Sit Downs with the Stand Ups with Aron Gadson

set out to do. You've been talking about trying to you know, bring to the forefront and and some of them already in the forefront, but really to bring conversations around people who really have had to endure like hard, difficult circumstances, whether it be based upon their choice choices or whether they got called up, whether they are wrongfully charged, convicted,

and things like that. But you wanted to talk to people who are you know, folks that we respect, and you have been saying you wanted to create this brand sit down with the stand ups, and you've done it, and you know you are sort of in the very beginning stages of day viewing your project, and I just wanted to say I'm proud of what you're doing, and we we the people would like to know what this is and why you created. Sit Down with the stand Ups, which is going to be today will be the first

episode of it. Really. I mean, you did in another interview with your brother, you're you're one of your mentor dear friend tone you did an interview some months back, but this one is going to really be like the debut of your project. So tell us about it. Well, first of all, thank you. You know, it's been something that I wanted to do for a long time, you know, being formally incarcerated and you know, and dealing with the stigma.

You know, when I came home, there was the stigma of you know, you know, you're just somebody had been in jail. You know, not I can do anything, you know, resipivism rate to hide people going back and forth to jail, you know, and you have this pretty much scarlet letter on you, you know, the f and the felony. So I wanted to talk to people who I've known who've been incarcerated, who had to go through those hardships, whether it been through poor choices, some have been incarcerated for

things they didn't do. You know, but all of them have utilized whatever time and you know circumstances and came home and had very very strong impacts and been successful. And I wanted to highlight that. I don't think those

things that talked about it is enough. I think if we start to highlight individuals who've you know, been rehabilitated and actually took the time to learn from mistakes made, you know, and actually came out in society and being productive, I think it would give people who who actually are released and give them faith so that they don't have to return to prison. And then it will actually give

society a different view. You know, at any given time, you can lose your freedom, you know, So it's not when. It's not about falling down, it's how you get back up. So sit down with the stand ups, sit down conversations with people I consider to be stand up individual And today it's gonna be our first episode. Like you said, it's not really our first episode because I did interview my man Tone in the early stages, which is another

dope interview that you should go check out. It is on my YouTube page, my son general, go check that out. But this is our first interview, you know, that we did, like underneath the guys of just sit down with real professionally and had it all structured. So gonna interview my guy Aron, our friends, you know, our brother a, you know who overcame a lot of things from a young age man being in the streets to now being a successful entrepreneur, you know, and just all around good individuals.

So this interview, it's dope. We got a lot more coming up, but this is gonna be our first interview man sit down with the stand ups. Shout out to Aron for you know, sitting down and giving me this information and giving me your story and pouring into this. So I look forward to it. It's a it's a long time coming. But the people that we're going to be interviewing, and it's gonna be people that are going

to motivate you. You know. It's not gonna be just a bunch of bullshit and who you got beef with and why you don't like this person and negativity not. It's gonna be about people, real people going through real struggles and overcoming those struggles and coming out on top. Well that's we definitely need more of that. So I'm all in, let's check it out, sit down with the

stand ups, Aaron, let's go. So today I have a very special guest, someone that I call a friend, a comrade, you know, a stand up individuals, because this is what it is, sit down with the stand ups. You know, I created this podcast and he's actually our first official guests of this podcast in our new studio. You know, Tone was the first official first guest, but this is the first official guest on the podcast, you know. And he's somebody that I respect, someone that I've watched, you know,

since he's been back into society. Just continue to move, you know, in a and what I say, respectful man, you know what I'm saying, with integrity, the carriage itself, with integrity, somebody I respect. Man. So I would like to introduce my guests today, my brother Big a Man. First, man, I'm great. I want to say thank you for allowing me to come on and because anybody can't come here,

you know. So that's why I created this podcast, because I was tired of watching podcasts with people interview people who don't have integrity, you know, who've never been battle tests, who haven't been through anything, who haven't you know what I'm saying, who who really don't deserve to be interviewed.

So it's like what I say to myself, if if you see that's something that's missing created, don't complain, you know, activate so you know, sit down with the stairs ups was a birth childer that especially, And I want to interview brothers and sistors, you know, who have overcome, especially going to prison, you know, because they're this stigma around prison about you know, you're a criminal and you're the worst scum of the earth, and you know you can't

succeed afterwards. You got to go back to the same negativity and the bullshit that got you in prison, and you know, and so I want to interview in highlight brothers and sisters like yourself who dispel that myth. You know, so thank you, thank you for being I thank you. Um. Just to add to that, I don't I don't think that anything I do is uh abnormal. I just have a mission in my mind that I want to do better than I did previously, you know, my last efforts.

And you know, I go about it that way, and you know, and you carry yourself properly. Man. You know, there's so many people that I see who who give you know, brothers who are formerly incarcerated this bad stigma, you know, because those are the only people they want to interview. They want to interview the people that want to talk about, Oh, I was this in jail when I was dad and always highlighting negativity. So this show

is not We don't want to focus on all the negatives. Yes, we want to get in to the reality of what you would to jail for, you know, all of those realities, but we want to highlight what you've done since you've been out, and how you're moving on trajectory of what success looks like, and how other brothers and sisters like yourself who come back into society can go on that right track and can do things positively and can be

extremely successful. Okay, you know what I'm saying. So so with that said, you know, um, a lot of people know your story, but a lot of people don't write. You know what I'm saying. But if you're from Harlem, then you know you know what I'm saying. It is a household name Ayrong, that's a that's Aral. You know, UM, tell me about like young Aral. I was young abral school, Like what was how are you? I was just having this conversation with fab every day, and I was explaining

to him. I said, dang, I was looking at other people high school yearbook pictures and I realized, I don't even have a high school yearbook picture. Wow, I didn't make it to high school. And that in that frame, I went to high school and visiting mode, like I went there to hang out from time to time, but school was like a form of thought for me at that point. I had my mindset on hustling. I probably was out there since I was twelve years old, and when by the time I got to high school, it

was just for fun. And I didn't value an education to that degree at that time. And I did in a way and I didn't at the same time. So just to elaborate on that, I just say this, I wanted to graduate, but I didn't want my hustle to be stagnated by the schedule of school, so I ended up putting school on the back burner to pursue my I've never heard it put that way. You wanted to hustle. I mean, you wanted to graduate, but you didn't want graduation to stagnate the hustle. You didn't want it to

interfere with the time. So I was moving up at the time. And so so when did you saw the hustle? What did you say? So I gave it a try. Dude gave me some weed when I was eleven years old. Funny story. You know, before I got a chance to sell it, I put it under the bed in my room or whatever. It must have had a smell that I didn't realize. It was a little more potent than I realized at the time. My moms might have found the joint. It disappeared. I never got confronted, I never

got asked. Wise in here gone. So I would dude a little change. He was on my back, like I told him, stacks, but his little few hundred. I guess he needed it. So I was. I was my first loss in life. So you took your first loss with some weed. You don't know where it went, but you know it was gone. It was gone. I got this too. I had a partner, so he was two years older than me. He didn't have to go to school. I was still in elementary school. He had the um the

ability to cut school already. I used to still try to keep up with the school schedule at that point, so he was selling more than me, you know, and quit our little partnership. Made us have a little fistfight, but we end up being friends again later on. Okay, so you went from weed and then after the weed, what happened? So after the week we we graduate, go to junior high school and my cousins and my friends they had this morning shift for this guy whatever, and

I wanted to go. I thought I thought I could. I thought I was a little smarter than them. I thought I was sharper than them. So, um, I wanted I needed money. I thought I needed money in my pocket. D Dad. At that time, it was like an unspoken request in my household that you produce something. And then when you do produce, I was given like a certain amount of rope after that to be a grown up at least for a couple of hours. No beatings, no,

no no chastise, no, no, just no confrontation. Because I contributed to the overall welfare of the household and did by, I was deemed important at that time, so it inspired me to try to go out there and get more. So, um, that was the that was the fastest way and a yield of results. Every day. So I was I was into that. So it started out of twelve and then you went to junior high school and then when she went to the next level of what we was, Oh it was the cracks then, yeah, now it was cracks

um crack was already fever pitch um. It's ninety one. I got exposure, so the spot was clicking. All I had to do is just sit there and pass him out or had deuces back then, I don't know that was you had to be outside und you had to be the ruces was the thing, right, he had to talk bout deuces grad cat joints. Right, dudies to give me two thousand packs at the at the beginning of the school day and I'll be finished by three. Then I'll go about my business. At that point, you just

wasn't going to school. I ain't go to school the whole seventh grade year, the whole sound grade year. That's so that was like when you was like, all right, this is this is clicking. The block is clicking as lucrative, I'm now I'm being seen as a man in the household. I'm bringing in and I got to defend my mom. She didn't advise she didn't bother me, but when the school crawled and was like, yo, he didn't come the

whole year, she was upset. So then we had our little beef and I'm like, look, man, you can't do this and it ain't both of them ain't gonna happen. Yeah, but I ain't gonna get no beatings though. Yeah I'm out here. Were just like I'm grown beat me. I hear you mad, but it ain't really much nobody. I'm telling growing ups to kind of pipe down. I mean, I got you stand over there, and so I couldn't come home and get a beating. I mean it kind of it's an oxymoor around to me at that point.

