Survived Early 90s Drug Game in NYC AMA

[truth2you]

I feel you, there were definitely spots all over the city. I just never knew of a whole avenue/strip known for blunt men like the Baltimore brother described. In terms of going to a spot, keep in mind if you worked a dope/crack spot you didn't like to leave your spot, you had to serve the custies/keep an eye out/keep the business flowing. That's why the blunt men would come to the dope/crack spots with herb for the workers. Getting one corner smoked out they could walk away with several hundred in 5 minutes.

Botanicas in the BX/Spanish Harlem were infamous for peddling all types of shyt back then not just weed. Sometimes a "store" was an actual store.

Yeah, I never seen a strip that just sold herb. Like you said even the weed spots usually sold something else.

 

[lib123]

Did you know any dudes from stable two- parent households pulled into the game?

 

[Supa]

In terms of weed legalization I'm somewhat torn. I think it should be decriminalized because it's historically been a convenient way for them to give our young people criminal records.

At the same time I worry about the livelihood of our people who make a living off of it. My concern is that we won't have the social/economic capital and institutional savvy to transition into that sector... like it will just be another things whites get to dominate. So I worry about that. I would hate to see our blunt men in NYC get put out of business by granola-eating vegan white transplants.

That's already happening in legal states. Only a handful of black owned cannabis businesses.

 

[Alvin]

New York summers are hot lol. If you were on the block the emphasis was on utility. I'd sweat a lot so my typical uniform was a wife beater, shorts, either Nikes or even timbs in the summer (yes lol, some BX/uptown stereotypes have their basis in reality).

Glad you mentioned this, because I'd like to clarify another misconception. When OGs talk about how in the "golden era" of the hustle game (whatever that means lol) real street dudes didn't touch drugs, that's a complete lie. Most people I knew who hustled struggled with some form of addiction (including myself) of various degrees of severity. Some of us were alcoholics, had a crack/powder dependency, even H in some cases, and of course sex.

Think about it this way... in your daily life you're caught in a hopeless cycle of violence, incarceration... you see and do terrible things all day.... you're in constant need of ways to numb yourself/cope with it. None of us were in therapy, so we self-medicated to cope. We partied a lot out of boredom/needing to forget for a while what our life was really like. Partying meant drugs, lots of liquor, anonymous sex. There were dudes at the top of the game who were laser-focused and didn't touch anything but they were the exception... if you were on the block chances are you over-indulged.

The whole thing was that as long as you could show up and do what you were expected to do in the streets and not make too many mistakes, nobody really cared what you did on your own time. It's like most jobs except a crack/dope crew will never ask you to urinate in a cup or give hair samples.

There was stigma in terms of being a crackhead or over-dependent on drugs/alcohol, but that was some shyt the government sold us and we internalized it in a way that we denigrated our own people. Someone whose addiction was out of control was seen as grotesque and deserving ridicule, but how exactly were we better selling to them (and often hiding our own addictions at the same time)?

Making fun of crackheads/junkies was just another way the government convinced black and brown people to detest our own people/dehumanize our brothers and sisters. That's why I roll my eyes when hip hop OGs whine about how the youth are rapping about being on drugs when they know damn well selling the shyt/using it were two sides of the same coin in our era as well. We shouldn't be glorifying any of it.

speaking as a heterosexual man who is single, is a steady supply of p*ssy a bad thing?
and what did you mean by the bolded Once I was in college and working towards a career in the formal economy my options seemed endless (not always a good thing).

 

[TEH]

Boy George is the obvious pick. We all wanted to live like him, and he was young so we could relate to him. I wasn't on the boat ride but half the dudes on it were from my hood and it's still a legend all over Wagner.

Ever read Street Legends

 

[Piri Tomas]

Did you know any dudes from stable two- parent households pulled into the game?

A few. One of my best friends from when I was in the streets came from a stable two parent household. Mother and father happily married, old school Puerto Rican family. Father was a hard working restaurant cook. But there were nine kids, they lived in the projects, they were poor. We were surrounded by temptation in that era, just seeing the riches could make you go the wrong route, even if your family environment was decent.

 

[Piri Tomas]

That's already happening in legal states. Only a handful of black owned cannabis businesses.

It's a shame but not at all surprising.

 

[Piri Tomas]

speaking as a heterosexual man who is single, is a steady supply of p*ssy a bad thing?
and what did you mean by the bolded Once I was in college and working towards a career in the formal economy my options seemed endless (not always a good thing).

I know a lot of you young guys think it sounds like a fantasy, constant anonymous sex with multiple women but it's not when it becomes compulsion. I was fukking even when I didn't feel like it anymore. Time I should have spent thinking about how I was going to get out of my predicament and better my situation I spent wasting time with chicks whose names I can't remember. Everything from late night hit and runs to running trains... You don't care who you're fukking as long as it provides you with a distraction so you're not alone with your thoughts. So no, it's not as fun as it might sound.

