Survived Early 90s Drug Game in NYC AMA
- Thread starter Piri Tomas
- Start date
OGBobbyJohnson
Veteran
Dope thread
SleezyBigSlim
Banned
Did you sell ounces? Quarter Keys? What kinda work did u move?
SleezyBigSlim
Banned
Just read through this thread I love hearing old NY hustler stories
. My opinion on the snitching thing is you should not do it tho. Not safe. Even white privilege don't save cacs if they snitched streets don't care. And even if you get to live nobody will do business with you and understandably so as how you gone trust a snitch? I say this because it appears most rats try to return to that street life because they can't make a living wage at a descent job no? I stuck to weed and never sold nothing hard because I knew it would lead to murder eventually and I aint trying to kill nobody
where im from weed boys dont even bother carrying guns.
. My opinion on the snitching thing is you should not do it tho. Not safe. Even white privilege don't save cacs if they snitched streets don't care. And even if you get to live nobody will do business with you and understandably so as how you gone trust a snitch? I say this because it appears most rats try to return to that street life because they can't make a living wage at a descent job no? I stuck to weed and never sold nothing hard because I knew it would lead to murder eventually and I aint trying to kill nobody where im from weed boys dont even bother carrying guns.@Piri Tomas
What was/is queens like as a borough, I know you didn't live there or hustle there, but now how is it?
How were mayor bloomberg and guiliani in your opinion, did they do anything to help minorities or were they racist?
You think Kool G Rap was better than rakim and big daddy kane
What was/is queens like as a borough, I know you didn't live there or hustle there, but now how is it?
How were mayor bloomberg and guiliani in your opinion, did they do anything to help minorities or were they racist?
You think Kool G Rap was better than rakim and big daddy kane
Piri Tomas
All Star
Queens was and has always been the most suburban of the boroughs (after Staten Island). It's more quiet, 2 family houses, detached houses, etc. It doesn't look like the classic gritty NYC with tenements, high rise buildings, etc.
It's a major center for immigrants, so every nationality has it's little section/subsection--everything from Colombian to Indian.
The black areas are far removed from the rest of the borough so the greater Jamaica area (i.e. St Albans. Hollis, Springfield Gardens, etc.) is practically Long Island it's so far from the rest of the borough/so close to Nassau County.
Queens had its infamous period during the crack era, but I think it was never as wild/fukked up as really rundown hoods like the South Bronx or the wild sections of Brooklyn. Jamaica still had a lot of solidly middle class black families while the same couldn't be said for the rougher parts of the Bronx/Brooklyn.
Giuliani and Bloomberg helped accelerate the gentrification process in NYC. Catering to minorities was the last of their priorities. It's hard to really tell what Giuliani's legacy is in NYC. Flooding the city with police/zero tolerance tactics definitely helped end the wild out era in NYC, but a lot of structural forces in the city were already leading to a amelioration of the worst days of the crack epidemic. So it's one of those dilemmas in which we can't really tell if policies were at the root of the change or if the politicians just swooped in and took all the credit for things that were already happening.
I always liked Rakim/Big Daddy Kane more than Kool G Rap. Don't get me wrong, G Rap is a top all-time emcee, but I liked the fly shyt over the gutter shyt in the late 80s/early 90s. In terms of the ill boom bap type of shyt, KRS One was my go-to rapper. There was no G Rap album that really impacted me on the level of a Paid in Full or By All Means Necessary.
Piri Tomas
All Star
Just read through this thread I love hearing old NY hustler stories
Yeah that's actually a myth. Rappers have created this image of a street life in which the "honorable" can walk in any hood and "snitches" need to cower in fear. It's not true. Back in the day and now people will hustle with/for known snitches if the money is right. Nobody cares about your credibility/who you fukked over as long as they can get paid.
The only time that so-called informants became targets was if they were running the streets while the people they were snitching on were awaiting trial. Obviously if they had associates still on the streets they'd try to take that person out.
But money has always been the driving force, then and now. Honor out there is a myth.
Stumbled across this empirical summary disputing abortion argument also:
The theory: legal abortion is preventing would-be criminals from being born
@Piri Tomas
You ever been to Yonkers? How is it?