So it was it was time to kind of either figure out how to become fully a man or like start listening again. So, you know, I just progress um as my little money came in. So did you go to high school at all? Yes? So I was embarrassed because I was an on a road kid in elementary school. I was I was on a road out and I don't want to, you know, give the impression that I

was some arch criminal at at twelve years old. It wasn't that it was a it was a dabbling of sorts, but it managed to take up that whole school year. I get left back. I'm embarrassed. So that's a feel, right right. I go to school the next year, and it's the principle assured me like, if if you, you know, apply yourself and come to school, give me the grades you need, I'll skip you. So that was my motivation.

I didn't want want to be left behind. So that yeah, I kind of applied myself and I got back on the ball with school and went to high school in time. Get the high school as a whole different energy, who different, everybody fly, all of them super seniors is already they in power. So I'm like, all right, now I got to keep up again. So I get back out there and now I'm in the mix. And before long, um, I found myself in little troubles, uh little robbery there

and another one here. And then Judge Judy sent me to dfy Judge Judy, Judge Judy. Wow, so Judy said, so using dy at what age? And so the first robbery charge came at twelve, and then the second one at thirteen fourteen something something to that effect, and she sent me upstate at thirteen, so he was in Dr Foil fourteen. So at fourteen years in dry came home from darfour at what time ninety five, ninety six? Oh yeah, I'm coming coming into ninety six and then I get back.

I don't know if I immediately started hospital. Yeah. Shit, So I met my father at fifteen years old. So you never met your father prior to being fifteen. I never met my father. Wow, I never met him. Um, so you just was the man of the household. So that's I had a brother. He was the man until he left. You know, he went outside. He was outside early and uh, it got to the point where when he was going then it transitioned obviously. But now it's my time and I'm getting I'm coming home from the

DFOY what have you. And when I got home, I got presented with a challenge even go to high school or um, you know, get some money. So my father, being as though I met him at fifteen, yeah, like certain amount of time of back child support to pay back to his situation because the people identified him, so

he hold the system some back child support. I somehow checked the mailbox one day and it was check for three thousand and then I get excited, Oh, hey, vow, let's go cash his check or whatever, and she like, oh, that's my money. I'm like, naa, na na, I need this one. I'm so you got the rest of them, but I want to hold on to this one. So I went and took fifteen hundred or to sixty two, and then the other fifteen hundred I basically spent in the Nordicle store on seventy second in Columbus. I don't

know if you remember that one. Yeah, that was that was That was the spot did. Yeah. At first I went to Brand and Ice came back from death while I went to King. So this is ninety six. Yeah, so I graduated in ninety four. So you can't back back. He loo than me blow so that you wouldn't got you sixty two. You ain't turned back since right right, I went out there. I kicked the ass. What I'm saying, my high shoo was crazy. I ain't lead a spot and I'm saying I was out out and then um

the opportunity to go down South Camp. So that September comes. I don't know what what inspired us going to the fight, but we went to see Mike Tyson versus Bruce selling and fight in the Tupac We had the table. It was a crazy, crazy time and um hip hop history, but overall I was a big fan of Tupac anyway, so it was a big deal. That trip itself opened my eyes to a lot of what it really looked

like when you start doing really good. That was like a commercial of source for ambition or you know, um just wanting to be bigger than I was at the time. So at that point when I got back from Vegas, um, you know, sad trip, being as though he got shot or whatever. I went to Dominican Republic the same week, went out there on my I can't say Frank Lucas dreams because you know, yeah, right, disrespected dude or whatever. But so I went out there with an ambition again

like I you're gonna find him. People know what I'm saying, and get it. Get a shaken to Mexico. No, No, we went to my man had a guy out there that was a good friend of his and he got deported or whatever. So he's still supposed to that knew something about something. And then by the time we get it back and that presented itself and it was on. So what year was this still ninety six right, so

that was September. Then going into that the later part of ninety six is was like the blooming stage for me, right, and then ninety seven I was, I was. It was on like Donkey Kong, So that was kind of my my time right there. So um, but like everything I did good, then I did dad, and I did good again.

Didn't right up and down? I tell you know, I always used to tell people, man, you know, it's and everything's up and down right, and and a lot of times when people glorify the streets and they talk about the streets, they make it seem like it's just yo, we just got a bunch money, and so you the risk don't really be worth the reward, right, you know what I say. You don't think that now. But when you're young, you're just like, oh, you know what I'm saying.

You don't think it at that time. You just running around, You're just trying to you see, I've got money, right, I got girls, I got the clothes, I got everything I want. Right. But then when you realize, you know, when you look back on it, you started saying, damn, this really wasn't work. It's like, this is three four or five year thing that I lost ten twenty. It don't really be balancing out. So this was what you at ninety six, you went to Yah turned it up.

So so what was going on in between that time between like what was going on from ninety six to like two thousand, right, So let's let's let's be clear about the facts. At A ninety six, my main my main desire was to have an impact on my household. That was your main. So basically you hustled, like a jay Z said of desperation, like we're not gonna be poor,

Like I'm not gonna be poor. It wasn't And even if we're gonna be poor, we're gonna be poor and comfortable at the same time, right, because it's going to be to eat. Right, that level of whose big time and who's doing okay and whose little dude? Like that's relative at the time. You you you hustle from where you are, right, It's some dudes that never get past one hundred twenty five grams and they feel like they're the ship I'm saying. So I can't necessarily say that

I knew what level I wanted to be on. But I had an idea. I've seen the movies. I know what breaks on breaks look, I heard a rich part in them. So I heard the stories. I know what the what the shot supposed to look like, from this dude that did a little bit to that dude that did a lot of bit. So you know, they provided the blueprint, if you will, and you had to have an appropriate level of audacity at that point to kind

of following those steps. Um, and if you jumped out there in the streets, you you have to know the names. You know, the names that that give you the energy to go forth, the guy Fishers and all of these names like that that came before you and then you want to leave your mark. But more important to me,

that's the thing I noticed. You know a lot of people hustlers in Hallow because it's hustling became famous in Hallan right, So it's like just the ambiance of what hustling was like you go to one fifty fifth Street and you see you and you're from the pun so you go there and you see cars, you see change, you see all And that was the thing that the low that that just pulled most of the people from

