Episode #154 w/ Shannon Holmes

Shannon Holmes didn’t enter the literary world through classrooms or creative writing programs—he wrote his first novel from a prison cell.

Born and raised in the Bronx, Shannon served five years for drug-related charges. While incarcerated, he picked up a pen for the first time—not to write a letter home, but to write what would become his breakout novel: B-More Careful. With no formal training and only a GED, Shannon tapped into something real, raw, and revolutionary.

That debut sold over 500,000 copies, landed him a two-book deal with Simon & Schuster, and helped establish the entire street lit genre. He followed up with bestsellers like Bad Girlz, Never Go Home Again, and made history by becoming the first street lit author with a hardcover release.

In this episode of Dog in the Yard, Shannon opens up about writing from behind the wall, signing major publishing deals, and using literature to flip his narrative. From incarceration to inspiration, this is a story about hustle, redemption, and the power of storytelling.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Himself.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
That'll be hope a South darks a over your mouth,

(01:04):
redulous clear? That's right?

Speaker 3 (01:29):
What up?

Speaker 2 (01:29):
What else?

Speaker 4 (01:30):
You already knows? Your boy pistol P walking back the
dog in the yard. Today we got Shannon Holmes in
the building. Uh, the brother super talented, you know what
I'm saying, super focused, been to jail, in and out
of prison. Realized that he was gifted, you know what
I'm saying, and what he does in his craft and

(01:50):
take it to a different level.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
And with that being said, let's get right to it. Man.
Your boy pistol P dog in the yakup?

Speaker 5 (01:58):
What are you?

Speaker 2 (01:59):
He knows your boy pistol Pete walking back the dog
of the yard? Today?

Speaker 4 (02:01):
We got shed him home in the building. I mean,
be more careful in the building.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
What's up? Brother? You have you? Man? What's uping? Yeah,
I'm a little short guy, man, you know what I mean?
You want to get all me on me?

Speaker 5 (02:15):
Shot?

Speaker 2 (02:17):
He got in here as soon as he saw me. Damn, Pete,
I thought you was the real talker.

Speaker 5 (02:23):
I thought you was all the years I've seen you
through the media, through the media.

Speaker 4 (02:27):
I'm five, man, I thought I ain't never real Midge
Man but there man, I just like you know.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
I love it, man, I love it. What's up, my brother?
You been man?

Speaker 5 (02:39):
I'm good. I can't complain, man, I'm just you know,
one day at a time.

Speaker 4 (02:43):
Yes, sir, that's what I can say. For those that
will know you. Man, let's just get right to it.
Let these brothers know where you're from, where you you know,
where you was raised. Bring a little bit about you
and uh and what caused you to you know what year?
What caused you to go to Christian Yeah? Yeah.

Speaker 5 (03:00):
My name is Shannon Holmes. I'm the last of six.
I got a twin sister named Chanta. I'm from the Bronx,
New York. We're from Uptown. So it's like X in
the building uptown. That's Gunhill, White Plaine, Boston Road, co All.
That's uptown.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Okay, So that's the area.

Speaker 5 (03:18):
You know when it's funny because it's funny because dudes
from the South Bronx were thinking they harder than douce
from uptown.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
From the South Bronx.

Speaker 5 (03:27):
That's always but that's always been an issue. But do
from uptown from dudes from the South Bronx moved uptown.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, you know, but it's just always been like that.
It's the other side of Bronx.

Speaker 5 (03:38):
Yeah, so that's a little robbery. I mean, you don't
come with you don't come there, you know, if you.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
Were all from the Bronx. Yeah, bottom line, right.

Speaker 5 (03:44):
That's that's the that's the big thing. But you know,
me and my mayor we had to laugh about that,
like that crazy. You know, I ain't that crazy. But
you're from uptown. I wasn't born there. I was born
uh in Harlem, uh Flower Fifth Avenue. My parents, you know,
they was born I mean, it wasn't born in Harlem.
It was born down south. But they moved to Harlem
and uh they lived on Cypress. I wasn't born yet.

(04:07):
My other siblings lived on Cypress and then they moved
to Davison.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
What what the Cypress?

Speaker 5 (04:13):
I can't tell you what. I wasn't born, so I
wasn't really, but I know that Davison seven four and Davison,
So we was right there. So my grandmother lived in
River Park Towers and stuff like that. My my family
lived on University and McCombs still do to this day,
you know what I'm saying. So that's wee from like
West Bronx. You know what I'm saying, South Bronx type wet.
I got family, got a big family, so we got

(04:34):
family all over the Bronx Bronx Bronx.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah. Thing.

Speaker 5 (04:38):
So my father was a transit work My father was
a motiven or conductor, conductor, I believe it was. So
my father was a conductor. And you know, he called
a little jack, called a nice little job, and he
moved us uptown to the Bronx the house, you know
what I'm saying. So and uh, like I said, I'm
the last six. I come from a military family. So
when I was eight years old, it was expected that

(04:59):
I was supposed to go to the military. But eight
years I see hi, because I got a brother that's
ten years older than me. I got a brother that's
five years older than me. So my brother left when
I was when I was eight, he was eighteen, he
went to the military. My other brother left when I
was twelve or thirteen. He went early because he finished

(05:20):
school at seventeen. My parents signed them in. So it
was expected for me to go to the military. But
I knew at eight years old I wasn't going to
the military because I didn't like taking my father's orders.
So I couldn't see me, couldn't see me taking orders
from a stranger yelling in my face. And my brothers
would come back with these stories from basic training or
web around the world, and you know, I'd be like, man,

(05:40):
I wasn't feeling it because you know, I wasn't feeling
authority figures like only your face young. This is when
the military was the military. There wasn't no timeouts. This
is the seventies and the eighties. Military's military was different. Yeah,
it was different. So it ain't none of that. This
culture right here is gen z and Yo get a
time out and see something, say something of them. Safeguard
sens to protect that. So I just knew I wasn't

(06:03):
going to the military, but I didn't know I was
going to prison. I had no idea because if you
ask anybody, if I can remember my uncle telling me,
he said he said to me, said, Yo, I thought
you'd be the one that make it. I said, I
did make it. This is a whole lot of years
after your thought I would.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (06:24):
So I think success is defined by the by the person.
Whatever you deemed successful, then that's the success. If you
for you, if it's just getting out of the street
with your life, you and your own right. I don't
let nobody put those stipulations on me. But the first day,
those those stipulations coming from my family, those stipulations were

(06:44):
on me. But I became the only person in my
family to not graduate from high school. I dropped out
so Crack and Washington, d C. But my I came up.
I just had to. I wouldn't say the disadvantage. I
had had a good family upbringing, mother, father, the father,
been married long than I've been alive, lived in the house.
But people got a misconception about houses. People think that

(07:07):
you live in the house, you're rich. My cousins thought
we were richerscause we lived. No, my father just had
ten thousand to put on the house. That's it.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
That's it.

Speaker 5 (07:14):
And people think everybody.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
Just moved another area.

Speaker 5 (07:18):
So and then the eventually the bad shit follows you.
It catches up to you. The neighborhood changes too. The
neighborhood goes through changes like a person goes through changes
from bad to worse or from worse to good. Those
are two things the neighborhood can do. So it was
always thought that I was going to the military. But
like I said, I did, and I came a bag
in the cracker And I said this before. I said,

(07:42):
if my friends were selling cars, then I'll be a
called salesman. But my friends sold crack, So I sold crack.
And a lot of people don't think that tear pressure.
Peer pressure is alive. It's alive and well, and then
you get on them, then you get in jail because
tear pressure. I seen dudes do things that they it
wasn't in them to do at all. It wasn't in

(08:05):
them to do. And that's tear pressure. They gotta do
it because everybody's watching. If they were by theyself and
this dude bumped them, they would let it go because
that's not them, but because they men saw it. So
it's just little things like that. So for me, you know,
I was a good kid, gone back, went bad good.
But I've never had I never had those moral issues

(08:28):
as far as I did bad things, but I did
them with some type with some type of class, or
didn't violate the way a lot of people violate the game.
I didn't violate the game, the code of the game
like some people do that they become things that they're not.
Some people become killers and that's not in them. I
understood what my role was, and I played my role.

