Kings Stop Killing Kings

you know which we got arrested. We did so much stuff this week. It was a time in week and now she's on the road. So let's give her some prayers and make sure that you know she has traveling mercies. But in the meantime, if boy my Son is here, you know what, I'm gonna give you a couple of updates. Yes, we did do the Freedom Rides tour and it was amazing. Shout out to the Tasha Brown and everybody at Black Voters Matter. It was a beautiful experience. You know. We

did um we did three different states. We did Atlanta, we did South Carolina, and we ended off in d C. In which we talked about the voting rights and how they trying to push back our voting rights and how is um imperative that we continue to show up and it's imperative that we fight to make sure that our rights are given to us. So that was a beautiful tour. Then Um, we went to d C prior to that

to do an action with my Until Freedom Family. Shoutout to Um, Linda sars Or and Angelo Pinto on which we went to end the Philipbuster, and shout out to Stephen Green also, who was one of the organizers of this action in which we we demonstrated in this civil disobedience in d C in which we were arrested, and and it made sense. Man. You know a lot of times people like, oh, yeah, marching, what are y'all doing all this for? You know, everybody has a role to play,

you know, and I say that all the time. And in order to fight for civil rights, in order for us to get the freedom, you know, all of us to get everything that we say we want, there has to be some level of sacrifice. So when we go out there and we make a conscious decision that we're gonna do civil disobedience, that we're gonna sacrifice our freedoms because we don't know how the police are gonna react. There are times when the police are violent with us.

There are times when the police are respectful to us, as times that we sit and selle for for long days. Then it's sometimes that we're saying there surely, so we never know what to expect, you know, but we know that in order to get some level of understanding, to bring awareness and attention to these issues that we're fighting, it takes that sacrifice. It takes us to be willing to give our freedom, our bodies, in our life if

need be, to the cause. You know. So a lot of people don't understand it, and like y'all don't understand why are your march? Why do your protests? Because that is the first that is the first form of awareness, you know, in order for us, there's march, there's protests, there's planning. Then then we need policy changes, you know, we demand policy changes, and we continue and then there's a worldwide call for policy changes. Change and freedom are

not free. They don't just happen, you know. People just think, oh, you you know, it's I don't understand why you're doing this. Well, maybe you don't understand. You know that people telling me you're you know, I don't understand why you're still voting, and I'm like, I don't understand why you're not voting. You know, it's it's bigger than the fact that our ancestors just died for us to vote, you know, it's

our future needs these votes. If you are not involved in the process of voting, but you still I say this all the time, you're not involved in the process of voting, but you still have to live under the regime, under the policies, under the laws that are passed, and those laws are still governing you, and you still are governed by those laws, and you live by those rules, and you have to participate in everything that we have to participate. But you are not involved in the process

to elect the people who implement those laws. It is insanity unless you have a real organized plan. If you are not voting right, then you're not counted in the vote. If you're not voting, then you are what they call a low perplexity voter. They do not care about you. You are somebody who is not even on the table. You're not They're not thinking about your issues. They don't care what it is that you want because you are

pretty much a ghost. So what happens is when candidates come, they think about the issues of those people who they know are voting. They want to appeal, They want to figure out how do I attract those people who are going to go to these polls. And if you are not one of those, if you have never been one of those, they are not trying to attract you. They are not worried about your issues because they don't even

know what your issues are. And if you don't, if you're not doing this and you're not sitting out with a large number of constituents and people who are able to vote, if you haven't put together and say, okay, we have over five million people and we're not going to vote, and all of us are saying we're not voting right until these things happened. That makes sense to me. But you as an individual just saying I'm not voting

and you stupid for doing it. But you have no collective plan, you have no unity, you have put nothing together to combat the structure that is here, but yet you still have to live in this structure. It makes

no sense. So yes, we went out there to advocate for our rights to vote, to make sure that the way they're rolling back the rights to vote in the land and all the way through the South because of what happened in this election, because the black vote was able to turn the tide and switch this election around. So now they want to do everything they can to suppress the black vote. So we have to be intentional. We have to be intentional. We we we see our power.

So now it's time for us to say, okay, we got four years to get this. We got a little less than four years right now, and to get this together and say, okay, the next people that we elect locally president, everything have to adhere to these causes. This is what we need. We need this document, We need these things to be on the first agenda. You know. That's that's what we That is the process that we should be in that we we've seen how we're able

to mobilize. We've seen that when we've turned out the vote,

what is able to do. Now it's time for us to say, okay, we are collectively coming together as one and we are demanding certain things happen in order for us to even have a candidate and and actually we can create our own candidate when we have those principles, when we have what it is that we want, now we can sit and say, Okay, this person right here is who we want to represent us, and we're gonna put all of our energy behind that person because they

fit the mode of exactly this that we want. But just not voting and saying it's you you're doing something about not voting makes no sense. It just doesn't make sense. And anybody who's trying to tell you that just not voting without doing something else, So creating something else to combat the structure, it's doing something. They're lying to you, you know. So that's what we did, man, we did. We had a whole weekend, a lot of things coming up, you know. So I want you to stay tuned once

again to meet us on tour. But she will be back soon. This episode is one that's really dead to me. Um. It's called King Stop Killing Kings. It's a it's an initiative that I started right after the death of the

late Great Nipsey Hustle. You know, he was, as we know, he was killed by another black man, and just thinking about that spark something in me and I did a rally in the Bronx which brought out a lot of people, and shortly after that we went to New Jersey and did the same thing where to Baltimore did the same thing. Then we did another one in in New York again. So you know, it's something that I've been intentional about, you know, really trying to stop the violence in our communities.

You know, I understand that poverty is violent, so I understand what the root is. You know. They say, were with their darkness that will be sin, But the guilty one is not the one who commits the sin, but

it's he who creates the darkness, you know. And that's just pretty much saying that the situations that we live in, there's nothing else that can happen but violence, you know, But we have to figure out a way to combat that, to build out communities, to get the resources in our communities, to change the mind state of our young kings, you know, and put them on the right track. So this episode is pretty much dedicated to that. You know. Um my brother Prince Map is gonna show up today and he's

somebody that I really look up to. Man brother from Queens who actually was a shooter you know. And he wasn't call straeted. He did twenty years for taking a life um and since he's been home after the twenty years, he's a complete three sixty. He's been invested in preventing violence in the communities, mentoring these young kids, you know, and he is the head of community and culture at Citizens and he's somebody that we really need to hear for.