Hallman right there. It made it worse. But going to Willie Burgers, you everybody pulling up in the biggest car is the biggest change. The girls is around the car. You like, Nah, it's no way. I'm not doing this, man, there's no way. I'm just gonna be kids out here with nothing and this is happening right. So that and that's the thing. You have Recca Park, you have rooftop over there, Crush the street from Recca Park, it was a Gamblett by the crust the street from that that

everybody used to come to. So all of the names from here to Queen's Dudes, the Brooklyn dudes, that everybody that was getting money from whatever area came to my neighborhood. Now, once again, I'm a little too young to be relevant. However, I'm I'm noticing. I'm watching. I see who's who, I see how they carry theirself, and those examples become year motivation. Those examples become a part of your yr psyche, and

you start mimicking. So I took the necessary steps, and I took some moves from him, and that dude moves look good. And I borrowed a little bit from him, and I created my own, my own. I say that all the time. I say a lot of us our only vision of success was the drug dealer, right, you know what I'm saying. I didn't live next to the doctor. There was no lawyers there, there was none of that. It was just the drug dealer. Right. So he had the girl, I won, he had the car one it. Yeah,

everybody respected him. So it's like, yo, that's who I want to be. So you know, in essence, we're pretty much groomed into that because you only can be what you see, you know. So you was just basically was a product of your environment, you know. And and then Nate nature, especially of man strong man. You want to compete and you want to be the best at it. You know what I'm saying. If you if you involved

in anything, I'm gonna be the best at it. And you know, hustling was like a sport, especially in the nineties, late eighties and nineties or way through to like the two. It was a sport, especially in our area, like from Hallom, the Bronks, like that was the sport. Like especially you went down to Hallom and he was like, nah, dudes was getting too much money? Man, Like I used to go to King. Niggas was coming to King pocketing. The locker room was again, it was like a casino. You

understand I'm saying. The gym was a casino. Nigga was coming. I'm in ninth grade and niggas got five ten thousand dollars in their pocket. I'm like, how was this happened? You know? So they got mom moms, north faces, they got every They're going right to the north close. So so you like, you know what I'm saying. If you it's hard for you to not fall into that. Lord, yeah, you know what I'm saying. And then and then especially when you come from when you ain't got it right,

you know what I'm saying. It's not like you we privileged and we had good homes and she was good for us. You're like, nah, I'm just not knocked, gonna have nothing and they got all this and I've got none. It's not like you, like, I'm doing good. You know what I'm got. So you like, you start out basically, like you said, trying to make sure your home is taking kid of trying to do that, and then after that you're like, well I did that, now I can Now I can go into the next arena, so you

just move up and on. So from ninety six in the two thousands, so that that was around that was when all of them like hip hop was right, you know what I'm saying. That's when the whole hip hop so like affiliations to hip hop, Like what was Abra hun doing in like the hip hop error in that era. So before before that, the hall of hip Hop scene. And I'm not speaking the dougie freshman era because obviously they had their own school mood and all of them people.

And I was there in Roca when rock him, did I know joke. I was in RockA Park, sitting there, playing in the park when they came in set up the cameras. I'm like, oh shoot, look at Flavor like it was a big deal of me at this time. I'm a kid. I loved it. I mean and looking at rooftop wall was like my favorite thing. I used to actually go to the park just to stand in a crosse the street and look at the wall. It was.

It was littered with graffiti. Um it had the advertisement of Brucey B and m Busy B. So I used to draw off that wall like just trying to mimic the letter pattern and it was a big deal. So the whole culture always influenced some of our moves and the things that we aspired to um and you know, not to go back again. But that's why I do love the culture, because it gave us a sense of imagination,

if you will. And the drug dealers, for what it's worth, those were the first guys that showed the kind of heart that that was a new feeling for us. We've seen housing men. We didn't see doctors and lawyers because that they wasn't in our neighborhoods. We see housing, then we see the the janitor, we see the people that you know, and we respect these men as grown men and provide us for their family. But the drug dealers gave us a sense of importance. Everything they touched on

a daily was affected by they knew found wealth. Sure they had the girls in the clothes, but more importantly, if somebody needed something for school, if somebody needed to bill paid, they was given that to people in not having to think about, you know, the expenditure, it was nothing, especially with the rate of inflation at that time, and it was it was a low expenditure for them to

have a big impact on your house. Providing your mom just got a eviction note that month and somebody gave a three hundred dollars, it was still a big deal. So all right, back to moving forward, These these um efforts on a behalf became some of the things that I wanted to do. I wanted to be impactful on the people that I loved, so I wanted to make sure that if they needed I had it. And I didn't really see that, you know, going to get a

ninety nine or five job. I never had a job in my life, so not a traditional job, so um, it never was a part of my psyche. I always felt like I would have to go outside and get it. So wow. So and that's what I say all the time. You know, the mind state that team with the nineties and eighties era of hustling, it wasn't about negativity, and it wasn't It wasn't it wasn't criminology to us, right, it was survival, right, it was I wanted to do

good for my community, like we wasn't. We didn't hustle just to flossh on each other and say I got more than you. Most of the drug dealers and the hustlers. You know, we're taking care of the community like you could go. They was paying rent like kids. They was like I remember the drug dealers in my hood when I was playing basketball early. They was paying for me to go to camps. There's buying me sneakers. There's like, Noah,

we don't want you in the streets. You know. They was doing all the black parties, giving out all the stuff. So it was like this robin hood since you know what I'm saying. We wanted all of us wanted to be the person in the hood that took care of the hood and was the person that you can come to, you know, because we didn't. We didn't want nobody suffering, you know. So it was a different mind stake, you

know what I'm saying. And although we realized we was doing wrong, you know what I'm saying, we felt like we was doing wrong for the right reasons, you know. And it wasn't it wasn't just we're trying to hurt it. We just want to do negative certain No, it was I'm not trying to be broke. I know these young kids ain't trying to be bro I want to make sure everybody in this community got something, and b got something,

then they got something. I want to be the person that I know that they can come to and get something from me, you know. And that's still and and a lot of people don't understand it's not criminal mentality, right because I still I still base a lot of the principles that I live off of the streets. You know what I'm saying. It's not the crime, its integrity,

right as levels of integrity. So they're like, yo, you can't be gangster but woke, and I'm like wow, because the gang the principles of what I called gangster is manhood, protecting women, you know, make sure that the children is safe. All of these principles that I got from the streets

that I didn't learn from nowhere else, nobody. I didn't have, no you know, no school of you know that they taught you how to be a boy, and all that I learned what I learned from the streets, and I applied that now as a civilian as as somebody who's not. And I apply all of those things, and those things make me great in every aspect of life that I live now, you know what I'm saying. So when I'm

listening to you. We all had the same things, we all had the same mentalities, you know, and we was never just And that's what that's what I want to, like, try to dispel a lot of people who commit crime. It's not criminals, right, you know what I'm saying. You you you you're trying to some people that just enjoy committing crown. They're like, y'all want to do negative shit. That's just who I am. But there's a lot of us that was like, yo, I'm not gonna be broke. See,

I'm confused about the mission of today's young US. But before I could speak on number because I didn't need to answer the question on with the ninety six ever asking me that. But let's not take for granted the mob era either. That that model led to the rich porters and them, and I mean, let's even to the

nicky bonds and them of that era. They were direct beneficiaries of that model that they set, and then that one trickled down to the riches and them, Then they trickled down to us, and then so on and so forth. But as it kept going, one was to level the play and feel love, to have and to have not. The next one became, oh, it's our time, we're going for broke and we're gonna try to change the whole

dynamics of the culture. At that point, we don't know nothing else, right, since these drugs is like newly introduced to the community. I'm and I don't want to speak in factual terms because one I was too young, right, But I just want to give my my opinion of it is when these guys came out with the idea of let's gather all of these resources and moneys to buy the community and pay for this and make sure

we good and make sure they're good. The end result that the powers that be didn't care that happened to the community. I don't think they've seen it going that far at the beginning of it. By the time it got to us, and it was just a matter of I was already fucked up. We can't do nothing to make it worse or better. Just get what you can and try to do good from there. So it still was an objective to kind of do good from bad. Now it's more of an attention seeking thing and more

of a I just want to look good. But I guess we all get lost in that in that journey, because we all ended up buying shit we didn't need. We all ended up with a chain or two that wasn't necessary, or car that that had nothing to do with the overall objective. So we all get blinded by you know, I agreed and get lost that ninety six to two thousand and era, it was a exciting time. The kids. You want to be a kid, you want

to have fun. You see the young rappers that you know might be a little seasoned now, but at that time when their gals and digging in the crates and the Bronx and all of these guys were still young enough to have a direct impact one on how our youth was fueled by the music and stuff. It was fire, It was great. I loved every second of it. M jay Z and them came nahs and they was killing boutang. It created this energy that you can make it you got fun. It could be a glorious time, and I

was all for it. I was outside every day all day. Nobody went home. I don't think, but not that I was a person that enjoyed hanging outside. But I was a person that enjoyed the energy of the error so I was on the road a lot down South, hustling. Every every time I went to UM, I tried to make my impression. Felt I wanted to constantly get to the levels that I wanted to be at. But UM that that error in itself was special because it gave true beginnings of wealth to people that didn't get a

chance to have it no other way. UM kids that wouldn't have made it would have nine to five, but they ended up benefit enough. The jerkory that happened to the first wave of rappers, so it was new money. Then the street dudes was in competition with them. They was in competition with us, and it just was a hell of a time, like witnessing it all that if you was there, if he was present at that time, I was because I was. That was kind of like the error where I got into it, you know what