(08:50):
Okay I didn't. No, I wasn't. I was there trying
to shoot everything that wasn't me. I always had the
ability to be liked wherever I was, you know, and
in the streets, I just had good bad guys, A
charm that back to back. When he came from in
the street, it was it was some type of structure.

(09:11):
It was men were men. If dudes told, they went
down south. We never saw him again. Yeah, he told,
but he's not around here. He didn't come back to
the block. He's gone here, He's gone, he out the way,
you know what I'm saying. But now that's not the case.
But that's a whole different thing. So I grew up
with this family military structure. My one brother would become

(09:34):
a cop. My other brother will become a CEO. That
my other brother was who was the transit cop, he
would become a court officer. And that was my family.
Like you know, my criminality didn't run on my mother's
side of the family. It ran on my father. Ran
rampant on my father's side. It was cousins that when
the North we never seen him again, died in jail,

(09:56):
it was his cousins that did twenty two. Whatever they
did or had a and that would just giving them,
give them life for an installment plan, a year here,
five years here, whatever the case it was. But that
ran on my f on my father's side. But because
my father was who he was, My father was like
the disciplinarian up to my family, of my whole family,
if you didn't have a father, my father would gladly

(10:17):
come over there and whoop your ass for his sister.
His sister could not call him and say such and such,
this such and such in my house. Okay, I'll be
right over there. That's how That's how it was back then,
you know what I'm saying. So my father was that
type of god. My father was very hands on. He
kicked ass like. My father was a big dude, you
know what I'm saying. So people were looking at like, share,

(10:37):
how the fuck you do what you do with your
father like that?

Speaker 2 (10:42):
So whip.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
You know.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
I grew up, get it, get as.

Speaker 5 (10:50):
I take the ass. I'm gonna stay out. I stayed
out too late. I told you to be here, yo,
but you know what I say, I get.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
I ran into the bathroom right away.

Speaker 5 (11:02):
So my father was that got stern, disciplinarian military man.
You know what I'm saying, big rough hands smacked me
so hard one time I thought he punched me. I said,
what I do? I knew what the fuck I did?

Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yeah, damn right school, poor bom.

Speaker 5 (11:18):
We just came in the house. Ain't saying nothing, bum
smack me. So it was that type of I did
have come from a structured environment, and I was just
one of those kids who never should have been in
the king to be honest, to be frank, I should
have never been there because that wasn't the path I had.
My life was already planned out for me. My father
had me taking what's that civil service exams at sixteen

(11:40):
years old, was passing them. You cannot put a multiple
choice in front of me, and I feel that test
the answer is right there. So but at nineteen they
called me Transit called me guess who I was? To
my first state incarceration. I can hear the pain. I
still hear the pain in my mother's voice. She said, Transit,

(12:00):
call here for you today, like damn, because you never
think as a kid, I lived summer. The summer. You
never think that you ain't that far happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
Won't be looking that far. You'll we won't be thinking
that far.

Speaker 5 (12:13):
I mean because you know, being in the game, people
told you that you can get rich, but nobody ever
told me I can get killed. Not one person said, yo,
you know this could happen until that shit started.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
Jail forever.

Speaker 5 (12:22):
Yeah, till that ship started. We don't take that into account.
We're young, we invincible, we got it in us. That's
why you see these kids crashing out because they got
the time. I don't got that type of time.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
They got crashing the fun out right now.

Speaker 5 (12:35):
I don't got that type of time. I'm not never
coming twit. I'm gone. That's my life at this point.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 5 (12:41):
I'm gonna be honest. So you know, it's like you
got to pick your battles, man, choose yse man, you
know what I'm saying. So I try to stay out
the way. That's what I try to do. Man, I
don't understand the gang culture now that's taking over New York,
and that's not my thing. We didn't grow up like that.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
We grew up different.

Speaker 5 (12:56):
You know. It was cruise blocks, that was the thing.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
It was blocks.

Speaker 5 (12:59):
Yeah, that's what drew me into the block that I
eventually got on, which is Bosston, Roll and Fish. I
went to school with all these kids. So who you
go to school with sometimes determines who what your life
is gonna be. So when that wave hit, that's what
they got into and then eventually sold it. I and

(13:20):
I was playing ball. How I started selling crack. I
started I was playing ball. That was my thing, going
from uptown. And it's not a place uptown that I
didn't walk that I haven't been like I was. I'm not,
I'm not. I was well known. I wasn't a popular kid,
but people know me how our name s Yeah yeah,

(13:42):
So that that that's what it was. So I played ball.
So when you play ball, you make friends. Though ball
makes you make friends. Ball is it's an unwritten language.
If you could play ball and you're just you're talking
to each other with the basketball. So I would know
people from Gunhill from a Genter, from uh from east
Chester Project, from whatever, because.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
I went from the you go you go have runs
your thing, right, So but them same people, they gravitate
into the streets too, So you get to know people
like you know, you just get to know a lot
of people just about playing balling the same thing in jail.

Speaker 5 (14:18):
A few nights in jail. You know, Yo, give me.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
Slim right, yell, make friends.

Speaker 5 (14:25):
You know what I'm saying. So it's just it's a
social thing. So and so in so many ways, so
is selling drugs social. You know what I'm saying. You don't.
I don't know nobody who just came out the box
or who father put them on. You know what I'm saying.
You gotta know somebody to know somebody. So me, coming
from basketball practice, my friend was like, Yo, you you hungry.
I'm starving you hungry. Yeah, just sit right here with

(14:47):
me about you then you want, alright, give me chicken
wing French fries, Go order it, go, order it. Come
back in the money. I'm sitting here chicken wing French
fries and what you call it, watching him do his thing.
And that's how I got. That was my inductory today.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
You said, oh, this is how you're doing this.

Speaker 5 (15:03):
Yeah, so and and and back then you had to
know somebody. So he was in so he it was
like tag. So they know me, but they don't know
me for that. So the old man. Yeah, it was
a cold sign. You couldn't just come on the block.
Back then. You had to know somebody, the older dudes.
That's how it was an apprenticeship program. It wasn't just

(15:24):
you we got some lawsuit money you came on on
the block. I saw a lot of dudes get I
seen him get run off the block. Dudes ain't giving
a funck who your father was, who your brother is.
You know what I'm saying, Yo, you've been you put
it work out here. If it wasn't, you gotta go.
You can't just lie up just because you got some money.
Now they're not respecting that. It wasn't It wasn't the
respect the money the way it's respected down the streets.

(15:47):
You know what I'm saying that they'll say, oh, I said,
well he told but he got money. Though.

Speaker 4 (15:51):
It's different now now you get Now you get the
bag and you're the gangster.

Speaker 5 (15:55):
Yeah, so it works you reverse now. Yeah, So dudes
get get legal money and turn the illegal and buy
their way into the street and start buying work with
the illegal car accident money. It's crazy and the other.
But back then it was dude trying to get out
the street with illegal money. So that's pretty much that.
That was pretty much what it was for me uptown.

(16:15):
Just that association. And they say association breeds similarity. I
was like fourteen, so change. So when we hit, like
we was the first raid of adolescence. But I didn't
get in. I gott. I caught a couple of cases,
but not enough just to you know, shit, not enough
to you know, like nah, you know what I'm saying.
You seeing and and you know, when dudes and you know,

(16:37):
eighty six hit, dudes started going out of town getting money.
So we seeing dudes coming going out there broke and
coming back with bazins one nineties, three hundreds, you're like, yo,
we want that. Yeah, like what's going on out there?
But they going and going and they're coming back with
the stories. So now we on the block, chilling on

(16:58):
the cars and the back yard. I was off there
knocking nagads out like they jumped out of windows, you
know what I'm saying. So it was like, you know,
you know, so we were we we hung on. It
wasn't like these young kids today, our us, and there
were totally different. We hung on these dudes' words for
for older dude to acknowledge you, like yo, it was like,
oh he know my name. He a giant, he know

(17:21):
my name. Like you go to the store for me.
You took Finn like y'all. You know, you wanted to
be around them and they be yelling at them. But
them same thuds. They protected their lives with theirs. They was.
They was willing to do that for you. So if
it was, it was so it was kind of like sad,
but it was kind of like a beautiful thing. It
was something. So for me, I didn't have my brothers

(17:43):
at home. I had my father at home, but I
couldn't relate to my father. I didn't really want to relate.
You know, it's always an age.

