COMPTON

street

LEGEND

COMPTON

street

LEGEND

Notorious Keffe D’s Street-Level Accounts of

Tupac and Biggie Murders, Death Row Origins, Suge Knight, Puffy Combs, and Crooked Cops

Los Angeles • New York

Keffe D

with

Yusuf Jah

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Compton Street Legend

Introduction

Many people will pick up this book for its celebrity value. It’s true that my Gangster lifestyle has led me to cross paths with some of the biggest names in the history of Hip-Hop; Tupac Shakur, Christopher ‘Notorious B.I.G.’ Wallace, Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs, and Marion ‘Suge’ Knight, resulting in a massive collision with fatal consequences. I mourn, like millions of others, the loss of two Hip-Hop giants — Tupac, and Biggie, and the impact their loss has had on their families and fans.

My reality, however, doesn’t allow me to give a fuck about the celebrity aspect of this story. Never have and never will. What I do care genuinely about and hold in high esteem are the values of LOVE, FAMILY, UNITY, BROTHERHOOD, LOYALTY, TRUST, and HONOR. That is what this story is about.

It’s been more than twenty years since the premature, yet understandable, deaths of Tupac and Biggie occurred. Premature, because as talented and influential as both men were, they were killed long

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Introduction

before either of them had a chance to reach their full potential. Understandable, because in the streets, and I’ve lived a Gangster lifestyle for most of my life, there’s a strict code that real niggas live, kill, and die by. Tupac’s and Biggie’s deaths were direct results of that code violation and the explosive consequences when the powerful worlds of the streets, entertainment, and crooked-ass law enforcement collide.

In the past couple of years, there have been several TV specials, documentaries, newspaper and magazine articles, and numerous websites dedicated to the subject of who killed Biggie and Tupac. But at the end of the day, none of the private investigators, retired police officers, informants, Hip-Hop heads, actors, or academics who have weighed in on the topic know what happened and the reasons behind it. None of them were there. I’m one of the only living eyewitnesses to Tupac’s killing, who also knows the much larger story around the reasons why both Tupac and Biggie were killed. I was considered a prime suspect in both the Biggie and Tupac killings for years. I know the real fucking story.

I admittedly lived most of my life as a gangster, a real gangster that did all the shit that real gangsters do. Not the bullshit you see in this generation where everybody faking with all this IG shit. So, I’m not trying to paint myself as a fuckin’ saint. I am well aware that I’m a walking miracle, and I thank my Lord for his

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love, mercy, and grace. I could very easily be sitting in a federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, or Marion shackled with the death penalty, waiting in misery for my name and number to be called. Instead, I finally get the opportunity to tell my side of the story.

This process has been therapeutic for me because I’ve been carrying this shit with me for all of these years. People out there who played dirty are putting salt on my name, character, and reputation yet, I am the only one looking dirty in this shit. People judge and develop opinions based on the bullshit they’ve heard about me without knowing the full story. They don’t know what I was up against. The FBI did me like they did to John Gotti and they’re trying to do Donald Trump; they flipped all the bottom feeders underneath me then came and got me. But when the police that were involved with this case tell their stories, they protect everybody else’s identities except mine.

The most challenging part about telling this story is that some of the guys who ended up betraying me were the closest friends I had on Earth. In fact, some were even members of my own family.

I tell my story with utmost confidence because as Winston Churchill once said, “The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.” I’m a good person who, the truth will reveal, saved a lot of

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Introduction

lives and helped a lot of people. I helped Suge — he knows I helped him get on his feet and get Death Row going from my hard earned street shit. Then he turned around and tried to disrespect the game. I helped Puffy — he knows I was there for him when he needed help. There’s no fucking way he can deny it. He’s going to shiver in his boots if he ever sees me. I have a whole gang of dudes from my hood and from Grape Street that can verify and confirm our dealings. I’m not going to say their names until and unless it’s time to mention their names.

I want to make one more point super clear. I’ve seen the little shit some of these punk ass rappers, boxers and other wannabe tough celebrities have written on the internet, talking about they are gangsters for Tupac. I want to make it clear that while I’ve made a lot of changes in my life and heart, I’m not one to play with. You can go up against these streets if you want to, but I guarantee you won’t win.

It’s time for me to set the story straight…

“Gang banging is male love pushed to its limits…As insane as it may seem, it’s all based on love…There’s a lot of qualities that these young brothers that you may look down upon have that you don’t have. Somebody could come in your house and kill your wife and your children, and you wouldn’t do shit. You’d sit on your ass. These brothers aren’t having that. A lot of us wish we had it…To the layman, it will look like it’s a world based on hate, but it’s not — it’s based on love.”

Ice-T (Uprising: Crips and Bloods)

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Foreshock

“Fuck that big homey; we know where them niggas gonna be…they gonna be at Club 662.” Their rage was evident, ignited upon learning that my nephew Baby Lane had gotten jumped.

“How y’all know?” I calmly asked.

“Them niggas been on the radio out here for weeks talking about a Death Row After-Fight Party at Club 662. That nigga Pac supposed to be there too.” Club 662 was a Las Vegas nightclub owned by Death Row CEO Suge Knight. The intelligence was from reliable sources as some of the younger homeys from our set had been stationed in Vegas selling dope — a satellite operation of sorts.

“Aiight homeys,” I commanded, “that’s where we’re going then, Club 662,” as we headed to our vehicles.

South Side had not gone down to Vegas thinking about Marion ‘Suge’ Knight or Tupac Shakur; we were out there to do what we had been doing in Vegas for

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Foreshock

years; eat, drank and be merry! When conversations would come up about a million dollar bounty on the heads of Suge Knight and Tupac Shakur, that was business, but after Tupac, Suge and them Death Row niggas jumped on my nephew Baby Lane, the shit became ominously personal.

While we were waiting for the valet to bring out our cars, Zip seized the opportunity and called me over to his Benz. Zip was a big-time New York player, pimp, and hustler who used to come out to California to handle his business and kick it with us sometimes. As I walked up to the driver side window, I noticed that the rapper Foxy Brown was in the car with Zip. So, he instructed her to step out of the car and motioned for me to jump in. Zip had a hidden compartment that he opened up, reached in and pulled a black .40 Glock out. He turned to me and said, “It’s time to get the money.”

Zip handed me the 17-shot pistol which I promptly put down the back waist of my pants. I hopped out of the car, held the door open for Foxy Brown to get back in, closed the door, and they pulled off.

“Get in the car you came in, let’s roll,” I shouted as our cars came out from the valet. We left immediately from the MGM parking lot and headed directly to Club 662. I was still appropriately dressed in my Ray Luca Crime Story suit since there was about to be a real-life

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crime story.

We pulled into the back parking lot of Club 662, where the talent and VIPs entered. In front of the club, there was a long line of excited, drunk people waiting to enter the club.

I planned to confront Suge, “Hey Nigga, why the fuck y’all jump on my nephew?” The ironic thing is I had just seen Suge in Vegas the night before the fight. He and members of his Death Row crew were rolling in their Rolls Royces. We greeted each other and everything.

“What’s up Big Dawg?”

“What’s up?”

We were both major players in the same game. Suge had the music industry. I had the streets. We both had the same boss. If Suge and them niggas had a beef with something South Side had done, Suge could have said something to me when he saw me that night. Instead, Suge and his boys committed the ultimate disrespect when they kicked and beat down my nephew, Baby Lane, in a video broadcast on news stations seen around the world!

In case my diplomatic approach to resolving the situation didn’t work, we had three vehicles, three to four people in each, ready to burn their asses up.

“We were both major players in the game. Suge had the music industry. I had the streets. We both had the same boss.”

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Foreshock

My crew was “Do or Die.” All my young homeys had already been shot at least once. So their street experience turned them into some stone cold killers. They had the mentality of, “It’s either them or me, and it ain’t gonna be me.”

With solemn faces, we waited in complete silence in the back parking lot of Club 662 for more than an hour. Inside our vehicles, nobody took a drink. There was no weed, no music, not a peep. We were as grave as a heart attack. The only thing audible was niggas breathing and tense, throbbing heartbeats. There was no need for words. We all understood why we were there.

We waited for an hour and a half, which felt more like four hours. I decided for us to get the fuck out of there. I called the homeys on their phones, “They’re taking too damn long. Let’s get fucked up. Move out.” One-by‐one, the drivers, started their engines and slowly crept out of the back parking lot. Lucky for them they never showed up because it would have been like Al Capone’s Valentine’s Day Massacre if they had.

One thing about our crew, when it was time to handle business, we handled it with the best of them.

“Inside our vehicles nobody took a drink. There was no weed, no music, not a peep. We were as serious as a heart attack.”

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And when it was time to have fun, we did that too. It’s not that we were over what had happened to Baby Lane, it’s just we couldn’t control when them niggas were going to show up. Waiting so long was stopping us from doing what we had gone to Vegas to do in the first place: have a good time.

Our next destination was the Carriage House, a Las Vegas hotel where we had rented a few rooms as a kickback spot. On the way to the Carriage House, we stopped by the Liquor Barn to buy some bottles of Dom Pérignon, Dom Pérignon Rose, and Cristal. As we were driving to the Liquor Barn, it became evident that the guys in the van with me were worried that Suge would get some of his police hit men to come back and try to kill us if we went after them. “The police do hits for that nigga,” one of them said. I remember thinking to myself, “Y’all shouldn’t have jumped your punk asses in here if you’re scared. Y’all know what we came here to do.” C-Ray, who was one of my top salesmen and later became the first one to start snitching on niggas, was in the van with me along with his cousin Tray, and BMF’s Big Meech out of Detroit.

As we were loading up to leave the Liquor Barn, I took advantage of the chance to get away from them scary niggas in the van. I jumped in the front passenger seat of the Cadillac because I knew the

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Foreshock

niggas in the Caddy wasn’t with that bullshit.

I pulled out the Glock that Zip gave me and tossed it in the backseat. Bubble Up did the driving, Baby Lane and Freaky were riding in the back.

After our pit stop at the Liquor Barn, we continued toward the Carriage House. As we were driving, the two vehicles that were with us got caught at the traffic light. We kept rolling. A few blocks down we were sitting at the light and who the fuck did we see? The Death Row caravan hit the corner with Tupac hanging out of the window of a Black, luxury BMW waving to his fans. People on the streets were screaming; “Tupac! Tupac! We love you Tupac!”

In unison all of our heads turned, “There them motherfuckers go right there!” If Pac had not been hanging out of the window, we would have never seen them.

“Bust a U, bust a U!”

Bubble Up busted a U-turn and hit the gutter lane on their asses. As they sat in traffic, we slowly rolled past the long line of luxury cars they had in their caravan. We were on a mission looking into each one until we pulled up to the front vehicle and found

“The terrified expression on Suge’s face read; “Damn. Them niggas!” No words were exchanged, the time for talking had passed, the shit was about to go down!”

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who we were seeking.

Like two rams locking horns, Suge and I looked each other dead in the eye. Our eyes locked. The terrified expression on Suge’s face read; “Damn. Them niggas!” No words exchanged, the time for talking had passed, the shit was about to go down!

vvv

Keffe D is my name. Suge Knight and I are the only living eyewitnesses to what truly happened on September 7th, 1996 on the Vegas strip between the occupants of our two vehicles. This deadly confrontation would change Hip Hop history and my life forever.

Contrary to what some may think based on depictions from bullshit ass TV shows, documentaries, and movies, we were not pants saggin’ gangbangers looking for trouble. Far from it. At the time of the incident, I had risen the ranks to become a major shot caller for the notorious South Side Compton Crips. I was running a multi-million dollar nationwide drug empire. Many of you have heard my name, but you don’t know my story. You only know the bullshit that has been written and said about me by police, private investigators, and their punk ass confidential informants. Fasten your seatbelts. It’s my turn!

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Foreshock

Here I Come

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Straight Outta Compton

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way… Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities

Hey Ma, I’ll be right back. I’mma run to the liquor store around the corner.”

“Alright baby, be careful.”

“Always! You know me.” With that, I headed for a routine stop to the neighborhood liquor store to pick up a few items I needed. As I was coming out of the store, I saw eight niggas with bats, poles and sticks running towards the entrance of the store. I stood there looking around wondering who was about to get their ass kicked. Then it registered, there wasn’t

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anybody out there but me.

“Oh shit,” I darted towards my car and jumped in before they could reach me, pushed the button to lock the doors and felt, momentarily at least, relieved. As I scrambled to find the ignition key, I suddenly heard a door open. I don’t know how them motherfuckers got that front passenger door open I could have sworn I locked it.

“Get that motherfucker!” one of them shouted.

“Drag his ass out here.”

As one of the guys tried to grab me, I started kicking and swinging in a valiant yet vain attempt to keep the bloodthirsty wolves off me.

“Awww fuck,” I heard the car door behind me open, and I got clobbered in the back of the head with a pole. Punches rained down on me from all directions until one of them opened the driver side door and pulled me out of the car. The last blow was with a bat across the side of my neck, which sent me crashing into a trashcan. Semi-conscious I heard one of them say, “Hurry up, let’s get the fuck out of here before somebody calls the cops!” My attackers took off running.

As I pulled myself off the floor, I was literally ‘seeing red’ from the warm blood that was streaming down my face and neck. My left eye was damn near shut closed. I was a bloody mess. I floundered back to my car, drove home, and stumbled into the house. Once

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inside, I headed straight for my weapons stash, pulled out my .30-30 hunting rifle with an extra clip, and put my .9mm in my waistband. Before storming out of the door, I made a quick stop in the bathroom to wash off my face and neck. My injuries had become secondary to the desire for revenge that had completely taken over every ounce of my being. “Those motherfuckers done fucked with the wrong one tonight,” was all I could think.

I knew precisely where one of the dudes lived, so I quietly pulled up in front of his family’s house. The lights were all out. I was in Elmer Fudd mode, “Shhh…be vewy vewy quiet, I’m hunting…niggas!” I rolled down the car window, pointed the rifle and let my trigger finger do the talking, “BOKKA, BOKKA, BOKKA, BOKKA, BOKKA.” The shots simultaneously shattered the previously quiet block, the windows, and door of the house. I continued blasting until the clip was empty, “BOKKA, BOKKA, BOKKA, BOKKA, BOKKA.” I quickly changed clips and shot some more, “BOKKA, BOKKA, BOKKA, BOKKA, BOKKA,” nearly emptying the second clip. When I finally stopped firing the barrel of the gun was smoking.

I put the pedal to the floor and sped off into the darkness. As my luck would have it, who did I see when I hit the corner? The brother of the guy I was looking for. Sorry nigga but you’re in the wrong fucking place at the absolute wrong fucking time! I

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jumped out of the car with the gun still smoking, “Motherfucker, don’t move bitch,” the barrel of the rifle pointing directly between his eyes.

Hands raised, his younger brother pleaded, “Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!”

My cousin Darlene ran from the inside of one of the crack houses we had on the block. She was from Grape Street, a well-known Crip set out of the Jordan Downs Projects in Watts. “Kill that motherfucker,” was Darlene’s ghetto advice. But there were too many witnesses, and my homeys had trained me better than that. With the butt of the rifle, I bashed him in the head, knocking him back where he landed head first on the concrete. I moved in and started kicking him in the face. I guess from hearing all of the gunshots a little crowd had gathered, including my boys Clyde, Gangster Ben, and Bubble Up. They were on that nigga like stink on shit.

“What happened Big Dawg?” one of the homeys asked, concerned about the blood that was still visible on my face, neck and soaked into my shirt. “These niggas caught me up at the liquor store. Beat me with bats and poles, all kinds of shit.”

“Come on Dawg, let’s get you home.” We hopped

“I jumped out the car with the gun still smoking, ‘Motherfucker, don’t move bitch!’ the barrel of the rifle pointing directly between his eyes.”

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in my ride and boned out to my pad. When I got home, my sister began treating me, “Damn, you’re fucked up, you need to go to the hospital.” My sister did her best to stop the leaking and bandage me up, then we rushed out of the house into the car and sped to ‘Killer King’ Hospital. That was the shameful nickname that the Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital had earned back then.

I made a few mistakes but one would catch up with me. In our rush to get to the emergency room for medical attention I forgot about cleaning the empty gun shell casings out of the car. Next thing I knew, a few hours later while laying on an emergency room hospital bed, the police came in and booked me.

vvv

Welcome to MY city — Compton, USA. And welcome to MY world — the streets! Compton was the city my parents chose to raise their family. But the street life, that decision was all mine. I don’t want to mistakenly or carelessly paint the picture that Compton was an ultra-violent community for everybody. In fact, back in the late ‘60s and ‘70s, Compton was a middle-class, family-oriented paradise for Blacks.

Before moving to Compton, our family lived in Watts, right across the street from Markham Middle School. Many people from Compton formerly lived

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in Watts. Back then moving to Compton from Watts was like George Jefferson ‘movin’ on up’ from Harlem to a deluxe apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It was considered a “step up” even though the two cities are only about three miles away from each other.

Our family received our lucky break when my pops and uncle went to Agua Caliente Racetrack in Tijuana, Mexico. They picked six consecutive winning horses. My dad won $50,000 that day, which would be the equivalent of winning a million dollars today. With the winnings, our parents relocated from Watts, bought a house in Compton and two brand new cars.

When we moved onto our block in 1965, there weren’t any other Blacks in the neighborhood, and the white families that lived there wanted to keep it that way. That’s when I observed, first-hand how the phenomenon known as ‘white flight’ is real. Once we moved into that neighborhood, white families started fleeing like cockroaches when the lights come on.

My mother was a dedicated housewife whose family came from Dallas, Texas. I remember one day

“The phenomenon known as ‘white flight’ is real, because once we moved in that neighborhood white families started fleeing like cockroaches when the lights come on.”

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my mother and I were returning home with a shopping cart from Cole’s Market, the local grocery store. A carload of big white dudes pulled up in a ‘56 Chevy and started screaming out of the window, “Niggers… Niggers… Get the fuck out!!!” That shit scared me to death. I couldn’t have been more than five-years-old. My moms looked at me with a stern but confident look in her eyes. Her hand was in her purse as she said, “Don’t worry about them.” My mother certainly wasn’t worried because she made sure she protected her kids at all times.

Another early memory I have was in 1968, my mother and I were driving on one of her errands, listening to the radio, when the program was interrupted. “CBS News bulletin just in, Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King was shot at a downtown Memphis hotel…” I could see tears begin to swell up in her eyes.

“What’s wrong, momma?”

I didn’t fully comprehend the gravity of the situation reported. But momma knew, and she started to weep, “They killed Martin Luther King.” I hadn’t seen my mother cry before, so that’s when I knew the shit was serious.

My dad was a former Marine and a strict disciplinarian who taught us good principles. My father’s family is originally from Homestead, Virginia. We can trace our lineage directly to Nat Turner [1800-

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“Not many people can say that Nat Turner is their great, great, great…direct descendant. In fact, I can arguably say that I’m the hardest motherfucker in my family since Nat Turner.”

1831], the famous Freedom Fighter who led one of the most successful slave rebellions in US history. It gives me a great sense of pride to know that I come from one helluva bloodline. Not many people can say that Nat Turner is their great, great, great…direct descendant. In fact, I can arguably say that I’m the hardest motherfucker in my family since Nat Turner.

My grandmother, who was the backbone of our family, may have been my closest competition. I remember one day my grandma called me asking questions. I told her I didn’t have the answers to the questions she was asking. My grandmother got to going off and cursing a little bit. I was like, “Grandma; I’m cool, I’m gonna go on and get off the line. I’m not going to hang up in your face, but I’m going to get off the line.”

That day, I happened to get a nice-sized shipment, so I had my whole crew on the porch. We were over at the house on Burris Lane, so we could distribute the product.

About 10 minutes after hanging up the phone, I saw grandma pulling up. I was planning on leaving before she got there because I knew she was coming.

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But before I could leave, she pulled up. She lived off of 62nd and Broadway over in 6-Deuce hood. She had to be doing 90mph to get over there that fast, which just about matched her age at the time. When she pulled up, Grandma’s anger and adrenaline were flowing so hard she jumped out, didn’t even use her walker, and came up on the porch. I was sitting on the porch with about ten homeys.

She had $300 in her left hand, and her right fist was balled up. She reared back and socked me in the nose, right in front of everybody. Letting everybody know I’ll still whip this nigger’s ass. She punked me. Then threw the $300 in my face. “Nigga, you think you’re better than everybody because you got two pennies more than everybody. You’re going in the dirt just like everybody else motherfucker.” Before she left, she whipped out her black ol’ school .38 revolver and made it clear, “Nigga, I’ll kill you.” She gave me a pass by not shooting my ass.

She pulled off the curb and made a U-turn when my brother yelled, “She fixin’ to do a drive-by.” All of us hit the ground. She punked us. The next morning, she called me for breakfast and apologized. She told me she didn’t mean to do me like that.

My parents moved to California once my dad was assigned to Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California. There were twelve of us children, six boys, and six girls. Two of my brothers passed away. My

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oldest brother Thurman died from Leukemia, a form of cancer, in 1971. My brother Mike, who was two years older than me and doubled as my best friend, got shot and died in the streets of Compton in 1990. Li’l Dog is my little brother who is four years younger than me and followed in my footsteps.

In 1980, when I was fifteen-years-old, my mother died from colon cancer, the same shit I developed and almost died from in 2014. Lucky for me during an annual visit to my doctor for a physical, my doctor asked, “Are you feeling alright?” He had a look of concern.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

“You sure?” He asked with a doubtful look on his face.

“Yeah, I feel normal.”

He looked down at my blood work results for a few minutes, assessing my extremely low blood level. We left his office immediately, walking directly across the street into the hospital emergency room.

I spent thirty-five days in the hospital because my blood level was half what it should have been: Instead of 14.7 pints of blood, my blood level was more than seven pints low. While I was in the hospital, they fed me intravenously, due to the blood transfusions I was receiving. This meant I wasn’t able to eat solid food for seventeen days. That shit didn’t work for me because I would get hungry as a Bearcat. When the

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nurses weren’t looking, I would steal juices off the food carts, because they weren’t giving me anything to drink. My fluid intake was restricted to sucking on ice. I went into the hospital weighing 238 pounds and left weighing 190.

One day my family came to visit me in the hospital, and the nurse put me on blast. She was like, “Do you know your son and your brother has been in here stealing juices off the cart? He doesn’t know it, but we have cameras.”

“Aww shit.” I had been stealing juices for more than a week, but they finally caught on. That food cart would come around, and I’d run up there with the IV still in my arm.

On another day, my sister came to visit with my two nieces, my grandson, and my wife. A siren went off, and I heard a nurse say, ‘Code Red.’ To me ‘Code Red’ meant somebody had died or was dying. Thirty minutes later another ‘Code Red’ went off, so I got out of my bed, and I was feeling bad that day, and I shut the motherfucking door. My sister was like, “Why you shut the door?”

I said, “The Reaper is out there, and he’s busy. He ain’t coming in this motherfucker!”

“Contrary to popular myth, the majority of the young men that started Crips and Bloods in Compton had mothers and fathers in their lives.”

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They started cracking up laughing. My sister said, “You got the Lord with you, you don’t have to worry about no damn Reaper.”

Eventually, the doctors operated on me, took out my big and small intestines, and stapled me back together with twenty-five staples in my stomach. If my doctor hadn’t acted so quickly, it could have been over for me. I watched Big Ang from the Mob Wives go through a similar battle and die, which was some sad shit to see.

My cancer is currently in remission. Fortunately, the doctors were able to remove the tumor while it was still in the opening stage, before the first stage. The CAT scans have been coming back normal ever since. My cancer doctor told me I was cancer free, but he warned me that this is the five year period where I have to get scans every six months and a colonoscopy every year. The shit is scary, and it’s been a long journey. The Lord has been with me through it all.

Despite my mother’s passing, my father held our family down for over twenty years by himself, then he finally remarried. Back in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, most Black families had both a mother and father in the house. Besides my parents, other members of their family also migrated to California in the late ‘50s along with scores of other African-American families. Eventually, our whole street was full of Black families.

Contrary to popular myth, the majority of young

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men that started Crips and Bloods in Compton had mothers and fathers in the home, and in their lives. Single-parent households didn’t jump off in Compton until the late ‘70s.

Back then, parents instilled morals and values into their kids, and there wasn’t such a thing as child abuse. For the first fourteen years of my life, our family attended church regularly. You would get your ass wore out if you misbehaved. The Principal at the school was even empowered to whip your ass if you misbehaved.

Gang members back then had to be undercover. You might be big and bad on the streets, but when you got home, you changed up because mom and dad were in the house and they didn’t play. These new street dudes are growing up in homes without both parents. That’s why they’re all fucked up and don’t have any respect.

Growing up, we also didn’t have a lot of gang violence with Mexicans. In fact, we did business with them. Before I went to the Feds in 1998, the Blacks had the dope sacks. By the time I got out of the Feds, the Mexicans had the sacks. They roll around Compton looking like brothers used to look. Even their senoritas roll around in nice cars, that used to be how Blacks had it in Compton.

vvv

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Several factors influenced my decision to get involved with the street life. Back in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, it was a fad that a lot of kids were getting involved with. Street life was a way for young Blacks to protect ourselves and our communities from anybody who wanted to mess with us. By 1969, 1970, gangs were growing super fast and super big, and I wasn’t interested in being an outsider.

Our neighborhood, South Side Crips, started in 1971. Our area is bordered by Long Beach Boulevard to Alameda, Compton Boulevard to Greenleaf. We were initially known as the US Boys. There were a couple of incidents with the Piru’s (Bloods) in the area that motivated the Original US Boys to convert and become Crips. The Crips were the most dominant gang popping off back then. To this day there’s a bunch of Crip sets in Compton; Santana Blocc, South Side, Nutty Blocc, Spooktown, Carver Blocc, there’s a lot of them. I don’t know what the incident was that set things off for the older guys, but there was an incident that I experienced.

A few of us youngsters, 9 and 10-year-olds, rode our bikes to the Pep Boys on Long Beach Boulevard. When we got to Palmer Street, we ran into some Lueders Park (Blood) niggas; Little George, Willie T, Bartender, and Herman Jr. — they were all older than us. We were riding in the street, and cars were coming behind us. So when we saw them, we couldn’t

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Compton Street Legend

turn around. Once they saw us, they started chasing us. Willie T caught up to me, socked me in the nose and took my bike. I never forgot that shit.

