me and Preme, man.
[indistinct chatter]
'Cause people don't understand me and Preme.
They want to.
dramatic music
Preme is--that's family. It's my brother.
I told Preme,
"You ain't gotta sell no drugs,
you ain't gotta do anything illegal,
and let's just have fun."
Right.
You could be vice president of Murder Inc.
Anybody that's in the streets,
the offer that I gave Preme is taking the offer.
He getting a six-figure check,
they running around with Murder Inc., with the artist,
they ain't gotta worry about going to jail,
niggas killing them,
they taking it.
And Preme came back to me, like, two days.
First thing he said was how much he loved me.
He's like, "Gotti, ain't no one cared for me like this,"
you know what I'm saying?
He said, "I want you to know I love you, nigga.
Like, you my man. You my brother.
We together till the fucking casket drops."
And after he said all of that good shit,
"But I can't accept the offer."
I said, "What you talking about?
Why?"
"Yo, I won't be Preme...
if I'm the vice president of Murder Inc.
I can't be Preme."
I said, "Yo, but what if you go to jail?"
And that nigga said, "Nigga, if I go to jail,
I'm Preme in jail."
"Yo, what if you get killed?"
"My tombstone will read Kenneth 'Supreme' McGriff."
He said, "The only way I ain't gonna be Preme
is if I take a job under my man."
That level of commitment to who he is,
niggas don't have that.
soft piano music
[phone buzzing]
[automated voice] This call will be recorded
and subject to monitoring at any time.
You may begin speaking now.
[Supreme] When I came home,
really, the whole thing for me is really...
[Robert] When McGriff went to jail in the late '80s,
we convinced the prosecution to let him
plead to a 12-year plea,
but we got credit for all the time
he had served on the State case,
so he only wound up serving four years.
They were crazed, the agents went nuts
over the fact that he got out so quickly.
And they saw him on the street.
"What's he doing on the street?"
[distant sirens wailing]
[Supreme] I was in transition to complete legitimacy.
But the streets changed when I got home
and a lot of the leadership was not present
that was present in the '80s.
Preme was so highly regarded.
I don't know if you know, but when you wanted
to tell the truth and I was talking to somebody,
we would say "Word to Preme."
Like, he was, like, this God.
And so now, when you get to see him,
it's like, "Yo, that's Preme right there."
And everybody's like, "Where? Where?"
It's like, "Oh, yo, that's really him."
[Nas] This is a man who's a notorious boss.
So how do you handle coming home?
There might be beefs.
People don't trust you. People scared of you.
They might not want to talk business with you.
At the '90s, you know, everybody started to, you know,
look at rap like there's a whole new wave
of young rappers coming up.
When you saw the Ja Rules and the Lost Boyz and Onyx,
so many that just came out in the '90s alone.
I think it was so new.
It was just bigger than anything anybody thought about.
And Irv was a perfect person
to try to help Preme change his life.
Turn this up, baby. Let 'em feel it out here.
I am Irv Gotti, and I do everything
from the rooter to the tooter.
I go in the studio. I make the record.
I work with the artists. I direct the video.
When I drop "I'm Real" or "Always on Time"
or "Foolish" or "Ain't it Funny"
or all of these number one records that I've had,
they're undeniable hits.
[Ashanti] Baby, I'm not always there when you call
But I'm always on time
And I gave you my all, my all
Now baby, be mine
Funny thing is, Irv wasn't from Southside.
Irv was from Hollis.
Before the music, he used to come on this side.
He used to be reclaiming everything.
He started out doing little things for Russell.
He's got in his mind, this is how music
is supposed to be set up.
And he did it.
[Prince] Preme's relationship with Irv was more like
that of a big brother.
In fact, he told me that he liked Irv
because he liked how he treated his mom
and the rest of his siblings and stuff like that.
pensive music
[Robert] I don't think McGriff had a lot of money.
And he saw the entertainment business
as his pathway to not only wealth,
but position.
[Bill] But Irv had no business being attached with Supreme.
As a producer, he should have been at least one,
maybe two steps away from it.
[Irv] They don't understand, like,
how a gangster like Preme could be,
honestly, just a really good, great dude.
They only see the gangster side.
They only see the bad.
[Nas] When did you meet him?
[Irv] I met Supreme
and me and Preme became me and Preme
on the set of the Cash Money Click video,
which was, like, '94.
Don't risk it, Ja Rule's known for making heads split
Fully-loaded clip, usin' wax...
[Nas] Y'all were hanging out every day?
[Irv] Every day.
He was at a halfway house at MDC.
-He just came home. -[Irv] So we would pick him up
from Brooklyn and we would go
back to the block, be on--and Guy Brewer,
just laughing, joking, in Baisley, 40,
wherever we was at, go get something to eat,
and just having a good time.
You gotta understand,
Preme was with me before Murder Inc.
This is Cash Money Click.
[Irv] Right, I'm not getting no money.
So Preme watched the growth of his man.
So when I got to the level I'm making $20 million a year.
I love Preme.
He watched everything go.
I was DJ Irv and producing and making records.
I got a label deal.