What was your opinion of Big L, Ma$e and The Diplomats as rappers
Growing up as afro-rican what was your favorite soul food dish and your favorite rican dish
You ever been to Yonkers? How is it?
What was your opinion of Big L, Ma$e and The Diplomats as rappers
Growing up as afro-rican what was your favorite soul food dish and your favorite rican dish
I wanted to drop some more info on how just some nikkas in major US cities got to hustling and went OT to move weight, you had some West Indian brothers moving weight.Yardies and Guyanese drug gangs have some of the earliest arrest records of crack in NYC,of course Dominicans did as well.
Yardies had links with the Colombian Cali cartel and other criminal organizations in the US.
Recently Guyanese had sophisticated operations in conjunction with Sinaloa Cartels,Ndrangheta ,Gambino,and Bonanno They had and still had major links with big organizations.
Nine Guyanese nationals and one American were arrested when...
Here goes Raekwon giving props to Jamaican and Guyanese as hustlers on the block.
Red Bull Music Academy Daily
GHOSTFACE KILLAH
I look at this shirt right there, says, “I roll with God, killers, and drug dealers.” Got it?
RAEKWON
That’s why we called it “Only…” Because it wasn’t for the whole world. It was only for people that could relate to that lifestyle at that time. That Tommy Hil, Ice Rock and shyt. You know we’s wearing jury for a long time, because in our neighborhood, you know, we was always in a neighborhood where drugs was big. Like Ghost’s neighborhood, of course you got the old school cats out there that really, nikkas is knockout artists but they smoke dust and all that shyt. So, these are motherfukkers that will take the coat off your back and be dusted as hell. You know, and in my neck of the woods, it was like all drug dealers. Like, Jamaicans, Guyanese, you know they was all about hustling and making a way for theyself and demanding that respect. So, just having both of these kinds of environments just made us who we are. Like, we are really a product of that, you know what I mean, and at that time that’s all we knew. You know, stay fly, you know what I mean. You better have some good product, you know what I mean, even though around that time we might have been… I’ll probably say I was sniffing blow probably like 16, 15 probably like.
GHOSTFACE KILLAH
I look at this shirt right there, says, “I roll with God, killers, and drug dealers.” Got it?
RAEKWON
That’s why we called it “Only…” Because it wasn’t for the whole world. It was only for people that could relate to that lifestyle at that time. That Tommy Hil, Ice Rock and shyt. You know we’s wearing jury for a long time, because in our neighborhood, you know, we was always in a neighborhood where drugs was big. Like Ghost’s neighborhood, of course you got the old school cats out there that really, nikkas is knockout artists but they smoke dust and all that shyt. So, these are motherfukkers that will take the coat off your back and be dusted as hell. You know, and in my neck of the woods, it was like all drug dealers. Like, Jamaicans, Guyanese, you know they was all about hustling and making a way for theyself and demanding that respect. So, just having both of these kinds of environments just made us who we are. Like, we are really a product of that, you know what I mean, and at that time that’s all we knew. You know, stay fly, you know what I mean. You better have some good product, you know what I mean, even though around that time we might have been… I’ll probably say I was sniffing blow probably like 16, 15 probably like.
Park Hill murder trial, which included witness with ties to Guyanese death squad, goes to federal jury
Crime scene tape runs across the entrance to a court yard across from 160 Park Hill Avenue in this 1996 file photo. Crime scenes and drug-related shootings were an all-too-common occurrence in the 1990s at the Clifton apartment complex.
By John M. Annese
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- After a trial that included testimony from a killer with ties to a Guyanese death squad, a jury is now weighing the evidence against three brothers accused of killing a rival drug dealer outside the Park Hill Apartments in 1994.
The three-week trial against Brian (Brawl) Gill, 46, David (Plot) Gill, 43, and Samuel (Waco) McIntosh, 40, wrapped up Monday in Brooklyn federal court. Jurors finished their second day of deliberations Tuesday.
All three are accused of shooting Michael Dawson, 23, to death in broad daylight on June 22, 1994, in front of 160 Park Hill Ave., to further a drug-dealing conspiracy.
Prosecutors brought in a series of witnesses -- including Paul (Uncles) Ford, a drug supplier and admitted murderer who testified to calmly watching Dawson's killing as he sat in a taxi, because he was interested in seeing how the violent scene, and the brothers' dispute with Dawson, would play out.
