Survived Early 90s Drug Game in NYC AMA

[The Amerikkkan Idol]

@Piri Tomas

What was the quitting process like?

Do you just not show up to work one day or is there like a 2 week notice you have to give or someting?

 

[RicanFury]

Definitely not. NYC isn’t a dope city anymore on the whole like say, Baltimore or Pittsburgh where dog food is the cow. Most of the time you have a nikka that go uptown to cop his soft and say fuxk it lemme get 100 drums as an undercard. Unless you live in the burbs or trap in the burbs (Long Island Staten Island), Coke is king, party packs a close second

where the hell you live at to believe this? NYC is dog food city with the majority being uptown. you never came across that bridge into the boogie? zombie land...most overdoses on the east coast...one preccient over runs the rest of the city in fatalities off the dog food. the 2nd runner up is the 19th in manhattan that is upper east side/west side...people with money. 5k needles found across the parks in the city weekly...it aint from diabetes. dog food got ppl lving in misery here on a grand scale.

 

[BlackPrint]

where the hell you live at to believe this? NYC is dog food city with the majority being uptown. you never came across that bridge into the boogie? zombie land...most overdoses on the east coast...one preccient over runs the rest of the city in fatalities off the dog food. the 2nd runner up is the 19th in manhattan that is upper east side/west side...people with money. 5k needles found across the parks in the city weekly...it aint from diabetes. dog food got ppl lving in misery here on a grand scale.

Nah, I stand by that.

The majority of overdoses ANYWHERE in the country are linked to heroin, that doesn’t make NYC a dope city.

In my era (the last 20 yrs) NYC isn’t known for heroin in the way that California is known for the tree. Soft is the backbone of the drug economy in NYC.The largest market for Brown is Staten Island/Long Island that’s an irrefutable fact. NYC is the largest coke market with the largest base of distribution in the country. Your mileage may vary in the Bronx but across the boros you don’t turn a block out off Brown first, it’s hard and pills.

It’s as simple as this. When dudes re-up in the heights what is the package looking like? Unless you swerve out of state/the burbs, heroin is going to an undercard, for that reason, NY is not a dope city, even with the “opioid epidemic”. Coke is king,

 

[Piri Tomas]

What the difference between Brooklyn and south Bronx

Brooklyn is bigger (it's about to overtake Chicago in population), more diverse, more to do.

In terms of the hood, I usually say that Brooklyn is just like the Bronx except with nicer architecture. Plus where the Bronx has more of a Latin flavor, Brooklyn is heavily black American/West Indian in the hood.

 

[Piri Tomas]

@Piri Tomas

How do you feel about Alpo and the way he played his cards?


What was your experience like in Rikers and Spofford?

Didn't spend enough time on Rikers to have an impression. I never sat on the island for a stretch awaiting trial--have one brief Rikers experience. Spofford was our summer camp. Fights but nothing serious. I was big for my age holding my own against grown men in the streets so nobody gave me problems over there.

What made you get in the game?

Desperation, needing a place to sleep, sandwich money.

How did you get out the game?

I got tired of my life going nowhere, had someone believe in me and challenge me to do better.

What high school did you attend and what was that like?

Julia Richman. Rarely went, dropped out in the 9th grade.

Any experiences on Clay Avenue?

Nope.

What type of gear did you rock in those days?

Already answered this, but field jackets/fatigues in the streets, fly shyt, leathers, suits when I went out.

Did you sell to pregnant women, children, the elderly?

No, but not for moral reasons. If you're in the streets blatantly selling to these groups the community can turn on you fast and back then you needed the block to look out for you especially if you were hustling out of store in a block you weren't from.

Who was the most tragic fiend you encountered?

They were all "tragic." Back then you saw a lot of them wasting away from AIDS, that was always a wake up call/sad to see.

Did you ever get high off ya own supply?

Never touched dope, but as I have alluded to I was a high functioning alcoholic/self medicating. I'd get drunk and sniff blow to wake back up and finish shifts.

What is your message to the young boys coming up now?

Any pics from the era?

Yes, but I won't be posting for the sake of maintaining anonymity.

Have you read Bodega Dreams?

Yes, not as good as Down These Mean Streets and it doesn't do justice to how terrible my era was.

What was your soundtrack to that era? Artists and songs that take you back?

All 90s New York hip hop. I was always into smooth, fly shyt too so R&B from that era takes me back. I liked Groove Theory, shyt even Keith Sweat. Latin music--salsa.

What do you miss most about old NY and how do you feel about new

Not much that I miss. I guess it was cool when a lot of the businesses were owned by old timers, more personality/character. Now chain stores have taken over. The fact that white people hadn't chased us out of our hoods. Aside from that, anyone who was there for it doesn't miss it. If '89-'95 was your glory period and you never did shyt without your life after that than I'm sure you miss the era. But for me life has been better since. I have been able to live a life I never dreamed of when I was just a kid in the projects.
NY?

