if not mistaken
, it was established in the 18thcentury, ok, incorporated,
something like that.
The 18th century, the 1700s,something like that.
One of the, you know, new York,was a part of the 13 colonies,

(03:53):
the original 13 colonies.
It was called New Amsterdam, orsomething like that.
I mean.
So that's a whole, nother story.
But Chad.
As far as I'm concerned, 1968, Iwas born upstate New York,
syracuse, new York, was aplethora of culture.
I was born in 68, grew up inthe seventies, came of age in
the eighties, you understand.
So my first, my first 12 yearsof life, um was spent through

(04:18):
the seventies, um, maybe myfirst 10 years of life, cause I
turned 12, I turned 12 years oldin 1980, so, um, so from 68 to
1980, oh, it was just everything.
Everything was was red, blackand green afros.
Everybody was doing martialarts.
That's how I got into martialarts because everybody, every,

(04:40):
every, every, every, everyneighborhood was doing karate.
Every neighborhood was doingkarate.
Castles walking around in geeseKung fu, the kung fu joints,
the full outfits.
The Black Panther movement waspretty strong up here.
The Nation of Islam was prettystrong up here.
The Honorable Elijah MuhammadNation of Islam was pretty

(05:02):
strong in the 70s.
Also, there was in the late mybad.
The late Going into the late 70s.
There was a lot of policesituations going on between the

(05:22):
mid into the late 70s, goinginto the early 80s in Syracuse.
A lot of, a lot of run-ins withpolice, with different, with
different brothers and sistersin the community.
So you know we had lost acouple of soldiers, brother
Jeremiah Mitchell, who gotmurdered by the police.
Okay, real quick.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
I don't mean to cut you off and I'm paying attention
.
I just wanted to repost thisvideo to make sure everybody is
viewing it.
So real quick.
So we're talking about Syracuse, we're talking about the
beginnings you mentioned.
Everyone was like red, blackand green out right.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Apples, red, black and green, right out, right,
yeah, yeah, afros, black andgreen.
Now, who brought that into the?
Because I always know somethingabout history there's always
someone with a spark, someonealways, you know, to lead the
spark, to lead the charge.
You know it'll be one, twopeople that'll come with the
teachings and now the wholeneighborhood, you know, is doing

(06:26):
it.
So was it like so was it like acenter or something like that?

Speaker 2 (06:30):
no, it was, yeah, yeah.
Well, there was a center we had.
We had we had the Dunbar Center, which was in the bricks, and
then we had the SouthwestCommunity Center.
You know I'm saying but, um,prior to that, prior to the
centers, um, I can't tell youmuch because I was born in 68.
But what I can tell you is thatwhen I was a child, there was
brothers and sisters who alreadyhad that view.

(06:52):
We had Harambe.
There was different quoteunquote pro-black organizations.
You had the Caribbean brothersand sisters who was doing their
own thing.
My cousin was a roster.
It was just a plethora ofculture.
Man, I got syracuse university.
You got over 23, 24, 25, 000people going to that college.
You know saying differentnationalities coming in and out

(07:13):
of the school all the time.
You know I'm saying so it was,it was just that's what it was.
A lot of times the universitypeople wouldn't even come down
into the city because they'regiving instruction not to mess
with the people in the community.
You know I mean, but there was,there was, there were those who
did.
You know I mean brother aj, youknow, you may know, you may know
brother aj tiemba, who has aharlem liberation school.
You know I'm saying aka.

(07:34):
His name was when he was goingto syracuse university.
His name was put in stiff butnow his name is aj tiemba.
He has the liberation school inharlem.
That that's my man.
He was around.
He can give you some history aswell about Syracuse because he
went to the university and hewas the president of the Black
Student Union.
We ran into each other around1989 when I came out of the
military.
From 1980 on up it was just allhip-hop, all culture.

(08:02):
Y'all got to acknowledgeyourself in 1980.
Breakdance G gave you that.
Yeah, my man, yeah, g G hit meoff.
G gave me Knowledge, yourselfgave me the lessons and I
continued to maintain and studyBreakdance and the battles.
It was so many crews, man.

(08:22):
You had Puma Nation.
You had KOC crew.
You had Southsideside rockers.
You had um mcnasty crew.
You had um dj gloves.
You, it was just deep freezeand seas.
It was just so many crews.
Man with kiba and scratch, itwas just so many crews.
It was a female crew I forgottheir names the poison

(08:42):
ladiesison Ladies.
It was just a thousand crews.
Everything was the cultureperiod.
As far as dress code isconcerned, our dress code was a
combination of what we wereseeing coming out of New York on
videos, little things you know,pick up things like the glasses
and gazelles or something likethat.
But our dress code we kind ofcreated our own thing.

(09:03):
I was wearing camouflage beforeanybody was, before coogee rat,
before anybody was wearingcamouflage.
I was wearing it as a style inthe night in the eighth and
ninth, in the eighth and ninthgrade, because it was our
martial arts.
It was, it was our.
It was our, it was our combatuniforms.
It was camouflage.
I started wearing it to school.
Next thing, you know the handsand everything I did.

(09:25):
I did I was wearing camouflageand people thought I was bugged
out, but then it became a thingby the 90s everybody was
camouflaged.
By that time I had already doneit, so I was doing something
else.
By that time, right I'm sayingso, you know, my thing was
always being different, beingauthentic, because I didn't
really have um, I didn't havethe money like G and them had.

(09:45):
They had that money to docertain things, to buy certain
clothes.
So the way I rock, I put mythings together just in a
different way, man, you knowwhat I mean.
I merged things, I mergedculture with martial styles.
You know, 5% influence in a,you know, in a dress code.

