The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - How A Harlem Kingpin Turned $100 Into A $3 Million-Per-Week Empire | Ep 26

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

Former Harlem kingpin Unique Mecca takes Johnny through Harlem and Washington Heights, and explains how he was able to take $100 he had left to his name  and turn it into a crack empire worth $50 million a year.  He was then sentenced to Life in prison under the CCE kingpin act, but was released in 2020 under the new "compassionate release" rules for federal inmates.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I mean, picture a young man coming from Jamaica at 7.5 years old. Didn't get my first pair of shoes till 7.5. Didn't know where my next year was coming from. And now I'm owning a big club in Washington Heights. I'm selling 25 teens a day up here. I'm setting 15 out there. I'm sending 20 down to my brother in Virginia. I'm at the height of my career from coming from no shoes.

You know what I mean? So how do I say no to that? That's when I see lights behind me start to flash. I didn't even think. I just hit it. I was driving like my life depended on. Then I parked the car, popped out, closed the door, and I started running. And he pulls out a burner, shank. It's like six inches. And he passes it to me. And he goes, here, that's yours. Don't ever leave the cell block without this. Here's the reason I made it out of that place alive.

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to The Connect. My name is Johnny Mitchell. You guys, today is part two of our story with Unique Mecca, the Kingpin from Harlem, who rose from abject poverty in Jamaica, didn't even own a pair of shoes till he was seven years old to becoming the biggest drug dealer that Harlem and Uptown, New York, has ever seen. Make sure to check out his book, Aurora in Harlem.

It's available right now on Amazon, and it talks about everything that we cover, but in even more detail from the streets to prison and everything in between, and then go check out his YouTube channel, Unique Mecca Audio. And of course, if you want to see all the behind-the-scenes footage of us

filming with Unique and all of the interesting, crazy places that he took us while we were in New York, go over to the Patreon. Patreon.com slash The Connect Show. It's the best way to support us, you guys. Okay, let's get into the episode. Okay, so last week we left off with Unique in the early 80s as a young man working at his brother's herb gates in the South Bronx. Now, at the time, this spot was bringing in about $3.5 million a year. That's what it was turning over. And that was in 10 and 20 bags. Sounds like a lot of money, but as you're going to see in a sec, that wasn't even a drop in the bucket compared to what was coming for Unique. So how does a spot that profitable get shut down? Why would you ever quit if you were making money like that? You know, the police came enough,

you know, where after a while with them coming, then they start kind of like leaving a police car out front and, you know, things like that to shut it down. So now nobody's going to walk past the police car to come in. Damn, so now Unique is back out on the streets. Devastating to lose out that kind of money. And besides, at this time, Unique was back on Freebase. If you watch the show, you know that Unique was a base head for a couple of years there in the early 80s. And to support his habit, he took to jacking drug dealers. You know, we're going to go to Washington Heights where they had the same side of type of setup. But they was different with it because they are in their neighborhood with their people. They come in and they sit down and they got the triple

beam scale and just a couch over here and you interact with the people. I've robbed plenty of them. You know what I mean? Because no, they put themselves in that situation. He would go up to Harlem in Washington Heights, and this was in the beginning of the cocaine boom, and he would rob Dominican and black drug dealers. And remember, at this time, there's so much drug money moving through those neighborhoods

that you didn't even have to sell drugs. You could just rob drug dealers, and that was almost as profitable as selling the drugs themselves. And I know that how I used to survive on the inside of this door. But it was dangerous work, especially if you were trying to rob a building in Washington Heights. You know, you run up there. If somebody's sleeping, you get them.

You know what I mean? If you sleep and they get you. So in the Heights, there's a lot of solidarity amongst the Dominicans. So, for example, there might be one building that's got a bunch of different rival crews. They're all selling drugs. They might beef, shoot at each other every now and then. But if their building was to ever be robbed or invaded by an outsider, those crews would come together to fight that person off.