I say all the time that those directly impacted have to be the ones who create the solutions. So you know, he's gonna be on. We also have another one of our brothers, shan Duke mcfadah, who is the founder of g MAC and his gangsters making astronomical community changes. And

he's another brother who was in the streets. He's he's a gang member, still a game member, but he utilizes his influence for positivity and to take the guns out of the hands of the shooters and employed the gang members and give them positive, you know, structures because originally we know is that gangs were originally started to combat police violence in our communities. They were about brotherly love

and protecting our communities. And he's one of those brothers who are putting those principles back into it the gangs means. So we're gonna hear from him, and you know, we're gonna have an excellent episode, man, So make sure that you tune in and we're gonna be right back. Welcome back to this episode of Street Politicians. We we labeled

this episode King Stopped Killing King's Episode UM. We were originally supposed to interview Miss Jenkins, who was a woman who lost all three of her children to gun violence, but unfortunately due to UM some circumstances that she had to deal with. Originally, she had got a call from an officer who had some leads in one of the murders of one of her children, which she became very

emotional and couldn't do the interview. And then we've been trying to connect but she's still work and she's still dealing with a lot of things, but she definitely wants to do the interview. So we'll definitely take time to do that interview in the near future. But you know, we still have someone who I feel is very dead to this work, someone who I see as a brother of someone who is a community UM activists, who is who speaks from experience, who speaks from, you know, a

place of being very genuine. You know, someone who since I met him, he's been the same way. His his will and his wanting to do this work and to do something to change his community is something that's like none other. My brother, his name is Prince Matt. He is the head of Community and Culture at the citizen At. Welcome brother. How are you doing today? But I'm good man.

Thanks for having me, Mice well, thanks for being him man. Um. Like you know, I always tell you, Man, I appreciate the work you do, you know, understanding the circumstances, understand where we come from and how it's difficult it is to change, and watching you be a leader in that change, watching you, you know, reflect what it really looks like to come from the community and protect the community and grow and evolved. Man, You're somebody that I respect, you know,

and I just want to give your flowers or you're here. Man. The work that you're doing in the way that you evolved, this is nothing short of admirable. I appreciate that. So before before we start, if I may, I would like to Um send my send an apology to Miss jenkins Um from being a victim of gun violence and also

a perpetrator gun violence. UM, where I spend half my life in prison for I want to personally apologize for the shooter because she may not never get that, you know what I'm saying, Um, she may not never get that that that that genuine apology that's come from a shooter for those who killed her three sons, and for anyone who has been a big them of gun violence, I personally print, I personally apologize for every last one of them, for a lot of them do not know

them the consequences and the hurt and pain and trauma that they have cause. So before we even start anything, I'm gonna take for responsibility because I played a part and its violence in America. I played a part in gun violence specifically in America, and I want to take a first say I apologize for them and many more to come. So before we start that, man, I want to give my my my utmost condoses to Miss Jennison and her family. Well, and that's it's things like that. Brothers.

Why I admire you and I look up to you, and I wanted to have you on this show because you know, like you said, you work in the field of gun violence. And you actually have been a perpetrator of gun violence, and you understand both dualities. You understand the reality that the shooter has, you understand the reality that someone who is not the shooter has, and you've been able to, um to see both sides. You know. You you spent, like you said, you spend half for

your life in prison. Could you give us a little you know, tell us about that situation and how that occurred. Of course, UM just bottom line as I was a coward, you know, UM, I made a coward that you know. I UM, I could fight with my hands, but I was much more tougher when I walked around every day with a gun on my waist, you know what I mean. It made me feel powerful. It made me feel invisible, you know what I'm saying. And I was shot twice

in South Jamaica Queens on both in robbery attempts. The last time or a shot from my chain, and it wasn't it wasn't um if I was gonna shoot somebody or kill somebody, it was winning, you know what I mean. So when I got shot a second time, you know, I started to get a lot of feedback from people in the community. But it wasn't really like the same prince you need to go retality. It was like I was making stories up in my head that they wanted

me to go retality. They wanted me to do something to show that I was tough, and I say I was a coward and beginning because it was a coward act. You know what I'm saying, Because no one, no person, no matter what the circumstances, deserves to lose their life over anything. You know what I'm saying. Real men talk things out. And I took the cow away out. I pulled the gun out and I shot somebody five times and I took his life, you know what I'm saying.

And I paid. I paid my debt society, you know, but I can never repay my debt to the family, you know what I'm saying, because I took a life I took. I took someone from them that they're never gonna see again. You know, I get to see my children, I get to see my grandson, you know what I'm saying. So I end up spending eighteen years in prison. But you know, I don't want to justify for my behavior. But I wasn't educated, you know, I did lack of resources.

I didn't have opportunities you know, I'm saying that that was presented to me that I have today, you know what I mean. And those things, those elements of my life um propelled me to make terrible decisions, you know what I'm saying. It wasn't an accident on my part. Accident is like driving a car and having a class. And it wasn't an accident. My act was intentional, you know what I'm saying. So it was a bad decision on my part, mice and I regretted to this day,

you know, and and spending eighteen years in prison. And I want to be clear about something because a lot of people come on your show and they say these things like they spend time, but you know, and it rolls over their tongues so easily. Eighteen years. I don't want you to think about eighteen years and years, months old days thinking about eighteen years and seconds, that's how long it is. There's something about the clocks in prison that you hit every tick on the clock, you know

what I'm saying. So think about doing that time in seconds and then when it would when did you come to a point where you used to be disgusted with the life who lived and started to change because my chain started in prison. I didn't change when I came home because I I didn't want to be the same person I was when I left. I left uneducated. I left um not take care of responsibilities. I left destroying my community. I sold crack to pregnant women. I sold

crack to family members. You know what I'm saying. I did the most disgusting things in my life, you know what I mean. So every day I'm gonna live. I wanna be intentional. Every day I want to try to get back and this is why I wake up every day and I try to stop at least one kid

from losing his life. Man speaking speaking of such man Um, you've been working with you know, it's a video that went viral with a young man who was chasing a young man down and he felt buy some children and the young man still was was shooting him like right with the kids there just disregard, you know, and you've been working with one of them. I don't know exactly what wood family of that situation. How is that? How was that been again? That's the coward that I talked about.

