The 85 South Show with Karlous Miller, DC Young Fly and Chico Bean - TONY LEWIS & TONY LEWIS JR in the Trap! | 85 SOUTH SHOW

Episode Date: March 9, 2024

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of the powerful stories I'll be mining on our upcoming 12th season of family secrets. We continue to be moved and inspired by our guests and their courageously told stories. Listen to Family Secrets Season 12 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Smith is for legal power. Right. And he got the right one in Ms. Brittany K. Barnett out of Texas.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. That's who did it. How did you find it? So I actually push a T connected Brittany and I. You know, that's my man. And, you know, he'd been trying to go to bat with, you know, regard my dad, you know, with me when Obama was in the White House and actually even sent me

in his place. When he got invited, he couldn't make it. He sent me in his place that I could be opposite at the White House. Obama didn't show up for this meeting, but his handlers did, right? So I was able to raise my dad's, you know, case dead, right? But then Obama left office. And so one of the things I think is critical, though, to this, doing Obama administration, right? First of all, they had a big clemency initiative, which we were trying to get him So it's one of those times I was talking about I thought we was close, right? I'm like, damn, I'm here pushing, pushing, while they're pushing, you know what I'm saying, all different people. In the community, of course, and then boom, Obama leave.

But during Obama administration, they had passed something called the Fair Sentencing Act, right, which created the 18 to 1, disparage. My father just took it from 100 to 1 to 18 to 1, but it wasn't retroactive, meaning anybody already in jail couldn't benefit for it. Fast forward to 2016, 2017. Harkin Jeffries introduced what we know now is the First Step Act in the House. It passed through Congress. Donald Trump signs it into law.

What that did amongst other things, but the critical thing was it made the Fair Sentencing Act retroactive, right? The caveat was you only get one shot of the joint. So if we file this shit and they get denied That's it. That's it. So initially we went after something else that me and Pusha collaborated on with other

folks. It was a reform called the two-point reduction. We applied for that. Two dads pointed by the judge. We got denied. So they sold too much drugs. It wasn't four people like that. Too much.

Yeah. We saw too much drugs, nigger. You know, hey. He got niggas. Big shout out of the big meats, though. That's my motherfucker man. But he, you know, his. He just charged.

It was way the drug amount. So think about that, right? And the context of what we're talking about. Somebody that the world kind of know, Big Meach actually was granted this same reform that he got denied. Because saying that Meach qualified, but he didn't. And through my same lawyer. So it's not going to be pulling out the end. That's the same attorney, right?

All right. So we get denied from that. And I don't want to say these denials. I really want to let people know how, like, catastrophic. that shit is when you hear that when you put all the work and when you know you're delivering this not only brittany was able to craft this motion of this beautiful motion because all the things that you know i'm saying that was brought to the table faith-based leaders put uh uh city council members the people in the community me i'm the preeminent preeminent re-entry

person in my city and maybe probably you could put me up against anybody in the country when it come to this i'm his son it's nothing they can worry about public safety wise stabilization why it's none of that, right? All that's covered. And you get, and the judge says no to that. All right, cool. Knock us down. We get back up. All right, we're going to go in under the First Step Act. And Brittany was able to, just for her legal prowess, man, just was able to find a case that our judge and ruled on was very similar, right? But I'm saying, in my mind, like he's saying his man, ain't nothing. Every time we think somebody's case is similar and it's somebody that did, they like, nah, ain't the same, though. They're at different, you know,

They're at different level, you know, all that. Long story short, on March 16th, we get a call. Brittany gets a call. She calls me saying that the government does not oppose, right? There was something like, what you mean? Never heard it in my life that the government didn't oppose the motion for ability release, right, or for re-sentencing, whatever. So I'm telling him, he ain't trying to get too sighty, like, all right, but we don't know.

Friday, so that's a Wednesday, Thursday come nothing, Friday, I go to New Orleans, I get off the plane in New Orleans, Britney FaceTime me. And all she said was Monday. And I was in New Orleans two days, man, Monday morning, March 20th, I went and got my father, man. That shit was cracking. That's a beautiful, man.

It's a beautiful story, but let me ask you this, the follow-up though. What was the moment that hit you that said, I got to do it. I got to be the person that got to do it. So I ain't got no brothers and sisters, right? You know, man, I was approaching nine years old,

right? April 15, 1989. I turned nine the next month, right? My father got locked up, slim, like, my whole world changed. And not just my world, my family, everything changed, everything, right? So I ain't never, you know,

as I became a man, I feel like I became a man that day for real because life just became my childhood proud of that was very supported. We had everything in the world went, you know what I'm saying? They just took homes like he was gone and everything about our lifestyle was different. Then they shipped them all the way to California. You know what I was in California for the first 13 years. And I come up, we come up on the same block.

The 80s was bad, but the 90s was wicked. Dicious. It was wicked. I'm in the bull's eye that shit round around our way, you know what I'm saying? And as I, you know, navigated through the toughest terrain there is, for real, and I bumped into the work that saved my life, you know, starting to help my community and through my service to others, and me helping, I mean, so many people, I've been doing this shit 23 years, you know what I mean, for us to help in my community.

That it was nobody else to turn to, because nobody wanted to touch, nobody else believed that he was coming home anyway, not even homies, like nobody, they're not letting tone, that's how people felt. But through my service to other people, you know, through my contributions to the world I feel, it wasn't nobody else that was even better suited to do but me, you know? And but this never was or has ever been just about us. The ultimate goal obviously was to, you know, help my dad, but I helped thousands of people for real. And, you know, one of the things I think moving forward, you know, the 100 to 1 ratio, the mandatory minimums, Our president, Joe Biden, as a senator, was the architect of those laws.

And he ran on writing those wrongs, right? And as we're approaching, you know, 2024 with the next election coming, he didn't done nothing. He didn't do enough, as it relates to this issue, nothing. I mean, he's done computer chips and climate change and what he could do on gun reform and infrastructure build and try whatever he could do around student debt. All the other promises, you know what I'm saying, for real, for real, he done that. What about us? What about the things that you've told the black people and, you know, the VP as well. You know, Kamala comes, she was a, she was the Attorney General of California. You know what I'm saying?

It was responsible for a lot of locking a lot of folks up out there. And she, even before she became his VP candidate, when she was the presidential candidate, she also talked about writing the wrongs around criminal justice reform. And for me, from a neighborhood, like the one I come from, mass incarceration has been the most catastrophic thing. in our community, right? Because it has economic impacts, social impacts, emotional impacts, mental health impacts, not only on the people that go to prison,

but the people that they belong to. And so when you talk about all these young dudes out here spinning, all these young, ask them who they belong to, ask them as their father locked up, is their uncle locked up, their big brother, their mother, their uncle, you gotta, and so you start to see the connectivity between those that are impacted by mass incarceration and a lot of these other traumas.

For this president to not exercise his power, you don't need Congress. We talk about he can... Power to pen. Commute these sentences, Joe Biden. And when Wayne and... So, Wayne was at the 50-year anniversary, joining it said, I say, let me preface this. This ain't no shout at Wayne, and I'm just making a point. He was just in D.C. Saturday, at the 50-year anniversary, joining in Kamala Harris's house.

You know, Trump gave Wayne a pardon, and he commuted Kodak's sentence. And I was just thinking to myself, like this one out of that, bro, one of you was advocating, like, I want them to be able to all these, use that platform to talk about the men. If you're a street dude, this type of stuff is,

it's not political, really. This street business, like this, it's nothing for people from the street. There's so many good men still behind the motherfucking walls and doors. They're women. This is probably why I'm here, not just to, you know,

of course, to support my homie right here, support the show, you know, and, you know, but there's so many other people that's still in prison 20, 30, 40 years in. That's good men that's working in prison with the young dudes coming through every day. They're trying to give back and they're just wasting away. Joe Biden, he can take that pen commute a lot

of these rehabilitated men that I put my name on, like the Lord and Legend, Tiny, yeah, Timothy Williams, James Kirby Burks, motherfucking, my man. Silk, you know, Jermaine Lewis, just numerous guys, man, that I cannot not speak about and put these, because I know these men are good men, they're not getting out of jail free,

they didn't pay their debt some more than their debt back to society. And Joe Biden ran off of prison reform and having compassion and, you know. Now his boy, now his son. Yeah, his family. Yeah, his family. So this shit, yeah, hunter,

shit, you know, everybody make their mistakes, you know what I'm saying? Facts, we ain't judging after like you now are in a position with families like I was, you're going to be because he's going to prison, right? And, you know, when the powerful and the connected and things like that, right, it's always different, right?