Even their enemies, they're shooting. each other overspots is going to come together if somebody come up there and try and rob them. But they could kill each other, but they're not going to let you come up there and kill their enemy. Unique had to find that out the hard way one time when he tried to rob a building on 160th Street, right in the middle of the heights. I was up there robbing, you know what I mean, got caught up, got caught slipping. Jooks went wrong. I took a hostage up on the roof and you know when I got them up on the roof they came up on the roof I'm thinking they ain't gonna do nothing next day man I'm holding them hostage and they I can

Stop, get back, get back. And they're like, man, screw him and screw you. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb. You know what I mean? I got hitting the right leg, right, left leg. Got hitting the ass when it spun me around, got shot up here. You know, I'm weak. There's no other way out.

You know what I mean? I had to jump off the roof, you know what I mean? And then where did you land? You know what I mean? Right here. You break your legs? Yeah, I ain't break nothing. I want to walk into the corner.

I walked to the corner where I passed out where I lost all my blood. Then a cab driver picked me up and took me to the hospital. Unique tried to skim through that story, by the way, when we were filming. I got caught up up here, had to jump off this roof right here, and, you know, that's where it is, man, you know? All right? Hold on. Can we describe that point?

We got to get in way more detail. You don't just jump off a six-story roof. He didn't find it remarkable at all. That was just another day during the 80s in Washington Heights. So in about 84, 85, Unique finally catches a bid for one of these robberies he does and gets set up state for a couple of years. But while he's locked up, he finally, for the last time, got clean off of Freebase. But then he started hearing about this thing called Crack, how it was taking over New York City

and how every Tom Dick and Harry started to make real money off of it. So he was determined that when he hit the bricks, he was going to get a piece of that action. Now, this is Crack Arrow. Before, that was the base error. This is how Crack came in. I came home October 2787. All right, guys, let me tell you about today's sponsor, our favorite online dispensary, You guys, let me tell you about these new gummies they got out.

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I came home with $366 from the state. You know what I mean? It was my gate money. Yeah, they called gate money. Uh-huh. I came, had $366. I went out to the jewelry store. I put $100 down on a two-finger name ring that said unique, you know.

So now we're down to 266? Yeah, you know what I mean? Now we're down to 266. Then I took a train down to 42nd Street to the Modell. And I had a, I bought Adidas, a gold and white shirt. And then I bought some Patrick Ewins. gold and white, you know what I mean? And that took up, you know, about $100. So then now I'm down to 166. So I went up the hill to my main on 160th and I told him I got $100. What could I get for

100? And when he went to make this buy, the Dominican dealers remembered him from his days as a wolf, a jack boy. But they were so scared to me. They told him. They told him, they were so scared of you an ounce, we'll get two ounces, because they were scared I was going rob him. So when they was off for me all of this, I told him, I said, look, this ain't back in the I'm doing something different. I ain't come up here to stick y'all up. I'm just trying to hustle. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Just give me what my money, you know, pay for. I'm going to go ahead and move it, come back, and I'm going to cop it. I'm going to show you that I ain't on that bullshit. Because they were scared, so they offered me way more than what it was worth, you know? So he gave me three and a half grams for that. I took the three and a half grams. I went down to 42nd Street.

I took the train to, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, Freehold New Jersey. From there it was on. I went to this girl's apartment and everything. that I showed you in the Bronx with the steel door and the board on it, with the wedge on the bottom and all that. I set that up in her kitchen. You know, I sold it that night, that first night, I made $1,200. So he took that profit, that $1,200 he made, and he opened his first crack spot. I started in this building back here, you know what I mean, and worked my way down. So opening up a crack

spot in the 80s in Harlem was way easier than a weed spot in the South Bronx in the 70s. You don't have to go through the super, you don't have to rent out an apartment in a building. There were so much abandoned property. You could just get a crew, find a spot with a lot of dope fiends, and in a day you'd be making $50,000, sometimes $100,000. And that's what Unique did. He found an abandoned building right off a Broadway on 154th Street. Everything you see was it was empty. You know what I mean?

There was nothing here, not even a shell. Opened up shop, got a couple of kids to help him work it. I went up in the building and I picked a spot and I seen a door. They had a solid steel door that somebody left behind. So they had the solid steel door. So I went in there. I had a crackhead carpenter come in. He took the door off and he, you know, put it on the apartment that I chose.