You know what I mean, that's the coward that I speak up. That was me. You know, we no reglf of human life, you know what I'm saying. And when you got that gun, you're not even thinking, You're not even thinking. I'm actually working with the two children and their family, you know what I'm saying. Because the ten year old girl, her name is me, she went missing like two weeks before that happened, and citizen played a

part in bringing a home. So the father became close with me, you know what I'm saying because he said that, you know, we played a part of bringing his daughter home, and we was someone that he respected a lot because no one else will helping find his daughter. And me and a couple of friends of mine, we were looking for his daughter, and a friend of mine actually helped him find his daughter, the same little girl who covered

her little brother Christian in that shootout. So what we've been trying to do is, you know, um um cover them without protection and make sure that they're protected, make sure they're not being exploited, you know, because all of these news meetings and stuff there trying to exploit them and use them for different purposes instead of trying to relocate them out of the Bronx where they live. They

need to be relocated. They need to be they need to be given other opportunities because this girl has seen so much already. And then she was in the middle of a shootout where she took that she had more courage than I will ever have while covering her little brother and making sure that he wasn't shot, willing to sacrifice how long her own life at ten years old. So I work closely with them, trying to make sure

that we can, you know, relocate them. Um, the Yankees did something nice for them, put them in the sky box. But I said, you know, don't put them in the sky box. Put them in a scott scraper. You know what I'm saying. Don't put them in the sky box to a game. And put them in in the same building you live in and let them. Let them live a great life for the rest of their life. She already sacrificed her life, that's right, you know what I'm saying. So that's that's why I worked with now the the

young the young brother. He was arrested, you know, and I pray for him, you know what I mean. I pray for his family. You know what I'm saying because a lot of times that the cities that we make are not based on our own thoughts and our own decisions. They're based on influences from the outside. And a lot of times we think that people wanted to do things and they're not even thinking about you know what I'm saying.

So he felt that he needed to do that, He felt that he needed to kill this young this other young man, you know what I'm saying, And and now he's gonna spend a lot of time in prison for being reckless. Mike, I want you to think about something. In every community, in every black and brown and under resource community, we can almost tell who we're gonna be raising money for for their from room next and every single community in your hood. It's unfortunate, Mice, you know

what I'm saying. And I say this from en buying my heart. It's unfortunate that you've been riding your hood and know who you're gonna be raising money for to bury one day, you know what I'm saying. So if we know this right, and we know that we're gonna this guy is active and we're gonna be raising money to bury them because we know you don't got life insurance, right, and we know this, Why we can't raise the same money to change his life while he's alive, you know

what I'm saying. And the police, the police alone have this intel, mice. They know who's active, who's doing this, who's doing that, and they know they're gonna be picking them up and put him in the body back soon. Why they don't use the same intel to change this person's life because it's not the goal, Prince, the prince. The goal is they need purpose, they need collars, right.

So they see a third team four toyod kid they see is on the road to this and rather than give them different opportunities and and change the scenario, give them, you know, a different perspective. They watch them and then they interact with them to what they make them feel like, you know, you're a criminal already. And and they watch it and they just and they just playing cat and mouse.

They're just waiting for them to slip up. They just wait, like, we know what you're gonna do this because we see the trajectory on. They don't want to invest no moneys in the community to make sure that those kids right there, you know, are redirected, you know, and the energy that they have, which is usually just lying energy that's been misdirected and pointed in the wrong direction. You know, they

don't point it and give it to something else. They don't they don't give them something else to give that energy too, because it's intentional. They want to lock you up. They building jails for our kids. I say that all the time. They're not building jails for me and you because they know we're not going back to jail. They know that they're building jails for our kids, the new jails just for our kids. And that's why we're the

most dangerous to them, you know what I'm saying. That's why that's why I fight with people on your post all the time. You know what I'm saying, those are the ones that are the most dangerous. Like so, for first of all, we have to identify who are the higher risk. The higher risk are the people who stopping people like me and you from eliminating those higher risk in the visions. You know what I'm saying, those people, that's that's trolling, that's saying these nasty commas. That's allowing

people to you know, build a momentum. So we can't do the work that we want to do. Don't forget. I have a whole time job. So everything I do, I do it on my own time, you know what I'm saying. And I do this because I do not want to want to bury my nephews. I don't want to bury my grandson. You know what I'm saying. I don't. I don't want to bury nobody. I don't want to bury nobody's there's nobody grandsons. So I go extra hard

with this, you know what I'm saying. But you've got so many people that fight against the truth, and the truth is the same money that we raised to bury them, we could give these get the same money while they allive. We get the same opportunities while they alive, you know what I'm saying. And they don't want you to do that. They don't want you to save lives in lives, that's the goal. You know, what what do you think us?

You know, we understand the powers that be, we understand the structure, we understand the system, we understand how everything is good towards and either imprisoning us or watching us going in engraves, what do you think that we need to tell the people like us, the people in the communities, the quote unquote O g s, the ones, the gangsters

and what what what? What message? How how do we get through to them that they have a responsibility to leave these kids in a different direction, If they have a responsibility to give these kids opportunities and chances and things that they didn't have so they don't make the same mistakes, how do you how do you think we relate that message? What do you think we need to do? So? I read this book when I was when I was

teaching at the New School UM. I think it was called Teens Who Hurt Right, and they spoke about I think it's Tracy lash Wealth and Kennem Haudio or something like that, and then talking about UM a thing called vc'all not to be show that we know about as validation, challenge and requests right, and a lot of the ogs in our hood are being validated for the growing things,

you know what I'm saying. So we could validate them, but when they start to do the right things and we start to validate them, we could validate them and give them that, you know, that power that they need to make what we're talking about trending, just like they make tight pains trending. Or we we we we could make peace trending. You know what I'm saying, Just like they make tight pains trending. The ogs have the ability to make peace trending and to make you know, um

um cleaning our neighborhoods trending. Because they love validation. They could be part of a cleanup in the hood. If they could be part of a running the corner in their name in the hood. We don't have to we don't have to be out there. We could give it all to them. They could do everything that you're doing. They can do. You don't have to do it, you know what I'm saying. But we gotta give them that

that validation. Then we have to challenge them. We have to challenge them because you can't live on you can't live on both sides of the narrative. Either you want to save your community and health the community, or you want to continue to destroy. You can't go to the doctor to get poison, you know what I'm saying, And that's what we're going to the doctor they get poison. And now we gotta make a request. We gotta, we

gotta challenge these corporations. We gotta challenge these big you know, people get killed over with Jordan's, they get killed over nikes, they get killed over deaders, they get killed over I phones. We gotta challenge these big corporations to to to funnel some of that money that we spend not much. How how easy they get up to a hundred hours ago get the new I phone when it comes out. But App we ain't even thinking about coming to the communities. Mhmm.