And people are always able to say, oh, what people make mistakes or, you know, he got so many good quality. They never see that in us. And that's somebody who, I'm the following I'm the only person like round my way

he never been in jail like seriously I've done time with everybody right it's not a singular thing it's my dad that's singular in that way but every I've done

prepping all around this country visiting people in federal prison I'm saying all around this country and I've helped people returning right and fought for people in their families that people can move past their mistakes

right fostering some form of redemption you know in 95% most people don't get

life without parole like he had you know what I mean that's the other thing like that he had life without parole explain that to a lot of people

that don't understand with that your release date is death yeah you release when you die that's the sentence everybody should be a death sentence

not no motherfucking life without parole because you ain't it's really like an illusion of like yeah there's a slow death sentence

You can get out. This is just as well. They say, though, man, we're going to put that needle in your ass and get rid of your ass. Now, what the fuck is the difference? It's a slow death. It's death if you don't overcome that shit.

You know, because, like you said, coming from the city, man, and growing up in that environment, like my father was killed when I was two, you know, so I'm a product of the city, a streets of the city. And I know from experience, just my own personal journey through life

coming up in the city how the absence of, of my father affected my actions and a lot of the things that I got into. And I thought that that's what we had to do because of the environment that we came from. But in the reality, I know it was because of the absence of my pops.

Being as though you was away for 34 years, like, how did you still influence him in the way that you did to keep him from doing what was innately in him to do? Unfortunately for me, I never had that direct source, So I just had good men, my uncles and everybody that was around that kept me from going too far. Right. But you being away, how was you able to keep that instilled in him to keep him from following your path when you're a legend in the city?

You're a legend out of the streets of the city. A lot of pressure on Slim, like, you know, the nepotism of what come from having people that come out the streets like you. Like my uncle Reggie is a legend uptown. So I know the nepotism where you can show up and such because you, such and such. There's people come and get one of these, say that they go up the street. So how did you, from being all the way across the country, how did you manage to navigate that relationship being in prison? As much communication as possible.

You know, and big ups to you, Chico, for overcoming, you know, your father getting killed in them streets, man. And you still, where you're at in there and what you have done, man. Because a lot of, a lot of homies, man, in jail on the street, they motivated by you, man. And they talk about to see what you doing and what you did and be like, damn, that motherfucker. And they know what you come from the same thing where we came from. And even worse, with your dad being killed

at the early age. But anyway, big ups to your uncles and stuff who came in support. And my son had that similar type of support from his uncles, even though all in the streets to, grandma, you know, just the whole fucking crime family, actually, but yeah, that's all we knew, that's all we knew.

That's real shit in DC, man, you know what I'm saying? You don't know, man, that shit. boy oh my god and but you know the phone calls the letters and me constantly you know trying to pound in him and show him what happened to me and don't let that be you you know what I'm saying and I know like I said by him being my son there's a lot of pressures that was due to just what you said to go coming at him trying to send messages through him trying to set up deals through him and or trying to offer him you know you Tony Lewis man take these join but and he would talk to me about some of the things you know what I'm saying

but it took a lot out of him, not just, because he ain't had to listen to a fucking thing I said because he was getting older now, and he can do what he's going to do, you know what I'm saying? But I gave him a lot of credit for seeing the right way to go and what happened to me and being like, and all his friends, all his friends in jail, murdered. Just every time I'm calling, he going to a funeral,

you know, you know, just all that. So it wasn't that much of me, but a lot more of him and the right decisions that he was making or made. Oh, dude, let me ask you this, 34 years incarcerated. How you keep your mind strong? You take it all my questions. Oh, my brother, we're thinking of the same shit. I was just like, I won't have.

That's a shit. And I was saying this to a few other people. First, for real, God, for me, you know what I'm saying? Most different. That's real. I pray to many, pray to many motherfucking nights, man, and all I was asking, don't let me go crazy in this shit. You know what I'm saying?

I'm saying, because I mean, that's the, that's the main factor in order, you know, to make it, you got to, the mental, you got to keep it. It might go a little weak on you or whatever, but you got to keep it, man, you know what I'm saying? But, yeah, man, that's the hardest part, man, because prison ain't got so fucking bad, man, they're carrying shit in there, like. I'm going to ask, it was the 10, was the first 10 or the middle 10 or the last 10? What, like, what's the worst? Yeah, what was the, because of it? Like the last 10 or the last, yeah, about the last 10 is this got so bad and the dudes that they bring it in man It's just so watered down and fucked up now man and you know all this hot shit

Niggas coming in fake paperwork making up stories. There's just so much shit that I was never used to Were coming in when I came in man it was real shit going to real niggas real you know even the other races it was real shit Man a bunch of gang shit watered-down gang shit just saying it ain't you can't it's hard to bid because I I don't feel normal around this shit because this is a bunch of fake shit, you know? And so it's bad, man. Not to mention what the feds then turned into, I'm saying far as the wardens and administration,

every time you get a new warden, I want to outdo what the last warden did by taking every fucking thing you got and treating you like shit. So I want to do it even worse. You know, so, yeah, there's no place to be. COVID fucks shit up. Yeah, man.

Constantly locked down, you know, going to the hole. Every time you get COVID, It won't put you in a hole in quarantine. It's just just selling and had COVID. They put any motherfuck in the cell with you. You get COVID and then you got to go to the hole, even though you ain't got COVID, but he got COVID.

It's just a lot of stress, man, a lot of pressure, man. And in prison, it's all about the money in prison. That's what it came to. I'm saying to far as the administration. They want you to spend every dime, you know, on these defaed, beat a fucking tennis shoes and bullshit that they sell us and the commissary, feed you worse as they can,

so you got to buy little snacks and commissaries. So the whole, And they talk about it among you, you know, because they're getting the kickback, getting the money, high-ass prices on garbage that they sell them. So it's just awful, man. It's terrible. So for all you young niggas out there,

you don't want that prison shit, you know what I'm saying? So it's still clear, man. Do what she calling them doing to be entrepreneur, man. Y'all are doing it, man. You know what's your favorite shit to do now at you home? Like, time has changed so much. It's literally a whole other world. So what are some of the things that you are finding pleasure in now?

My granddaughters. My mother and granddaughter and my son, man, family shit, you know what I'm saying, for the most part, for me. Because that's all I dream about. I was just saying, man, if I ever get out, man, I want to take my granddaughters to school. You know what I'm saying? I want to take my shillies, I'm doing it all the time. What was that? I mean, you know, like, because you know when you get older, you lose that excitement for shit and then it's like to be back into the world.

Yeah, man, it's the best, man. You know what I'm saying? It's just seeing the smiles on their faces and, you know, because I communicate with, with them every day in prison and they always tell me pop up we're doing this we're doing that we can't wait did you come home so you can and all the time i'm saying to myself yeah i can you know i'm saying to them i can't wait to come on too baby but i know my chances i know shit is fucked up because i'm getting denied left and right but i know i got my son fighting for me but there's a uphill like you know david and a galive you know son just like you said earlier man

against the whole united states government you know when they said that uh you introduced crack cocaine to Washington, D.C. And that label, once they put that shit in that shit, every time I go up for a motion, the judge's right in that shit. You know, and it just, that's tough to overcome, man. Yeah, tough.

Coming out of the city, man, you went to jail in 1989. You come home in 2023. Y'all, niggas. Well, that's what everybody's thinking the same. I'm like, it's the next question. Oh, man. You come home in 2020.

You've been alive. That's what I was thinking. That's what I was thinking. in my head, I'm like, you see two dimensions. You see when you left and then you see 20, 23 shit. But then it's like, can you imagine with no explanation of the shit that's in the middle

just come home, like, what the fuck? And you have to adjust. Well, I'm still doing it. But loving it all at the same motherfuckettling time, the whole process, man. Because like I said, that prison shit, that shit is brutal, man. It's brutal.