I chose an apartment in the front because you always want an apartment in the front so you can see what's happening on the outside instead of apartment in the back. And in two or three months' time, he had four different crack spots in the same abandoned building making tens of thousands of dollars every couple of hours. But I noticed that all the customers were getting stopped down near the first building. But I took the back building. So my thought process is I got to get from that building

to that building because that's where the money's at. So how do you get past that? How do you move past that? You know, I had to move down and, you know, basically took the third building. They let me take the third building. So once they let me take the third building, I'm like, okay.

So if they didn't fight for him, mean they're not together. Right. You understand what I'm saying? Because the first and second building should have defended the third building. So you basically just go stick it up or you got to like... Nah, you know, basically went up in there and just told them like, yo, you know, I want this. You know what I mean?

What you're going to do for it? You know what I mean? Like, where are we going to go? We're going to die for it or not. You know what I mean? And, you know, that's how that happened. But then... Most people aren't willing to die over their spots.

And if they're not... Some is. Yeah. And then you might die. You know what I mean? But I was ready for whatever happened. But they wasn't ready for whatever. could happen. Now before long, he turned one crack spot into four crack spots.

The crack heads, they're in there smoking, so when they run out, they'll come out on the stoop and buy from the dude that runs the first building. But by me being in the apartment, now they're copping directly from me. So once they allowed me to do that, that's how I wound up making my way out, then me and the dude for the first building. You know what I mean? When he found out what was happening, I got into it with a couple of his workers. You know what I mean? But when they called him over and he met me, that's when he let me know. He said, look, I'm getting money in Queens. That shit, you get in this fire.

I'm trying to put it in Queens. You can have that building. You know what I mean? Just supply me for Queens. You know, I started supplying me for Queens. So now I got the first, the third, and that. And then in a few months' time, he had an entire block of buildings all operating different crack spots.

Each building was making about maybe 10, 15 grand. A day? Yeah, a day easy. So in the mid-80s, it was the Dominicans. of Washington Heights who had access to all of the Colombian powder that was being brought in. The Dominicans was coming from the Medell-Ling. Right. You know what I mean?

However you want to say, get it correct me. You love correct. Medellin. There you go. You know, he loves correcting me. But these Dominicans did not usually sell their wholesale product directly to the black crack dealers in Harlem. I don't know exactly what it was.

Maybe it was discrimination or the fact that it is a very close-knit community. Or it was because guys like you. unique used to go up there and rob them. But the fact that unique is Jamaican kind of set him apart enough from regular American black drug dealers to allow the Dominicans to finally bring him in and start supplying him with their merchandise. At the time when I was here, I was buying it already in powder, but it wasn't wholesale because I didn't have a connect yet. Okay. You understand? So I still had to go up the hill and buy from the Dominican, but I'm buying the powder so I could cook it myself to make sure that, you know, I put the potency I want on it, and that's how I made my money.

So obviously, this gave him an advantage over other black dealers in Harlem because he was able to bypass middlemen and get powder for a cheaper price, helped him make more money, and blow up that much faster. All right, so it's like 88, 89, and Unique is running a bunch of different crack houses and buildings in Harlem. He's getting powder from the Dominicans, cooking it up, and his workers getting off. Stone for Stone. Then he meets a couple of guys who were operating in Washington, D.C.

We had some other homies that I was locked up with in Jersey that was from the Bronx, but they was hustling in D.C. So this is where I got my real start at. Now, at this time, Washington, D.C. is the murder capital of the U.S. The year is only 60 days old during that time. There have now been 92 homicides here in the District of Columbia. The 92nd occurred this evening. And that's because the price of Coke was like,

four times what it was in New York. So you had all of these out-of-towners converging on DC and battling it out for control of that market share. For instance, the price of a kilo wholesale in DC was like four times the amount of what you could sell it for in New York. So he come to me and said he wanted 10 keys and he's offering it to pay 15,000 a key. So I gave him 10 keys for 150,000.