(10:07):
You know what I'm saying.
Like I just did my own thing.
And that's how it was, man.
We had a lot of battles, man, alot of, you know, a lot of
conflicts.
A lot of things was caught inbattles.
But by 83, 84, by the time Igot out of high school, which
was 86, I graduated in battles.
But by 83, 84, by the time Igot out of high school, which
was 86, I graduated in 86, thedope gang was already in, the

(10:34):
crack gang wasn't.
It was cold.
That was the old heads.
I think the first millionaire Iever saw in Syracuse was a kid
named Kev Givens.
Kev Givens was like the firstmillionaire, you know what I'm
saying.
Then there was othermillionaires.
These was old heads, you knowwhat I'm saying.
And then, like by, I went tothe military in 86, came home in

(10:57):
89, got kicked out in 89, cameback crackers in full swing, and
it was youngsters on the blocknow, right, right now, let's
let's unpack a lot of stuff now.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
So we're going to start from.
We're going to start fromknowledge you was talking about,
you know, black pride, uh, red,black and green, and then you
went into.
Everybody was just like martialarts, stout, right, for lack of
a term.
So now, who brought, who werelike the top martial artists of
that era, like historical kindof like martial arts hall of

(11:35):
fame?

Speaker 2 (11:35):
yeah, in the town you had you had man, you had your
brother.
Rest in peace.
You could look him up.
His name is Vincent Grace.
We called him the Black Samurai.
He was an Aido master, andthere was also his instructor,
which was Grandmaster GregTierney.

(11:55):
You also have my teacher, whichwas Mfundishi Edward Halee Fox.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Wait, wait, Mfundishi .
Okay, we're not talking aboutthe same person.
Mfundishi is a title.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
I'm an Mfundishi.
My school was called ChiwushuShule.
Shule is an African word forschool.
It was a combination ofNorthern Shaolin and Kupi Gani
Ngumi, which is an Africanfighting art, and the brother
Oso, tayari Cassell, used tocome to our school all the time.
I don't know if you know whoTayari Cassell is, look him up.

(12:33):
Okay, he used to come to ourschool all the time.
Then you had another brothernamed Frankie Mitchell.
Frankie Mitchell had a schoolcalled the Spinning Cobras.
The Spinning Cobras was our archnemesis.
We used to battle back andforth with them, tournaments

(12:54):
outside in the street fights.
That's what we did.
That's karate days, man.
That's just what I was.
We also had battles.
We popped, breakdanced all thatman.
Then again the crack came.
Bro.
Crack changed the game.
We went from breakdancing oncorners to hustling on corners.

(13:17):
The transition.
The transition was crazybecause you got to think about
the 80s.
You got to think about whatthey call Reaganomics.
Poverty hit hard in certainways and what they did was they

(13:42):
made cocaine, which is a quote,unquote a white man, $2 rock.
They made it accessible.
So by doing that, that createda whole other phenomenon Within
our communities.
As you know, we're stillrecovering from the 80s Because
of that era Is where the mentalhealth Things began, after the

(14:03):
first generation Of crack.
Then we began to see an era ofmental health.
I told my partner on his porchin 1991, his cat was coming down
the block.
We used to sell out this house.
We used to hustle out thishouse, 327 West Lafayette.
We had a studio in it, but weused to get money out of it as
well.
I told one of my partners.

(14:24):
I said yo, I'm telling you, man, people bugged out, man, but
it's going to get worse.
Within 20 years we're going tohave an epidemic.
He laughed at me.
Do you know today?
He said yo, man, how did yousee that shit 25 years ago?
Man, when you said that shit onthe porch, I was like what you
talking, talking about?
I totally forgot about it.
He said yo, you called thisshit, bro, I can see, before

(14:51):
something get good, it gotta getworse.
When you got a bunch of childrenoutside hustling, moving packs
and getting money, you know whatI'm saying.
14, 15, 16, of course,addiction and other things is
going to come to play, becauseit's child on child, and who

(15:12):
really has wisdom?
I can't teach you at 15 nothingat 15, we'll be going to teach
each other except what weperceive to know and understand
as, whatever that may be.
So if one is swifter than theother, just in thought process,
I can use the other 15-year-oldto my advantage if I'm swift

(15:34):
like that and in that era a lotof youngsters were swift like
that because they didn't wantthe consequences.
They wasn't really built forthe life they was living.
Man 12 years, you're not builtfor that shit.
You're not.
You're not built for it, butyou put it in an environment
that's conducive for that Idea.

(15:56):
Right?
So we know and understand thatpoverty is by design, right?
So if poverty is by design,there are certain things that
one must do in order to make thepoverty work.
We want an outcome.
Whenever we do something,there's an outcome, right?
So my father had a bar from1989 to 2016 in Syracuse, new

(16:20):
York, called B&B Lounge.
It's a legendary bar and he hada bar on that block that we was
on, with five or six other barsall the way down the block,
another street across SouthSalina Street, all clubs and
bars.
This was the south side ofSyracuse, which at one point in

(16:41):
time, was all ran by Asiaticpeople prior to what Integration
.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
Oh integration.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
Right, and even after integration.
But by that time, whensegregation kicked in, the
businesses were still there.
Then the Arabs came in andbought out the stores and other
things and so on and so forth,right.
So now we have a communitywhere you have foreigners and
the economics is all you haveforeign foreigners and in the
economics is all going to theforeigners and the politics is

(17:14):
removing certain things out ofthe community, because there's
no need for night gym anymore.
There's no need to have aprogram that's designed for the
kids, that after school to playin the gym or to do something to
keep them off the streetsbetween the hours of four to
eight o'clock at night.
They don't need that, no more.
That's the reason.
Oh, we're going to take awaycedar, the cedar program, which

(17:34):
is job employment for you forthe summer.
We're going to take thatprogram away because that money
can be used and placed somewhereelse.
Oh yeah, we're going.
We're going to remove this aswell, selectively.
Over a 15-year period, I watchedmy community began to be
decimated by politics.
I watched businesses destroythemselves and be removed by
politics Intentional politics,right.