You know what I'm saying. A kid will go crazy to get that tors he will scam, he will still, he would rob, he would kill to get an I phone. But Apple will not coming to the community and change that change life. So we gotta we gotta, we gotta have the ogs in questions. Yeah, and I think that's that's what it is for me. You know, I started this campaign called boycott and black Murder, and it's based

on that. It's you know, it's us being set in the trend, like you said, like they want validation from us, right, so we we we dictate what cool is, you know what I'm saying. Somehow we make we made the negative, the murder and the violence cool that that's what validated you. That was your right to passage if you wasn't somebody who was notorious or savage like these is words that we use to describe us, all types of derivator, monster, and all types of names that are negative connotations to

describe us. And that's some level of validation. So what I say is we have to we have to utilize that same you know, the same method and make being unified. Make the person the gangster person is the one who stopped somebody from shooting. You know, when you when you that's what you respected. You respected when you protect your community. That's what we're given accolades to. That's the people you

want to respect. That's the one who's lit. You know, when you walk in your community and the old ladies respect you and they're happy to see you because they don't feel threatened that you're gonna do something to you. That you're not a master, that you're a king, and that you're general and you're a true soldier, the true soldiers. You know, a real warrior never wants to after actually have to engage in war. That's the truth, that is

the true measure of a warrior. That if the one who is fully prepared but never has to engage in war is probably the best warrior ever. I read that is a Chinese proverb. And you know, and and that's what we have to We have to retrain because we were taught wrong. So we gotta start retraining these kids, so they start teaching to each other in his past, out of generations, because somewhere along the way, you know, we we were glorified and and and love violence and

negativity so much that it has become embedded in our culture. Yes, so so, Mike. So this year, actually, you know, um, I studied the Cure violence model, and you know it's it's about detecting behavior and and um changing community norms and things of that nature. Right, And this year I took a different approach to violence. I actually started to identify high risk through and through a different limits. First of all, in my language, there's no such thing as

higher risks under resource. That they had resource, they wouldn't be high rich, right. But the high risk individuals are the ones are are not the ones who are actually committing the crown because only a small percentage of people in our neighborhoods is doing these crimes. As doing these shooters right, the high risks are the ones that's listening.

We need to start reaching to the ones that's listening, the ones that's in school, the ones that's trying to get a job, because they're so easily manipulated and and can easily be forced into a life that they don't want to being. They are the higher risk because they got to prove a point. I was just tolking somebody today. I'm not gonna say no names, but he's a gangster, but he's privileged. You know what I'm saying. Mice, he's he's a he's a ga, you know him. You know

what I'm saying. He's a gangster, but he's privileged, you know what I'm saying. And he doesn't want to look at his privilege. And I told us that. I say, brother, you have to identify who you are first. I'm not seeing you're not tough, but I understand that your privilege and that the people that you're hanging around were being tough with, do not have that privilege. They don't have someone to buy them a car, they don't have someone to put them in the new house, they don't have

someone to get them stuff. When they when they're home with you know what I'm saying, So I need you to identify that first, that is the high rist individual right there. M the ones that's listening who can be easy manipulated and to becoming a shooter. Because unfortunately Mice and and and I, it took me a while to

come to this delusion. The shooters are going to cancel themselves out, and we gotta start reaching out to the ones that are listening, the ones that are doing well in high school, the ones that want to play ball in high school, the ones that want to become engineers. So we gotta start reaching out to them because they are really the high risk. They are the ones that can really become very very treacherous in our neighborhoods because

they're smart. They listen and they calculate their moves. You know what I'm saying. The unfortunate dummies, the ones that that's not listening does that's just out there recklessly shooting that kids and stuff like that. They're gonna see how

you canceled themselves out. That's unfortunate, what that happens. We have to reach the ones that's listening right now because I just always trying to reach out the ones that ain't listening enough of pads, this and that, And I'm like, it's like beating a dead horse because they're they're gonna do, They're already there. A risk is trying to avoid some of them happening. So with HIV, to avoid the risk

is using condoms, you know what I'm saying. But once you've got HIV, you know on the high risk, you got it. So once you were a shooting, you a shooter. So you gotta reach the ones that can become shooters and nasty. That should be the approach, that should be the model, that should be the new task. It makes sense to me. I say that all the time, And I said, you know, we talked about defunding and police and police police, community community police, and and that's what

our job is. Our job is too, you know, to be able to detect those people and see those and and you know, intercept those situations because a lot like you know, I know a kid from my community who was young and you know, unfortunately I've seen him sleeping on the streets. So he was one of the most privileged kids in the community. And his mother father both had good jobs and He just wanted to be outside.

He wanted to be in the mix of everything. And unfortunately, you know, the streets got the best of them, and and it looks like somebody probably slipped him some k to or something, and he was he was he was. He wanted to he wanted to be accepted by the culture. And that's what it is that the privileged ones, they want to be accepted by the culture. They wanted to be seen as this tough guy. They want to be, you know, someone who is respected by the coaches so

much that they become the most detrimental ones. So you're right, man, We we gotta we just gotta get back to get the resources in our community, getting people like ourselves and the younger the younger versions of ourselves in the community, who people you know, understand and respect and understand that we we pretty much been through what it is that they've been through. You know, like I said all the time, those directly impact, They've got to be the solution. Man.