I'm saying. So like I was a big big girl fan, you know what I'm saying. I remember just listening to Big Elm stressing Poppito, like yo, this is probably the best rapper ever. You know what I'm saying. I had his him and jay Z's freestyle like that was that was the model for me. Like I listened to that so much. I used to be like, right, I gotta like these like I never forget that that freestyle, Like

I used to listen to it all the time. My little cassette tape and I taped it and ship the ship popped and then I taped it back together with the nail polish and all of that, you know what I'm saying. So that was that error. You know what I'm saying. That was that error of music. So you and you was shining like in the ever when when, especially when New York and Hall of Hip Hop was shot, right you know, so it was like so big hell

you know big el Yes. So what was like your relationship with el al is a man that was a good guy, All was funny, il was talented, al was he was a leader um and and how many people benefited off Alice example, he kind of opened the door. Of course, you have to have your own level of talent, you have to have your own drive. But um Alice present led people to say fuck that, I'm ready too. So all of the dope runs Mace came up with,

all of the fires Camp came up with. It was a direct result of all being l at the right time in Niles, right, So they both got to Columbia Deal. I'm in junior high school. They got to Columbia Deal. Even though that wasn't a time where I should have been noticing what was going on, it was it was big news to the neighborhood, like, oh, they got the deals, and we're like, damn, that's dope, I'm saying. So everybody kind of won the round, right. I was shocked. Could

you used to write you? I had barushuns, so nah, I definitely, um, it's somebody out there. With my squeaky voice, say somebody, somebody got out. I promise is somebody room is a tape somewhere. You're supposed to be one of the children of the corn I promise you. I'm so heavy to tape players are gone so they could never get those, you know. So I definitely enjoyed the art form. Man, I was crazy and graffiti. I thought music was the ship. But I hustle. I hustle more than I had the

desire to sit in the studio. I promise you, I hustle all day Like I didn't, I probably would have still been laughing at a nigger that was rapping because that's when the money was transitioning. The street money still was better than the wrapper money at that time and before the street, the rappers wanted to be like the hustle right that the superstars didn't make it, make it yet,

Biggie and them just started right. But then Biggie early right, so to that, to that, and trust, everybody had aspirations to look as good as rock him. Cougie rapped like I'm not I'm not down playing how good they looked when the lights were on, But it wasn't. It wasn't. It was a level of money right when you you hear the rapper you hit big l L and them talking about the street dudes had the money, like you

know what I'm saying. Like when I was talking to Tune, he was like, man, we was coming through helicopters and them wanted to be around like they all of the rappers wanted to be around that. We had real, real money. Me being stuck on them corners. I watched all of that. I promise you man, it was. It was. It was a hell of the site because these were young men, teenagers coming out of teenage years into young adulthood and they had the glow of youth. They had to adascity.

I don't give a fuck. But more importantly, nobody knew they worth yet. You didn't know you weren't supposed to die in yet twenties. You didn't know that at the end of all of this drug dealing, it's going to be a lit of people destroyed a community that once we're standing strong, it's going to be burnt out shell

of a building. Now, some of that was aimed. Some of it was, you know, the people that was higher than us wanting to building the buildings to be burnt down for gentrification purposes that we couldn't see yet we don't we don't know what we don't know, right, but our contribution to the to the to the destruction of

the community can't be discounted. So but at the time when they first came out, man, I tell you, like, these were stars into making, because these guys embody all of the characteristics that we love and leaders and it were tough, they were handsome where they were fly and that inspired people right, and it gave so much content for music. Right, So everybody had to have this story of who did what win and how it felt when he did this, and when that shot such a such

what happened next? So me standing there all day on these street corners, I got a chance to witness. I don't want to say my level of participation in those things sometimes, but I was there, hashtag I was there, so I remember. So when I'm sitting here thinking about L, like L was that he was demand like EL was one of my favorite rappers. So I remember Freestan. I remember Mace brought me to forty of and I got out me and L was rapping, and he was like, yo,

the secret rap right, you know what I'm saying. Then Primo talks about it all the time. We was in Forest Projects and it was me him, Party RD A gum show was there. Um I think Fat Joe was there, Domon did. Was a bunch of us just out and for us right, and we had one of the best ciphers and Primo love He's like, yo, it was you El party Arty. I was just going in right, God blessed dead party of Gards. So when El passed away, like, how was that? First of all? That that was a

sad time. Um Al was at chair. If improv was was was a real thing. For a rapper. He was the improv king, right he was. He was a comedian without being paid for it. So the girl come up one day, she said, Oh, I ain't impressed by none of y'all. I don't even ask where to dude if he got eight inch eight inches it better? He said, eight inches, Charlie, I ain't cutting my dick for nobody making laugh by accident, Like he's gonna he's gonna he knocked a dude out one day. Whoop. So he's like, yeah,

I'm gonna start shooting it. Next his brother said, whoa, whoa, whoa got stabbed somebody first? Your kids skip over the yeah, like your kids just run around shooting people like So, even though some of the stuff is once again it was destruct it was hilarious in real time because we identified with what we thought was tough right where we where we, where we laughed at probably wasn't funny do you look at it in retrospect, But at that time it was hilarious because it was meant to be a joke.

And even if nobody wanted to Ella be violent, everybody want to Ella express his art. Nobody wanted him to be in the streets and do stuff. Now, if the street life ended up touching all by proximity, then that that's the that's the sad part, right, because his art helped him help him escape, then the proximity of the good gets back on you and you could die from it. And and nobody foresees that kind of outcome when he's

not a bad person in totality. So you look at the bin of l He's a rapper's he said his rhymes. He hung out with girls, he liked the gamble, he wanted a party. He'd make you laugh all day and then you can make one little mistake and you'd be dead. And that and that's the part people can't foresee about the street life that if I could tell anybody, yo, man,

you might want to reconsider that lifestyle. Because even though that dude is tough enough to go to jail, and that dude right there is tough enough to kill if he do this this kind of lifestyle, that end result to his journey is going to be deaf for jail. And we didn't Yeah, we didn't even foresee that that might mean something to the four kids he had, It might mean a lot. His absence might mean so much to those four kids that's left behind that we would

beg him not to go on that journey. But we didn't. We didn't know we was that valuable yet it was too young to know we was that valuable. That's crazy and it's real. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. And that's why when I'm having conversations with kids, I talk to them like me and you talking like the same way we're talking because we've been through a lot of shit. So I'm not I'm not sitting there like, don't do this, you know, I'm like, listen, I know what you I

know exactly what you're thinking. Because I was young at that I wanted this, I wanted that, but this is the reality that comes right. So now if you're willing to do because understanding sharks in the water. Now, if you want to jump in the I'm advising you not too right with this. Understand when you're jumping there, you're gonna have to deal with those sharks. You know what I'm And I'm having real conversations with I'm not talking from where I am now. I'm talking to you from

where I was when you was. Because when I have conversation with them, I'd be like, Ye, what would somebody have had to say to me when I was fifteen to change my mind's stick? Because in fifteen six, I'm like, man, you your old niggas don't know what you're talking about. I know, look we outside you ain't even So I'm like, how would you have had to approach me for me to even pay attention to you? First? You gotta look away. First, I gotta feel like you know what I'm saying, you

look like something. And then if you got a level of respect around, I'm gonna give you a little bit of it. You know what I'm saying. And then you gotta talk to me like you understand what's going on. You can't come from me from a hierarchy. You can't come to me like you talking down to me, like you know more than me. I don't know. I'm asking you questions. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. That's how I talk to you. Now. You know so what you think is gonna happen? So what tell me what your

plan is? You know what I'm saying. So, because when you start hearing your plan and the ship don't make sense to you, then you start reconsidering I don't got to tell you something, just want to ask you. And as you start answering your own questions, you start coming up with your own solutions. You know what I'm saying. So that's that's the way that I deal with them now. No, but as for you from twelve right so twenty six, you didn't do like real major time, none of that