I had the label deal. I didn't have a name.
So I'm sitting watching Arts and Entertainment, A&E.
Gangster Week.
Lucky Luciano, John Gotti,
Benny Siegel, Al Capone.
And sure enough, on today's episode,
we focus on Albert Anastasia
and the notorious Murder, Incorporated.
And "Murder, Inc." came across the TV,
and then it got riddled with bullets.
And then they was like,
"They was the notorious contract hitmen."
[screaming]
I'm like--literally, I'm in my fucking
little two-bedroom bullshit apartment screaming,
"I'm a hitman!
I want to make contract hits!
This is Murder Inc!
My artist will be called murderers!"
First person I call, Rule.
"Yo, Murder Inc!"
He's like, "Ooh, that's hot."
Second person, HOV.
"Nigga, Murder Inc! What--what you think?"
He's like, "Nigga, that's hot."
Once I heard it from Rule and HOV,
no one is gonna talk me off this ledge now.
I didn't know years later,
I'd be in court explaining this.
Murder, Inc. was a loose confederation
of Jewish and Italian gangsters
from Brownsville and East New York who,
as you might suspect from their name,
killed a lot of people.
It was hitmen for hire, essentially.
If you look at labels like Murder Inc.,
you realize how potent
the gangster myth remained.
Organized crime in New York is always about ethnic succession.
So, you know, the Irish had their day.
The Jews had their day. The Italians.
Now it was time for another kind of gangster.
energetic hip-hop plays
Holla, holla
All my niggas that's ready
To get dollars, dollars
Bitches know who could get 'em
A little hotter, hotter
Come on, if you rolling with me, follow, follow
It's Murda
[Irv] I thought I was invincible.
We getting money, we got the biggest hit
number one records.
Thanks--first of all, I want to thank God.
I want to thank my dog, Irv Gotti.
[Irv] We were J-Lo, we were--we getting--
I'm making, like, 20, 25 million a year.
Ashanti.
[Ashanti] You know, being a new artist's first album
and, you know, garnering that much success and love
and having your crew, you know,
it was an amazing, amazing experience.
I gotta thank the radio stations
for giving us all the play.
Definitely my family. Ja...
The chemistry, just being with--
the Long Island Queens thing was just a thing.
It was kind of just, like,
an organic energy that happened.
I just felt home.
I was, like, the girl from Long Island
amongst all the wolves, you know what I mean?
[Ja Rule] Holla, holla, come on
If you rolling with me, follow, follow
It's Murda
[Ashanti] He was built up to be this big, bad,
you know, Supreme.
You know, like, the perception was like
the big bad wolf, you know?
And then when you meet him, you said, "Oh, hey, Preme."
You know, he got the light eyes and the waves.
[laughs]
You know, and I'm like, why is everybody scared of him?
Like, you know what I mean?
And I just remember him being
super supportive, super funny.
You know, he definitely always made me feel like I was safe.
You know, like, little sis, you know what I mean?
So it was weird because I knew a lot of people feared him,
I knew what the perception was,
but around me, he was just Preme, you know what I mean?
And I guess that was, like, the yin and the yang,
like, the balance.
[fire crackling]
[Robert] When I was with McGriff,
we had a very good relationship.
And I would call him out
on his foibles.
But I think to the public
and even to the people who were up
in Murder Inc.'s offices
who look at Kenny walk through as though he were a god.
He was still around
when a lot of kings were buried
in the penitentiary or the ground.
He's the last of those guys.
somber music
It felt like he was really trying to be humble about it
and just really learn this new industry.
That's how it seemed to me. He seemed genuine.
[Robert] Kenny sponsored and protected
so many people in the rap business,
from Jay in his early days
and others along the way.
Ja Rule, the Gottis.
Kenny would ride on buses with some of them
when they would go from
location to location and perform.
To let everybody know, he was there to protect them.
And they then incorporated him and the Supreme Team
into their lyrics.
50 Cent's "Ghetto Qur'an (Forgive Me)" playing
[Bill] This is around '99, 2000.
I took interest in the case.
I started to look at the lyrics 50 Cent wrote,
and the first interesting thing he wrote
was that Supreme was the businessman
and Prince was the killer.
Apparently, that was a no-no in the community.
Exposing bad guys in your song without, you know,
them getting some kind of benefit from it
was not the right thing to do.
I wanna take hip-hop to being--like, back.
Like, back to when we were a little more competitive.
Now, it's to the point where the artists
is even scared to say your name, like.
[Nas] You know, with 50, the "Ghetto Qur'an",
it's like, "Oh, wow, he's from out there."
So, you know, he can really get more in depth with the story.
You know, people look at it and go, "Well,
he wasn't supposed to say that about me,"
like, you know what I mean?
And I was like, "Damn.
You know, you gotta leave something out for speculation.
You can't"--and he tried to, but, you know, he gave it up.
And that's why it's called "Ghetto Qur'an."
But, you know, of course,
some things started, you know what I'm saying,
'cause a lot is being said in these records.
dramatic music
[Bill] There came a point in time where
McGriff decided that 50 Cent had to go.