And it was this connection with the DC boys that really helped Unique, spanned his operation in his bankroll, and it elevated him from a retailer of crack to a major wholesaler of powder cocaine. They went to DC, DC like four hours from here. They left for DC about 1 o'clock in the afternoon, and they was back by 11 o'clock at night and wanted 10 more. So check out just how flooded the United States and New York was with cocaine at the time. So Unique was buying his bricks, his kilos, from the Dominicans,

for about $12,000 a piece. And this is after it moved through two or three different hands. Compare that to today when a brick goes for about 30 in New York. That gives you an idea of just how much volume was moving through that city every day. So Unique would get a brick for about 12 grand. He could then sell it to a dealer in Harlem or Brooklyn for about 14 to 15 grand. So he would make about two or three points per kilo. And he could do this 20 times a day, six days a week.

and sell another 100 kilos to his buyers from DC. So without any special connections, I mean, he's buying from Dominicans who are wholesaling him the cocaine. He's still making over a million dollars a week, just wholesaling kilos of cocaine. The problem was the Dominicans couldn't always keep up with the demand from the streets. This caused crazy fluctuation in the price of a kilo. And part of the reason for this shortage in supply is that once a year, the cartel for a month would take a break.

They would actually stop sending product up to the US so they would have time to do the books. They would actually be balancing their budget sheets and doing the accounting from the previous year. That's how professional and organized those cartels were. They literally treated their operation like it was a real Fortune 500 company. So of course, the Dominicans who were supplying the streets

would be left with little or no product around this time. But there was another guy in Midtown Manhattan, not affiliated with the Dominicans, who was also receiving product from Colombia, but not from Medellin. His Coke was coming from the Cali cartel. This was Unique's uncle. But where I made my real money at

is once I started doing that, my uncle heard about me. That's the one David Hyatt, that on Tab Dash, that put out Kelly. He was a well-known record producer at the time, and, you know, through his connections with high-class, hit people, he somehow got linked up with Collie. And according to Unique, they'd been basically used this guy as a stash house.

So he owned a bunch of high-end apartments in Midtown Manhattan, where he would store two, three, sometimes 500 kilos for the collie cartel. But the Cali cartel wasn't allowed nowhere over here. That's right. They wasn't allowed nowhere over here in Washington Heights. That was all Escobar shit. But this guy wasn't a distributor. He wasn't really a drug dealer.

That's where Unique came in. Unique had the accounts, so to speak. I go see him down there on, Midtown and he told me that he got five keys that he wanted me to go sell it for him. Well, we'll give you a little test run, kid. You know, he kind of sunned him, right? And he said he'll see me in a couple of days

because he heard about what I was doing. But this was real an audition. He was playing the game of backgammon. He loves backgammon, you know, rest in peace. And, you know, unique laughed at this and he said, okay. And I said, dog, that's only five keys. He said, I would just come see me when you're finished.

And in one hour, the time it took for him to get uptown and back to Midtown, He was back. He said, all right, I need another 10. And his uncle said, you know what? I'll give you all 500. This made unique the exclusive distributor of his uncle's cocaine

and essentially collie's cocaine and allowed him to bypass the Dominican middlemen and become truly a homegrown kingpin. So now his wholesale price on a kilo has gone down too. So they said, okay, so my uncle, okay, if he's going for 12, I give two for six. So my uncle came to me and said, I do two for eight.

This price drop added an extra $600,000 in profit a week. So on average, he's making about four points or $4,000 profit per kilo. He can sell $150 to $200 a week in New York alone, putting his take at $3 to $5 million and his annual revenue at almost $29 million. He is now a kingpin, the king of kings in New York City. And of course, this kind of money allowed him to pay for protection by the NYPD. I give him a little $10,000 a month. And, you know, if anything happened in between that, they looked out and then that's where it costs you a little more money.

And you know what I mean? For, you know, like your man get locked up with a pistol. You know what I mean? You called him. He said, ah, give me two grand. I got to give the offset and pull them over. And that's where the hidden expenses come in. So, you know, they charge me a little 10 grand, but they know my crew was always getting into something.

So 10 was like a holding thing. It was like a lawyer fee. It was a retainer. A retainer. And then now I could go to them and say, y'all, two white boys got caught with the camera out there. You know, they was doing this and that. You know what they're locked up for? Oh, what precinct? Then, you know, they get on radio, they find out what precinct, they find what officer.