in between. So remember did you spatfor joint? They showed me all kind of love. You know, it's like a spafor as a holding place. It's not a meant to do a bid. So my my, my process of uh, it was everything was like a fake trial and juvenile court. So dude came and said I told the kids to rob them and that was it. He sent me up there. So I didn't the funny part about these you didn't even do this, man. That's what it always gets you

for the shit you don't do. Man, both of the little juven Now, the first one is I'm at school, I'm just minding my business. But I hungered all of the kids to do the negative shit. Man. I wish I could say your names. Y'all was bad kids, and I promise you I should tell your name. And no, no, never you know that, you know that did my job. Y'all don't do that. So no, but um I hung

with all the kids. That was terrible. Right. So once again these kids don't know what's they cause they think that they following a pat enough people that they thought was real. Dudes. We had this concept of what little gangsters supposed to do, and dear boy, they was following that mode. Um so they run around robbing kids after lunchtime. And I'm not saying I never. So this is why, right, it was you gonna blame me because you've been with before, but she wasn't with the bush on this day, this

particular day, I'm standing a crush the street. They run up on a kid, I don't have nothing to do it like they know, I know he'd be with them. He definitely. They came in my classroom and said it's on you. I said, really, man's you don't get away with a couple, right, That's how That's how I always the next one in my hood. Dude come in the hood, a man like yo, I get him like, don't do that. Get don't do that. He robs dude, dude, he ends up hitting do it upside his head dude come out

from his stupor try to kind of. I got a two piece of pop pool just to get him off me, Like, why are you grabbing me? Family, like, talk to me. Next thing, you know, the police have my mother door. She likes, look at you. Right. So um, once again that proximity to stupidity because like and um, you know, they asked me who did it? I'm like, r come on, I'm playing a lot right, So right, so they sent me up there and that's that's the end of that story. But UM, I think it's a big thing to know,

and that's why you got to watch your company. But more importantly, UM, you gotta know why you outside. So if we had the guys that I'm sure we had, everybody said yo yo, sure you know it's deaf a jail at the end of this heard that before. What we never had in abundance was the alternatives or the why the risk is worth it until you get this building. And you can't deviate from this mission of getting the building before you start buying them as ship put your

life in jeopardy. So and that's what the MARV dudes did in in in successful ways. They they got to construction, their kids through college, the old lawyers, and they're different that they changed that, they change the trajectory of the whole you know, the whole bloodline that wasn't memphi Us. So we followed. The thing is, we talk about crime and all these things. America is built on crime, every

every aspect of America. If you look at you look throughout history, they colonized, they took this, they did this, they built that, and then they called whatever they wanted. Okay, this is legal. We're gonna do it this way. It's legal for us, even though you might not like it, but we're gonna make it legal because it fits. It's the farman that our agenda, you know what I'm saying. And that's what happened in the hood. We didn't have that, you know what I'm saying. We had lemons and we

made lemonade saying. So we had to say. I tell people all the time, you you mad at the drug deal, but you ain't mad at the pharmacy. You ain't mad at CVS. You ain't mad at farmer. That's where the drugs come from. You married the little dude on the corner that's trying to figure out how he gonna sell his food. But the nigga that's making billions of dollars, that's selling the same exact shit that you're talking about, the worst people in the world, where you're not saying

nothing about you know what I'm saying. So you know, just understanding that we just tried to figure out America, how we was gonna get a piece of the pile, How are we gonna get a piece of the American dream? And as we grew we realized that it wasn't designed for us. It was never designed for us to get that and not that way. Somebody had to be the fall guy, you know, So we we learned and we

evolved our way of thinking. There's so much either over glorification of the wrong shit or villainizing the right shit, right because at the end of the day, you you're punishing or you're mad at individuals figured out a way out of nothing. They picked up saying and say, Yo, we're gonna make this shit into brick somehow, and you mad at them because they didn't do it the conventional way, or they didn't do it the legal way, because there was there was no way to do it the legal way.

The way they get They had to figure out we're gonna put this ship this way. They saying, we can't get no fire from over here. We gotta go steal some fire. We gotta do this shit, but we gotta build us a house. You know what I'm saying, You can't get mad in the nigga is saying, I want a house like everybody else got a house. I don't want to be out in the cold. I don't want to be freezing. So they get villainized. Oh, y'all soul

drugs and y'all. Y'all killed the era. And at the end of the day, they the motivation in the hustle because a lot of people took the same hustle that Jay had. And it wasn't just streets. It was niggas that went into the boardrooms and niggas that went into the you know, to corporate and had the mind state that Jay had, Like listen, you're not jerking me. We're gonna get this money. We're gonna do this. So you needed that inspiration, all of these this inspirations, so you

needed or everyone they part. You know what I'm saying, So I want I want to dispel myths like you're not gonna You're not going to just pigeonholed. You know people who have done illegal things to be in criminals and negative. No, Yes, the acts have been wrong. We right our wrongs. We realized if we had better situation, if we if we knew better, we probably would have did way better. You know what I'm saying. But the reality is this is what we were given. We gotta

taken a consideration. Initially it was a party drug. This was a an introduction to a good time for people that ended up a bad time. So when when all of this money is being generated, nobody sees that end result. Sure, it was propaganda to say don't do this because it's leading to this, just like it's propaganda to say we

should help the people on fitting on now. Right, So that that that new level of concern that that's hidden society, it wasn't there before, right, that's for rehabilitation, because it wasn't even a reality that we understood on us. Now this new drug is being given out by the powers that be there by it got to be an accident that this is happening. So for us, it was they

are criminals and they need to be destroyed. And even our leaders fell into that, you know, um frame of reference, like yeah, kill them all like it was and it was a it was a direct attack right on our community. And I've seen an interview that Wrangel did and they they they voiced that pinion like it was a good idea. At the time, we thought it was the best approach

to you know what. We um, the epademic after that moment should be handed because that's because that's what they were being taught, right because a generation prior to that, they never seen that. They just wanted the streets clean. There's like people, these people oh d and this and

that they need to go to jail. You know what I'm saying, as you you get older, you don't want your civilian your citizen, you pay your taxes, you don't want to walk in your whole way and see none of this show you just trying to feel what y'all need to do to My grandmother was saying, send them all a jail, like everybody needs to go to jail.

You're young. You're young, dudes now scared me? Yeah, you know what I'm saying up there like this, I don't know, I think some of these guys need to go to right, but I'm watching dudes, I would say that, like yo, you you you. I'm like, nah, I don't want but I can't do that product, so I will go is to try to redirect them. What happened that ultimately got you locked up? Me? Um, So what happens is if you become a person that manages to make money, that's

when to get interesting, life get harder. Everybody's gonna look to you for guidance. Could be yeah, old that oldest member of your family got an emergency, and that emergence emergency becomes your emergency. You start to believe that you were sent here to be this kind of sacrifice. You you give yourself permission to be the sacrifice. So now, even if you had intent on doing good, being everybody's go to becomes your your main priority. Because one, you

don't know your self worth. That part is so key to knowing what you're supposed to be saying yes too, and what you are supposed to be saying no too. If a request of me came and it was so strong that I had to consider it, I would then make a consideration to do wrong again to make sure that go right for them. So they need their money for their business, and this one needs money for college.

And I'm gonna be like, well, you're supposed to be in college, and you're supposed to have a business, and I'm supposed to die because I already made these decisions. And just like that, you could be that close to transition and then take a step back and try to do something again that it might be at a detriment to your your good health and well being. Described like the day you went to jail, Like what happened? All right? So first I went to jail. It's funny, not funny.