Ford also testified last month at the drugs-and-murder racketeering trial of brothers Anthony and Harvey Christian, who were accused of running the crack trade in the Park Hill complex for 20 years. Both were found guilty on Oct. 27, along with accomplice Jason Quinn.
The Gill brothers' defense attorneys zeroed in on Ford's criminal past, trying to bring up rumors that he had once decapitated a woman who lived on nearby Osgood Avenue.
Do you remember killing a girl by the name of April and cutting off her head?" asked Kenneth Paul, Brian Gill's lawyer.
As one of the prosecutors objected to the question, Ford responded, "No, no, not at all."
In her closing argument, Kelley Sharkey, who represents David Gill, challenged Ford's credibility as a witness, making references to his own testimony that he got his drug supply through a connection to the Guyanese "Phantom death squad," and that the group had hired him as an assassin in New York.
The squad, run by Guyanese drug lord Shaheed (Roger) Khan, is believed to be responsible for hundreds of killings in Guyana in the early to mid-2000s.
"Paul Ford came to the United States on a fake soccer scholarship and within a year, within two years, when he's not even 20 or maybe just 20, he is making hundreds of thousands of dollars selling cocaine up and down the East [Coast]. And in the '90s, who is he trafficking in drugs with? The Phantom death squad. I mean, this is a 5 o'clock movie on a Saturday afternoon," Ms. Sharkey argued.
"You learned from Ford's own mouth that the Phantom death squad in Guyana, it's a hit squad. And rival political parties pay them money to kill their political rivals. 'Assassin's Creed' in Eastern District Court. I am not kidding. Is this someone whose testimony you're going to believe for half a second?"
"Assassin's Creed" is a reference to a popular video game series.
Dawson's murder took place during a violent era for the Park Hill Apartments section of Clifton -- a neighborhood dubbed "Killa Hill" by the Staten Island-based Wu-Tang Clan rap group.
In the early 1990s -- before authorities say the Christian brothers had solidified their grasp of the neighborhood's drug trade -- crack dealers would often rush out to greet potential customers in their cars, and the first dealer to get to a car got the sale.
Dawson, who went by the nickname "Nim," was a Concord High School graduate and was studying sociology at the College of Staten Island. Back in 1994, his family said he was struggling to better himself, and had worked for about a year at a community residence for kids in Port Richmond, but couldn't resist the pull of the criminal lifestyle.
''People will say it's just another life wasted. But this time it's my baby,'' Dawson's father, Kevin Caldwell, told the Advance a day after his son was killed.
Dawson had an arrest record dating back to age 17, and had done state prison time for gun possession. He had been dealing crack at 141 Park Hill Ave., but moved on to 160 Park Hill Ave. and pooled his money with one of Brian Gill's friends, Donald (Don Don) Lewis, to get their product, prosecutors said.
That didn't sit well with Brian Gill, who didn't think Dawson could step up with the violence necessary to "protect the building," Assistant U.S. Attorney Nadia Shihata said.
Brian Gill "wasn't happy with that arrangement," Ms. Shihata said, telling Lewis that they "couldn't count on Dawson to protect the building with violence."
After the slaying, Brian Gill left Park Hill, but he returned in 2011, and he and his brother David went back to selling crack together, ultimately becoming the target of a federal wiretap investigation in 2013, Ms. Shihata told the jurors.
Ford had testified that, as he watched from a taxi, he saw all three brothers shoot and kill Dawson. Brian Gill used a machine gun, David Gill used a 9mm handgun, and McIntosh used a .38-caliber revolver, according to federal prosecutors.
Lewis also testified for the government, as did a security guard at the apartment complex who named McIntosh as the shooter, but hadn't done so when testifying before a grand jury in 2013. The jurors also heard 911 recordings from the day of the shooting, as well as testimony from police investigators.
"The defendants shot Dawson because they didn't want him selling crack at 160 anymore, their building, their territory," said Assistant U. S. Attorney Alicyn Cooley. "They all fired their guns at Michael Dawson that day. In doing so, they helped each other commit this murder."