And so much shit going on, man. The drugs, the motherfuckers. It's like every day. It's like being out on the drug strip, everybody, high, everybody. Because the pressure's so great in there, that's the only fucking release, man. Motherfuck, give me that K2,

give me the chemicals out of unicorn. These motherfuckers are using any and everything to get high if they can. They don't give a fuck, man, because the pressure is cleaning. Yeah, they got, like, not cleaning, but the chemicals, like, in unicorn, which they, like, make glue and the tags,

you know, most of the federal prisons got down industry, they make different. And Cumberland where I just came from, they're making the car tags. And so all the different chemicals they're used for the painting all that shit, they bring it from Unicorn, they're selling that shit. And the pressure

is just so great, man. Dudes in there, man. Can't take it, and the whole release is getting high. A lot of motherfuckers in there. The mental illness, that shit is off the chain in prison now. So talk about the people that, like, I know people who are

institutionalized, right? They go in chain gang and they get accustomed. them to chain gang and then now they're about to come home it sounds crazy but you got some people who's scared yeah to come home yeah i had a few people tell me that before i wound up getting a blessing and uh dudes was getting ready to go home and we'll be talking they'd be like man man i'm kind of i'm like what fuck you mean you're scared nigga you just did 10 years you ready to get out tomorrow you're talking about you're scared scared or what i wasn't understanding what and he was like

man you know in here man we you know we got everything set man man man you know we got everything set man man you know I got my own sale. Niggas you want to stay in that motherfucker's cell because I don't, let me tell him, is it how we can change and you stay the fuck here? I want to go. Right.

But you're right, though. No, seriously, though. Before you got out, you knew you was going home. You ain't getting nervous or nothing at all. Yeah, I got a little nervous, but not not because of the fact of going home, but. It's the joy of freedom.

Yeah, the joy of freedom. And my, I only knew, like, what was it, like a Saturday, something, and I got released Monday. So it was only like a day. day or day and a half in between that I didn't know I ain't no shit I couldn't even I couldn't even man I couldn't nothing man because I didn't you know and you know not knowing what to actually expect like with freedom you know what I'm saying but I don't

give a fuck I was ready to go I don't figure that shit out give me the fuck I don't I don't care you know what I'm saying yeah for those who scared though it's like why I know they like, I got this, but it's like, are you scared to enter the free world because of how somebody may not accept you, or the pressure is not fucking up and coming back. It's like when I was just gray ass, bro, like, I can understand that fear of somebody who went to jail in 1989 in Washington, D.C. and come home to 2023, Washington, D.C. 26 and 62. Like, put it like that. That's also let's go to jail with 26 years old. You come home 60 years old. And you come home to a city. And you come home to a city.

you left the city that don't exist no more literally where we come from especially our side of town has been stripped of everything that you knew when you left the streets so when you come home

and look at Washington, D.C. now do you still feel the same I mean I understand the freedom part but just as a native like how does it make you feel being as though you left the streets with it looking like this and came home to what it is now

how does it make you feel? feel, man. When I'm among some men, good, you know, good men that I knew back from the day, my son, a lot of his friends, Boobie, a lot of, you know, good men, I feel normal, you know, like back, somewhere back in the day. But aside from that, and away from that, yeah, it is, like, it's kind of like shit far and somewhat. The gentrification shit is really, man, you know, no more in the barbershop that you used to go to the black-owned store there, I don't the corner all that shit gone the all these little cafes they're sitting on the dogs they walking the dog nothing to guess them though but the shit is it just make you feel you know like you

like damn what the fuck in my head this ain't dc no more you know welcome you know welcome to pretty private with ebonye the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free i'm ebeney and every tuesday i'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all. Childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more. And found the shrimp to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house.

Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant, but he wasn't shot on a street corner. He wasn't shot in the middle of a judge. drug deal. He was shot in his house unarmed. Pretty Private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Your entire identity has been fabricated. Your beloved brother goes missing without a trace.

You discover the depths of your mother's illness, the way it is echoed and reverberated throughout your life, impacting your very legacy. Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few of the profound and powerful stories I'll be mining on our 12th season of Family Secrets. With over 37 million downloads, we continue to be moved and inspired by our guests and their courageously told stories. I can't wait to share 10 powerful new episodes with you, stories of tangled up identities, concealed truths, and the way in which family secrets almost always need to be told. I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests

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And all that stops here. If you like witty women, then this is your tribes. With guests like Corinne Steffens. I've never seen so many women protect predatory men. And then me too happened. And then everybody else wanted to get pissed off because the white said it was okay. Problem. My oldest daughter, her first day in ninth grade, and I called to ask how I was going.

She was like, All they were doing was talking about your thing in class. I ruined my baby's first day of high school. And slumflower. What turns me on is when a man sends me money. Like, I feel the moisture between my legs when a man sends me money. I'm like, oh my God, it's go time. You actually sent it?

Listen to the Good Mom's Bad Choices podcast every Wednesday on the Black Effect Podcast Network. The I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you go to find your podcast. Adventure should never come with a pause button. Remember the Movie Pass era, where you could watch all the movies you wanted for just $9? It made zero cents and I could not stop thinking about it. I'm Bridget Todd, host of the tech podcast, there are no girls on the internet. On this new season, I'm talking to the innovators who are left out of the tech headlines. Like the visionary behind a movie pass, Black founder Stacey Spikes,

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I know how much it breaks my heart because we was out and so it happened. You know what I mean? I would say that Anthony Williams was the start of the city getting, you know, reconstructed in regards and they started uptown. So they literally started, you know, on the avenue right by Petworth. And, you know what I mean? When they started building a train, and all that. I was going back and forth to school

and seeing like them strip and then once they took down the World War on 14th Street and all that good shit. I'm like, man, what are they doing? You know, it was crazy, like, so I'm 43. And I'll block, right?

They called the handle down and was that part 85 or something like that, 86? I remember about by 90, they moved out everybody that lived on our block that was on public and this is one of the things that I that donned on me D.C. was so bad right at a certain point a lot of their houses homes uptown got a little different but even uptown a lot of the

houses the PFS are living those houses where we thought they own those houses man people that was rent for 30 40 years just because you couldn't get nobody else to kind of buy it nobody wanted to live in these many same places right so they move so I'm so from 90s so When I'm like 10 to the till, probably till I'm like 7, 18, yeah, so the whole 90s, it took like that 10 years span for people to start actually coming and buying houses. It was like maybe 40%. I grew up on a block where only 40% of the houses has might have lived in. I went to Dunbar, so I was right there.

I was right there by y'all block. But I started to see the gentrification. I went to Dunbar. You went to Dunbar? Yeah, I graduated from Dunbar too, man. And it's like, y'all area. You know, the whole city knew your area because of the history of, you know, everybody just, you know, knowing. And, like, I don't know if you knew that this was going on being as though you was incarcerated,

but I'm sure you probably could tell from how many of us was coming in and out of the federal penitentiary system throughout that time. But we have a war mentality in the city. I know my gentleman, like, I'm younger than him, but I generate, like, we was into that type of shit. Like, we was glorifying the ignorance because that's really all we had. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? We was proud of that shit. Like, we was really proud of the shit that, you know, even once you became a victim to it,

I'd have seen so much murder and death and been in so many situations. But still, it's like you become numb to it in a way where it's not just a numbness. It's a, man, shit, fuck. This is my turn. You know what I mean? All right, man, ain't nobody going to ask someone on ass. The incarceration shit is saying, tell me about some of the fun you had in the streets before this shit happened. Jesus Christ.

I didn't want to get into it. I don't know. Tell me about the motherfuckers might be watching. The next week you had in these streets. I was listening to Shannon Briggs when he was saying about the fight, Sugarway Leonard and Marvin Haggling. And me and my son was dead. Yeah, we was there. You know what I'm saying?

We were just looking at each other and just saying, hey, man. same day he remember for sure him and my two nephews I took them to Vegas um first something first coming down before I've been on the plane since then just yeah yeah it was good it was good yeah it was good yeah but uh super bowls you know um in the redskins in the motherfucker in the 80s and you know the three don'ts in the row and just uh two of them rather uh and just uh and just Just the casino, Atlanta City, Vegas, just the big crap games on the streets, hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Niggas bringing bags up and full of money. And it was some of the best years of my life. That's the best years of my life. $100,000 crap games in the hood. Yeah. And I'm going to say this line. I don't know. Peter.