We can't. We can't have people who ain't been through that coming to the communities and talking to these kids because they don't want to hear it. Because I didn't want to hear it. You wasn't gonna come to my community or be even in the community, and you wasn't in the level of you know what it is that I was doing and tell me not to do it. You know, you was a square like you can't have

a conversation with me. And I wish I would have been the square back then, and I wish I was the square, but understanding that the square just wasn't gonna get to me. You know what I'm saying exactly were Black squeeze now, But but back then, we the people who who had never been involved at any level of these streets, wasn't gonna tell me what was going on because they couldn't identify, my mam, what it is that I was dealing with your mice before before I caught

my time in prison, right I was. I used to hang out in front of the building UM called American Towers in Queen's Right, and I never forget it was. He was a senator. His name was Malcolm Smith. He was like the first achieved, like the majority leader at one time when Patterson and them was here and he came to the building and he said, hey, guys, how

are you doing. My name is Malcolm Smith, I'm senator and my offices around the corner and let you guys know that, Um, I'm gonna have some jobs for you guys, you know, saying, get you guys from instruction jobs and stuff like that. He said, Um, but I'm just gonna let you know that this is no longer going to exist. And he was saying this, He was saying, like this drug game, this building is gonna be shut down. We're

gonna like fix this area. I said, if you don't get the out of face and don't ever come back around here again, you do, You're gonna have a problem. You know what I'm saying. And I didn't even know who I was talking to at the time until I was in Sinxing watching David Patterson do an address and I see Michael Smith sitting next to him. You know what I'm saying. And how power like who he was at the time, he could have just came in eradicated me.

You know what it been took me. I wish you would have because I would have never quote my case. You know what I'm saying that. And you know, but what we do not respect those who come to the hood or come to our neighborhoods that you know don't understand what we're going to. You gotta have the right uniform, man, you gotta come the people at the people and and they own't like they love you, Mike, and but they don't. They don't respect the fact that they're taking a non

traditional way of doing things. You know what I'm saying. They'd rather like, you know, and I say all the time, like your fifth coming to the hood and tell these dude, you'll come by. All the comes from them. You know what I'm saying. We got two hundred three hundred million, Come by all the guns from them. When I say come by, the away comes from them. Come say yo, give me your guns right and his opportunity. They do these buyback programs and give you two hundreds for a gun.

I'm not giving you know, I'm not getting my gun from two hundred hours when I can get six hundreds of the block. Give him a thousand hours in the job and a promise that you're gonna give hi an opportunity. I bet we have a whole bunch of guns in the back of the U haul truck. That's right, you know what I'm saying. We gotta take more aggressive approaches when it comes to gun violence. That's that's a real conversation.

That's a that's a that's a whole episode. You know, what what should be the responsibility of these hip hop artists that that claim to represent and be from my communities? What is their responsibility to protect, you know, instead of these kids in the right direction. We can we can talk about this all day, but I love you, bro.

I just want you before we leave. I want you to um if you if you had one word to say to a young boy, young shooter like yourself, you know, like you were, you know you evolved into way more than that. You know, somebody who was at the stage that you on. You had to sit down, You just have one one minute to talk to What would you what would you say to I would tell him that Rickers Aland is a jail that's surrounded by water, right

mice and you know, to get the Ricker's Aland. Like when I when I went from like Elmhurst to go of course the bridge, it took me five minutes to go across that bridge. Right when we shackle you feel the turbunce going across that bridge. It took me five minutes to go across that bridge. Almost twenty years to get back to the other side. Mm hm. That short ride across the bridge, it took me twenty years to come back to the other side. So if you can, that's the only thing you could do in your life

is when you wake up. It's be intentioned. Hey man, I appreciate you, bro. I love you, man. Oh Man, I love you, Mike. It's a it's a pleasure of just talking with you. I love you to death, man, and I'm gonna follow you to the end of the world. Are all great. Keep doing what you're doing. Man, love you can't create. Appreciate you. Man. Shout out to my brother Prince Matt. You see why he's somebody that I respect and love. Man. His energy, his intelligence, his growth,

his evolution. You know that's one of my things, being an evolutionary and the way he's evolved into this person, this beacon of life, someone who's been there. And when you look at him, you can see that he understands the coach, he understands what you're dealing with. But you also see that he's involved to a place where he's able to give the message to those who really needed so shout out to my brother Prince matt Man for doing the work, for being a beacon of life, for

being somebody who's changed. Keep doing what you're doing. Now. We have prerecorded this because you know, originally we were supposed to have Miss Jenkins on what she didn't so we wanted to pause it and hopefully she'll get back another day, but unfortunately weren't able to do it. So me and to me it have prerecorded the Ever, so in the next interview is gonna be with our brother

Shan Duke father and she will be present. And I want you to pay attention to this one because this is another brother, another brother who was really outside making astronomical changes in his career. It's good to have Shan Duke mcfadder of g MAC in Brooklyn, New York. I

would change maker. That's right to come as our change maker. Um. And also because Shan Duke deals with shooters every day, right, So, Shan Duke, we are happy to have you on Street Politicians for the first time, but it won't be your last. That's right, that's right, thank you, Yes, first time, not the last. What's going on? How are you feeling today? I'm blessed Holly favorite. That's that's how it goes. You know that. That was my brother famous favorite line, blessed

and Holly Favorite. So we always go with that every day, blessed and Holly Favorite. Amen. Man, that's I used that a lot all the time too. Man. So telling people give people some background on what what g MAX stands for. With the work that you do, it's a little bit of background. Yeah, I got you. So, you know, in this work, I realized I have to so often tell who I am, what I've been through for people to understand how I'm capable of doing the work that I'm

capable of doing. Pet in raised Brooklyn, Kings County Hospital, Raised to a single mother, never see my father. I was raised in the projects after my mother got us back from force to care. I became a product of what was around me in the white Hall of night your houses in downtown South Brooklyn. By the age of sixteen, I was first and conservated became one of the first adolescence to join the United Blood Nation. This was Rica's Island ninety four, So when I did it, it it was

only adults. The adolescens didn't even have a box or bing or shoot, we would send to HDM and that's where we met the adults who ultimately introduced me to what became a product of my life that sent me back and forth throughout the prison system. And two thousand an eight, I was finishing up my last prison sentence from five two five two thousand and eight becluding possess

of a weapon. And I've seen the father who seen who met his son who he had on the conjugal visit never seen that Chalit Dan in his life in the streets, and that Shilow came into Sing Sing prison with thirty five years at seventeen years. And I was the only person who witnessed that experience. And I had to make changes because I had to win boys who were then about six or seven years old. And I decided to change my mindset, and I ultimately know that I had to be part of the solution and no

longer part of problem. So I created an organization that made sense to me, which is g MAC, which stands for Gangsters making Astronomical Community Changes, and that is a five of one seeds be nonprofit public charity that focused on gun violence from a public health perspective, also dealing with social justice issues and all the things under the unbrella that's causing the violence and the issues in our community. M that's dope, you know. You know, I'm always amazed

at how you able to be a conduit. You know, how you're able to connect the culture, you know, be in tune with the culture of hip hop, understand what goes on in our community, to speak the language and the lingo, and connect with those people who are still respected in the streets but still have this positive and make those people be the people that stop the violence. Like you said, you know, you was once part of the problem and you want to be part of the solution.

