There's some stories to be told & perspective from the North Bronx game the OP wouldn't be able to tell but I ain't mad at the thread.
The game is the game & shouldn't be romanticized. We all left with PTSD from the curb. Its hard to come to grips with the fact that most of the cats you grew up with are legit sociopaths, psychos & schizos. There's really no safe space to vent since you can't exactly share crack tales at the watter cooler in the office & internet weirdos will try to scribble in their notepad so they add your life exp to a wiki/yt channel.
Basically, domesticated version of Vietnam filled with traumatized, burnt put middle aged demons who participated in the 80s/90s Crack era.
We need a Cultural Anthropology book on how black people's values changed with the mentality of the drug game.