 

[Piri Tomas]

@Piri Tomas

What was the quitting process like?

Do you just not show up to work one day or is there like a 2 week notice you have to give or someting?

Lol @ 2 week notice. No HR departments in the dope game. There was no process, I let the dude I hustled for know that I wanted to go to school and make a change. He tried to talk me out of it a little bit, but he knew my heart wasn't in it. I was good at hustling but not great. I made mistakes, wasn't the bravest dude out there. I think everyone knew I wasn't really cut from that cloth.

 

[Piri Tomas]

ever have dealings with puerto ricans who came to hustle from the island? im talking about "cabron!" whos so and so crazy ass cousin from the mountains with a bowl haircut tape up and the rat tail. always heard stories of these guys coming from the island and fukking shyt up in the crews by being reckless

I'm not calling your old heads liars, but I didn't have that experience with dudes who came from the island. Around my era the drug game in PR was also really taking off. They were getting money too, a lot of it. The dudes who came were not jibaros. A lot of them were bichotes/official street dudes who held down a punto/caserio on the island and had to take a NYC vacation when things got too hot for whatever reason down there. Same thing with Nuyoricans who went down there. They didn't do wild shyt for the most part, they kept a low profile and made themselves useful. They were professionals.

I saw more of what you're describing with Dominicans who came up from their island. The DR is a third world country and record-keeping isn't strong now (much worse back then, also imagine a pre-9/11 world). Dominicans would come up from the campos and hit the ground running, doing all types of foul shyt, firing into crowds with impunity. They knew they could just skate back to the island and vanish into the campo without a trace, no extradition. If a Rican tried that shyt, all the NYC feds would have to do is call the FBI field office in San Juan and the fugitive would be back courtside in NYC within a week. different ball game.

When a Dominican hick got hit in the hood we'd joke "Here goes another John Doe/cold case"--that will give you an idea of the sense of humor/what we found funny in that era.

 

[Piri Tomas]

@Piri Tomas

In terms of crime and cleanliness how was mid town manhattan during those times?
I know you ain't from there but how is Queens as a borough?
What was life like for the average citizen in the hood in the 90s who wasn't doing dirt?
NYPD in your opinion worse then or now?

Already addressed Times Square in that era. It was a dump.

Queens is the middle class borough. Two-family, single-family houses. People from all over the world.

Life was like it is in any period, just more risks/pitfalls. For all of the people who went the wrong path and didn't make it there were 2 who did their thing. From my projects there were people who become lawyers, doctors, teachers, etc. Our people are resilient and strong... We came through SLAVERY, we can survive and thrive through anything.

Much worse then. They did anything they wanted back then. They'd steal/plant evidence with impunity. A lot harder for them to get away with that shyt these days. And I know they're mad about that. Police mentality in this country is all about not upholding the law but being the law itself. Aside from money/stability, it's what motivates them to become police.

 

[Piri Tomas]

Netas are a non factor in NYC these days...but some of my older friends were wit em back in the dayz...tell us your experience with them in they hey day. along wit the kings.

Kings were more of a way for all Latin inmates (Ricans, Domos, etc.) to be protected in the prison system. It was usually weaker inmates who were more susceptible to get picked on in the system/had no reputation from the streets. Strength in numbers.

Netas was different. First of all it came from PR, and you had to be Rican to associate with that movement. Second, it was less of a gang. A good way to think about it was like "networking" between Ricans from the island and those who grew up in NY. A lot of dudes who got involved were very official Rican street figures. Once China started drying up a lot of dudes were able to keep up a dope supply by getting vouched for by a high ranking Neta from the island. That's why I call it networking for Rican bosses/official hustlers.

Neither group held territory in the streets in my era. Like I said, the uptown game was always mixed and about $$ first and foremost. Claiming a gang that was determined by ethnicity was not a fixture in our street culture at all. We saw that as corny LA shyt.

 

[Piri Tomas]

So how crazy people say the south Bronx and a lot of nyc was in the 80’s till mid 90’s wasn’t exaggerated?

Not an exaggeration. It was mayhem.

 

[Frump]

Not an exaggeration. It was mayhem.

You ever see this documentary?



Early 80’s south bronx was literally a third world area

 

[Piri Tomas]

Yao OP I got a question.

In my era (late 00s - mid 10s) Bronx nikkas dislike Harlem nikkas and real big on violating dudes from Harlem that find they self in the Bronx.

But you and my old head (he was doing him a Few years before you, 86 and allat) sound like y’all was Bronx nikkas moving freely throughout Harlem and vice versa. Was nikkas ever on some Harlem V Bronx shyt back then?

