“HEY, YOU FROM THE COMPTON Cowboys?” a voice asked Kenneth while he pulled on two wire cables at the gym.
The unknown man stood a few feet behind him while he finished his set. He asked again, and this time he grabbed Kenneth’s shoulder and gestured with his hands to take off his headphones.
The man was in his midforties and had prison tattoos all over his body. His lifted chest and forty-five-degree-angle-pointed feet, one slightly hidden behind the other, signaled that he was from the streets.
“Are you part of the Compton Cowboys?” he asked again. A friend of his had now joined him, standing almost the same way. Both waited for a response.
“Yeah, I am,” Kenneth finally responded while he put the weights back down on the floor and took his headphones off. His own shoulders tightened up and his chest bulked in front of him, ready for confrontation.
“I’m from Compton and a member of the Hill riders and my boys and I don’t like the way y’all are representing black cowboys,” the man said while rubbing his hands together in front of his chest. “Y’all look like some clowns wearing sandals and shit when you ride.”
The two men were part of another black horse-riding group on the Hill, a horse ranch located in South Central that had burned down in 2012.
Riders from the Hill were one of the first groups of black urban cowboys in Southern California. Like the ranch on the farms, the Hill became an oasis for black riders in South Central who arrived from the South in the 1960s. Within a matter of years, the Hill had grown into a thriving horse-riding community, and like the ranch, it was a place that gave African-American youth like Tre and Keiara a place to congregate and ride. In 2012, however, the Hill mysteriously burned down late one night. Arson was always suspected; one of the horses had been doused with gasoline and set ablaze, causing the rest of the stables to also catch fire. The fire deeply impacted the lives of many of its riders, causing Keiara and Tre to move their horses to Mayisha’s ranch. The others who were left without a place to house their horses were forced to sell.
Kenneth backed up from the two men and braced himself for a fight.
“You think kids in the ’hood are going to respect y’all when y’all are doing that clown shit?” the man asked.
Since the cowboys first officially banded together, they had been criticized for not always wearing traditional cowboy clothing whenever they rode through the streets of Compton. Older generations of riders from the Hill, like the man who stood in front of Kenneth, believed it was disrespectful and portrayed the wrong image of black cowboy culture.
“We don’t have to wear tucked-in shirts and baggy jeans with our boots,” Kenneth explained. “We have our own style and our own way of doing things.”
The conversation continued with no end in sight. The differences in generational views about cowboy culture weren’t going to get solved that day, and Kenneth knew he couldn’t fight both of them. He knew he would put up a fight, but he needed Randy to be there.
“Hold up, let me call my homie,” Kenneth told them. “He’ll be able to explain what we’re trying to do.”
Cowboy beef had become a growing concern in Compton. While the Compton Cowboys came from a Crip neighborhood, riders from the Hill lived in a neighborhood full of Piru Bloods. They were linked by family and gang affiliation, and that didn’t end when they mounted their horses.
When Randy arrived, the four walked out to a quiet part of the parking lot, where he and Kenneth prepared for the unexpected.
“I done had people I know die for this Compton horse life,” the man said, raising his voice, creating a scene as people walked in and out of the gym. His passion and love for horses was evident as his voice echoed throughout the parking lot. “I’m a real cowboy and we put our hats on and boots and go rope shit, and y’all making us look bad.”
The older cowboys’ issue stemmed from the media attention that the Compton Cowboys had been receiving over the past year. They felt like the younger men hadn’t paid their dues and were riding on the coattails of the legacy established by riders from the Hill. The energy that he brought to the conversation echoed all around the city of Compton. It was rough and raw and intense.
To an outsider, four black men standing in a parking lot facing one another could have resembled a fight about gang territory, women, or drugs. But the conversation was entirely about horses and cowboys. They went back and forth and it became clear that neither side wanted to fight—the elder just wanted to communicate his concern for the future of black cowboys in Compton.
“We just have a different approach,” Randy explained to the riders from the Hill. “We’re not new to Compton, I’m born and raised in the farms. My whole family is from the farms and my auntie has been doing this since before we were born.”
Slowly the man’s tense posture eased up. The look in his eyes went from anger to understanding as he continued to take in Randy’s words.
“I done buried two of my homies this past year,” Randy explained. “We’re really about this ’hood and cowboy life.”
The conversation deescalated after each person explained their stance. Neither cowboy was right or wrong, and the altercation instead reflected a broader issue that was affecting black cowboys across Los Angeles. Older riders were becoming increasingly disconnected from the younger generation. When older black riders first began riding, they experienced discrimination and rejection. They had to look twice as good and ride three times better than the average white cowboy. It’s the reason why black rodeo competitions like the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo were started in the first place. The younger generation of riders were bringing their own style and customs to horse riding. They were taking ownership.
The talk opened up a conversation that Randy had been meaning to have with other black riders in and around Compton. The showdown became the perfect opportunity for him to shatter the stereotypes that people had about the Compton Cowboys. The suggestion of organizing a riding event together was raised as a way to unite both groups. Riding together, they believed, would help create better bonds with other riders, and it would help the older generation understand the mission that Randy and his friends were on. Like the riders from the Hill, the Compton Cowboys were on a mission to eradicate stereotypes about black cowboys and reinsert themselves and others back into the history books.