And so he drove around looking for 50 in various places.
Another Supreme Team associate had found out
that 50 Cent was gonna be at his grandmother's house.
So Kenneth McGriff and Rob Lyons went over.
[distant sirens wailing]
[person] May 24th, the car pulled up.
A guy got out of the passenger seat of that car,
came around behind it...
[gunfire]
...and shot through the actual car.
[Bill] And Rob apparently
was the shooter in this incident
and shot 50 Cent nine times.
-[gunshot] -[sirens wailing]
[Oprah] Did you ever find out who did it?
Yeah, I knew who did it shortly after.
-[Oprah] Yeah? -Yeah.
And they are now where?
Oh, the guy who actually shot me is dead.
And the guy who pays him got life in jail.
-Got life in jail. -Yeah.
[Oprah] Yeah.
Even the difference that we had,
or whatever situations we had,
he knows why that happened and where it's at.
He knows I was straight shooting,
you know what I'm saying, out of fear.
And we had many discussions
before that incident took place,
so he knows...
[Corey chuckles]
Yeah, I love Fif, man.
He plays this thing all the way up, man.
50's a hustler.
He definitely was in the streets selling drugs,
carrying guns, sticking the people up.
And then he caught this thing where he could say, "Look,"
F the Supreme Team, and it worked for him.
And he won't let it go.
But it's part of his niche now.
He can't even think about letting it go.
He's made so much money talking about it.
Where were you shot? Where?
Right in front of my grandmother's house.
[Kate and Julie] But where on your body?
[laughter]
[Corey] Preme gotta disrespect his gangster.
He just doing it in a rap way.
If they was in a room together,
I don't think they'd have a fight.
Preme would probably be like, "Yo, man, what are you doing?"
And he'd be like, "Yo, I'm making money."
I truly believe that.
[Prince] I don't even know what feeling
my homie actually had about it.
I know that--what he tried to do.
I said, man, I don't even want to see people beefing.
I don't want to see that type of shit.
They getting money, they getting paid,
you know what I'm saying, they doing what they gotta do,
and...
pensive music
[Bill] So when McGriff became friendly with Irv Gotti,
I think Irv really was enamored
with the legend of Supreme.
It was one of the first times I ever saw a record producer
with the bad guys as opposed to the artist himself.
Irv Gotti thought he was-- maybe his association
with Supreme made him a bigger, tougher guy than he was.
[Supreme] It was this one detective
named William Courtney.
This guy was like a groupie, man.
He likes big names, but I know that
he was fixated on...
While I was doing my first federal bid,
I decided when I went home,
I would bring to fruition my vision
of turning Donald Goines' novels into films.
hip-hop music
Nobody kills cops in this town and gets away with it.
This is on and pop in the night.
Yeah.
[Kenyatta] You see, if niggas plan like this more often,
we all be in better shape.
Guys like McGriff and a lot of guys in prison,
they read just a few books.
They all read Sun Tzu,
they all read Machiavelli,
and they all read Donald Goines.
And so it was McGriff's dream while he sat in prison
was to turn that book Crime Partners
into a film, and that was his agenda.
I see you got big plans, Kenyatta.
But my biggest plan of all
is death to white, racist cops.
What was interesting about the movie, it's--
one, it's, I think, three out of ten on Rotten Tomatoes.
But one thing of interest is,
it was largely financed by credit card fraud,
drug trafficking loans.
-[Kenyatta] Rick. -[Rick] Yo.
Count this for me.
[Nas] For clarity, what's Crime Partners?
[Irv] Crime Partners is the movie that Preme made
that he funded himself,
and it wasn't just me that gave him money.
Darrin from Ruff Ryders gave him money,
and HOV gave him money.
All legitimate, real shit.
[Prince] He got into the making of Crime Partners
doing legitimate stuff.
Man, I was just--I was just excited about it.
It didn't surprise me because he always had
an entrepreneurial spirit, right?
It didn't surprise me that he would try to make a turn.
[Bill] It seems that every guy in the narcotics business,
when they get out, if their organization
is strong enough, they step right back into it.
And I think that was the case where McGriff,
when he came out, he had those three or four key guys
like Black Jus, Nathan May, Baby Wise.
These were all guys that--
you know, that kind of believed in Supreme,
and he was still their charismatic leader.
Supreme was certainly a multi-kilo dealer,
and I think a large portion of that money
went to finance this film, which was his dream.
[DJ] Because Preme is involved in it, it has to be drugs.
Had nothing to do with drugs.
It had nothing to do with money laundering.
It had to do with pure business.
[Gary] He wanted to be a director.
One time we were on the-- we were at a mall,
and they had the director's chair,
and he went and he--and he went and sat in that chair.
And you could see it in his eyes, had this passion,
'cause that was something that he always wanted to do.
[Irv] Crime Partners made $4 million.
I had him a million-dollar soundtrack deal.
That's $5 million he bags up.
He does it all. He's off and running.
The Black man is gonna have his day yet.
Especially with you leading 'em, dog.
That's right.
[person] And Preme,
he did a great job with preparing that.