I never had trouble attracting women, especially once I was on the straight and narrow, I was seen as a "catch" to a lot of sisters, and I took advantage. I lost a lot of real ones because I never said no when the p*ssy was on offer and dogged out a lot of females who didn't deserve it. Everything worked out for me in the end, but I made a lot of mistakes with that, immaturity, not respecting women, etc.

 

[Piri Tomas]

Ever read Street Legends

Nah, and I would caution a lot of you guys about reading that stuff and taking it all at face value. A lot of these things are written from the perspective of the guys they're about without taking in other sources/perspectives. So the narrative is all going to be about how big they did it, how they were honorable but betrayed by their own people. It's hard to get a real well-rounded perspective from books/articles that are aimed at giving props to the "legends" in the game (the fact they call themselves such is a problem too)

 

[lib123]

What % would you say made it out of the game alive and never incarcerated?

 

[Sensei]

Aren't you British?

Where the fukk do you get that from?

No direct experience with Jamaican crews. Every group had killers, the mystique about Jamaicans is the same shyt people attach to D.C. dudes, etc. The drug economy back then rewarded a certain skill set/sociopathic/psychotic tendencies. You could find someone to pay you in that period because there was a lot of demand for killers so they existed in every group.

I feel like the white media is responsible for a lot of that shyt. They talked about Jamaicans like they were the "bad Negroes" causing the "good local Negroes" to get into violent new activities and become uncontrollable. Most of the fear of Jamaicans was coming from small towns that refused to admit that social inequality and racism that was historical in their regions was creating the violence instead of these phantom Jamaican assassins.

Jamaicans held their sections (Crown Heights/Flatbush) the same way other groups held theirs. I never heard about Jamaicans in the Bronx but I assume there were some active Jamaicans in their section.

Ok ,dude said no out of Townes ever set up shop in NYC but talks about Jamaicans holding their sections in Brooklyn. You forgetting about Dominicans doing they thing Uptown too.

 

[re'up]

I was planning on reading SMM, the book on the Soundview drug crew, I don't know if that's something OP would even be interested in, as you saw it, or aspects of it, first hand, but you may want to check it out.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/books/review/jonathan-green-sex-money-murder.html

A lot of what was said transcends that era and location, and into just norms of the drug game, appreciate the insights and common ground I found in your posts.

 

[BlackPrint]

@Piri Tomas

Around what year did you first start seeing dudes coming home Blood

Where the fukk do you get that from?




Ok ,dude said no out of Townes ever set up shop in NYC but talks about Jamaicans holding their sections in Brooklyn. You forgetting about Dominicans doing they thing Uptown too.

Think the brother is talking about dudes from other cities and states. Like it's no Memphis or Kansas City nikkas In NYC getting to it.

.Majority of Jamaican and Dominican nikkas getting it (today,atleast) is NY born and bred or moved here mad young with links to their islands.

It was alot of the Posse cats doing they thing in the North Bronx.
"Boston Road, Shower Posse was gettin pounds from them
Till they got deported to Jamaica, still wildin out"

 

[Sensei]

@Piri Tomas

Around what year did you first start seeing dudes coming home Blood



Think the brother is talking about dudes from other cities and states. Like it's no Memphis or Kansas City nikkas In NYC getting to it.

.Majority of Jamaican and Dominican nikkas getting it (today,atleast) is NY born and bred or moved here mad young with links to their islands.

It was alot of the Posse cats doing they thing in the North Bronx.
"Boston Road, Shower Posse was gettin pounds from them
Till they got deported to Jamaica, still wildin out"

Naw bro the Yardies that took over Brooklyn in the 80s were Fresh Off The Boat and straight from the yard. Crews like Spanglers, Shower Posse, Gully Crew ,etc we’re straight from the island.They had blocks in Brooklyn. Same thing with Dominicans ,I don’t think even a significant population of Dominicans were in NYC before the 80s, they just arrived then and started to set up shop.

 

[truth2you]

Naw bro the Yardies that took over Brooklyn in the 80s were Fresh Off The Boat and straight from the yard. Crews like Spanglers, Shower Posse, Gully Crew ,etc we’re straight from the island.They had blocks in Brooklyn. Same thing with Dominicans ,I don’t think even a significant population of Dominicans were in NYC before the 80s, they just arrived then and started to set up shop.

They came here because they had family here already in high west indian areas, But you are right about them coming into town, and setting up shop, but that is one reason why the violence was so high. They had to shoot shyt up, because people weren't gonna just let them take over. A whole bunch of them got ran out, or eventually worked with black americans. They messed themselves up, though, because being that they were so violent, they ended up getting deported in the 90's.

Dominicans was a little wild in the 80's, but by the 90's, I didn't find them to be wild like that, but the same with them, they were in predominately dominican areas. In fact Dominicans were cool to do business with, they weren't about the games that a lot of blacks, and puerto ricans had. WIth blacks, regardless of where they were from, and P.R., its like they would try to overcharge you for very little or just greedy, to me. With Dominicans they were fair, and willing to work with you. That's why i think Dominicans are still in the game, with not such a bad rep the other groups have.