During another incident, once again I was with some of my friends, Oochie and Stevie Johnson, the little brother of the Boston Celtics’ Dennis Johnson. We went to the Compton College pool, where everybody used to go swimming. While we were swimming, about thirty bald-headed Crips came up to the pool and chased everybody out. One of the dudes, Sweet Tooth, was an original US Boy, but he turned Crip. He pointed at us and said, “Those are little US Boys.” You should have seen how fast we ran out that motherfucker. We were just 9 and 10-years-old, they were all 16, 17, and 18 years old.

Even though I was too young to be in the US Boys, I was there when the neighborhood converted over to become Crips. Once again I and some of my friends were within earshot when a group of the US Boys, including a few of my big brothers, were having a conversation about an apparent beef they had with some Pirus [Bloods]. They were pissed about something, “Be up there around four or five,” one of the homeys barked, “Mac Thomas, Bruno, Head Honcho and some of the Grandee Crips are going to meet us up at Emerson.” The invitation wasn’t for us, we were too young to be in their business like that. But we went to Emerson anyway, following the older

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Straight Outta Compton

dudes.

Crips from the Grandee’s, one of the original Crip gangs, showed up and put us on. It wasn’t a hostile takeover it was more like a merger, where everybody who was part of US Boys became Crips to give us a competitive advantage.

After the conversion, a few dice games got started. It was my first official night as a Crip, and I happened to be shaking the dice when my pops came driving by and saw me, “Hey, what are you doing?” I didn’t even have to look, I knew my dad’s unmistakable voice when I heard it.

I walked up to the car, “Nothing, just shooting dice.”

“Not no more, bring your ass on and get in this car. I don’t want you out there you understand me?” I hopped in the passenger seat.

“Yes, sir.” I looked down as we pulled off to hide my embarrassment.

“I don’t give you money to do it like that.”

Little did he know his 9-year-old son, as well as three of his older sons, had just become Original Compton Crips. He took me back to the house and gave me a good old-fashioned pull your pants down belt whipping. That was back when you could still get a whipping from your parents, back when the police would take you home so your parents would whip your ass. Although I didn’t get to finish the dice game,

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Compton Street Legend

I’ve been reppin’ South Side Crip to the fullest.

I learned a few valuable lessons as a youngster around dice games. One time when I was in the 8th grade we were at this party shooting dice and one of the dudes felt I cheated him. So he tried to steal. I whipped out my little .25 and pointed it at him. The guy’s brother was there and whipped out a bigger strap than me, a .45. We had all grew up together, so once the smoke cleared about 20 minutes later, we came to an agreement. The older brother told me, “Li’l Dog let me teach you a lesson. Don’t ever pull no gun without using it. At least hit a nigga with it in the head a couple of times if you pull it out…” That was important advice that I learned from and took to heart.

One ironic relationship I had growing up was with the infamous Marion ‘Suge’ Knight. I’ve known Suge since I was 9-years-old. He and I played Pop Warner football together for The Greater Compton Colts and the Compton Wolves back when we were 11 and 12-years-old. He played on the offensive line as the center, and I was the running back and strong safety — the hardest and fastest guy on the team. I earned the nickname, ‘The Assassin,’ after Oakland Raider All-Pro safety Jack Tatum. Suge’s cousins, Ronald and Donald, also played with us. Both of them played tight end. Almost all of the guys on our team were Crips except Suge and his cousins. Suge’s dad,

Back in the day when Suge and I played on the same team

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Compton Street Legend

who is the Original Suge, was one of our coaches, and this other man named Billingsley was the head coach.

Suge’s family owned a Diesel Truck company, so they were livin’ that middle-class lifestyle, driving nice vans and Cadillacs. When we’d win a game, his dad would invite the team over to their house to swim, eat hot dogs, potato chips and punch. Suge was my dog.

One long-time friend of mine was a guy named Bubble Up. As a young dude, 17 or 18-years-old, he was one of the richest young niggas in Compton. When we were back in high school, before the drug game got real big, people used to hijack trucks carrying cigarettes and other merchandise. Bubble Up was one of the best at doing it, catching a truck at least once a month. He had a Mexican fence out in Santa Fe Springs that used to give him $180,000 per truck. I think Bubble Up single-handedly contributed to the creation of the LoJack anti-theft system because after a while they started putting LoJacks on them motherfuckers.

One of my best friends growing up was Oochie. I’ve known him since 1965, and we were always together. We didn’t go to grade school together, but he lived two streets from me. His dad was also a football coach. He was about my size but was younger than us, so he played with the younger guys.

Another one of my friends growing up was a

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Straight Outta Compton

“pretty boy” I’m gonna call C-Ray. He knew all the street players and pimps, Pimpin’ Ken, Don Juan, Good Game; he liked to be around them. He came from a pretty well off family. His mother worked for Mobil, and his dad worked for Boeing, which was called McDonnell Douglas back then. While the rest of us went to rough-ass Emerson elementary, C-Ray went to Catholic School. He was my little homey and became one of my best salesmen once we were fully enrolled in Sidewalk University. We got into the drug game and started moving significant weight.

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Compton Street Legend

Sidewalk University

In the early Seventies when I attended Emerson Elementary school, there was a teacher there by the name of Dr. Green. He also worked as an athletic trainer at Compton College. Dr. Green saw that I was a straight-A student, so when I was about nine-years-old, he invited me to a Compton College football game to be a ball boy. My job was running fresh balls in from the sidelines. Dr. Green also worked with the basketball and baseball teams, so when their seasons started, I started working with both of those teams as well.

Working with the sports teams at Compton College gave me the opportunity to travel throughout the state of California; Ventura, Santa Barbara, Santa Maria and Fresno. We even went to Hawaii one year. Dr. Green eventually retired, but I continued to go to the college and became the team manager for the

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Sidewalk University

football, basketball and baseball teams.

When I was in 10th grade, I participated in UCLA’s Upward Bound Program that was designed to help students graduate from high school and successfully graduate from college. I was one of their top students. We would stay at UCLA for nine weeks during the summer and spend random weekends there during the year. As part of the summer program, they would give us a $285 weekly stipend every Friday. The problem was when I would go back home to Compton during the summer. Some of the guys I grew up with had gotten involved in the drug game and were making more than $285 per day. As good as UCLA’s Upward Bound program was it wasn’t moving fast enough for me. So I decided to get rolling myself.

After seven years of working at Compton College, first as a ball boy then as team manager, I finally got the lucky break I needed to get into the game — the drug game that is. One of my older brothers had already been selling ounces of weed to one of the Compton College baseball coaches named John. I used to deliver the weed to Coach John for my brother, which was definitely not an official part of my managerial duties. One day John stopped me and said, “Yo, tell your brother I need an ounce,” and he handed me $60, the price for an ounce of weed back then. The next day I showed up at John’s office with the package, “Here you go,” and I handed him a rolled-

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Compton Street Legend

up brown paper bag. “It’s a pleasure doing business with you,” I said as I turned to walk out.

“Hey, wait a minute. Come back in here and close the door,” John shouted. He then opened his desk drawer and pulled out a big plastic bag which contained four ounces of powder cocaine.

“Hey Big Dawg, see if y’all can sell this shit.” Coach John handed me the bag, and I guess he assumed I would take it home to my brother. Unlike today where an ounce of powder cocaine is the size of a stamp, back then powder cocaine was $2,800 an ounce and would fill a sandwich bag. That shit never made it home. I flipped all four ounces in one night; a few of the Big Homeys, my brother-in-law from Grape Street, my homeboy Junior and one of my brothers each bought an ounce from me that night. I was sixteen-years-old and ready to seize my opportunity to get in the drug game and start ballin’ like Kobe — a champ!

vvv

My business started flourishing, and I began to move more and more product. By 1981 or ‘82 I had opened up a few crack houses in the neighborhood. One morning at about five o’clock my older brother called me, “Hey bro, I’m out of shit. I need some more. Send some over to my spot on Glencoe,” which was just a few blocks away from a crack house I had on the

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Sidewalk University

corner of Greenleaf and Mayo.

“I left some with nephew around the corner,” I told him.

“Nephew ain’t got no more.”

“Aiight I’ll be over there in a minute to bring you some.”

I pulled up to his spot on Glencoe, and my brother sent this chick out.

“Come get this shit yourself,” I hollered out.

No sooner than those words came out of my mouth in my rearview mirror, I saw the Sheriffs hit the corner. Two Sheriffs, in particular, Ramos and Bower, were some crazy, gung-ho motherfuckers. I was in an I-Roc Camaro, so I took off and left their ass in smoke. I thought I got away but little did I know they continued looking for me. I hit the corner of Greenleaf and went to Mayo, my little corner spot where my nephew was. As I pulled up to the spot, I could hear the powerful motor of the Sheriff’s car speeding up Greenleaf, but I still had the kilos on me. I rushed up to the door of the house and began banging on the door, “Open the door nephew.” Nephew didn’t open the door. As fast as I could, I pulled the house keys out of my pocket and opened the door. By then the Sheriffs were out of their car and pointing their weapons at me, “Freeze motherfucker.”

I hurried and got my ass inside the house and locked the inside wooden door, but I forgot and left

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Compton Street Legend

the keys in the outer bar door. Instead of running to the restroom and getting rid of the dope, I panicked and ran to the closet, still carrying the dope and a gun. Within a minute at least eight Sheriff’s cars pulled up. They kicked the door in and raided the house. They got my nephew, my homeboy, and his wife. They already had them handcuffed on the porch when they brought me out of the house. One of the Sheriff’s asked me, “What’s your name?”

“Ken.”

“Motherfucker, we know who you are!”

“My name is Ken.”

“That’s your story?” Clearly irritated.

“Yeah.” They took me to jail, and I bailed out.

About three weeks later I was going into the neighborhood to take this lady named Linda her daily four ounces to sell for me. Them same motherfuckers, Ramos and Bower, came up behind me, “Pull it over.”

They got out of their car and approached, “You selling that dope tonight?”

“No sir, No!”

Unconvinced, they pulled me out of the car and had me sit on the curb while they searched and found the four ounces I had in the car.

“Book that fucker on the highest bail possible.” My friends Ramos and Bower gave me back-to-back cases real fast. I had already done the shooting I described earlier, so they combined the three cases

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Sidewalk University

and sentenced me to four years in the State Pen. I was twenty-years-old.

vvv

From 1985-1989, I served time in the same motherfuckin’ prisons I used to visit as a kid from 1965-1976 when one of my uncle’s was serving his bid for murder.

Before sending me to state prison, I was sent to Wayside Max, which is a part of the LA County Jail system. While in Wayside, a riot popped off between Crips and some Black Cubans who had been exiled by Fidel Castro during the Mariel Boatlift when Castro emptied his jails. Ronald Reagan rounded most of the exiles up and put them back in jail. It was easy to tell if someone had been to prison in Cuba because Castro had inmates identification numbers tattooed on the inside of their lips. In America, inmates get a card with their inmate identification number on it, but Castro put the inmate number in their mouth.

One day when a group of Crips was in the chow hall eating a situation broke out with one of the Cuban inmates. The Cuban inmate asked this dude named Small Fry, who was from Tragniew Park, to pass him the pitcher of Kool-Aid. Small Fry took his sweet time with the pitcher and asked all the Crips at the table, “Y’all want some more Kool-Aid, Cuz?”

“Yeah, let me get some more Cuz.”

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Compton Street Legend

“Pass that shit over here when you’re done homey.” We passed the pitcher around, and by the time it finally got to the Cuban the shit was empty. The Cuban took the Kool-Aid pitcher, stood up and hit Small Fry in the back of the head with it.

When we got back to the housing unit, we had a little meeting, “Hey homey, what y’all want to do?” Homeboy Small Fry was from Compton, so we had to do something. The decision was made that we had to make a move. I got my shank and went to work. I hit three of them — hit ‘em good too. The police came in the unit shooting tear gas, “Move! Move! Move! Get on the ground! Get on the ground!” One-by-one the police handcuffed and removed anyone, injured or not, that had blood on them. We were all lying on the ground and the big Cuban that I stuck, the biggest one, came running towards me hollering, “Motherfuckerrrrr!” He tried to get at me, but the sheriff tackled his ass before he could reach me. I ended up getting put in the hole for that shit. They were about to charge me with another case, but luckily they didn’t.

While I was in Wayside, the Crips also had a riot against the sheriffs. The sheriffs were the baddest

“Tracy was a super big Crip place. There were 3,000 inmates and 1,800 of them were Crips — hardcore gangbangers. The White boys, Mexicans, Cubans all of them are raw in Tracy.”

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Sidewalk University

motherfuckers in there; they beat up so many Crips it was pathetic. It just so happened that I wasn’t in the module set aside only for Crips — the 4800 module when the riot happened. They had me stuck in the hole for sixty-four days from that Cuban shit. Sixty-four days is a long time to be in the County Jail hole. When I got out of the hole and saw the homeys Mondo and Sad from Nutty Blocc, both of them told me, “Man we had a riot with the sheriffs.”

After Wayside, they sent me to Chino West for two months. Then the counselor at Chino told me, “You’re going to CIM or CMC.” Every Friday they would post on the board where you were going, and next to my name it read, ‘Tracy.’ I was practically still a kid heading up to Tracy.

Tracy is fucking gladiator school. The 4800 module in Wayside was a dangerous place with all them Crips in there. But Tracy was a super big Crip place. There were 3,000 inmates, and 1,800 of them were Crips — hardcore gangbangers. The White boys, Mexicans, Cubans all of them are raw in Tracy. In those days Tracy was so dangerous a Blood would get their ass thrown over the tier because Crips ran the whole place. They had some vicious guys up in there that would rape your ass. One nigga named Big LA, they had to cut the top bunk out of his cell because he was assaulting so many people.

My time in Tracy didn’t help to rehabilitate me

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Compton Street Legend

at all; on the contrary, my time in Tracy helped me to become a harder Gangster.

When you’re a youngster up in the Pen, between the ages of nineteen and twenty-one, you’re on the front line. The homeys send your ass on seek-and-destroy missions like a torpedo, to earn your stripes. I had been selling dope before I got sent up to Tracy, so I was one of the more well-off inmates in there. And it’s safe to say I earned a few stripes and made it up out of there with no scars. My next move would be to take what I had learned in gladiator school and step my game up to the next level.

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Compton Street Legend

The Game

“I am an invisible man…I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me…When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination —indeed, everything and anything except me.” -Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man

Invisible? Not me. Fuck that noise! My destiny was to be seen, heard, and felt. I can honestly say I’ve accomplished my mission and I’m still not done. Invisibility simply has never been in my DNA.

In the street game, you can do three things by the age of twenty-five. You can step your game up and become a Gangster by making serious money and owning homes and businesses; become a grown man and get your ass a job; or continue gang banging, taking risks of going back-and-forth to state prison and ending up in the grave. I chose the first and with the help of a few trusted advisors, I took my street

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The Game

game to new heights.

In my South Side Crip neighborhood I was known by several names; Big Dawg, Big Homey, some called me Gotti, but most knew me as Keffe D. In terms of rank, if we were an Army I was a five-star general. If we were a city, I was the mayor. And if we were a country, I was President Obama. As Big Homey, I gave folks in my neighborhood jobs and an opportunity to earn money. I’m not talking about small amounts of money either. Folks earned enough to feed their families. They all had a couple of nice cars, trucks, and low-riders. We even started a low-rider club and a hydraulic company for low-riders. Just like in any other type of economy, everybody had a role to play.

Like any good leader of an organization, I had my ‘Board of Directors,’ the older, trusted, right-hand men that would advise me. I had one older gentleman named R.C., who was super rich. He was 72-years-old when he married this broad that was 28-years-old. One day R.C. came to me and said, “I’m going through this divorce, and all my shit is tied up. I need some bread. I need to borrow $70,000 from you if that’s cool.”

“No problem, Dog. Get at me later on tonight up by my spot.” R.C. showed up, and I hit him with the $70,000.

“I’ll pay you back in a few months.”

Honestly, I had forgotten about the money, then

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Compton Street Legend

about six months later R.C. showed up and said, “I sincerely appreciate everything you did for me. Come let’s go for a ride.” He took me and signed six pieces of property over to me; two of them were triplexes, and the other four were duplexes. All of them he owned free and clear. All I had to do was pay the yearly property taxes on them.

Soon after that, he moved to Houston, Texas and two years later he suffered a massive heart attack at a Hardee’s restaurant and passed away. After he died his daughter sued me for the houses and the Courts took the houses from me.

Chief among my advisors was my beloved friend, and partner F.L. He was a real, high-level, white-collar hustler about ten years older than me. F.L. and I first met when I was a little kid, and he was kickin’ it with one of my homegirls. F.L used to come through the neighborhood to visit her in a brand new, pussy pink ‘76 Cadillac Seville. That bitch was pretty as a motherfucker. I’ll never forget the day F.L. jumped into his girlfriend’s car to run errands with her and left me the keys to his new ride so I could go to football practice. At twelve-years-old, I showed up to Pop Warner football practice driving a brand new Seville. Suge Knight’s daddy, we called him

“At twelve-years-old I showed up to Pop Warner football practice driving a brand new Seville.”

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The Game

Big Suge, was like “Damn, where you get that from?” I had a smile on my face a mile wide.

F.L. was my dog for a long time. He’s the one that hooked me up with my Colombian cocaine connection. Boss Man was my first plug before I established a direct relationship with my Colombian plug. Boss Man’s aunt and cousins are from my neighborhood, and his first cousin is my first cousin. Our two families go all the way back to Texas in the 1930s. My aunt has babies by his uncle, so we’re practically cousins; he’s a year older than me. The two of us played together since we were three or four-years-old. Boss Man was the first significant supplier that allowed me to get on the map. He would give me twenty kilos [birds] a week.

vvv

In 1989 when I got out of Tracy from my first stint in the Pen, Boss Man rolled up, “Hey Dawg, glad to see you’re home. I don’t have any work for you right now but don’t trip; I got you.” He handed me a bag that contained $10,000 in cash.

About three weeks later I was at C-Ray’s house, and Boss Man pulled up wearing a suit in a brand new Mercedes Benz.

“Hey Dawg come here.” I walked up to his ride.

“I have some rims in the backyard I need you to wash for me.” I went to his auntie’s backyard to wash

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Compton Street Legend

the rims. Just as I was about to start, he came to the backyard and said, “Pull them out to the front and wash them out there.” I’m not sure why he wanted me to wash the rims out front, but it didn’t bother me any.

While I was washing the rims one of the homeys shouted, “I know that ain’t Keffe D down there washing no motherfuckin’ rims.” Before I could yell back, a grey pick-up truck pulled up in front of the house.

Boss Man came out of the house and greeted the driver. Then he turned to me and said, “Hey Dawg, throw those rims on the back of this truck.”

I lifted the rims and placed them on the back of the truck. Boss Man came to the back of the truck and explained, “We’re big out here now Dawg. We got some new shit called ‘Blow Up,’ that’s when you cut the cocaine to make two kilos out of one. And birds don’t cost $70,000 anymore; they’re down to $14k.” I couldn’t believe what he was telling me. He continued, “You see that brown bag in the back of the truck? Grab that. It’s yours. Call me when you finish.” I opened the bag, and there were three kilos inside.

In the early Eighties, the Peruvians and Belizeans were sending most of the dope to the United States. Once the Colombians took over the drug business, the price of cocaine went down to $14k a kilo. Armed with new information and the three kilos Boss Man gave me, I started rolling all over again.

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The Game

I called my boy C-Ray, who was staying in Birmingham, Alabama, at the time and let him know I was back in business. “Send me half a kilo out here Dawg,” he requested. I sent him the half kilo. A few days later when I tried calling him, the nigga stopped answering my calls. I knew this chick named Felicia who was from Alabama, so I asked her to take a trip out there with me. We flew to Alabama and called him from a local Alabama number, and the nigga answered the phone on the first ring.

“Nigga I’m at the airport come and get me.”

C-Ray came and picked me up but the nigga didn’t have any gas in the car, we were riding on fumes. He appeared to me like he was smoked out. “C-Ray, man you’re tripping!”

We rented a three-story house with a pool in the backyard and a basement for $250 per month to set up shop. In places like Alabama, a cellar is mandatory because the tornadoes will wipe your ass out. Back then that same house in L.A. would have cost at least $2000 per month.

I took my kilos down to Birmingham where we were selling nine ounces for $12,000. I took one kilo and turned it into three, then turned three into nine. Then turned the nine into eighteen kilos. We were out there in Alabama balling for about a year and a half.

One day when I was back in Compton, Boss Man pulled up to one of my spots, “Hey Dawg, I need you

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Compton Street Legend

to cook some water [Angel Dust] for me.”

Cooking PCP is a skill a minimal number of people have. It’s super dangerous and if you don’t know what you’re doing it can explode like dynamite. It’s a skill I learned during my stay in Watts after my mother passed away. I stayed in the Jordan Downs Projects [Grape Street] with some family members for about a year and a half and returned to Compton with a lot of game. Specifically, I learned how to cook up PCP. People on the East Coast don’t know how to cook PCP. Cooking PCP is one of those ancient hood secrets that only niggas from Compton and Watts know how to do.

I went over to Boss Man’s location and cooked some PCP for him. He gave me an ounce when I was done. I started rolling again, opened up three or four crack houses, and Boss Man started giving me one hundred grams every day for $7,000. I was rolling like a motherfucker. About three weeks after that, Boss Man got locked up in the summer of 1990. Not long after Boss Man got taken down, I met my Colombian plug and started dancin’ with the devil.

“Cooking PCP is one of those ancient hood secrets that only niggas from Compton and Watts know how to do.”

Me and my good brother F.L.

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Compton Street Legend

Dancin’ With The Devil

My rise to new heights in the drug game was the result of the fortuitous meeting with my new Colombian supplier, J.C. In an ironic twist, despite J.C.’s initials, I used to refer to him as ‘the Devil,’ but not because he was so deep in the drug game. J.C. was the devil because I never saw him lose at gambling.

He and I both enjoyed games of chance. I’d take $25k from the first five kilos I’d sell, then head to the casinos with J.C. to have some fun. We would fly to Vegas at 10:00 o’clock at night and stay there until six o’clock the next morning. Without fail he’d win, he’d earn $70,000 at one spot then we would go to the Normandy Club, where he’d win another $140,000. I’d be in the casinos getting murdered, while this guy would have chips damn near sky high. “Man, you’re the fucking devil,” I’d jokingly say to him. Not once did I see him lose at the tables, not once. It’s like the

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Dancin’ With The Devil

laws of attraction were working for his ass. Since he already had a lot of money more money seemed to be attracted to him. Over time I learned that J.C. had millions. He owned a whole block of apartment buildings on both sides of the street in Inglewood.

The way J.C. and I met, me and my boy F.L. was riding around as I was looking to cop fifteen kilos. Since Boss Man was locked up, for more than six months, I didn’t have a reliable supplier. So, I would have to go to one spot and get five kilos, go to another place to get three kilos, and another spot to get the rest.

After the second stop F.L. asked, “Man, you need a plug?”

He didn’t look at me when he asked the question, probably because he was disappointed in how inefficiently I was conducting my business.

“Hell yeah.” Excitement and surprise both present in my voice because I knew F.L. was a player with high-powered connections. But I also knew that the drug game was not his area.

“I’m gonna introduce you to one of my Colombian partners.” Since F.L. didn’t sell drugs, I don’t know what business they had together, but that was none of my business. F.L. stepped out of the rag-top Corvette we were in and placed a quick phone call. When he got back in the car, he had a smile on his face like his mission was accomplished.

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Compton Street Legend

“Turn right up here at the light then make a left on Lakewood,” F.L. instructed me. “Pull in this parking lot. Let’s grab something to eat.” We pulled into the Denny’s parking lot on Lakewood Blvd. right off the 91 Freeway. “My partner is gonna meet us up here in a few.”

As we were placing our order, I saw a grey Plymouth Acclaim pull in right next to my Corvette. The driver was light-skinned with blonde hair and looked like he was in his early twenties. He wore a Boston Celtics jersey and some shades. He looked like a regular white boy, but once we met, he acted like deep down inside he wanted to be a brother. F.L. had already told me that he was Colombian.

The Colombian walked up to our booth and hugged F.L., then F.L. introduced us, “J.C. this is my partna Keffe D.”

I stood, and we shook hands.

“Keffe D meet J.C.”

J.C. joined us in the booth. He was originally from Medellin, the same place as Pablo Escobar and the ‘Cocaine Godmother’ Griselda Blanco. Being the avid Lakers fan that I am, I immediately went in on the Celtics jersey he was wearing.

“Man, don’t you know this is Lakersville…you sure got some balls…”

He already knew where I was going so he covered his mouth as he started to laugh. Before I could finish

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Dancin’ With The Devil

he shot back, “Sixteen titles, check the record books. That’s all I have to say,” with a smug smile on his face. His English was excellent. The conversation and vibe went smooth, and from his friendly demeanor, I knew I had a new plug. We continued to converse about sports while eating our food. As usual, F.L. withdrew from the conversation once it turned to sports since sports wasn’t his thing.

As J.C. prepared to leave F.L. ended the meeting with one final emphatic statement, “This guy right here.” He looked J.C. in his eyes, put his arm around my shoulder and said, “He’s the real deal. They don’t get no realer. ” J.C. nodded in acknowledgement.

As we began walking back to the car I asked F.L., “That’s your plug? Dude is connected?”

F.L. waited until we reached the car, “Yeah, he’s real strong.” As if he were an oracle he continued, “Just make sure that you take care of me when you blow up.”

Blowing up is what happened and taking care of F.L. is what I did. I made sure F.L.’s shit was right every month. Whatever he needed I broke him off. F.L. got busted and served about a year right after he made the connection, but when he got out, I broke him off real proper.

J.C. didn’t have any immediate action at the time we met, so I had to continue with my original plans of buying kilos from various people to keep my money

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Compton Street Legend

flowing. A few weeks after meeting J.C., I went and bought fifteen kilos from one of my suppliers for $22,500 per kilo. One of my drivers had the kilos in the car in front of me, and I stayed on his bumper to make sure he didn’t get pulled over. We caught a red light at the intersection of Alondra and Long Beach Blvd. While we were sitting at the light, J.C. pulled up next to me, “Keffe D, what’s up? I’ve been looking for you.”

“Well, you found me. What’s up?”

He motioned for me to pull over to the side of the road. I told my driver to keep going to the stash house and put the load away.

J.C. leaned his head into the ride and said, “It’s on!”

“Oh yeah.”

“Follow me over to my dad’s house.”

Once we arrived, he let me know, “Big Dawg, I have kilos for $17k right now.”

My eyes widened, “You bullshitting? I just bought 15 kilos for $22.5k from my guy.” I did some quick mental math and calculated how much more I would make fucking with the Colombian. “I’m going to take this shit back.”

“No, no come roll with me real quick. Get somebody to ride with us.”