(17:57):
You can't recover from that.
This is why I always say thatintegration was the worst thing
that happened to us and, ifanything, if we are able to get
back whatever we once had, wehave to separate, we have to.
We can do things as individualswithin this system.
We can even do things as groupswithin the system, as a

(18:19):
collective, but it's going toget to some point where
something is going to get in theway.
Somewhere we're going to haveto answer to something or
someone.
Something is going to get inthe way instead of we're going
to have to answer to somethingor someone.
Something is going to get inthe way instead of just how we
had it before segregation, wherewe didn't answer to nobody.
We just did our own thing andwe built economies.
19 to 20 different riots andmassacres of black communities

(18:45):
between 1878 and 1923.
So I'm getting off track, butthat's how I do it.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
No, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 (18:54):
Keep cooking, keep cooking, keep cooking.
So, when you think about it,this is the effects of what
happened in our community.
So the decimation of thecommunity created the desire and
the need for cats, for kids, tohustle.
In a sense, it created theenvironment for it.

(19:16):
They wasn't understanding thatthe environment was going to
feed on them.
You understand what I'm saying?
The environment is vampiric ina sense.
They'll open up the door foryou to do these things.
You can get things, but in theprocess you're going to have to

(19:37):
sacrifice something because ofwhat you can gain from it and
the possibilities of what couldoccur if you actually took your
wealth from that particularlifestyle and did something with
it constructively, like everyother nationality has done.
When they have came to theseshores by immigration the
Italians, the Jews, the Irishthey all had some form of an
underground or an under shadowthat put them on the forefront.

(19:59):
That first generation did thedirty work and put their
children through college, andtheir children became lawyers
and doctors to protect the verything, the very entity that put
them through college or whatever.
You see what I mean.
So it's very hard for us tomaintain certain things right.
So because why?
Because we find comfort.

(20:22):
We find comfort in materialism,but that's a condition in us.
We've been conditioned for thatright and we find comfort in it
.
So the things that we chase themost are the things that shine
and bling, because it looks goodto the to the eye, but those
things have no bearing on yourspirit and your integrity.

(20:43):
When it's all said and done andthat's something that I learned
throughout the years being here,being home and living abroad
you know, the 80s got strongbecause the crack game came in
and you had little.
You had brothers and sistersrunning around, youngsters who
are now getting a lot of money,we had young millionaires, we
had cats.
You know we there's stories totell.
You know saying there's storiesto tell and we had it.

(21:06):
And the thing is, is that youknow what I'm saying?
There's stories to tell and wehad it.
And the thing is is that weSyracuse, new York, is an
experimental, is an experimentalstate.

(21:27):
Some of the first experimentswas held here.
Matter of fact, a place calledKennedy Square and a place
called Cherry Hill, butspecifically Kennedy Square was
an experiment, and what I meanby that was the way that the
project was built and the way itwas designed.
It was designed under a WestCoast paradigm, it was.
It was designed to be in theWest Coast.
The way it was made, it wasn'tan Eastern thing, it was a
design.
And the way it was designed,the infrastructure of it, going
in and out of it, and so on andso forth.

(21:47):
Do you ever notice that inevery inner city that whenever
you get close to a quote-unquotea project or a housing
environment, there's a quick wayonto a highway and a quick way
off the highway?

Speaker 1 (21:58):
bro, wow, I never.
You know, I know from theprojects I'm from.
The highway is right there.
Of course it is.
I never noticed that man, likeI never really thought man Like
I never really thought about it.
I noticed it but I never reallythought about it like that you
got to think about these things,because these things are not.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
These things are designed on purpose this way
Quickest way in, quickest wayout, the Army, the quickest way
the National Guard can come in,the quickest way they can get
out, the quickest way that theycan come, the quickest way they
can get out.
They designed these things away on purpose, right In that
situation.
It's the same thing with us inSyracuse.

(22:36):
We're a smaller place, but it'sstill the same designs.
It's still the same paradigm,it's still the same situation
smaller place, environment andstructure is different.
Because it's Smaller place,environment and structure is
different because it's not aconcrete jungle.
We got trees, the sidewalks gotgrass.

(22:56):
You look like you're in apeaceful place and that's how
people get put to sleep.
I'm going to tell you, manUncasa used to come hang with me
all the time that man Uncasagot tight.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
He used to come through here.
Okay, uncasa from Harlem, yeah,I remember him.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
That's my man with the glasses.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
Yeah, he from 151st or something over there.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
Yeah that's my man.
I gave him his first Circle 7.
Oh wow, a lot of people fromthe city used to run through
Syracuse and thought they couldjust run through Syracuse and
got ran out.
They got ran out.
We're a little upstate town,but if you go into the prison

(23:43):
system and ask about upstatecats, it's a different story.
We're different, always been'sa different story.
We different, always been.
Everybody's different in NewYork State.
We are New York, but everystate, every city got its own
expression of New York, like weexpress New York.
But you know what it's New Yorkthough.

(24:03):
I love being from upstate NewYork.
I love to go to New York andtravel and walk around and hang
out and go build the cars, go toQueenwood.
I love it.
But I also love upstate and Ilove when cats from the city
come upstate.
They be like yo, god damn likeyo.
They love it.
They be like yo.
I should move up here.
It's such a change from theenvironment.

