As the DeCavalcante family transitioned into the late 90’s, the new leadership structure was causing a power struggle between Vinnie Ocean and Charlie “Big Ears” Majuri. With law enforcement continuing to hassle Wiggles, Ocean’s cash-cow was drying up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We interview the former FBI undercover task force officer and author of Giovanni’s Ring: My Life Inside the Real Sopranos, who spent 26 years undercover penetrating New Jersey’s DeCavalcante crime family, the criminal organization known to law enforcement as “The Real Sopranos” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
While The Sopranos mainly focused on a fictional New Jersey mob, their fellow mafiosos in New York couldn’t be ignored. The fictional New York family was represented by Johnny Sacrimoni, better known as Johnny Sack. Vincent Curatola, a New Jersey native, portrayed the New York underboss with a steely cool that made him a hit with the legions of Sopranos fans. We spoke with Curatola in a wide-ranging interview, beginning with his fondness for New Jersey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit me...
As John Riggi is sent to prison, John “Johnny Boy” D’Amato, is made the acting head of the DeCavalcante family. Despite being unpopular in his own crime family, D’Amato would use his close friendship with John Gotti to become head of the DeCavalcante crew. Eventually, he is rubbed out by his own mafia family. His crime...being gay. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Playing a New Jersey gangster was nuanced, one part menacing, but equally comedic. Federico Castellucio played the role of Furio Giunta , a Tony Soprano street-soldier who even tried to have a romantic fling with Tony’s wife Carmela Soprano. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In 1997, after the death of acting boss Jake Amari, Vinnie “Ocean” Palermo is named part of a three man panel that will now run the DeCavalcante family. Vinnie Ocean is considered the most likely candidate to be the real Tony Soprano, for a number of reasons. We trace his rise & fall in the mafia in this two-part episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Organized crime has always been catnip to savvy crime reporters, and as the years have progressed with the proliferation of rats, the storytelling has gotten more nuanced and more in depth. Former NY Daily News Reporter Greg Smith spent years reporting on orga-nized crime, and in 2003 he published a wide-ranging book on the DeCavalcante clan, and their hijinks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Sopranos considered by many the greatest show in television history, made the New Jersey mafia water cooler talk across the country from 1999-2007. While based on fictional characters, there was an actual mafia family neck deep in criminal activities across the Hudson River from their La Cosa Nostra contemporaries in New York. In New Jersey, starting in the 1960’s, the DeCavalcante family ran the show and are considered the inspiration for many of The Sopranos characters and storylines that ...
In hip hop, the end of the 80s ushered in a thriving music industry, with hip hop, diversifying itself immensely. In 1990 alone, A Tribe Called Quest, Public Enemy, Ice Cube, D Nice, Special Ed, LL Cool J, Vanilla Ice, and EPMD all had seminal releases. These artists would start to define the trajectory of hip hop music as it invaded white suburbs and penetrated the minds of American political thought as hip hop started to gain in popularity. The traumatic events inside the crack epidemic and th...
There were many defining events as it relates to the intersection of crime, the War on Drugs, and hip hop throughout the 80s. That being said, there was a singular event that took place in Southside Jamaica, Queens, in February of 1988 that arguably changed the course of policing in this country, the mythology of the drug trade, and symbolically ended the crack era for the exalted hustlers inside New York City. This event was the execution of a rookie NYPD Cop named Edward Byrne. The NYPD, led b...
The years of 1987 and ’88 ushered in the golden age of hip-hop, when a few groundbreaking artists, acting as cultural critics, show the power of this art form. Led by the protest rap of KRS-One, Public Enemy, Eric B & Rakim, among others, hip-hop was now shining a light on the plight of the inner-city struggle, the crack epidemic, mass incarceration & other societal plights. The presidential race of 1988 is filled with subtle racial dog whistles, aimed at scaring white America into votin...
As hip hop and the war on drugs hit the mid 1980s, it can be argued that both commercial endeavors hit their strides in inner cities across the United States. As crack cocaine exploded, members of the United States government enacted one of the first steps in the revolution of our criminal justice system in soaring incarceration rates. The comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 was the first revision of the US Criminal Code since the early 1900s. It was sponsored by a racist Strom Thurmond, a R...
