(camera reel whirring)
Downloaded from YTS.MX
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
(slow orchestral music)
(choir singing) (explosion booming)
♪ The life of an outlaw ♪
♪ The life we live ain't for everybody ♪
♪ In the inner city swimming with the dead bodies ♪
♪ A few life jackets can't save everybody ♪
♪ Runnin' with young thugs that'll spray everybody ♪
♪ I need some guidance, the hood is my background ♪
♪ I'm from the city where they can't put the crack down ♪
♪ I'm feeling pity 'cause the city put the smack down ♪
♪ I need some guidance, the walls closing in on me ♪
♪ I'm trying to find it, it seems like it's runnin' from me ♪
♪ Until I came across a book with no crookedness ♪
♪ It had a message addressing the wickedness ♪
♪ Life of an outlaw ♪
♪ Outlaw, outlaw, outlaw ♪
♪ The life we live ain't for everybody ♪
(explosion booming) (female laughing)
I was three years old when my mother and father
got murdered. (camera reel whirring)
My father was African American.
My mother was Puerto Rican and Cuban.
He bought homes for his mother.
Successful businessman.
(gunshots firing) (baby crying)
(heart beating)
- When my parents got killed,
it's some incidents that happened
during the murdering of my parents that I remember.
My oldest brother, he remember more than all of us.
- 'Cause I still remember that day as a clear memory
in my head, I'll never forget that day.
I was four years old, Mutah my brother, he was three,
and my youngest brother Kamil, he was four months, yeah.
At first, I seen my father get murdered
while talking on the telephone laying on the ground.
He was on the phone, he wasn't paying his friends,
or the guys that was so-called his friends,
he wasn't paying them no mind.
He let 'em in, said, "How you doing?"
Once he let 'em in, he just got back on the phone,
laid on the floor, and when I seen the guy,
I ran up to one of the guys and jumped in his arms
because I remember when I was small,
he was the guy who used to pick me up when he seen me.
And my brother, I believe my brother ran to the other guy
and put his arms out like that for the guy to pick him up.
- I remember one of the guys who entered to the house,
he was actually my so-called godfather.
I remember sitting on his lap,
and I remember that he pushed me off his lap,
and I remember that this was a violent push.
Growing up, every time I think back
about how he pushed me off,
as a kid it felt like it was violent.
When he pushed me off, I just heard gunshots,
(gunshots firing) and I'm okay back then,
so I'm just standing around, at first I didn't know
where it was coming from until I seen the guns.
I seen my father, his chest was bleeding,
and he was just laying on the ground,
and I heard my mom scream.
Once my mother started screaming, she,
she grabbed my brother, he was the first thing she saw,
so she grabbed him and was running to,
we had a big house then, grabbed him
and was running to the back room,
and I remember one of the guys, when she slammed the door,
kicked the door in to the back room,
and my mother was, she couldn't go nowhere.
Her back was against the wall, and so he killed my mother
while she has her back against the wall.
- After they murdered my parents,
me and my brothers, we was in the house
with the dead bodies for 24 hours, and I remember, as a kid,
that I was biting my mother trying to wake her up.
- Laying there trying to wake our parents up,
and they wouldn't wake up, and we just fell asleep,
and the next morning, the guy my father
was on the phone with, he kept calling the house,
it kept being busy, so he just came over there
and that's when he discovered us.
- I headed back, I was headed to Snoop's house.
Yes, both went out and took care of some business,
and as I was at the door, his cousin was driving up.
His cousin was Hakim.
As we opened the door,
Snoop was looking at me up on the floor.
Seemed like he had a bullet hole in his chest.
- Pops, hey, I said pops was 8 a.m.,
that morning I received a call from my niece
saying my brother got shot.
Soon as he pushed this door,
my brother was laying right there.
Upon going to his bedroom, I saw my brother's friend
at the dining room table, slumped over.
Then, I find his wife curled up here on the floor.