What a bad thing? Oh, my God. I think, you know, I think one of the things about the D.C. experience, you kind of. touched on but I think it's relevant um it is a it's something we didn't we haven't had anyone particularly like from cinema or music to really talk about explain the story things right that happen with them that you be hard pressed to really find niggins I'm sitting here creating a movie in my head the more y'all talk I'm

like somebody got to know about this shit saying the curb bone documentary right that came I remember the curb bone did the documentary on rape me yeah I I remember watching it and the niggas said y'all niggas was be sitting outside serving ounces and half ounces all day long. I said, nigger, if I can serve ounces and half ounces all day long, I might take that risk now. Like, nigger, I might, nigger, ounces and half ounces all day, that 24 hours, nigger, is just serving a whole. And I'm just looking at this era of time in the city. And you know, it's so many of us that have been affected by it, but being as though you was dead, like, when did you know that it was, when did you know two-part question? When did you know that it was like, oh shit, we didn't hit, we didn't hit this shit about to be something else. And second part, when did you know is old? Because you always feel it before they come. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.

When did I know that we really, really hit? As far as, like, nigga, oh, we win a different. Yeah, when my man, Cornell Jones, a lot of people don't know his name or know a story, but you know from the city, when he came home for federal prison. And, you know, we was always, I was already doing some small things. Fuck what a dude that wasn't from around the way. He was cool, old a dude, you know, but he was fucking me around. I was young.

I ain't really know. But I was moving this shit. but and Cornell you know he always kept his ear to the to the streets even though he was in prison and he had been hearing about he had sent a few messages like yeah I'm coming home such and such such and such uh you know what you're doing you know like that I'm gonna make that shit look like it ain't nothing you know what I'm saying I'm like uh yeah okay corn I see you when you know so he you know he come home and uh we go to dinner or whatever he's talking to me and they're like man what you uh what is this how much is I tell him you said what he said man I got that shit is

nothing. So I'm still, I'm listening to him, right? I was like, Nick, there ain't no way you just coming home from jail. You're telling me you can do all this shit right here and this. And sure shit, he could, and he did. And that's when I knew, you know what I'm saying? That the price that he was getting them, you know, Jones coming from Miami, this quick, ray fat. Yeah, so that's when I knew that it was.

Telling me, what date that for us? Yeah, this was like, motherfucking, 83, 84 around in that time. Man, we probably had a number so sweet. Don't get no bitch for $6,500, please. And mind you, this Rape for Admin's shit that I wound up in life without parole. He wasn't even known of, wasn't even in the picture or nothing. This rape for admin shit, so this was all handover shit, nothing to do, you know what I'm saying? So even way before him, I was already, you know, taking off and going, you know what I'm saying?

Way past, even what I did wind up doing the little shit with him. That shit wasn't, you know, but they made it out because they wanted him so bad and the city was murder capital and they said, we don't get you niggas and get y'all all this, you know, and that's kind of like, you know, where it went from. One of the scariest nights in the streets

where you're like, shit, this. Ooh, where you can hear that hard pounded. Yeah, yeah. You know, back then, you know, niggas was out hunting, that kidnapping shit that shit started back when we, you know what I'm saying, back in the 80s and back an hour time. or our city.

And try to muffle, try to bring me a move, you know, with the kidnap shit and da-da-da-da. But I had already got the word before, you know what I'm saying? And that was, you know, some scary shit, you know, to be honest, but they didn't succeed and, you know, that was that was that. But yeah, that was scary. Yeah, you know.

Right, listen, you gotta know what that means, Slim. That's the difference in that erred to now. Yeah, niggas is tweeting, yeah, niggas just try to kidnap me slim, but I got away, fuck these bitch-ass niggins. And you didn't even move. Like, bro. I'm leaving the state.

Man, some niggas trying to kidnap you. Okay. Like, but the second part of the question, when you know they was coming? Oh, they started calling off to the grand jury. And, you know, most of the time, you know, people you know, and they'll tell them, don't tell, you know,

but there's always going to be somebody that fuck with you, be like, look, man, the motherfuckers calling me to the grand jury. So I'm asking about you, grateful to hold. And that's when I knew I said. And I told him, he wanted to laugh that shit off. I said, these motherfuckers coming, man. Ain't no way they got no grand jury here is coming. Now, they named the first motherfuckers on it.

And they ain't coming with something. They always get an indictment when it's a grand jury. You know? You know, that's when I knew, I said this shit coming. But I ain't know that was coming like this. I'm like, I ain't never got no drugs around me. Ain't no drugs in my residence. And so if they come, fuck up what they're going to do.

Right. But the motherfucker wasn't hit to this conspiracy shit in 848 and RICO and all this kind of shit. Those was the laws designed for the mall. But they started using them in the city. They said, you know what, we're going to get these niggas. Because especially for the ones who are smart enough not to be around drugs, never, you know, sell drugs personally themselves, just how we get them. And that's what, and that's like that came.

So basically, you got caught off, he'd say she's shade. They never had any thing to say, we got them. No drugs. No drugs. And they raid all my Jones and they never found it. You y'all, but you're a fucking street hero. I would have lost my goddamn, I know. That shit, that shit ain't nothing to play with.

Yeah. That's a real guise to shit. That's the hell of a testimony, though, man. Like we did, we're the generation. I ain't get caught for shit. I'm 40. I mean, you know how bad I ain't get caught with nothing. We only, we only, we only, we're the generation.

We only saw them days where everybody went away. You know what I'm saying? And it's like, now, like you said, it's a time we in a phase of our life where these guys are coming back to uncles and the cousins and the fathers and the shit like that. So now it's like we finally getting to hear that side of the story. You know what I'm saying? Because we've been led with this narrative, like you said, for like your son, 34 years, 20 years. So it's like now we're getting to see the other side or hear the other side.

It's like another form of lynching you just got away. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. Yeah, man. You know, that life without parole slam, you being nine years old, I want to get both of y'all perspective on, when you heard it, and when you heard it, like, when you found out the day, when they gave you that sentence, like, what go through your mind when you hit life without parole? That's it. Make your legs buckle. Make you seriously, man. You're a motherfucker car.

I skip some beats, you know what I'm saying? Because that shit is serious life without parole. life without parole. No parole. You just do life. Just continue. And we kept a secret from him because he was young. But in a few years, he found out on his own. Because he ain't actually he always like, Dad, when you come home, Dad, I never give him a time. But I'm coming home, son. I had you. I couldn't tell him that shit. That shit was crushing to me. So I know what it would have did to him at 9 or 10 11 years old. You know what I'm saying? But go ahead, son. No, I mean, I just, I was going to say that. Like, I ain't know.

Yeah, he ain't noticed it. I didn't know the severity. the sentencing in mind it was at Quantico Marine base right yeah a Marine base not a prison you know what the FBI trained yeah now yeah so you visit at the G at the sale right and I never forget that like we walk up to the cell his cell was like last I mean it was like eight or nine and it was so then we walked and he was wiping you know wiping tears from his eyes and shit and he just was like um you know you got to be strong you know what I'm saying I'm nine and my father tell me you got to be strong and I'm like all right you know I don't even know

what that really mean but in my little mind you know uh that meant that whatever we're about to go through we're gonna go through it together you feel I'm saying and I ain't I ain't quit 34 years and I was there every step of the way feel me so yeah that's glorious man like for man you've got a whole man story man yeah what are you looking forward to what's the next step like I know you just looking forward with fuck the time and all that it's like we're trying to get this story on the screen you know what I'm saying yeah to make a hand trying to get this story on the screen some kind of way because there's so many facets shit that we we can't even we're not going to talk

about even here so it's just so much more to you know because it's basically two different two different drug conspiracies and two different parts of the same city, you know, and it's just so many You get caught up in the early part of the government conspiracy type of shit. Yeah, but we, you know, we want to get the story out. Not just,

you know, of course we want to make a few dollars. Ain't no secret about that shit, but we also want to try to deter the young people, man, from taking this path. You know, not even with drugs, but even with the, more so with the violence that's going on. The senseless violence, this stupid

shit. Oh, you hear it every day, all the time. carjacking, you know, motherfuckers shooting women, shooting kids and all that shit. We ain't never respect none of that shit, man, and still don't. Our own people, we don't respect that shit. When you come into prison and we hear you got that, we don't respect that shit. Even if niggas think that that shit is respected, when you come to prison, that shit ain't respected, man. You know, so that's one of the main reason we want to. The difference, like, you know, because the violence, it was more violence in the, in the 80s and 90s, but it was, you know, and I don't know if you can even

say this but I'm gonna say it was it was respectable it was you get your something yeah and you felt like then it was relegated to those that were in that in our lifestyle not whoever nobody of me nobody's safe and that can't be respected especially when it come to our women and our children man and our mothers and our yeah no so I say that to say to what's going on now you was in prison for 34 years what happens when these these young niggas coming to jail. What happens, Mike?