And I'm amazed at how you engage these kids that's in the streets that don't even understand how they can be the solution. How you able to speak the language with them and still make them feel Because we were having this conversation before about being cool or and being respected, right, and the way that you're able to make people understand

that you can be respected for stopping violence. You don't have to be in this this culture of violence and negativity that you can get respect and you can still look the same way, you still dress the same way you still, you know, can represent what it is that you represent, but you can do it in a positive form. So you know, I'm amazed at the way that you're

able to do that. Think I appreciate that I created g MAC when I was upstate in Upstate box and I had to come up with the first that had to come up with the name of acting and all that. And I knew if I came home and said I was a good guy making change, they looked at me and laugh, like, man, if you don't get out of here with that good guys stuff. So I had to come with what I knew, what experience I had, and

I broke that to the table. And even that people look at the fact that the first world is gangsters, and I get people, somebody, what what, what's this? What's that? Because they don't understand And it's not for everybody to understand the work that we do. We know people will never understand everything that we do. People will never be with everything that nobody does. But we have to use our actions to show improve and that's what I do.

So I have nothing happened to me that made me change other than me seeing a father witness his child come through the prison system and I didn't want my children, nobody else shouldn't to experience that. So that was the catalysts changed for me. I ain't telling nobody, ain't nothing, nobody putting no hands on me. It was just about change the shift of my prefunctal cortex, my brain. And when I came out, it was, oh you, Malcolm, the

same thing used to go through brother. You know what I'm saying with marcol We Malcolm, get out and listen. This is what it is, right, you know, we got to we can't be afraid of our children. We can't be afraid of things that we experienced and bring it back to the table to get people to understand that we have experienced that they don't have. We want to deter them from going through the things that we went through, but being genuine about it. You know, people afraid to

be genuine. People want to follow with the trends, right, and my goal to set trends to take the popularity out of negativity and bring the popularity of positivity, just like y'are doing. You know when you talk about my son and how some people say, oh you who you think you are? Mar and a Malcolm it's like people make try to make mockery of what he's doing today. Um, you know, based upon his story, his trajectory where he

came from. Have have you experienced that did when you first came home decided to start an organization, did you go through something similar? Oh? Yes, I definitely went through that. I'm still going through that like the brother. But one of the things that I had to do when I came home was, first I moved to Atlanta with my twin sister. I had to make sure mentally I was

prepared to go back to the community. And so often brothers and sinces go back to the same neighborhood where they about names and susson and they for picked them to the same actions. So for me, I had to mentally make sure I was ready. Second, when I created G Matt and came back to Brooklyn, I didn't go to the neighborhood that I grew up in, which is white or honest, because I knew they would not understand it. Didn't make you know, me coming back talking about stop shooting.

They're like, hold on, what is this brother talking about? That's tripe. We're not trying to hear it, you know, it was a lot that I had to think about before I made those choices. That was one of the reasons I went into sixty seven Precinct area these flappers with Jamani because it was outside of the neighborhood and I was able to focus on the work where there

was a high level of shootings over there. So I'll baby to show you through the work regards of what assumptions you may have of me, especially with me still just being who I am dressed how for talk speak about what I want to speak about. People misinterpreted that with your actions around criminality, right, And that's just the problem.

I have to get people to see that I created something for myself that gave me something to do where I didn't need to find a criminal aspect to provide for myself, which is why we are creating these areas for ourselves of crime that put us back and forth in the system. So this is what it's about. We have to overcome that. Me and Mice and generous like myself going to a neighborhood when people expect you to

come back and bringing that same negative energy. So even in the world there's people in other organizations that try to find something wrong with me in the work that I'm doing, because they don't understand that. You know, we've got a bunch of individuals who are forming concentrated. They don't glamorize the fact that they've been concentrated for murders and such, but recognizing it so that they can identify the people the pains that they've been through to be

able to to make change and shift our communities. So we are people are gonna continue to be oxercise right if we look at all these dates, I need this die up until the point of somebody believing that there was something wrong with Malcolm. There was something over Malcolm. So we just got to keep working and pushing through. And we appreciate that. Man. And I want to ask you, just looking at where we are right now, you know there's an uptick and violence, especially gun violence in our

communities right now. And you know, like myself, you are aware of a lot of the things that cause the violence in the communities. You know, I always say that poverty equals violence. You know, that's one of the main things that I say. So I just want to know from your perspective of doing this work for so many years that you've been doing it. What do you think

it's gonna take to really cut the gun violence? And you know, in the inner cities and in the communities that we come from, it's gonna take a lot more money community based organizations. It's gonna take other leaders that got money that they could give to these communities. We're spending too much time hoping that the city and the lect of officials are gonna bail us out through our fight, and we cannot depend on that alone. So we need everybody invested because some way, some form, we got a

part to play. We paid a part when we were young. And I'm just speaking in general, but to really answer the question, through my work, I've seen violence go down through our partners, the life camps, the man ups, the organizations that are doing this work. The work we are doing is shown in our areas where we focus. People don't know where we act, so they understand that we focus on a small area and we focus on the small percentage of the same individuals that's pushing the button,

that's driving the bottom. It's not everybody in our community, no matter what they're trying to portray. So if you focus on all these individuals and throughout the city throughout east Borough, and you are you pinpoint who the shooters are, you pinpoint the individuals that's pushing that you'll be able to bring down the violence. Because our goal is stopping

the transmission. So every time somebody gets into an argument, we need to be able as a as a people to be in that conversation to figure out how we could de escalate because mighty maybe more upset than the other person and walk off and things over and it's not over. And we had that incident where our young tenure over was shotting far rockaway a parking spot, and if someone was able to have had that conversation after the argument to bring that brother down, we would have