I was used to buying twenty to twenty-five kilos at a time, J.C. hit me off with 148 birds on consignment like it was nothing.

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He didn’t have to ask me twice. I got in touch with my brother Li’l Dog, “I need you over here with the quickness.” Li’l Dog jumped into a Maxima, swooped me up and we followed J.C. to a 1-bedroom apartment. It was fifteen minutes away in Hawthorne. J.C. unlocked the door, and we followed him into a practically empty apartment. He motioned for us to follow him into the kitchen. Once we got there, he started to open up all the cabinets. Each cabinet was filled with taped U-Haul boxes, “All of them are yours!”

My brother and I were stunned, as we stood staring at each other. Silence filled the kitchen.

“What?” I acted like I didn’t hear him.

“All of them are yours. Try to have the money within a month.”

There were 148 birds [kilos] inside the cabinets. I used to buy twenty to twenty-five kilos at a time, J.C. hit me off with 148 birds on consignment like it was nothing. The shit blew my mind ‘cause things like that don’t happen every day. At $17k a piece that amounted to a little over $2.5 million.

“No problem,” my mind was racing on how I was going to distribute the shit. But my thoughts crashed back down to the ground. I thought about the $337,500 I had just spent for fifteen kilos at $22.5k per kilo from my old connect. My brother and I began filling the trunk of the Maxima with the birds and quickly realized there wasn’t going to be enough

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room, so we put the last two boxes in the back seat of the car and took off. I got a hold of another one of my brothers who was out in Alabama with my partner C-Ray, “Come on home niggas, it’s on!”

“What’s going…” before he could finish the question…

“Nigga just come on home, I’ll tell you when you get here.”

They came home the next day. It was time to get out of Alabama anyway. Those Alabama niggas were starting to get jealous of us being out there. We were some big city pretty boys with money in our pockets and smelled better than them country ass niggas. So, naturally, their women were throwing plenty of action our way.

Aside from the jealousy, there was also racial shit still going on out there that would have led to me catching a case. One night I stopped at a liquor store in Birmingham to buy me some Cristal Rose and Dom Rose.

“Hey, can you give me two bottles of that and two bottles of that,” as I pointed to the bottles I was interested in buying. The white guy behind the counter was like, “Hey boy, can you afford these bottles?”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “What? Who the fuck are you talking to? You see a boy suck his dick!”

The nigga who was in the store with us from Alabama got scared and intervened, “No, he doesn’t

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mean that sir.”

“Yes, the fuck I do. Fuck you cracker.” My guys pulled me back out of the store. When we got outside in the parking lot, the Alabama nigga was like, “Man, they’ll kill you down here. They’ll hang you by…”

I cut that scary bullshit off, “Nigga I’ll blow that motherfuckin’ dudes dome off. Where we’re from, we don’t play that ‘boy’ shit homey.” Our time in Alabama was over.

We relocated out of Alabama near the end of ‘91 and started hitting other cities where we already had folks. We hit up Little Rock, Arkansas, Wichita, Kansas, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Atlanta, Georgia, Cleveland and Colombus, Ohio, and Baltimore, Maryland. Every spot we hit out of town we made new Crip members — South Siders to be exact.

Our growth plan was simple, move into places where we already had kinfolk or people we knew. They were doing light work, five kilos or something, and we made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. “You want to make some real money?” We’d hit them with fifty kilos and make them the man. “Here go fifty, give me $25k for each one.” They’d sell them for $30k, netting $5k each off of fifty kilos. That’s a quick $250,000 for them, and I was still getting my bread.

We always made sure to go through established people who were already in those areas. We were never stupid enough to attempt to take over other

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people’s turf, start gang wars or risk ourselves like that. My crew was not crazy, and I made sure we didn’t do any stupid shit under my leadership. We knew better than to put ourselves out there on front street, cause the local guys would get jealous, especially if you started having sex with their girls. I didn’t mix business with pleasure. I kept my shit in my pants. A large percentage of guys in prison today are in there behind a woman. One of my mentors once told me, “You can’t let little head lead big head. You let little head lead big head, and you’re going to be in a world of trouble — you’ll end up in prison or the ground.”

At my height, I was moving 300 kilos a month out of town, and another 100 kilos a week (400 per month) in the Los Angeles area. I maxed out at 700-800 kilos a month pulling in a cool $4.2 million monthly. I was able to thrive in the game for a while because there was a difference between the crew I put together and those that came before me. The main difference was that the team that I assembled were cold-blooded, off of their fuckin’ rockers. My crew consisted of my nephew’s homies — my little homeys — and they were willing to do, and did, whatever needed to be done.

“At my height I was moving 300 kilos a month out of town, and another 100 kilos a week (400 per month) here in the LA area.”

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vvv

Moving that much weight within the state of California and to other states without shipments getting busted was no easy task. Staying ahead of law enforcement required a good deal of ingenuity.

Back in the day, I used to get mad when rappers like Ice Cube would say lines like, “St. Louis niggaz want they corners back…” That was a line from the song, ‘My Summer Vacation’ from his 1991 Death Certificate album. To me, all Ice Cube was doing was snitching. He wasn’t sending any work to St. Louis, I was the one sending work to St. Louis. Then Jeezy had a song where he said, “The bigger the rims, the bigger the bird.” We used to put birds in rims. I would be mad at some of those rappers, especially the ones who weren’t in the game like that. I wished they would stick to recording because they were messing up the dope game and giving law enforcement inside information.

To stay ahead of law enforcement, we regularly had to change our methods for transporting product and money. We used to mail chickens [kilos] and cash through the mail, but we started having too many problems. One day I lost $350,000 via the United States Postal Service. The Post Office General and the FBI delivered the package to my wife’s relative, and when she signed for the package they raided her

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house.

“If you want to keep your ass out of jail for a very long time, you’d better call the person that this package belongs to,” an FBI agent told my wife’s relative.

“I told you it ain’t mine,” the relative said.

“We heard you the first time. Now get the person on the phone that it belongs to! Tell them their package has arrived,” the FBI agent warned.

The relative called my wife Paula and said, “Your man’s package just got here.”

“OK, I’ll be right over,” Paula replied.

Instead of calling me, Paula went over there to pick up the package. Wrong move.

Paula and I have been together for nearly thirty years, and we’ve been married for almost thirteen of them. That lady is a straight rider who keeps me laughing because she’s crazy, fun, and has been by my side through the good times and the bad. Nowadays, she thinks she’s Keffe D and sold all them kilos of cocaine.

When I got to my house looking for my wife, they told me she had already left to go pick up a package for me. If she had talked to me before going, I would have advised her not to fuck with the package because there were too many red flags. I knew something was wrong because the box was scheduled for overnight delivery but arrived two weeks late. Something was

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wrong, but she didn’t call me before she went over there. About forty-five minutes later my wife’s relative called me, “Your thing here.”

The house they lived in sat off the main boulevard, so instead of making the turn I kept straight up the road. Sure enough by the time I got to my wife’s car the Feds had the front hood, the trunk, and all the doors of her car open. This time Paula called, but before she could say a word, I said, “I see what’s going on over there, ain’t no sense in calling me with that bullshit.”

“Yeah you’re right, yeah you’re right,” was all she could say.

They ended up letting her go since it was just money. That was the first of the vast sums of money I lost using the mail, so we devised a better plan.

My boy F.L. once again was instrumental as he came through and hooked me up with a lawyer, who gave me some invaluable information. The lawyer’s name was Jerry, and he suggested we rent vans to transport. But he stressed that whoever drove the van to make sure they didn’t have their fingerprints on the birds [kilos]. He advised us to take the panels out of the van, and tape the packages to the walls. Then, put the panels and covering back up. If the van got pulled over, we could always say it was the people who rented the van before us. He was confident that he could get any of my guys out as long as their

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fingerprints were not on the drugs. One van could fit about 100 kilos. For a while, we had a lot of success transporting using that method.

vvv

I found out that J.C. wasn’t the devil when the FBI took him down in ‘92. He got busted with 350 kilos dealing with Little Tommy from Inglewood. Not long after he got busted, his little brother hit me up, “My brother got busted, but you want to continue working?”

I had been wondering what had happened to J.C. because he hadn’t been answering his phone.

Without hesitation, I answered, “Hell yeah.”

“Alright, go get you a driver,” I called my boy Oochie to come to get me with his Hyundai, and we followed the new plug to a hotel room in L.A. He had somebody bring us fifty kilos to the hotel that we loaded into the Hyundai.

On the way home, I had a heart-to-heart with Oochie, who was one of my closest friends, “You and me gonna roll off of this. Stick with me every day. I want you to be my right-hand man.” Oochie didn’t say anything he just nodded his head, so I thought he agreed with what I was saying. Both C-Ray and my brother Li’l Dog were out of town, so I shot C-Ray thirty birds and Li’l Dog fifteen birds in vans.

One of my homeys named Bubble Up said, “Give

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me a chicken [kilo] so I can go to Seattle, Washington.” I was like, “Here Dog.” Then Oochie said, “Give me a half a kilo and let me go up there with Bubble Up.”

I suggested, “You should stay here with me.”

He protested, “I wanna run my own show, just give me half a kilo and let me go up there with Bubble Up.” I’ll never understand why he didn’t say, “Give me the other four and let me go with Bubble Up.” I had just told him he was going to be my right-hand man. I would have given them to him since we were that close. Instead, I did as he requested and gave him the half a chicken.

My brother Li’l Dog and C-Ray both came back from out of town within a week with their money. My plug gave me another hundred kilos, so I gave both of them fifty kilos more. They went back to where they were stationed and then came back and reloaded again before Oochie and Bubble Up came back from Seattle with the money from the chicken and a half.

About three weeks later, Oochie and Bubble Up returned from Seattle. Bubble Up said, “Here’s $10,000 of your money. I’m going to give you $4,000 more; this dude is going to send me the money.”

“Alright cool.”

I turned to Oochie, “Where my money at?”

He said, “I’m going to give you $4,500, but I’m gonna take this other $4,500 and flip it and give you your money later.”

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The businessman side of me took over, “Oochie, give me my money! I got you Dog, just give me my money!” He was like, “Naw. I’m gonna flip this.”

I said, “Man, give me my money,” I was giving him a chance to do the right thing. He didn’t know I already had another 100 kilos at the stash house and was ready to break him off with more, but the nigga wouldn’t budge.

Completely frustrated I said, “Alright then, keep that. You can go ahead and keep that.”

I threw a big meeting with my crew and told everybody at the meeting not to mess with Oochie. “He’s gonna be isolated. He just sold himself out for $4500.” I couldn’t believe he did that. We started rolling big time, and he was Left Out Louie.

About three months passed and I was at a nightclub with my wife, drinking, looking fly, and this lady was flirting with me. I had to turn off because she was still looking at me and my wife doesn’t play that shit. Finally, the lady built up enough courage to come up to me and say, “I know you.”

I was quick to respond, “You don’t know me.”

“You’re Oochie’s homeboy. I’m supposed to go out there tomorrow to see him.”

“Where is he?”

“Out there in Cleveland.”

“And you’re going out there tomorrow?” C-Ray was in Cleveland, so I immediately got on my phone

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and asked him, “Man is Oochie out there with you?”

“No, you need to be checking with your brother.”

I called my brother, “Hey Cuz; you got Oochie out there with you?”

“Yeah, I got him out here. I was bored.”

Disgusted I said, “You’re always fucking with the rules dude. He was supposed to be isolated. I told everybody to put him on punishment to teach him a lesson.”

As inconsequential as those violations may seem, when I look back at things they were two of the first chinks in the armor that I didn’t pay too much attention to. But in hindsight, I definitely should have.

Some of the hard working homeys

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Bad Boyz

My connection to the New York music scene came through one of my East Coast clients, Eric ‘Von Zip’ Martin, we just called him Zip. I first met Zip back in 1990 or ‘91 during our annual South Side versus Santana Blocc street game of baseball. He was the pitcher for the other team, and we started calling him Doc Holliday after the Old West legend because he had a reputation of being a New York street dude. He was an intelligent, laid-back, good dude with a big heart. Zip knew everybody in New York. In fact, Zip is the one who introduced me to Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs back in 1991 or ‘92; the two were very close friends. I met a few people from New York through Zip.

About a year after our initial meeting, Zip came out to the West Coast and invited a few of us to a party they were having for Puffy at the El Rey Theater. At the time, Puffy was the talent director at Uptown Records working with Jodeci and Mary J Blige. About eight or

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nine of us took Zip up on his invitation and went to the party at the El Rey Theater with him. Zip was on the guest list, so he led us into the V.I.P. section. That night we met Jalil ‘Green Eyes’ from Whodini and Busta Rhymes. Zip brought us over to where Puffy was and made the introduction, “These are my folks.” We shook hands, and that was it. I could tell the nigga Puffy had a little swag, but he was like a young kid to me.

Back then Puffy was broke, relatively speaking because his music industry career was just getting started. I was the one with the big paper back then, filling up bathtubs with cases of bottles. They were still drinking that White Lightning corn liquor from the bootleg houses in New York. I wasn’t going for that shit, “Stop by the bottle store nigga.” I was poppin’ bottles. I was the one wearing glove fitting Armani, Versace, Canali, and Brioni suits.

I was rich when I met that motherfucker Puffy. I don’t blame him, but meeting Puffy has been like a bad dream from which I’m still trying to wake up. I hate that I ever met that son-of-a-bitch — my life has gone backward ever since. After that Vegas shit, the FBI shut me down on my ass. My days turned rainy fucking with Puff.

Puff got in touch with me a few months after we met to see about renting one of my ‘64 low-riders for Usher’s first video ‘Can U Get Wit It.’ I charged Puff

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$2,400 to use the low-rider for one day, sent the car up in the Hollywood area on a tow truck and had one of my partners stay up there with it. In the video, Usher was dancing on the hood and fucked up the paint, so they had to send me $4,400 to repaint it.

Back then, the South Side Compton Car Club was a well-off Crip set with about thirty-five cars, jackets, plaques in the window and everything. Several celebrities rented out our cars for videos including Marquis Houston, Melle Mel in his video with Red Man, and Eazy-E.

In the Summer of ‘95 Zip came through the neighborhood and said, “Puffy and them are having ‘The Beat’ Summer Jam show tonight at Irvine Meadows, Y’all wanna go?”

“Cool. Let’s go.”

When we arrived at the venue, Zip took us through the VIP entrance where all the talent entered. It was a helluva show. Treach opened up, then Jodeci, then Mary J. Blige, then Jr. Mafia, Biggie, then Puff, Faith, and Craig Mack. Biggie performed ‘Dangerous,’ ‘Juicy,’ and then brought the house down with ‘One More Chance.’ You definitely got your money’s worth at their shows with all the hits they were dropping.

I was rich when I met that motherfucker Puffy. I don’t blame him, but meeting Puffy has been like a bad dream from which I’m still trying to wake up.

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Our crew was twenty to thirty deep, and we were all up on the stage, most of us wearing Dallas Cowboys gear, drinking bottles and smoking weed. The performances took place on a rotating stage and on one of the rotations I spotted Suge standing over to one side. Suge appeared to me like he was getting jealous. Biggie had that hot ass hit ‘One More Chance,’ which was the banger of the summer. Suge had Death Row Records, but they didn’t have any big hits bangin’ at the time. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Suge looking at me; then he gestured for me to come over to speak with him,

“Keffe D let me holler at you.”

“What’s up dog?”

Then Suge asked, “Man, how you know them?”

“Nigga, the same way I know you, the dope game, that’s how I know them.”

After the show, that night Puff gave an off the chain after-party where he was the deejay. I didn’t know the nigga could deejay like that.

Not long after that show, the Source Awards happened and that’s when Suge made the controversial comment, “Any artist out there that wanna be an artist, and stay a star. And don’t have to worry about the executive producer trying to be all in the videos, all on the records, dancing — come to Death Row.” Wu-Tang and them were in the house deep and started booing. The beef was really with

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Wu-Tang, but I guess Suge seen them Wu-Tang niggas were some grown ass men, so they went and picked on them youngsters from Jr. Mafia. The beef wasn’t with Jr. Mafia; the niggas from Wu-Tang were the ones giving them a hard time.

Soon after Suge’s Source Awards comment, Zip came back in town. Zip must have orchestrated with Puff, “I’m gonna be with Keefe D and them tonight.” Cause Zip’s phone rang as we were rolling down Greenleaf, and it was Puffy.

He answered, “Hey, What’s up Puff?”

“Yo, where’s your boy Keffe D? I need to talk to him.”

“He’s right here.” Zip passed me his phone, “Puffy wants to talk to you.”

“What’s up dog?”

“Man, we’re about to do the BET Tour,” then he paused, “you think it’s cool for us to come out there?”

I was kind of puzzled, “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Your boy Big CEO, he’s tripping.”

He was talking about Suge. I didn’t know that their two factions were having funk at the time. Something had happened in Atlanta where Big Jake from Campanella Park had gotten shot, supposedly by Wolfie, one of Puffy’s bodyguards from New York. Our position was we weren’t getting in the middle of that shit.

I told Puff, “Just send me forty to fifty tickets,

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We didn’t give a fuck about Suge and his crew. To us they were roody-poos we had been fighting all of our lives.

and we’ll be in there deep at all your concerts,” and that’s what happened. Puffy would give us tickets to be at their Bad Boy west coast shows. We went everywhere with them fools. We’d meet up with them at the hotel, get the tickets and go with them. I used to ride in the van with the nigga. Crips were backstage deep at most of those west coast shows.

When Suge had everybody in the music industry intimidated, I knew he was soft and didn’t have a heart because I played Pop Warner football with the nigga. We didn’t give a fuck about Suge and his crew. To us they were roody-poos we had been fighting all of our lives. Up until then, Suge was in college hanging around rappers, perhaps punking rappers, but he couldn’t punk real street dudes. He wasn’t in the streets like that. He wasn’t going to do what real street niggas would do to your ass.

The way it would work was Zip would fly out and meet us at different locations. Zip always knew where Puffy was staying because they were close. When it was time to get the tickets, we would meet up with them at the hotel. That year on Halloween night, Bad Boy had a concert at the Anaheim Pond. I picked Zip up from the Long Beach Airport, and about twelve of us went to the hotel where they were staying. When

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we got to Puffy’s suite, Andre Harrell was in there, and there was a room full of Crips. We started drinking bottles and the nigga Puffy came out of the bathroom butt naked with nothing but a towel wrapped around him. I don’t know what the fuck he was thinking or trying to prove, but I would have never done any shit like that.

Puffy was so scared during this time that he had hired ex-Navy SEALS, wearing earpieces like they worked for the CIA in the hotel room right next to his suite. We were laughing our asses off. Them street niggas would have killed them SEAL’s fast as a motherfucker. It’s a dirty game on these streets. SEAL’s play by the books — street niggas don’t!

When it was time to head to the venue, I rode over in the hotel van with Puff and Zip. In the dressing room, they had a Kentucky Fried Chicken spread. The show that night featured Jodeci, Mary J. Blige, Naughty by Nature, the whole Bad Boy Crew, Craig Mack, Biggie, Li’l Kim, Total, 112 and Jr. Mafia.

When we got back from the concert, we were up in Puff’s suite playing 4-5-6, also known as Cee-lo on the East Coast, on a pan roll on the bed. It was Treach, D-Mac from Mansfield, who was also Puff’s college roommate at Howard University, Puff, and a few of the homeys. Those niggas didn’t know that shooting dice was my little hustle before I got started in the dope game. I was tearing their asses up.

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Arnell Simpson, O.J. Simpson’s daughter, was dressed in a cat outfit that night and came in the room to see Treach. That’s when O.J. was going through his shit. Treach told her to get on the bed and “Meow for ‘em baby.” She kicked her leg up and started meowing like a pussycat. Those parties used to be off the chain.

There were all kinds of drugs and shit being passed around, but we didn’t fuck with drugs like that. A lot of those pimp dudes like Don Juan, Good Game and them, they were smoking crack and snorting cocaine. One dude was sitting down sniffing a mixture of heroin and cocaine called a Speedball. I asked him, “What the fuck are you doing?”

He said, “This shit here is better than a nut!”

I had to tell him, “Nigga you don’t need nothing better than a nut. That shit doesn’t go down out here like that. Crips ain’t about that.” The only thing we used was weed and drank a lot of bottles.

vvv

One night when Puff and Zip were in town I got a call from Zip. “Yo, Puff said he needs to speak with you. Come to meet us at Greenblatt’s Deli on Sunset.” A few of my partners and I went down to meet Puff and Zip at Greenblatt’s Deli & Fine Wines. The place sat between a strip club and The Laugh Factory on Sunset Blvd. We went in through the back entrance and started smoking weed on the back patio. That

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evening Ronald Isley, aka Mr. Biggs, and Angela Winbush pulled up in there driving a triple white Rolls Royce — the rag was white, the seats were white, and the interior was cocaine white. That thing was pretty. Ms. Winbush had a white fur wrapped around her. They were supremely hard.

Zip and Puff were double dating that night. Zip was with one girl, and they brought one of the girl’s cousins, that was actually from our neighborhood, as a tag-a-long for Puffy. The girl from our neighborhood had the reputation of being loose, but Puffy didn’t know that. We were all laughing at that fool because he was all hugged up and kissing her, but he didn’t know the kind of girl she was back in the hood.

A group of us went downstairs to place an order. I remember ordering a pastrami sandwich then I added, “Give me a couple of those Taittinger Rosé…” Puff waved me over to step to the side with him, “I need to speak with you Big Dawg.” We stepped off to the side where we were able to speak privately. Like a lion on the Serengeti, I’m able to smell and see fear. Puffy was full of fear.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I have a couple of problems I need to be handled. Big CEO and Pac.”

I looked at him in his eyes, and without hesitation, I responded, “That’s not a problem. We can make that happen!” After our brief convo, we

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went back upstairs and ate. He ate at the table with the broads, and I was with my folks.

I didn’t tell my guys what Puffy and I discussed while we were eating, I waited until we were in the car on the way home. “The nigga Puffy want us to take care of Big CEO and Tupac. I bet the nigga would give us a million dollars for those niggas heads.”

While Puffy and Suge were in the midst of their ongoing feud, Tupac became a problem when he made that cold ass diss song, ‘Hit ‘Em Up.’ Pac ate them up with that song and Puffy didn’t like that. That diss song made Puffy mad, calling him gay like that. Wouldn’t you be mad? At the end of that song, Tupac hit us too with that “and if you want to be down with Bad Boy, then fuck you too!” That shit made South Siders mad. Even though he didn’t name us, we took that as a dig to the South Side.

Before the shit in Vegas happened, I ran into Tupac a few times. I can honestly say he seemed to be a cool guy. The first time I saw him was in 1989 at the Greek Theater where Flava Flav and his crew Public Enemy performed along with Digital Underground. Tupac was a part of the Digital Underground crew doing his little part on stage wearing a diaper. We were near the front of the stage on the side, and he came out with that punk ass diaper on. One of the niggas I was with from Tragnew Park was baggin’ on his ass, talking about a grown man walking around in

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a diaper.

We saw Tupac again at a house party in the Valley with a whole bunch of young, Black celebrities; Will Smith, Jada Pinkett, Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, Tichina Arnold, Duane Martin and his wife, Tisha Campbell. Puffy and Tupac showed up at the party together. I don’t know what the fuck was going on at that party, but I wasn’t feeling too comfortable there, so we got the fuck up out of there.

The next to last time we saw Tupac was when he got out of jail and came out with the record ‘California Love.’ Once again Tupac had a line in that song, “recognize from Long Beach and Rosecrans” which didn’t sit right with Southsiders.

Some South Siders were up at the House of Blues on Sunset, and we ran into Tupac. He was up there with Big Syke from the Outlawz. The homey Oldie went up and grabbed Tupac by the collar and pushed him against a wall and said, “Nigga, you know what that Long Beach and Rosecrans stand for?”

Big Syke spoke up, “Naw homey; he’s just rapping on a song homey. He don’t know what’s going on out here.”

Oldie warned him, “That’s some Piru shit. You better ease up on that shit nigga!”

Pac had his chance; he should have learned his lesson then. Tupac mistakenly thought Suge and the Death Row crew they were rolling with were

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untouchable and would protect him. He seemed to have lost touch with the reality of the streets that everyone can be touched. He didn’t understand that we were high powered, we did the shit he rapped about for real. We weren’t into that music industry shit; we were going up against real niggas in the streets every day of our lives.

Unfortunately, the next time we would see Tupac would be September 7th, 1996, the fateful night in Las Vegas, Nevada when Tupac and the crew he chose to run with crossed the line and put their hands and feet on my nephew Baby Lane.

“Tupac mistakenly thought Suge and the Death Row dudes they were rolling with were untouchable and would protect him.”

The low-rider used in Usher’s video

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Death Row

When my phone rang, I already knew who was calling and what it was about, “Nigga I’m on parole…I can’t be strolling up in no MDC.” The Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) is a US Federal prison in downtown Los Angeles. I was expecting Boss Man’s call because the day before he had sent his broad to visit me. She came by the house and passed along his message, “Boss Man wants you to go and visit him.” I shared my concern with her, “Tell Boss Man to give me a call.” When my phone rang the next morning, I knew it was him.

Boss Man had become a big-time nigga on the streets, and if he was calling me to visit him, I knew it wasn’t for no bullshit. In 1990 when the Feds took Boss Man down, they also took 41 people from his crew along with him. They confiscated all his shit; something like twenty-six cars, thirteen Harley Davidsons, four businesses, twenty-something

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houses and $9 million in cash. My dilemma was that I was nervous as hell to visit the MDC because I was still on parole. I wasn’t sure if I walked up in there if I’d be free to walk out.

After my opening comment, Boss Man responded like he didn’t hear a word I said. “Nigga, I got a plug up here, I need you to come up here and see me.” He had said the magic word, PLUG. The next day I pushed my nerves to the side and went to visit him.

“Dawg, I have 300 kilos out there that they didn’t get. I need you to move them for me. You’re the only one left out there.”

He continued, “I’m going to use the money to start this record company called Death Row. What you think?”

Shit, I didn’t know what to think, “Man, you know anything about the record business?” I asked.

“Naw. You want to be the head of it?” he asked.

“Hell no, I don’t know nothing about the record business either. Just give me the dope.”

“You think it’s going to work?” he wondered aloud.

I didn’t want to hurt his feelings but had to keep it real. “I don’t think so Dog, just giving you my true opinion. As far as moving the dope though, I’ll make that happen. Don’t worry about nothing,” I assured him.

My crew and I did the footwork, got rid of all

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three hundred kilos and delivered the money where it needed to go.