He had Snoop Dogg in there, Ice-T, he had them all.
-Preme had a plan. -You know?
So he had a plan, you know?
-He had a plan. -Preme had a plan
and he was working on his plan.
Yeah, he was working on his plan.
He was working on these changes.
-Yes. -He was working on--
he was in transition stages
to whatever they, you know,
perceived him as out here.
He was changing whatever reputation
these people gave him, and he was doing it greatly,
and they didn't allow him to do that.
pensive music
[Bill] There came a point where we knew that there--
that McGriff had some type of involvement
in a double homicide in Baltimore, Maryland.
Some guys he'd been working with
had a beef over some drugs,
so Baltimore County Police found out that the victim
was living in this apartment in the complex
where it happened, and they did a search warrant.
They found some effects
belonging to a guy named Lee Tuten.
There was also a pistol training course
completion certificate under the name Lee Tuten.
And there was also a videotape.
So as I was viewing this tape, I realized that
the tape contained a scene
of a woman filming a car
that's idling in the Queens section of New York.
And she's on the phone giving directions to a hit team.
And just moments before the hit team sets up,
the videotape ends.
So my partner, Tony Castiglia, was able to piece together
some background noise, which was a TV show,
and establish the exact time that the video was made.
And that was the exact time that E-Money Bags was killed.
E-Money Bags was a Brooklyn, Queens dude.
Repped Queens hard.
He was a get-to-it type of guy.
A no-nonsense guy.
Cool guy. Fun guy.
He was doing his thing, I was doing my music thing.
And we was hanging out, like, almost every day.
[Bill] He became involved in some kind of car deal
with McGriff and a guy from New Jersey.
And somewhere along the line,
he lost a decent amount of cash.
And he came to McGriff and he wanted him
to make things right.
McGriff refused to do so.
They end up getting in a shootout with each other,
and McGriff's right-hand man, Black Jus, gets shot.
And en route to the hospital, he bleeds out and dies.
At that point, Supreme knows this is gonna be
an ongoing problem, and these guys gotta go.
[Irv] E-Money Bags killed Black Jus.
You're not killing someone as close
as Black Jus to Preme
and think you gonna be good.
No.
[Bill] So they were foolish enough to leave
this memorialized tape behind in the scene,
and we got a real break on the case
when a detective from Manhattan North Narcotics
arrested McGriff buying some marijuana.
So he ran around my biz. He got pulled over.
He had, like, 25,000 cash, right?
And a gun.
So the police go, "Yo,
you just--you know, you got 25,000."
He said, "Yeah, you catching me on a light day, nigga."
[chuckles] I'm like, what are you doing?
And then he gives him-- I gave him a card,
like vice president of Murder Inc.
He gave him a card.
And he had the alias Lee Tuten in his possession,
which we matched to the gun certificate
and other effects that were in the house.
So, you know, that kind of put
a lot of things together for us,
and it was very helpful in the investigation.
DJ was like, "Nigga, why'd you fucking tell him?"
And it's like... [laughs]
..yeah, so there was a lot of things in hindsight
that they're like, "Yo, you shouldn't have done that.
You put the energy on Murder Inc.
You wasn't moving like a record exec.
You was moving like a drug dealer."
[reporter] Federal investigators
in the New York City Police Department
raided the Manhattan offices of Murder Inc,
which is in the same building as Def Jam Records
and its parent, Universal Music.
So what's it all about?
Well, according to a story in the LA Times,
the FBI is looking into an alleged connection
between Irv and a convicted Queens drug lord
named Kenneth McGriff, aka Supreme.
[reporter] Today's indictment does indeed
tell a simple story of a crime partnership
that dealt in three commodities.
Drugs, murder, and money laundering.
[reporter] Investigators say the laundered money
financed a direct-to-video movie called Crime Partners.
McGriff was listed as executive producer
and the opening paid homage to an associate
whose murder McGriff allegedly avenged
by the killing of aspiring rapper E-Money Bags.
The Gotti brothers were released
on $1 million bond each.
I am no way in shape-- in any way, shape, or form
have I done anything wrong except make great music
that the people seem to love.
And that's all that I'm guilty of.
[Ashanti] When that happened, it's a scary feeling.
And there were so many rumors
and so many stories and, um...
it was tough.
[reporter] Lawyers expect this trial to last about a month,
and if they're convicted, the Lorenzo brothers
each face up to 20 years in prison
and the forfeiture of millions of dollars.
[Nas] But Irv ain't give a fuck
because his expression was the music and entertainment,
you know what I'm saying, nothing illegal.
[Irv] They knew their case with me was bullshit.
The government offered me a sweet deal.
I was facing 20 years. They offered me six months.
I said, "Explain money laundering."
They said, "Well, money laundering is
Supreme giving you a bag of drug-dealing money,
and you write a check."
So me giving him 50,000 for Crime Partners
was the whole-- they thought he gave me.
I said, "Well, Preme never gave me no money."
They said, "Well, that's not money laundering."
I said, "So I could give him money
and it's not--I'm not doing nothing unlawful."
They said no.
They said he would have to have given you money
for you--for that check.