(24:25):
The frequency, the vibration isdifferent.
It ain't fast.
You can slow down and breathebreathe a little bit, you could
breathe a little bit.
So that's the beautiful thingabout upstate is that you can
slow down.
But even when you slowing down,shit is fast.

(24:48):
That's a fact.
Depending on the circle you in,slowing down, shit is fast.
That's a fact.
Depending on the circle you inor the company you keep, it can
be fast or slow.
You know God, we move in swiftand tangible currents.
Indeed, you see what I'm saying, we can cause rain, snow and
earthquakes, not just physically, but we can also cause them
mentally and emotionally.
You see what I'm saying.

(25:11):
So our thing is our thing.
You know, here in Syracuse, man,we, we, just we always did our
own thing, man, in regards tomusic, in regards to gear, in
regards to language, we, even we, even I mean everybody got

(25:32):
their own tongue, everybody gottheir own, their own code, their
own language.
You know, I'm saying you knowtheir own little slang.
Everybody got it, you know, andit's just what it is, man.
I mean.
It's so much history here, man,it's drug history.
Here, man, you know, it'smartial arts history here, man,
like every place, man, you know,I've been here.
I've been fortunate enough tolive in other parts of new york.

(25:53):
I lived in albany, I lived inthe law of born for a little
while.
You know, totally differentfrom syracuse man, totally
different, I'm saying totallydifferent feel.
Totally, totally different.
Feel I've lived in.
I lived in geneva, new york.
I've lived in Auburn.
I've lived all through upstateNew York because it's beautiful.
Upstate New York is beautifulLike spring, summer travel,

(26:16):
beautiful man Trails, hiking,all that crazy shit is dope.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah, it is, it's dope.
I want to ask you about this.
Let's unpack that.
We don't got to go too deepinto it but unfortunately is a
part of the culture.
Now, the drug scene, right, youknow, like from where I'm from,
we used to see like the dealers, you know like outpouring them,

(26:43):
cats, like you know poppingwillies and and shit like that,
like I was a kid but I knew whatwas going on.
So, like you know from Harlem,you know you got the.
You know the Alpos, the RichPorters, the AZ, you know things
like that.
You know that history.
So what's the Alpos and the AZsand all of that in Syracuse.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
Man.
I don't know if they want me tosay their names, man, they all,
we all.
Now you know it don't reallymatter now, but G was one of
them.
G was one of them cats.
You had my man, dad Bye, birdie, it was a bunch of them man.
Yo, lamie, it was a bunch ofthem.
Lamar, it was a bunch of them,man, everybody was getting money

(27:34):
.
Every side of town had two orthree cats.
Who was just getting money andholding the whole town down,
like Tyrone Hines.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
You know what I'm saying, like Hines, like Hines
from the 90s now, before you godeep into the names, like you
keep dropping them.
Now, I just wanted to get thisreal quick before you go.
You mentioned the south side ofSyracuse, so there's a south
side, there's a north side,there's a west side.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
The west side.
Indeed, the west side ispredominantly Latino.
They always got kingpins.
The West Side is Syracuse.
You would never know whathappened on the West Side
because everything happensinside of it and it's just kept
there.
The East Side is not the sameas it used to be.
Syracuse has had a big influxof immigrants that have moved in

(28:25):
within the last 20 years.
It has also changed theenvironment.
Some of the cats from Like I wastelling you, like Tyrone,
tyrone Hines he's back home now,but Hines ran 99 pounds of
cocaine through Syracuse.
Like the Brick City gang andthe Bricks and all that man.

(28:47):
Then you had the cats on thesouth side.
Everybody was just gettingmoney man, mosky, everybody man.
Syracuse was a get-money town.
Every block, every side wasgetting money.
It wasn't really even conflictat that time.

(29:08):
Nobody was really even beefing,because you had the old heads
was getting money and it wasn'treally even conflict at that
time.
Nobody was really even beefingbecause you had the old heads
was getting money.
You had the younger generationgetting money and the old heads
was working with the youngstersand the youngsters was working
with the old.
It was just crazy for a minute,man.
It was crazy, man, because alot of the older cats they was
only old by seven to eight yearsover some of us, and then they

(29:29):
were a little older to theyounger cats.
So they was taking the youngercats and they was schooling them
, some of them, and then some ofthem some of the younger cats
was robbing them.
A lot of robberies was going on.
A lot of cats got stuck up.
A lot of that.
A lot of stick-ups all the timein the park, a lot at the bars.
A lot of stick-ups was going on.
It was the 80s.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
Was the murders the same as Harlem and the Bronx and
all of that Murder?

Speaker 2 (29:57):
It was murders.
It was murders, definitely.
Yeah, it was murders.
I could talk about some ofthose things.
I'll tell you a story.
It was this kid man had aconflict.
He just came home himself.
He just came home.