Joyce David, McIntosh's lawyer, said both Ford and Lewis had motive to kill Dawson. "Michael Dawson lost money. He left it in his apartment or his car, and supposedly it was stolen or taken by the police. But it was Uncles' [Ford's] money. OK. There is a drug business. If you take somebody's money, they get you."
Deliberations in the case will continue Wednesday
Crime scene tape runs across the entrance to a court yard across from 160 Park Hill Avenue in this 1996 file photo. Crime scenes and drug-related shootings were an all-too-common occurrence in the 1990s at the Clifton apartment complex.
By John M. Annese
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- After a trial that included testimony from a killer with ties to a Guyanese death squad, a jury is now weighing the evidence against three brothers accused of killing a rival drug dealer outside the Park Hill Apartments in 1994.
The three-week trial against Brian (Brawl) Gill, 46, David (Plot) Gill, 43, and Samuel (Waco) McIntosh, 40, wrapped up Monday in Brooklyn federal court. Jurors finished their second day of deliberations Tuesday.
All three are accused of shooting Michael Dawson, 23, to death in broad daylight on June 22, 1994, in front of 160 Park Hill Ave., to further a drug-dealing conspiracy.
Prosecutors brought in a series of witnesses -- including Paul (Uncles) Ford, a drug supplier and admitted murderer who testified to calmly watching Dawson's killing as he sat in a taxi, because he was interested in seeing how the violent scene, and the brothers' dispute with Dawson, would play out.
Ford also testified last month at the drugs-and-murder racketeering trial of brothers Anthony and Harvey Christian, who were accused of running the crack trade in the Park Hill complex for 20 years. Both were found guilty on Oct. 27, along with accomplice Jason Quinn.
The Gill brothers' defense attorneys zeroed in on Ford's criminal past, trying to bring up rumors that he had once decapitated a woman who lived on nearby Osgood Avenue.
Do you remember killing a girl by the name of April and cutting off her head?" asked Kenneth Paul, Brian Gill's lawyer.
As one of the prosecutors objected to the question, Ford responded, "No, no, not at all."
In her closing argument, Kelley Sharkey, who represents David Gill, challenged Ford's credibility as a witness, making references to his own testimony that he got his drug supply through a connection to the Guyanese "Phantom death squad," and that the group had hired him as an assassin in New York.
The squad, run by Guyanese drug lord Shaheed (Roger) Khan, is believed to be responsible for hundreds of killings in Guyana in the early to mid-2000s.
"Paul Ford came to the United States on a fake soccer scholarship and within a year, within two years, when he's not even 20 or maybe just 20, he is making hundreds of thousands of dollars selling cocaine up and down the East [Coast]. And in the '90s, who is he trafficking in drugs with? The Phantom death squad. I mean, this is a 5 o'clock movie on a Saturday afternoon," Ms. Sharkey argued.
"You learned from Ford's own mouth that the Phantom death squad in Guyana, it's a hit squad. And rival political parties pay them money to kill their political rivals. 'Assassin's Creed' in Eastern District Court. I am not kidding. Is this someone whose testimony you're going to believe for half a second?"
"Assassin's Creed" is a reference to a popular video game series.
Dawson's murder took place during a violent era for the Park Hill Apartments section of Clifton -- a neighborhood dubbed "Killa Hill" by the Staten Island-based Wu-Tang Clan rap group.
In the early 1990s -- before authorities say the Christian brothers had solidified their grasp of the neighborhood's drug trade -- crack dealers would often rush out to greet potential customers in their cars, and the first dealer to get to a car got the sale.
Dawson, who went by the nickname "Nim," was a Concord High School graduate and was studying sociology at the College of Staten Island. Back in 1994, his family said he was struggling to better himself, and had worked for about a year at a community residence for kids in Port Richmond, but couldn't resist the pull of the criminal lifestyle.
''People will say it's just another life wasted. But this time it's my baby,'' Dawson's father, Kevin Caldwell, told the Advance a day after his son was killed.
Dawson had an arrest record dating back to age 17, and had done state prison time for gun possession. He had been dealing crack at 141 Park Hill Ave., but moved on to 160 Park Hill Ave. and pooled his money with one of Brian Gill's friends, Donald (Don Don) Lewis, to get their product, prosecutors said.
That didn't sit well with Brian Gill, who didn't think Dawson could step up with the violence necessary to "protect the building," Assistant U.S. Attorney Nadia Shihata said.