There have been books and documentaries about the inner workings of Death Row Records once it got started. I have nothing to say about any of that — the good or the bad. What I do have firsthand knowledge of is that the money for Death Row Records came from real street niggas. Boss Man was the real nigga that put the money up for Death Row Records. I don’t know how Harry-O got involved, I know Harry-O was locked up in MDC at the same time as Boss Man — both of them had drug cases at the same time. But I know Boss Man was the central player in that shit. I know that as an indisputable fact! That’s how Suge got into it because my boy had a couple of houses in Suge’s hood.

Boss Man had his girl running things for the record company. But she was only nineteen-years-old, a fucking kid. She didn’t know anything about the record business. Boss Man told me, “I need you to buy my broad a car so she can handle her business.”

“OK cool.”

“Dawg, I have 300 kilos out there that they didn’t get. I need you to move them for me. You’re the only one left out there.”

He continued, “I’m going to use the money to start this record company called Death Row.”

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I was looking for a Maxima or a Honda Accord; she came back with, “Boss Man said for you to buy me a Benz.”

“Bitch; I ain’t even got a Benz. That’s why he’s locked up now with that Benz shit.” I went on and copped her the Benz.

Boss Man and I ended up falling out over some dumb shit. His broad came over to my place one day with some white guys telling me to give her some money. I recalled some game one of my advisors once told me, “Bitches are like white boys, they will tell on your ass.” I never forgot that. I said, “Bitch…first of all, you don’t have no business bringing white people to my house. What you want me to be Boss Man’s cellmate? What the fuck are you trying to do?” I guess she relayed what I told her back to Boss Man and he must not have liked that shit.

Not only did me and my crew put the work in to get the money up to start Death Row, but one day Suge called me. He was trying to get in touch with Eazy-E, who along with Dr. Dre and MC Ren were all from the neighboring Compton Crip set, Kelly Park. Eazy-E used to sell dope with my brother, and my brother would go out on tour with N.W.A. We used to cook dope at his mama’s house. I remember when Eazy-E first started and he used to be on the turntables, and I’d be like, “What the fuck is that?” It used to sound terrible. Then when I was in the Pen, this fat nigga

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came over and was like, “Man that nigga Eric Wright is rolling.” And he started rapping, “Cruisin’ down the street in my 6-4.” I started cracking up.

Suge and I both knew Eazy because Eazy was in the dope game. Suge tried to influence Eazy to be on Death Row. Eazy-E was like, “No, I’m sticking with Ruthless.” Suge called me that day to ask me to help him get Dr. Dre’s number. I didn’t know Dre personally, but I made a few calls and got Dre’s number for him. Next thing I know, he convinced Dre to come to Death Row. Boss Man helped persuade Dre because they had a lot of money to play with. Eazy-E was throwing those little $70,000 checks around; Death Row had millions. When you cook that water (PCP), you’re an automatic millionaire. It’s a big difference in the level of money when you prepare that water.

When I heard the song ‘Deep Cover,’ the first shit Death Row released, I was genuinely happy for them Compton niggas. About a year later, Death Row Records blew up, and the rest is history. They came up and became one of the most influential independent record labels, generating hundreds of millions of dollars. They had some of the biggest names in Hip-Hop history — Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Tupac.

Eazy-E was throwing those little $70,000 checks around. Death Row had millions to play with.

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Dr. Dre was smart and got away from that bullshit at the right time, and now he’s one of the wealthiest guys in Hip-Hop. Dre saw that Suge and them were feuding with his homeys — going against the hood when they were supposed to be making millions.

I don’t know what possessed Suge to get himself into something that he didn’t have any business. I’ll never understand why the nigga Suge would wait to reach $100 million to become a gang member.

vvv

Don’t be surprised by the collaboration that existed and the part I willingly played in helping to get Death Row off the ground. Keep in mind, at that time things were cool between Suge and me. Remember, Suge was not a known Blood back then, he was a college student. Trust me; I would have known.

The generation of Crips that I come from is different than this new generation of Crips. When we were young, we were so dangerous that Bloods couldn’t even wear red around us because Bloods were our sworn rivals. Colors mattered to us more than the Union blue and the Confederate gray. The fighting between us was almost as fierce. If we saw somebody wearing red we would make a U-turn and get their ass, no questions asked. It’s calmed down a lot now, but in my generation Crips were vicious and people knew it.

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The first time I had a conflict with any of Suge’s Death Row people was at a video shoot for a group Suge was working with called the 69 Girls at a mansion in Hidden Hills. Sergeant Reynolds, who was a Compton Police officer, but moonlighted doing private security for Death Row, was out in front of the gate wearing his Wright Way Security gear. We had previous run-ins with Reynolds in Compton, and we didn’t know it then, but we were going to have more costly run-ins with him in the future.

Reynolds was like, “Y’all ain’t getting in, I don’t know why the fuck y’all came all the way out here.” We were about four carloads deep. We were at the bottom of the hill and needed to go up the hill where there was a gate to get in. I saw this girl from Compton that I knew and I yelled, “Hey, tell Suge to come down here.” After a few minutes, Suge came walking down the hill.

Suge asked, “Who all with y’all?”

“All of us,” as I turned to look over my shoulder at the crew I was rolling with that night.

He turned to Reynolds and said, “Let ‘em all in.” We were clowning Reynold’s ass as we rolled past the entry gate headed up the hill.

We were in there partying, watching the video shoot, then Suge and I got to talking about hooking up and doing some stuff together. Suge took a puff on the cigar he was holding, tilted his head up and blew

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out the smoke. He said, “Man, if we ever hook up we gonna be on top of the world.” I thought to myself, “Bitch, we already on top.” He did make some good points about how dominant our team would have been if we were to join forces.

The video shoot started outside by the swimming pool then moved inside. We were all standing by the stairs, and when I began to walk up the stairs this tall ass girl, she had to be at least 6’1”, started tripping. I’m not sure if as I started to walk up the stairs I brushed up against her ass or something, but if I did it wasn’t intentional.

The girl turned as I walked by and said, “This is Death Row motherfucker,” as if that was supposed to mean something to me.

“Bitch I don’t give a fuck about none of that shit.” Suge shut her down quick, “Bitch, shut up.” I don’t understand why she chose to fuck with me. Of all the people I was with I was the worse one for her to say that stupid shit to cause I really didn’t give a fuck. If she knew who I was, she wouldn’t have said that ignorant shit.

A couple of months later one night while we were hanging out at the Luna Park Club on Robertson and Santa Monica Blvd., we ran into that same girl

“Man, if we ever hook up we gonna be on top of the world.” I thought to myself, “Bitch, we already on top.”

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with her crew of girls. I knew I would run into her one day.

“You remember me bitch? This is Death Row motherfucker.” I was with some South Siders and Grape Streets. Those girls got their asses beat up in there that night. I don’t know if the girl ran back and told Suge, “Those South Side niggas beat us up,” but it didn’t matter to me either way.

The next time I saw Suge a few months later there was about fifty Crips; South Siders, Nutty Blocc’s and Grape Streets kickin’ it in front of the Palencia Club on Sunset Blvd., right across the street from the Roxy. Suge, Tupac, and Snoop rolled up, each in a different colored Rolls Royce; Suge led the way in a candy-apple red Rolls Royce with a matching red Godfather hat, Snoop’s was black, and Tupac was driving a white one.

“Keffe D what’s up?” Suge shouted.

All the Crips were like, “Damnnnnnnn Cuzzz.” Clowning me like that’s Keffe’s boy. Suge double parked and jumped out, “Hey man is it crackin’ in there?”

“Naw, not really. If y’all want some action let’s go to Club Paradise.” Club Paradise was a little club on Hyatt and Santa Monica. Back then, the term “ratchet” wasn’t invented, but if it had been most of the bitches in Club Paradise would have qualified. The girls up in Club Paradise would suck a niggas dick right on

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the dance floor. People would be screwing in the bathrooms — straight hood rat shit, and I let Suge and them know that.

The decision was made to go by Club Paradise to see if it was poppin’. I was riding in the car behind Tupac. There were crowds of people on both sides of the street, and when we hit the corner, somebody shot up Suge’s red Rolls Royce. I thought he was dead. His Godfather hat was lying in the street. Suge probably felt that we had something to do with that, but we didn’t have anything to do with that shit.

vvv

South Side was not one of the bigger sets in terms of numbers. But we were a proud, close-knit ‘family’ that took care of our own on every level and knew how to handle our business. One of my little homeboys named Victor, who was a major high school football player at Dominguez High School had received a scholarship to play college football for a PAC-10 school in Arizona. One day Victor and I got to talking, and he shared with me that he was getting ready to head off to college in a few days. Despite the hardcore street lives we were living and contrary to what many might believe, we were all very proud to see one of our own make it to that level and get out of the hood. I told Victor that we were going to have a nice send off for him before he left for college. We

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wanted him to go out to Phoenix and represent South Side correctly. Shit, we wanted our homeboy to be one of the most fly dudes on that whole campus. I told Victor, “Go on up to the Lakewood Mall to do some school shopping. We’ll meet you up there in a few.”

While Victor was at the mall he ran into three Piru gang members who were down with Death Row’s crew. They started gang banging on him as gang bangers do; throwing up gang signs, calling out their gang set. And calling the li’l homey a ‘Crab’, which is a demeaning and disrespectful way that Bloods refer to Crips.

What those Piru’s didn’t know while they were bangin’ on the homey Victor was that the Crip cavalry was on its way to the mall — awful timing for them. It had to be one helluva sight for Victors’ eyes because just as they were harassing the little homey about five South Siders mobbed through the Lakewood Mall doors. When he saw his backup coming through those doors, he puffed up, “Nigga it’s on. What’s that shit now nigga?”

Victor was a buff football-playing dude, so he knocked one of the guys out cold and snatched his Death Row chain. They got their asses beat up in there that day. One guy got knocked out cold, one of the other guys started having seizures, and the other guy got stomped out. The planned shopping spree had to be postponed, and the crew got the fuck outta

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dodge. When that shit was over, we didn’t even think about it again. It was another day in the life of a South Side Crip. We kept it moving, but there’s one thing that’s for sure when living that gangster lifestyle, you already know that the stuff you put out is going to come back; you never know how or when, but there’s never a doubt that it’s coming.

This seemingly routine incident in the life of real street niggas would lead to a cascade of events that would change the rap game forever.

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The Main Event

A few weeks after the Lakewood Mall incident, I was with a few of the homeys at the car wash talking about our planned excursion to Vegas to see one of the greatest boxers of all time, Iron Mike Tyson. I contacted one of my partners who I had done some jail time with from the Rollin’ 60 Crips that used to scalp tickets. We placed an order for some tickets with him.

The carwash owner, who was also a Crip, came over when he heard us talking about going to the fight and said, “Suge and them say they bought a hundred tickets for the Tyson fight.” That was good intel for us to have, but we weren’t tripping. It wasn’t going to get in the way of our plans to go down and enjoy the fight. As a Crip set, South Siders had been going to every big fight in Vegas since 1988. That was before rappers started going to Vegas to see the fights. In the 90’s, I would go to Las Vegas every Sunday during the NFL season and bet on the Dallas Cowboys, the San Francisco 49ers and the Green Bay Packers. So going to Las Vegas was routine for me.

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Me and my sister at the fight

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Me and my nephew Baby Lane

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We knew that Suge would have his hit squad of dirty police with him, they were some cold motherfuckers. But we were some street dudes, so we weren’t worried about that bullshit. The way we looked at it, they were recording industry dudes, but we were real street niggas.

September 4th - 7th, 1996 was supposed to be another weekend excursion like the many we had taken before. Little did I know, this trip to Vegas, unlike the ones before, would change my life. We left Compton for Vegas on Thursday afternoon around 1:00 o’clock. Everybody met up at my house, and we split from there. Before we hit the road, we had to keep with our established tradition of going to Greenblatt’s Deli & Fine Wine on Sunset to get some chilled bottles of champagne, just the way I liked them.

Even though Zip was from New York, he liked to roll with us when we went to Vegas for events. So he arranged to meet us at Greenblatt’s. We purchased two cases of Taittinger Rosé, at $150 per bottle. That Taittinger Rosé worked liked Viagra for me. We also picked up a few bottles of Dom Pérignon Rosé. Once we stocked up on our cold bottles, we were ready to hit the road.

My wife Paula and I were driving in a rented beige, 1993 Buick Regal. Riding in a green van was my brother, Li’l Dog, Fat Man and Tray. Zip and the female rapper Foxy Brown were in a black 500 series Benz.

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We rolled up a few fat joints with some California Orange weed, jumped onto the 10 Freeway, hit the 15, and jammed all the way out there. Frankie Beverly’s silky smooth ‘Before I Let Go’ got us started and we played hit after hit for the trip’s soundtrack; the Dramatics, Luther Vandross, Chaka Khan, The O’Jays, Anita Baker, the Isley Brothers. I wasn’t a big fan of gangsta rap since I was living that gangsta life. They were rapping about what I did every day. Instead, we cruised to Vegas the whole trip listening to non-stop classic R&B.

We arrived at the newly-opened Caesars Palace Resort and Casino around 5 pm. It was a huge place with all the amenities you could think of, and a massive casino floor, which was perfect since all of us loved to gamble. We laid our heads in the Caesars Palace, but for partying, kicking back and meeting up, we would always get some rooms at the Carriage House. The Carriage House was about a block off the strip, but it was cool because they had suites with kitchenettes where you could cook your food.

The night we arrived at Caesars Palace, we laid back, popped a few bottles, went down to the casino and started gambling big. We was betting $1,000 a roll, having a ball doing what players do. I gave my wife $2,500, and she went out with a few of the ladies who had traveled down with us. When it was time to be with us they were with us, but they did their

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separate girl stuff; shopping, gambling, and sitting by the pool.

On Friday, my nephew Baby Lane and some of my little homies came down and kicked it with us. Baby Lane was about 6’3” with an athletic build; he was slim but muscular, a one-punch knockout master. He was a good dude with a big heart. He’d give the shirt off of his back to anybody in need, and he loved life.

In all, we were down there about eighteen deep. We rented three rooms on the same floor at Caesars Palace and had a ball. For the major events not only would we be out there gambling and partying hard, but we would also do like Missy Elliott’s song and get supa dupa fly.

Once we gambled a bit, I headed over to the Versace store in ‘The Shopping Wonder of the World,’ also known as The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace. I purchased a $3,000 blue suit with white pinstripes, some blue crocs from the Gucci store, and a white shirt with a blue and gold tie. I went to Cousin’s Fine Tailoring and had them tailor my suit up for me. We went to Neiman Marcus and picked up some of that expensive ass Indian cologne that has a different smell every time you put it on.

When my nephew Baby Lane came down with his homeys, he saw former MLB baseball player Barry Bonds with a bad-ass brown Versace tuxedo. So Baby

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Lane, being the baller that he was, went out and bought a black version of the same $6,000 Versace tux he saw Barry Bonds wearing.

Some people have a hard time understanding how we were living. When they hear the word ‘Crip’ they imagine somebody with their pants sagging beneath their butt, but what they fail to realize is once a gangbanger becomes a Gangster, you pull your pants up! There’s a difference between gang bangers and Gangsters. We were Gangsters!

One year we went to Ice-T’s New Years Eve Party, and we were so fresh, smelling so good. We had our bottles in our hands, Ice-T was like “Those are some real players right there.” That night I was wearing a $2,500 cashmere overcoat over my suit.

Fight Night finally arrived. I sat on the second row not far from some of the celebrities that were in the house. Since I had purchased the fight tickets from my scalper buddy, our seats were spread out all around the arena. We had decided before we went in that when the fight was over, we would all meet at the café inside the MGM.

Once the fight started, it didn’t take long for Iron Mike to put Bruce Seldon’s lights out. Mike put him down on the canvas for the first time with about 1:40

what they fail to realize is once a gangbanger becomes a Gangster you pull your pants up!

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left in the first round then less than twenty seconds later the fight was over — TKO.

After the match, we headed to the prearranged meeting place where we waited for about fifteen minutes. Little by little everybody started showing up except my nephew. Then, some 118 East Coast Crips came and told us that they saw some Death Row niggas jump on my nephew down by the casino. We came to find out later that the same dude from the Lakewood Mall that got his chain snatched was walking with Tupac when they saw Baby Lane in the lobby of the MGM.

We rushed up out of the café and went to find Baby Lane. We saw him inside the MGM minutes after they had jumped him. By the time we got there Suge, Pac and their crew had already left. Baby Lane’s shoulder was a little messed up but other than that he was all right.

When I asked him what happened, he said, “Them Death Row niggas rushed me. One of them niggas from the Lakewood Mall was running with the boy that started that shit.”

A few East Coast Crips came over and asked if we wanted them to go with us. “Naw, we’re good. We’ll handle our shit, but good lookin’ out.” We appreciated their offer, but this was a matter we were determined to handle ourselves. We couldn’t let no record company studio gangsters do us like that. Had they

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lost their fuckin’ rappin’ ass minds? On top of that, Puffy had already talked to me about helping him out with the problem he was having with them niggas. That was a double whammy! Then you add on top of that the fact that we helped Suge with the money to get his record business going. And the nigga gonna bite the hands that fed him? Add insult to injury cause Suge still hadn’t paid Boss Man his money back, got too big for his britches and stopped taking Boss Man’s calls. Strike three homey, you’re out!!!

vvv

“Fuck that big homey; we know where them niggas gonna be…they gonna be at Club 662.” Their rage was evident, ignited upon learning that my nephew Baby Lane had gotten jumped.

“How y’all know?” I calmly asked.

“Them niggas been on the radio out here for weeks talking about a Death Row After-Fight Party at Club 662. That nigga Pac supposed to be there too.” Club 662 was a Las Vegas nightclub owned by Death Row CEO Suge Knight. The intelligence was from reliable sources as some of the younger homeys from our set had been stationed in Vegas selling dope — a satellite operation of sorts.

“Aiight homeys,” I commanded, “that’s where we’re going then, Club 662,” as we headed to our vehicles.

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South Side had not gone down to Vegas thinking about Marion ‘Suge’ Knight or Tupac Shakur; we were out there to do what we had been doing in Vegas for years; eat, drank and be merry! When conversations would come up about a million dollar bounty on the heads of Suge Knight and Tupac Shakur, that was business. But after Tupac, Suge and them Death Row niggas jumped on my nephew Baby Lane, the shit became ominously personal.

While we were waiting for the valet to bring out our cars, Zip seized the opportunity and called me over to his Benz. Zip was a big-time New York player, pimp, and hustler who used to come out to California to handle his business and kick it with us sometimes. As I walked up to the driver side window, I noticed that the rapper Foxy Brown was in the car with Zip. So, he instructed her to step out of the car and motioned for me to jump in. Zip had a hidden compartment that he opened up, reached in and pulled a black .40 Glock out. He turned to me and said, “It’s time to get the money.”

Zip handed me the 17-shot pistol which I promptly put down the back waist of my pants. I hopped out of the car, held the door open for Foxy Brown to get back in, closed the door, and they pulled off.

“Get in the car you came in, let’s roll,” I shouted as our cars came out from the valet. We left immediately

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from the MGM parking lot and headed directly to Club 662. I was still appropriately dressed in my Ray Luca Crime Story suit since there was about to be a real-life crime story.

We pulled into the back parking lot of Club 662 where the talent and VIPs entered. In front of the club, there was a long line of excited, drunk people waiting to enter the club.

I planned to confront Suge, “Hey Nigga, why the fuck y’all jump on my nephew?” The ironic thing is I had just seen Suge in Vegas the night before the fight. He and members of his Death Row crew were rolling in their Rolls Royces. We greeted each other and everything.

“What’s up Big Dawg?”

“What’s up?”

We were both major players in the same game, Suge had the music industry. I had the streets. We both had the same boss. If Suge and them niggas had a beef with something South Side had done, Suge could have said something to me when he saw me that night. Instead, Suge and his boys committed the ultimate disrespect when they kicked and beat down my nephew Baby Lane in a video seen around the world!

In case my diplomatic approach to resolving the situation didn’t work, we had three vehicles, three to four people in each, ready to burn their asses up. My

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crew was Do or Die. All my young homeys had already been shot at least once, so their street experience turned them into some stone cold killers. They learned not to wait to get shot but to be the shooter. They had the mentality of, “It’s either them or me, and it ain’t gonna be me.”

With solemn faces, we waited in complete silence in the back parking lot of Club 662 for more than an hour. Inside our vehicles, nobody took a drink; there was no weed, no music, not a peep. We were as grave as a heart attack. The only thing audible was niggas breathing and tense, throbbing heartbeats. There was no need for words; we all understood why we were there.

After waiting for that hour and a half, which felt more like four hours, I decided for us to get the fuck out of there. I called the homeys on their phones, “They’re taking too damn long. Let’s get fucked up. Move out.” One-by‐one, the drivers, started their engines and slowly crept out of the back parking lot. Lucky for them they never showed up because it would have been like Al Capone’s Valentine’s Day Massacre if they had.

One thing about our crew, when it was time to handle business we handled it with the best of them. And when it was time to have fun, we did that too. It’s not that we were over what had happened to Baby Lane, it’s just we couldn’t control when them niggas

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were going to show up. Waiting so long was stopping us from doing what we had gone to Vegas to do in the first place, have a good time.

Our next destination was the Carriage House, a Las Vegas hotel where we had rented a few rooms as a kickback spot. On the way to the Carriage House, we stopped by the Liquor Barn to buy some bottles of Dom Pérignon, Dom Pérignon Rose, and Cristal. As we were driving to the Liquor Barn, it became evident that the guys in the van with me were worried that Suge would get some of his police hit men to come back and try to kill us if we went after them. “The police do hits for that nigga,” one of them said. I remember thinking to myself, “Y’all shouldn’t have jumped your punk asses in here if you’re scared. Y’all know what we came here to do.” C-Ray, who was one of my top salesmen and later became the first one to start snitching on niggas, was in the van with me along with his cousin Tray, and BMF’s Big Meech out of Detroit.

As we were loading up to leave the Liquor Barn, I took advantage of the chance to get away from them scary niggas in the van. I jumped in the front passenger seat of the Cadillac because I knew the niggas in the Caddy wasn’t with that bullshit.

Inside our vehicles, nobody took a drink; there was no weed, no music, not a peep. We were as serious as a heart attack.

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I pulled out the Glock that Zip had given me and tossed it in the backseat. Bubble Up did the driving, Baby Lane and Freaky were riding in the back.

After our pit stop at the Liquor Barn, we continued toward the Carriage House. As we were driving, the two vehicles that were with us got caught at the traffic light, but we kept rolling. A few blocks down we were sitting at the light and who the fuck did we see? The Death Row caravan hit the corner with Tupac hanging out of the window of a Black, luxury BMW waving to his fans. People on the streets were screaming; “Tupac! Tupac! We love you Tupac!”

In unison all of our heads turned, “There them motherfuckers go right there.” If Pac had not been hanging out of the window, we would have never seen them.

“Bust a U, bust a U!”

Bubble Up busted a U-turn and hit the gutter lane on their asses. As they sat in traffic, we slowly rolled past the long line of luxury cars they had in their caravan, looking into each one until we pulled up to the front vehicle and found who we were seeking.

Like two rams locking horns Suge and I looked each other dead in the eye. Our eyes locked. The terrified expression on Suge’s face read; “Damn. Them niggas!” No words exchanged, the time for talking had passed, the shit was about to go down!

The next few seconds all happened so quickly.

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The shit was on! Tupac made an erratic move and began to reach down beneath his seat. It was the first and only time in my life that I could relate to the police command, “Keep your hands where I can see them.” Instead, Pac pulled out a strap, and that’s when the fireworks started. One of my guys from the back seat grabbed the Glock and started bustin’ back.

The first shot skinned Suge in his head. I thought the motherfucker was dead. I heard stories that Suge supposedly used Tupac as a shield when the bullets started flying. But that’s some bullshit. Suge was already wounded; he was the first one that got touched. As the rounds continued flying, I ducked down so that I wouldn’t get hit.

When the shooting stopped, we boned out, and a white Chrysler Sebring full of young ladies was following us. Their window quickly got shot out, so they stopped. The interesting thing to me was with all them rough ass niggas they were supposed to have with them, none of them did a damn thing and tried to come after us. There were a lot of shots let off in both directions.

I don’t know why the Vegas police didn’t check Tupac’s hands for powder burns to see if he was

“Tupac made an erratic move and began to reach down beneath his seat…Instead Pac pulled out a strap and that’s when the fireworks started.”

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shooting because the car we were in was shot the fuck up. I don’t understand why people that act like Tupac was an angel. Shit, the nigga had busted on some off-duty cops in Atlanta a few years earlier. So he wasn’t scared to bust. On top of that, by the time we rolled up he had to know the person they jumped on in the casino was a South Side Crip. So they had to be on high alert. When the shots settled a couple of people in our car had fragments and glass in their hair. But none of us had been hit.

The Strip was in an uproar as police cars and ambulances raced to the scene. Somehow Suge, instead of driving straight to Memorial Hospital, he did some studio gangster shit. He made a U-Turn back onto the Las Vegas Strip.

Confident that the Death Row crew and the police would be looking for the car that we were driving we abandoned the car and got away from it quickly. In some shit you’d see on The Twilight Zone, we scurried to get to the other side of Las Vegas Boulevard. When we got to the middle divider the light changed to red, and we had to wait on the median.

As we were standing on the median waiting to cross Las Vegas Boulevard, two ambulances passed by right in front of where we were standing with their sirens blaring; the first ambulance passed by with Tupac in it and the medics working frantically to provide medical attention. A second one, not too far

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behind had Suge in it.

There we were looking right into the ambulances transporting Tupac and Suge to Memorial Hospital. Everyone knows the rest of the story as six days later Tupac died as a result of his injuries.

The moral of the story, real Gangsters, are nothing to fuck with! It’s a ruthless way of life, one that I’ve lived for the majority of my life. Some gangster rappers have glamorized and glorified the life like it’s cool and something to strive for. They have a lot of people’s minds twisted. The truth of the matter is gang bangin’ and acting like a thug ain’t no joke. These street wars taking place in urban communities around the country are as real as the wars that US troops are engaged in around the world. In some cases, the streets’ body counts are even higher.

For us, Vegas was another day at the office. It may sound cold-hearted, but from a street perspective the killings of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls would be considered nothing more than collateral damage. As a result, the Hip-Hop world has lost two of it’s most talented and revered musical artists and icons.

At this point in my life, I can say that I have a

Pac chose the wrong game to play and the wrong niggas to play with…He shouldn’t have ever got involved in that bullshit of trying to be a thug.