Kenneth, on the other hand, couldn’t let the situation go that easily. The two men had rubbed him the wrong way and confirmed that he was one of the most hated cowboys in Compton. His fame and notoriety on social media was becoming a source of jealousy. Other black riders thought he was a joke, and that didn’t sit well with him.
“There’s Blood and Crip beef in the ’hood, but this is cowboy beef,” he said as he drove away from the group in the direction of the ranch.
KEENAN PUFFED ON a cigarette and took a long look around the ranch. There was still a lot of work to do before the guys showed up, and if he hurried he could feed all the horses and clean some of the stalls in the next hour.
He flicked his cigarette butt into the air and continued filling each stall with hay. It had been almost two weeks since he had fully moved back, and the ranch hand life was starting to become routine again. When he was working at a restaurant in downtown Los Angeles, an average weekend commute would take him almost an hour. Now his commute was only steps away.
“You looking good today,” he told Sonny, while the horse dove his head deep inside of the hay feeder in his stall. “Eat all the hay you can while it’s dry, ’cause the rain might come back later.”
Tre’s and Mike’s backs both rested on Tre’s car in the driveway while they both waited for other cowboys to show up. The two wide-shouldered former football players and single fathers had been spending more time together these days. In his free time, Tre had begun cutting hair and had booked an appointment with Keenan.
A young Latina woman in her twenties walked out of the next-door home, causing both friends to look. Even Byron, who was on the porch smoking a Newport, turned her way.
“Who’s that?” Tre asked while touching the side of his freshly cut hair. “She need to be coming over here, you feel me?” Mike hummed and nodded in agreement.
Since the youth program wasn’t in full operation yet, weekends on the ranch had been quiet over the past few months. But after Kenneth was approached by riders from the Hill, certain members of the cowboys had different opinions about which action to take, prompting an informal meeting at the ranch that day.
In a surprising turn of events, one of the Hill riders extended an invitation to ride with them in two weeks. The ride would also include other black riding groups from Southern California, and if everyone who was expected to show up did, it would be one of the largest gatherings of black cowboys in recent years.
The invitation was enticing but not enough for Kenneth. He preferred to skip it, arguing instead that the Hill riders “wanted to steal their clout” and try to ride the bandwagon of attention that the cowboys had been receiving since they officially banded together more than two years earlier.
“Them niggas from the Hill aren’t from the farms,” he said. “They’re jealous of us because we can wake up in the morning and ride our horses. Them niggas can’t do that and they’re mad that they have to leave their homes and drive somewhere to get on horses.”
Anthony’s and Terrance’s opinions aligned more with Kenneth’s. As two of the eldest and most connected to the street life, their views were more aggressive.
“We can handle the situation whatever way they want to,” Anthony said. “They mad ’cause we’re younger than they are, but I can bring the chopper to the ride if necessary.”
The threat of gun violence to settle the issues with the Hill cowboys worried Randy. His hope to unite all black cowboys would be shattered if bad blood with the Hill continued. A war between the Hill and the farms would automatically incite a corresponding war between members of the Bloods and Crips.
Mariah appeared as they waited, pushing Lux’s grey stroller. The toddler eventually got out and started walking around the group, adorable in his sweater and sweats combination. The more time his son spent with the horses, the happier Randy became. Horses were becoming a big part of Lux’s life, and his comfort level with them was increasing rapidly, which assured Randy that the Hook family tradition of horse riding would continue.
As the young parents watched their only son, Tre wrapped a barber’s robe around Keenan, who was perched on a makeshift stool. Because the rodeo circuit didn’t begin for another three months, Tre was cutting hair to make money. He had learned by doing his own hair and then worked on close friends and family. He didn’t charge most of the cowboys and only took whatever they could afford, but cutting hair was now more than a hobby for him. Weeks before cutting Keenan’s hair, he had enrolled in barber college, paying the $1,500 enrollment fee with the hope of being officially licensed at the end of the course.
The temperature continued to drop as the sun faded. The guys paced the ranch grounds in order to stay warm, smoking and drinking bottles of beer all the while. Keenan’s wife had joined the group and stood next to Mariah while she braided the mane of one of the horses.
When Keiara’s black Chevrolet Suburban pulled up to the ranch, the group had already been drinking and smoking for hours. Ever since she moved Penny from the Gardena stables to the ranch weeks before, she had been spending more time with the cowboys, even though her injury continued to hinder her ability to ride.
“What’s up, Kiki?” everyone said as she and Taylor walked up to the group.
“Hiiiiiiiii, pretty little girrrrrrrrrrllllll,” Keenan said from the barber chair, pointing at Taylor.
“Taylor, say hi to Keenan,” Keiara told Taylor.
At this point in her life, Taylor had been around horses as much as she had been around humans. She waved at the group and immediately walked back to the stables, searching for Penny.
