41 minute read
Conversation with the Feurtado Bros
KINGS OF KINGS The Feurtado Brothers A Conversation With
Tyson: Peace all. Urban Life News Magazine is back again with something very special for you. We are fortunate to be able to sit down with the Feurtado Brothers, Mr Lance and Mr Todd. We appreciate you welcoming us into your home, into your office, and into your world. Thank you.
Lance: Thank you for having us my brother Tyson. It’s a pleasure to meet you also.
Todd: We truly appreciate it. I love the concept. Urban Life is news for those who want to hear it because it opens doors, many doors and shows you the way out. (through insight)
Lance: As I see it, Urban Life creates the news. We’re the trendsetters. When it comes to retail, industry, music - whatever - it’s Urban Life. So everybody wants to emulate what we do.
Tyson: That’s a fact, that’s a fact, and I appreciate that. Just for the record, we didn’t even rehearse on that. That was organic; that was natural. It’s as if they saw my mission statement or something. (laughter)
Lance: Listen, that’s how we flow man. It’s nothing like getting the true essence out of a conversation.
Tyson: Yes sir. Today were going to speak to our subscribers to Urban Life News Magazine who are sitting in those prisons, in those institutions; specifically, in upstate (our first target market), Nassau County Suffolk County, Ryker’s Island, and in the Feds.
Todd: Right
Tyson: And so what I want to do is sit down with you guys and kind of go into your history, into your experiences in the so-called game, and build about your transition along with what you’re doing now for the community. Let’s start with who you are and where you’re from?
Lance: Okay.
Tyson: Some people may not know you brothers story, others may have seen some of the You Tube videos, while others may have read something in some other magazines. However; today we’re going to set the record straight, we’re going to give up some clear, concise information straight from you guys mouths. Lance: Straight from the mouth. Yeah. So, we’re from South Jamaica, Queens. Originally we were born in Harlem; then we moved down to Queens in Southside, South Jamaica, and I don’t say that, literally, we’re not geographical. So we’re not bound to just South Jamaica. No. We’re liaisons, we travel the nation and we can go in 26 different states or more because we’ve preserved our characters and our respect. So just to answer the question, South Jamaica man. Todd: And I’m Todd, and we’re better known as the Feurtado Brothers.
Tyson: That’s what’s up. Okay. So you’re from South Jamaica. You want to tell us a little bit about your entrance into the so-called game. How did you guys get started?
Lance: Okay. So, the block that we grew up on right, when we were young growing up. I described the block and the hold that was on this block, like this: Every house on that block had a Mom and a Dad. We grew up in a single parent home. Not to take nothing away from my Mom, because my Mom made the best she could, with what she had, but by comparison those other homes had a mom and dad. So they had dual income. “Those kids had what they wanted. We didn’t have what we needed”. So we took matters into our own hands. At the tender ages of eleven, twelve and thirteen, we stepped into a life of crime, for less of better terms. We were involved with one of the biggest gangs in Queens at the time. I guess if you have to measure it, it was equivalent to the present day Bloods, the Cribs, and/or the Latin Kings. We started off with selling weed; trying to help Mom make ends meet. And the gang that we were involved with, was over 1500 strong, back then. I would say at least three to five hundred of them sold weed, for our family, so as you can imagine, the ends started to meet really quick. We went from trying to help Mom make ends meet to becoming lovers of money. We graduated and one of the reasons why we’re so dedicated and passionate about reaching back by way of interviews is because when we were that age, no one took the time to talk to us. Had they taken the time to talk to us we still might have looked at them and said, “well, who the hell are you?” Can you relate to what we going through and some of the things that we experiencing? And so for the subscribers, the readers and the people that was watching us; We can relate first-hand to some of the things that you might be experiencing or going through. So that’s why we love to do interviews like this especially with Urban Life. Man the Urban community, that’s where we are from. So, the ends started to meet really quickly and we graduated from weed, trees, whatever they call it today. And we...
Tyson: Loud
Lance: Right. And we moved up to heroin and cocaine and, like I said, we become lovers of money. And that was our transition into that life. We didn’t just go into it saying, ‘yeah, my nigga I wanna be on!’.Nah! We were trying to live a better life because as I mentioned, it was three of us, Todd is the youngest, and it was hand me downs, hand me downs. You know what I’m saying?
mother because she was working two jobs. Our Dad was in the city, he was active but he’s in the city, while we’re in Queens. So it was about just trying to better ourselves. As Lance made mentioned, the hand me downs came to me so you know, they went from one, two, to three and they were still good because one thing that we learned growing up, we learned how to appreciate everything.