(30:18):
He did like 25, almost 30.
He just came home, his mom wasin a bar and he got a phone call
that somebody disrespected hismother.
So he basically, he basicallyGot on the roof and hit a cat

(30:43):
from about 25 feet out from theroof at a store walking in the
store.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
Sniper yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
Sniper.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, acouple cats.
I remember was in Kirk Park andmy man got stabbed to death.
Like it was just a lot of youknow a lot of things went on,
man, but circus is a small place.
It's not like those storiesain't gonna make the news like

(31:11):
like the out, it ain't gonna.
It ain't gonna be like thosethings.
You know what I'm saying,because the time was so small
and you had to be there.
One thing about this place isthat we don't really, we don't
really gratify that.
Some cats will tell theirstories, and you know what I

(31:32):
mean.
It's like, yeah, it happened.
You know what I'm saying and itis what it is, but it ain't
something that we just, when wemeet up, we talk about it.
Like yo remember when we met up, we don't discuss none of those
things.
We just talk, don't discussnone of those things.
You know I'm saying we justtalk.
We talk about we, we, we dotalk about the culture, we talk
about hip-hop and all that backwhen we was youngsters.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
But we don't ever, we don't ever go into the other
things, though right right,right right, because that, that,
that, that subject, it gets alittle tricky.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
So yeah, indeed, and then you got babies around, you
got children around, you knowI'm saying you got grandchildren
around.
You know, it's just certainthings.
You know they're gonna find out, like my son right now.
He called me last night.
He's like your dad.
He was like yo man, he's likedad dad.
I said.
I started laughing.
What you done heard.
Now he said yo, man, yo, themore, the older I'm getting, I'm
just hearing more stuff aboutyou.

(32:22):
He's like yo, you was that dudeman.
You know everybody, everybodyknow you.
He said how come you didn'ttell me this stuff?
I said it's nothing to tell you, man, I'm not proud.
You know, it's nothing to tellyou.
You know the street's going totell you.
You look just like me, you oldenough, you, outside, somebody's
going to say yo, such and sucha dad, you look, you know, and

(32:45):
they're going to tell you theirexperience with me.
That's what's going to happen.
He's like, yeah, it's beenhappening all it's happening too
much.
But I'm digging it though.
I'm like it's just going tohappen, man, it's just what it
is.
Yeah, I've been around, I'vedone a lot of things.
I was known in my community asthey called me the Malcolm X or
the was always dropping jewelsand I was always exposing a

(33:07):
fraud or I was always tellingthe truth.
That was my thing.
They would come get me.
Yo go get the guard man.
This dude just came.
Dude, it was a cat named DirtyRob.
Did I tell you about Dirty Rob?
I?

Speaker 1 (33:19):
don't remember.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
Okay, so it was this cat named Dirty Rob.
Right, dirty Rob had just camehome from the justice Walking
around talking about he was 5%that he was gone.
So my man, d D Carter, was likeyo, he called me on the phone.
He's like yo, he's like yo,dirty Rob just came home, man.
He just came home.
He went around talking aboutyou know he gone.

(33:41):
Yo come holler at him let's seeif he gone for real.
I said all right, went down.
You know many months, met upbehind the school.
I'm like peace, god.
He's like yo, peace, peace.
He's like, oh, yo ain't seenyou in a long time.
How you been.
I'm like what's today's degree,what I said, what's today's
degree?
I said okay, you know what,let's start again.
What's today's mathematics?
Make it easy for you.

(34:03):
And I started laughing.
I said no, cypher, and I justwent in and D was like I told
you Dirty.
I told you Dirty Rob, this isthe real God right here.
Dirty Rob, this is the real God.
We never saw Dirty Rob againafter that day.
Dirty Rob just retired.
He put his flag down, god, heput the flag down.

(34:23):
He retired man.
He went into retirement.
Man down, he retired man.
He went into retirement man.
We didn't see him no more.
Man.
Smart work.
My word is gone.
We didn't see Dirty Rob forabout four, five years man,
that's crazy.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
So now the gangster history we kind of like went
over, like lightly.
We went over the martial artshistory a little bit.
Now the Breaker Cruise thelightly.
We went over the martial artshistory a little bit.
Um, now the breaker cruise, ohyeah, he cruise, the dopest dj
out there.
What's up with the, the gameyou know like before, uh, uh, uh

(34:59):
, the bloods.
They had zulu, you know we.
And then before zulu we hadtheades.
I don't know if you saw theSpades the other day.
Right, what were the gangsbefore?
You know, the 90s, the hip-hopthere was no gangs.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
Syracuse didn't have any gangs, brother.
Well, we all know online in the70s, the brothers who were
older than me when I was coming,I remember one gang.
I do remember a gang, one gang,and they had shit on lock and
the name of this gang was calledyou ready, the Corleones, After

(35:39):
the motherfucking Godfather B,the Corleones.
That was their name, theCorleones.
And then in the 80s well, no,actually, because it's another
street set called the 10th the10th, but the origin of their

(35:59):
name.
The young generation don't evenknow the origin of their name.
I had to tell them the originof their name the 10thth or 110.
There is no 110 block insyracuse, new york.
There's no street with numbers.
You know I'm saying by thephysical number.
You got you got seventh avenue.

(36:19):
You got you know fourth avenue,written number, nothing, but
not by number, physical number.
So 110th was actually namedthat they took that name from a
movie called Across 110th Street.
That's where the name 110 camefrom.
The street set in the hood, thestreet set called the Boot Camp

(36:43):
Click in the late 80s.
You know where that came from.
Yeah, right, right.
And then you had the brightonbrigade, which was another late
80s street crew.
You know I'm saying, and thatcame from, the bright brigade
came from when special ed saidum, I got the army brigade.

(37:03):
They couldn't call me, I gotthe army brigade.
Remember that yeah yeah, yeah,yeah, that's what, that's what.
So one thing about, one thingabout syracuse is is that
there's no originality in someof the thought process, the
names taken from television andso on and so forth.
So this is this tells you kindof what the environment was like

(37:24):
in that era.
It wasn't nothing really majorhappening in the streets, but
shit was happening in thestreets, but not some super
major shit, but it was a lot ofshit going on.
There was drug selling going on, there was all types of shit
going on, but the way it wasbeing done wasn't really being

(37:47):
seen, and just the policedepartment like.
That's a whole other story initself too.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
I want to get into that Now.
You told us about some of thegangs you know and everything
like that.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
Let me give you the Illest DJ, the Illest DJ in my
era.
Two of the illest DJs in my erawas Grand G man and another cat
named Rapski, dj Rapski.
The illest MCs in my era was me.
Ishmael Bay was nice too.

