not true, his best friend from the council fucked his girl and broke a bunch of other rules. then he flipped. according to him that is.

@extortion
thats nicky barnes your talking about.

@loudimaggio
yeah but he's still doing life, he would have been looking at the death penalty otherwise.

Does anyone know if there was any wars between the jamaican posses and local organisations?

scorcese

There had to have been clashes. In some cities, like Raekwon mentioned, it was criminal element of immigrant group that BROUGHT the drug to the area. I read about Jamaican drug posses personally introducing crack to some cities in the 1980s.

Though not on the level of child soldiers...criminals from Caribbean and especially JA had a big advantage over local street guys. Guns, access to guns and use of guns was no problem because in JA, political factions were supplying and employing gunmen for decades .Literally, political parties had gunmen running the streets intimidating rivals and voters with automatic weapons. This was back when even in the hardest parts of America that guys were fist fighting to settle differences and maybe maybe somebody had a .22 .

Street culture, poverty and crime in developing countries was a different level than here.

There's a street term from Brooklyn..calling something "gully"...like the way Dick Butkus played football was gully. That slang term comes from a jamaican crew out in BK that scared the hardest street dudes here....they were from Cassava Gully or some other area....and they were so violent that the term gully entered the vocabulary as an adjective.

"This was back when even in the hardest parts of America that guys were fist fighting to settle differences and maybe maybe somebody had a .22 ."

I think that depends on what years your speaking on and of course location.

"Gully"

Brother I think the NYC have at times the most eccentric and odd street slang. I recall Bobby Shmurda using that word and he happens to be half Haitian & Jamaican.

This guy was one of the first jamaicans to introduce crack to new york.

Delroy (Uzi) Edwards leader of the renkers posse.

A Drug Dealer Gets a Sentence Of 7 Life Terms

By Leonard Buder - The New York Times

Saturday, December 2, 1989

A 30-year-old drug dealer who ran one of the largest and most violent drug rings in Brooklyn and was responsible for 6 murders, 17 assaults, a kidnapping, a maiming and other crimes, was sentenced yesterday to seven consecutive life terms in Federal prison.

As the defendant, Delroy (Uzi) Edwards, stood in Federal District Court with his hands clasped and his head slightly bowed, Judge Raymond J. Dearie said he wished the sentencing could have been on a Brooklyn street, so young people could ''see what this fast-lane life style has to offer.''

Mr. Edwards, a Jamaican who lives in Brooklyn, was the first dealer to sell crack, the smokable cocaine derivative, in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area, in 1985, law-enforcement authorities have said. They said he received his nickname because he sometimes concealed an Uzi submachine gun under a trench coat.

After a plea from Mr. Edwards's court-appointed lawyer, David Gordon, to impose a sentence that would offer the defendant hope ''down the road,'' Judge Dearie said: ''I hope he finds a way to make something of his life. But I believe in my heart that the theme of this proceeding has to be, 'Thou shall not kill.' '' Not Eligible for Parole

Under the sentence, which calls for 15 years in prison besides the life sentences, and a $1 million fine, Mr. Edwards will not be eligible for parole.

Mr. Edwards, who wore a gray business suit, said nothing. His appearance and demeanor yesterday, as well as at the trial last summer, was in sharp contrast to a picture painted by the prosecutors, John Gleeson and Jonny J. Frank.

At the trial, they had depicted Mr. Edwards as a ''coldhearted, brutal, vicious killer'' who dealt harshly with rival dealers and employees he suspected of stealing from him and, in the process, was often responsible for the deaths or injuries of innocent people ''who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.'' He was convicted on 42 counts.

After Mr. Gordon had asked Judge Dearie to hold out the possibility of a parole, Mr. Gleeson told the court: ''He's been convicted of the most serious drug offenses. It's the whole smorgasboard of crimes that can be brought in this context. No country deserves the risk of his ever being on the streets.''

Before imposing sentence, Judge Dearie said Mr. Edwards has intelligence, street smarts and leadership qualities and could have made something of his life. Instead, the judge said, Mr. Edwards chose ''this joy ride, this flashy come-and-get-me life style'' that left in its trail many victims.

The judge added that in a sense, Mr. Edwards was one of his own victims and that as he pursued his illicit career, he ''became one of the pioneers of the crack trade.''