Lance: For those listening and watching this when he says, the city, we’re talking about Harlem, we’re talking about New York City.
Tyson: We’re talking about Harlem.
Lance: Right. for our subscribers, we’re talking about New York City, Manhattan, not Jamaica Queens.
Todd: Right. And, so when you come from that era in the early sixty’s when it cost little of nothing to live but that little of nothing was hard to achieve, you don’t know you are poor; we didn’t know we was part of the have-nots. Then moving to Queens you know, it’s a different atmosphere, seems like a whole different life and people was doing things that we weren’t doing in the city and likewise we were doing things in the city that they weren’t doing in Queens. So once, as Lance made mention also, we got involved with weed smoking, we started feeling like we needed sneakers, we need clothes. And then everything began to take a life of its own because once you start becoming part of the haves- it’s hard to go back to the have-nots, and one of the things that we used for justification was; If we ate, everybody ate. That was our slogan..........
Lance: Once you get with the Feurtado Brothers, you could never go wrong.
Todd: Because we were part of the Good Hands people.
Lance: And that’s what we were willing to be. We were like the Robin Hood of the game.
Tyson: So for the lack of a better expression, do you believe that because of your philosophy of’ ‘when you eat, everybody eats’, do you believe that contributed to your success in that particular arena? (The game)
Todd: Of course. Yeah. Definitely, who would want to be part of the team, where only the ‘high up’ is eating? You know what I’m saying. If everybody is eating, everybody is like, ‘Yo, I want to be a part of that. You have no animosity, you have no griminess, no sneaky Sh*t, (excuse my language) going on, you know what I’m saying, That’s what it was all about. Eating.
Tyson: Because when you’ve got some starving soldiers that also increases the possibility of talking and telling and so... whole nine. Todd: One thing that we truly believed and we always knew was that it was dirt money and we knew we were never going to hurt anyone over dirt money. Because if it was meant for you, it’s going to come to you. So if you were with us and you messed up fifty, sixty thousand, you got that.
Lance: I don’t know ‘bout fifty, sixty thousand. Not so.
Todd: We weren’t dropping bodies over no money, regardless of the amount it was; and yes someone would have to pay it off but as far as getting limbs broke, we weren’t with that.
Tyson: So you aren’t talking about a dollar amount - you’re talking about a philosophy, a strategic approach.
Todd: I just used that amount to make a point, because if it had been fifty or sixty grand, we weren’t hurting nobody over that money because in that life we already knew there’s no right way to do wrong. If you’re doing wrong and you capitalize on the game by hurting people, I believe you’re out of order because they are doing it because they see you doing it, you can’t fault them.
Lance: So in a nutshell, a person that got fifty or sixty worth of whatever, was Bonafide (thorough), and was a Pay-master, so that wasn’t even part of the conversation. So like Todd said, it’s just a philosophy...
Todd: True.
Lance: Because it’s really you know, down in the area of five and ten thousand. If you owed five thousand, ten thousand, and started playing games, you did us a favor. You just paid your way out of our life.
Tyson: You revealed your character for a little bit of money.
Todd: Right, right.
Lance: Right. For a little of nothing. So, you stopped yourself.
Todd: Look, it ain’t like people ain’t ever, owed sixty or seventy thousand dollars and walked away with it, because it has happened. But it wasn’t a thing... that took place regularly. However; at a certain level in the game you will take some loses. It’s just a matter of how you deal with it.
Todd: It’s sad to say, in that life there were many people that wanted to be part of your crew, and they’re going to do things that they think you want them to do. So a lot of things went under the rug. We knew that if we put something in the atmosphere, we (Tony, Lance or myself) had to be careful not to put anything into that atmosphere. Someone was going to act on it, because they would be
thinking we put in the atmosphere for a reason. For example; we might say “don’t mess with the dude because he’s X, Y and Z,” but they took it as, yes, let’s snap that arm and break that leg, so we didn’t put certain things in the atmosphere because we realize the power of our influence. We knew the life we that lived, was a life, that was a gateway to that Federal System, so there were just certain things that we just didn’t do.