Nothing's funny. Nothing's funny. So I get a phone call. You just finished up some bundles. My man um people wasn't around, so I didn't really play with round that much. But in this particular occasion, my man ain't have nothing, and he asked me make a phone call. I made a phone call and got some ship phone cool, give me the little change. I breeze off, go to my block chilling. I get a distress call, like, yo, man,

these dudes is a circling the block. Whatever. I'm like, oh yeah, all right, let me um, let me double back and get the drink real quick jump in the car cruising down to his block. I see this girl that you know, Uh, she used to be at an apartment that out. If all goes wrong that day, I might run in this apartment if if I just so happened to do something that's beyond my normal action. Right, So cool, jump out the car and I'm telling her, yo, I have this door open case I come back over

here and hurry. You know, I ain't explain it to her why the door need to be open, but I might need to shoot up here. As I'm speaking to her, DTS is running at me. I'm like, oh, before long, I kind of brush one so hard that he fell. I one jumped on me. They jumped me, grabbed the gun like they knew it was there. I don't know how they was that good, but they grabbed the gun like, oh, he got the gun, so they they took gun or whatever. I got locked up, No proud, I wasn't that heavy

or nothing to really be fighting. The three didn't, so whatever. So I get locked up with the gun and my men get shot. So the dude that I was going to save I didn't go save him. He ends up getting shot three times and he lived, but he got shot and I get out, I go back to get my property, and the detectives come like, yeah, we saved your life, man, Like really how so? Like yeah, we know where you was going. I'm like really, where was that going? Or he was going to see dude? I'm

like yeah nah, like yeah, he said. Now think about it this way. You could have made it there, shot somebody, killed somebody and we would have had to catch you. Or you could have got shot with him and possibly died. You don't never view things in that and that reality and just the plane's common sense of it, because when you end it, shit, we don't deal with common sense. You don't really be that common. Sometimes it don't be that common. And even if it's that plane, it's just

not real, not real. The only thing is real is what you said you could do, no matter how ill shape, whether or not you know, um, I meant good to save my men. A problem happened because of our chosen lifestyle. It raised the probability of us getting hurt or our lives being effectively destroyed as a byproduct of our decision making. You got out with the came on. The police said told you they pretty much saved you. That's I'm bare, right,

That's I'm bare and crazy. I had the fast fastest process to go back to jail like you could think of. So I'm trying to prolong it as long as possible. But they like, man, you want to go straight to trial. So you know, dudes be on down for like a year or two minds like four months. Like yo, I don't want to go to shoal Yeah, I want to rate. So I get there trying to um get extension. Is they not? Not? Not? So get in there and I lose. I go to trial for attempt to use in a possession.

I beat the attempt to use, lose to the possession. Just telling my lawyer, he's like, oh, he need to go home and get his family if fears no, no, he's gonna jel ady. And this is a this is a result of the detective saying that, you know, I really intended on using the gun. They think they know me, you know, YadA, YadA YadA. And I'm like, tell my

lawyer like, well that's cross for a pill yanna. They said, he said, well a pillot, but here being jail in the meantime, whatever, let me go and finish this thing up. So I end up getting the two flat. I thought I beat the attempt to use, So I get a two flat, come home a little early for work release. Now this is where it gets interesting. I have to make a decision on what's gonna happen with the rest of my life now right now I get home. I have every intent on being a janitor. Like I'm I'm

not gonna be a janitor, but I don't know. I don't want to. I don't know what job I'm gonna get. I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm not going in the streets. It's quiet for the street. I'm cool slotwle skid skid dude was cool now my jail. Stay smooth than ice like I have. I ain't have. I had a half a fight through argument like I ain't really have to throw no blows, worked out, chill read my books, stayed out the way like you know, trouble finds you when't you look for it. Right, So, um,

I ain't do nothing super flamboyant in there. I just was. I was just chuck chill out, so get out. I'm like, all right, my main thing is to stay stay super positive. You know, I'm gonna go get a job and start a new life. Man, I got my daughter because said I left for a little while. And that was no no for me, because in my book, a good father is there to be a father, right, a good father anyway, Um, and I wanted to be a good father. I wanted to be dad. I wanted to be um all of

the positive attributes that come with fatherhood. I let my friends that I love because I love, man, some of my friends I love more than my family members. And and now I mean no disrespect to my family members. It's a different bar that you you you share with some of these guys that that allow you to make decisions that might be kunter productive to your overall benefit. And um, not not naming but that show I named name one about who talked me into it. But I

think I think I did anyway. Legit though this statue limitation stuff like that, but it's legit. Respect Um tell my man, he yo, hey, we gotta know, get get back into it for a second. I'm saying, just do something. So after a while I'll succumbed to the pressure. One out of what I what I felt like was obligation to my friendships, and then two I could have used the extra money, right, but I make the decision to go back. I go back. And then from our few joints,

we started doing too many joints. We had, you know, so many sales that we ain't never even have enough joints. So it's getting a lot, but it wasn't even it wasn't even enough. I'm supply didn't even message. The demand was way bigger than the demand was always bigger than the supply, and we made a lot of money in a short period of time. But when I came home from jail, I was already under investigation, basically because some dudes and the Bronx. No defects to the front. No no, no, no,

no distraction now, no disrespect to the Bronx. All right, come on, now, I work with me. Now, some dudes in the Bronx they found theirself in in a gym and they put my name in No dude named Aron, he only sell keys. That was the tagline in my paperwork, like Aroun only sell keys. And investigation started from there. So initially I wasn't even doing shit. By the time

they was looking to get me or something. Then I started, and then when when when when they heated up and they got all of this extra survailance going from bugs in my car to just following me everywhere hours already quit So it was like I was in under investigation before I started. Then I quit before they got all of the technology involved to kind of wrap the case up.

So um and that time frame, I just I went as hard as I could because now my mind state was all right, I'm gonna do the last favor for my friends or my brothers, if you will, and I'm gonna make enough money to actually do some of the plans that I had in mind all along, and that that was my you know, objective. And then they got you. Then they got me. When I get locked up, they came right at me like, yo, a rong, we know you.

You was hitting everybody with work and um a lot of trouble man, and uh, you need to go ahead and cooperate right that big seat immediately right. So I'm like, you know, I don't, I don't even know what you're talking about. Like that shit, that's not for me. Cool, get inside. They they they come back again like, look, man, let's have me and A know me and know what I'm saying, don't got nothing nothing for you guys all in all of the discovery comes. I look at the

discovery as a bunch of phone calls. Forty thousand phone calls. It's a bunch of evidence. But I'm like, where's mine, Like, y'all see a lot of evidence. But I phone call. Drugs on the Ain't no drugs on the table, Ain't no money on the table. Is nothing. I'm like, oh nah, ain't no way. I'm taking those twenty years that they're offering me Like it ain't no way. So I'm like, yo, man, I'm going to try out. Hey. The next thing was yo, he bugged out, like yo. You know, when the people

get you, they go. And I'm in agreement to an extent because let's I've started businesses at that point, had some group homes down south, invested in a couple other people businesses. I had some things that was positive that that could speak for me. And I was using birthardale as as as you know accounting, so good old head right he was he was shot with the stuff. Um, so I wasn't that nervous. But what happened was I spoke to my lawyer candidly, and I'm like, I know

what's going to happen. You know, I'm a young black kid, and this is gonna look like a young black men are selling drugs. Like this is gonna be the the push of the whole narrative, right, you got so many people hanging around me that we're selling drugs. Is not going to be that easy to say. I was number ten,

you know what I mean. Like, and more importantly, they made me the light, the leader of these guys, so I'm the head of the case in my lawyer like, look, you you got property and money in the bank and they don't or not enough of or you know, I can't speak to what they had, and I don't know to that extent, but it just doesn't seem like right. He like, Yo, it seems right. It was not enough businesses and enough things speaking, or this whole picture to

allow you to get out of it unscathed. And I'm like, no, that makes sense to me, and I'm willing to take the time just not what they're offering because it don't make sense. So what's on the table versus what they want to give me? So I was willing to go to trial, because I wasn't going to sign my name to a paper to act for twenty years for not

twenty years worth of evidence. So my decision to go to trial was like, man, fuck that, I'm with it, Like we just got to I'm at the blow of course, and they sent me in there screaming based on the extra five I might have got or the extra ten, but I was going to sign a twenty inches to be said, I was still been in there, I would have been chilling. I probably would have just been getting

out now to have been getting out now. So um, at the end of the day, we got three days from trial and the journey, and there was the same difference even though it was a pre trial situation. You know, it was a lot of people that liked me and what I'm saying, I'm bumped to tell a lot of people. I know. I had a few co defendants in the building, and there was a smooth situation. We all just had to focus on that case to gather all of the evidence we could to fight the case accordingly. Now, after