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deep sense of remorse for what happened to Tupac. He was a talented artist with tons of potential to impact the world. I hate that Tupac’s family, friends, and fans, especially his mother, Afeni Shakur, had to go through the pain of losing her son. It’s terrible losing people like that; I know that pain too well.

However, I stand firm on the point that Tupac, Suge Knight and the rest of those niggas didn’t have any business putting their hands on my beloved nephew, Baby Lane. Period. Them jumping on my nephew gave us the ultimate green light to do something to their ass.

Tupac chose the wrong game to play and the wrong niggas to play with. Suge and them should have done a better job of protecting that dude because they knew who the fuck we were and the kind of shit we were capable of. Tupac may not have known, but Suge and his peeps definitely knew. Tupac was a guppy that got swallowed up by some ferocious sharks. He shouldn’t have ever got involved in that bullshit of trying to be a thug.

South Side Crips earned some stripes on the collar from street niggas due to the Tupac shooting. But it generated too much attention and put us under a microscope by law enforcement that would not cease and eventually brought us down. It was a big-time loss for everybody involved.

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Aftermath

When we made it back to the hotel, we popped our bottles and partied like it was any other night. Of course, someone suggested that we, “Pour out a little for Tupac,” which we did. And, smoked our weed like we had planned to do in the first place.

Instead of being with us, C-Ray was still out partying at the MGM hotel club. Someone from another Crip set pulled his coat, “Nigga you better get the fuck up out of here. You ain’t heard what your homeboys just did?” C-Ray left the club and came over to the Carriage House once he found out something went down. “What happened y’all?”

“Nigga we don’t know nothing.” I was thinking, “We know you’re gonna snitch nigga,” and I was right. That nigga eventually did snitch.

After partying most of the night in Vegas, we left the next morning. We rolled by and scooped up the Cadillac from where we had ditched it the night

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before. The night of the shooting, the gun was placed on one of the tires of the Cadillac. But when we went back for the car the next morning, the gun wasn’t there. We jumped on the Freeway and headed back home to Compton.

I rode back with my wife and nephew in the same rental car. One of the homeys drove the Caddy, and we were following on their tail the whole time. At one point when we got around the rest area in Barstow, a white San Bernadino Sheriff car followed us for about ten miles before turning off. During the drive home, I laced Baby Lane with the game, “Don’t tell nobody what happened! Not even your mama!!! Don’t say a motherfucking thing.”

Sure enough, when we made it home, the streets were spooked. Inquiring minds wanted to know, “What happened in Vegas?”

“Nothing,” was our only reply.

Once we got back to Compton the Caddy sat for a couple of days. Then we took it to the paint shop to be painted and cleaned out before returning it to the rental car place. By then it was too late for any forensics to be accurate and reliable.

vvv

The Sunday we returned was one busy day. When we got home, we watched some of the news reports. My uncle, who was a stone hard gangster,

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came over early that morning with the newspaper and some coffee. I was in my back house, and he stormed in, “Nephew, this nigga done told on two niggas at one time.”

“Who?”

“Man, you read this shit Suge said in this article?” He read part of the article out loud, “Keffe D’s nephew…” My uncle concluded, “If that ain’t dry snitching I don’t know what is. He’s trying to take down two motherfuckers at the same time.” With that first newspaper article, Suge was essentially telling on Baby Lane and me. Suge could have said my little brother’s nephew. But instead, he used my name “Keffe D’s nephew.”

I’ve seen Suge a few times once I got out of the pen. The first time was when the Lakers were playing the New Jersey Nets, and my older brother had bought some tickets. The halfway house I was staying at permitted me to go with my brother to the game. While I was there getting hot dogs, I saw Suge with three or four white guys and three brothers. When the motherfucker saw me, he looked like he was scared straight. He came over to where I was, “What’s up homey? I’m glad you stayed strong for me man. All them niggas from my neighborhood…” I wanted to say, “You the first one bitch.”

I started to hate watching MTV during that time because it seemed like every hour on the hour

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MTV would report, “Rapper Tupac Shakur is in critical condition. Reports indicate that Crips out of California…Keffe D’s nephew.” I was like, “Goddamn, why they keep using my name?” That fucked me up when some of the early reports were using my name. That information had to come from Suge since he was the only one who could have known.

That same day my new Colombian plug, J.C.’s little brother called. He was usually really laid-back, but this time there was urgency in his voice. “Meet me at the Chevron over at El Segundo and Sepulveda,” he said. When I pulled into the gas station, he walked up to my car faster than usual with this scared look on his face and asked, “Man, was that y’all?”

“Yeah.”

“Come on homey you’re supposed to be smarter than that. We have a multi-million dollar business. You’re tripping.” His words of disappointment were piercing, mainly because he was right; I was tripping. I did the same dumb ass shit I said Suge shouldn’t have been doing. I had risen out of gang banging and elevated to the level where I was running a multi-million dollar business. Suge did his with the record

“I was tripping. I did the same dumb ass shit I said Suge shouldn’t have been doing…Suge did his with the record company I did mine illegally in the streets.”

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company, I did mine illegally in the streets.

Li’l J.C. continued, “I’m outta here. I’m not going down with you all. Y’all are going to jail.” He was a smart dude and the next day he was on an airplane on his way back to Colombia. At the time Li’l J.C. left, I was balling, getting three hundred kilos a month from him at $10,000 a piece, selling them locally for $13,000-$14,000. And selling them out of town for $25,000. Li’l J.C. leaving the country put me out the dope game for a while.

At about 3 o’clock Monday afternoon, the action picked up when one of the leaders of the gang banger section of our ‘hood got shot seven times in the stomach in front of the neighborhood liquor store. Somebody from the other side did the shooting.

That first Monday afternoon shooting raised the alarm in our hood. I threw a meeting after it happened and told the youngsters to handle the young niggas from the rival neighborhood. We, the older dudes, would deal with the big motherfuckers. After that, a brutal month-long gang war broke out between our two factions. Them young niggas from our set went crazy on the Bloods. Their side lost about six people, and we lost one, and we had a couple of homeys get wounded.

Suge’s hands weren’t clean; he participated in beating the shit out of my nephew, so we went after Suge after the war broke out too. Suge spared his own

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life by not staying at his spot in the Valley. Once the war broke out, he left and stayed out of town for a while. I know because we were on his bumper — he was unaware that we were staking-out his house. We had a little hideaway spot out in Studio City. And we were going out there every night looking for them niggas.

We knew where he lived because we had people who worked with the phone company, with the DMV, and females who worked at the courthouse. So it was easy for us to get an address.

South Side had homeys who were Samoan, Mexican, and White; we were not just Blacks. My next-door neighbors were two white boys, gangsters that would blow the noodles out your head. We had one of the white boys dressed up in a UPS uniform knocking at the door of Suge’s studio. We gave another white boy a buzz cut and dressed him up so that he looked like a cop; if Suge had answered that door, his ass was ours.

By 4pm the soldiers were on my street, strapped up and ready to begin our search and destroy mission. By 4:10 pm Reggie Wright Sr., who was the Captain of the four o’clock shift for the Compton Police Department was at my house. I guess he finished his orientation with his officers real quick. Then that nigga must have jumped in his squad car and came straight over to my house. His son, Reggie Wright Jr.,

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was the head of Death Row’s security, and with the battle that was going down in the streets of Compton, Reggie Sr. was concerned about his son’s safety. He came flying down the street in a Compton police car, ran the stop sign, pulled up on the wrong side of the road and hit the brakes, “Errrrhhhh…” He jumped out of his car and left the door wide open. Then he started screaming, “Let me tell you something Keffe D! If you motherfuckers kill my son [Reggie Jr.] it’s gonna be hell to pay.” I just looked at him like he was stupid. “You niggas kill my son and the gloves are coming off.”

“What the fuck is you talking about? Nigga please.”

He yelled back, “I’m just telling you, motherfucker,” then he jumped back in his police car and sped off.

Once he left, I had to let a few of the homeys know, “We might have to crack some police heads. They will kill for that nigga Suge.” The proof was in the pudding when Captain Wright came over with that threat. He made it clear whose side he was on. Now, both Reggie Wright Sr. and his son Reggie Jr. have been charged with federal drug trafficking and

“We had one of the white boys dressed up in a UPS uniform knocking at the door of Suge’s studio. If Suge had answered that door his ass was ours.”

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money laundering charges. Them niggas have been dirty for years, and it finally caught up with them.

About an hour later some of Compton’s dirtiest, Sergeant Reynolds and his crew came and raided our houses. During the ’92 riots, there was a Crip set that broke into an Army surplus store and took all of their guns. They sold me two crates of guns for $3600 per crate. There were ninety guns in each crate; MAC’s, Glocks, AK-47’s. We put in a lot of work with those guns. My homeys used them motherfuckers up wearing people’s ass out. During the raids, they took a large amount of our guns, attempting to leave us butt naked. I sent word with Zip to tell Puffy to send us some cash so we could get us some more guns. But that never happened. Luckily, because of my Colombian connection, we had a new crate of firearms the next fucking day. The streets were hot.

The third day after getting back from Vegas a few of us met with Zip at L.A. Hot Wings near 3rd Street and LaBrea. While we were meeting with Zip, Biggie’s wife Faith called him, then a little after that Puffy called Zip and asked, “Was that us?” I didn’t say a motherfuckin’ thing.

A few weeks later C-Ray’s next-door neighbor got killed. The dude wasn’t from South Side, but he grew up in our neighborhood. He worked as a Compton Unified School police officer and also volunteered with the Compton Police. The guy was on his way to

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work and to drop his daughter off at school. He put his daughter in the car, and when he walked around to get in the vehicle, a red car came around the corner. They shot him thirty-five times with an AK-47. That hit was meant for C-Ray but they got the wrong person. After that failed hit, C-Ray decided to start working with the police and became a confidential informant.

One day, I was over in the Jordan Downs Projects chillin’ and C-Ray came over and said, “Keffe D, Suge got a hit out on you, me and Li’l Dog.” I could hear the nervousness in his voice.

“Me, you and Li’l Dog?”

“Yeah, for $100,000.”

“Nigga, how you know that?”

“I’m just telling you Dawg.”

C-Ray pissed me off with what he said, so I told him, “Wherever you got that shit from you tell that nigga that I’ll hit Suge for free motherfucker. Wouldn’t cost a dime to hit his punk ass.” Those niggas knew I wasn’t any joke. I’m from the streets for real; them niggas were with that record company shit. We were Crippin’ for real. We were not fakin’. Meanwhile, I was wondering where did C-Ray get that information?

“He put his daughter in the car, and when he walked around to get in the vehicle, a red car came around the corner. They shot him thirty-five times with an AK-47.”

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The FBI came and raided our houses two days later and threw everybody in jail. Again I just missed getting caught. The person who saved my ass this time was a man that lived in the neighborhood and collected old cooking grease from restaurants. He happened to be on his way home from work at three in the morning, and saw loads of FBI and police setting up at the Winchell’s Donut shop in our neighborhood. He came and knocked on my door, “Keffe D, I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but there’s a whole lot of police, buses and news people at the Winchell’s Donut shop.”

“You bullshitting?”

I could tell from his facial expression that he was serious. “Hold on…” I ran and grabbed my shit, put on some clothes and jumped in the truck with him. He took me to the Metro rail station, and I caught the Metro rail to Watts and disappeared into the projects. I watched the shit on the news in the morning. They came and raided my house, but I got up out of there about five minutes before they arrived. Lucky for me the grease man saw their asses, otherwise I would have been caught up in that raid.

Around seven in the morning about one week after Vegas, Boss Man’s auntie came and knocked on my door, “My nephew wants you to be at my house at seven o’clock tonight so he can talk to you.” I went around there and talked to Boss Man, and he told me,

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“Man, your boy C-Ray wants me to get in contact with Big CEO.”

“He wants you to get in contact with Big CEO?” I repeated what I heard to make sure I had it right.

“Yeah.”

“What that nigga doin’?”

“He is trying to say he ain’t in that shit. He’s trying to sell y’all out. I don’t know what’s wrong with that nigga!” C-Ray was one of the guys in the van in Vegas. In fact, he was the main one in Vegas in the van acting like a bitch. That pissed me the fuck off. I guess when his neighbor got killed that shook his boots.

A few days later my nephew and I went to IHOP for breakfast over on Alameda and Compton Blvd. We were there eating breakfast, and the mayor of Compton, Omar Bradley, and Councilman Green came in there mad-dogging us, acting like they were tough. I said, “Man you tripping dude, what the fuck is wrong with you? You better leave us the fuck alone.” They were on Suge’s team also.

Then I made a crucial mistake; I threw a big meeting for our neighborhood at a park in Cerritos. All the homeys showed up. I did all the talking, and the Feds knew everything that I said to them because there were some informants among us. I should have never done that. That’s where they got the idea that I had a leadership role within the set, which caused the Feds to start following me around everywhere I went.

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Agent Holliday was the head of the Major Crime Unit for the FBI Central District of L.A. Holliday, and his crew was on my ass from that day on. As time passed they raided everything and everybody. They raided South Siders and Suge’s Death Row/Mob Piru people.

vvv

Right before Suge was about to go to court for violating his parole for his part in the casino beating of my nephew, I received a call from Baby Lane who was up in our lawyer Edi Faal’s office. “Unc, come up here and bring two guns.” Edi Faal is from Gambia and made a lot of money off of our family from dealing with my nephew and me.

“Bring two guns?”

“Yeah. Come up here as soon as you can.”

The Reaper and I rushed up to Edi Faal’s office. When we arrived and entered the office, we saw Compton Police Captain Reggie Wright Sr. and Compton Police Sergeant Reynolds sitting in the waiting area with Suge Knight. That was an incredibly uncomfortable and awkward couple of minutes while we all occupied the same small space. That was the reason Baby Lane told me to bring two guns, just in case.

The three of them were there to meet with Baby Lane before Suge’s probation violation hearing in an

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attempt to keep Suge from going to jail. They offered to pay Baby Lane $60,000 for him to appear in court and say that Suge didn’t kick him in the casino. Baby Lane went to court and said that shit too, and got paid the $60,000. But the judge in the case ruled that Suge was an ‘active participant’ in the attack anyway. Once Baby Lane received that payment the war between our two functions chilled.

The thing that fucked me up was to see both a Captain and a Sergeant from the Compton Police Department in there with Suge. That just confirmed what we already knew; Suge had crooked ass police on his payroll. We weren’t competing against regular street niggas like us, Suge’s hit men were the police. Those niggas carried badges and guns and could pull us over and were licensed to blow our brains out.

From the Compton PD, Suge had Captain Reggie Wright Sr., Reggie Wright Jr., and Sergeant Reynolds. From LAPD’s scandalous Rampart Division, he had Rafael Perez and David Mack, both of whom were Suge’s homeboys, Blood niggas. Almost all of them have been in the newspapers for being rogue cops and connected to Suge. What most people don’t know is that they were putting hits down for that nigga.

Suge’s hit men were the police. Those niggas carried badges and guns and could pull us over and were licensed to blow our brains out.

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Over the years they bumped off a few of our people. I have strong reason to believe my buddy F.L. was one of their victims. I’m lucky to be alive.

Even though the beef between our two factions quieted down the funk wasn’t over. Retaliation from the other side was a necessity, it was just a matter of who they were going to go after — they chose Bad Boy.

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An Eye for an Eye

“But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth…” Holy Bible- NIV (Exodus 21:23-24)

The night before Biggie got killed me and two of my homeys, Bubble Up and Oochie went to the House of Blues on Sunset Blvd. to see our South Side homey Davey Wavey, who was Mack 10’s manager. That night they were having a posthumous album release party for Eazy-E, who had passed away the year before.

Davey Wavey was up in the VIP section and screamed down when he saw us, “Yo, Keffe D your boy Puffy up here.”

We went up in the VIP section and saw Snoop Dogg, Willie McGinest, and Li’l Blue; they were all from the 20’s, or Insane’s down in Long Beach.

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Biggie and Puffy had come into town to promote Biggie’s new album ‘Life After Death.’

Puffy came over, we greeted each other, and he said, “What’s up Dawg?”

“Just chillin’.”

There were too many people inside to talk, and we had a lot we needed to talk about. Puffy told me to meet him the next night at a party they were having at the Peterson Automotive Museum.

Once the House of Blues party was over my homeys Bubble Up, Oochie and I were sitting in front of the venue in a rental car, trying to get some bitches. I was sitting in the passenger seat, and Oochie was in the back.

“There that nigga Puffy go right there,” one of the homeys observed. “Who’s that he’s walkin’ with? Is that Vivica Fox?”

“Yeah, that’s her.” If it wasn’t, it must have been her identical twin. They were all walking out of the House of Blues together.

I yelled out, “What’s up homey?”

Puffy turned his head in our direction to see who was calling and when he saw it was me he strolled over to the car and came up to the window. Puffy’s

Puffy’s eyes got wide and his heart had to be racing when he got to the car and saw all three of us sitting in the car with some high-powered straps in our laps.

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eyes got wide, and his heart had to be racing when he got to the car and saw all three of us sitting in the car with some high-powered straps in our laps.

We were strapped up because our hood was at war with each other. It had gotten dangerous in our hood, five of the homeys had already lost their lives. You could hit the corner and die; it was that thick. Baby Lane had a bullet stuck in his head and got shot with an AK between both knees during that internal neighborhood feud. It hurt me to see us going against each other like that.

Puffy was unaware of all the drama that was going on in our neighborhood. So he was visibly shaken by our menacing presence. Puffy still hadn’t paid us any money, so it’s probable he thought the straps we were carrying was for him, but they weren’t, we had them for our own protection.

Puffy bent down at the car window and shared the activities they had planned for the next couple of days. “Man, tomorrow afternoon we’re giving a basketball game at Cal State Dominguez Hills, I already told you about the party tomorrow night we’re giving at the Peterson Automotive Museum. Then, we’re going to have a picnic at Spelling’s daddy house the following day. Y’all need to come through.” When he finished, he nervously backed up out of there. He didn’t pay attention to the beautiful women he walked out with; he wisely made sure to keep an

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extremely watchful eye on us.

The next day a few of us showed up to the basketball game at Cal State Dominguez. Puffy was up there with Missy Elliott. We ran into Kurupt, and Daz Dillinger from the Dogg Pound and Snoop Dogg was also there. The only one that was acting like he was a Super Crip too good to fuck with us was Daz.

When I went to Federal prison, Daz made a song that had subliminal messages in it that I didn’t like. As luck would have it, my boy Bubble Up and I ran into the nigga in Compton at one of my homey’s weed spots not long after I got out of the Feds.

“Nigga, you know who we are?”

“Naw, naw,” he responded.

“Nigga, I’m Keffe D from South Side nigga.” His eyes lit up like silver dollars; he was ready to shit his pants.

“What’s all that shit you talking? Nigga, you a rapper, you’ll get your ass beat the fuck up or hurt real bad talking shit, stupid ass.”

“Man I was just brainwashed by Suge. That’s where I was eating.”

“Nigga, you were eating with the wrong people, bitch.” He was scared to death, shaking like Don Knotts. I could look into his eyes and tell he wasn’t hard. Another case of a rapper who wasn’t really about that life claiming it like he was.

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vvv

After the basketball game, we arranged to meet Zip at the bar next to the rooftop pool of the Hyatt Hotel on Sunset Boulevard. When we arrived Zip was already up there with Keyshawn Johnson, the wide receiver for the New York Jets. We met them at the hotel, got fresh, then headed out to the Petersen Museum.

There was about fifteen South Siders in the party that night having us some fun. Puffy and Biggie were both sitting on thrones and wearing black Be-Bop hats surrounded by buckets of bottles; they were doing it big by then.

We had been in the party for about fifteen minutes when my phone rang, “What up?” It was my people from Grape Street.

“What up Big Dawg? We down here out front trying to get in.”

“How many you got with you?”

“Hold up…there’s nine of us.”

“Aiiight, hold tight. Let me see what I can do.” I told one of the Bad Boy bodyguards we needed nine more tickets, but he was only able to get us six. When the six dudes from Grape Street came in one of them came over and told me, “Them Blood niggas are out there.”

“They deep?” I asked.

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“Not as deep as us.”

I decided to go back outside to see if I could get the three other dudes from Grape Street who were still waiting outside. When I got down there, just like the homey stated, I saw DJ Quik, Theo, the Asian on-air radio personality that used to work for the radio station ‘The Beat,’ and they were out there with about eight other Blood niggas that I recognized.

Somebody must have told Puffy that we were in the building because he came over to where we were and whispered, “Man, the FBI is in the building. They’ve been following me ever since I’ve been out here. I don’t want y’all catching my heat so stand down.” There was no way I was going to talk to him about anything serious after he told me that.

Puffy handed me two bottles of Dom P. and one bottle of Cristal and said, “Y’all have a good time.” As Puffy started to turn and walk away, I motioned for Puffy to come in close and I told him, “Y’all be careful, them Blood niggas are in here.”

In particular, there were two broads from Death Row that were inside that party that should not have been in there. Their only purpose in that party was to set Puffy and Biggie up. I saw it coming, but the Bad Boy crew couldn’t see it. Puffy told me that the FBI had been following them around. So I guess he thought they were going to be protected by them motherfuckers.

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After Puffy gave us the bottles we went to one of the corners of the room and threw our own little party. Once we started burning that Cali weed people began gravitating over to where we were. Janet Jackson, Aaliyah, all kinds of people came over to where we were because they could smell that weed. Ricky Bell from Bell Biv Devoe followed us around the whole night like he was from South Side. We had a ball that night. Every superstar football player you can name was at that motherfucker. It was the baddest party I’ve ever been to in my life, and we were up in there looking fly.

People couldn’t look at us and tell we were Crips because we didn’t dress like stereotypical street thugs. I would buy expensive suits, crocodile shoes, all kinds of fly shit. I might fly to New York to have dinner and on my way back to L.A., stop in Cleveland to check on my money. Those Black credit cards that celebrities carry cut off after you spend too much money. I know from hanging out with Eazy-E, his shit used to cut off. Meanwhile, I would have $30 - $40k cash in my pockets, my shit wasn’t cutting off, and I’d have $2-$3 million sitting at home in the closet.

Back in the late ‘80s early ‘90s, our crew used to be on the Sunset strip having a ball damn near

I motioned for Puffy to come in close and I told him, “Y’all be careful, them Blood niggas are in here.”

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every night for ten years straight. Life on the strip was popping; the club scene, the Comedy Store, the Century Club on Sunday night, Paradise on Thursday. Britney Spears and them would be up in some of them spots. I believe that if the Kardashian sisters, Kim, Kourtney and Khloé and Paris Hilton and them were on the Sunset Strip back in the day when we were ballin’, them bitches would have been with us cause we knew how to ball. Bitches love gangsters; in fact, they’re addicted. I’m not talking about gangbangers; I’m talking about Gangsters.

I would drink Remy Martin XO in the daytime and Louis XIII, which back then was $1300 a bottle, at night. I had a connect that would bring me cases of it at a discount. I remember one day my wife drunk up my Louie and put some VSOP in the bottle. You’re supposed to drink Louie XIII warm, so I poured a little out and put it in the microwave for 30 seconds so it would go down nice and smoothe. After I warmed it up and started drinking it with my pinky out she said, “Nigga you drinking VSOP.”

One thing I never did get involved with was trying to supply none of them celebrities that used to

“I believe that if the Kardashian sisters…were on the Sunset strip back in the day when we were ballin’ them bitches would have been with us cause we knew how to ball...Bitches love gangsters…”

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be on the strip partying, you’d go to jail quick fucking with them. That Sunset shit would get your ass hot with the Feds, they’d be up in those clubs. Plus I was bigger than that, I was selling kilos. I didn’t even touch shit. I’d go do the negotiations at the breakfast table but I never touched shit once the negotiations were done. I’d wait on the money to come in. You couldn’t even talk to me cause my crew had me protected.

Before long the Fire Marshall’s came and closed the motherfucker down because there were too many people inside. The valet started bringing people their cars. We were still standing there waiting for our vehicles and Biggie came up first. He saw us and rolled down his window, “Man, we at the Beverly Hilton, y’all come up there with some of that California weed Big Dawg.”

Biggie was a cool brother, and he liked smoking that California Orange weed. Then Puff came up, we gave each other dap, and he said, “Don’t forget tomorrow we’re giving that BBQ at Aaron Spelling’s house on Doheny Drive.”

Biggie pulled off first then Puff pulled off right behind them and made a right turn. About three or four minutes later somebody came running back in our direction screaming, “They shot Biggie, they shot Biggie.” I didn’t hear any shots because we were under the parking structure. Then my boy Oochie came running back up in there, “Yo, they just smoked

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Biggie.”

“What?”

“Yeah, they just killed Biggie.”

“Fuck.”

Biggie was dead ten minutes later. Officers from LAPD came and started escorting people out of there.

Not long after Biggie’s killing rumors started swirling that South Side had killed Biggie. That’s when Puffy began distancing himself from us. He was likely scared to death thinking we were going to go after him next.

Chillin’ with the homeys

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The Big Squeeze

A few days after the Biggie shooting Suge’s boys, led by Sergeant ‘Crooked Ass’ Reynolds, pulled my nephew Baby Lane over and said, “You motherfuckers done killed Biggie too cause they didn’t pay you the money for Tupac!” Reynolds had part of the story right, we hadn’t been paid yet, but he was completely wrong about us killing Biggie. That was some bullshit. Why would South Side kill Biggie? We used to hang, smoke, and break bread with the nigga.

The crooked cops from Compton, Suge’s boys, were the ones that started the rumors and put the idea in the heads of the police higher-ups downtown that South Side was responsible for killing Biggie to distract and deflect the heat up off of their asses because they know their side did that shit. They were cops, but they were trying to be Bloods at the same time, moonlighting as part of Suge’s hit squad.

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“You motherfuckers done killed Biggie too cause they didn’t pay you the money for Tupac!”...That was some bullshit.”

They didn’t know what side of the fence they wanted to be on, so the dirty motherfuckers were playing both. It was a wickedly wise move on their part, to make it look like it was me on both of them. If I was getting pressure, I could only imagine the pressure Suge and Puffy were getting. It made sense. With all of the attention on me, they wouldn’t be looking at Puffy or Suge. They were like we gotta get this off of us, let’s put it all on Keffe.

About a month after Biggie’s killing, the police raided my house and impounded my SS Impala and alleged that it was the car used in the Biggie murder. There were reports that the vehicle used in the Biggie shooting was a dark-colored Impala and I did have a dark-colored Impala. But I didn’t even drive the thing. Every week when I would receive a shipment of kilos, I would rent another vehicle to keep the Feds off of me. The night Biggie got killed I was in a rental car. My Impala sat in my backyard. They did all kinds of forensic tests on my Impala, and it all came back clean.