So much shit. You sit back and you'd be looking like, this a nigga that killed three people. What the fuck? And this nigga acting like that, let them niggas carry. What the fuck is, you just killed three people out there

and you were here like, what the fuck, you know what I'm saying? And that's how I racked on, that's the reality, a lot of this shit, man, because the niggas in there got them motherfuckers, you ain't got that gun no more, you ain't got that gun no more,

you're in there with the wolves now, especially if they start them off in these penitentiaries. These FCI's, you know, medium security is a lot more calm and peaceful camps. But you start off in a pen, like my first 13 years and shit, that shit, that shit brutal, man. You know, motherfucking joke. So the would be the killers that a lot of the young, you know, that's out here popping that gun and that shit like that, and they go come in and they send them to them to these penitentiaries across the country.

That shit is some serious, brutal shit, serious, man, especially in our city with, like, you know, our population. is pretty small so it ain't everybody know yeah and it's federal but everybody know you kill this motherfucker here his uncle probably in the same prison you'll go to his cousin that should be popping off like yeah popping off like shit so you're busting that gun out there when you come in that motherfucking prison you better be ready ain't no gun though you can have to go hand-to-hand warfare up since 82 yeah niggas shit seriously man you'd have been motherfucking smoking all that's shit this nigga out here working out going hard yeah yeah All this this motherfuckin' wall.

Yeah, man, it's serious shit, though, man. But I just hope that, man, you know. I knew a nigga on the street, you were a gangster, but when he went in, boy, the boy was into doing some things. And you're like, hold up, not shawdy. I was on the street. Had everybody terrified. Yeah.

You're telling me, he and not iron and draws. Yeah, real shit. Yeah, a nigga been out of iron and draw. Bro, I see, I mean, through my, not just my work, but just my life, you know, you've seen dudes go in, and it might be a young dude, I might have came to his school, or he was in one of my programs, I might go into the prison for work, you know, talk to the D.C. guys, different federal institutions. And I see the looking there's eye. It ain't that look that was on the street. Like, he's scared. Or I get a call from here, if it's humble, one of the other homies, they know this, you know, young he's, they said, they ain't pressing him, he's scared, whatever. You want me to look out for him, you know, like not him. You know what I'm saying?

But the other thing, I mean, the other part of this, I'm talking about even for the strongest or the strong, you ask the question about mental health, his mental health and his strength. You know what I'm saying? I had an, I had my uncle, one of the men, my mother's brother, man I regard probably as one of the strongest men I've met in my life. It's a tough. Me too.

I looked up to him for sure. I'm saying. And my uncle on January 1, 2012, he had life without parole as well. He killed himself, man. I'm saying, I fucking believe that. I think I'm still processing that, right? 11 years later. But I'm talking about I've seen what the reality of like, them long sentences.

I'm talking about it. Don't be dead, don't nothing, but he's a man's man. Been in prison. What's Greg been like three or four? Third, third, federal beef, 10, 8, 10, and then the third one, like without parole. And if you had told me, pick anybody in prison, anybody in the world who would commit suicide in jail he wouldn't even be in my thought nowhere

close. He said man it was a beast and that pressure that shit man you just don't that mental shit man I used to think about this right and I'm thinking like I'm saying damn that shit happened Uncle Greg I ain't from that point

I anytime I pick up the phone with him hey what's up you all right like you know how you trying to gauge his mental because I mean this shit's in way I'm straight man I'm asking me that I feel but he never he never said the words like we never talked about that Gregory thing as far as, you know, comparing me with that.

And I knew that that was in the back of my son's mind because who, why wouldn't it be? He's like, man, my daddy, because I had did way more time than Gregory because Gregory had been out back in, back out. My shit was straight, you know what I'm saying? But I never wanted to bring it up to him to put it in his mind, no thought like, but that shit wasn't never on my mind, but it just happened to his uncle. So it was, you know, it was another mental. That being that existence right now, though, the most.

important thing I think the takeaway for me was always like and he was always very transparent about never made jail seem cool like it was eye like he was comfortable like he liked nothing and everybody else around us though man I'm all right what's up slug man we're in his Joe chain exactly

right so for his his uh so I used to be like damn um but what it does though to see somebody like what the existence does to somebody when you constantly dehumanized what that does to one's humanity, you feel me? And, like, that's what's walking out of them gates.

People that's, like, every day, they're being dehumanized, right? And that can erode your humanity. You can start to, like, not only want to flee. It's not a weak thing. It'll make you hard. It beats you down. That exists. That's an unnatural existence.

So it also puts every other relationship in jeopardy. The relationship with your mother, with your children, with your siblings, with your woman. You understand what I'm saying? with your friends because it's unnatural you got to really work to maintain don't people you don't make it 34 years bonded like we are bro you it don't happen i'm not even petting us in the back i'm more thanking god because i'm telling you that shit is not uh uh feasible it's you don't make it through it in our community black and brown but particularly in black communities man we are really in the spotlight in the bulls out of that exact thing

You understand what I'm saying? And so that's why I was trying to work so hard, not only the reform was having two people in prison, keeping families connected, working around family reunification, trying to make sure all the barriers around housing and employment I remove. I ain't talking about just in D.C. I'm talking about in America, right? Because that's essential to the longevity and the sustainability, the stabilization of our families. Without it, man, she's going to continue to go. It's going to get more and more pervasive.

It's going to get worse. you know what I'm saying so yeah I ain't mean to go on that song no no pop your shit these nigga need to hit his shit I gotta ask man because there's something what you just said just sparked the question in my mind about the connection that y'all kept you know me not having a father

growing up I always wonder like that moment that I've watched all my partners go through with their dads where you kind of like you know face off in the I'm a man now moment that you have with your father you know I mean did y'all ever had that moment and when was

that moment do you remember when it was I was one I remember um mainly was I probably was I was probably in my early 20s and my father like we we come from a a top down structure I mean he and I but then also in our environment I guess it's a it's a hard yeah yeah it's respect know my role right even he in prison I'm out here but I know my role and I felt good honoring And my uncles that I talk, my uncle Gregory, my uncle Boo, my old Alvin, Cornel, so I get that. I know my role in it.

But when you in jail, it's hard for him to see. We talk a lot and all that. But you're not seeing me growing up. I'm still that nine-year-old boy. You know what I'm saying? He's telling me. Like, I forgot what I was more so about like what I'm doing? Oh, like, hey.

Was that about the letter, son, when I was. Oh, yeah, that's exactly what the, so, you know, it's, every time I need you be with locked up with them and they go to another institution, I'm a fucking mail, man. He said, man, you ain't sending a letter. That's what I want to have a heck. And what I'm going to have a job. Right.

What I thought you lost a letter? What happened? You was pressed like, I ain't, you ain't sent it yet? I'm like, man, then I couldn't find it. That's what happened. Yeah, you couldn't find a letter. If something important, I needed that more fucking letter, man.

This nigga's talking about he. It might be a whole, what's the letter? But my point is, I'm trying to survive. I'm trying to survive. I'm trying to get through life and you talk about a letter like I ain't got nothing else going on you know what I'm saying so it was like that right we had like a like yeah that was one out first you know what to say I was mad at shit yeah yeah yeah yeah look but I can only say this shit over the phone see I ain't in it

I can't be the nigger face you it's just oh seeing also that I'm evolving I got a lot of shit going on one of the things about it I always proud of myself on at the end of the day I've all wherever there's a money order wherever it's going to meet somebody where there's a call call I always did what you asked me to do Don't go all the way off for me because I miss one time and I'm and I'm out here by any nobody out here with me And my mother my mother schizophrenia right in and that's burned I live you what I'm saying at that time my mother had moved she was still with me I'm saying just a lot of shit going on and I ain't got nobody to turn to right at that time so um that was that but what that did every little uh it's the beauty the beautiful thing about us um and this is just real shit and i'm i'm so grateful about this every full power we had every whatever that shit ain't never last long

and it only made us stronger you know what i'm saying i mean everyone you know what i'm saying we definitely had like you know it's inevitable you can't you know for having some relationship that's what i'm sitting here looking at i'm like bro this shit is amazing bro Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebeney and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all, childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health, struggle, and more, and found the shrimp to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house.

Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant, but he wasn't shot on a street corner. He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house, unarmed. Pretty Private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network Tune in on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Your entire identity has been fabricated. Your beloved brother goes missing without a trace. You discover the depths of your mother's illness, the way it has echoed and reverberated throughout your life, impacting your very legacy. Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few of the profound and powerful stories I'll be mining on our 12th season of Family Secrets. With over 37 million downloads, we continue to be moved and inspired by our guests and their courageously told stories. I can't wait to share 10 powerful new episodes with you, stories of tangled up identities, concealed truths, and the way in which

family secrets almost always need to be told. I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests for this new season of Family Secrets. Listen to Family Secrets. Listen to Family Secrets Season 12 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The OGs of Uncensored Motherhood are back and badder than ever. I'm Erica. And I'm Mila. And we're the host of the Good Mom's Bad Choices podcast, brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network every Wednesday.

Historically, men talk too much. And women have quietly listened. And all that stops here. If you like witty women, then this is your tribes. With guests like Corinne Steffens. I've never seen so many women. type predatory men. And then me too happened.

And then everybody else want to get pissed off because the white said it was okay. Problem. My oldest daughter, her first day in ninth grade and I called to ask

how I was going. She was like, oh, dad, all they were doing was talking about your thing in class. I ruined my baby's first day of high school. And slumflower. What turns me on

is when a man sends me money. Like, I feel the moisture between my legs when the man sends me money. I'm like, oh my God, it's go time. You actually sent it? Listen to the good mom's bad choices,

podcast every Wednesday on the black effect podcast network the i heart radio app apple podcast or wherever you go to find your podcast adventure should never come with a pause button remember the movie pass era where you could watch all the movies you wanted for just nine dollars it made zero sense and i could not stop thinking about it i'm richard todd host of the tech podcast there are no girls on the internet on this new season i'm talking to the innovators who are left out of the tech headlines like the visionary behind a movie pass black founder stacey Spikes, who was pushed out of Movie Pass, the company that he founded. His story is wild, and it's currently the subject of a juicy new HBO documentary. We dive into how culture connects us. When you go to France, or you go to England, or you go to Hong Kong, those kids are wearing Jordans, they're wearing Kobe's shirt, they're watching Black Panther. And the challenges of being a Black founder.

Close your eyes and tell me what a tech founder looks like. They're not going to describe someone who. who looks like me, and they're not going to describe someone who looks like you. I created There Are No Girls on the Internet because the future belongs to all of us. So listen to There Are No Girls on the Internet on the IHurt Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If a baby is giggling in the back seat, they're probably happy. If a baby is crying in the back seat, they're probably hungry. But if a baby is sleeping in the back seat, will you remember they're even there?

When you're distracted, stressed, or not usually the one who drives them, the chances of forgetting them in the back seat are much higher. It can happen to anyone. Parked cars get hot fast and can be deadly. So get in the habit of checking the back seat when you leave. The message from NHTSA and the Ad Council. Even from prison, every day, son, I'm proud of you, man, because I'd be hearing so much and seeing, he keep me with a rack of pictures. He always made me felt like you were missing out. Yeah, yeah, I wasn't missing out. I was there, you know, just with the little means that whether it's pictures, the phone, the letters, the, you know, seeing them on the news,

seeing them on the TV, whatever the case may be. You know, so it's just, and then now, we can just be on a, like on the plane, we just look at each other, or he might say, Thag, you believe this shit, we're on the plane together, we're going, you know what I'm saying, or we could just be in the, you know, driving together, go eat breakfast, and we just look at each other.

Sometimes I'll say, sometimes he'll say, Just those small things, that shit is just amazing from where we was at, six months ago, five months ago. We never, like the beef, we literally, like, I'm coming downstairs, and I'm like, man, he's got a thing and ghost, you know. I can imagine, man. Because I felt the same way. When I seen that nigga at DeMoll, I was like, dad, that nigga white did. I was like, I'm trying a little bit of everything. What's your shit?

But still trying to fruit. That's what shit. Like in prison, you know, they want to give you one apple, you know, whatever it might be that day, one banana. And then I can buy all the motherfucking fruit I want. I don't get a lot. Where the boss, you know? Hey, me. My son's, we're leaving a while.

What did you buy on this shit? You know what I'm saying? We was in the talk. The grocery store today. But you know what? He didn't know what? He didn't know what? He's telling me how much shit I can get the fuck.

I want the apples, I want them plums, I want the bananas, all that shit. But you know what? Even through, you know what I'm saying, overcoming adversity, man, just, I'm just, I'm just sitting back observing, you feel me? I really just want to stay in peak game and just really feel the vibe of someone who actually did what a lot of us escaped from. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

Like, I know a lot of people who don't, who probably don't even know they know. gangster and did some one time and doing a 40 yeah doing the 50 like you don't even know if you like this shit is not and you got 40 you got 40 yeah you didn't get a chance to figure it out you feel me and to actually look in the face of someone who's done it not only done it seen the success from it and seen the downfall from it yeah but the overall picture i get to see God is still in the pitch no doubt and the love that y'all got for each other that's the only way it could have worked yeah only way and that's the most I mean for the end of the day though bro like I see I see the world that's gangstice shit

that other shit ain't right right family yeah being present loving on your people taking care your people never giving up the fight and That's gangsta. And that's what we got to continue. And I'm not, even in all my where everybody know me, like I'm a positive dude, but I ain't on no preach type time or none of it. Right.

You're right. You understand? But I ain't no sound bite, nigga. I'm not, but I do it. And what I mean by that is, you know, we, in us, we're all in the same boat in my mind in this. That we come from environments where we, but we show up people that is different routes.

He didn't, in his day, they weren't those, it wasn't, we didn't exist, people like us didn't exist. That a dude from the same conditions could see and say, well, he ain't lame, he ain't corny. He's from where I'm from, but he's doing something positive. And that means I can do it. There are multiple lanes, man.

There's no question about it. You don't know, like I said, in prison, a rack of home. We know company that's our home base or a rack a D.C. digger, and every time that motherfucker while I'm coming out, they're looking at your motherfucking ass. And then when you got this show right here, man. And you got some, yeah, you got.

Great example, great example. It's so ironic, man, and it's so ironic because y'all here, y'all from the city, we're from the same place, you know, giving a history of what the city is, what D.C. is yesterday. I was on the west side of Atlanta where he's from. And I got a real, you know, insight into where he come from. And mind you, this didn't always been my, you know, tour guide to the city that I'm not from. You know what I mean?

Like, he didn't always been, because he is Atlanta. Loast is honorary Atlanta. He's a Mississippi, nigga, but he's done the same thing for me where he's from in regards to taking me to his hometown and showing me how things work. And just being able to have somebody that's present that is, can give you that type of insight and vision into somewhere that they don't come from, but be able to show you to identify who parts of why we're the same. We don't usually get to do that.

So me being on the other, on his side of town. and being able to see the similarities and all of the things that, you know, I experienced growing up where I grew up at and seeing that this nigga is the same shit. And now it's vice versa. I'm sitting here watching it, and I'm like, you was weak.

Yeah, so we're blessed, my man. That's the beautiful part of, you know, just this type of circle and why I meant so much to me to have you hit slim because, you know, I'm a, I'm an ex-end, like here, when niggas come home, me, I come out the streets for real.

Like, it's not, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's not anything that I'd ever need to talk about because when I go home and when I come back to the city, it's very from my man from Gatorsburg to tell you, like my man from Gatorsburg over there and say he's from my neighborhood. My man, say you're from my neighbor. He's from Gatorsburg for real.

But, you know, like, being coming back home and coming and seeing the type of reaction that people had to me, it's niggas I used to have real problems with that is like slim. I'm proud of you, and that right there, blow my mind. Like, the type of reactions that I get from people that I know, because I don't always been somebody.