the cop out, I go to the prison. Oh so three days before trial, coming to offer hey, man, tell your client one one eighty eight he don't argue down, we won't argue up. Let the judge do what the

judge gonna do. The guidelines became advisory, so in the federal system, it was a time where you got sentenced according to your guidelines, So meaning if you got the mandatory minimum of ten years and excuse me, and your guidelines came back to one sixty eight to two ten, that would be like basically, you're gonna be landing on fifteen years and better. And I landed on that like at a point and I'm like, so you're saying, if I cop out right and the judge gave me two

hundred months, I'm stuck with that. He's like yeah, like yeah, now, I'm cool on that. Mom, we're gonna still go. Now you taking that three days before trial it came with that one fifty one to one eighty eight. I'm like, well, shoot, twelve and a half years. I got three in already. That shit easy, Like this this I knocked this over, even though when they read the months off and in the courtroom, my mother and them and they're like, what

what what's that? What's one thirty Yeah? Wait yeah, Like so I'm like, yeah, said the judge like, yeah, you don't deserve one fifty one and break it down or one thirty one. She didn't say shit, but want of them break it down and one thirty one. And you know, I recommend you get the drug program because I don't let them know. I sniffed coke and smoke weed and even though I've never been high in my life, that was the That was the best part of the you know, how to get out of a little early via drug

program and that was it. That was my journey. Um, and I got in the system. So when you got in the system, right, yeah, you know you've already been trying to transition out of the game. So when you got in the system, you had one hundred thirty one months, right to sit down and what was that time like for you? Like what did you do with your mind? What did you prepare yourself? What did you say to yourself?

What what was your process? It's like being outside, right, except nobody's going nowhere, So that level of camaraderie, it kind of intensifies because to the same person every day, every same good days, every day. It's not no days that you have to share your your ups, your downs, your aspirations. Yeah, your your failures, your weaknesses. You're sharing it with these people constantly. The ones you you you attract to, the ones that you you form a common bond.

My journey started off in the law library. So a guy that was very intelligent pumps into me early on during my process. He was fighting a forty eight case. I didn't have an a forty eight case out of a forty one B one d A and that's a five a kilo or more conspiracy. But initially I was charged with one hundred fifty kilos and more. But by the time I copped out, I copped out to a flat fifty keys. The dude is on his case every day.

He's transcribing all the phone calls. He's reading through all of these after David's made by the US attorney that could dispel some kind of mistake on when they apply for this application or this than the third. So I'm going through the same process he's going through in real time. All of my pre troyout time was based on trying to get out. Yeah, I ain't do this, I han't underdo this. I look at the always eight different people selling the drugs. It ain't even me. Yah, they're bugging

like I'm going through the hope, which was true. But in order to argue all of these facts, you one, you're gonna have to be in trial. Two, you have to be able to defend yourself without hurting anybody else. It's so many things that are coming to play while trying to keep it real right. So at some point, um, my best friend got subpoened and my lawyer office got

subpoened because they gave me the job. When I got on work release and they following me, they like when you went to the office, It's like they somebody got to answer some of these questions. So I didn't want to put nobody through these these things, these changes and over my my stupidity. So um, that being that when I took the cop out, I felt relieved that it

would alleviate them from any further scrutiny, if you will. Now, my process of fighting that case was that, so my mind was already I'm conditioned to stay so far out the way that I'm not worried about what's gonna happen when I get on the pound. I know that I'm gonna be in my books, preparing for tomorrow and working out and staying poised. I'm eating raw vegetables until they cut the common field off. I'm bowl of oatmeal for

hard to help. Like I wanted to get out as young as I went in, Like that was the mission. Like if I could get out with a semblance of youth, I feel good, Like I'm know happy to say I came out without a gray hair at that time, I'm saying. So. Then I bumped in the older guys that'd been in jest since nineteen eighty eight, nineteen eighty two and eight, telling me you won, you won. That's how I came up with the with the title for the book, you won Man. You came in young, You're going out young.

You won, man, I said, Man, already wont huh? So I'm like, right, fine, you know I took that, you know, as gospel, because these guys get up with the strength every day to prepare for tomorrow that wasn't promised to them. They had life sentences, yet they got up every day as if it was getting out the day after that. And I'm like, shit, if they're gonna be that prepared to get out, definitely right what I'm actually I know I'm getting out I had this new sense of worth

for myself. So when I when I found out I had a different goal in mind for my life, it made me focus on that goal more. And you said you stay secluded away from even in it is you once in Maya that probably was like yo, what's up? And you're like nah, because we didn't even know on the same wavelength. Like I'm trying to do and you're trying to do is different. No disrespect, disrespect you know,

but I'm just over here with minds. At that point when you was in jail, did you realize did you make up your mind that I don't care who I love, I can't put myself in jeopardy to help them. Do you realize? Because that's that's what when I listened to your story, That's what it was about, your love for everybody else and you feeling obligated to make sure that you provided and did things for them. So when you got into that situation, you did you make up your

mind that that wasn't happening no more? Yes, that was That was the biggest part of my transition. I knew that I was still gonna love some of these people. You're still kind of based some of your your journey with these people and extremes. We lived by extremes. Everything was life or death. All of our relationships, if you look back on most street guys, all of the relationships

you make a life of death friendships. So these are the things that you got to take into consideration sometimes like how much how much do you love your life? And how much new information did you gather that's going to help you say no to put in your your livelihood at in jeopardy. So cool, I'm sturdy now and and now I'm using the term sturdy as if it don't mean that you a push over. It means that

you're you're not a pushover mentally. So that form of manipulation or that form of limited thinking and beliefs that will allow you to make a decision against yourself and your family and all of the positive things you could be given back to the community as a result of your journey. You can't just say no to that. These are big time things. That's what make gangsters. This is what make gangsters. Gangsters don't necessarily put destruction in your hands and say go for it. They're supposed to be

the ones making a better way for everybody. So now I don't I don't use the word gangster lightly if it's a such thing. If I could associate myself with whatever my definition a gangster is. It means that I want to build on something positive. I want to I want to be the one that say, yo, kid, I see you got a hell of a knockout punch, and you think that I gotta lead to you having a hell of a trigger finger. You don't need that. If

you that tough, read this book. Don't let nobody push you over in negotiations when you go to talk about your contract. So I had aart too, but my jel and have aart, so did bye. I skip that, But in the fans they had to another version of a RT. But I get in there and I used to ask people, I'm like, yo, and these are sturdy guys that the realists are the realists. And I'm like, what if you found out everything that you learned in life that's far was wrong. What if all of the principles and stuff

we stood on and found out they was wrong? What we have the power to go back and address them where we where we have the kind of the same energy to go back and find new answers that we had when following some of these suggestions. And that's what I and I used to get pushed back. It used to be, you know what I'm saying, be like, yo, every everything I did for my people wouldn't I'm saying.

That's how I'm like, Yo, I can't knock that, but I'm agin hypothetically that you have sudden benefited from everything you did. Because my daughter used to ask me to put it asleep and it was quiet for that. I used to be like that. It can't right now, and my relationship with her is strained to this day because we don't understand each other. So every time, it's every time we say we're doing it for our family, and you're doing it for this when you're not there, you

can't do shit for your family. That absence has created such a divide and our understanding that if it's something really, really miniscule, could destray our whole thread because the thread is so thin. And that is a result of my decision making in my journey, no matter how much I meant well, So that has to be that has to hurt,

like knowing that it hurts. My daughter needs support, she needs she needs rescuing, she needs you can't even give her in full capacity because the relationship is not strong enough to even be able to give it to her like you want to. I'll try to make amends for my original journey to this journey. Now, do that mean we're gonna have a good relationship because I'm trying. No, it don't mean that, But it don't stop me from continuing to give it to somebody else that might be

more agreeable to hear in it at this time. So I'm gonna keep practicing. I'm gonna keep saying the good things to people that might be more agreeable to the message today, and then some of those things might get to what was what was your mind state when you got back into society? How how was your transition? Like what did you find yourself doing differently? What did you what was you What did you say like, all right, this is what i'm gonna do. Did you have or

did you have a plan? Did you have one plan like yo, this is what I'm doing And did you follow it out or did you get out here and then started figuring out what you want to do? Like what was the p Well, there's no way it's no way. Looking at this resume, no smuch job, no job. Who's gonna hire me? It's nobody. This is quiet for that. It's nobody gonna hire it. This two time felon with no job history, no work history. So I said, okay, me understanding that, and I don't want to work for