About three weeks later, the FBI raided a whole bunch of our houses and took all of our guns. Sergeant Reynolds’ punk ass came to my house with the FBI and told my wife, “You know you can get a

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$250,000 reward for information leading to Keffe D’s arrest.” Before he took off, he said, “Tell Keffe D he can turn himself into me.” Nigga, so you can blow my head off? I would never turn myself into that punk motherfucker.

My problems with Sergeant Reynolds went all the way back to when I got out of Tracy in 1990. My brother had been gunned down in the streets by some Bloods. January 23, 1990 is when we buried him. That night after the funeral we went to a spot called the Red Onion to celebrate his life. Sergeant Reynolds was in the club drinking. He was a cop, so he didn’t have any business in there dealing with gangsters. Reynolds had a few broads that he was buying drinks for, then the broad that he had eyes for ended up leaving the club with Keffe D that night. I could sense the jealousy he had in his heart from that night on. It just so happened that he ended up being a player on Suge’s team. Suge bought Reynolds a red Acura Legend, in fact, Suge bought all the police he had working for him red cars. I had zero trust in dealing with Compton police in general, and definitely not Sergeant Reynolds.

vvv

During this chaotic period, on top of everything else that was going on, my wife’s father died. So we went to Austin, Texas to bury him. Her family still had

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their forty-acres and a mule; they had a church on their property and everything.

While the funeral was going on my Colombian boy called me, “I have the chickens (kilos) ready.” I arranged to have one of my Lieutenants, an older gentleman named Sy, to go pick them up. I stayed in Texas for a few more days then on Tuesday morning the Colombian called again, “Where you at?”

“I’m still out here in Texas.”

“Come on home and take care of your business.”

“Alright, I’ll be there tomorrow.”

I flew home the next day and made plans to dispatch the kilos. I was going to send my boy Feet, who was positioned in another city, sixty keys and my brother seventy-five keys. Everybody had the same instructions, to let me know when the kilos arrived at their destination. I didn’t have anyone reliable to deliver Feet’s kilos, so he suggested, “My uncle will take them.”

“Cool.”

I gave Feet’s uncle the sixty kilos to transport, but the nigga didn’t leave immediately with them. Everybody else called back by Thursday telling me that they had landed. I kept calling Feet, but he didn’t answer. I had my boy Bubble Up pass by Feet’s house, and he called to tell me, “Man, that mobile home is still in the driveway.” We had removed the inside of the mobile home and taped the kilos inside.

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“You bullshitting?”

“I swear…” Bubble Up responded.

The next evening about 6pm Feet called me, “Man, they done pulled over the mobile home.”

“Where y’all at?”

“Central Ave. and the 91 Freeway.”

I jumped in my ride and drove by Central and the 91. As I was about to exit the freeway I could see that some Compton PD and DEA Agents had the mobile home pulled over to the side of the road. Come to find out it was Compton Police Sergeant Reynolds who had pulled over the kilos.

Money wasn’t an issue for me before they busted my sixty kilos. But the police were weakening us by hitting us from all sides. We were fighting against a double-edged sword. The battle with the street niggas was on and expected. But more devastating was the dirty cops we were up against. The Police were taking our shit so Puffy needed to bring the money — we were still waiting to get our paycheck.

That’s when I sent Puffy a few messages through people that could get to the nigga, “Nigga, send us $10,000, we need guns. The police are crippling us by taking our shit.” The big squeeze was on.

Since the drug bust of the mobile home was on all of the news channels, the Colombian plug called me later that night, “Was that us in Compton?”

“Naw, Naw, we good.”

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The Colombian must have had a tingly feeling because at 7am the next morning, I heard someone knocking on my back door. I looked out the peephole, and it was him. I opened the door, and before I could say anything he asked, “That was us, huh?”

“Yeah Dog.”

“Damn, what are we gonna do?” We sat there and came up with a plan. We added up all the figures, how much we lost and how much we would need to make to get it back. We figured we would need to sell 126 kilos so that neither of us would have to pay anything out of our pockets.

“I’m going to get us 126 more,” he said. Two weeks went by, and the Colombian called me, “Man, I have the kilos.” I went and met him for breakfast, picked up the El Camino and called my boy C-Ray. “Man it’s going down today. Figure out a spot where we can make this happen.” C-Ray had a client named George and his wife out here from Cleveland.

“We can go to my cousin’s house out in Corona,” C-Ray suggested.

“Cool, set it up.”

I had two older dudes drive the El Camino with the kilos, my cousin and this guy named Taco were in the van with the out-of-towners. We intentionally got on the 91 Freeway about 5 o’clock during the height of commuter traffic hours.

When we got by Cerritos, a white man pulled up

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and started waving at us with this big ol’ smile on his face. The cocksucker’s dick was so hard because he wanted us so bad that he blew their little operation; otherwise, they would have had us. C-Ray and I looked at the white man then looked at each other and at about the same time said, “That’s Five-O.”

We pulled off the freeway and waited about five minutes. We were in a hot, brand new Z-28 SS Camaro. We got back on the Freeway to catch up with the others. By that time there were about five more cars on the freeway just like the one the Fed was in that pulled up beside us. I couldn’t lose the load because I had just lost the sixty kilos two weeks prior. Not being overly dramatic but my life and my family’s life was on the line. I had to do some fast thinking.

We pulled up on the side of the El Camino and yelled out the window, “Don’t turn your head. Don’t turn your head. Go home! Go home!” The driver of the El Camino got our message, pulled off the freeway and went back home. I asked C-Ray, “Where’s a spot in Riverside we could meet?”

“That little Comfort Inn on La Sierra.”

We pulled up beside the van and yelled out the window to them, “Y’all go to the Comfort Inn on La Sierra. Just wait there until further notice.” C-Ray and I sped off. A mile or so down the road I pulled off to the side of the freeway, raised the hood like our car was having mechanical difficulties, and we saw about

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twenty cars and three or four motorcycles following the van ready to take our asses down. They would not let that van out of their sight.

I had to make sure the 126 kilos was safe, so we jumped off the freeway and went on the other side to chase down the El Camino.

When we caught up with them, I told them to park the El Camino by my brothers’ house. C-Ray and I went on to one of our safe houses. I left the people in the van waiting for about four hours. As long as the kilos were safe, I was cool with that. The dudes from out of town called, “What’s going on?”

“Man there’s a change of plans. It ain’t going down today. Y’all come on back.”

“Where y’all at?”

“At the safe house.” A few hours later they showed up at the safe house.

When they arrived, I said, “Man we had to change plans, we’re going to try it another day.”

C-Ray convinced me that the police on the freeway following us was from a Task Force that was assigned to follow ballers home from the casinos. I told George and his wife to get a room and call me once they got settled. A few hours later George paged me, and when I looked at the number, I recognized that it was from the Holiday Inn on Vermont Ave. and 190th. I knew the number because I used to rent rooms there a lot myself. Instead of calling them back

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we drove up there. When we hit the parking lot, I saw the same undercover Fed cars that were following us on the freeway parked right next to the van. I couldn’t understand that for anything in the world.

I didn’t say anything, I just looked at C-Ray, and he had a deer in the headlights look. I asked him, “You been up here for the last two weeks entertaining these niggas, taking them to the mall, clubs, eating… you done took this nigga everywhere. The Feds didn’t run in the room on you?”

“Naw Dawg.”

I just looked at him like, “Nigga, I know what’s up.” They had apparently gotten into some trouble with the police, but they didn’t tell me. If I had gone into that hotel room, I would have probably been walking into a room with the two-way door and mirror, and they would have run in on us. I know they had gotten into some trouble and started talking to the police. That’s why the white dude’s dick was so hard on the freeway.

We had a safe house out of town so with all the heat that was on us I flew out immediately and stayed there for three to four weeks. I was catching all that heat behind a jealous ass, punk ass cop, Sergeant Reynolds.

When we hit the parking lot I saw the same undercover Fed cars that were following us on the freeway parked right next to the van.

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The Feds were on me so hard I told the Colombian that I needed to take a break for four to five months. I gave him back the 126 kilos he had given me. I had $700 thousand saved up plus the profit I was going to make off of the other 240 kilos I had out on the streets. The money from the 240 kilos came back, and it took me another two to three weeks to give him the $700 thousand, all in hundred dollar bills. Then I took a break for five months.

In 2007, I ran into Puffy’s former stylist and Howard University roommate D-Mac. He told me that Puffy’s homeboy Zip got the money from Puffy that he was supposed to pay us. Allegedly that’s how Zip bought the NY nightclub he owned and started his clothing line. We’ll never know since dead men tell no tales. What I do know is we never got a dime from the nigga Puffy. Fucking around with him turned me into adversaries with Suge and the crooked cops he had on his team, which cost me severely financially.

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Takedown

A federal inmate from Metropolitan Detention Center…”

When I heard that shit, I knew something terrible had gone down. I accepted the call and heard my brother Li’l Dog’s voice.

“That dude Pat Bernard set me up to get busted,” the anger in his voice unmistakeable.

“Man, how you know?”

“They told me. That motherfucker.”

Pat Bernard was a youngster I used to work with who helped me supply the PCP I’d send to Richie Rich and Zip in New York.

I met Pat Bernard one night in the early Nineties. The South Side low-rider club was coasting down Crenshaw Boulevard with about 35 cars. We saw this youngster pulled over to the side of the road with his car hood up. We decided to stop and help him out. Once we started talking, he seemed like a pretty cool youngster, and he asked me about the business.

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I gave him a number to call so we could talk some more. Eventually, Pat Bernard started buying half a kilo from me on a daily basis. One day he came to buy from me while I was receiving a load of kilos from my Colombian plug. That was a big mistake because he got a chance to see my Colombian plug. That day, I decided to cut down on the number of transactions with him. I told him, “Keep your money,” and gave him five kilos so he could come back and see me weekly instead of daily.

Pat Bernard was a regular customer of mine for a few years until he went to Minnesota and got caught with nine kilos of crack. To get out of his legal troubles, the nigga used every little piece of information he had. He told the Minnesota police and the FBI about my brother Li’l Dog who had been on the run from the US Marshalls for three and a half years. He told them about my business, “He has a Colombian connection.” But the most damaging thing he told law enforcement was that he knew who killed Tupac and Biggie and the suckers bit. Soon after that, Pat Bernard started working as an informant with the Major Task Force.

Early one morning when Pat Bernard returned from Minnesota, but unknown to me and the homeys, now he was a fully employed confidential informant for the Feds. Pat Bernard went over to the projects and saw my brother, “Hey Li’l Dog, I need two kilos.” My brother had to pick up his kids and my son from

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school that day. So Li’l Dog pulled up in the projects parking lot at about three o’clock that afternoon. My brother showed up but didn’t bring the kilos with him because he wanted to make sure everything was for real. Once he pulled up in the projects, the US Marshalls and FBI vans surrounded his car and ran out from everywhere with their guns drawn, “Get out of the car! Get out of the car!” As I pulled up in the projects to meet Li’l Dog, I saw all those police out there and was like, “Oh fuck.” When my brother called me that night he informed me that the police had told him about Pat Bernard.

About three weeks later, the Major Crime Unit, led by Special Agent In Charge (SAIC) Ted Holliday, parked around the corner from my house. Holliday trained Pat Bernard what to say, wired him up and sent him to knock on my door wearing a wire. I was in the shower at the time, so my wife Paula came and got me. “Hey Keith, Pat is at the door.” I thought it was my little homeboy from the hood named Pat. I got out of the shower, dried off, put my boxers on and went to the door. Instead, it was the nigga that set up my brother.

“Nigga, if you don’t get your punk ass away from my motherfuckin’ door, I’m gonna do something to your bitch ass. I know you are working with the police. Get your bitch ass out of here nigga.”

Their plan was for him to come set me up, but

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when they heard my reaction they saw that I wasn’t playing with the son-of-a-bitch. So they had to change course, “Hell naw, we gonna get this man killed.”

Pat Bernard left my house and went around the corner where C-Ray and my cousin GB were getting their cars washed, pulled up and said to them, “Hey, Keffe D thinks I’m snitching.” My cousin GB said, “Man, I ain’t seen no paperwork.” That was his jailhouse way of saying he didn’t believe that Pat Bernard was a snitch. I took my brother’s word that the nigga was snitching but my cousin chose not to.

“Who has the birds? Your cousin Keffe have the kilos?” My cousin GB responded, “Yeah, but you don’t want that shit, it’s brown, and that nigga charging too much.” I found out what my cousin GB said later on through the discovery process once they took us down.

From that day in November of 1996, the FBI’s Major Crime Unit went to work on my cousin and started their investigation on us. By getting those closest to me to cooperate with them, like C-Ray, they were able to take a little snowball and turn it into a massive avalanche. Ultimately, what they wanted to know with certainty was who killed Tupac and Biggie?

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vvv

I was on the run for four months after they raided my house on the Biggie murder investigation when I received a call from my attorney Edi Faal. “I just talked to Detectives Poole & Hooper from LAPD. They say they aren’t going to arrest you. They just want to talk to you,” Edi said.

“Yeah?” Edi is a smart man so I’m sure he could hear the hesitation in my voice when I responded. He reassured me, “They gave me their word that they just want to talk.”

“Alright cool. Set it up then.”

Edi and I met them down at Parker Center, the L.A.P.D. Headquarters at the time. Edi schooled me before we went into the room, “Don’t say anything. Just let them talk. Give me the signal when you’re ready to leave.” They took me upstairs and started questioning me.

As agents from the FBI and L.A.P.D. continued to talk, I realized all of what they were saying had to have come from one person, C-Ray. They already knew about how Puffy and I met; they knew the Zip connection, they knew who was in the car in Vegas and where everybody was sitting in the car — everything. I know for a fact C-Ray had to give them that information because he was the only person that got arrested on the Biggie murder raids that knew

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“…youngsters from the hood tried to smoke his ass at least four different times. One day they shot his car up no less than forty times…”

our private business like that. All of the other people that were picked up as part of the Biggie raids were gangbangers that I wouldn’t allow around me like that. So they couldn’t know that type of information.

I happened to be in Chicago when they raided our houses on the Biggie raids. When I finally got back from Chicago I asked C-Ray, “What they ask you about?”

“Man they was asking about that Tupac and that Biggie stuff.”

“Nigga, you sure wasn’t there. You don’t know nothing do you?”

“Naw,” was his response.

As the agents continued talking I was steady thinking, “That son-of-a-bitch!”

That fucked me up because C-Ray is from my generation and was my right-hand man. Back then, I would have died for that dude because he was my number one moneymaker. We came up from scratch together, and he sold me out. I didn’t know the brother was so fucking weak.

Learning that C-Ray flipped on me broke my heart and pissed me the fuck off at the same time. First, I found out from Boss Man that C-Ray was

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trying to get in contact with Suge, talking about he wasn’t involved in the Tupac shooting. If he tried to communicate with the other side and tell them he wasn’t involved to protect his ass, I could only imagine all the shit he went in there and said to the police.

It soon became apparent, not just to me, but to others in the hood that C-Ray was snitching. On top of that, he had been showing some disloyalty. As a result, at least four different times youngsters from the hood tried to smoke his ass. One day, they shot his car up no less than forty times. No one would have ever known that South Side did that shit either, especially after his neighbor got shot thirty-five times. It would have looked like it was a hit from the other side. I don’t know how he got up out of there alive. He called me after that and asked, “Keffe D, you sicced the little homeys on me?”

“Naw, I ain’t sic the homeys on you. You brought that on yourself.”

When I heard the information the police already had, I made my rehearsed hand signal to Edi, which meant it was time to get me the fuck up out of there. Edi cut the interview, “I have other engagements gentlemen, sorry but we have to go.” On my way out the door, L.A.P.D. Detective Poole said, “You think you were hiding from us? We knew where you were the whole time. We’re going to take these pictures to New York, and if they identify you as the killer, we’re

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coming to get your ass.”

“Cool. I’m not worried about that because I know I ain’t do a motherfuckin’ thang. I ain’t did shit.” When Detective Poole said that they knew where I was the whole time is the moment I realized they had to have tapped my cousin Speedo’s phone. They had chased me out of the frying pan into the fire.

vvv

In July, my cousin Speedo came by and said, “Yo Cuz, I need some work.”

“Alright, meet me at my boy Sambo’s over at Willowbrook Tracks.” I jumped in my dad’s car and went over to the location. Sambo and I were in front of his apartment building when Speedo pulled up in his van. I noticed as he pulled up that the van didn’t have any side view mirrors. I pulled two briefcases full of money out of the van, $280,000 to be exact, and handed them to Sambo.

Sambo said, “Come back in an hour, and I’ll have the shit ready. Let me count the money.”

“Alright cool.”

I jumped in the van with Speedo, “Come on man, let’s go and get something to eat from that Taco Bell on Compton Boulevard.” We went through the Taco Bell Drive-Thru line, ordered our food, and as we were pulling out Speedo said, “The dude behind me didn’t even pay them for his fucking food.”

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“Yeah? Damn.”

As we continued out of the driveway, we saw seven FBI-looking cars going in the opposite direction. “Damn, they’re on somebody’s ass,” I said. “Fuck it, let’s go.” We went on and made the right turn.

I told Speedo, “Go by my house and let’s get some weed.” By the time we finished eating and got buzzed up an hour had already passed. So it was time to go back and get the work. We drove up Alameda to Greenleaf and made a left turn headed into my hood. Then, my cousin, Speedo said, “Damn cousin Keith, them same Fed cars that we saw going the other way they’re all behind us now.”

“You bullshitting?”

“No, I ain’t.”

In my mind, I was thinking, “Damn, them niggas out in New York done lied on me and identified me in that Biggie shit. Fuck.”

I knew better than to look back, then I calmly said to Speedo, “Cuz, give me a chance to run. Get me to the ‘hood.” I knew my hood like the back of my hand. I planned to jump out and run as soon as we hit the ‘hood cause the FBI didn’t know my hood like I knew my hood.

“Alright cuzzo.”

We went up to Burris Lane and made a left, and all of the Feds were still following behind us. Speedo made a complete U-turn and got back on Greenleaf. By

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the time we got to Artesia and Long Beach Boulevard, the FBI agents were coming off the freeway and off of Artesia from everywhere. By then the police car with the cherries on top was behind us and lit us up. My cousin Black was in the back of the van with Speedo’s kids. They got us all out of the van and had us lay down in the middle of the street, handcuffed us and threw us in the back of an L.A.P.D. car. They took all three of us, Speedo, Black and myself upstairs at the station on 108th Street and handcuffed us to a bench.

They had us sitting there handcuffed to that bench for over an hour, so I yelled out, “What the fuck y’all got us in here for?”

One of the officers responded, “You guys are being detained, you’re not under arrest.”

By 4 o’clock in the afternoon, I was going crazy. “This is against my Civil Rights; this shit is wrong. What the fuck? I need to talk to my attorney.” I was going plumb ape in that motherfucker, ‘cause we had been in there from 10 o’clock that morning to 4 o’clock in the afternoon. They had my phone and my beeper on their desk, and they both kept buzzing and going off.

Eventually, this red-headed FBI agent came out and said, “You want to know what you’re in here for?”

“Yeah, motherfucker.”

“Y’all have been moving large quantities of cocaine out of Jordan Downs Housing Projects.” He

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looked at Speedo, pointed at him and said, “You have twenty years coming buddy.” Then he looked at me and said, “You have on a Rolex watch, Sperry boat shoes, and ten thousand dollars in your pocket. What you have a yacht or something?” Then he started laughing. “We’re still trying to figure out who you are.” When he got to my cousin, Black he said, “You ain’t nothing but a gangbanger; you don’t have anything to worry about. You’ll be going home soon.”

Another hour passed and they finally came and took the handcuffs off and released us. When we got back to the van, we were rummaging through it looking for the .45 Glock I had, and the .40 Speedo had left inside.

“Shit, them bastards took my damn gun,” I said.

Then Speedo said, “Them motherfuckers done took my shit too.” Both of our guns and the weed we had left inside were gone.

I called my wife and she answered, “You alright. We were worried about y’all.”

“Yeah, we good. Come pick me up at Speedo’s house.” Before we left, I told Speedo, “We’re going to wait until tomorrow to go get that shit from Sambo. We need to let it cool off. Let them people go on about their business.”

I got home about 6:30 pm and my phone rang, it was cousin Speedo, “Damn cousin Keith, I could have sold all that shit by now Cuz. Let’s go get that shit. My

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shit is blowing off the hook.”

“You sure?” I asked.

“Hell yeah.”

“Then meet me at Sambo’s house.” I had to go over to Sambo’s house anyway to get my dad’s car that I had left over there. When I pulled up Sambo was like, “Where the fuck y’all been?” I didn’t tell him that the police had us gaffled like a motherfucker. A few minutes later Speedo pulled his station wagon into Sambo’s garage where we loaded it up with the kilos.

When it was time to leave I told Speedo, “I’m going to follow you to the projects to make sure you make it home safe.”

We pulled off and headed up Willowbrook and by the time we crossed Rosecrans, here come them same FBI agents that had detained us earlier that day. They had some hot ass cars and were flying to catch up with us. When we got to 131st and Willowbrook, Speedo made a left and I was following closely behind, trying to make sure the Feds couldn’t get around me. So he could make it through the light. The light turned red, but all of them went straight through the light; fuck it. Suddenly one of the Fed cars sped right around me. We were all speeding up to an intersection, where there were crossing gates for the Metrorail, and luckily the Metrorail crossing gates started to come down. Speedo cut across just

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as they were coming down and made it through, the Feds didn’t.

I turned off and went to this dude named Pat’s house, who was in the game from Corner Poccet hood. “Bro, can you give me a ride to the projects?” I left my dad’s car at his pad and jumped into the truck with Pat. We drove down to the projects to make sure Speedo was safe. By the time we got there, his station wagon was already sitting in the parking lot.

I called him, “Nigga you cool?”

“Yeah.”

“Man, you sure they ain’t got your ass kidnapped?”

“Naw man, I made it. But I see my co-pilot abandoned ship on my motherfuckin’ ass.” He started cracking up.

I responded, “Cuz, you want both of us to go down?” and started laughing with him.

About a month later, Speedo came over to my house to bring me some money. I was standing in front of my house when he pulled up in that same van without the rearview mirrors, and there were three FBI agents following him. He jumped out the van, and I said, “Speedo, what the fuck? Man, you done let them know where I live. You need to get some rear view mirrors nigga. Got that long ass tail following your ass.” We laughed hard about that. “Fuck them motherfuckers.” I was joking with him because they

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already knew exactly who I was and where I lived the whole time.

vvv

The same day the Feds raided my house on the Biggie Smalls case, they knew I was going to the projects to my cousin’s house. What I did not know was that they had already tapped my cousin’s phone. While I was over at my cousin Speedo’s house, this dude from Nutty Blocc called and asked for two kilos. The conversation was all in code, “You got two for two?” he asked.

“Yeah, I got two for two.”

“Man, what color you got?”

“Nigga, I’m in a white van.”

“Alright, I’ll be over there in fifteen minutes.” The Feds were listening in on the conversation and interpreted what we said to mean we were talking about two kilos of cocaine, and I described it as being white. That simple, seven-second, coded conversation is how I caught my case and ended up receiving a seventy-month sentence. What clinched the case against me was when the individual called back and said one of the kilos was eight grams short. What type of person would call back on the phone and say a kilo was eight grams short? I couldn’t understand how they could convict us from talking on the phone without any pictures of us doing the transaction; they didn’t

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get any dope, nothing. I figured that shit shouldn’t be a fucking crime. When I asked my attorney about it, he said, “Yeah, that’s a crime.” That’s how I caught my case with the Major Crime Unit.

They had been investigating me for almost two years, but they couldn’t get me because I was taught by the Colombians not to talk on the phone. I was strict in following that practice.

The Feds were able to record my conversation because a judge had ordered a ten-day wiretap and told them, “Bring me the evidence that this man is selling drugs and we can continue the case.” When they brought the ten days worth of wiretaps, the judge said, “This is not enough evidence. Terminate your wiretap.” The cops defied the judge’s order and kept the wiretap going for another year and a half. I could have gotten off on that case, but my lawyer explained, “I can beat this case, but you’re in here for those high profile killings.” All I could say was, “Yeah I know what you’re talking about.”

They took me to the Feds for that. The Major Crime Unit took down sixty-eight Grape Streets, including practically all of my cousins, and two dudes from Compton. They indicted us on May 20th.

vvv

On May 28th, 1998 I got home about 3:30am. My boy Taco saw me pulling in that night, so he came

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and asked me for some rocks. “I ain’t got no rocks,” so I gave him some money instead. I went in my back house, and I wasn’t in there for more than an hour when I heard a loud, “Boom. Boom. Boom.” I grabbed my strap and looked out the little peephole thinking it was some jackers — it was the real jackers, the FBI SWAT team wearing Black ninja suits. I could see that they had already raided the front house and by then they were working on the door to the back house where I was. I took a big hit on my joint since I knew it was the last one I’d be able to enjoy for a while and put my pistol away.

As soon as I opened the door, I heard, “On your knees motherfucker, on your knees. We have a Federal arrest warrant for you.”

“What the fuck?”

“On your knees!” I saw about forty red dots on my chest and quickly dropped to my knees with my hands up. They handcuffed me while I was still in my boxers, and walked me out of the front door onto the front porch. My mother-in-law, my wife, and my three kids were in the front of the house, standing in the cold, crying. They brought me out some house shoes and pants to put on.

As I started walking through the hallway, all the FBI agents in rhythm let out a roar, “Keffe D… Keffe D…Keffe D” like they had seen a celebrity.

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There were three Sheriff’s Suburbans on the corner with the street blockaded off to prevent anyone from entering or leaving the street. By then, about ten carloads of FBI with green jackets from the major task force arrived. “Oh I’m in some shit,” I remember thinking. They called one of the Sheriffs from the corner, and he threw me in the back seat of his car.

On the way downtown to the station, there were three Sheriff’s in the car, one sitting in the passenger seat and one in the back with me. The driver looked back and said, “Hey man, your boy C-Ray out there in Columbus, Ohio shot the fuck up…Ha ha ha,” and he started laughing. It was true C-Ray had gotten shot the day before in Columbus, Ohio, but the man hadn’t been shot for more than 24 hours, I wondered, “How the fuck do they know that?” Then the Sheriff in the passenger seat was like, “Your boy The Reaper set you up for a robbery out there in Hawthorne…” They were letting me know all the people that were against me on the ride down there. These were some of my closest homeboys. I’m like, “For real?”