Tyson: You know I appreciate you saying that because I believe what you’re talking about is integrity. Right. So although we are playing in a so-called dirty game, we are chasing our visions, we still play the game, with integrity, with a certain moral consciousness...
Lance: Exactly.
Tyson: ...and that’s one of the foundational reasons why I wanted to have this interview because I believe the game today is lacking that. It’s lacking that moral consciousness.
Lance: It’s like you said, rules, codes, procedures, respect, climbing that ladder. Back in the day when you were described as being a hustler, there was a level of accomplishment that you had to prove of yourself to be considered a boss. In order to get up here, you had to know what was going on down here, and then when the era of crack came about; anybody could cook up, go stand on the corner and sell the drug. Claiming; I’m a ‘top-notch’, I’m a hustler, cause they getting a few dollars you know what I’m saying. But, nah, it was rules, codes and procedures that went along with the game.
Todd: Yeah, you hit it on the head- morals, brings about longevity. Because, in that life enemies come because you have something that they want. But we weren’t an enemy creator. Even before the drug world, people gravitated to us; as well as we gravitated to them but when we got into that drug world, it was really no different because of how we carried ourselves.
Tyson: So now I heard you mention Tony; we were talking about Big Brother pretty Tony...
Todd: That’s what they call him. (laughter around the table)
Tyson: A lot of our young viewers might not even know that phrase-ology but that’s why we’re here today so they can get some game.
Lance: Exactly. So you know, but we’re all only one year apart.
Tyson: Oh Yeah? Tyson: You guys at some point got arrested and did a significant amount of time.
Todd: Yes. So, and I say it all the time, God had a plan and a purpose for us. We didn’t know it then. We were facing, we were facing three life sentences right, and, but there were some doors left open for us, our soul was intact, so anybody just watching, reading, they know what that mean, our soul is intact, we don’t compromise.
Lance: You see the shirt, right. Get the shirt. Paperwork good. We saying that for a reason, that’s what we talking about.
Todd: I stamp that.
Lance: We don’t compromise.
Todd: Paperwork is good.
Tyson: Paperwork good. It’s your visa through life and your passport through the hood, so I’m glad you touched on that, because that’s important.
Todd: Very, very.
Lance: That there were some gates and then when you understand gates, you understand methodology and strategy. It doesn’t mean you slide out the door at the expense of somebody else.
Todd: Right.
Tyson: It means understanding your situation, count your blessings and get to maneuvering.
Lance: Maneuver meaning: Shepardizing, researching your case.
Todd: Yes sir.
Lance: And find enough loop holes that can help you. And so, as I made mention, what the devil meant for hurt, harm and danger, God took it and turned it into good and multiplied it for the greater. For those who are sitting up in a cell, reading this laying up, you can go to; Fed third, book 191, page 420 and you can see Feurtado versus the US and you can read how we gave time back, you know what I’m saying. There are some issues there that can help you, so you need to get up, get up off that cot, get up out of the gym, thinking you’re the next LeBron James or Kevin Durant get up off that mic thinking that you’re the next Styles P, or Jada Kiss or somebody, no man. Do for self.
Todd: So it’s more than safe to say that the Law Library is called the keys of justice. and the only way that you’re going to find that keys is if you get in that Law library and due diligence. You can sit back and allow your lawyer, cause your lawyer want to eat and he want to get as much money as possible. You have to help yourself because at the end of the day it’s your life, your freedom on the line, your family home suffering.
Lance: Exactly. And let me drop a subliminal. It’s like Todd said, it’s the key to justice, but if you don’t use that key, that’s what you’ll find. Just us.
Tyson: Wow! That’s deep. And I appreciate that insight, because during my last incarceration, they would announce the Law library. For one, you’re supposed to go there for an hour, but they only give you twenty or thirty minutes. Nobody’s complaining. Because when they call Law library, only two or three guys are going. The rest say they’re going to go to the yard, I’m going to play some ball. I’m stressed out I got to make a phone call.
Todd: Yeah. And then the thing is; how could you be comfortable? not you per se...
Tyson: That’s alright.