Now that I checked the other bedroom on the first floor,
his three children were there,
and one was laying on the bed crying, Johnny's son.
As I picked him up, his other two sons woke up.
(mumbling) Mutah.
- And, the community was in uproar because we was on edges.
We was, basically, we was in hiding
because we didn't know where were they,
or were they coming back, or were they coming for us?
We had no idea what the situation was.
- The children, at an early age, a lot of Snoop's friends
coming to the house, they knew everybody came there,
and so they were able to identify one of the shooters
that killed their mother and father.
- In all the time, it was my brother's so-called friends.
- They were very close, I mean, they worked together.
They went out together, went on trips together.
- Hey, matter fact, they came up all through the boys club,
west side, I mean, as far as 14, 15 years old.
They came up together.
These guys used to just literally, actually eat
at my mother's table, and my mother actually fed them.
They have slept in my mother's home,
and to see that,
it was uncalled for, first of all.
What it was behind, unknown, so.
- Basically, my father, he was into,
he was a diamond dealer, he used to sell diamonds,
and at his age at this time, my father was around
28 years old, he had a lot of money,
he owned a lot of properties within New Jersey,
he was able to purchase houses for my grandmother,
my grandfather, he was driving out pink Cadillacs,
renting Sevilles when they first came out,
so he had a lot of attention and a flashy lifestyle,
which this lifestyle sometimes brings envy,
animosity, et cetera, so one of the guys
who was very close to my father
who was actually one of the guys who, like we said,
back in the day, was my godfather.
He had been to, one day, he owed my father some money,
and he decided to, basically, instead of paying my father
the money, he decided to pay some people a less amount
of money to put a hit out on my mother and father.
- So what happened, you had a driver outside,
and two shooters inside, and the other two
was sitting back in the cut waiting for the phone call
when the hit was done, so it was, in all actuality,
it was five, but it was three that came to this house.
- Everyone in the city, in the surrounding area
was aware of the aftermath of the murder.
Was there going to be a second killing?
Was there going to be a return of these killers
to come back to try and kill the children?
- It was tense, the people was threatening,
if they catch my brother they're gonna kill him.
They was trying to intimidate our family.
I remember one incident, I was on the porch.
Me, my aunt, and a few other, my brothers and my cousins,
we was on the porch and some of the people
that was affiliated with the people that killed
my mother and father, they rolled up on the block
at my grandmother's house, and when they got in front
of our house, they tried to slow down,
they tried to stare at us, intimidate us,
and I remember my aunt, she grabbed us
and made us run in the house, she was afraid,
so she said, "Come on, run in the house."
And, my brother Moonie, he was, we never had a discussion
about the death of my mother and father.
We never spoke about it with each other.
It's more hard for him because
he remembered the most out of all of us.
He even had to go to the courthouse and point everybody out.
- One question, did you see anybody here
who killed your parents?
And he pointed, he said, "That's who killed
"my mommy and daddy," and they took him off the stand.
That's that one question, they pointed,
said, "That's who killed my mommy and daddy."
- The people that got convicted, they're in prison.
The main ones that have life in prison,
I heard a few of them came home, but the one
who was the main shooter and got the most charges
put against him, he got life in prison.
(prison bars slamming) (angelic music)
So, from after the death of my mother and father,
me and my brothers, we went to move with my grandparents,
the parents of my father, and this was
a very packed household 'cause my grandmother was
one of them ladies that she don't say no to no one,
so we had other relatives in the house,
aunties, uncles, cousins, it was a very packed house,
and she was a strong woman who basically,
she was the foundation of our household at this time.
My grandfather, he worked at nights,
so he slept during the day, so the one who was
in control of the house was actually my grandmother.
She was the one that was taking care of us,
she's the one that was putting the rules down,
she was basically the head of the household at this time.
She basically was the glue that kept my family together.
Growing up, since I can remember, Mu, he was a normal child.