I said, "Well, that didn't happen."
My lawyer was like, "Irv, think about this.
It's 20 years you're facing.
This is giving you six months."
I said right there at that meeting,
I thought about it for, like, a minute.
I said, "I ain't fucking my man over.
Fuck them niggas."
And I faced the 20 years.
somber music
[Nas] What was the verdict and how did you feel
when it was announced?
[chuckles]
I don't wish that on nobody.
It is the most nerve-racking thing,
and you know the balance.
If they come back and say guilty,
you doing 20.
"The jury has reached a verdict."
I'm like, "Oh, shit."
And I'm just sitting there looking at the jury
like, "What did y'all do?"
"Not guilty."
[imitates gavel hammering]
It was like a movie. The courtroom erupted.
The "Order, order!" All that shit.
And me and my brother hugged,
and it was just a ill feeling.
You know, and they got Preme on two homicides,
but they didn't get him on no drug-dealing.
They didn't even mention that.
So in a way, that-- like, it helped him.
By me doing what I did and beating them, it helped him,
but I couldn't help him with the homicides.
Yeah.
[Prince] Yeah, I was paying attention to all that
Murder Inc. stuff, and I was rooting for them.
I thought that if they went to trial together,
that they would all win
because he could have rode they coattails,
but being the man he is, he didn't want
no spillover effect on the street life.
Irv and them lawyers actually moved
for the separate trial, and they got it,
but he made that suggestion to Irv and Chris
that, "Man, let's separate these trials, man,
'cause I don't want to get the spillover effect
from my past life into your present life."
[beeping and vibrating]
So we had been monitoring
McGriff's two-way pager,
and we saw that he was actually outside of Houston
at a federal correctional facility
visiting Gerald "Prince" Miller.
So a crew of us from the U.S. Marshals Service
jumped on a plane and we head down to Houston.
[Prince] Well, when he first came to see me,
he came to see me in the limousine,
and he let me know that, "Hey, man, damn,
this might be my last time seeing you.
Know what I'm saying?" I said, "Why?"
He said, "Man, I'm hearing that
they might be trying to come
get me or something."
I was devastated when I found that out.
As we got to Houston and we found out that McGriff
just took off and headed over to Miami
and had checked into the Loews Hotel
in Miami Beach.
We jumped on a plane,
and about two or three o'clock in the morning,
we knocked on the door,
put the pass key in,
and found McGriff in bed with a woman--young woman.
He surrendered, you know, peacefully.
She was kind of raising hell, screaming, yelling,
and he told her to calm down, they're just doing their jobs.
You know, I was shocked at how calm he was.
He didn't--you know, he didn't get angry.
He didn't get raised up.
When we dropped him off at the correctional facility,
he just smiled and said goodbye.
He knew something was coming.
He knew the case was coming.
But yeah, I mean, he was a gentleman gangster to us,
so...
Girl, your stare, those eyes, I
Love it when you look at me, baby
[Ashanti] So the last time that I saw Preme
was at the "Mesmerize" video.
Me and Ja were shooting "Mesmerize" in LA,
and it was at a real carnival.
Like, it was a real fair.
So it was, like, Ferris wheels and bumper cars
and, you know, stuffed animals where you throw the ball
and all that stuff.
So it was, like, such a dope day.
So many people came out.
Super positive energy.
And then everything kind of shifted
because this was, like,
the last time that we were gonna see Preme before,
you know, the trial started and everything.
So it's just crazy how life can change
in an instant, you know?
And that's a fact.
tense music
[Irv] So there was this huge writer for the LA Times.
The writer calls me, gets my number,
says, "Yo, I want you--I want to tell you
what this is all about.
This is all about Edward Byrne."
[person] As far as Ed Byrne, I would never condone
such a detrimental act...
[Irv] I said, "What?"
I said I ain't got nothing to do
with Edward Byrne, and I said Preme ain't have
nothing to do with Edward Byrne.
He said "Correct, but Preme was a part
of the fucking drug dealer crew."
Calli, Fat Cat, Tommy.
Everybody who is around or associated
with that killing of Edward Byrne.
He says, "The government is not gonna let them walk away."
And he says, "You--because you're saying and screaming,
this is your man and you love him,
you're catching the hell."
So when you look at the case, they bled me.
They froze my accounts and they bled all of the money.
I was penniless.
I was actually 2 million in the hole.
So even though I found-- got found not guilty,
they already won 'cause they bled me dry.
So now Preme has to face a double homicide
with a fucking legal aid.
[Supreme] If you get assigned a public defender,
you might as well just kill yourself.
My lawyer's been practicing law for over 40 years
and has never won a federal trial,
not even a hung jury.
So why am I to think
that I even stand a chance with this guy?
A drug lord with ties to hip-hop
and Hollywood was spared the death penalty today
by a Brooklyn jury.
46-year-old Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff
was instead sentenced to life in prison without parole
for orchestrating the 2001 murders
of Eric "E-Money Bags" Smith and Troy Singleton.
[Prince] Oh, man, it hurted me when he got life.
When he came back-- when he came back to prison,
it was a shame because
I just didn't want that for him, know what I'm saying?