Speaker 4 (17:50):
It's always crashed with your dad, with your mom.

Speaker 5 (17:54):
Then you start coming to the age. So my fuck
would tell me like yo, sharn and now you're going
to at sometain point he said, you on the gym.
He said, only three things ready for you, jam, the army,
or the graveyard. What's it gonna be? I'm thinking none
of him, you know, but he knew something that I
didn't know. He went through that dope error. He pulled

(18:15):
me to the side.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
And he said, wisdom. He had wisdom, So he.

Speaker 5 (18:20):
Pulled me to the side and said, you know, like
when he saw me going wrong, like yo, shaar and man,
I had a friend tell me his friend's the name
and knew his friend. He said, Uh, I used to
hang with him all the time, but when he started
selling dope, I had to get away from him because
I didn't want that for my family. And he said,

(18:40):
he said to me, he said, now look at him
and look at me. Now I got the house, I
got the three cars. Look at him all legit. Yeah,
he said, you gotta look over my shoulder for nothing,
because I ain't doing nothing of nobody. My father was.
He is incorruptible, like he had this danded about him,

(19:01):
like you couldn't fool him with the with the with
the VC, with the bricks in the back of the v.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
You couldn't just throw them.

Speaker 4 (19:05):
Tell yo, we just got a lick with with with
the credit card with the word what you got food stamps?

Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yo? Two for four dollars.

Speaker 5 (19:17):
If it's too good to be true, it's too good
to be true.

Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, it's just good to be true. He lived his life,
he passed, he passed on.

Speaker 5 (19:24):
He lives his wife a certain way, and that's the
how he's gonna die that way and that way with that. Yeah.
So he told me one time, he said, I don't
know how you do all that time in jail. He said,
one day in jail is too much for me. I'm like,
I got eleven years and told I'm giving these dudes
installment life on an installment program. Until I met a
kid in jail which just changed my life, changed the

(19:47):
course of my life completely. Just a cheers meeting, but
I know him from the street. Actually he had got
shot in front of me.

Speaker 2 (19:56):
So what you went to jail? That what caused you
to go to jail?

Speaker 5 (19:58):
Someding cried.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
So she went to jail for drugs.

Speaker 5 (20:01):
I went to jail for drugs at eighteen.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
Okay, in eighty eight and eighty eight. And then how
much time I did?

Speaker 5 (20:07):
I had eight years. I did three and a half
the first time it came back in game like two like,
so I did like five and a half on eight
max it out and that was that. Done with it.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
I'm done with it.

Speaker 5 (20:16):
But I kept catching cases. I was that dude.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
I wasn't put in, so you got you can't hold
you did you did for your first bid? You did?

Speaker 1 (20:22):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (20:23):
You was just that was that was my first state bid.
And I did a bid on the island.

Speaker 4 (20:27):
Okay, let's talk about the first time you ever went
to jail. You went to Records Island. Okay, how was
that feeling and what you felt when you was going
over whatever?

Speaker 5 (20:35):
I mean that day I was selling crack and Nigga
was like, yo, this is when they first formed T
and T, the detact the Task Force in New York City.
So I'm, you know, juggling, My man stops me, like yo,
old the dude, like yo, you know what that dude
right there he won some. I was like, what served them?

(21:02):
They ran down on me. I swallowed the crack. They
was like, yeah, we're gonna make you put you to sell. Well,
you got shoot out the cracks. They never did that.
I followed them ships and followed them. They tried to
choke me because I was spitting them out because there
was in the vals back there almost like the raisins.
Stoot them out. You serve them, you know what I'm saying.
It's how you keep not not get back with the
work on. You went around with like about five.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Ye yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 5 (21:23):
So when we get that exactly so boom, so I
got so I got locked up for that. I thought
I was going was in the last pin on our
way back to the island. They remanded me. My man
bailed me out. The nigga was working for bailed me out.
Uh So what happened was so I thought I wasn't

(21:44):
going to joab the Squeaky Crean record, right, squeaky clean
record up until that point, and it's like nah, they
had So they ran me to the Supreme Court. And
that's when I knew something fishy was going on. I
was in bronx criminal these random me some Supreme So
this particular day, nobody's there, like my mother's not my
father s, THEYD don't know what my mother. My mother

(22:05):
kept that shit away from my father because she knew
my father would kill me, so she was willing to
put her her marriage is jeopardy. Then half her father, Mama,
half my father. Really know what I was in there
for a video. I caught a little couple of beers
cases around the stolen car, but I wasn't driving. All
type of possession of burglar tooths, all type of dumb stuff,

(22:25):
little kids stuff, fun stuff. Right, So he still thinks
I'm going to call for that, But now I'm going
to court for the sale. So the the public defender
comes by me to come comes come back, comes back
to me. You know, you're in the court room by yourself.

Speaker 6 (22:40):
She said, you know you might be going to jail today.
I said what she said, Yeah, you might be going
to jail today because it was talking about probation the
whole time. So they stumbd me up. He'll call my
docking numbers.

Speaker 5 (22:54):
That's that's very like kind of like, that's very intimidating
the state of New York versus being in home docking
number through police bars and you know, come up in there.
So the judgment was like, you got anything to say
before I sent it you. I was like, yeah, my
mother couldn't be here today because she got a bad heart.

(23:15):
He said, your mother couldn't be here to day because
she's ashamed of you. Her youngest son in the highest
corner of the land. Take him away. Oh fucking about,
you're talking about sick. I'm in the bullpen when niggas
from up north and underneath the court. The dude's up north,
coming back on the pild and know nothing about this
young dude go to the uh way, I go to

(23:38):
six building, said this, I gotta split centers. Got ninety
days and five years for obasing type shit. So you know,
it's just it's you see people oh that you don't
was you din't know where they was at. But you
running into people that you yeah, exactly, so you know
for upper and you know blah blah blah. So it
wasn't enough to like, yo, damn you know going back there.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
So you did your little three months.

Speaker 5 (24:01):
Till my little three she came, went right back into
high school, came on probation. But now this, at this time,
OT is getting popping more and more. It's getting to
the point where it's not who who who on the block?
Who out of town? Everybody's trying to make that out
of town move. Now, my first out of town move
a man a man with my man Rambo and toy
God bless her dead toy that killed in Baltimore.

Speaker 7 (24:23):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (24:24):
We went out there. So my mother was like, what
what you at all day? Back then it wasn't no
cell phones, couldn't call you like you Remember we just
said we got to deal with that ship. When you
get home, I said, I quick thinking me, I said,
I want the great adventure. She said, all day he
was going. I said, yeah, the bus broke down the
highway contact jacket.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yah.

Speaker 5 (24:49):
So so she rode with that. But really I was
in d C. We went to d C.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
We had to add bust and move.

Speaker 5 (24:55):
Had the address, took the took the crack down there,
sold out. When we had someone dassy as like sixteen
years old to go out there, and a dude that
was maybe older, it's about like two years. We don't
know where we going. We just out in in in Washington,
d C. So that get that weren't my appetite for it, Like,
oh shit, kind of easy, so boom, like a New

(25:17):
York hustles is a hustle. It's a gritty hustle. It's
cut throat. You know, you're you're running for sales, all
that type of stuff.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
I got it.

Speaker 5 (25:26):
Yeah, no, no, no, he want me, he want my ship.
You know what I'm saying, it's rushing cars, it's all that.
That's what it was. That's what that's what it felt.
That's what it was on my block. So I went
from holding work to sell them work. You know what
I'm saying. It was always a natural progression. It's always
a room. There was always a packing order. And so
when we got out of town, you started seeing that
who was becoming the killers and who was You hear

(25:49):
about dudes doing their thing, and it was like for
us young niggas, we had a we had a young
nigga and everybody crew, so we knew what everybody was doing.
We didn't talk to them, but we talked them ourself
to each other, like yoga body and this he needs it.
So we knew, we knew, and we knew who was
willing to do what. The people who was willing to

(26:09):
do more advanced advanced because they had a propensity for violence.
That's always in the drug game. It's always room for
a dude, for enforcer. It's always a room. So I do,
I do the what you call the joint. And then
now DC's really started popping. Everything is starting to pop.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
I'll be moving back and forth, DC back boom.