(38:28):
Shar Bey was nice too.
Sharif was nice too.
Oh really.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
Really kicking it like that.
Yeah, Sharif was nice.
No, I mean both of them, bothIshmael and.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
Sharif.
Ishmael had a crew called 7-0-D.
Me and Is and Ish came uptogether.
We was rhyming at 11 and 12years old.
We came up together.
We met Sharif.
Later we came in.
Ish is like that's my brotherfrom another mom.

(39:00):
Mcs I was one of the illest.
Nobody was really messing withmy vocabulary.
I was way ahead of myself, Wayahead of myself, Way, way ahead
of myself.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
So there were no breakout acts like that went
commercial from Sarah King.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
Yep, one act, one act and they could have went really
, really big.
Matter of fact, if you punch itin your joint right now, the
name of the crew was called.
I'm going to spell it out foryou Makeba, m-a-k-e-b-a and
Scratch Like DJ Scratch, makebaand Scratch.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
No-transcript it might pop right up yeah, right
out yeah turn it on.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
Why?
Why we talk with turn it on andlook at it yeah, I don't.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
I just don't want to get you know copyright and all
that you know, because you ain'tgot it, don't show it on the
screen.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
I just want you to look at it.
I want you to see that you'relooking at kirk park.
You're looking at the southwestcommunity center in these
scenes.
When they're inside, that's thecenter, that's the southwest
community center in these scenes.
When they're inside, that's thecenter, that's the southwest
community center on the southside of syracuse.
When you see them outside, whena bunch of them outside, that's
kirk park.
That's the south side.
That's kirk park.
That's where all the mc battleswent down kirk park and

(40:18):
thornton park on the east side.
You understand what I mean.
So you looking at syracuse inits heights.
This is the eight.
This is what this is what ourtown looked like.
This is the culture and this iswhat it really was.
B.
All the time, all the time likethis.
All the damn time, all the time, bruh.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
Like a party all day.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
All day.
This is what my city lookedlike in the 80s.
Man, all the time, because welived hip-hop 24 hours a day.
You get off the bus it's abattle.
It's a battle on a bus stop, abreakdance battle, a rhyme
battle.
You meet up in school in theback.
It's a battle in the gym,everywhere.
It was just like that.
Demcats, red Alert had them,red Alert had them.

(41:03):
Boys.
Man Scratch fucked it up.
The DJ, dj Scratch messed thatup for them.
He went gospel.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
Okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
Yeah, he went, gospel man.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
Now.
So there are no acts like,because when I think about New
York and hip-hop acts, of coursethe city, we already know about
the city.
We know it's probably enough.
So we got 38 Special Wizzy fromRochester, right.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
Yeah, he got, Syracuse got.
You know, you've heard of theStove God.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
The Stove God.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah, stove God, they call him.
He be with.
I think he be with.
They call him Stone Stove God.
His name is Cooks, you look himup.
He had a deal with BusterRhymes.
He's from Syracuse too, thestore guard.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
So no acts really popped from Syracuse yet Nah.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
Not Grammy pop, none of that type of stuff.
But Syracuse got.
Syracuse is coming.
Man, their time is coming.
It's a lot of MCs here B theirtime is coming.
They just ain't got the right.
Their time is coming.
I got a cat called the Reaper.
He a beast.
He's on my Facebook page.

(42:18):
I don't put a video or two ofhis up.
Kid's a beast, man, monster,monster, grimy.
His LP is released the 14th ofthis month.
Told to be released, the wholealbum.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
You got a whole album dropping eventually, I want to
be able to showcase differentacts from New York, new York,
this whole state.
We need to find a way tohighlight the whole state.
New York state is a motown.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Wait to happen state like we need to like find a way
to highlight the whole state,the whole state new york, new
york.
New york state is a motown man.
Wait to happen, man indeed,indeed.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
So now, now, you told me about the hip-hop crews and
things like that.
Um, now, as far as the cultureis concerned, and not only
hip-hop, you talked about theso-called hispanics and things
like that.
What particular hispanics areout there and when did they come

(43:17):
?

Speaker 2 (43:18):
yeah, it's a lot of power rules, um, a lot of power
rules.
You know I'm saying cubans, um,now we got a lot of Guatemalan
and Mexicans and things of thatnature.
It's predominantly Puerto Ricanand Cuban, pretty much

(43:40):
Dominican as well.
They do their thing.
I used to swing on the westside a lot just make some money
over there.
Back in the days my man stillgot a house over there, one of
my brothers, the god gill, hegot a spot over there.
You know, gill, about 62 yearsold now, you know I'm saying,
but he's been, he wanted to.
He's one of the old, oldest weeddealers in the town.

(44:01):
He's been selling weed probablyfor about, oh man, about 40,
some years.
Man, yeah, I mean, that's whathe do, that's his thing, him.
And it's another cat namedsweet james.
Sweet james is a senior, he'san elder.
I think he may have passed away, but sweet james is one of the
ones him and his sister they had.
They had some dad, sweet james,he used to get it.
Man, sweet james was a bad dudeman.
He was a.
He was every drug dealer's herobecause he retired.