And they were like, yo, that dude's an asshole. Normally it'd only be like two grand, but you got to give me eight grand for this one because he's one of them clean ones, so we got to make it right. But his kid is sick. You know what I mean? His kid is sick so we could get him for eight. Memorial Day weekend is almost here, and it's time to kick off summer right. When I'm getting ready for the first big weekend of summer, Total Wine and More is my go-to,

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and this newfound collie connection has catapulted unique to something of a living legend. He's living in multi-million dollar penthouses next to corporate lawyers and movie stars. He's befriending politicians and business people. He influenced a generation of rap stars like Biz Marquis, Brand Nubian, and Black Sheep.

Let me tell you who this. This is Mecca Audio. Unique. He owned a famous record store, Mecca Audio, also a weed spot. And it was at this time that he opened the hottest nightclub in uptown, Club 2000, where they hosted insane weekly parties that launched the careers of guys like DJ Kid Capri. Right now, we at Club 2000. It originally was Frigo Frago.

Right here was a wall. That was the downstairs that all the big boys, you know, Coke dealers used to be at. back in the late 70s to early 80s, and then, you know, this when it was Frago, Frago, then when I got involved, we made a club 2000. I mean, you know, the whole upstairs, so you understand, the whole upstairs with the club. I mean, picture a young man coming from Jamaica at seven and a half years old, didn't get my first pair of shoes till seven and a half, didn't know where my next year was coming from, and now I'm owning a big club in Washington Heights. I'm selling 25 cheese a day up here.

I'm sending 15 out there. I'm sending 20 down to my brother in Virginia. I'm at the height of my career from coming from no shoes. You know what I mean? So how do I say no to that? When they give me access to make the money to buy this, it's at my fingertips that I don't even have to leave my block to find it. And he took us to where Club 2000 used to be on 160th Street.

It's now a Dominican church. So, you know, this is what it is, man. It's Club 2000. I'm going to take you in. So you understand, just look at the hallway and the staircase, how big that is. Right now, today it's a church, so you're going to see what it is. He really was the life of the party. He was accepted by the Dominicans in Washington Heights and the blacks in Harlem.

He merged the cultures. He was loyal and he was generous. He would just give people money whenever they asked for it. I walk from 150th Street to 150 Second Street, and I got five grand in my pocket. By the time I get to 150 Second Street, I don't have a dollar in my pocket. I don't give everybody that came up to me something. You know what I mean? But, you know, we was like, you know,

but I learned that from Jamaica. We was like Robin Hood. That's real kingpin shit. He took care of his community. He brought us to an old stash house next to Club 2000, where he used to store up to 200 kilos at a time. It was in its little Dominican lady's house.

This was like where we used to just keep the drugs at. You know what I mean? One of the spot I used to keep, you know, maybe a little 20, 30 keys, you know what I mean? Yeah. Because you got to have somewhere to keep it. And, you know, other people in the building, did the same thing.

So, you know, when times are going hard, you could get them. Like I said, if you weak, man, and you can't control it, you're going to get ran over. And to this day, 26 years later, they are still tight like family. Yeah, we over here. I'm with mommy, little . It's my man, . Very good, Washington, hey.

Very good. Very good to us. It's a good neighborhood. The best neighborhood, you know? Oh, yes. And he was a trendsetter. He was the first Harlem Kingpin to buy a car based on the outfit that he wanted to go out in that day.

I might come here and say, give me this one, give me the black one and blue one, give me two of these and three of these. You know what I mean? So I come, I hold the outfit up next to it, and I'll get a car to match my outfit. I don't get an outfit to match the car. I get the car to match the outfit. You know how we do. See, now I wouldn't get this one right here.

This wouldn't be me because the trunk is too small. You couldn't fit a body in it. You know what I mean? If somebody acts up, you couldn't put a minute. So, eh. I like it, but, you know, it's not bodyproof, you know. He would go to foreign dealerships in Midtown and walk in with $50,000 in a shoe box.

The first time I came in here, they panicked it. They was like, oh, no, you can't spend the money like that. They ran in the back to go call the manager. When they went to go call the manager, the manager came out, and they expected the manager to get me in trouble or say something there. Manager called me in the back, you know what I mean? He said, look, you can't do it that way, but leave the money there. I'm going to go get to the title.