Mr. Edwards, who has been in jail since March 1988, still faces a state murder charge in a homicide in 1987.

Delroy (Uzi) Edwards, described as the leader of one of Brooklyn's largest and most violent drug rings, who has been sentenced to seven consecutive life terms.



Crack's destructive sprint across America

The New York Times

October 1, 1989

Delroy Edwards grew up poor in the tough, stifling shantytowns of Kingston, Jamaica. In 1980, at the age of 20, he went to work as a street enforcer for the Jamaica Labor Party of Edward Seaga. Seaga was locked in a bitter election duel with the People's National Party, headed by Michael Manley, and each side was forming armed gangs to intimidate the other.

The gangs did their job only too well, killing 800 people by election day. After his victory, Seaga launched a crackdown, and many gang members, feeling the heat, headed for the United States. Among them was Delroy Edwards. Slipping into Brooklyn on a tourist visa, he eventually made his way into the marijuana business, selling nickel bags out of a neighborhood storefront.

At the beginning of 1985, Edwards learned to make crack. Soon he was selling little else. He worked out of two ''flagship'' spots in Brooklyn - one, a two-story house, the other, an abandoned brownstone near a housing project. Enough poor blacks coughed up enough $5 bills to enable Edwards to buy a $150,000 home on Long Island - and to pay for it in cash.

That wasn't enough for Edwards, who began looking to expand his business. Unfortunately, New York was already crowded with crack dealers; outside the city, however, lay plenty of virgin territory. In Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia, for instance, crack was just beginning to catch on. Enterprising local dealers would travel to New York, buy a few ounces of cocaine, return home, convert it into crack, and sell the product for three or four times the New York street price.

In the fall of 1986, Edwards traveled to Washington and set up shop; by the following spring his lieutenants had established thriving businesses in Philadelphia and Baltimore as well. At its peak, Edwards's organization, known as the Rankers, employed 50 workers and made up to $100,000 a day.

The glory days did not last. Edwards - nicknamed ''Uzi'' for his taste in weapons -was pathologically violent. People who crossed him were pistol-whipped, beaten with baseball bats, shot in the legs. One 16-year-old worker, suspected of cheating, was beaten unconscious with bats, scalded with boiling water, and suspended by a chain from the ceiling until he died.

Eventually, the police caught up with Edwards, and in July a Brooklyn jury convicted him on 42 counts of murder, assault, kidnapping and drug dealing. Edwards is now awaiting sentencing. The Rankers have disintegrated.

But there are 40 other groups just like the Rankers, running crack out of New York and Miami to points across the country. Posses, they're called, after their members' affection for American westerns (and the guns used in them). Most, like the Rankers, took shape as gangs during the 1980 Jamaican election, then fled to the United States and regrouped. Here, their 10,000 to 20,000 members, organized in posses with as few as 25 members and as many as several hundred, keep incessantly on the move, slipping in and out of the many Jamaican communities scattered across the country.

To maintain loyalty, each posse generally restricts membership to the residents of a particular neighborhood in Kingston. Posse members travel with fake IDs, making it tough for policemen to identify them. Sometimes, as a cover, they attach themselves to reggae groups touring the country. Today, Jamaicans are believed to control 35 percent to 40 percent of the nation's crack network.

''They're very good businessmen,'' says John A. O'Brien, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (B.A.T.F.), the Federal agency that most closely monitors the posses. ''They follow the law of supply and demand. When they see that a vial of crack selling for $5 in New York will get $15 in Kansas City, they'll move in.''

New York is their ''training school,'' O'Brien says, ''like going to Wharton. They'll take a guy doing a good job in Harlem and send him to open an office in the Midwest.'' On his arrival in the new area, the posse sales rep will rent a motel room and conduct a market survey of sorts to determine the most lucrative spot in town. Then he'll rent an apartment or, better yet, get a single female to lend him one in return for crack.

gun and rifle laws were and are different in the south..so yeah you are right. the urban areas in the north though, there wasn't as much gunplay pre-crack era as people think. I read books and saw docs. about the 60s/70s gang era in major northern cities and there used to be actual rumbles (on some happy days stuff)...gangs meet at certain locations and bring bats, brass knuckles, chains, and fists to settle beefs...at the same time in jamaica...da gun man was licking shots.