He did okay in school when he felt like it.
We didn't take school serious.
Soon as school was over, we hung on the block.
We went to Chess Ave, which was our neighborhood
which was our block, and we just hung on the block.
My brothers and my cousins, they were selling drugs,
and me and my younger cousins and younger brother,
we would just be out there with the drug dealers.
That's how we spent our days.
I thought this was normal because, since a very young age,
that's all I seen, so I thought that
this was the normal life, man, that you grow, you come up,
this is a quick way to make some money,
and it was only two sides.
To me, the only two sides of life was
either you're a crackhead or you're a drug dealer,
and it was one of them things growing up,
I used to have to say which side that I'ma be on.
It's almost, you gotta pick what side you wanna be on,
so we grew up, when you see the condition of the crackheads,
you grew up in fear of crackheads.
You don't wanna (chuckling) be like a crackhead.
Then you see the condition of people selling drugs
and that life, this is what you want for yourself.
A few times, I tried to get myself,
I got involved with selling drugs 'cause I recall
one of the first times I ever sold drugs, I got arrested.
I remember, at a young age, I went to an older cat
from my neighborhood, and I convinced him
to let me get some drugs, and I convinced him
that I'll be able to sell drugs for him.
He gave me some drugs, I went outside on the block,
first day that I tried to hustle and sell the drugs,
the police rode up on me.
I remember I ran in the store and I threw the drugs
into the refrigerator, came out, I was arrogant
because I thought I'd just outsmart the police.
Pushed me against the wall, they checked me,
next thing I knew, they pulled a crack vial
out of my pocket, called my grandmother,
I got into some trouble, but from that day then,
I said I need to try to find another way
to make it up out of the hood.
I started to write poetry and write raps,
and what inspired me is that I felt like I needed
to express myself, I needed to figure a way to get
what was inside of my chest to release it up out of me, man,
and that's when I turned to writing raps.
My neighborhood was one of them neighborhoods,
for a youngster, it was a lot to take in,
so the way I was able to express myself
was to go into my room, what I would see outside
on my block, I would make a song out of it.
Then, I would go back outside and rap it
for the drug dealers and they would pay me money,
and that's when I said, "Well, this is gonna be my hustle
"that I'ma stick with for the rest of my life."
- So, I lived down the street from Mutah.
So, Mu, high school, we used to see him walking.
He always had a notebook in his hand, rapping.
I'm like, "Mu, what you doing?"
He was like, "Yo, I'm rappin', man.
"I'm tryin' to make it happen, I'm rappin', you know."
He would show me his books, be like, "Yo, spit a rhyme."
We'd give him a dollar, two, $5, he'd spit a rhyme for us,
we'd come, then we got closer, I met his grandparents.
His grandparents used to live here, too, all his family,
so we start hangin', Mu was like, "You serious?
"We're straight hustlers from the street,
"we need a better day, we're trying to find a better way,"
so we found Mu, we ran into Mu.
Mu was like, "Yeah, I really wanna do this man,
"I'm tryin' to do this, I'm tryin' to make it happen."
So, we just, "All right."
Me and my man Shalla B. - Too, and what tellin'
what I was into, so that's when he said,
"Yo, listen, I'm trying to rap.
"Let's go to the studio together.
"We can do some rapping together, whatever, man,
"you can be the manager or something like that,"
and I'm trying to stop being in the streets,
so I said let me take my money and put it towards something
that can get me from one level to another, so.
- Corey, which is C and Sharla B, they got real involved,
they got heavy, real involved with my career
starting off as a musician to the point that
they was sending me in the recording studio,
where they was paying for my studio time,
they was buying me clothes, they was taking care of me,
you know what I mean, and they was the first ones to help me
pursue my career in the music industry.
- And we start putting Mu in the studio
so Mu coming up with rhymes.
Every rhyme he wrote, it's like, it's about murder.