nobody anyway. That wasn't like that was one of my ambitions. But I'm like, well, if I want to be, you know, a part of an industry and a culture that that that did help shape me, it behooves me to use my best attributes. My pencil was always fairly decent and drawing. I thought I had a sense of style that you know, could at least fight to look cool. And I used those things to say, all right, this would be one

business that I could I could I could build. Initially, I came home and uh y Indian man DC greeted me with the YO, what's up? Man? Like we're gonna do out of that? I'm like, well, shoot, let's get man DC situated. He you know, you guys are celebrities and I'm not a celebrity. I don't even want to be a celebrity. I just want to be helpful to excuse me to your journey and let me see what I could do to be a part of that. So they share, they they roll indexes with me and said,

broll figure it out. Whatever it is that you want to do, you know you you kill it, you eat it, like you know what I'm saying. So I'm like, I thought that was a good challenge, and I started trying to think of things that I could fit or be a part of. And that led me to um saying, all right, like clothing, I'm I'm fairly good in music, to help somebody else get to somebody that they want to,

you know, be a part of. And also if opportunities should come in the movie, feel I could apply whatever little change I get my hands onto being a part of the production. So it was so many ways I was trying to fit, and so I did some of all. And I don't even know if I had enough resources for that, which I'm sure I did not have enough. I look at me, No, I didn't have enough resources. So but you you just you go fight, you fight, and you you figure it out. Like small victories add

up and those seeds make trees. And after a while people were qual a genius when something clicks and it just went through the natural progression of maturity, right and people say, yo, kid is a hustler. But no, it was hard like and I'm watching what I say because some people could take this offensively as a community, we don't. We don't like to make stuff more. We think that soon closed as a as a job description is meaning you and we want to be the person directing people

to do this' the boss, right. So I had to go all the way to La to be a part of the community that didn't look down on that that level of service. So I couldn't find many black people. I ain't even gonna hold you, couldn't just didn't know where they was at, couldn't find them. A lot of people I ran into were Mexicans. Now Mexicans, they work with you. Now it was supposed to be a little racial divide. I have no I have no um experience

with that. I mean outside of jail, jail segregated everything said, and I still was super cool the Mexicans, yeah, right right right. But out there in LA I was hung with one guy in particular. He showed me everything from cutting and selling to the whole process of m constructing a garment. So I used these. Now these skills, they're very usable skills, but they're also it was a way of making a business. So I could not only do minds,

but I could do for others shoe. I ended up doing it for others more than I was doing it for myself. So, especially when the pandemic came in, because more people needed that service because so many positive world wasn't available to them. It made me money. Actually it was crazy, but um yeah, so me me sitting down there going that's a level of going to school. It. No, I didn't get a certificate. I sat down and learn.

And my people was like, yo, eat bugging like it's just hanging around and got some all machines and shit like heat bugging for real. But people can't always see, right, you can't listen. I'm getting to this fashion. You know, I'm saying, I know a little thing about movies. I'm just figure out how I can dibble and dabbling that right, You got your book, right, you know what I'm saying that it's dope book. Thank you. You know what I'm saying. Guy's clothing Like I still ain't got my hat. But

it's cool. Don't worry. But you know what I'm saying. You've got guys and you in the movie that you have you you're an investor in the It is actually a really great project. No, well callaway, I'm directed. He did a great job. I'm happy to be a part of it. And when it when it is, people will see some humor, um live story and it just changes the narrative of or shoot him up, bang bang, because that's not all we we are, right, so we could get to that. I know a bunch of those stories too.

But I love love like it's Yeah, it resonates with me, so you know, I wanted to be a part of that kind of movement also. And as you said about the book, I have another book in the works that um I think it's gonna be a nice sequel, if not sequel, but a nice continuation to um, you already won, Now you already won. I didn't want to do I kept being nagged by a lady named Donna. Well I call him Monique, So Monique, she stayed on my back.

Monique says, listen around. You have to put yourself out there, and Dada that you got a lot of talent. I'm like, naw, I'm behind the scene, you know. Through her persuasion, I said, all right, well, I might have to put a little leg out there because I don't have the benefit of being around such um, you know, being by myself at this point um in the journey, I didn't have the benefit of being attached to such a power source that I was able to right right, I had to put

a little leg out there. And so it made me write the book. And you know, I thought that, you know, use some of the things that happened in my life, or just common phrases that people used in my neighborhood that might seem like a one liner, but it meant so much more. So I used that as inspiration to write the first book. But I have so much more to share that, you know, I hope that people enjoy going forward. There's this stigma that you know, when you incarcerated,

that you just don't have a chance. You know what I'm saying. You're negative, you know you when you Chi like used to go to look for jobs and they said, were you ever incarcerated? Though? We definitely don't want to do him right, right, and you defy that stigma you know what I'm saying. You an individual who most of his life was taught things. You know, we glorified things that we thought was right, but we realized that it was a dead end, you know what I'm saying. And

you tried to transition as you grow. You know what I'm saying, Youth is we sometimes we just so oblivious to realities and our youth and we just move off energy without even any level of wisdom, you know what I'm saying. And you've seen you show the process of growing. You know, each step he was like, damn, I need to get out of this. First you you inspire like I just want to be the biggest drug that I want to and then he was like this shit ain't nothing,

Like I'm trying to transition. And then you know, ultimately, unfortunately, you know, you had to sit down and you had to regather and you had to restructure your mindset, and then you came back out here. You show different, you know what I'm saying saying, and I know that you destined for more and more success and you could you constantly keep growing. So I just want to celebrate that, you know, and I want people to hear your story

because Aaron is a person. Aaron is a legend. You know what I'm saying, the legendary and you know what I'm saying, But a lot of people don't know the full, you know, scope of your story. And I just wanted people to sit down here. You one of those people that I believe that somebody's gonna hear, some young boy who's on the trajectory, it's gonna hear and be like, damn, that sounds like me. So I appreciate you. I'm motivated by you. You know. I want to interview people that

motivate me. You know what I'm saying, I just trendy or only this, and I want to interview people that most people may not even know that have done things that motivate you know what I'm saying, add to this, just you, king king, So I thank you for the legend tag. I never give myself I supposed, I don't even play with the word. I think that the thing that you do with your opportunity to me makes your legend so much to close out before I consider myself.

You're saying, this is what stand up individuals do. They acknowledge, they hold themselves accountable. You know, it was so much self accountability here, like you, every time you you did well, I got to hold myself account Well I did it. You ain't blame nobody else. Well I did this wrong, and I did this and I had to deal with this, and I'm gonna sit and I you know, it's always on the eye, and that's what stand up individuals do. So you know in that regard for me, it's legendary.

And the fact that anywhere that you go, for the most part, if it's a stand up individual, they know egg you know what I'm saying, and they know that he carries itself it is, they're gonna have the same story every time you talk about it's gonna on nine. I say, hey, he's official. He's a stand up dude here,

a good dude, you know what I'm saying. Like that, when that when your name circulates throughout the world and that's what they say about you everywhere, nine of the ten is probably one person that's just mad at you for something because you probably had something to do with his girlfriend or something. But you know what I'm saying, We know that probably child that was your childish ambitious But for the most part, that's what they're gonna say. Man, make sure that you tune in with a Ron. He's

on Instagram, He's doing a lot of things. Make sure that you follow him paid ten into his journey, young kids, listen to his story. Hope that it can motivate you and it can deter you from certain things. You know, this is about education. We want you to hear the realities of our stories in our life and our trials and tribulations, and take that and don't make the same mistakes we've made, you know, Please, our job is to circum help you circumvent those mistakes. I say it all

the time to my young boys. I'm a cheat sheet through life, you know. And if you just if you just take this sheet and you listen to what I'm saying, you ain't goin to make the mistakes I make, you can get to where I'm at now with I'm making none of the mistakes. So tune into the next episode sit Down with with the stand Ups, shout out to

my boy, hey love. You can't listen to Street Politicians on the Black Effect Network on iHeartRadio and catch us every single Wednesday for the video version of Street Politicians. Well I Women Dot TV