Speaker 5 (26:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
I know.

Speaker 5 (26:28):
So I just said one time I got an opportunity
to go out there, I just I just left and
never came out. My mother took my clothes to my
sister house, to my favorite sister house. So I just said, Yo,
that school's always been there, but this money might not be.
That was my thinking. That was my sick, twisted thinking
at that time.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
I mean, you know when you you you think you
got it all, figured it out.

Speaker 5 (26:51):
Yeah, bro. So you know my father was like, YO,
don't bring that ship around here. But that's I don't
know who you deal with, don't bring that And who
am I to tell them about his safety? Who am I?
You know? But but again we didn't come from that,
you know. I was a I grew up Catholic, in
the Catholic household man, went to want to went to
church every Sunday, But I never got that feeling in church.

(27:14):
Like you say, they say two things prevent you from
doing something, and like bad things in life, hell or jail,
your spiritual belief in the in the Almighty that's right,
or your fear of jail. It's a lot of regular
people would kill if they thought, if they knew, they

(27:36):
wouldn't have to go to jail, because jail is the
unknown until you get there. Until when you get there,
you don't feed no more. You go through it like
I did this this get bit, I didn't I know
what I was. Yeah, I didn't fear no more, not
knowing that. I didn't know that the vast amounts of
times that was on the line though. And like I
said earlier, when you're young, had all the time in

(27:57):
the world, So I ain't say the time was time
is never easy, but when you know how to do it,
when you learn how to do it. Like a guy
told me, he once told me in jail when I
first got to the state joint in Maryland, in Hagerstown,
he said, Yo, we don't I don't. We don't walk
in no crowds. You get stabbed walking the crowds would

(28:17):
be the first one to that child or the last one.
But you don't walk in no crowd, he said. I
was walking next to somebody, hit the dude in front
of me, skipped over me, hit the dude next to me.
Don't walk in no crowd. So I was always like,
people always saw something in me, like, yo, you're not
supposed to be here, and it was right. They was right.

(28:38):
But at the same time, you know this, this this,
this was my existence at this time. So I had
to adapt the name of The game is adapt and adopt.
You have to adapt when Rome doing Roman's due. You
know what I'm saying. You have to or dudes want
want over you.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
You have to know all the choice. If not over, yeah, if.

Speaker 5 (28:53):
You're not willing to take it to the extent that
the next man is willing to take it and they
don't know, you better have a hell of a bluff game.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
So then you came home like he.

Speaker 5 (29:01):
Did the three and a half one, the eight came
home right back to it, right back to it.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
How long you was out this time?

Speaker 5 (29:08):
I don't know how long I was out? Man? Yo,
this one time? Yeah, this time, I think I was out?
What's out for like a month? Bro called a new one.
You talk about.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
Sick, you talk about the same thing.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Drugs just on my dog.

Speaker 5 (29:22):
I'm got no guns on my All I do is drunks.
Baby's all I trying to get it, you know what
I'm saying. So you talk about nigga sick. I was
in Jersey, got corner on the turnpike. I was sick.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
That's the worst six Jersey too.

Speaker 5 (29:37):
Remember that commerciales you get caught in Jersey just to
hear that the gates It was conversing like that.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
Go through your mind while you while they pulled your
What was going.

Speaker 5 (29:50):
Through my mind was how sick I was. I just
came home, Yeah, and it was time toing. It was
like I did three years, I did the eight year joint,
did five on that two to four, and I did
a five flat.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
Okay, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 5 (30:07):
But then I had to wind up giving other jurisdictions
the time that I owed them, so I had to
go back to PA two to four, had to go
back yes for the violations. So so I felt like
mab Deep when that mab Deep album dropped, that that
was my life. Sometimes I wish I had three different faces.
I'm going to court for three cases in three places.
I was going on ritz. I thought I was in

(30:27):
the FEDS. After I finished this what I'm going on
this doing? And I finally came home and uh and
doing that last bit?

Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yeah what time you? What year you finally came home?

Speaker 5 (30:36):
Two thousands?

Speaker 2 (30:37):
Two thousands? You've been home since since? Yeah?

Speaker 5 (30:39):
I don't do nothing, you know what I'm saying. So
I don't, I don't, I don't get it. I'm not
I'm not. I don't move like that like, there's no
sense of me hanging out. It's nothing to do what
I'm I hanging out for. It's not be grown man now,
you know, and you know life is taking us in
different directions? Was what was?

Speaker 2 (30:57):
What year is that?

Speaker 5 (30:58):
Two thousand? I came home, so let me set the
book thing up. So I meet the kid and I
was in Pennsylvania locked up quarter quarter being to como
off another drug case. Uh, prior to me coming to jail,
I almost get shot. Everybody thinks I got shot because
me and this kid we had the same Columbia raincoat on.

(31:19):
You know, we vote from the Bronx. We vote from
New York. So when we go home, we go shop.
We don't shop out there. We shop in New York hood.
We so we were wearing well you know what New
Yorkers is wearing at that time.

Speaker 4 (31:29):
Right.

Speaker 5 (31:29):
So he's telling me and walking up the block with him.
I just came back and looking for some kid who
owed me some money and and and I bumped into him.
Yo what up? You're like, Yo, what up? And it's
kind of like the block is kind of like Bannon,
there's a popping block. It's like you're like almost like
what the fuck.

Speaker 7 (31:46):
Is going on?

Speaker 5 (31:47):
What happened? And he's like, yo, I got something to
tell you. I said, what said? Yo? We got to
shoot out with them niggasla.

Speaker 6 (31:53):
I'm like what.

Speaker 5 (31:54):
Because I'm not see they them dudes are a little
bit younger than me. So they tried to fit in.
They tried to staying out instead of fitting in me.
I was fitting in with the locals. Got a local
girl out there, I'm moving and I'm playing fie with
these dudes.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
So they loved you, not them niggas.

Speaker 5 (32:10):
They want to, you know, funk all. They they want
to all their girls and take their money. And when
you do that, you neive a man no recourse but
to kill you. It's gonna be issues. But they were
young enough to Again, they were young enough to do that.
For me, that wasn't my thing. And one thing about
out of town, they think all of us are together.
I don't know him.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
They think he's from New York.

Speaker 5 (32:30):
Just to count you from New York, you know him?

Speaker 1 (32:34):
Yo?

Speaker 5 (32:35):
When I was locked up out of town, they just
asked me from Queens. I don't like. But that's the ideology,
is that just because from you from New York, we
all know each other, but they don't really realize how
big New York is. That's why nobody could ever know.
No one person could ever take off of New York.

(32:55):
It's too big, too big. So you know, so so
so uh. As he's telling me the story, we walked
past an alley. I look, that's a bunch of kids
huddled up. I'm like, yo, what up? I get this,
like y'all that shit didn't even feel right, niggas. That

(33:16):
got wrapped for me. But it wasn't for me. It
was for him because of who I was. What association? Again?
He like, Yo, can I get someone? I'm like yeah,
cause I'm trying to hit you know, yeah, I guess
some work. If I got a back for you, my man,
I got to tell you cool. So then we by
the time we get to the next otegree opening, so
this is the first atteway by the time we get

(33:37):
here to shoot her come from the back of those houses.
He like yeah, like, he like, yeah, what's up now, nigga?
I'm like, yo, so a manion thoughts went into your mind?
He got me dead to right, It's nothing I can
do if I wanted to do something. He has me
dead to right, you got to drop on us, but

(33:58):
it wasn't for me. Other nigga take off, he take
off after him.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
Bom bomb.

Speaker 5 (34:03):
What's something nigga bound bomb hit him in? So I said,
I said that to say this, that kid would be
influential in my life. Later in my life. I meet
him a couple of years later in the system, and
I was head he had changed because he was he
was a kid back. But now when I meet him,
was like twenty something now. But I met him then,
he no, he might be like twenty. He was maybe
like fourteen then, so his features have changed. I'm like,
so when you come in, you from New York and

(34:24):
another dude from New York. You're trying to figure out
you know where you're from? You don't know? S Yeah, bro,
yeah you from host Point. I'm from.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
You know, I'm regular ship.