“Yeah.”

Finally, I asked, “Man, what the fuck is this shit about?”

One of them replied, “We’ve been told not to say anything to you.”

As we were pulling into the back of the station,

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I saw them taking my cousins Speedo and GB, Big Pete, Woody, a bunch of my homies into the station. They took me out of the police car and into the Sheriff’s station. Once I got into the station, there were about seventy FBI agents inside. We entered the police station from the back, and as soon as the door opened, I saw more of my cousins and homeboys in the holding tank. “Oh fuck.” As I started walking through the hallway, all the FBI agents in rhythm let out a roar, “Keffe D… Keffe D…Keffe D,” like they had seen a celebrity.

They placed me in a small cage, and a few of the agents came up to the cage to get a closer look like I was an endangered Mountain Gorilla or something. They wanted to see what the fuck I looked like. One cool FBI agent wearing a Rolex came up to me and said, “Uh, uh, uh, how your little bitty ass…I thought you were 6’2” 280 pounds. You’re a little bitty dude and got all these people scared of you.”

“Man, fuck you,” I shot back.

“Hold it brother, hold it. I haven’t done anything to you.”

“Man, fuck you. Get your little punk ass out of here.” I laughed, and he cracked a little grin.

As the morning wore on, they interviewed all seventy people that were in there and left me for last.

“You’re the biggest fish here,” the agent said.

“What?”

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“Yeah, you’re the biggest fish here. We’re going to charge y’all under the RICO Act [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations], and you’re going to be number one on the indictment.” One of the agents asked, “Are you going to hire that high priced attorney Edi Faal?”

I just ignored his ass.

“You might as well keep your money Keffe D. This is different.” I continued to ignore him, but I did take a mental note. Another agent said, “If you tell us where Sambo is we’ll let you go right now.” Sambo was my secondary supplier from 7-0. The same task force that was on us was also on Sambo and his crew. Sambo’s team got taken down two months before us. They caught Sambo’s brothers and his whole crew, but Sambo was still on the run.

“Motherfucker, didn’t you have my street blockaded off with about a hundred police? You think I can go home? Use your fucking brain. You know I can’t go home and I ain’t fixin’ to tell on nobody anyway, Fuck you!”

They took me to jail, and the Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California came in. We had developed the nickname Blue Beard for his ass because he was out for blood and he had a beard. He was on a roll, “I’m charging all of these guys under the CCE [Continuing Criminal Enterprise Statute]. I recommend no bail for all of these co-defendants.”

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They no bailed all of us, and they told my attorney I was going to be number one in the indictment

The next morning after we all got busted, the Chaplain was at my cell, “I’m sorry to inform you, Mr. Davis, that your grandmother passed away last night.” Damn, his words rocked me. “Would you like to call the family?” I didn’t respond. I couldn’t answer, I was speechless. I just sat there stunned with my head in my hands.

My grandmother was like a mother to us once my mother passed away. Grandma took mom’s place and helped raise us. That was a devastating blow for me because she was always there for me and had my back.

Once I got myself together, I called my nephew Baby Lane to talk about grandma passing, as well as some street shit I needed him to handle.

“Unc, I know where everything at, don’t worry about nothing. I know who got everything and all that. I got everything in line.” There was still a lot of shit out on the streets.

“Aiight nephew. Be safe out there.”

Later on that same day we were having our attorney visits and at the 4 o’clock count the same Chaplain who broke the news to me about my grandmother showed up again during the count. I started to feel a little sad recalling his earlier visit to me that morning, and figuring the Chaplain had

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returned to break some awful news to someone else. My heart skipped a beat when he stopped in front of my cell a second time, and started off the same fucked up way, “I’m sorry to inform you, Mr. Davis, that your nephew Orlando Anderson was just killed.”

“What the fuck! Two in one day?” I asked in disbelief.

“Yes. I’m very sorry,” the Chaplain whispered.

The two people closest to me passed away on the same cold, devastating day — May 29th, 1998. My grandmother died around four in the morning, and Baby Lane was killed around four the same afternoon. Baby Lane lived with my grandma and was raised by her at her house. So I guess she decided she was going to take her grandson with her.

Even though I was twelve years older than Orlando, he and I were really close. Since day one he was my dog. I used to take him to Children’s University at Compton College. Every day I made sure he was right, made sure his school clothes were fresh. He was like a son, a nephew, a brother, and a close friend.

I later found out that Baby Lane got killed in a shootout at Bob’s Compton Car Wash. In the shooting, two dudes, Michael Stone, a big-time Crip leader of the Corner Poccet Crips and his nephew, Gerry, were also killed. The Reaper was with Lane when the shootout happened. The Reaper told me later that when the shooting started and they were backing up trying to

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get out of there, it seemed like the whole car wash was shooting at them, the owners and everybody.

“You bullshitting? Bob?”

“Yeah Big homey, they were all shooting at the truck.”

Baby Lane and them pulled off and got about half a mile down the street when Baby Lane was like, “Man I can’t feel my legs no more.” They say he passed away right there in the Blazer.

After my grandmother and nephew passed, I went to a bail hearing the next morning to see if I could get released, so that I could attend their funerals. When we went to the bail hearing my attorney explained, “His grandmother has been like a mother to him…” The Assistant U.S. Attorney Blue Beard jumped up, “Your honor, this man here…” as he pointed in my direction, “no disrespect to your family Mr. Davis, is the leader of the South Side Compton Crips. And his nephew killed two men and got killed in a gang-style shooting in Compton. The LA Times article is right here.” He held up a copy of the LA Times newspaper, “If you let him go, something is going to happen your Honor.” He handed the LA Times article to the judge. The judge took a few minutes to read it then looked up over his glasses and said, “Mr. Davis, I’m sorry sir. I can’t let you go. Come back in three weeks, and we’ll talk about it at another bail hearing.”

“All I want to do is go to my grandmother’s

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funeral,” I pleaded.

My lawyer Edi jumped up and said, “Your Honor, when did the LA Times start prosecuting people? This man wants to go to his beloved grandmother’s funeral.”

“No, I can’t let you go,” the judge responded. Both funerals were held the same day. I missed them both.

vvv

That’s one thing I can say about Special-Agent-In-Charge Holliday and U.S. Attorney Blue Beard those motherfuckers were on top of their games. Both of them were sharp. Those two were going to take all of those crooked ass cops down, and they needed to be busted. It was about fuckin’ time. Truthfully, all of us got lucky that Blue Beard ended up getting transferred because we were all going down. South Side, Grape Street, the crooked cops, all of us were going down fucking with him. Blue Beard and Holliday were on all of our asses.

Holliday was Special-Agent-In-Charge of the Major Crime Unit. That’s one helluva title. That means if John Gotti were in L.A., it would have been Holliday and his people that went after them. Just

“Your honor, this man here…no disrespect to your family Mr. Davis, is the leader of the South Side Compton Crips…If you let him go something is going to happen…”

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from listening to his ass I knew he was on it. I have to give it to him that dude was sharp, but I never bent for his ass. Never!

A week later we went to court on the case against seventy of us. We were sitting in the tank, and the Marshall was getting ready to take us into court. A guy was sitting in the Protective Custody (PC) tank, and when we walked by he started shouting, “Keffe D! Keffe D!” I looked at him like, “Who the fuck is you?” When we got into court, the Marshall whispered, “You don’t know who that guy is?”

“Naw, who is it?”

“That’s David Mack.” The infamous David Mack was one of Suge’s hitmen and was included in the big LAPD Rampart scandal. He ended up getting fourteen years in the Federal pen for a South Central bank robbery. All of those dirty cops knew who I was, but I didn’t know who they were. It’s not a good look when a nigga in a PC tank is calling out your name like they know you — the whole time it was that bitch ass nigga David Mack.

Before we entered the courtroom, my attorney said, “Keffe D we can beat this case, but these people are not going to let you go. You know why you’re in here. They want to know where you are at all times.”

“OK. I understand.”

All of those dirty cops knew who I was but I didn’t know who they were.

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“I’ll go in there and get you the best deal I can.” When sentencing day came, my attorney did his spiel, “Your Honor they offered him a deal for five years which he has agreed to. It was nothing but a simple phone call. They didn’t retrieve any drugs, and there are no pictures, there’s nothing.” Once again Blue Beard was out for blood, “Your Honor, the probation report came back recommending 188 months…”

The judge asked Blue Beard, “Did you offer him a deal for five years?”

“Yes, your Honor.”

The judge continued, “I’m quite sure this man wouldn’t plead guilty knowing that he was going to get 188 months for a simple phone call. I’m going to make you stick to your deal.”

Then the judge looked at me, “Mr. Davis, I’m going to give you the high end on it.” I fell in the category from 60-72 months, so the judge sentenced me to 71 months and sentenced my co-defendant to 60 months. I went on and took the deal. Blue Beard and Holliday came out with over seven hundred years on our cases alone, but neither one of them were happy about the judge’s decision on my sentence.

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Going to Disneyland

I was sent to the Federal Penitentiary in Stafford, Arizona. On Tuesday morning the first week I got there, I heard over the loudspeaker, “Davis, bed number…Bring him out for a visit.” When the officers showed up to my cell, I said, “Y’all tripping. Ain’t nobody come out here on a Tuesday to see me. We’re out here in the boonies.”

“Get dressed you have a visit.”

“Man I ain’t got no visitors.”

“Davis you have a visit.”

I reluctantly put on my shit, went up to the visiting room and it was them — Holliday and some FBI agents along with the warden, the SIS Lieutenant, and the Captain.

They sat me in a small room with a table, “I don’t know why y’all came all the way out here. You know I’m not fixin’ to tell you a motherfucking thing without my attorney present. Y’all wasted a lot of money. I

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“Every month while I was locked up, the FBI came in to sweat me behind that Tupac shit. They made my time miserable…”

ain’t got shit to say, fuck y’all.” One of them lost his cool and shouted, “You’re not ever getting out of jail.”

He looked at the rest of his crew and said, “He’s a rapper killer. I don’t know how he got on this yard in the first place. He’s supposed to be in Terre Haute or Marion.” Terre Haute and Marion are Federal penitentiaries where more dangerous federal inmates were held.

“First of all you’re not the Regent,” I responded. “The Regent sent me here. My points got me here.”

A few minutes after they left, my name was called on the loudspeaker again, this time to go to the Warden’s office. They had told the warden that I was a serial killer. “He doesn’t belong on this yard, this man is a mass murderer.” When I got to the Warden’s office, they stripped searched me, took pictures, then the Warden said, “Nothing better happen on this yard. This is a Disneyland yard for you.” He was right. The whole Fed system is like Disneyland compared to the California State system. It’s a whole different breed of dudes in the California State prison system. Those inmates in the California State prison system will eat your ass up.

Every month while I was locked up, the FBI came in to sweat me behind that Tupac shit. They

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made my time miserable. I couldn’t even sleep and do my time good. One time when they came to visit me, the FBI agent said, “That hit wasn’t for Tupac that hit was for Suge from Boss Man.” They had been doing some research.

The punk ass Las Vegas cops didn’t know shit, I ran circles around them, but the FBI knew everything. They were missing a few small pieces of the puzzle. One thing about the FBI, they have their shit together. The Feds don’t come after you unless they have your ass.

The dumbest mistake President Donald Trump can make is to go and testify before the Special Counsel Investigation led by Robert Mueller. I know Trump is going to lie because that’s what Trump does. It’s like he’s not capable of telling the truth. He can’t testify with the Feds like that. They’re going to get his ass. It might take a year or two, but they’re going to get him.

When I was locked up in Stafford, I was in there with Bruce McNoll, the former owner of the National Hockey League’s LA Kings. He was the guy that used a fake coin collection as collateral for his purchase of the LA Kings, and the Feds took him down for that.

Every eighteen months in the Fed system, as long as you don’t get in trouble, you can request a transfer, and they will move you down to lower levels. I made a request and got transferred to Nellis Prison Camp, which is the prime spot for all the Feds. I was in there

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Crippin’ hard

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with a Mormon from Utah that owned the BFI Waste Company. I ran into Paul Jensen, the guy who owned banks in Texas, and Charles Keating who also owned banks and Lincoln Savings and Loan, all those dudes were tied in with George Bush our 43rd President.

I remember the night the 2004 presidential election went down and some news media announced that Al Gore was projected to be the winner. The next morning when we woke up, they declared George Bush the winner. Paul Jensen was in there mad because Bush was his homeboy and he felt Bush should have been in jail with them.

My time in there with them is what made me realize that unless you’re at the Pablo Escobar level, drug dealers are some broke motherfuckers compared to them other dudes. I was locked up with billionaires — serious heavyweights. Their telemarketers had millions of dollars. In the Feds, since it’s regional, Crips and Bloods stick together. And since I had juice with the whole Cali card, all those rich guys would come to me for protection.

I ended up serving 51/2 years over that questionable seven second phone call. That was a stressful time for me that took years off my life with them coming to visit me monthly, talking about I’m a serial killer.

When I was locked up, Puffy didn’t come through and help me with anything, not even a pair of

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Sean Jean socks or underwear. Once I served my five-and-a-half year bid in the Feds, I came out looking for that nigga. I heard that Puffy sent a dude from the Harlem 30s, Sean Jean clothes every season. But I see he didn’t call them niggas when Suge was on his ass. When he needed serious help, he called me then after all the shit went down, he left me out there to fend for myself. Cold world!

vvv

When you serve more than five years in the penitentiary, you don’t get to go straight home when you’re released; you have to do six months in a halfway house. So you can slowly reintegrate back into society. Once you get a job, they release you about a month after you’ve started working. Then you are allowed to do home confinement.

The first day the halfway house gave me a pass to go out, my little brother came and picked me up. As I was coming around to get into his truck, a small green car pulled up and shot at me about eight times. They tried to kill my ass. I did that prison shit, tucked and rolled. By then, my nephew was coming up the street, saw what was going down and started bustin’ at their car. I wasn’t prepared for that type of shit, cause I was fresh from jail. They almost got my ass.

It just so happened that my homeys had got into it with these guys from Stevens Village the night

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before, and the other side came through looking for somebody to shoot. I just happened to be there.

I had already done 3.5 years on the street, was tired of turning in my taxes every year, and waking up every morning at five or six with that parole shit. I was tired of that shit. My little brother gave me some game that Los Angeles courts would let you off of parole if you get a dirty urine test from smoking weed. I had to go in and test once every six months. In June when I went to get tested, they called me back right after the 4th of July, and asked me for another sample. I knew I was going to be dirty, so I went to the GNC store and bought the kit to help pass the urine test. The officer of the day took the sample and did the test, and it came back clear. But before he put the top on it, he smelled it then asked, “You’ve been taking vitamins this morning?”

“Yeah, sir.”

“Alright sit down and eat a couple of those donuts.” The officer had me sit down and eat a couple of donuts and piss again because the yeast in donuts sucks up the blockage like a sponge. When I pissed the second time, my specimen came out dirty. Then he said, “I need you to check back into the DTR.”

I said, “Sir, I’m not trying to be disrespectful, but you’re not my parole officer, and I’ve already completed DTR. Let my parole officer tell me that.” Then I said, “I’m not trusting that little $3 test kit

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anyway. Send my shit back to the lab.” I knew it would take around three months to come back from the lab. My parole officer called me once it got back from the lab and said my sample was dirty.

I told my parole officer, “Send my shit back to court.” It costs over one hundred thousand dollars to go to Federal court, and they don’t want to send you back to Federal court for a dirty weed sample. When my parole officer called me back, he said, “The judge does not want to take the case.” I went and seen Edi, he got on the speaker phone and called Blue Beard. Edi said, “My client Duane Davis got a dirty…” and as he started to explain my situation Blue Beard interrupted and said, “Who? Keffe D? Tell him I’m asking for the max.” Once Edi got off the phone I asked him, “How does he remember me, after all those years?”

Edi told me, “Your cousin Speedo beat him on a case. Speedo got the first case overturned in twenty years.” That explained why Blue Beard had his dick out for us and kept talking about, “Lock ‘em all up.” Blue Beard was out for revenge.

Instead of turning myself in, I went on the run for about eight months. One night my son and I had a little bet going while we were playing Madden when our game console froze. We were going to go to my brothers’ house to finish the game. I sent my nephew and my son over to my brothers’ house and told them I’d be on my way in a few. Paula went out to the garage

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first, and when she lifted the garage door there stood a 6’7” white dude who looked like he played on the defensive line for the Raiders. When I came into the garage, he pointed his gun at me and shouted, “Keffe D don’t move, don’t move.”

“What’s up?”

My wife asked, “What the fuck is this about?”

He said, “Paula, you’re on probation, you need to sit your ass down cause I can embarrass y’all and take both y’all to jail. Keffe D, you know what this is about.” A couple more carloads of US Marshalls pulled up, they gaffled my ankles, threw me in the back of the van and rushed me down to MDC.

I went to court the next day, and Judge Ray came in the court and gave me a six-month violation and told me I was off of parole. The other deal was to let me go and start back over, an option I wasn’t about to do. I preferred to go back and knock out the little six-months and have my life back.

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We Know

Two days before Thanksgiving in 2009, my phone rang. I recognized the number but still cautiously answered, “Who’s this?”

“Hey Keffe, this is Wayne.” Wayne Higgins was an attorney I had known for a long time. He was close with my mentor F.L., who had been murdered a few years prior, and somebody that I trusted.

“Hey Keffe, you have a minute to talk?”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“You have a major problem going down. I need to talk to you. Come have dinner with me at Benihana’s.”

“Alright cool.”

We met at the Benihana in Beverly Hills on La Cienega Boulevard. Once we placed our orders, he said, “The FBI wants to talk to you.”

“What?”

“Yeah, the FBI wants to talk to you. You have a serious problem. They got you…”

I cut him off. “You tell them to go fuck themselves.”

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“Keffe, they just want to talk to you.”

Just the mention of the name FBI got me agitated. I raised my voice, “Man, I don’t want to talk to them so fuck ‘em.” The people at the tables next to us started to give us worried looks, but I didn’t give a fuck.

The FBI must have given Wayne some code words to use if I became upset because he paused, took a deep breath, leaned in closer and asked softly, “Do you have a cousin named Diane in Texas that you’ve been sending PCP to?”

“Naw man that’s some bullshit,” but deep down I knew it was right, and there was no way he could have known that.

“Tell them I don’t want to talk. This conversation is over.” While the conversation was over, at least the part where we discussed speaking with the FBI, the rest of the night I couldn’t stop thinking about what the FBI wanted to talk to me about. How the fuck did they know about my cousin Diane in Texas?

The Federal Task Force had been trying all kinds of stunts to get me to talk. A few months prior, they had set up a fake office at Universal Studios and had a “movie executive” call me. He wanted to talk because they were making a movie about Tupac and Biggie. I went down there, and the guy said, “I’m going to give you half a million dollars if you help us as a consultant.” That sounded like some police shit to me, so I called Wayne Higgins and he accompanied me to

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the follow-up meeting. While the guy was talking, Wayne interrupted what the dude was saying and asked the motherfucker, “Who are you in bed with?” That choked the guy up, so I knew something was wrong. I never went back down there after that, but the Feds knew from the movie shit that Wayne and I were friends. So I guess they called him to try to get me to talk with them. I was like, “Hell no!”

Around 4:30am the morning after having dinner with Mr. Higgins, as my wife was getting ready to leave for work, she raised the garage, and there they were — the FBI. “Tell Keffe D to come down. We want to talk to him.”

She tried to lie and said, “Keffe D’s not home.”

“Paula, we just saw him take out the trash. We’ll tear this house up, embarrass everybody and put all of you on the streets right now. We want to talk to him. We’re not here to arrest him.” Paula came up and got me. When I came down into the garage, they made sure that I saw them removing the tracking devices off of all of my family member’s cars.

There were two white agents, Greg Kading and another agent named Jeff, and a Black agent named Dee. But you’d better believe they had their goon squad nearby that would tear my shit up if I decided to act the fool. All I had to do was say, “Go fuck yourself. Do what you gotta do you son-of-a-bitches,” and the goon squad would have been called.

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The three agents came into the garage, so I pulled out a few folding chairs, closed the garage and we sat there and talked like men. They began, “We just want to talk to you.” After a few minutes, the timer caused the lights in the garage to go off, and it was pitch black inside. That shit scared them to death.

They said they wanted to talk, so I let them say what they had to say. “You are running a criminal enterprise with all of your family,” then they started naming some of my family members who were involved. They told me that one of my cousins was the best at cooking up cocaine in the United States. What they were saying was mostly accurate, but my job was to listen to what they had to say.

“We have numerous cases against you that will lead to a life sentence. You’re 46-years-old, and you’re going to die in jail.” Then they said, “If you’re planning to hire Edi Faal we’re going to arrest you right now. You can’t hire Edi Faal.”

They knew I fucked with Edi because every time I would get a call, I would sic Edi Faal on them, “Call them Edi.” That would back them up off of me because Edi is the king of getting people off on murder raps.

“We also have you on numerous murders…”

“I ain’t killed nobody.” Nonchalantly Dee said, “We know.” His cold ass response put a chill down my spine.”

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You’re going to go home messing with Edi, that’s why law enforcement hated him. When Edi would come to visit me at the MDC, they’d be like, “Man, how you know him?” I understood why they had that ‘no Edi’ clause in the deal.

Then the FBI agent Jeff pointed in the direction of the house across the street from mine and said, “We’ve had that house right across the street from you the whole time.”

“For real?”

“Yeah.”

I owned a big house in the hills of Corona, so they had to spend a pretty penny to take over that house. They explained that they had a 146-man task force that had been following us around for the past 2-3 years.

“Keffe D, we got your ass. All of your friends have turned on you.” Then they started naming the people who were going down with me if I didn’t cooperate with them; Boss Man, my Mexican plug out in the Valley, they named them all. “We got all y’all.”

Then, Dee, the Black agent said, “Keffe, we have some more stuff on you that’s going to break your heart dude. We also have you on numerous murders…”

There was an uncomfortable pause then I responded, “I ain’t killed, nobody.” Nonchalantly Dee said, “We know.” The cold ass, matter-of-fact response put a chill down my spine. Dee’s response had me

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thinking who they had been talking to.

On the way out of the garage, the agent Jeff was speaking to me and he handed me his card. Greg Kading saw and heard me talking with Jeff. So when Kading got me alone, he said, “If you call them all deals are off.”

Kading and Dee were Detectives with the Los Angeles Police Department who were deputized as Federal Agents for that investigation as part of the task force. Jeff actually worked for the FBI. I guess Greg Kading didn’t want me speaking to Jeff because he wanted everything to go through him so that he could become known as the super cop who solved the Tupac and Biggie murders. Before they left their last comment was, “You need to come downtown to our office before 5 o’clock pm to speak with us.”

My wife ended up not going to work that day, and I spent the next few hours telling my wife and kids to go fuck themselves because they were all encouraging me to go downtown to their offices and talk to them. I was adamant, “I’m not doing that bullshit. I wasn’t raised like that.” I was going crazy. “Fuck them!”

Junior, my oldest daughter, had tears in her eyes as she said, “Dad, you’ve missed half of my life, I don’t need you missing my kids’ lives.” At that point, I had spent close to fifteen years of my life locked up behind bars. “They don’t give out chances like this. They’re giving you a chance dad, and they don’t usually do

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this.” I was heated, “Go fuck yourself!” They were all crying, even my son-in-law, that snake ass bitch Menace, he was in there crying because he was living with us at the time and was going to get ten years too. My oldest daughter was like, “Daddy you’re tripping.”

It was me against the whole family, “I guess I’m the only one that ain’t no punk. Y’all a bunch of bitches letting these people scare the shit out of you.”

“You’re gonna get a life sentence.”

“Motherfucker you can’t get no life sentence for a kilo of coke and a gallon of water. The most I could get is ten years.”

“You’ve been to the Feds before that’s an automatic double.”

I refuted that point, “I plead guilty in the first court…” I knew my shit.

The only thing that kept me from telling the Feds, “I don’t roll over like that, go fuck yourselves. Take me to jail,” was the comment Dee made when he said, “We know.” That was a cold comeback.

I just needed one person to side with me and back me up. I was confident my youngest daughter, who wasn’t home at the time, was going to be that person. She and I were tight, and when she came back,

“…my oldest daughter had tears in her eyes as she said, “Dad, you’ve missed half of my life, I don’t need you missing my kids’ lives.”

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I just knew, because she was a little gangster like me, she was going to say, “It’s alright dad ride it out. Fuck ‘em.” Instead, when she got home and heard what was going on, she said, “Nah dad, tell them. Tell them what they want to know. We need you here.” It was baby girl’s input that was the deciding vote for me. I picked up the phone to make the most challenging call of my life.

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Betrayal

“To me, the thing that is worse than death

is betrayal.

You see, I could conceive death, but I could not conceive betrayal.”

― Malcolm X

Even as the phone rang, I was having second thoughts. “Ring…” What if they’re bluffing? “Ring…” You weren’t raised like this. “Ring…” Luckily he picked up the phone or I might have talked myself out of the shit.

“Attorney Wayne Higgins, how may I help you?”

“Yo Wayne, this is Keffe.”

“Hey, what’s up Keffe?”

“Man listen, if you go down to speak with them folks with me, I’ll go.”

“Alright, let me make some calls and set it up.”

Wayne called me back after a few minutes and told me the meeting was set. This was the day before Thanksgiving. He and I made arrangements to meet

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downtown at their offices. When we walked into the room, they were already prepared with their mental games. They had pictures of four snitches from my crew on the fucking board; Oochie, C-Ray, The Reaper and Dirt Rock. I pretended like I didn’t see the pictures and said, “Show me what you got.”

They pulled down a video projector screen and showed a few minutes of footage of nine people leaving my house. The footage started off showing my son and my son’s best friend, who was living with us at the time, bringing some Men’s Land bags into the house. They made it look like my son and his friend brought me some kilos in the Men’s Land bags, but they didn’t: that part they had wrong. My son and his friend were coming to show me the school clothes they had bought. I happened to use the same Men’s Land bags for the people that came to purchase kilos from me later that day, so it did look like my son brought the kilos to me.

The room was quiet as we looked at the footage then one of them said, “You had a helluva day this day.” Which was true, I happened to sell 35 kilos that day. Then they showed footage of all the people that left from my house that day with those Men’s Land bags, as well as footage of each one of them getting

“The world and the dope game had changed. These new guys in the game wear tight pants like bitches…”

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pulled over after they left my house. Not one of them motherfuckers said, “Keffe D they’re on your ass. They stopped me when we left your spot.” I’m talking about some of my closest friends, and not one of them said a word.