Todd: But how could a person especially looking like you and I - be comfortable in a situation where you’re locked up whether you committed a crime or not. There’s always a way out. Not by telling, paperwork is good, but you have to get in that Law library. Because every rule, code and procedure there is to get (catch) you, there’s one to release you. Just like you committed a crime, and as the streets would say, you got caught slipping, if you do your due diligence in that Law library, you’ll find out that the United States Marshalls are sometimes slipping also, but they just didn’t get caught. It’s up to you to catch them, and that’s why you must get into those books. As Lance said, you have to sherardize your case, you can find those loopholes, you can find those harmful errors and you can use it to your advantage. It’s your choice! Because if you don’t, that means you are satisfied with doing some time. If you’re a father how could you sit on your butt? I sat back as a dad, and one of my children were born while I was locked up and I was like, how did I do this to my child? And when your child is born and you’re locked up, so your child’s going to hear the stories and it’s more than safe to say that sometimes your child may say, ‘you know what, if it was good for my dad it’s good for me. And they follow those footsteps without even realizing they are following you. There ain’t nothing cool about going to prison. I’m not going to say idiots are in prison because everyone that’s in jail is not a criminal. But there are idiots in jail. mentioned in relationship to the Supreme Team. Is there some history between the Seven Crowns and the Supreme Team, and the Feurtado Brothers? Can we just get a little clarification on that piece?
Lance: So, we all grew up together. We all went to school together. They, came under us or was directly influenced by us.
Todd: We were actually kind of right there at the same time. When people look at the name, connotation, King of Kings and they wonder where that name came from, it’s not something we made up for ourselves. It’s the name that the streets gave us, you know what I’m saying. Cause rightly so, when you look at Preme, Prince and other folks, Cat, everybody, those brothers were Kings. They were Kings. We just happened to be the King of Kings. I say that humbly.
Tyson: Of course. What’s real is real
Lance: Yeah, and so it’s definitely history. All of us go back to twelve and thirteen years old.
Todd: Plenty of bread was broken together, even before the Supreme was the Supreme Team. Even before they had the name we broke bread together.
Lance: Yes, so we all went to school together and...
Tyson: Okay. So for, our brothers locked in a cell somewhere that’s going to read your story and hear your wisdom, at what point did you guys individually or collectively began to make a transition?
Lance: So as we made mentioned earlier on, in the interview, we were always dubbed as ‘The Good Hands People’. You know what I’m saying. We were always trying to do good, trying to do right with something negative. But when we went to prison we kind of realized that this is a black hole that we just opened and this was a chain of destruction that we led down this black hole. We said you know what, learning more about what people describe as the prison industrial complex, I describe it as the business of incarceration and we started learning more about it. I said, you know what we’ve got to make sure that our future leaders don’t fall into the same traps we fell into.
Even though we made our choices knowingly and willingly, you know what I’m saying, it’s still a trap right. Cause subliminally we’ve been brainwashed and so we said you know what we got to make sure that we put some truth out there. So when cats make their decision they make it like I said, knowingly and willingly. Because we don’t believe in genocide, even though we hear people say we played a role in it, but whether you know it or not, whether you’re putting the drug in the next man hand or if you’re pulling that trigger or you stand in front of the man with the black dress and talking about we did
it, you just committed genocide. So we are here to break that chain, we are here to destroy the myth of there being a pipeline from the school yard to the prison yard, that’s a myth, that’s a lie. We are here to destroy it. You know what I’m saying. The choice is yours.
Todd: Exactly.
Lance: So individually, we kind of just, that spirit was breathed into all of us simultaneously, that it’s time to make a change, we got to make a difference. So while I was incarcerated, while I was in prison I was a GED tutor. So I was responsible for helping over 75 inmates to receive their GED. Todd, played a major role where he was also.
Todd: You know what was the eye-opener, (pardon me) when we got locked up? We were all in South Carolina 1400 Heilger Street one the worse jails in existence. It looked like it used to be a slave holding pin.
Tyson: Was that a State or a Federal jail?
Todd: State. Cause when you’re Federal they put you in a state for …...
Tyson: For processing.
Todd: Exactly. So while we were in this prison, this jail, pardon me, we didn’t miss a beat. Everything that we had on the street we in a sense had in jail. And we had so many police officers or should I say; COs on a payroll. I was like, yo, we in jail for committing a crime, how we’re going to be in the same prison together and continue to commit crime. So our transformation just took a life of its own. I must say I was fortunate enough to go to FCI, Petersburgh, where the Christian base was so thick and not thick meaning in numbers. There was a strong presence of brothers who really wanted change in their lives that were of the Christian faith. So as Lance made mention he was a tutor, I was also a tutor for folks that was older than me, whom the population had gave a negative label to, calling them S&L, slowly learning, and I didn’t really appreciate that. So I would go into the library and act as if I didn’t know what certain words meant, th what we would do, was to go into the dictionary together. So while they were learning, I was also learning. This helped me to connect with the brothers I was helping. Because the one thing we learnt in just life in general, never ever point your finger in someone’s face because you always get three pointing back at you.