Speaker 5 (34:35):
So you know, he said, Yo, sean to call me
down the street? Is I'm not alias? Because I realized
you had to have an aliens. When I was in DC,
I didn't have no eailiers. So I was in Baltimore,
I didn't have no aliens. But now I came up there.
The niggas telling so much to have to have an
aliens Sean so something close, something to where you would say,
that's his name, because what I realized was whatever they
knew you boy, that's what they're gonna call you, even

(34:55):
when they find out your real name, And if they
know your name is Peter Gonzalez, they'll call your pistol
pee because that's what they know you about it. Yeah,
so boom, so I said, let me give him a
real name, said a black or something like that. We
be sewing something believable, and that's what they weren't by it.
So he said, Sean, oh yeah, it's me divine. So anyway,
long story short, this kid wrote the book. So I

(35:19):
was impressed he wrote a book. But even talking to them,
I know I was smarter than them. I know how
some more things. I know I've done more things because
I ran with older dudes that was eight to ten
years and I was exposed to a lot more things
than they were because I'm wunning with older dudes. And
when you're wun with older dudes, you gotta move a

(35:39):
certain way. You can't beat them, knucklehead moving on the
older dog. You're not going to jeopardize this show for them.
You gotta fall in line and move how they move
away and think you better move right? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
they're not gonna have your round. If they found out
that you that you, that you got loose lips, you
might go around the building and it might never come
back around. Because that's how they because mother don't get

(36:01):
no stipulations, get no statues and limitations. That's how they plan.
So I meet the kid and U we just become
We just start talking about Boks said you, oh, you
wrote two books. Anybody's talking about him. So I said, okay,
you wrote. I said, I can least you wrote three books.
I said, I can at least write one. And myself
just figuring out what he knew that I don't know.

(36:21):
So me, I'm a naturally inquisitive kid. So I go
to the library and pick up a book about writing.
Before I write a word. I didn't know I had
this talent. It wasn't like I wanted to be a
writer in my whole life. And now I got the
time to know that wasn't the case. But I always

(36:42):
was a reader because the teacher, I mean, the dudes
and the older dudes in jail called the TV the
idiot box, and I never want to be labeled as
an idiot. And when they found out that I wanted
to read, they would feed me books, taking as a man,
thinking take this the hand that rock tray to rule
the world. Just I'm just consuming these books and and

(37:04):
and and why I'm I got all the time in
the world because Dick's books used to a thousand page
books used to intimidate me as a kid. I don't
want that book, Let me that thin book. I'll read
that one right there. Yeah yeah, yeah, But when you're
in jail, you got all the time in the world.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (37:18):
So I'm consuming thousand pages books and in a couple
like and every time I finished the book, I felt
good about, like I accomplished something, Like I papted myself
on the back, like I did that. And sometimes when
I got a good book, it didn't even matter what
they have for child, because all that mattered to me
was on the next page. You gotta read this.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
Ship, so you can't wait to get to the next page.

Speaker 5 (37:40):
Yeah yeah. You standing up the cell by the light,
you know, outside cause the lights cut off for ship,
So you standing up there just just reading the tear light.
You know what I'm saying, so boom, so uh. I
didn't even get to that before yet. I kind of
skipped the step. So I go to go to the
jail get a book by reading books. It's an old book.
Can I just read it? And I'm smart enough to understand,

(38:02):
I said, Joe, I don't speak the King of English.
I had to understand who I was speaking to, who
my audience was. So my next step was so in
that book it said a good book contains three basic
things conflict, struggle, drama, and change. Four things conflict, struggle, drama,
and change. I read that like twenty five years ago.

(38:22):
I never forgot those principles, and I was like, okay,
you know, so bam, I'm still not ready. I still
have a wrote in the world yet wrote nothing, but
I'm just taking this information, writing it down and I'm
burning it into my subconscious And what I didn't so
I never read his books because I didn't want to
be the second Hymn. I wanted to be the first me.

(38:43):
I was spalling enough to understand that. And when you're
a young writer, it's like young rapper, your influence easily influenced.
So what I went back and did I went back
and read the books that I thought that were good.
I went back and read that Donald Goys's Black Girl Lost,
my favorite book in the whole world. I went back
where the Sidney Sheltons. People don't know who Sidney Shelton is,
but he was responsible for a lot of things on TV.

(39:05):
I Dreamginie. But he had a book called Rajah Angels.
The Mirror has two Faces. If Tomorrow comes. I believe
May don't name his album that if Tomorrow Comes. I
imagine he got that from Sidney Shelton. That's that book
is mean. So went back and read these books, and
I started writing. I went't get me a little from
commons Sary, We won't get me a little hat on

(39:26):
a little hard little black books, writing in ps whatever
we want to.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
So I'm writing.

Speaker 5 (39:33):
But you know, I kept writing and and the so
I told this kid I was writing a book. The
other kid his name was Ohio Dwayne something. I forgot
his name. So he told me something. He said, Yo, Shannon,
get at the saurce get at the saurus in the dictionary.
I don't know why he said that. We never had
a conversation as to why he said that, but he

(39:53):
told me that I took that information and ran with it.
I went and got what he did then. So through
it's just like doing a frightening. It's like doing a
push up. At first you're physically weak, but through repetition
you become stronger. So now I got my wordplace and
now because nothing, what's gonna make me me? How I
say it? It's a million books out there, but I've

(40:16):
heard people say, yes, yeah. I heard people say I
write like sharing homes, but you're not sharing homes. It's
only one me. It's how I think people say, yo,
how you when you know how to stop the sentence?
I don't. It's just it's into it. It's just into it,
like I just know something tells me stop. It's just
like something on the street that tells that, that tells

(40:37):
me that since it's day, it's that same thing in
me that tells me that, you know how, you don't
what to write about. I get my title first, and
then I write around that title, so we'll be more careful.
My first book, it was a dude that was locked up?
What name be more? Whenever wherever you from out of town,
that's what they give you. Your nickname is you be more.

(40:58):
You know what I'm saying. I'm New York. So he
always just to say this. He always to say this
thing to me. He said, Yo, I'm from b Moore,
where you see more and you better be more careful. Slick.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
He was real slick with it. So I was like,
shut out to Baltimore, man, Yeah, yeah, shout out to d.

Speaker 5 (41:17):
Baltimore was like when I went to Baltimore, man, I
was shocked at how people lived out there. It was
just like depressing. Like I bought my man with me
one time. He was in Baltimore. It's a killer, he
said to me. He turned to me one day he said, Yo, Shannon,
I ain't see nobody smiles since we get out here.

(41:38):
Whoa right? So I go to Baltimore and that dope
hustle was a different hustle. Dog, I'll come from crack.
When niggas think they got it, I think they need
to have it, But dope, you really need it. It's
no playing with that's the physical ill.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
So boom physical disease.

Speaker 5 (41:57):
You know, you would look on the outside of a
house and it would be no ice, and you go
on the inside.

Speaker 6 (42:02):
That ship is fuck.

Speaker 5 (42:04):
You gotta stand in the middle of the floor. You
don't want to touch nothing, nothing, shit, bats and roaches
just fired up. So one day we in Baltimore and uh,
me and my man God bless the dad in Navon,
Me and my man Nyvon Horse was with me toy
toys when we both of them are dead. So Yvon

(42:24):
got killed in DC. Toy got killed in Baltimore. So
we we in this house right and I look out
the windows. A punch of young niggas in niggas gonna
kill us because we hustle out this nigga mother house. Yo.
We walk right out the front door like nothing never happened.
They ain't do nothing to us. Like imagine somebody hustling

(42:44):
at your mother's house, the shit that you would do,
the example that you would make. So we walked out.
I'm like, oh shit. So as we walk in, the
helicopter get on us, my man, like, yo, don't look
up like this is some south side I mean some
south south situation that she was like whoah, like over
top of the hell, like the helicopters right here, we
down on the street like that, and they got the

(43:06):
light on us just above the street lights. I mean, like,
don't look up, keep walking boom. So we see, we
see it, we don't look up. We're like, yeah, like
it's normal, but she ain't normal to me. But so
you get on us and go away. So we see,
like later on that night, we see this police beating
this lady's ass, I mean, whipping her out. I said

(43:29):
to myself, Yo, if he's doing that, the huh, what
the fuck would he do to me? So it was
just like it was things like that. But if anybody
that know anything about Baltimore, New York, they like sister cities.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
Dog.