If any story defines what New York was like at that time, it's the story of New York City subway vigilante Bernard Goetz's shooting of unarmed black teens. On December 22, 1984, Barry Allen, Troy Canty, Darrell Cabey, and James Ramseur were shot and wounded by Bernard Goetz after they accosted him on a New York City subway train in Manhattan. In America, you would think that we would learn from our mistakes as it relates to race, class, and the divisions that have been created. One could see thi...
In the dynamic early years of hip hop, you could still see the influences of the disco era in the fashion the samples, and the party music played via car stereos in different neighborhoods in New York City. The hip-hop releases for 1982 and 1983, included Wildstyle the first feature film to reveal the nuances of hip-hop culture written by Fab Five Freddy and directed by Charlie Ahern. The film explores the work of artists such as Lady Pink, Daze, Grandmaster Flash, and the Rock Steady Crew. Hip ...
In America in 2024, we have all watched major American cities burn the result of a powder keg that exploded around incidents of police killings. We should all know the names by now: George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Breanna Taylor, Stephon Clark, Philando Castille, and more. As the list goes on, the debate surrounding race, policing, mass incarceration, and the war on drugs, it seems, has reached the tipping point. Fault lines have been drawn as our divided country simmers in a cauldron of internet ...
From its start, the art of Hip-Hop music has not only defined our countries generations, it has done so by reporting on social and criminal injustices in America. Referred to as the “Black CNN,” Hip-Hop music, throughout the past 40 years, has been reporting all of societies major issues and complex policies that remain to this day. Whether it is the subject of brutal and biased policing, over-crowded jails, marginalized neighborhoods, public education, and the imbalance of economic wealth — it ...
The Sopranos considered by many the greatest show in television history, made the New Jersey mafia water cooler talk across the country from 1999-2007. While based on fictional characters, there was an actual mafia family neck deep in criminal activities across the Hudson River from their La Cosa Nostra contemporaries in New York. In New Jersey, starting in the 1960’s, the DeCavalcante family ran the show and are considered the inspiration for many of The Sopranos characters and storylines that ...
Join hosts Nicole Luciano and Johnny ‘The Greek’ Anagnopoulos, two of the producers of The Dossier, as they break down all things crime and hip-hop, gleaned from their years of investigative work on the topic. From the Biggie and Tupac murders, to the twenty plus killings that are tangentially related to Death Row Records, Suge Knight, the Bloods, the East vs. West rivalry, the gangster cops inside the LAPD and much more. This week, Johnny and Niki begin the episode with some current events and ...
Join hosts Nicole Luciano and Johnny ‘The Greek’ Anagnopoulos, two of the producers of The Dossier, as they break down all things crime and hip-hop, gleaned from their years of investigative work on the topic. From the Biggie and Tupac murders, to the twenty plus killings that are tangentially related to Death Row Records, Suge Knight, the Bloods, the East vs. West rivalry, the gangster cops inside the LAPD and much more. This week, we bring you part two of The Timeline, aptly titled 'Goin Back ...
Join hosts Nicole Luciano and Johnny ‘The Greek’ Anagnopoulos, two of the producers of The Dossier, as they break down all things crime and hip-hop, gleaned from their years of investigative work on the topic. From the Biggie and Tupac murders, to the twenty plus killings that are tangentially related to Death Row Records, Suge Knight, the Bloods, the East vs. West rivalry, the gangster cops inside the LAPD and much more. This is Part one of ‘The Timeline.’ Niki and Johnny have been working on c...
Join hosts Nicole Luciano and Johnny ‘The Greek’ Anagnopoulos, two of the producers of The Dossier, as they break down all things crime and hip-hop, gleaned from their years of investigative work on the topic. From the Biggie and Tupac murders, to the twenty plus killings that are tangentially related to Death Row Records, Suge Knight, the Bloods, the East vs. West rivalry, the gangster cops inside the LAPD and much more. This episode, Niki and Johnny start off by tying up some loose ends from l...