One of the agents said, “The dope game is over Keffe D. Did any of these dudes tell you that they got pulled over that day?” I just stared at the screen and remained quiet because the honest answer to the question was too painful for me to face. The agent continued, “These dudes are weak. It’s not the same anymore.” I couldn’t disagree. I trusted those dudes, and I shouldn’t have. The world and the dope game had changed. These new guys in the game wear tight pants like bitches. Even in the rap game niggas wear skinny jeans, girl blouses, colored hair, that’s some bullshit.

For more than fifteen years the Feds had been on my ass about those two Hip Hop murders. Even when I was locked up for 51/2 years, they wouldn’t leave me alone. During the meeting the Feds told me that they had eighteen people who had gone to the Grand Jury to testify against my ass. It’s mind-boggling to me because I didn’t even have eighteen people close to me like that. It meant my homeys, even some of my kinfolks, would have gone down there on my ass.

As I was sitting there, my mind started flashing back to some of the niggas whose pictures were up

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on that board, and a few that weren’t. It all started to come together and make sense.

vvv

The Reaper

One day while over on 60th and Overhill in my partner Bubble Up’s living room, Oochie, Dirt Rock and a guy named Tucker pulled up in Tucker’s Cadillac truck. These were three guys that were close to me, especially Oochie.

Oochie, Dirt Rock and Tucker jumped out of the Cadillac truck and said, “Man, we just seen The Reaper.” The Reaper was the guy in the car with Baby Lane when he got killed. The Reaper was sentenced to three life sentences in that case. In that shootout not only did my nephew get killed, but two other guys also died. The Reaper was a motherfucker that earned his nickname. That little nigga was cold. The Reaper spoke with the Feds and alleged that I supplied him with weapons and ordered a whole bunch of hits.

Surprised I asked, “You just seen The Reaper?”

“Yeah.” All three confirmed.

“Where at?”

“At the basketball game.” Which was some

“The Reaper was a motherfucker that earned his nickname. that little nigga was cold.”

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illogical shit to say.

At the time I was dealing with The Reaper’s cousin, and she told me that The Reaper was downtown at MDC. I thought to myself, “What the fuck is The Reaper doing at MDC? He ain’t got no business down at the MDC because he has a state case.” Then these three dudes jumped out the truck and told me that they had seen The Reaper that day. At that moment, I realized how those three saw The Reaper. They were all at the Grand Jury together, including The Reaper. They just changed where they said they saw him. I could picture that shit. “Those motherfuckers did see The Reaper.”

From that, I knew for sure those four, The Reaper, Oochie, Dirt Rock, and Tucker was part of the eighteen who were on the Grand Jury against me. They were guys I would be with every day.

vvv

Oochie

Oochie was the guy I trusted to handle my phones, so every month when I would change my numbers, he was the one responsible for getting me my new numbers. What I learned, later on, was that Oochie was getting my new numbers and giving them directly to the Feds. When that fat FBI agent started imitating Oochie’s voice and saying things like, “What it do?” and using mannerisms that came directly from

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my homey, it became evident that he turned on me. That shit made me cry.

I remember the day he flipped because we had one of his people named Joe from Long Beach that would buy two chickens every three days. Oochie came over, picked up the two chickens and said, “I’ll be back in about 30 minutes with the money.” When he left the spot, the Feds pulled his ass over. He was gone for three or four hours but he was pulled over by the Feds the whole time. I kept calling him but he didn’t answer. Where’s Oochie ass at? What happened was the Feds took the chickens from him, let him go, and told him he was now working for them. In an attempt to cover his ass and buy some time, he picked up the dudes money and turned it into me. About three or four days passed, so I asked Joe if he wanted to buy some more chickens. That’s when I learned Joe didn’t have any more money to buy chickens because he had already paid Oochie. But never received the chickens because the Feds had it.

vvv

Dirt Rock

There was a little team of South Siders who had gone out to Virginia and started rolling, selling work; Dirt Rock was one of them. They got busted in Virginia but didn’t ever tell me about it. When they got busted, they told Virginia police what had become niggas

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from my hoods’ “get out of jail free” pass; “Keffe D killed Tupac.” Virginia law enforcement contacted the L.A. FBI Field Office to share what they had been told.

Meanwhile, I was out in Cali doing my thing with my homeys when I ran into Dirt Rock at a barbershop.

“Hey Keffe D, my brother-in-law wants to buy some keys.”

“Alright, y’all meet me at my spot in Paramount.”

Dirt Rock came out to Paramount and copped some kilos from me. When he came in, I felt something was fishy because the money he paid with was all fucked up. The nigga came with all hundred-dollar bills, but he had them in thousand dollar stacks. From my experience in the dope game, if you have all hundreds you put them on one rubber band. You don’t put them in thousand stacks. I didn’t feel good at all about that day.

Then the Feds sent him back to buy some PCP from me. The money he came with was the same fucked up way; hundred dollar bills stacked in thousands. I felt that the money wasn’t right, but I gave the homey the benefit of the doubt.

Dirt Rock didn’t only have his problems from

“Dirt Rock was one of the dudes that was a part of that triple murder case and now he’s walking the streets just so they could bring down Keffe D.”

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selling dope in Virginia, but the nigga also caught a triple-murder case in LA. One of my little homeys had a Cadillac truck that he wanted to sell for $46,000 cash. He put an ad in the local paper, and some guys said they wanted to buy it. They set up a location to meet, and when the guys pulled up in their Mercedes Benz, my homeboys drew down on them. They took the money, put the guys in the Mercedes Benz and shot them all in the head. Then, they went and dropped the car off in a Starbucks parking lot in another city. But the surveillance camera at the Starbucks recorded them dropping the car off. The car sat there for about three weeks, and the bodies started stinking. The police researched and found the original truck ad with the number that was listed, and eventually tracked them down. Dirt Rock was one of the dudes that was a part of that triple-murder case, and now he’s walking the streets so that they could bring down Keffe D.

vvv

Tucker

Tucker was a young guy from my hood that was one of best high school basketball players on the West coast. As a youngster I took him to a couple of fights to show him the ropes. He was recruited by Arizona State to play basketball but that got derailed when Tucker, George Gervin’s son and another recruit were

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accused of physically and sexually assaulting some girls so they were kicked out of school. He ended up getting a scholarship to Pepperdine. My boy Victor, the youngster from Lakewood Mall that took the Death Row chain got killed hanging out with Tucker.

The day Victor got killed I went to pick him up from his house. “Victor, Lane and them said come on, they just did something.” He came to my truck and said, “Keffe D, I’m going to Pepperdine to spend the week with Tucker up at the dorms to fuck with them broads.”

“Alright cool. Be careful.”

So I took off, by the time I got to Hawthorne I got word that Victor had been shot. Tucker had gone into the weed spot and Li’l Ace was up in the shop. He asked Tucker, “Who is that? Victor in the car?”

Tucker answered, “Yeah, we’re fixin’ to go up to Pepperdine.”

Li’l Ace was from South Side also. Li’l Ace left the weed spot and shot Victor in the head while he was sitting in Tucker’s father’s car. Tucker had to get on the stand on Li’l Ace cause he killed a guy in his car.

Tucker started playing basketball with Pepperdine and one day Baby Lane and I were sitting up in the trap when Tucker came over and said, “The Feds pulled me over Keffe D.”

“The Feds pulled you over?”

“Yeah, I was coming from college and they were

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asking a lot of questions about you.” This was a few days before they took me down. Lane was laying on the couch acting like he was sleep. When Tucker left Lane said, “That nigga is off his rocker. Something wrong with that nigga.”

“For real?”

“Yeah, I don’t trust that nigga.” But I give him credit, he was actually telling the truth.

vvv

Menace

Menace had become my right-hand man because he was dating my daughter. I wanted him to be able to provide for my daughter, so I made sure he was making money through hustling.

Menace had an apartment in Paramount, which is where we were doing a lot of our transactions at the time. As part of that task force, the Feds also had an apartment in the same apartment complex. I figured one day when Menace was in there by himself the Feds ran in there on his ass and he never let me know.

A few months after Dirt Rock copped the gallon of PCP from me, Menace came and said he needed a gallon of PCP. My cousin Speedo only had one left. I told Speedo to go ahead and give it to Menace and that he would bring the money back. Menace took

I didn’t want to do no punk ass shit — that was against my code — against everything I stood for and believed in.

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the gallon and then brought it back thirty minutes later and said it wasn’t any good. Thirty minutes after that my cousin Speedo called me, “Cousin Keith, That motherfuckin’ Menace set me up.”

“Why you say that?”

“You know damn well that was the best water [PCP] in town. The FBI is at my house right now with the Hazmat team. He set me up. I’m gonna get that motherfucker.”

I defended Menace, “There’s no way he could do that to you.” My cousin said, “If you think I’m lying go by my house right now.”

I jumped in my ride and rolled by Speedo’s house, and sure enough, there was a fire truck, Hazmat team, FBI agents, and people in chemical suits going into his house. I was trying to give Menace the benefit of the doubt, but as I look back at everything, it’s clear that Menace did set my cousin up. The way I know Menace set my cousin up is because once the Feds came in on me, they told me that my family had the best PCP they had ever tested.

All of them dudes were folding like folding chairs. The guys who flipped on me, some of them were even my family members, they don’t know but they would have been looking at 20 to 30 years if it wasn’t for me. Some of them have the nerve to be out in the streets and on social media talking shit. What they don’t know is the Feds were going to press them

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all for money and whoever didn’t kick in was going to jail. “We’re doing a fundraiser, we need some money for Keffe D, he saved y’all ass.” The Feds are that cold. I told them, “Hell no, don’t press nobody. Don’t do that shit. Leave that shit alone.”

Over the years I’ve been asked why I ignored some of the red flags that popped up around me? All I can say is I couldn’t ever imagine that the fellas I had around me would be so weak and flip on me like that, especially since we had such a good thing going.

vvv

Once my mind stopped wandering, and they were finishing up their presentation they said, “Keffe D, enjoy your holidays. We need your decision by January 9th.” After I saw all the evidence they had and all the people that had flipped on me, I realized I was cooked grease.

I didn’t go home and tell anybody in my family that I went down to meet with the Feds. In fact, I didn’t tell anybody, period. That whole next week I couldn’t even sleep from the stress of thinking about my predicament. I didn’t want to do any punk ass shit — that was against my code — against everything

“if y’all think I’m gonna run around here buying kilos and setting up my peers and all that ol’ shit you can lock me the fuck up right now cause I’m not doing that shit…”

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I stood for and believed. That’s the main reason I fought my family so hard is I knew that there was a code on the streets and in an earlier period I would die fucking around with the police like that. I had been living this life for years, and I had never done that to anybody and never would do that to anybody. I wanted to tell them Feds, “Fuck it, I ain’t doing that shit. Take everything, cause I don’t do that.”

As part of their mind game, knowing I’m a family man, they gave me Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s to think about it. That was the most stressful, fucked up time in my life. I was dazed and confused about what to do.

January 9th came, and my attorney Wayne Higgins and I went on down to their offices to meet with them. The Task Force was feeling some heat on their side because Biggie’s mother was suing the Los Angeles Police Department for hundreds of millions of dollars, so they were willing to offer me an exceptional deal because they seriously thought that South Side had killed Biggie. They offered to let me go for running a “criminal enterprise” and numerous alleged murders for the truth about the Tupac and Biggie murders. They promised they would shred the indictment and stop the grand jury if I helped them

From the minute I walked out of their offices I haven’t felt the same. I feel like a dirty, rotten son-of-a-bitch.

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out.

The Task Force was after me, but in the process, some big-time players I was dealing with got dragged into it. Forty-eight people were going to jail behind my drug dealing if I told the Feds to go fuck themselves. Most of us would have gone to prison with life sentences because we had already been to the Feds.

Proffer sessions, also known as ‘Queen for a day’ or ‘King for a day’ sessions, are agreements between federal prosecutors and people under criminal investigation. Their proffer was to allow me to tell the government about my knowledge of the Tupac and Biggie murders with the assurance that whatever I told them would not be used against me.

There was a room full of people waiting for me when I got there. One agent said, “I was sent from the Justice Department in Washington D.C. to come to get you.” He continued, “Tell your cousin Speedo he’s not getting away this time because I dot all my I’s and cross my T’s.”

They even had fuckin’ Blue Beard, who worked out of the same office, pop his head in there talking about, “I’m telling you guys, you’re doing a deal with the devil. I would lock all of them up if it were up to me. Somebody’s going to wind up dead.”

I don’t know if his guest appearance was part of their psychological mind games to break me down, but I’m not going to lie, the shit was effective cause I

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already knew how tenacious Blue Beard could be.

Greg Kading, a red-headed, freckled face dude, sat there licking his chops and the session started, “Keffe if you lie to us…we already know everything. If you lie to us, all deals are off.” My attorney Wayne Higgins told me before we got in there, “Don’t get in there and lie because that’s perjury against the government.” I kept that in mind as I began to speak but there was something I needed to get off my chest from the start.

“Let me tell you motherfuckers something. If y’all think I’m gonna run around here buying kilos and setting up my peers and all that ol’ shit you can lock me the fuck up right now cause I’m not doing that shit. That’s going to get somebody fucking killed.”

Their initial questions were primarily about Biggie’s murder. They were saying, “Y’all killed Biggie too cause they didn’t pay you the money for Tupac.” It appeared the Biggie case was the one they were really trying to solve because Biggie’s mother had the LAPD tied up in a big time wrongful death lawsuit so they thundered down on me hard trying to solve that case in order to get out of that lawsuit. They thought we had hit Biggie too. They were coming at me so hard on the Biggie issue that at one point I paused and silently asked myself, “Did we kill Biggie?” That shit only lasted for a second cause I knew Biggie wasn’t us. “I’m telling you we didn’t have nothing to do with

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Biggie. That wasn’t us. Go get the bitch and she’ll tell you everything you need to know about the Biggie killing.” They seemed to understand and respect where I was coming from. “I can only tell you what the fuck we did.”

Startled, one of them responded, “Wait, what do you mean?” Clearly shocked and surprised by my words because they were not used to me cooperating with them at all I went ahead and started answering their questions about the events leading up to Tupac getting shot.

The Feds had followed me around for fifteen years it was finally time to get the shit off my chest and over with. Everybody else from my neighborhood was getting off on the shit; why not get off on my shit? I sang because they promised I would not be prosecuted.

I thought they were lying to me, but they kept their word and stopped the indictment, tore up the whole case. Nobody went to jail. They let my cousins, Boss Man, and some other heavyweights go. They would have taken us all down. The Feds have a conviction rate of 98%. The Feds don’t come unless they have your ass. Shit, they let me go on a case that carried the death sentence, and when you’re fucking with the Feds, you die in their electric chair within five years. My ass was fried and everybody else, all 48 people were going to be fried. They don’t play

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downtown. That’s the way they operate.

vvv

From the minute I walked out of their offices I haven’t felt the same. I felt like a dirty, rotten, son-of-a-bitch. I still feel awful about what I did to this day. That shit fucked with me mentally because that wasn’t me. I did it for my family.

I could have went out there like everybody else and faked it, all 18 of them dudes kept selling dope, running the streets and everything. Once I made the decision to cooperate with the government, I could have done like I wanted. As long as I didn’t do some blatant shit like murder somebody in the middle of the street they would have given me a pass. In fact they might have even helped me.

One of the FBI agents told me, “Man if you can get me a big bust I’ll give you half the money. I know where there are millions right now. We’re giving percentages; we can go 50-50. You’ll get rich working with us.” The government is crooked as can be, but I was done. I stopped selling dope and everything, even though I had license to sell dope. I didn’t feel good within myself.

To add insult to injury and make matters way worse can you imagine how I felt when my son came home one day and told me, “Yo dad, they have a recording of your voice on the internet.”

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“You bullshitting? Get the fuck out of here. There ain’t any recordings of me out there!”

“If you say so.” He pulled out a laptop and after a minute or so he said, “Well listen to this shit then.”

Sure enough, one of the agents, Greg Kading, apparently sat there with a tape recorder in his pocket talking about he wasn’t recording and recorded the proffer session. I know for a fact that I didn’t sign anything or give permission for anyone to record the meeting. Then he took the recording when he was no longer working with the LAPD and profited off of it by using the recording as part of news stories he did with different news and entertainment companies, all while putting my life on the line. That’s some crooked shit, no matter how you slice it that shit was dirty. They’ve been doing me wrong for a long time.

The first question I usually get from people is, “How is it that you’re not in jail?” I’ve explained the deal that kept my ass out of jail. But I’ve yet to hear anyone press Greg Kading’s ass on how he obtained the infamous ‘Keffe D Tapes’ that was featured in the LA Weekly newspaper back in 2011 and has been featured in a few TV documentaries and specials on the topic of who shot Tupac and Biggie?

The introduction to the LA Weekly article reads, “A three-hour recording of Keffe D’s admissions, lifted from LAPD archives by ex-Detective Greg Kading.” Not sure about you but where I come from the word

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‘lifted’ means to steal something, point blank period. Even the Merriam-Webster dictionary agrees that ‘lifted’ means to steal.

Former detective Greg Kading admitted to secretly recording me during an investigation while he was an employee of the Los Angeles Police Department. Then he takes the recording and releases it to the public for his personal financial gain, and nobody checks his ass for it?

What Greg Kading did was blatantly unethical. And, if it’s not illegal the shit definitely should be. Releasing the tape of our confidential session, which I never agreed to be recorded in the first place, jeopardized my life and also put my family’s life in jeopardy.

Kading is still out here profiting from his books, interviews, contributing to documentaries, executive producing docuseries and making movies. Shit, professionals who work in education, hospitals, lawyers, and priests, all have standards that protect people’s sensitive information from being released to the public, but rogue cops can publish confidential details with impunity? That’s some bullshit.

Law enforcement officials often complain about the difficulty they have in solving cases in Black and Brown communities because no one wants to talk to the police, usually out of fear that they will be labeled a ‘snitch’ and the target of retaliation. In my

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situation I spoke to the police, not giving a fuck about what people would say because I know the real, and they offered me a sweeter deal than Sammy ‘The Bull’ Gravano. My point is, with people in the hood already harboring feelings of distrust against law enforcement, when they learn about what a former detective did with my confidential communication and put my family and me in harm’s way like that; it’s going to make things even worse.

My saving grace is the shit I talked about in the session was the shit that I did. Not one person went to jail behind any of the shit I said in my interview; in fact, I saved a lot of motherfuckers from going to jail for extremely long sentences with my cooperation. They were poised to take down forty-eight different people, some with life sentences. I think about the harm that would have done to the families, the kids, and grandkids, the community, and it allows me to rest a little more peacefully at night.

It kills me on the inside to know that I told them anything. I’m a soldier. I was the face of the game. I was one of the first guys in Compton to do the shit at that level. Some days I wish I would have gone on in and took it like the soldier that I am. I did something that wasn’t me.

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Epilogue

Where Is The Love?

My last words are reserved for those of you who have been hiding under rocks thinking you’ve gotten away with the dirty shit you’ve done to me. I need to include this section because there are people out there trying to make me look like a fucked up dude. I’m here to expose you. You know who you are.

When I got involved in the drug game my goal was for all of us to have homes, money and nice things in life — to have fun like a family. I made sure your kids were fed, went to school looking nice, all that. But you guys allowed the white man to come in and divide us. Just because they have the little FBI shit on their back doesn’t mean anything. They’re the same as us. They’re human just like us. The white man has been doing us like this for 400 years, and y’all let them come in and divide us like that. Y’all are wrong, sold me out for chicken change. Which leads me to my first target:

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GREG KADING

Kading, you’re a snake. You seriously jeopardized the lives and safety of myself and my family so you could be seen as the ‘Supercop’ who solved the Tupac and Biggie murders. You ain’t did shit bitch. If it wasn’t for the FBI and the US Attorney they sicced on my ass, I wouldn’t have told you a motherfuckin’ thing with your weak ass shit. You wasn’t nothing but a little LAPD detective.

If truth is your defense, then you should have told the whole truth. Instead, you just put my name and identity out in the public and concealed the identities of all the other motherfuckers underneath me that flipped. You used them in order to get to me.

vvv

I’ve been to the Federal prison system, so I know all the codes and everything about the system. Anyone who has been to the Feds knows there are sentencing guidelines, and if you have a federal case you have to be sentenced under those guidelines. I received a 70-month sentence from a fucking 7-second phone call based on the sentencing guidelines. They gave me 10-months per second. They didn’t catch me with anything, just an ambiguous phone call and I did 70 months. If you get caught do your fucking time homey. I got caught and did my time.

When I reviewed the paperwork surrounding

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my case from the Freedom of Information Act, it fucked me up. Most of the names and sensitive information had been redacted but it’s easy for me to know who and what they’re talking about because I was there. The shit happened to me. The paperwork confirmed what I instinctively already knew, some of those closest to me had flipped on me. And put me in a fucked up predicament. The shit ain’t right.

A lot of the dudes I thought were true to this game weren’t true at all. It seems like they envied me and wanted to take my place. I was good to everybody, and I hate that they put me in a mix like that, put all that shit on me.

Here are some of the major perpetrators, guys who got caught with way worse shit than me. And based on the sentencing guidelines they should have been sentenced to considerable prison time. Take a look at the sentencing table and controlled substance schedules and decide for yourself.

vvv

TUCKER

Retired NBA player Tayshaun Prince’s brother, Tucker, has been on the streets telling people that I was snitching. But bitch, you worked for the FBI motherfucker. You’re on their payroll. They couldn’t get you out this last time, they gave you 21-years for robbing drug dealers, and you deserve every

DEA Controlled Substance Schedules

Schedule I drugs have a high potential for abuse and no currently accepted medical use. Some examples of Schedule I drugs are: heroin, LSD, PCP, marijuana, and ecstasy.

Schedule II drugs have a high potential for abuse, have currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and their abuse may lead to severe psychological or physical dependence. Some examples of Schedule II drugs are: Vicodin, cocaine, methamphetamine, methadone, Demerol, OxyContin, fentanyl, Adderall, and Ritalin.

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Compton Street Legend

day you have coming. You were out there doing too motherfuckin’ much.

You sat up there and set me up on Burris with that money. You wrong homey. Running around setting up everybody. I really saved your life. You got Li’l Ace life. They killed Victor in your daddy’s car so you got him life. The top brass from South Side had a round table meeting about your ass, and I saved your life dude. And you gonna do me like that homey?

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DIRT ROCK

Dirt Rock you come over to buy some shit from me, the next day the apartment gets raided…

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MENACE

Menace you was there and didn’t tell me shit. You sat up there and worked with them people and crossed me the whole time. Lost your apartment then you move back in my house knowing you’re working with the FBI. You’re wrong as hell. Got my cousin Big Mike thirty years, wrong man. Now you running around Baby and them in New Orleans talking about you ain’t did nothing. That’s why you’re snorting all that fucking coke. You know what the fuck you did. You didn’t even have enough heart to come and tell me like a man. You thought you got away dude.

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Epilogue

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OOCHIE

Oochie, the Federal agent was sitting up there talking like you. But you were my best friend, I had been knowing you since 1965. I know you’ve passed away but that was wrong homey. They followed you around for two months, busted you and you didn’t tell me shit.

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C-RAY

You get caught in Ohio with three gallons of PCP and a kilo of cocaine and only did a year and a half. The minimum sentence for getting caught with three gallons of ‘water’ is at least twenty years. According to the Federal sentencing guidelines and their point system, three gallons of ‘water’ gets you 38 points. The first line on the sentencing guidelines for getting busted with that is 20 years. Three gallons of ‘water’ and you only do a year and a half?

You’ve been snitching the whole time. When you got raided on the Biggie Smalls raid, you’re the only one they raided that knew the inner workings of our business like that. I knew you were snitching. You told them everything dude. You’re wrong homey. Now you’re sitting up there around my family acting like you ain’t did shit. Bitch, you know what you did.

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Compton Street Legend

Then you have the nerve to ask my son, “Is everything cool?” Nigga, it will never be cool nigga. You fucked up our life bitch.

Then you got on TV and said the dog had the gun in his mouth. Naw homey. I got the Freedom of Information Act paperwork, the gun came out of the flowerpot in your back house when they raided you in 2001. You can get on TV and say what you want to say. You know the truth. I was real good to you. I had your back and all that homey. When dudes didn’t want you around I told you to come on nigga I had you.

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THE REAPER

Reaper, sit up there in fucking prison and do your fucking time. Trying to get a transfer on me. Come on homey, you’re wrong homey. Then you talk about I don’t send you anything. Of course I won’t send you anything, you did a lot of foul shit. The first day I went to the Feds, the day before Lane got killed, the Feds told me how you set us up for a robbery. They had your grandmother’s phone tapped. I know everything about your ass. You’re a snake.

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OUT OF TOWNERS

You niggas out there in Virginia, one named Pete, in Richmond, Virginia. Nigga you don’t even

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Epilogue

know anything about me, and you out there snitching on me. You don’t know me, Pedro Hernandez. And Geno Smith, out there in Virginia Beach, I know Dirt Rock and Tucker went out there and set your ass up. But you don’t know nothing about me. You didn’t even want me in your town ‘cause I was all up on your punk ass. You think you slick with that little weak ass game you got. You need to just keep dumping trash and stay up out of the game because you’re a weak ass bitch.

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NAMELESS

One dude, who shall remain nameless, but you know who you are, got caught out in St. Louis with fourteen kilos. Man, 14 kilos gets you an automatic minimum sentence of 10 years based on the sentencing guidelines. How the fuck you only do two years after getting caught with 14 kilos? It would take an Act of Congress to get off that shit unless you’re cooperating with the government.

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BOSS MAN

Boss Man you kinda did me wrong, too. You teach me some shit but it seem like you teach me to beat me. Then, you go around saying, “Keffe D snitching.”

I saved your life. You and the dude I introduced

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Compton Street Legend

you to. I saved both your lives. They had your asses punished, you just don’t know bro. But, it was behind me. They had all of us.

Boss Man you already know how they can come in and destroy your life. I chose to save lives rather than destroy lives. I saved 48 people from getting indicted. The Feds sent some dude from D.C. to get me and y’all simply fell into the pot that was already cooking. When you got out you fell right in like a big target. It seemed like they were waiting for that to happen. I saved your life, and I think you ought to thank me for that instead of trying to put salt on my name.

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At first I was mad about this whole situation, but I’m free now. As time goes by, I realize I was offered the deal of a lifetime. They were going to punish our asses. I would never have said a word if they didn’t give me such a sweet deal. I didn’t have to do a day of time, saved 48 people’s lives, and I didn’t tell on anybody but myself, because everybody else was already dead. Think about it!