Tyson: That’s a humble perspective. I think it’s a, there’s a lot of power in humility... Tyson: especially with your experience in life period. And often times we run across a gentleman who have significant experience and accomplishments in his life and they take on a different attitude towards people and, so earlier we kind of mentioned, your brother Mr. Pretty Tony, so where is he and...
Todd: So, right now Tony is a license Broker, dealing with real estate and his mission kind of falls right in line with the King of Kings foundation. Because he’s helping to get affordable housing and homes for folks who really can’t afford it. You know what I’m saying. dealing with rent stabilized places. He’s helping a lot of people with his Real-time solution, that’s his own Realtor business, Real Time Solution, you know I’m going to drop that in there.
Tyson: Shout out the Real Time
Todd: Two sites, two sites.
Lance: One coming near you wherever you are.
Todd: But, yeah, so, it was no way that we could come home and fall right back into what we did for twenty-five plus years of our life and that’s virtually unheard of for someone to have a twenty-five plus year run still here to talk about it, intact, soul is intact, you know what I’m saying, and we have sound, mind with us.
Lance: That’s what’s important. Sound mind is key.
Tyson: Most important. Yeah. because you got a lot of gentlemen, right, and God bless them, that are coming home from bids and they are messed up.
Lance: Yeah. You know what, there’s so much going on man, that they’re putting names to it now. You know bipolar, you know disorders and, we didn’t know that growing up and, we didn’t even recognize it. But one thing we not going to do, we’re not going to glorify your past history because Cats look at it and be like, and I’ll just share a story, that no matter where we were right, the COs, the Lieutenants, the Captains, everybody, they used to come to us individually in our own prisons wherever we were and go, you know what? I hear Cats walking around talking about how they did the damn thing and it was about, bout it and this and that. He said I’ve read their paperwork and these dudes are all phony and liars. They say, yo, but you and your family is the real deal. How you all so humble? We were always deemed to be a quiet storm. You know what I’m saying. You hear some people throw the term around, that real gangsters move in silent, you know what I’m saying.
But I guess that’s why saw God saw it fit to give us a second chance in life cause as I mentioned, I humbly say we aren’t supposed to be here but we are supposed to be here because God got a plan for us, you know that
I’m saying, so I can’t say we aren’t supposed to be here. We were facing three life sentences and they were trying to give us every bit of it but the Higher Being said no, no, I got something for them to do man and it’s to reach back to a generation that’s lost man. And we love the youth man. I mean we are in the schools’ hard body and I wish, when I was in junior high school or high school that somebody of our character came back and said, yo man, what’s up. Let me give you the 4-1-1 for real.
Tyson: And you know what, we were starving for that as young guys. Somebody charismatic and solid to listen to.
Todd: And, I’ll be the first to tell the world jail was too good for us. For the way we were living and the destruction that came along with that life, we should have blown hell wide open. See, but God saw it fit even though there wasn’t a ditch to crawl low enough or an air condition big enough to cool us off, God saw it fit, because if we did all this work for the Devil, playing a devil’s game, if the Lord captures our attention, how much more or we going to uplift and edify Him in reference to saving lives, be it in prison or not. Because at that time when we turned our lives over to the Lord, we had no idea if we were going to spend the rest of our lives in jail or not. But we knew that we couldn’t do the same thing, have the same conversation because there’s a lot of young cats, and you can attest to that. There’s a lot of young cats that’s not only in state prisons but in federal prisons and a lot of them are on joke time, not realizing that you just gave your life away. It’s like we got caught in that stigma that the white man took my freedom.
White man isn’t taking nothing. However, he created the cell to put your behind in, but then you committed a crime, I’ll say I committed a crime which put me in that cell. So while in that cell, I had to use rational thinking. I came in stuck on stupid. There’s no way I could dwell in there being stuck on stupid because I had to realize first and foremost, because it says Correctional Facility, that’s a myth. No correction comes from inside any prison system. Prison breeds criminals so you have to be a strong person to make a conscious decision to change your mindset. Like I don’t care what type money we’ve made collectively or individually, there’s no way I could put myself in this position again. First and foremost, we have families, not only mother and father, aunts and uncles, but we have wives and kids.