And I know when I get out, I ain't coming back.
I'm saying I ain't even gonna jaywalk.
[Bing] I was so sick. I was so heartbroken, bro.
How you finally got in with the Murder Inc. and all them,
and then even Irv and all of them,
and we legit never get to Supreme, like--I be like,
"Oh, we rich. We made it. We're good."
I'm about to come home in a couple more,
three more years or whatever, like, I'm thinking,
"Now, come on, we're good, we're liv"--
I'm talking to him on the phone, Irv's talking to him,
DV's talking-- everybody's on the phone.
I'm like, "Oh, we good. We in there.
We ain't got nothing to worry about.
We good."
[Supreme] I almost was dead.
Although I was with Irv,
I was always a guy that did his own thing.
So I have my own project,
I have my own soundtrack, my own business.
I mean, like, I have my own film company,
I have my own music company.
So they would have been--
everybody would have been straight, but...
All of a sudden, out of nowhere, bam.
What the fuck happened? What?
No!
They rocked me right there. I'm like, "Oh, my God,
we back to square one."
[Supreme] What I learned later on was,
you can't plan to leave the game.
You just gotta leave.
You just gotta get out.
You gotta say, "Know what?
I don't care if I don't have enough
and I don't care if I gotta start over again.
I don't care if I have to grind from the bottom up."
Wherever you're at in life, you just gotta get out
'cause if you try-- if you try to take steps,
when you try to plan...
I never understood, as much as I thought I did,
what it means for someone to go to prison for a day.
But I do.
somber music
And you cannot--you cannot explain it to people.
You cannot explain watching people in a visiting room
trying to hold the hand of their loved one
and not being able to hold
their five-year-old son on their lap.
You can't, until you see the kids crying
when they have to leave, appreciate what that means.
[person] Jail is tough.
Couldn't have--I mean...
it can be tough.
[sniffles]
[Prince] The loss that you take from the things that you do,
you don't think about it when you're doing it.
But when you in here, it bothers you.
I think that any sentence above ten years,
except in the most extraordinary of circumstances,
is too much.
And ten years may be too much.
It doesn't take long for people who are in prison
to appreciate
what they are there for and what they've done
to their family and themselves.
I mean, how much time is too much time?
[Supreme] When you talk about regrets, I think
if you don't have regrets, then that means
you'll make the same mistake that you did once before
and you'll do it again.
At one point,
and this is the truth, I didn't...
...like myself back then, you know?
Because I know I--what I did
to the community, you know?
We definitely tore the community down, you know,
and we influenced the younger generation
that it was all right what we was doing.
You know, to this day, I would say, basically,
it's still messed up because of us.
[Gary] We just knew we were hustling,
but we figured in some cases, people were getting high.
You know, somebody need--
they gonna get it from somebody.
That was somewhat of our mentality.
I'm not saying--again, I'm not defending it.
But in a lot of cases, we had no idea of knowing,
you know, the far-ranging implications
and what they would do, you know, to the community.
[Green] Did it impact my life?
For that moment, it was like a rush.
It was like a person who was consuming drugs
and feeling high and heavy and mighty,
but that was short-term.
[person] In the long run,
the end result is not good
'cause no one wants to be
in jail losing family members.
You can't go to funerals.
We just can't do none of that.
You miss out on your children's life,
and a lot of years in life that they go without you.
But when you choose a certain life,
all that comes with it,
it is what it is
and you gotta accept it.
[Prince] Youth is a gift, man. You can't squander it.
You can't wait till you get older
and then look back in time and say,
"I should've did something else."
You better start doing something else now.
It's too late to look back and say, "Damn,
I wish this" or "I wish that."
You have to look forward now
and you have to expand your mind.
You have to change the reality of it.
[Tommy] I was sentenced to three life sentences
without the possibility of parole.
I did approximately 25 years of time
without counting any good time or anything,
and I was convicted of super drug kingpin status
running a criminal enterprise 848-B.
I felt obligated to help other people.
When I was incarcerated, I learned that
you have a higher percentage of people in there
that can't read or write and that just really
doesn't understand procedures
or following rules and stuff like that.
And what I did was, I looked at some of these people
as being my brothers and my sons.
And even me being in that position,
and it just made me feel like I was obligated to assist people.
I work as a paralegal now.
I own my own company that started out
with a paralegal service.
We do research for individuals
to help them find their transcripts,
help them get their transcripts,
help them find topics and subjects,
and be aware of new laws that's coming out
that might help them or benefit them in their case.
Gerald Miller, he contacted me.
He heard about some of the success
that we was having on some of
the high profile cases and stuff.
And he asked if we could help him out.
[Aaron] Hello?
[Ken] Hi, this is Ken Sebastian from USP Allenwood.
How are you today?
-Good, how are you? -[Ken] Good.
Did you have a call for one of our inmates?
-[Aaron] I did. Mr. Miller. -[Ken] Okay.
[Tommy] I introduced Gerald Miller
to Aaron Goldsmith.
He's a person with a ear.
A lot of attorneys don't like to listen to guys like me.