Let me work the money in the system. This is the way we do it. Anytime you want a car, whatever time it is, I don't care if it's two, three in the morning. Here's my card with my personal home number. Call me and I'll meet you down to the dealership. You know what I mean? And I just charge you $10,000 extra on what the car costs. And, you know, that was it.

It was that easy to get a car, man, you know? 1993 is the year that it all ends. Yeah, this way it ends at. This is where they brought me. Okay, so at this time, Unique is supplying kilos to his younger brother, who's got an operation in Virginia. And eventually, the feds put a case on Unique's younger brother. They charged him with major trafficking of 255 kilos.

But here's the kicker. The snitches who testified that they bought their cocaine from Unique's brother also told the government that it was unique who was supplying his brother. So now the feds have a RICO case. So they can charge Unique with the exact same crime that they're charging his brother with. because Unique is the one who supplied his brother with the cocaine. That's called a CCE, running a continual criminal enterprise. It's the Kingpin Act.

It's what they put away El Chapo with. So now the feds are looking for Unique. And in 1993, they finally catch up with him. I went to go down the block. I was beefing with a dude. He kept calling me. And I knew he didn't want it. But when I went to cross the street, I kept circling the block looking for him.

So when I crossed the street, one of the home board was there. And he said, man, get the fuck out of here. Nobody don't want you around here, nigga, get the fuck out of here. And he's cussing me out. So while he's sitting there cussing me out, I'm like, oh, no, I know this nigga I'm going to smoke. You know what I mean? But what it was is he knew the feds was there,

and he was warning me to leave. You know what I mean? By telling me, get the fuck out of it. But, you know what I'm so arrogant, and I'm not taking no disrespect. You know what I mean? So I drive up the block and I come back around and he walked and I put the window down.

I said, what's up, nigga? And he said, man, go, go, go, go. You know what I mean? Now he's waving his hand telling me to go because feds was every fucking way. I didn't see them. You know what I mean? Because they all are unmarked cars.

So I kept going. And then they started, you know, they threw the lights on and started chasing me. So, you know, I shot down 8th Avenue, busted a couple of corners, hit Brad Hurst, went back around, hit 8th Avenue,

and went back to Brad Hurst and then went up McCombs. And I had my cousin in the car and another dude in the car. And I didn't want them to get in no problems. You know what I mean? So, you know, if I was by myself, I do know what would have happened.

They arrested him and they charged him with the Kingpin Act. But then something happens. His brother, tragically, was murdered. When my brother got killed, he was a casualty of war. So it was nothing for me to get emotional about and break down and cry on my knees because it was war. You know, like they said, war on drugs. It was a war on the streets.

So what Unique's attorneys tell him is, hey, this is an advantage. What you can do is testify against your dead brother. Tell the government, look, this was his operation. Put it on him. He's dead. He's not going to serve any jail time. This can be a way to mitigate your sentence. And Unique said, I can't do it.

Living or dead. My word is my bond. I honor the word of this game that I chose, this life that I chose. I can't testify. I mean, think about that. That's loyalty. That is the rarest quality in the drug game. I mean, 10 out of 10 people facing life would have chosen to testify.

Unique didn't do it. He didn't even give it a second thought. In fact, he threatened to fire his lawyers if they ever brought up something like that again. The prosecutor painted unique as a monster who should never see the streets again. The prosecutor jumped up saying, oh, he thinks he's going home one day. He don't understand. The feds don't have parole. He's a scumbag.

Even if you give him a lighter sentence, 40 years and 40 years, whatever's going on out here. You know, in America, he'll find something illegal to get into the steel break the law. And you know what I mean? He crammed a lifetime of crime. in 29 years and if anybody deserved a rock in prison as this man and da-da-da-da-da. He knew he was getting life. I got life and for money laundering, I got 20 years. And what did the judge say as he, what was his words, I guess?

Did he have any comments? Yeah, he said there's nothing he could do to help me. He would like to help me, but I could help myself that, you know, I could, you know, work with the government in order to, you know, save myself and this and that. and I know you're under no snitching code, but it's time to leave that alone, because now you hear by yourself and all that. And then when he asked if I had anything,

they say, I said, man, all that is well and good. Just send me some place I can further my education. So if something comes out of line, I can come out of jail the right way as a man, as an honorable man. You know what I mean? This is important because decades later, when the mandatory minimum laws were finally reversed,

Unique now had an opportunity to apply for what's called a compassionate relationship In 2018, Unique submits his appeal for release to the very same judge who sentenced him all those years ago. Something came down the pike, so we shot it back to the judge and said, look, you know, Unique honored his word. Unique had a pretty stellar prison record. He was true to his word. He told the judge, send me someplace where I can further my education. Remember, at this time, Unique was like 30 years old when he went in.