So if this is the legacy that we want to leave for our kids, and if God opened that door and give us a chance to come home, guess what? Why would we stay stuck on stupid. When you stuck on stupid what does that mean? You going to be caught up in recidivism. And that door doesn’t stop revolving for no one that’s why you got to make a conscious decision. Now, I thank God that he moved on Lance first. Like I said, we were on 1400 Heilger Street, and in the cells they have the little trap where you slide the food through. Todd: So one day I’m looking through the trap at Lance so I can holler at him and I see there’s glow in his eyes. So the first thing came to my mind; was I know isn’t nobody over there acting crazy. I didn’t realize that he turned his life over to the Lord. So the message he sent to me by the little kites, was - I don’t care what you do, pray at ten o’clock, even if you don’t know how to pray hold somebody hand and pray. From then on it just caused a domino effect then it opened our eyes of understanding and our heart to be accepting of or receptive to a better way because there’s nothing cool about being in prison. For instance, a skid bid (I almost said a word I don’t even say). Don’t go to prison and thinking because you did six months, you could do that standing on your head. That’s a recipe for disaster.
Lance: You know what and for the readers that’s out there, I don’t want anyone to try to misconstrue anything that is being said. It isn’t about being scared straight or nothing like that. We are who we are. We the Feurtado Brothers. There’s no ifs, and or butts, about where we come from, what we’ve been through, our accomplishments and all of that. There comes a certain time in life when you have to wake up. You know what I’m saying. You can’t be a foolish fool all your foolish life. You know what I’m saying. And I’m saying that with no disrespect to nobody.
Lance. It wasn’t no scared straight or nothing like that. We just made a conscious decision
Todd: For the nobody’s, if the shoe fits, then you got to put it on. You got to wear it because a lot of people is in the same position maybe not your level, but as far as being incarcerated. You have to get out of that box and stop thinking, it’s all about me myself and I, especially when you’re a father. It’s like you setting a tone as we made mention early in the interview, we were dubbed the Good Hands People. Right. Once you get with the Feurtado Brothers you never go wrong, or the Feurtado family, you never go wrong. So if that’s the slogan, that’s going to take a life of his own. And especially if you left a trail, somebody going to say, yow what? Twenty-five years? I’ll take that for four or five, six million. No. There’s not a dime that’s worth your... Not a dime that’s worth your freedom. Lance: So, and you know, our thing is to motivate, educate, uplift and inspire everybody to reach their full potential despite the elements that surround you. And that element might be prison, it might be drug life, it might be gang life, it might be whatever. We’re not hating on nobody because we come from that. So we got nothing but love for everybody man. We just want to encourage you man. You know what I’m saying. If you make a choice to live by that, but we promote positivity.
Lance: Of course. We have a whole curriculum that can go from one day to one year. And there’s nothing new, gangs been around for so long. For those of you all that watched the gangs in New York, The Five Points and the gangs were always in existence. We have one of the biggest gangs in existence right now, they all wear blue. And they’re not Crips. You know what I’m saying. So we describe New York’s finest as gangs. When you look at the gangs in New York they showed how Police Department, the Fire Department whatever, it was all a gang. Right. It’s all your click, it’s all your team.
35 Growing up in gangs is just how you allow yourself to be used cause everybody’s going to be used in some shape, form or fashion. We did what we did but we were also being used politically when they were trying to close the night centers and things of that nature that kind of kept a lot of us off the street, even though we utilize it for negativity, but it still kept us in doors. Whenever they were trying to close them one of the local politicians would come to us and say, ‘hey man, I need you all to come march with me. They trying to close down your center and that was a way to get to us. It was like, what? Cause they knew we weren’t scared about nothing. What close? What? Naw. They ain’t closing nothing. So there are some positive, politically correct things that you can do, why are you still involved! And then I’ll give you, a specific gang that I remember when they started off as a gang and then they started policing the train stations and everything like that, especially when it was the Son of Sam Right. What’s their names? They wear the red
bonnets, come on, you all got it.
Todd: Guardian Angels.
Lance: Guardian Angels.
Tyson: Your guardian angels. They were everywhere.