I'll give you an example.
I had about five attorneys telling me
I was wasting my time.
I was taking too long and I shouldn't do it.
And you know what I could say to those attorneys now?
Look where I'm at now.
[Aaron] Good, Gerald. How are you?
[Prince] I'm good. I'm fine, man.
All right, just to let you know,
Tommy's here with me.
For me, as the attorney, to have someone like Tommy,
he's much more of an understanding
of, "This is what the guy's mentality is,"
and marrying that to, "This is what the rules are."
[Prince] Truth be told, when I look back
at people like Mr. Walker,
you know, Tommy, he's been out there,
and then you got other people and they're still out
successfully with their families
in the community doing good,
and they all had life without parole.
So it makes us-- makes me--people like me
feel proud that they doing it
and they doing it the right way.
You don't see them coming back.
You don't see them-- you see them recommit.
So it shows that we can come out
and live a decent, law-abiding way of life.
So I'm just happy about it.
I'm actually ecstatic that I got you and Tommy
on the case, so I really appreciate that.
[reporter] Powder cocaine, a drug of choice
among mostly middle- and upper-class abusers.
Crack cocaine, a potent crystal derivative of powder.
A cheaper, faster high for its mostly poor users.
Chemically, the drugs are virtually identical,
but not in federal court.
An arrest for 5 grams of crack
brings a mandatory five years in federal prison.
But you get just the same five-year sentence
for 500 grams of powder cocaine.
[Aaron] In America, the people have rights.
The people--we pride ourselves on freedom of speech.
We pride ourselves on interaction,
we pride ourselves on the Democratic process.
We are a beacon among nations for these things.
There is--that there's a generation of people
who got swallowed up,
who went in as kids
and got sentenced to a life in jail.
And I'm not saying that some of those people aren't bad
and don't deserve to stay in jail their whole life.
There are some that do.
But to take that on
with a wide brush
instead of being specific is just not fair.
I was in the House of Representatives
when the War on Drug measure was passed
30 years ago or so.
It was at the advent of crack cocaine.
It scared the hell out of us.
The notion of a cheap narcotic, highly addictive,
destructive to mothers and their fetus
led us to impose a sentencing disparity
between crack and powder cocaine
that was unprecedented.
Our notion was to come down hard,
make it clear that it was a federal standard,
impose that standard,
and stop the advance of crack cocaine.
We failed from the outset.
[Aaron] The major foundational shifts that happened
was, the Supreme Court decided
the judge who's most familiar with the case
should have the discretion
to say--to, you know, give a sentence
that's higher or lower.
It gives us a lot more opportunity
as defense attorneys to argue factors
about who they are as a person.
So that helps a lot.
And then the First Step Act is something
that happened shortly after.
One of the biggest reforms in decades
has just passed the senate.
In my opinion, too.
It's called the First Step Act.
It's a sweeping, bipartisan bill that overhauls
parts of the Federal Criminal Justice system...
[Nas] Although Prince was sentenced to multiple
life sentences, he was never convicted
of a violent crime, which makes him eligible
for early release under the First Step Act.
The number one criteria to look at is
whether or not you're a threat to society.
With the older guys, what we try to do in the motion
is, we use the BLP own data and statistics to show that,
for example, a person over 50 years old,
their chances to commit a crime drop down to 10%.
And so we might say, for example,
Mr. Miller is 50 years old now.
According to your own statistics,
that you're saying that he has a 10% chance
of coming back to jail.
So clearly, he's not a threat to society.
[Prince] Under Section 4-4 of the First Step Act,
I'm requesting immediate release.
If the judge, God willing, grants my motion,
I'll be able to come home
and it may be automatic right away.
So, you know, we're waiting on a Supreme Court case,
and once that comes out, we're filing.
I think Gerald Miller stands a very excellent chance
of being successful.
When you look at his story as a whole,
he's the nephew of Supreme.
And he's carrying a lot of Supreme weight
on his shoulders.
You understand what I'm saying?
That he has to be able to separate
that weight from Supreme and show
that he's entitled
or he should get a second chance,
that he made some of the mistakes that Supreme made,
and that he's looking to move on with his life.
Fat Cat was just granted parole out of New York State.
That's something that he probably could use
to show or to compare to say,
"Here's an individual that's similar situated.
Clearly, if he's not a danger
or he's not a threat to society,
how could I possibly be a threat to society?"
[Prince] All right, take it-- take care, Mr. Goldsmith.
Tommy, take care, man.
I'll be in touch, y'all. -You too, brother.
All right, Gerald, we'll talk to you soon.
All right, then, talk to you.
-[Prince] Okay, bye-bye. -Bye-bye.
pensive music
[Sylvia] I am honored to join you here tonight
on this auspicious occasion.
Tonight, we will swear in
the 110th mayor of our great city.
[Eric] There's a subtext to my journey.
I was arrested in South Jamaica, Queens,
when I was coming from school, where I was charged
with criminal trespassing after going into an apartment
of a go-go dancer who owed us money
of my little small crew I used to hang out with.
[Sylvia] A man whose dedication and vision for this city
is steadfast and unwavering.