I was, you know, not having a father and coming up in the city. My mother, God rest her soul, put me outside, like, nine years old. I'm outside, I'm catching bus by myself. I'm doing all that shit. So you grow up quick where we're from, you know what I'm saying? And the fact that I didn't allow that to be my definition, because a lot of us, that's all we strive to be. And there was one point in my life where all I wanted to be

was something in my circumference, you know what I mean? Washington one of the places, too, though, right? Where even the dude that get a jet, like, it's, you know, it was Chocolate City, you know, still relatively super black, I'm really black, but it ain't nowhere near as black as it was when we were coming up. But the point I'm making is, our street element was dominant culture. Right, so the good guy from D.C., a street guy,

It's just, it's so, the, the street element is so, so, you know, pervasive and so, it sets the standard for everything else. So it's like, even the guys who that just didn't, didn't, ain't trying to be in the street. This street, I got to be street. Right. It's a whole metro driver, but. He's, he blew with this shit. I'm making my mic work at the grocery store, and it's everywhere. His brother, me, man, who's sad?

He don't got no choice. Don't, you don't have no choice? Because it's everywhere, it was everywhere, but it was normal to us. And I'm just glad to be a reflection of where we come from the show that, man, that ain't got to be all we know. There's some other shit out here, Slim. It means so much to be able to come from your city and then leave, and they come back, and that'd be a bitch. Yeah. That's what, that's the main thing.

That's a badge of honor when you can come. where you grew up and ain't nobody slapping the shit or taking your shit or calling you a pussy. That's a badger man. That's a badgerick. The gentrification piece in our CEO, it really is a parallel though from the era what happened. The crack epidemic

hit D.C. most severely in any place in America and so it destabilized our family so that's why we've seen a deeper, we was the crack capital, we also the gentrification capital. It's an incredible parallel. between the two things and what I just mentioned about the street and culture being

dominant so many people did not make it or so many people went to prison got criminal records and they can't acquire the type of jobs that's going to allow you now to pay you know 3700 for an efficiency you feel what I'm saying so this is really what you know the the like the full circle moment in his experience his era the work that I've been doing um what you're doing and what we're trying to influence on the next generation right really is about if you're going to be in if you're going to be able to be in Washington DC you don't have to be a high functioning person for all that bullshit there's no rule for it right we've been out we got generations and generations of us that's just it's all right they've gone right what I'm saying we got young I've never seen the face of the homeless population our city is just completing up matter of fact we was downtown here earlier though it looks like a shoot kind of similar. The homeless population is trending younger.

Yeah, man, they're young. They're from 24 to 30 and shit. So like that- They're giving up faster too. Yeah. Yeah. They're giving up faster. And you got to also understand, like, okay,

I was a local little bit drug dealer, okay, compared to the niggas who were, you feel, me? Compared to a nigga who really out here handling business, but I'm like, I'm the little guy who's probably, who was the little guy of the nigger who you gave it to but okay you got states but I'm the little nigger who got streets but it's like okay it's not the same money as it was back then and even even to today and it's not

gonna be even to today I'm like if you're jumping out selling dope right now you're doing this shit for a lifestyle my nigga man the game so fucked up because it's not even selling dope to go to work and guess what man it's not even it's not even it's not It don't weigh the same. It don't, it don't weigh the same. We did a lot of work over the last, you know, 10, 15 years around what we were called prison reform, criminal justice reform. And my brother Sean is here doing work at Dream Corps, and I don't know walking, a lot of other folks that we've been fighting, right? But now the pendulum is now swinging back in the direction of tough on crime.

I'm bringing that up to the point you, everybody running around thinking they're trying to look sweet on the crime. get out of that, they are going to burn your ass up. And it ain't going to be nothing that we can do. But it was going to say, we gave y'all a chance. Like, really and truly, I just think that's very, very important. And that's why we're on this motherfucker. We ain't just talking about shit just to be talking. We're trying to save motherfuckker lives, man.

Especially our young men and women, man, brothers and sisters, man. This shit is serious, man. It's not a game. And we know with the Republicans, everybody got the house. If they get the presidency or get the Senate, you're talking about you think tough laws that fuck me around was in place. That shit is coming back, coming back more, more stronger. And they're not going to be trying to hear no Tony Lewis Jr.

Talk about, man, that ain't right. Because not when the baby getting shot, not when grandma did a project. You know what I don't want to hear that. You know, ain't nobody going to be trying to hear that. And I'm already feeling that. Yeah, you hear me. And the black codes, aka the secret laws to criminalize it. Like when you said when you got locked up, that one ground was equivalent to 100 grams.

So when you out here serving, I want to. you to know that one gram you to them it's a kilo my boy you're a little bit teed drug dealer you know you know but guess what for this generation and i don't mean up to keep but this is important too for the youngest i know watch this jump that ghost jump the ghost comes will be the crack they're not because the mud that drugs they're going to run that switch that beam that clip would see like especially them enhancements major enhance exactly we only supposed to have 10 in the journal they got you got 30 You got 50 you on the job. You got to know your laws.

Know the rules. Know the rules. You got to know the rules. I got to know the rules. You came on and found out you can have a gun in D.C. Yeah. I never thought I said. We always had the toughest motherfucking gun all that came home.

But then as me and my son talk, you just put it together. The gentrification, white people moving into the communities, they scared. And you know what they say? We're going to let y'all protect y'all. But us black folks that's been there forever, you can never own a gun. Now all of a sudden, with the gentrification,

Now you can own a gun in D.C. For a gun a year, two years each bullet. Yeah, all that, yeah. Guess what happens, though, if you're a gun on and you got a family member who come home and live with you. They can get one to. Yeah, but he can't live. You got to turn your gun in, yeah. So when we talk about, we're talking about how deep this shit go.

Time out slow. Yeah. Yeah. So I, you know. You are legally able to own a gun in the city. city and somebody come home from jail and to stand with you, you can't hate you. If I came home, I couldn't live in there

with that gun in that house. You got to get rid of the gun or get rid of me. And so what it's going to be? And if you don't know that law, both y'all are breaking the law. Yeah, you better help me walk they motherfucker. Yeah, but I tell you that. But I had to get rid of the motherfuckling guns

with your hand, yeah. You better be writing on a motherfucker with that toaster. Gee, I don't want to never. Toaster dust on the goddamn float. We didn't tell you, that ain't going to work. Nah, that shit. That's serious, though, yeah. Go be a nigga, look, you're dead in your face.

You better be open for me if a motherfucker crawled through this one. You better go ahead of fur. Hold them down. Tickler's feet. But that's the, those of the, um, we started talking about the collateral consequences. Right. Right. Families like ours, you got to endure that kind of shit that people, the normal person,

don't even think or that they go that far. what I'm saying? But it does. But it does, man. You know, one of the things I was talking about about like full, we call formally incarcerated people return citizens in our city, right? But people need to just be seen as citizens. You know, if you pay taxes, you work and you contribute to your community, you should be able to have full, all your rights should be restored. That goes from vote. One thing I'm happy to say in D.C., we can, you never lose your right to vote. You can even vote from federal prison. You know, me and others, people that work, to make that a thing.

They ought to use that. They ought to make, like, all the prisons should get, like, an electoral college vote. We're just waiting on the guys from prison. We've got Attica coming in at 48%. Hold on, guys. Hold on, guys. This can be big. Just getting the numbers from federal corrections.

Looks like they're going to swing. the election. They all voted for Rand Paul. But that is kind of why, you know, we talk about that's a form of voter suppression. You know what I'm saying? Somebody break the law. Why can't they vote? Like, what do you? Like, what? They're still citizens. You know what I'm saying? So I'm happy

to say our homies and the feds can vote. 20-20 election. My dad was able to vote. You know what I'm saying? You know what? Look, man. Was it your first time? First time. We never voted on the street for sure. And never voted in prison until they help pass my son and them help pass that legislation

hopefully the country can model that but the rights restoration I just wanted to say about the full rights restoration if you don't restore people's rights you know what I mean like you don't give people the right to be a part of the whole and then

they act out if you will whether that's further in no return to criminal not breaking the law whatever the case may be how can we fully hold people account you ain't letting them in no way shape or shape or form and i shouldn't have a moral right to protect myself and my wife and my daughters than a man who been to prison who has a wife and kids or girlfriend in kids he's supposed to be able to protect his home and some action coming out

of mississippi though right where a federal judge in Mississippi a dude got a federal beef he shot a dude trying to come in house and rob him and the federal judge said he was not He's not going to charge. He's talking with the job. He said, I'm not going to send you for that gun. And he sent it up to the Supreme Court. Because the Constitution does not say that if you broke the law, you can't have the right to the Supreme. Right.