Todd: Right. And so that’s a gang. But they turned it into something positive. You know what I’m saying. So you know, we grew up watching this commercial they had an egg frying in the frying pan and they used to say, ‘this is your egg, this is your brain on drugs, they used to say the mind is a terrible thing to waste.’ It is a terrible thing to waste man. If you can sit down and collectively come up with ideas and ingenuities on how to get some money illegally you can do the same thing and get money legally.
Tyson: So, what’s required in that process? Do you have any insight on that? what’s required of an individual who’s having some success in the game but you really don’t want to be in the game but you still want the benefits of the game.
Lance: The same energy, right, the same ingenuity, the same methodology, the same thought process that you put into making that illegal money saying that you know I’m going to go and let me start up I’m going to buy me half an ounce of this and that, I’m going to bag it, I’m going to do this, I’ll turn it into this, I’m going to build an empire. If you used that same concept positively, I tell
you what man, I see that in my community everybody like to eat hot dogs. Well I’m going to go get me a hot dog stand. You know what I’m saying? and I’m going to turn that one hot dog stand into five hot dog stands. You know what I’m saying? Or young man, everybody like to wear them hats, well I’m going to go get me some Fitted hats and I’m going to come up with a design and I’m going to create it, like that shirt like the clothing line that we wear we buy them. It’s sitting back and you look at the void, what’s missing and say how can I fill that void and make it profitable. See that’s why I say the mind is a terrible thing to waste. We can sit here and give a road maps all day but the best road map comes from within. Everybody’s been blessed with a talent or gift. You have to tap into your gift and your talent and build on it.
Todd: Yeah. And especially if you’re in that gang and you do not like what you’re seeing, the effects of it, the cause and effects of being in that life and you’re not blinded by the money that you’re making, then you got to make a conscious decision. Yeah, what you want to, what you may look into may not be as equivalent as getting that fast money but slow money is good money and is safe and you can be able to make a difference in your community as Lance made mention.
Lance: Let me give you an example. So you got two sets of crews growing up right. You got the south side you got the north side. Right. I’m just going to use this as an example. A lot of us say I’m going to make that fast money. I’m going to live, I’m going to ride, I’m going to die, drive my cars until my Daddy take the keys away. You know what I’m saying. That was the philosophy right so that’s all of us on the south side. Then you had the cats that was on the north side. The Russell Simmons and the Damon Jones. The LLs, the different people from the north side that said, you know what I’m a go to school. I will take my time. I’m going to learn and develop an art, a craft and I’m going to build on it. We said I’m a do whatever it takes to get that that house with the white picket fence around it quickly. Most people in the gang have a three, maybe four year run and they spend the next twenty-five years reminiscing. Right.
36 And when they come home that same dude that they looked at and they thought was a sucker because he decided to educate himself and go to school, and he says you know what I’m going to do, there’s twelve years of school and I’m going to do an additional four years and then I might decide to get my Masters also so I’m going to do more and more schooling, so by the time he is thirty, everything that you got at eighteen and nineteen you only had it for three years and you lost it, now at thirty, you might just be coming home from prison and they got it all legitimately, everything that you wanted. So I use resemblance in the story like that to show that there’s a right way and there’s a wrong way. So those cats were, and then when you say Damon John, that was Fubu. Just like I’ve used the example about that fitted hat. For if you take the hat, then you flip the hat, then you wear the hat, LL helped launched that. And, so many cats I mean, nowadays, with social media you’re your own marketing
expert. It’s what you put into it is what you go get out of it.
Tyson: So part of what we do at Urban Life News Magazine, we got a section in the magazine that’s been receiving a lot of positive feedback, it’s called Shout Outs. Right. A Shout Out is a personalized message from someone in the street, along with a picture of the person that’s locked up and they put a personalized message to that person locked up and we put it in the magazine. So what we like you to do right now is do you have a Shout Out you want to give someone specifically...?
Todd: Oh man, do you know how many people we’d like to shout out Listen, you go put us on the spot, people would be like, ‘I don’t hear you shout me, I’m just going to shout out everybody: Cat, Preem, Prince, everybody, Pappy, Tut, everybody. Man, we could keep naming man. I got so many dudes that sitting down behind the walls man and, I mean, no disrespect if I didn’t call the name because it’s like tons of you all man, there’s tons of you.
Tyson: So what message would you say not necessarily to them but what would you say cause they going to read it, they going to get it.