Pappy Mason and his crew the bebos, copied the Jamaican style and people thought they were Jamaican.

http://www.gorillaconvict.com/2011/10/they-call-themselves-the-bebos/

I'm sure in his book Calvin Klein Bacote said he ran the Jamaicans out of the Marcy Projects. It says in the video people not from the projects but I read somewhere it was Jamaicans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNMb4hkKb9o

Lou,

thanks

I always assumed that Pappy was of JA descent. Interesting that he adopted a rudeboy identity, but the criminal element from Jamaica was NO JOKE and he encountered them in penal system and saw how they got down. When these ex Jamaican gun men started coming to New York, the encounters between them and the local street guys can best be described by paraphrasing The Usual Suspects.

He looked over his family and showed these hardcore ghetto youth what being hardcore ghetto youth really was.

Only Built for Cuban Linx was a classic

The Bath Ave crew was very involved in the crack epidemic according to that mob documentary from about a year or so ago.

Best rap album ever made.

@Revis

exactly....


@mh, I thought you would say Supreme Clientele, with your username

check out Malcolm, tells how he robbed Mase. also Saturday Night relieves the day he was arrested and kind of gives you a glimpse about rza and guns.

My next username will be icewater

Calvin Klein Bacote was Jay Zs friend and mentor when he was selling crack. I think they both were selling drugs in baltimore too.

Jamaican crews didnt always get the best of home grown crews

A great example of this is the situation in philly in the 80's with JBM and the jamaican posse. By all accounts , the Junior Black Mafia , who were basically the sons of Black Mafia members , smashed the jamaicans and kinda ran them out of philly. A great documentary on this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fEOb1IqqQ0

I also dont think that the Jamaicans fair too well against home grown crews that are muslim. Black muslim crews are typically more disciplined and organized

I also wonder if the original Black Mafia in philly didnt get locked up , how they would have delt with the jamaicans moving into the philly drug game in the 80's? That would have been an interesting war.

The Shower Posse. Nuff said........

Gets,

Chicago gangs were using guns back then as you get into 70s. Mickey Cobras ( originally the Egyptian Cobras) was carrying small revolvers and perhaps shotguns. Heroin trade in the 70s, government grants , hustling granted them access to more high powered weapons.

@ mightyhealthy,

With all due respect, ONE of the best rap albums. Nas's Illmatic & Lupe's Food & Liquor are classics too.

@ Cheech,

Agreed.

I've always loved Jay z since his reasonable doubt days. I've always been a big hip hop fan ever since it really came to fruition in the 80s. I don't think he sold in BA did he? I know he mentioned it in one of his songs I think but in his book I only heard him say he sold over in Trenton for a long time. But idk maybe he did. Seems like a he made a lot of money from selling. Which isn't surpising. Reasonable doubt and illmatic are my two favorite hip hop albums.

Is that the Chi-town gang that was robbing gun stores and armories?

I hear you. The Jamaican gun men were getting guns from the government directly though......military grade weapons.

thanks for the info

organized groups that were already entrenched in local areas ere gonna be better able to fend off invaders

the thing is...the 70s gangs in NYC area had died down and broken into crews.....so conditions were better for vicious outsiders to come in and wreak havoc.

used to hustle down in VA/
was hurtin em in the home of the Terrapins/


said that in H to the Izzo...Terrapins are the mascot of the U. of Maryland

so I guess he was hustling around the DMV area

I did read that he used to be out in Trenton....it makes sense because his original rapping style..that fast stuff..is a Trenton style...YZ and Poor Righteous Teachers

EVERYONE went to the south to hustle. they paid more.

instead of 20k off a brick up here you can make 40k down there. less comp.

and Calvin is home.

I think he was rapping like that before he moved to Trenton. But he battled Wise Intelligent from the poor righteous teachers when he was there.

Not specifically them but over time everybody got their hands on high powered weapons: Ak-47s, Ar-15s, Macs & Uzis ( Jamaican posses trademark ), sniper rifles ( even down here in Jackson their were snipers on the roof), M-16s , and of a few attempts to buy rpgs/grenade launche

Anyone ever heard of the boobie boys drug gang in miami. They were operating from 1990-98. Were selling cocaine in multiple states and get shout outs in hip hop from time to time.I think rick ross has shouted them out on a few records.