He didn't know how to read or write. He was making $30 million a year and he was functionally illiterate. Well, during his time in prison, he taught himself how to read and write. You got a bunch of different degrees and apprenticeships. I honored my work. You know what I mean? I became a certified electrician, certified cook, certified mechanic, certified HBack and refrigeration. You know what I mean?

I got my culinary arts degree. I'm a certified plumber. I got 3,500 hours of psychological training to find out why I was twisted and won't tell. At this time, he's locked up in Victorville in California. And he's given up hope of the compassionate release. He figures by all accounts, he's probably going to die in prison. So what he asks is to simply be moved to a facility on the East Coast so he could be closer to his family.

I was trying to get transferred back east to Butner. In the spring of 2020, while the world is locked down with COVID, Unique is also locked down in Victorville. Two of my homies was arguing. You know what I mean? I say homies and I ain't talking about from New York. Just dudes I mess with in prison, they was arguing y'all. They wound up stabbing each other, and one of them died.

So now we're on lockdown. So Unique is in lockdown. He's awaiting his transfer to the East Coast. So while I'm waiting to go back, my unit manager was, my case manager was a real racist piece of crap. When he put my, he was forced to put my transfer in for my good behavior, but he didn't put in none of these accomplishments that I made in the transfer. When suddenly he gets a knock on his cell door.

So now here comes a little piece of shit, come to my door after a dude get killed, We locked in. He come to my door and he says, give me an address. You know what I mean? So they ask you for address when you're getting transferred. Like where you want to go so they can send you near the address. So he said, give me an address.

I said, man, get the fuck away from my door. He said, nah, give me an address. I said, man, I'm not giving you shit. I don't need to do nothing for me. You know what I mean? And he's like, no, I don't think you understand. I said, nah, I do understand that you're not doing my transfer. You know what I mean?

And so he's like, no, you just got released. I need an address where you're going home to. You know? I said, make it the fuck out of here. I'm thinking he's playing games. I didn't even believe it. I'm like, man, get away from my door with that, you know? It was May of 2020 when Unique's appeal for compassionate release was approved by the judge.

And when he left, man, my knees just got weak, and I just fell to the ground and thank God. And after 26 years, the legend himself returned to New York City. I went in it. My daughter was eight years old, and the next time I seen her, she was like 30-something years old. And she had a baby with her that was eight years old, which was my granddaughter. And I could relate to my looking at my granddaughter more than I can to the woman that's holding her, which is my actual daughter. Because I missed 20-something years of her growing up. If I say it ain't worth it, man.

You don't want this. You don't want this. You don't want this. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. I wouldn't wish this on the nigga that told on me. I don't even want the nigga that told on me to go to jail. I don't wish that on nobody, man. You know what I mean?

I don't wish that on nobody, you know. Well, there you go, you guys. You got what was up until now the untold story of the real king of New York, a Harlem legend, a man who made untold millions of dollars. This is a man who never took a deal. When all of those kingpins were ratting to get out early, Unique took his time standing up. Unique was the dealer's dealer. His impact on the cultural scene of New York City cannot be understated.

Unique may have disappeared. from the world for 30 years, but his legend did not. He was a direct influence on the style and the swag of the Harlem rappers from the 1990s and 2000s, guys like Dipset, who influenced people like me, movies like Paid in Full. All of this were based on true stories from guys like unique, the kingpins of Harlem, the old school cats, and he's a free man. Many people like him will never see the light of day again. And he's using his platform for good.

his YouTube channel and his book, Aurora and Harlem, are meant to educate the youth, guide them to make sure that they don't follow down the same path that he did. All right, you guys, that's been today's episode. Remember, go check out Unique's channel in his book, Aurora in Harlem. We are eternally grateful for him allowing us into his world. We will see you next week.