The altercation with the Hill cowboys was a bit more complicated for Tre and Keiara than it was for the rest of the cowboys. Both had first learned how to ride on the Hill and were still connected to the riders. Though the Hill was only a shadow of what it once had been since its stables had burned, for Keiara the place reminded her of the days she had spent there when her brother was still alive. But like the rest of the cowboys, she had mixed views about the new generation of riders who claimed to be from the Hill.
“I don’t know a lot of the new riders over there,” she said while putting a pair of riding pads on Penny’s back. “I only know the older riders, and it seems like a lot of the younger niggas are on some new shit that I don’t really fuck with. One time when I was a kid, me and my brother and some other homies jumped one of them in one of the stables,” she added while securing a bridle on her horse.
That the Hill was going through its own transformation wasn’t the cause of concern for the group. They, too, were in the process of creating a new vision for black cowboys. The deeper issue lay in the image that the Compton Cowboys were creating for themselves. Word from the black riding community had said that several other black cowboy groups throughout California had issues with the way that the Compton Cowboys were promoting themselves. Not having the support of their fellow black cowboys would undermine the success and image the Compton Cowboys were trying to create.
“I would love to be unified with other black cowboys,” Randy said to the group, his black cap and black Ray-Ban sunglasses concealing his eyes and most of his face. “But the Willie Lynch theory is a real thing in the ’hood. Black people always finding ways to hate against one another. It’s too common. We try to knock each other down. If we show up to the ride and there’s beef with them, then that’s just that Willie Lynch shit happening.”
The idea that black cowboys could quarrel, according to Randy, derived from a speech given by a slave owner named Willie Lynch in the early 1700s. The speech detailed a “secret” the master had found—that is, separating enslaved Africans from one another would pit the divided groups against each other. The theory resonated with the Cowboys.
“We’re just different than them niggas,” Kenneth said while sitting as far away from the alcohol as possible. “We ain’t gotta wear cowboy boots all the time and—”
Randy immediately interjected, interrupting Kenneth’s views, “Yeah, we’re different, but there’s a movement that we’re trying to create with them as well. And things like Instagram have helped us promote that culture. The goal has always been for every black cowboy to come out of the shadows. Black cowboys have been around for years but they haven’t had the energy that we have, and we’re trying to break all the fucking barriers.”
Everyone nodded in agreement.
“Definitely,” Keenan said, checking out his hair in a small mirror that Tre had put in front of him.
Kenneth was the only one who didn’t nod, still visibly upset by his confrontation with the Hill riders.
In spite of the issues that were being addressed that day, the mood of the ranch had shifted. Kenneth’s past actions might have given his friends a reason to isolate him even further from the group, but the exact opposite had happened: it brought them closer together. The rest of the cowboys felt attacked and saw Kenneth as one of their own and were willing to protect him.
The pressures of keeping the ranch alive and the reality that young people weren’t showing up in ways that they had hoped for were concealed by the beers and laughs. At one point, Randy went to the back shed and brought out two boards with older photos of the cowboys when they were members of the Compton Junior Posse. It was something that he liked to do whenever the cowboys got together, to remind everyone where they had come from. Each photo on the board told a different story. It reminded the cowboys of the bond they had shared since they were children.
Everyone gathered around it.
“There goes Slim,” Carlton pointed out while holding Lux in his arms. “And his mama, too.” Since Slim had passed away months ago, photos and memories were all they had of the brother they had lost. Another photo showed Randy on his childhood horse, named Lookattime, a white Arabian that was donated to the ranch by the University of Southern California’s spirit squad.
Their young faces and bright blue shirts stood out in every photo, prompting Keenan to yell out “Blue Lives Matter” from his stool, causing everyone to laugh.
“Blue lives fucking matter, y’all,” Keenan said sarcastically.
A photo of Mariah and Randy sitting on a fence at the ranch brought back memories of the past fifteen years that they had shared together. The birth of Lux had brought them back together, but also introduced new challenges.
Keenan took off his robe, stepped off the stool, and crouched down to look at the photos of their youth.
“Damn, you were a chicken head,” he said to Mariah, who was wearing a red hooded sweater to cover her hair in the photo. “I remember that day,” he continued. “That’s when you and Randy first met.”
“Me? A chicken head? Nigga, your horses are some chicken heads,” she said, making the entire group roar with laughter. She looked directly at Keenan, who didn’t have a response.
Randy quickly responded in defense of Keenan and the horses. “Yeah, okay, maybe, but how we got one of the top hairstylists in the game that lives on the ranch? And these horses can’t get no love? It doesn’t make no sense!”
Though some of the tension had eased, Randy decided it was best not to ride with the Hill riders. It was too soon, and Anthony and Kenneth were still on edge following the altercation. On top of the reluctance to ride and make peace with the other black cowboys, the rains had made many of the trails and streets unsafe to ride in. All the cowboys could do was hope that things would cool off on their own. At the end of the day, it was what was best for both the community and for the future of black riders in Compton.