saved the child's life. So that's what we gotta do it. On top of that, we're gott get these elders to step up. MI, I know what we're talking about, these brothers. You know, I'm tired of brothers talking about these young boys is violing. And these younger man ain't no young boy ever gonna tell me how to move. I don't listen. These are our children, right, we have much more experience

than we gotta. We gotta pull a rod from under them we gotta we gotta run up in and their stage spaces, make sure they ain't got access to the things they got access to. We gotta be accountable for them. These are our children pulling the trigger to not children, So we're not the one stepping up the men. Our women shouldn't be ad the front line. All these guys is tough. The gangst all these music is talking about. The real toughness is in the streets stopping young person

from killing somebody. And that's what we gotta do. We gotta saturate community with leaders who are not afraid to get in front of that that gunn and say this. If you're not doing that, he is why amen, And I appreciate that. You know, I'm gonna I want to touch you on something that's a little more, you know,

touch you for you and personal. Um. You you you lost your brother to gun violence, you know, while you was doing this work, you know, and and that that's something that is just a two pronged situation, just understanding what with the work entails. Well, you say, I like to reference that different right because I didn't lose him, m h. And I tried to have a lot of survivors speak differently because you lose something means it fell out my pocket and I misplaced it. I misplaced my

brother s mighty took right. So we gotta have our survived. Understand that the louse we it's lost inside of it was something I was taking from us. I appreciate that. I'll definitely start talking with that terminology more so. You know, thank you for enlightening me with that. But your brother was taken from you while you was doing the work to make sure that somebody else's brother is not taken from them, you know, and you're being close to me.

We've had many discussions and different things, and I know a little a lot more than the average person does. But I just want you to just kind of touch you on that experience and how you continue to do this work with the same mindst in the same heart, and you know, and you move forward. Maybe your mind in your heart is not the same or are not the same. My mind and my heart definitely ain't the same. Can't it can't be the same. Nobody who takes a

takes has a feminine beer. Taking is ever the same. And people need to understand that they learned to deal with it to live with it, but they never get over it. And I'm mine who comes from a different level of life and experience, and I have uh family, my mother, my sisters, my brother, my brothers. Actually right now in n DC, we gotta go back to the NBC that's going on in there right now. But my family, we should tell people that m d C is NBC

Metropolitan Center, the federal jail in Brooklyn. We all us until freedom. We went and did the protests and they had no heat and lights in there. Remember like almost two years ago, I said, winter the coldest time during the winter of two thousands. No electricity, no water, no no heat. We went both for those brothers in there and there we heard there's a lot going on there. But we'll talk about that. Just started about it as

we referenced my brothers. So me coming up through the work has been something that helped me when my brother got murdered. And if I wasn't his work, there's no telling the direction that I would that I would have went. Yall, Remember I remember, I remember there was many nights when we had to walk you off the ledge because you're like, how can I I remember you saying this to me. I don't mean to cut you off, but it's so powerful.

I remember you saying to me one night, tears rolling down your face, how can I not go take a life for the life that was taken for me being the man that everybody knows me to be, Like, this is who I am. I'm supposed to get revenge for this. And you said, but I know better. I know better, and and and and basically what I took from that is like, don't judge me because I feel it, because I'm being honest about the emotion. But I have I have enough wisdom and um and I and I am

I I've evolved enough. That's a good way of explaining it that I can. I need to go through this process, but I'm not going to make the wrong dec vision at the end. And I was so moved, proud and humbled by the fact that you allowed me to live in that moment with you. Thank you, thank you and sharing that emotional moment. Uh oh yeah, And I think you And that's an example example when I'm talking about right that I had the right people to call and

talk to and get the right type of feedback. And there's so many people our communities that's not the feedback that they get. Let's go, let's get it done. You know, right in the high school, the retaliation start, the conversation starts. So what I realized for me, I had to turn that negative into some type of positivity for me to be able to move forward. And you know, it catapulted me further into the work. Right. I realized that before I was coming because I wanted to make change, because

I was part of the problem growing up. I was putting too or the environment that I was put into. But I realized that now I had a different experience. I wasn't only speaking from somebody who had picked up a gun, but I'm now speaking from a survivor's point, and I saw how a mother could possibly feel. I could never feel a mother's pain because it's a brother, but it's still it's a brother that I raised. We had no farther so it's you know, just imagine the relationship.

So the fact that I had the right people around me, it supported me and it kept me going. But I still have to find a different way to cope with it myself. And that's important for people to understand that there's a lot of things that happened when you're dealing with something like that that are traumas Families that still live in the same neighborhood and go back and forth home and believe that those guys they just passed one

of them killed their child. But the systems society don't say, I want to give you emergency movement, ma'am and move your family out of that neighborhood so that you can have some way to deal with your trauma. I had to realize that through my traumas right there. Maive me some of the challenge right to text y'all, like you what's still with this? And what's up with that? Because I could be drinking what's up with what? Yeah? All right?

So for example, I may say, uh, I'm gonna I'm gonna go to something that was really traumatic for me, right where I told you that there's somebody that was speaking on the person who are leged league murdered my brother, and I'm like, ye know, what's up? Why is why is these people speaking on this? Right? This is not the topic that people should be speaking on. I speak on it because there's somebody who is still being tried, right, And you know, so when you're talking about once again,

you're talking about street CODs and ethics. Even though I live a life that I'm not in the street committing crimes, I still found ethics and principles. So give somebody that opportunity to maybe do the course system before we talk about anything. Right, That's that's what's sup post that happened. You don't take a platform and and speaking on somebody who was accused of a crime because of your voice.

What you do is you change people who believe in you to believe that somebody is actually a good person where it actually isn't right there, not the person that you were talking about because of your personal relationship. That's one thing. Another thing was for me, I'm driving in the car and I'm listening to the radio, and the radio says, on this day, we're having a concert that

urban plaza. Right, How can you have a concert at the same place when my brother was killed and they have done nothing to reconcile, nothing, nothing to stop, nothing to stop it. Right, And so me and I spoke about this before. That could have been prevented. I know it could have been prevented, right, if the right people would have been in the conversation. When homeboy flew in who quote son, right, you don't want to do names.