Join hosts Nicole Luciano and Johnny ‘The Greek’ Anagnopoulos, two of the producers of The Dossier, as they break down all things crime and hip-hop, gleaned from their years of investigative work on the topic. From the Biggie and Tupac murders, to the twenty plus killings that are tangentially related to Death Row Records, Suge Knight, the Bloods, the East vs. West rivalry, the gangster cops inside the LAPD and much more. This week Niki and Johnny begin the episode with a conversation about the ...
Join hosts Nicole Luciano and Johnny ‘The Greek’ Anagnopoulos, two of the producers of The Dossier, as they break down all things crime and hip-hop, gleaned from their years of investigative work on the topic. From the Biggie and Tupac murders, to the twenty plus killings that are tangentially related to Death Row Records, Suge Knight, the Bloods, the East vs. West rivalry, the gangster cops inside the LAPD and much more. This week, our co-hosts begin the episode with a look at New York Magazine...
Join hosts Nicole Luciano and Johnny ‘The Greek’ Anagnopoulos, two of the producers of The Dossier, as they break down all things crime and hip-hop, gleaned from their years of investigative work on the topic. From the Biggie and Tupac murders, to the twenty plus killings that are tangentially related to Death Row Records, Suge Knight, the Bloods, the East vs. West rivalry, the gangster cops inside the LAPD and much more. This week, Niki and Johnny begin the conversation with the latest in curre...
Join hosts Nicole Luciano and Johnny ‘The Greek’ Anagnopoulos, two of the producers of The Dossier, as they break down all things crime and hip-hop, gleaned from their years of investigative work on the topic. From the Biggie and Tupac murders, to the twenty plus killings that are tangentially related to Death Row Records, Suge Knight, the Bloods, the East vs. West rivalry, the gangster cops inside the LAPD and much more. This week, Niki and Johnny start off with a discussion on King Combs' late...
In Stranger things, The Upside-Down is an alternate dimension existing in parallel to the human world. It contains the same locations and infrastructure as the human world, but it is much darker, colder and obscured by an omnipresent fog. The Upside Down is devoid of human life, instead being overgrown with ropy, root-like tendrils and biological membranes covering practically every surface. At least one recognizable animal, a humanoid predator, was native to this dimension, while ash-like spore...
As the media scrum has gone quiet and the news cycle has moved on from the Homeland Security raids into Diddy’s homes, I am sure many media operations, and gossip hounds are really curious about what is next in this story? What is going to be the next puzzle piece in all of this? I propose a quick game of looking into the uknown future for just a second, and to advocate an exercise in caution on a number of fronts before we ALL assume Diddy’s guilt or innocence. Not many people truly understand ...
Join hosts Nicole Luciano and Johnny ‘The Greek’ Anagnopoulos, two of the producers of The Dossier, as they break down all things crime and hip-hop, gleaned from their years of investigative work on the topic. From the Biggie and Tupac murders, to the twenty plus killings that are tangentially related to Death Row Records, Suge Knight, the Bloods, the East vs. West rivalry, the gangster cops inside the LAPD and much more. This week Niki and Johnny welcome special guest RJ Bond to Collateral Dama...
In this final episode of this audio series, I needed to come full circle with an idea that I started twenty years ago as a young man, my instincts to uncover a battleground between Hip-Hop music and law enforcement was way ahead of the curve, and at that time with the completion of my documentary film Rap Sheet, I thought I had some answers, and clarity on what I set out to accomplish. In hindsight, when I look at the landscape between our criminal justice system today, and the many cases of mur...
Join hosts Nicole Luciano and Johnny ‘The Greek’ Anagnopoulos, two of the producers of The Dossier, as they break down all things crime and hip-hop, gleaned from their years of investigative work on the topic. From the Biggie and Tupac murders, to the twenty plus killings that are tangentially related to Death Row Records, Suge Knight, the Bloods, the East vs. West rivalry, the gangster cops inside the LAPD and much more. This week, Niki and Johnny begin the episode discussing a certain former L...