(44:23):
He never, he never, he never.
He retired man, he never, youknow, I mean, he never got
caught up, but he always hadjames sweet james was smart, I
painted his crib, I painted hiswhole house.
Man, I learned so much frompainting his house just from
watching the way he moved, man,you know, I mean, um, he never
got tied up in nothing, but he,he had, he had, he had Chiba man

(44:48):
, a whole bunch of it for yearsnow.

Speaker 1 (44:51):
I want to just say peace to the Wise Dome TV peace
peace, peace, peace, peace ofthe God.
Peace of the God.
Check out his channel.
Watch his channel.
Subscribe to that channel rightthere.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
Indeed, his channel was hot.
He had me on one day too aswell.
He had me on one day too aswell.
He had me on too.
So yeah, god, his joint is onfire.
Dope, dope, dope program Now.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
Now we spoke about the Hispanics, now let's talk
about the breaking crews.
I want to talk about thebreaking crews the hip-hop, the
rap, the MC, the breaking crews.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
Well, you know, you had Can't Be Stopped the CBS
crew.
You had the CBS crew, can't BeStopped.
That was my arch nemesis crew.
My crew was Southside Rockets,on the south side.
I was a part of two crewsSouthside Rockets, which was my
south side, was my side of town,and then I was also a part of
Puma Nation.
Puma Nation was like one of thebiggest crews.
You know what I mean, becausethey were from the east side,

(45:51):
but they was like one of thebiggest crews because they had
MCs, you know DJs, break dancers, graffiti artists.
They was on that New York shithard because they was going to
New York all the time.
And G was from Harlem.
He was, you know, he was fromHarlem but but his mom was from
Harlem, but he was born andraised here but he was always
going home.
So everybody wanted to be downwith Puma Nation, everybody,
because there's just some flycats.

(46:13):
But I didn't get down with them.
Because I wanted to be downwith them, I took their ass out
at the skating rink, all of them.

Speaker 1 (46:21):
What's the name of the skating rink?
Sportsarama Okay.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
I took them out at the skating rink and they was
like yo, yo, you down with us.
They told me I was down withthem, like yo, y'all don't know
where you came from, but you gotto be down with us.
And that's how that whole thingstarted.
And CBS crew, southside Rockersand Puma Nation, and then it

(46:46):
was like the West Side had somecrows I can't remember their
names, puerto Rican Brothers,they could pop and everything.
And then we had Mr Wiggles inthem, bonita.
Bonita was nice, she was afemale, she was a popper.
Mr Wiggles, he's still around.
He's still around.
It was a bunch of them.
Ernest Shaw, mr Freeze, mrWindmill Chill, it bunch of them
.
Ernie Shaw, mr Freeze, mrWindmill Chill, it was a bunch

(47:07):
of us.
B, that's what we did, man, butI was the illest.
And it was another cat namedGreg Greg Atkins.
I forgot his name, but he stillhit me up a while back and was
like yeah, man, I still getloose for my grandkids, my
grandkids, watch me get loose.
Man, that's what we used tocall it getting loose, let's get

(47:28):
loose, and then we break thatshit, you know, I mean.
So he was like yeah, man, I'mstill getting loose.
Man, my grandkids, I got mygrandkids on this shit.

Speaker 1 (47:32):
Now we got, we got g for, we got g for the five
percent nation and culmination.
I'm saying as far as now.
I'm talking about as far asconsciousness, now, now I want
to go into that a little bit Now.
So we got G from the 5% Nation,who pretty much brought that to
Syracuse, brought it to you, yup.

(47:52):
And then we got Sharif, whocame with the Morris Science,
brought it to Syracuse, prettymuch, yup.
Okay, what was that?
Brother Sharif, like you know,as a youngster and things like
that, dealing with the knowledgeand things like that, what was
he like?

Speaker 2 (48:13):
Sharif was just like he is now Same dude man.
You know what?

Speaker 1 (48:20):
I'm saying how are you Studying and building?
Studying and building.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
That's what we all did, right, that's what we all
did.
It was Ishmael Allah obey,sharif Allah obey and Hisham
Allah obey.
At one time we was all together.
But life begins and you go yourway.
You get older, ish got married,children, got daughters, a wife
and so on and so forth, andthat's it, one dude from here,

(48:49):
he, he said, if you play gamesI'm gonna take you, but yeah,
man.
So so yeah, sharif was a sharif.
He brought, he brought thatscience.
You know I'm saying he broughtit in.
And um, you know he was.
You know he's a martial artistas well.
He was always in the martialarts.
We, you, you know, we all were,we all were martial artists.

(49:09):
I'm still a martial artist.
He's still a martial artist.
He runs a school now.
Yeah, hungar, yeah, the Hungarschool.
No doubt he's doing his thing.
And you know, sharif went onhis way.
We all went our own ways withmissions, I guess in the kind of
like.
You know, ish went his waybecause me and Ish went to the
military together.
I went to the Navy, ish went tothe Navy.

(49:29):
We ran into each other while wewas in the Navy, stationed in
different locations.
But I walk into a club on theNaval base.
I'm in the bathroom.
I'm in my Miami Vice joint,breasted joint, with the
matching pants on, looking liketubs and shit.
Somebody said, yo, pooch.
Pooch is my nickname, so I'm inCali B.
I'm in Cali right now.

(49:50):
Who the fuck knows my nickname?
I'm looking around like whatthe fuck?
Look around, it's Ish.
Yo, we in the bathroom huggingand shit.
He talking Spanish, I'm talkingSpanish and he's like when you
start talking.
I'm like when, when you starttalking Spanish.
And we just started laughingand shit, because me and Callie
we pick up a little tongue andall that man talking that shit.
But Ish ended up gettingmarried to the chick that he

(50:13):
introduced me to that night thatI saw him with.
This is my girl.
This is my friend, tracy.
They've been married for almost40-something years,
30-something years or some shit.
Wait, hold on, hold on.
We got to applaud that.
Yeah, yeah, ish been married tothe same woman.
The woman he met is the womanhe married.
I'm proud of my brother.
I love that.
Dude man.
I wish I could have did that.
I got married, but it didn'twork.