And can you state for the record that Brooklyn nikkas put the fear of God in nikkas that aren’t from Brooklyn

That wasn't a thing in our generation. We all moved around based on where the opportunities were. I was born in the BX but raised in Puerto Rico/the East side. So I had no direct experience in the BX until about 16 years old when the people I hustled for copped a store over there. It was all about business back then, if you could generate income and had your hands on supply, you could always bring in locals and they'd hold you down, same way as the out of town game.

I think your generation has absorbed a lot of that LA-style gang shyt. I always thought it was strange to hear about how in LA if they came from one neighborhood they couldn't take the bus through other areas, and dudes were always asking where you came from... It's very foreign from my experience/street knowledge. Maybe an LA dude can answer this, what was the point?

Maybe in high schools it was more of a thing like Harlem and Brooklyn would fight at Automotive... But I don't know about that, I was in the streets, I didn't really have a high school experience. The closest thing I can think of is that rival projects would beef, but it was usually more of a kid thing/rarely developed into full-scale wars with guns. Actual street dudes didn't conduct themselves like that.

Brooklyn had a reputation for robbery/chain snatching. Uptown we didn't even think they had real drug crews, we thought the whole borough was comprised of stick up kids, while we were the real Get Money dudes. That was clearly nonsense. Every NYC hood had the same exact shyt, stick up kids, drug dealers, scammers, pimps, etc. That's just how we thought.

A lot of the Brooklyn mystique came from Albee Square to be honest. In the BX/uptown we didn't have an equivalent... a commercial downtown strip filled with thieves... That was how Brooklyn developed its rep for being shytty/on some shady shyt.

Nobody was scared of Brooklyn dudes. We were wary because we didn't know them. If the DJ yelled "Is Brooklyn in the House" and you heard a big response, you'd just know you had to be on point. But anybody could get it. They bled just like us.

 

[BlackPrint]

So basically you used to tuck that rope chain in when them Fort Greene rudeboy dem pulled up on the scene? Nah I’m fukkin w u but in 2018 the room still gets uneasy when you hear that “go brooklyn, go brooklyn”.

Once you hear that “brooooooooklyn broooooklyn” it’s usually the fukkery hour


Good looks on the response my g.

 

[Piri Tomas]

Some of you have asked about Alpo/SNITCHING. I have a very different perspective on this than the common shyt you hear from these so-called OGs (think Kevin Chiles) who are still eating off of what they did in the streets and how deep in the game they were or "honorable" they were. Glorifying it like they are the real black/latin versions of Michael Corleone.

Snitching is just like violence/stick ups. If you sign up for the game, you are signing up to be ratted on too, not just dealing with the risk of death/becoming prey. This is part of my message to the youth too who are dabbling in the streets/trying to do their thing out there.

Alpo and people like him personified the game. They were the dudes who had the heart to run up on a rival block dolo busting their guns. Would kill you without thinking, would go to sleep dreaming about the game, and wake up to enjoy it, they lived for that shyt. If you can look at a dude who collected bodies in the game and killed without a conscience, how can you say he was real and a dude who snitched wasn't. They were both just as selfish, all about self-preservation, true sociopaths... Both types ruined lives and, like I've said, the mass murderers were often rats too.

If you sign up for this street shyt you are signing up for a game that has ZERO RULES. The only person making the rules is the White Man and his institutions. And he can change them whenever he feels like it. The only rule that our people abide by out there is that of self-preservation because that's all we can do.

I'm not saying we should celebrate the Alpos/Nicky Barnes of the game. We shouldn't celebrate them OR the big time killers... Both are equally responsible for the destruction and demise of our communities. EQUALLY.

I never snitched but I wasn't wearing a potential death penalty like Alpo was when he turned state's witness. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. The better you were at the hustle game, the more likely it was you'd be put in a situation where snitching was a real possibility. All of these OGs who exploit their reputation in the streets from that era can keep that shyt, they tell the youth to avoid the game but celebrate how "honorable" cats were back then... It's mixed messages and it's counter-productive, that's why they get no respect from me.

 

[truth2you]

So basically you used to tuck that rope chain in when them Fort Greene rudeboy dem pulled up on the scene? Nah I’m fukkin w u but in 2018 the room still gets uneasy when you hear that “go brooklyn, go brooklyn”.

Once you hear that “brooooooooklyn broooooklyn” it’s usually the fukkery hour


Good looks on the response my g.

tha'ts more flatbush/crown heights, aint nobody gonna be calling they self rudeboy in fort greene back then

If they did that, I already would know where they was from, and I think they better be worried about getting robbed for them clarks, travel fox, or truck jewelry just for trying to make a seen. I seen Jamaicans thinking talking loud patois was gonna scare people only to get their shyt rocked.

Someone getting shot, though