Brian Gill "wasn't happy with that arrangement," Ms. Shihata said, telling Lewis that they "couldn't count on Dawson to protect the building with violence."
After the slaying, Brian Gill left Park Hill, but he returned in 2011, and he and his brother David went back to selling crack together, ultimately becoming the target of a federal wiretap investigation in 2013, Ms. Shihata told the jurors.
Ford had testified that, as he watched from a taxi, he saw all three brothers shoot and kill Dawson. Brian Gill used a machine gun, David Gill used a 9mm handgun, and McIntosh used a .38-caliber revolver, according to federal prosecutors.
Lewis also testified for the government, as did a security guard at the apartment complex who named McIntosh as the shooter, but hadn't done so when testifying before a grand jury in 2013. The jurors also heard 911 recordings from the day of the shooting, as well as testimony from police investigators.
"The defendants shot Dawson because they didn't want him selling crack at 160 anymore, their building, their territory," said Assistant U. S. Attorney Alicyn Cooley. "They all fired their guns at Michael Dawson that day. In doing so, they helped each other commit this murder."
Joyce David, McIntosh's lawyer, said both Ford and Lewis had motive to kill Dawson. "Michael Dawson lost money. He left it in his apartment or his car, and supposedly it was stolen or taken by the police. But it was Uncles' [Ford's] money. OK. There is a drug business. If you take somebody's money, they get you."
Deliberations in the case will continue Wednesday
Yeah, they were there, but not in major numbers. You have to understand so many people were hustling, its not like it was just a few people. I think what you're trying to say is they played a major part of the game, but what I'm trying to say is their raw numbers weren't big like that.
I can see why they played a major role, they are right next to cocaine factories, and they could blend in with blacks who were hustling cocaine all over the city at the time, only a fool wouldn't take advantage of that!
Naw I’m not saying they had a grip on the business but what I’m saying is that some of these West Indian groups had their hand in the coke and weed business that was put in high regard by some,some of these West Indian groups were small time but some were big time.
What I’m saying is that of course they didn’t have a grip on the corner to corner or shop side of things (except in small amount of cases)this is because they didn’t live all over in these hoods. But they were getting their hands dirty just like any ghetto youth, and in at least several cities they were a factor.
Piri Tomas
All Star
My only experience with Yonkers back in the day was hitting Cross County Mall for food/light shopping. There was no reason to go there. One of my friends bought a condo on that side too when he started making real money in the streets. A lot of rap legends came out of there obviously, but it wasn't on the map for those of us hustling in the Bronx in that era. If anything dudes would come down from there and other towns in Westchester to cop work.
I thought Ma$e was wack, wasn't familiar with his shyt prior to Bad Boy... Big L I knew from his first album which I thought was good, I liked that MVP shyt, it got a lot of spins in the clubs around '95/'96--especially Kid Capri parties for obvious reasons.
I thought the Diplomats were corny. I mean those dudes are my age, some of them are from the East Side too (Jim Jones), which is my hood. Never knew about them until rap. It was a wave, thought the music was mostly low quality, although Cam can spit his ass off.
A lot of you ask me about hip hop. To be honest, hip hop and the streets were mostly two different worlds. If you were in the hustle game for real you were in uptown drug spots almost 24-7, you wouldn't have time to be ringside for Fat Beats ciphers and vice versa. We listened to what was hot on the radio or the club scene, and if we liked it we'd cop the tapes/CDs. That's why a lot of these NYC rappers from my era weren't really in the streets like that, there's no way to really advance as a rapper or anything else if you're a real street dude. You're trapped.
Piri Tomas
All Star
As for food, I didn't grow up eating soul food, Rican on both sides. Once I was getting money I would hit the old restaurants uptown for all that stuff. The best thing I ever had in terms of AA southern-style food was at my boy's grandmother's crib in the projects back in the day, and I'm not even sure it was "soul food"... It was chicken liver on rice with some greens. She was mad southern, but that might've just been a thing she cooked up, not a real soul food dish.
Rican food, I love all of it, from chillo frito to mofongo, to alcapurria. My mofongo is top notch (learned how to make it in PR from my grandmother as a kid)... piped down a lot of dimes off the strength of my skills in the kitchen lol.