(50:33):
I ain't the right.
I'm just not built for thatstuff, man.
It ain't for anybody man.
I tried.
My mother and father beenmarried 51 years man.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
We got to bring Ish on to talk about how you stayed
with the same person for a longtime.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
Oh yo, yo don't bring Ishawn because he's going to
start cracking jokes.
He's going to start tellingstories about us when we was
kids.
I don't want him to tell themstories.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
You know, ishawn was on a podcast one time he was
talking about uh, it wasScientology.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm going to tell you.
You want to know at yeah, youknow?
Do you know how it got intoscientology?
no in 2010, when I came backfrom south africa, ishmael said
somebody had sent him a pictureof a nation of islam's laborer
meeting with a chair and on thechair had the letters cos

(51:24):
reserve cos.
I said, ish, that's the churchof scientology.
He's like what I said oh, ish,let me tell you, I just came
back from South Africa.
I just spent a year and a halfin the Church of Scientology
getting my daughters out.
He was like what?
I said yeah, I'm the one thatput Ish on Scientology.
I'm the one that brought thatto him.
I'm the one that put him onthat matter of fact.

(51:44):
Man issued a whole breakdownbefore ferricon, before ferricon
could get a chance to tell youhe was a scientologist.
We exposed him before he couldeven come out of his mouth and
say it.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
We made him say wait a minute, wait a minute.
So hold on.
You got your daughters out ofscientology.

Speaker 2 (52:01):
You said my yep, my, my, my wife, my ex-wife, took my
daughters to south africa she'sa South African citizen Took
them there and they were in theChurch of Scientology.
When I got to Africa, she hadthem in the Church of
Scientology.
And guess what I did?
I infiltrated that shit, got inand do what I do.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
Master the information I already knew it.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
They thought I was already on some high level.
They got this thing called OTs.
The OTs are the secret societyof Scientology.
The OT means the operatingthetan, t-h-e-t-a-n, t-h-e-t-a-n
.
A thetan or a thetan operatingthetan.
A thetan or a thetan, a thetanoperating thetan.

(52:50):
So I got a white turban on, Igot all white on.
I'm in.
You know, we build and we addno one's going to do said are
you an OT?
I said no, I'm a Sufi man, I'mjust a Muslim B he said oh man,
your information sounds like OTinformation.
So I started laughing.
I said well, that's because LRon Hubbard studied Sufism, he
stole pieces of it.
He said that he gives honor tothe, to the, to the, to the

(53:12):
avatars of the 14th and 15thcentury from the Middle East.
That's Islam, sufism.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
Now real quick before we, before we, before we move
on.
Thank you, let's hope I.
I really appreciate that $20.
He says you're right, brother.
He said he says Syracuse, andespecially Ithaca, kind of
reminds me of East St Louis,close confined quarters, real
serious people.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
Yeah, ithaca, yo, my daughter's living in Ithaca.
Actually, my ex-wife just movedback to Ithaca.
I got a whole History downthere too.
Ithaca is a beautiful.
That's where Cornell Universityis.
Cornell University has thebiggest Hip-hop historical

(54:01):
Memorabilia Museum In the worldIs on Cornell University.
Over a million pieces ofhip-hop history Is on Cornell
University.
Over a million pieces ofhip-hop history is on Cornell
University.
It's a museum.
Did you know that, brother?

Speaker 1 (54:15):
I had no idea.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
You need to take a trip and do your podcast, take
your podcast up there and do awhole thing on that joint B.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
Yeah, that's one of the ideas.
My first thought was to go toSyracuse first.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
Come here, man, I take you out there.
We ride out.
As a matter of fact, ithaca isdope because Ithaca got the
Roots Festival coming up, theReggae Festival coming up, they
got the Dragon Boat RacingFestival.
Because Ithaca is on a lake, alake surrounds Ithaca as well.
Ithaca is dope.
Ithaca is on a lake, a lakesurrounds Ithaca as well.

(54:50):
Ithaca is dope.
Ithaca is dope B.
I like Ithaca, man, I like it.
It's dope, real dope.
That's an environment that'sconducive for you know you can
take something there and start amovement and just take the time
.
And yo take something there andstart a movement and just take

(55:12):
the time.
It's so much talent there, it'sa whole center.
It's the Southside CommunityCenter over there.
I got access to that centerbecause my daughter, fiance,
mother, dr Nia she's theexecutive director of the center
, somebody you might even wantto contact and get in contact
with and do an interview withher on the history of Ithaca.

Speaker 1 (55:35):
Yeah, that'll be peace for sure, for sure.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
But I can connect that for you too, if you need me
to.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
Yeah, that'll be, that'll be peace.
Well, before we cut out, man, Iwant to say this man, I'm going
to send this video straight tomy sister who has my nephew in
Syracuse I don't know where youare.
Devon Peace to you.
I miss you man, love you nephew.
I got to go out there to seeyou.
I got to go out there tocapture the history of Syracuse

(56:04):
and all that and, of course, tosee you.
Love you always.
Your uncle Ron Brown, aka I.
Supreme Allah, and, on thatnote, thank you for coming out.
Shake Denim L Really appreciateyou.
Thank you for all the viewersfor watching us, and we're out
of here.
Peace.

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