Speaker 5 (43:42):
A lot of people from New York got family in Baltimore.
A lot of people from Baltimore got family in New York.
So a Baltimore dude in the system, a Baltimore dude
is the most I've ever met like a New York
dude maybe other than Newark. Okay, that's a close second too, Okay,
if it ain't a time, So I linked up like

(44:03):
I linked up with them, you know what I'm saying.
But I already had my so I didn't know what
I was gonna write about. But like I said, my
favorite story was Donald Going's Black Girl Loss. So I said,
I'm gonna write me a nineteen nineties black girl loss,
and so it was these girls. So when I was
coming home one year, I was on the bus coming home.
You know, niggas is telling stories on the bus. You

(44:24):
know you about to hit the bricks, right, Dude, was like, yo,
it's these pictures called called The Pussy Paid. They be
selling pussy and shit. And it's other picture is called
the Knock Them Down Girls, and they be selling pussy
and shit. One on the East side of the Boys
went on on the West side of the Boys.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
Moore.

Speaker 5 (44:39):
I wasn't writing yet, but I never forgot that story
cause you know, you going Jay, you had a million stories.
You remember, said you remember the good ones. So when
I started writing, I said, damn, I'm gonna call this click.
I said, knock them Down Girls, that's not marketable. The
Pussy Paid that name rings. So I just took two
characters and met them, made them at odds. One had

(45:02):
a mother, one had a family, one didn't. One was
light skinned, one was dark skinned, one was a go getter,
one was spoon fed. Wherever I made the one, I
made the other opposite because I don't believe two strong
people can hang together. You know, they got a clash
at some point. Somebody gotta be somebody gotta be submissive
and somebody would be aggressive in my story, that's what

(45:24):
I believe. So I built that around that concept of
these two girls Nettan me me and me. Nedda was
so so strong. I needed to lead a strong lead
character and let me go back to let me be
wind that little tape a little bit. So when I
was in PA, I said, I started writing. So they
used to put the papers out, you know, on the tier.

(45:45):
So this particular morning, I don't know what niggas was
doing at night, Saturday night, but they was up all
night playing or whatever they was doing. I cut out
the the the papers on a tier. Oh yeah, take
that shit and lock right back in with it because
I don't like, no, he's sitting me. Let me get
sports enough reading over your paper. So I locked in
and now I could read it read at my leisure. Yeah,

(46:06):
I give it you, but I'm finished. So in this
particular paper, it was a guy named Amari Amartarri is
a author from Philadelphia. He would a book called fly
Girl that I had read. I've read a couple of
his books on the way on a come up and
he was. It was like he was speaking to me
in this moment. He said, women are the biggest bies
of books. I said, if women are the biggest bies

(46:29):
of books, then I might have read some strong female
characters if I want to sell books, I want to
sell books. I didn't know what this book was going
to do, how it was going to go, but in
that moment, I was smart enough to take advice on
the fly. However I can get it. However, if it
wasn't a source magazine, if it wasn't a Vibe magazine.

(46:50):
That's why I said, I shadow people through media, and
now it's just so much more easier, Like I see
you through media until I see you in person. You
know what I'm saying. I'm seeing you down in Miami.
You know what I'm saying. You know, running with that
what's what's that? You're running with the what's that? What's that?

Speaker 6 (47:06):
Box?

Speaker 5 (47:06):
And not the uh not that not the box, not
blog I know from Brooklyn, No, no, something with the
other kid, the other kid who was the m M
A fighter oh back in the day. Yeah yeah yeah yeah,
well uh uh levels I think that's that that was
yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I see so i's to see

(47:28):
you in that type of stuff, so boom. So I
should shadow people in the media and just and just
pick up on the articles. So I found that article
and I just took that heat. And then I remember,
like my man, say, be more careful. I said, I'm
not right about Baltimore because I've never been affected by
a place like that in my life. Baltimore, and I
was around them dudes for a lot of years, like, Yo,

(47:48):
New York. You know what I'm saying. Everything with them
is they they yo is backwards. I was just like, Yo,
what's up? They like, what's up? Y'all? Yeah, so they
do they do that so different. So you know, I
met some good dudes in the system, and sometimes, as
my man was told me, you gotta lead the niggas
right where you find them. He said he went home

(48:09):
and broke law with somebody that he told on him.
Come believe it. But I was fortunate enough to meet
good people in and out the system. So I craft
my story. I'm crafting in by hand, by pencil, the
hard way. So I told him, I remember being in
the yard and tell them, some dudes, I'm writing the book.
You're talking about them niggas clown me, clown me crazy.

(48:31):
But my thing was just with that was like, you
you're writing this what they told me, you're writing a book.
We're gonna have a book signing, writing away, writing away path, right,
nigga told me. Nigga back yout He said, Yo, you're
gonna sign your book over this garbage and we're gonna
throw it in that one. I ain't right laughing this
shit tight man like I could afford them, probably can

(48:54):
beat all of them. I'm gonna beat some of them.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
But you have been there to be like, are you
I got something?

Speaker 5 (49:00):
You and your feelings. You know what I'm saying. You know,
A dude once told me, yo, yo, I don't deal
with feelings. I deal with men. Take them feelings and
melim home, thrown them, want the gate, Let the guard
show that I don't deal with feelings. I deal with men.
That's emotions for females. So I had to. I had
to suck that one in. You know, it hurt me,
but I didn't let them know how much they hurt me.
Six months later, I locked in that cell while they

(49:22):
wanted to talk about writing books. I was writing a book.
Came out and uh, it was this kid you skilled
to the library with me. My man. She from West Philadelphia.
Think he from the bottom. So we used to always
go to the library. It's always go to the library.
You know, you're off from the same ting. You don't
really know what you do, but you're on the same till.
It's just like what's up type of thing. So I

(49:43):
knew he was a reader. So one day I said, Yo,
I got something I want you to read. He said, yeah,
bring it down to myself. I bought a town to
him to sell it down to his tit before he
locked in. The next morning, he was at my gate, YO,
with a rest of this ship at He said, this
is exact words to me. He says, Shannon, you can

(50:06):
get a couple of dollars with this ship. I didn't
say this to him. In my mind, I'm good at
playing ship off. I just like stone faces like. But
I'm like what I said, he thinks this about me,
and he's not my friend. I got something here because
one thing I love about jail still shop and steal.

(50:27):
That means gonna tell you the truth. If you whack,
you whack. If you're nice, you nice. When the jail
stamped me, yo. They do not lie. They do not
no cut car. It's some It's the most hatefulst place
on the face of this earth. They don't want you
to get no mail or don't want you to going
on visits, but they will tell you the truth. So

(50:50):
when they when when when the jails told me that
I had it? I had it because many times when
you're write, you feel yourself, you fall in love with
every world you write. You think all this shit is hit.
But they became of my first editors, you know. And
now I got seventeen shots and then got oh what
thank you? You know you missed the doctor, you mister

(51:10):
period right here, Okay, thank you. You know what I'm saying.
So I'm taking all the all they little input. So
I had to make two copies of this book and
started voting around the let me get it next, let
me get started voting around the jail. So I started
coming into childhood niggas just point I see my mom
of roofew thinkgas is pointing right there. I could see
them whispering and point. I'm like yeah, yeah, yeah, they

(51:32):
talking about it. So boom, so I said, yo. I
decided at that point I didn't I didn't write. I
didn't write to sell books. I didn't write despite what
I was thinking. I didn't write to sell a book.
I was just writing to kill tom. I ain't have
no girlfriend. Girlfriend left me, dog bit me. Nobody was
writing me your men, you getting betters in your family.
But who wants some letters? You want them? I love you, baby,

(51:55):
and I can't wait for you to come home. So
I did time with a girl without a girl, and
thought I had a girl. You know what I'm saying.
But the freeze I really was during my time was
no no, no, no female living off. I was able
to focus on what and that was. That became my
focus because it was like yo, it was like what
they were saying to me, well you you are right
when you're on the street. Well you're not here. You

(52:16):
can't fuck with you. So they were saying to me,
like you you ain't gonna be Nobody ain't gonna be
gonna be as my mother used to call them back
and there jail bird. I was becoming when my mother
used to tell my sisters not to mess with and
I had to wake up. I'm slapping cards, lifting waights,
and one day I just woke up and said, y'all,
this ain't this ain't normal, This ain't right. I've took

(52:38):
an abnormal situation that normalize it. No one to lock in,
take it showers, and you know, I could tell time
in the jail just about just about what was going on.
I didn't have to see a clock or they walking
out to school or such such time. Seven o'clock hitdn't
do it. That was program too someone so boom. When
I woke up, like I said, the kid woke me up,

(52:59):
and I had to be by myself to find myself.
A lot of us we got all this noise in,
and we got all this noise in the in the world.
We're running, we're trying to get money, we're trying to
be multiple girlfriends, druggling drugs, having a good time.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
You try to be everything you know.

