DESOTO WAS THE PLACE TO BE FOR FELONS IN FLORIDA. Back then, Desoto was the Madison Square Garden of prisons. A bunk at Desoto was like making it to the major leagues. The prison was close enough to Miami to know what went on in the streets. Family members could make the short trip for visits.
For me it ended up being a homecoming of sorts. Black, Tronne, Melvin, and my older brother Cedric met me at check-in. Cedric had the same DNA that Hollywood and I had inherited. Our veins pumped a hustler’s blood. More than half my brothers have served time in prison. Cedric got jammed on a drug-trafficking charge. He was considered one of the older hustlers in the streets. I was happy to see those guys. I didn’t get to spend much time with Ced growing up. We ran into each other on the streets, but he was making his money and I was making mine. Tronne was locked up for armed robbery. Prison forced a much needed reunion party.
That’s how prison goes. My life and that of the brothers’ I shared space with amid those walls forever intertwined. We bumped into each other along the way and formed lifelong bonds. There’s no room for pride when someone’s forced to use a toilet a yard away from another man. Prison is the truest fraternity. We didn’t share pledges and Greek letters. We shared life and death.
On many occasions I would have died in there if not for Black, Ced, Tronne, or another one from my crew. Guards would have found me in a cell with my guts ripped open. I depended on my band of brothers. We shared commissary and everything else. At Desoto we ran the yard. Black, Melvin, and Ced had already earned their stripes. I still got into fights nevertheless. I was too volatile. The slightest cold stare or mean glance sent me upside someone’s head. I spent more time in confinement than I did on the yard. I used to spend 180 days at a time in the box. We were bored out of our minds down there. Breakfast came in at 4 a.m. Lunch was served at 10:30 a.m., then dinner at 3 p.m. We were left starving with nothing to do for hours. We got creative to pass the time. One inmate could sing. Another inmate pretended to be a human beat box, and one inmate quoted Bible scriptures.
Each person was given his time of silence to perform. We couldn’t see each other, but we could hear each other. The only thing that interrupted that moment was a flushed toilet. I remember a couple of inmates whose throats were slit over flushing the potty. That time in confinement was the most sacred moment for any convicted felon, if there was such a thing in prison. We called it riding the bars.
When it was my turn, everyone took extra notice. In fact, inmates started giving up their time to me. I rapped. My verses were laced with the real-life pain we suffered through. I rhymed about the friends I saw die in the streets. Their blood-soaked corpses evoked memories.
A couple months before, word had reached me that my childhood friend Darryl had been shot to death. He was set up by his right-hand man, who told Darryl’s supplier that Darryl was ripping him off. It wasn’t true, but in the dope game someone always tried to knock a friend out the way to get to the top. My other playground friend O’Sean suffered a similar fate, but ended up paralyzed before he passed away. The bullet inched its way to his heart over time. As the news came in about my deceased comrades, it gave me more material to rap about. I couldn’t cry. Rapping was the best way to express my pain.
“Trick, my homeboy used my baby mama to set me up!” one inmate would yell from his cell. “Can you lace something for me, bruh?”
My rhymes became prison therapy. I was narrating our lives. Soon word spread throughout the cellblock that the wild inmate Trick had a way with words. Black brought inmates who wanted me to pen love letters to folks back home. Others asked me to write appeal letters. I started rapping in the yard and on the cellblock. Even the guards gathered around to hear me spit. When anyone from my crew phoned home, they held the phone in the direction of where I was rapping. I had become an in-house MC.
“Bruh, you should start writing down your raps,” Black told me. Ced agreed. It was the only thing besides busting heads that came natural to me, so I gave it a shot. Before long, we were sending my songs to Hollywood. He began promoting events and was planning on getting a record label off the ground with his partner, Ted. Their group, Nu Vibes, wasn’t making any waves. Wood still wanted me to be the face of the label.
Ted, though, wasn’t sure I was a wise investment. My track record showed that all I seemed to be dedicated to was landing in prison. It was a hard pill to swallow. Long ago I had given up on myself, so I couldn’t expect people to jump on my bandwagon. That wagon always seemed to be leaning off a cliff. I was determined nonetheless and kept writing. I had finally found something to hold on to. I always decided to be the best at what I set out to do. If I was going to be a rapper, I planned to be the coldest emcee. Things were looking up for me. Then the night of June 22, 1994, swept in like a hurricane.