[Eric] It says to a person
that's sitting in Rikers right now
that believe this is the end of the road,
"No, wait a minute, Eric was arrested."
Now every street hustler knows
that you don't have to stay where you are.
Where you are is not who you are.
Mr. Mayor, would you please raise
your right hand and repeat after me?
[Eric] You can go in the system
and use those same abilities
that you made to be a street corner CEO
to be a CEO in any way you are.
I'm the mayor of the most important city
in the most important country on the globe.
...of the office. -[Sylvia] Of the mayor
of the city of New York.
[Eric] Of the mayor of the city of New York.
-So help me, God. -So help me, God.
Congratulations.
[cheers and applause]
[Eric] Every street hustler alive
should see the possibilities right now.
[distant sirens wailing]
[Andrew] There were two ways of looking at things
that Martin Luther King had and Malcolm had.
Martin looked at it as the American dream,
the possibilities of what America can be.
Malcolm looked at it as the American nightmare,
the tragedy of being Black in America.
All of this, hip-hop, Supreme Team,
is the American story.
Whether it's the dream of creating a dynasty,
whether it's the dream of creating a business,
whether it's the dream of taking that drug money
and doing something positive,
that's the American nightmare
and the American dream at the same time.
[Prince] Me being able to look back on my life
and to think about what changed my views of life
allow me to find my own redemption to change.
I got lost in selling drugs and committing crimes,
and I had to come to prison to be awakened
to ask myself, "Damn, what happened?"
[Robert] I believe that everything
that people from those communities witnessed
over their lives impacted the way they approach life.
And if Gerald was impacted by what he saw
as a young person,
I have no reason to doubt it.
[Prince] I'm telling you, a person does not want
to walk a mile in my shoes,
and they definitely don't want to walk 32 years in my shoes.
People talk about that life and they rap about it,
but this side of it...
pensive music
[Supreme] My life story is about struggle,
suffering, resilience, and perseverance.
What people should take from it is, the shortcut
is really the long way and the wrong way.
I think people should take the long way, anyway.
There's more to see, more to learn.
[LL] When I think about Preme and everything that happened,
like, Preme is a-- is a really smart guy,
and he's a--he always struck me as a sincere guy.
I'm not saying that, you know, he wasn't
on a different side of the line or any of that.
But one thing I can say about that guy,
he always looked at me in my eyes,
and I always felt a sense of realness from him
and truth from him.
All I could tell you is that
those days were very inspiring.
It showed me a lot of what I wanted to be.
It didn't show me everything.
You know, I understand John D. Rockefeller
and I understand Andrew Carnegie and--
but there's a place for all of that, right?
There's a place for Bill Gates,
there's a place for Warren Buffett,
and there's a place for these guys.
'Cause they brought something to the table too.
When you talk about the Preme Team, man,
you're talking about some real motherfuckers, man.
[person] Guys like Preme made it where like, "Yo,
that's those Queens cats right there.
They in the building."
[alarm buzzes]
[Prince] I know why I'm here,
I know how I got here, I know what caused me
to think the way that I did,
and I no longer think with a criminal mind
acquired character anymore.
soft music
If I'm given a chance to go home,
I will not be the person who blows that opportunity
to be a productive individual, man.
You'll see me in a different light 'cause you'll see
the things I would be doing to help my community,
to help my society, to help my family,
and it'll all be legitimate.
What would they say then?
Oh, he still a member of the Supreme Team?
I know my freedom from incarceration
is not guaranteed, right?
But nonetheless, one day, I hope that I'll be able
to show the community that I come from,
that my transformation is genuine,
that it's the real deal.
If my judge and God willing give me the opportunity
to get a second chance in life,
I'm not gonna put my head in the sand.
I'm not fearful of anything.
The community wants me back,
I'm definitely coming back to Queens.
Your phone 'bout to cut off, man.
[phone line beeps]
[Nas] Uh
Yo, you believe when they say
We ain't shit, we can't grow?
All we are is dope dealers and gangstas and hos?
And you believe when they be
Telling you lie all on the media
They make the world look crazy
To keep you inside
Why you listen when the teachers at school
Know you a young single parent out struggling
They think you a fool, give your kids bad grades
And put them in dumber classes
Killing shorty future, I wonder how do we last it?
Underground in they casket, ancestors turning
I'm learning something every day, there is no Lazarus
Words like God is Greek or Latin
So if you study Egypt
You'll see the truth written by the masters
My niggas is chilling, getting high, relaxing
Envisioning ownership
Yo, it can happen, what do we own?
Not enough land, not enough homes
Not enough banks to give my brother a loan
What do we own? The skin on our backs
We rent and we ask for reparations
Then they hit us with tax
And insurance if we live to be old, what about now?
So stop being controlled, we Black zombies
Walking, talking dead
Though we think we're living
Black zombies
We just copy-cat, following the system
Black zombies
Wake up
Black zombies in a spell for more than 400 years
Ghetto niggas won't have it no more
Can I get a witness?
Why listen to somebody else tell you how to do it
When you could do it yourself?
It's all in you