Speaker 5 (53:19):
And on the flip side of that's dudes in jail
who come to jail to be somebody. I never came
to jail to be somebody. I just I didn't want
to sell no minion for something. I want to sell drugs,
an I didn't you know that wasn't my plight because
I had it. I didn't want to take a little
bit of time to turn into a lot, to turn
some more because I seen dudes do that, and when
that day came that they were supposed to go home, like, damn,

(53:40):
I'd have been home to day if I didn't stab
old boy. Yeah, ain't telling me it's that. So I
just decided, you know, I was not. I just I
decided to play my role. Don't fuck with me though,
you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (53:53):
Like you was doing your own thing.

Speaker 5 (53:54):
Yeah, like I ain't. I ain't.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
I ain't really have the street go to jail, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (53:58):
But you know you still got a whole your own ship.
Like so it be that New York ship. So in jail,
it'd be like.

Speaker 2 (54:04):
It was different. It was different betting up there with
a bunch of people.

Speaker 5 (54:07):
You don't know. I had to make these out what.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
I'm saying, because you know it's different.

Speaker 5 (54:11):
It's different betting with somebody from your block that you know,
gotta hold you down, that can't go back, can't go home,
and say this happened to peak. But what you do,
because that's what it is on the block. What you do,
they're gonna have your head. You let these niggas jump.

Speaker 2 (54:25):
On what that's what.

Speaker 5 (54:28):
Yeah, so form So it's like this nigga from Manhattan,
this nigga from Lower East Side, this nigga from Brooklyn,
but be all New York. So New York. They'll be
like your New York. What's up with your man?

Speaker 4 (54:40):
Huh?

Speaker 5 (54:41):
Yeah, he's trying to see, so I gotta ask it.
He's trying to see if I really fuck with him
on my rock with him, I'm I gonna hold him
down because they they thinking about getting them. So I
gotta I gotta respond to that question as hard as possible.
What's up? What you mean with something with my man?

Speaker 1 (54:58):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (54:58):
No, no, no, okay, okay, right, yeah.

Speaker 5 (55:02):
Yeah, you know what I'm saying. That's how I be.
They be trying to They trying to pick it. They
trying to pick us up because we are the minority
behind them, behind enemy lines. I got to mess with dudes.
I don't even particularly like because I know if they
give him today, it's me tomorrow. We're not getting me
be getting. We're gonna deal with this right there, and
now you better. But a way for way for your
strength to go home.

Speaker 4 (55:22):
Through all that, throughout all that, all the all that
mix and all that you was able to.

Speaker 5 (55:27):
Yeah, I was able to focus up and write the book.
But you know so, and like I said, people didn't
believe me. So I said, Yo, I seen, I had to.
I was getting all the magazue back then, all the
Sauce to Vibe and all the other little weird rap
magazines they had. I was getting because you remember that
you just fill out the description and that set and
you're all, yeah, right, put them on Beach Street. You

(55:49):
never so boom. So I had so and it's one
man my man had. My man had put them on
b Street.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
Box. Yo.

Speaker 5 (55:57):
So my man had the Uh. My man had a
FED magazine. I don't know how he got it, just
before they knew what FAEDS was. And in the magazine
it was the book it was. It was Terry Woods,
like a mailing addressed for set him a right to
the Only thing you could do is tell me no.
And the answers already know if I don't ask, But

(56:19):
if I ask, there might be a chance that she
says yes. So as a kid, I used to read
album covers. I don't know why I used to read
album covers. I used to be like, oh, Michael Jackson
ady't write that song. You know what I'm saying. But
and but long story short, there was there was, there
was the address to the company. Oh okay, this is

(56:41):
in California. So I took that same ideology to books
and in the book the address is in the book.
I wrote to him and it surprisedly they wrote me back.
So and then they was like, yo, we don't select,
we don't, we don't accept us. So listen manuals, manuscripts.

(57:01):
Because because it's a lot of people that dream of
writing books, they go to school for writing books. And
here it was. I fell into it. I didn't choose it,
It chose me. It came to me at the most
loniest time of my life, and it became my companion
to this whole ship. And I used to be in
that cell just like reading my words and be like

(57:22):
and hearing myself, you know, like a singer his hears themselves.
Here's their voice. I was like, damn, did I write
that ship? Until somebody I needed an outside. I knew
I was good after I got to a certain point.
But I got the outside validation from the guy on
my tear once he stamped it, and then the jail

(57:42):
continued to stamp it. Now. Everybody want to write a book, yo,
but you can't. You can't talk about Yo. That's a
hot that's a hot story, right, yeah, but you can't
talk about writing a book. You gotta write a book.
Broll not to talk. That's a good idea, right yeah,
that's a good out there, but it's not in the talk.
You have to physically go through it. Bump your head

(58:04):
on the wall. It was times that I was fucked
up writing that book.

Speaker 2 (58:08):
You're stuck as ship.

Speaker 5 (58:09):
Yeah, oh, writer's block. Oh, how the fuck I'm gonna
get her out of this now, ship, I get it.
And don't know.

Speaker 4 (58:17):
I'm not even writing my book. I'm the one that's
just telling them stories to whatever book. I'm like, I've
been in that ship for a YEARL like shit bhroa.

Speaker 5 (58:25):
So you know for me that and that's why that
book will always be special to me because I know
what I went through.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
So this is your first book.

Speaker 5 (58:31):
That was my first book, and I just this is
my second book, be More Careful. And my second book
is Bad Girls. And I wrote the first chapter of
this book while I was writing that book. This book
came to me and I wrote the first chapter down. Wow,
I swear to God that that would be the only
book I wrote in jail.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
Look at that ther biggest blessing too.

Speaker 5 (58:52):
Yeah that's my baby. That's my baby before I had kids.
That was my first kid.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
Tell what you know that you could get done? Yeah?
So your mind too.

Speaker 5 (59:01):
I just think that too, like a lot of people
that never really gave you my dress due for that,
Like I gave hope to the hopeless facts. Yo, bro,
they didn't know that you I got signed from jail.
I got, I got signed from jail. I got ten
thousand in jail commisary to the ceiling. So you up.

Speaker 6 (59:20):
I'm like, yo, you good? What's good?

Speaker 2 (59:23):
I got?

Speaker 5 (59:25):
You know what I'm saying. So, And they didn't understand
how I could do that. Like I figured things. Whatever
I want to do, I figure that shit out. Nobody
was holding my hand through that. I had to figure
it out. Nobody on my hand and said, Shan didn't
do this, shan't do that. I would talk to brothers
and have conversation with dudes about writing, but never nobody
helped me with my writing. I just have a conversation

(59:45):
with you like me, and you have a conversation now
and go about my business and go do something about
that conversation, not just that. So I made the biggest mistake.
I made him be more careful. My man told me,
he said, who the fuck is black he? Cause he
comes in on chapter thirteen. He said, you can't introduce
THEO a main character thirteen chapters down.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
MM.

Speaker 5 (01:00:07):
I said, okay, I went back in that book and
I mentioned him. So when you see him, you hurt
like it's like yo, my man, p y and well Pete,
oh you pee? So now you hit the brick. It's like, yo, yo,
you pee. I heard so much about you. So it's
exactly what I do. It's called absenteeism. Introduce a character
and conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
I gotcha.

