Survived Early 90s Drug Game in NYC AMA

[Shoog Shatmi]

What if someone offered to pay more rent for the corner you were on? Were you out of luck?

 

[Piri Tomas]

What was your first big purchase (material item) that made you feel like the man?

Did you buy a car?

Any flamboyant jewelry? Or were you low key?

Were you able to invest any money or was it easy come easy go?

How many of your crew members became addicted to dope?

In '90 (15 years old) I had just come back from D.C. with money stuffed in my pockets and went right down to the diamond district. Bought a big gold rope. A few weeks later had a dude relieve me of my purchase

I wasn't a big car person, didn't do the races or car/motorcycle shows.

I liked clothes, leathers, shearlings.

Didn't save anything. I had family members, girlfriends (fortunately no kids back then), and it felt like getting money wasn't a challenge so I didn't appreciate it.

I made one good investment back then but I won't go into that.

 

[Piri Tomas]

What if someone offered to pay more rent for the corner you were on? Were you out of luck?

If you didn't own the store (i.e. you didn't buy it outright) and couldn't afford a higher rent, your ass would get evicted. It was very basic economics, and the same way real estate operates (albeit without rent control).

 

[King Jae]

What the most u lost on bad work? How u get ur heads back?

 

[Piri Tomas]

What the most u lost on bad work? How u get ur heads back?

We had to shut down a whole store once and move to another one because we couldn't get the stench of bad dope off of us... in "legit" business they refer to this as re-branding or pivoting. That hurt. But back then the city was crawling with addicts and it wasn't hard to find your clientele. Competition was fierce though, most of the beef popped off over playing with prices.

 

[Indiglow Meta (R$G)]

@Piri Tomas Tell me about the whole dope stamp culture...is there any way to find old ones and blow the pictures up?
What were some common themes in your day?

 

[LiveFromLondon]

What was the feeling like when you sold that 1st brick or really started raking it in
What was you spending your money
How much was that work getting stretched

 

[flea]

Was it easy to survive something you were never in?

 

[Piri Tomas]

Was it easy to survive something you were never in?

Feeling the Frankie Ruiz avi, won't dignify the rest of the post. Good afternoon.

 

[Piri Tomas]

@Piri Tomas Tell me about the whole dope stamp culture...is there any way to find old ones and blow the pictures up?
What were some common themes in your day?

Stamps were just how the custies identified your decks. It was basic branding.

They could be anything, a lot of them were references to albums, Paid in Full, movies Basic Instinct... shyt, one crew was moving "AIDS," which to me was super disrespectful but the game was disrespectful like that

 

[flea]

Feeling the Frankie Ruiz avi, won't dignify the rest of the post. Good afternoon.

Did you rub elbows with ace, Mitch, and Rico?

 

[Piri Tomas]

What was the feeling like when you sold that 1st brick or really started raking it in
What was you spending your money
How much was that work getting stretched

I never had an out of control fortune, but it was a lot of money for me considering what I came from. Not sure if the money ever balanced out the paranoia and bad parts of hustling.

 

[Donald J Trump]

I never had an out of control fortune, but it was a lot of money for me considering what I came from. Not sure if the money ever balanced out the paranoia and bad parts of hustling.

ever thought of writing a book or screenplay?

if u have talked to youngins tryna live that life, have they respected your word?

hows it feel seeing rappers rap about shyt you lived and they didnt?

what woulda happened if u lost 92 bricks

 

[Donald J Trump]

came close to death?
story time

 

[mson]

Ever have any dealings on the LES?