We could do that another time. But when the brother came in, he called the brother to the show because he felt the brother had some ground in the streets in New York. Right. So that's that's the method that happens in hip hop, and that's what we're talking about. When you come into a city, you should get in tune with the real people in the city. And when you get people that talk about it, they talked about, well, what is this the no flies on or it's not

about the check it we misinterpreted. That's about understanding the climate, the energy of the city that you're going into and making sure you don't create a further violent atmosphere, about bringing the wrong people into the same space, right, and having to correct people in the community who are aware of the issues in that neighborhood to be there. So let's say one person comes in and somebody who we

identify as a problem pulls up to that door. We gotta have the right communication, not to agitate the situation, but the letting point the person know that this is an environment that we can let you come in today. Preventive measures right and that's that's what I saw that didn't happen right in that environment that my brother got murdered. It So it's it's it's an ongoing thing for for me, as an ongoing thing for my family, but I utilize it also to even help people who I know are

constantly going through that every day. So that goes something to my say earlier, I see brothers nowny, but you know my brothers got killed. I know what you're talking about. Bro. Come in, let me talk to you right, Let me tell you what I went through and what I when I was going through that. I also got people who I never knew of just DM me, messaging me and telling me they was watching me and how I dealt with that and then helped them quote with it differently

and not taking life. And there's people in other states and countries. So it's an ongoing process. Is trauma. I use it to help me help people, but there's people who are not as strong as me, and we need to be able to find the right resources to be able to provide ongoing trauma services to our community. That's continue to deal with the dumb violence. Wow, well, well listen, we can have this conversation all day, man, But unfortunately we gotta move on and do a few other things.

You know, you've got a lot of work to do. You know, you gotta get you a battery for we got for your detect detective carbon monoxide. You know there's yeah, there's there's this thing on online where they say black folks just sit through it like it's a part of the sound in the house, like it just becomes background noise. You didn't even hear it at first, but you know now that thing is in you that you need to change the battery because there could be a fire or

carbon monoxide in the area and you won't know. Okay, I hear it now. It's the times we may ignore things in life. For someone who cares about his pointed out to us and ignore it. It will hurt us. But we listened, we will learn and fix things right. Well, we have had those conversations painfully and lovingly many times over the years, and certainly I think we've grown both of us from those conversations. So we love you so

much and do thanks for joining street politicians. Just wanted people to know right that you know what I'm saying, even though I'm tough and all that. You know, you called me out for a fair one and all that. Yeah, she definitely did she call you. We've had to listen this one toimes. She used an explicit, she said, yeah, she used exponents. She definitely expletive. She used a lot of expletives. Yeah, well that's the world. But that's because y'all got on my nerves. So don't mess with me.

And I have no issues with you. La la la Yo. I love you, bro. We talked to you later. Peace. Yes. Shout out to Duke Man Dope interview, Dope person, another one of my brothers. Man. We always say we've got friends, and look at this is why we called on my friends. Our friends are literally changing the world. Like you know, we get so much flak from so many things, man,

that it is amazing. You know. I get called all types of names and all this, and and sometimes I get frustrated, But then I look at the people I'm surrounded by. I look at history, and I say, everybody

who's doing what I what I'm trying to do. Everybody who has been you know, elevated, who's been talked about throughout history had to go through the same things and not putting myself on the same level as those brothers, was saying to myself, anybody who was really trying to make change, who is going left while everybody is going right, Who's trying to change a narrative that has been so engulfed and embedded in this culture for so long, It's

gonna receive nothing but fact. You're gonna receive hate. Everybody is not gonna love you. I say all the time, I'm a quiet taste. I'm honest to a fault and sometimes you know it is a gift and a curse. But to me, you see what this has said. Shame is fluck. Character is currency, man, And you know, my character is the way that I've survived my whole life.

I wasn't somebody with a silver spoon. All I ever had was character, you know, and that brings me to my I don't get it, well, I really don't get is how did we as a culture allow people to trick us into believing that violence and negativity was symping to glorify, Like when I and I and I was guilty of it, like I was, I was all the way into it. Like when we look at the what we call ourselves monsters and savages and all of these names that that mean the most derogatory things, and demons

and all of these things. We we've taken on this narrative and these names to describe us, and it's some level of a badge of honor. It's something that we glorified, something that we look up to. How did we allow people to trick us into believing that we were savages indemons? How do we allow them to tell us to gify

us taking our brother's lives. Somebody who come from the same communities we come from, have to overcome the same ills that we have to overcome, have to step over the same pists and the same elevators, mothers on the same drugs as I was getting the same um, public assistance, you know, welfare checks, all those things. Somebody who's dealing

with the same exact things we're dealing with. They tricked us into believing that taking his life and not value in his life made me some level of real quote unquote real. How do we do that? I really don't get it now, you know, when you when you start to reflect it and I'm not and I'm not talking now, because there is a lot of young kids they engulfed in the culture and they go on O G. You're talking down positive and it's like, whatever, listen either you're

gonna learn. See. A wise man learns from other people's mistakes. A smart marine learns from his own. I was a smart man. I wasn't as well I was. I was a little bit wise, but for ultimately I was smart. I had to learn from my own mistakes. I'm hoping that the young people that I'm talking to can be wise, be wiser than me. I tell my son all the time, I am a cheat sheet through life. If you pay attention to me, if you just listen to me, then you will never make the same mistakes I make. You

might make your own. You might have to do some things that I never went through, and you might make mistakes there, but you will never make the same mistakes that I did, or never actually have to go through the same things that I have to go through. And that's what that's my message to your young kids. Man, don't allow anybody to trick you into losing your life for your freedom. Don't allow anybody to tell you anything

that is detrimental to your life or your freedom. Is something that is a badge of honor, that is a right to passage, that is something to glorify. Anybody who is trying to put you in a position to lose your life, your freedom, your family, to lose anything that is of any value to you. It's not your friend. They are not somebody that you should listen to. I don't care if it's music, I don't care what it is. You know, we have to take back our culture. We

have to redefine what manhood is. We have to redefine with cool, with lit, with real was popping. We have to redefine, to redefine what those things are because what is defined now is killing us. We're losing. Bodies are dropping every day in our communities, and it's only because somebody tricked us into believing that that was something to glify.

So with that said, I'm gonna close out. My sister is not here, but she ain't gonna always be wrong when she's here, and I'm not gonna always be right, but most of the time I am, but especially in this month, I'm right about this. Kings stopped killing kings, but we will always we will always be what the peace Number one show Baby number one you see along my things number one