Speaker 5 (01:00:25):
And those are little things that and and and those
little things. I just picked up on it just just
from with it. But this is what I really love
to do. I I love telling the story cause I
come from story tellers on the block. But they did
s oral story tellers.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
MM.

Speaker 5 (01:00:38):
A lot of my friends could be me, they smartest
me or smarter MM, but they just never been in
the situation I would was to sit down and put
those skills to use. But like I said, the older
Duce used to come around and tell the story. So
came out, just came out two thousand, two thousand, so
soon as I came home. So I went from I

(01:00:59):
went from uh, a criminal to a career mhm. But
the ship I locked And it was so poetic because
the ship I wrote about a lot of that year
that got me locked up, and now I'm feeding my
family off it. Could you imagine that?

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
It was just like it was your craft. You realize
you had a craft, you had a gift.

Speaker 5 (01:01:17):
Yeah, I was. I was just so passionate about like
I put everything. It was this so back to the street.
That's what I was telling myself. What I'm gonna do?
She what you're gonna do that?

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
So you, uh, what is it?

Speaker 5 (01:01:28):
I got a six figured deal for the outline of
this boat m and what came after that Never Go
Home Again? That was that was the first book to
ever go hardcover in my genre. Okay, hard cover, so
you get hard come you sell us Home Again hardcover,
And in the literary world, it's like a double CD.

(01:01:50):
You gotta have a fan base, you gotta sold some
books to go hardcover. Okay, this was back then. I
don't know about what they're doing right now, But back
then that's what it was.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
And what else you came after that? You got dirty,
dirty game. So that's you said. Just put it up
to people can see it where people could look.

Speaker 5 (01:02:09):
On Amazon dot com, Amazon dot com, whether whether find
books are sold, Bond and Noble, you know, because that
those are what majors and like, you know, like I
was when I signed with a major, it was like,
they give you so much money, but you get so
much less control. You asked me something about the cover earlier. Man,

(01:02:29):
they gave me so much money. What people you're about
to cover something got? It's a give and take relationship.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
I got you.

Speaker 5 (01:02:35):
You don't.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
Especially coming from nothing. It's just you know, get introduced
to the game.

Speaker 5 (01:02:42):
Yeah, And I had this argrogans about me after I had,
you know, did my numbers like you know, so we
did one hundred thousand books in one year. We generated
one point five million books them selves for a dollar
they said, for fifteen dollars apart, we generated one point
five million from somebody. You wun't see what I'm saying.

(01:03:02):
So you know, I had a little arrogance about me
back then. And I remember me and my editor we
got into it and she tore into my ass like
I was her son.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Boy.

Speaker 5 (01:03:11):
She was like, you don't come in here acting like this.
You in a special position, like she talked to me
like Denzel was talking to the kid. You're in the
primerical position to learn the thing.

Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
It too fact.

Speaker 5 (01:03:21):
So for me when I was going up into as
Simon and Schuster and then on on on the production board,
the production boarders what books are coming up? I saw
Wendy Williams. I saw Walter Mosey if anybody know who
Walter moses is, very esteemed black author. And then I
saw my name, and I'm like, damn, how the fuck

(01:03:41):
I get there? Like some some things were just like
mind blowing to me, like it's you know, just like yo,
look at you, shitting you right there? Who would the
thought you on the avenueth of America's they taking me
out for lunch to places I can't pronounce what's on
the menu. You know what I'm saying, I'll have what
she's having because I didn't pronounce that ship. So this

(01:04:04):
is the things that I was experiencing. You understand what
I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (01:04:09):
It's growth.

Speaker 5 (01:04:11):
Being a trail. But you know I was.

Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
I was.

Speaker 5 (01:04:13):
I was on that curve before dudes was thinking about
So dude was reading about me the way I read
about Terry Willids. But I saw her in the magazine.
It was dudes behind me that would read about me
and then our influence. My man Zach just told me
said the other day, like yo, And I didn't even
know his whole story, and I'm cool with him. He
was like, Yo, this girl he talked to this girl.

(01:04:33):
This girl said I just I'm messing with this dude,
who will be more careful whatever? And he said yo.
He went to he went back on the team, like
I need that book on my bed tonight. So you know,
my man, Zach Tate told me that ship. So it
was funny, like y'all, I never knew that I knew
that about him, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (01:04:48):
So it's like, you know what people was able to
have them in jail and not read your books. Yeah,
you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 5 (01:04:53):
It was like a lot of people they know my name,
they don't really know my face. They don't they don't know.

Speaker 8 (01:04:58):
Their face, but your face now because you are you
finding me at the dog in the ya Okay, you
know what I'm saying. You finding me into that platform
where your voice is heard and know your achievements, your
accomplishments are heard.

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
You know what I'm saying. We can share this with
the brothers and the sisters out there, with the youth
and the system. I'm saying, the system that you could
actually get this done.

Speaker 5 (01:05:18):
My thing is like, you know, you can't save everybody,
But if I can talk to that kid, that one
kid didn't who was me, talk to them. If I
could talk to that one kid who was me and
who didn't have to do you don't have to go
through what I go through to get what I got.
You can you could take the shortcut by following my
examples and not do what I did. You know what

(01:05:38):
I'm saying, Because there was times I was in jail
with a dude and he went home and you know,
the next week and reading about him in the paper, Dad,
I said he had trauma like that. Like everybody think
just because you got a number that you're coming home,
that's not necessarily true. You might't not.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
I seen dudes sleep out of jail in the box
all the time, in.

Speaker 5 (01:05:57):
A pine box. My man, the kid who taught me
how to right. He died aneurysm in the yard. He
was playing basketball. It's not even his thing. I'm like,
that's what I do. So I was like, y'all took
that shit as a sign, like, Yo, that shit hurt
me because when we go through reception, we think that
we get that information in the case of emergency, who
you want to contact. We're not thinking that they're ever

(01:06:18):
gonna need this information. Yeah, they needed information.

Speaker 2 (01:06:21):
We don't even know about it exactly.

Speaker 5 (01:06:25):
For they contact put sending you home, your remains home
in the pond pot and they had this stuff packed
up by control room. I'm like, damn, he really did
die said they took him out of they rolled him
out of the yard. I'm responsive and in the wheelchair.
He had an aneurysm. So the game is funny. Life
is funny like that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
Man, One more question, man, I want to ask you
one question. How you feel about prison reform.

Speaker 5 (01:06:51):
With it, Well, it's a lot of people in jail
that ain't supposed to be there, Like literally that got framed,
you know what I'm saying. So I could talk about
my man Calvin Barrari, same thing. You know what I'm
saying twenty four years. Like, when they want you off
the streets, they want you off the street. They want
to build the case from you, and they build the case.
When they want people to come to court against you,
They're gonna find the people to come and caught against

(01:07:11):
you to make up lives. So prison reformer is definitely
definitely important. And I'm gonna say this, I can never
be in jail of somebody. Do everything they said I do.
I did, and more so, I was never that person
that was mad about being in jail. I knew they
were French persons I could be. My father came to
see me. He was like, Yo, I'd rather see you
here because I can't come see you in the graveyard.

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
Real shit. Yeah, man, Well, Shining Man would appreciate you
man coming through. You know what I'm saying. It was
definitely honored. Man. We definitely are. For those that don't
know about Channing or homes, here go his books.

Speaker 4 (01:07:49):
You know what I'm saying. Amazon, make sure you tap in.
You know what I'm saying. That's the face to all
the bucks. We finally got them a dog in the yard.
And with that being said, you're but he knows your
boy pistol P Dog in the Yalla knows your boy
pistol p walking back to the dog in the yard,
I want to thank first and foremost Shining Homes for

(01:08:11):
coming through. Keep doing your thing, my brother. For those
that's interested in any of his books on streetly on Amazon,
the name of the books are be More Careful, Bad Girl,
Never Go Home Again, and Dirty Game. And with that
being says your boy pistol Pe Dog in.

Speaker 7 (01:08:28):
The Yalla, we'd alive. Shout, Shining livelf Shining God