So shout out to Mississippi. Right. But they say the Constitution over rights. Don't it overrule, like, the state laws, and shit like that? Exactly. Right. There you go. I wanted to say to you, you know, my PO officer, she watches the show.

So she was like, and I, you know, you know, you know, you know. Every time if I leave out of, if I go 50 miles outside of D.C., I got to, you know, get her permission and okay. And she was like, so I was like, I'm supposed to be going to, can I go to this 85? So I'm thinking she don't know what the fuck I'm talking. She said, oh, yeah, I watch that show all the time. That Chico Bing here, da-da-da-da-da-da. She said, they be smoking that shit on that set. Don't go on that fucking set because I don't want to look on that teeth. There is no smoke, you know.

There's no wind smoke on set, ma'am. We're clean. She's a nice, nice, nice fat lady, though, man, you know what I'm saying? I appreciate her, yeah. But she loved the show. She loved the show. Luke, what's up? What a dude?

Appreciate them down here. Let me close. Yeah, that's it. That's right. That's a gift, too. Oh, shit, what did this guy got me a gift? Yeah, yeah. See how happy niggas, that's the type of way you wrote them is.

But I think, you got me something, my name. Before y'all get out of you, I got an ass, man, like, one of the first videos I seen y'all make together with this nigga, had you in the park doing dips and all that pull-ups and 60 years old stuff and he's still out there doing pull-ups and 60 and dips like what part, you know, as fucked up

as the incarceration has been one of the things that I learned, you know, from having so many people coming in and out of my house in and out of jail throughout my life is the discipline that it instilled. Yeah, like how do you get in your opinion, you know, how do you get the message to be conveyed

to get the discipline out here before a nigga gotta go to jail to learn. Right. That prevention. You know, hopefully it's by my story and others who've done these draconian sentences, man. You know what I'm saying? 34 years. Some 20, 40 years out your life. This is what can happen to you young motherfuckers

who are out there. And I love y'all. We love our young brothers and sisters, man. But I got to keep it real. I got to, you know what I'm saying? I got to say what? You know, some of them get mad at me about for saying it or whatever.

I ain't trying to scare straight to them or nothing, but I'm telling the truth. That shit is brutal. 34 years, I might sit here and I look, you know, pretty, you know, if a motherfucker ain't know I was locked up, they'd probably be like, oh, he's just regular, like, you know what I'm saying? And I am still regular, but that shit has effects on you, man, you know what I'm saying? You can't come through 34 years of incarceration and be unscathed.

You can't, you know? Just some of us are less unscathed than others, you know what I'm saying? And with, you know, God help, and, of course, my son and family support. I've been able to survive it, you know what I'm saying? But, you know, again, the shit, no amount of money that I made in the drug game is worth

that 34 years of my life. It's just the same, man, not even close. If they say, you know what, everything you had, everything you did, take back that 34 years, give me that 34 years of my life back and fuck the Hussein Pondon, give me my 34 years of life and free them back. So the young people don't really understand or

know it until it happen to them. And they go through this brutal shit, man, and Not just them, but your family, what they go through, what I put him through, and, you know, my mother, you know, my sisters and other family members, man, because they hurt with me when I got this 30 people. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, they had to do that shit with, you know what I'm saying?

So it ain't just about you when you, you know, make dumb decisions. And all of us make dumb decisions sometimes. But when you got a motherfucker that's telling you that that decision you're making or get ready to make is dumb, listen to that shit, man. Listen, you know, you might think, oh, man, that old mother's talking that shit. Okay, I understand that, man, you know.

For those that want to just go ahead and, you know, I hear about it, you know, because I know what it's going to do, what's going to happen eventually. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah, no doubt. He got your back. Oh, yeah, no doubt. He told me the first time that he came, that even when you came home, he wasn't going to give up the fight.

Yeah, he wasn't going to stop playing for the people, man. We hear. We appreciate y'all giving us this platform, man. Just like I told him the first time, this platform. is always here for i know y'all gonna do a lot of programs yeah no doubt and activists work in the community and if y'all ever need the platform to get the word out come up here whenever y'all more than welcome to do that man every time dc i'm not saying niggas in prison watching you're talking

niggas sometimes y'all that's a you know to make motherfuckers laugh and shit man because the atmosphere in prison is always you know that doom and gloom shit right but when wild and i'm coming on that motherfucker tv then nick and then y'all up there on that you You know what I'm saying? That shit, man. That makes, you know, motherfuckers tuned in, man. So y'all, just with that show alone. And I wish this could be like a, you know, on regular TV or whatever, you know, maybe in the future. But yeah, man, but to have laughter, man, and see black men, you know, black people, you know, making shit happen, man.

Being entrepreneurs, being businessmen and all that shit, that shit, that shit huge, man. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. They know. Yeah, that's a big part of that shit too. What's up with you? Yeah.

Come on. Welcome to me. Yeah. I'm like, no. Like, I want to say this to you, man. But I want to say this to you, man. And, you know, like knowing the legend of you prior to ever coming in contact with your son or, you know, before anybody knew who he was, the whole city knew who you were. And, you know, you kind of develop your own mentality.

You just develop your own mentality about who these people are based off our environment. You know what I'm saying? Who they were and we kind of try to liken ourselves to what we thought that you were. And I just want to say, man, I'm honored to be able to meet you in person and see how much more that it is to Tony Lewis, senior, than what we do coming up in the city. And I want to say to you sound, man, I don't know, you know, we haven't all been through a lot of shit. shit but to be able to do what you did and for me to be able to see you doing what you did in the streets like when I say this man right here is not just talking when I was a young

nigger outside he was the one that one of the ones that we knew that was going to show up that we had to listen to when he came if he caught us outside doing whatever it was because he really come from the streets and it's it's so difficult to tow that line that this man told slim like to be in that environment and come from out of the environment not succumb to it but not be so separated from it that we're not willing to hear what it is that you say man man the fact that you fought so long to get this man home slim and you made it happen made it happen i salute you man i thank you guys if you don't get my trade man this is respectable as black man the black man What's up?

What's up? For real, she said. Anytime, you know, whatever the lady name is, you can give us her number. We'll call her and be like, we got some fruit down here for you. We got to get you to come back down here to get, Slap. We can do whatever we need to do, man. We got to send her some merch or something, man. So you can use that.

It's like, hey, man, I see you with the shirt on, you know what I'm trying to go to the go-go. I got to ask you. But now that you, you know, it's a lot. You know, it's hard for me now. We got to get you back because I got so many. We all, I'm sure, have so many questions that we ain't get to ask this time. But coming out to City Slim, who number one for you?

Go-Go back. What is it, Black Y'all, son? I was telling you that. Black-Olly? Yeah, Black-Olly. Yeah. I mean, but instance was the essence. I know it.

I know it. Do you know what time it is. Tell me, you know. That was, yeah. That was my mom's a favorite go-go-so, man. So, you know. Yeah, essence, man. And I haven't gotten done.

Since I've been home, I haven't been seeing where they've been at or nothing, so, you know, if anything. But the back y'all, all the black y'all, them the main ones. You gotta take them to see S's, man. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. Luzes, man. He started doing dances from the 80s and there. You're doing the whole motherfucking he-hawn that bitch. He's like, pop, slow that on a bat.

All I needed was my shit. It's all the way, man. Yeah, man. This is an honor. This is right here, it's one of them ones, man. It's honor and a pleasure for y'all to come through here and catch us up on the story, man. Yeah, yeah. 85 South Show, Tony Lewis Senior, Tony Lewis, Jr.

We're out of here, man. All right, let's right. Hey, we got a shit, let's go. That shit was hard. Yeah. Neat 30 minutes, son. You appreciate that one. You got to produce them.

You got to be a part of that. All the way. Know that. Let's get a photo, man. No doubt. I'm already. I'm already. My whole time, I went in the executive mood.

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