37 Lance: People think you come from nothing. That don’t mean you have to return the nothing. Think about that. You know what I’m saying. Todd: And my Shout Out is to every person that’s incarcerated, at the end of the day, whether you have the opportunity to make it home or if you have a L on the end, don’t think you can’t be anyone proactive in making a difference even in the midst of that storm. I can tell you one thing, Lance says this so much, if we knew that it felt this good to do right, my goodness, we’d have been doing right a long time ago. Don’t allow your situation to stop your purpose. No devil in hell can stop it, but you got to receive it. Just because you’re behind a wall that don’t mean you can’t be somebody super-magnificent. You have to take that chance. You took a chance. Look where it got you. Now take a chance to help other people out and if you do have a way out, don’t ever, ever, ever don’t you ever, ever, ever forget your trials and tribulations because some young person needs to hear the sound wisdom that you are sitting on.
Lance: As Todd made mention, in order to receive it, you have to believe it.
Tyson: Yes.
Lance: You know what I’m saying. Everybody can make a difference. I’ll leave you with this man. There’s two type of people in this world. One that believes he can, one that believes he can’t. Guess what? Both of them are right. Which one are you?
News will always salute those who came before us paving the way that the gift of life, that the gift of wisdom and understanding can be ours. Like the brother said it’s just up to you to read and digest it and get what’s, what’s for you. If you don’t believe it’s for you, just pass the magazines to the dude in the cell next to you.
Lance: Exactly. For those that want to follow us, we also should be under Feurtado Brothers, under Todd Feurtado, that’s on Facebook and Instagram. Our website is King of Kings Foundation. org. If you’re interested in the clothing line, you can go right to Revivedwear.com. You can see the whole collection of our clothing line. You can order. We just want to Shout Out again man, Urban Life News. We Shout Out our boy, Peter Shue... Lance: Thank you for having us.
Todd: Yeah baby.
Lance: He grace to cover of Issue #4, that’s Peter Shue there. You know what I’m saying. One of the big promoters from back in the day. Also, you know what I’m saying, he made it out of there like we made it out of there man. Shout Out to you Pete, again, Shout Out to Urban Life News man. We appreciate you man.
Tyson: Thank you.
Todd: Blessings.
Tyson: Peace!
Tyson: And I appreciate you man. Once again, I’ve probably said it three or four times, but I sincerely appreciate
WATCH THE ENTIRE UNCUT INTERVIEW ON YOUTUBE
BOOK REVIEW THINK & GROW RICH BY NAPOLEON HILL
I am very often asked to recommend books. The average person does not read. When one of these people asks for a recommendation, I know they are after something. I know that whatever they are after, they are getting ahead of themselves. Rather than recommend a book having to do with the thing they are after, I always recommend a step back. Before the subject, before the plan of action, before anything at all is to be done, comes first, mindset. Attitude, and a realistic perspective on the course of events to follow in your pursuits are more important than the actions themselves. This is why my first recommendation is always the same, Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill. Think and Grow is written as a manual. It is hard to misinterpret. It covers in great detail the steps to success and the diseases of attitude that prevent it. How to be successful is a more important subject than how to do something, because you must learn how to be successful at what you are doing, or else join the legions of talented poor. What can be more important than success, when the alternative is failure? Failure is horrible. Failure is poverty, it is prison, it is dis-ease. I want abundance, freedom, and ease, for myself and my people. I tend to assume that someone looking to the wisdom of the ages is ultimately looking for these things as well.
I have studied Think and Grow harder than any other book, read it and listened to it over and over. In only a few short years I have gone from living in a small car with another big man to now what I feel is the top of the world and rising. I attribute most of this success to the change in mindset and the definite road map provided by Napoleon Hill. I had read over a thousand books before Think and Grow. I learned much history and science. I studied engineering, and architecture. I read the holy books of many religions. I read the classics and the moderns. I studied my own crafts and worked towards mastery of them. And I ended up homeless. Being good is not enough. Being good at what you do is not enough. What happens in your mind determines your reality. In the absence of this understanding it is very difficult to win in this world. There are many self-help, personal development, learn-to-win books. Almost all of them stem from Think and Grow. I have heard it said that there are only two books with enough wisdom in them to study throughout a lifetime. You can guess the first. The second is Think and Grow Rich.
Ryan Aleckszander
@therealNotUs @RyanAleckszander Contributing Writer
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