Murder, murder this, I remember the hook,
"The money got me feelin' like a star.
"Murder got me feelin' like my death ain't far.
"When they come, they gon' murder."
- This is, man, I was 13, 14 years old,
so I was doing raps, man, that the people on the street
was relating to, man, it was talking about drug dealing.
At this time, New Jersey, especially north,
they was known for stolen cars.
It was stolen car capital of the world,
so I was doing songs about people stealing cars
and stuff like that-- - Then his uncles
gave us the story, then his grandparents gave us the story,
we got cool with Miss Bill, and we was like, "Wow,"
so we embraced him like a big brother.
His family, he had family, but you could tell in his eyes,
his brother's eyes, like damn, they missing their parents,
like lonely, his grandparents was here for him,
but it was like, he was still lonely, you know what I mean?
So he was like, his dream was to become a rapper.
- He was trying to do every avenue to try and get somewhere.
He really was with Corey.
Corey was really being with him, running around
with Queen Latifah, with Naughty by Nature,
now they used to go to East Thorns
and be over there with them.
- Queen Latifah, she was a friend of my family,
and I remember the first time that I heard her on the radio
and seen her on television, it made me inspired,
it made me feel like even more that I can make it
because she made it, because she was a woman that
we used to see walking in the hood with us.
She used to come visit my grandmother,
come visit my aunts, so when I actually seen her
on television and heard on the radio, I used to tell myself,
man if she made it, she's from the hood, I can make it.
- So, we'd be like, "We gon' make this happen.
"We gon' do this," whoop whoop whoop,
"we gon' make this happen."
Studio here, we met this kid's named Jamil.
We started working with him immediately,
taking him to the studio, help teaching him how to do
16 bar verses 'cause Mu just was rapping.
He'd just go on and on and on for like, forever,
he didn't know bars, so we worked with him with songs
and things like that, and from then,
once he started doing songs, every time he would go home
and write, he'd just come back, call me up,
I'd take him under my wing, take him around either Corey
or drop him off at my house and Mu would spend
a day with me and my counterparts.
- My whole life was based around music
and I started to do performances at high school,
block parties, I used to be on the block rapping with about
100 drug dealers around me, I'm in the circle rapping,
I started to battle other rappers,
I started to get a name for myself on the street,
and one of the things that led up to me getting serious
and getting professional in the music industry
was my childhood friend of mines
by the name of Yafeu Kadafi. (angelic music)
- Here come Yak, not knowing Yak and Mu
actually grew up together but fell apart as their parents
moved from different areas. - His mother was good friends
with our cousin, an older cousin of mines,
like an auntie or the cousin of mines on my family,
so when she came by over to my relatives house at one time,
she noticed that she had a son and me and Kadafi birthday
was about two days apart, so we was the same age,
so she would pick me up, sometimes take me
to this neighborhood, and I would hang out with him,
but when years would pass, I lost contact with Yafeu
and I happened to run into his mother,
and she told me he was actually trying to pursue
a career in the music industry,
and that his brother's Tupac Shakur.
- Tupak Shakur, boom, (laughing) right there, what Pac?
Yo, we see him in the news all the time,
he runnin' around, he actin' crazy, sellng records,
he doing it all. - Of course, at this time,
Pac was known, especially in the hoods.
He put a few records out, and she said, "Matter of fact,
"Kadafi, Yafeu, and Tupac is on they way to New York City.
"If you serious about getting into the music industry,
"you should go up to him and talk to him yourself."
- So me and Mu went to New York.
Went to the hotel, Pac came down,
after he took like an hour and a half,
you know how the celebrities do, (laughing)
but he still came down, we went in a room.
- And, I walked in the hotel room, I remember saying,
"Kadafi Yafeu, you look like a whole nother person."
Tall breeze, you know what I mean?
Had a little, some finesse with him.
The last time I seen him, he was a short, chubby kid,
but big for his height, whatever.
I remember Pac walked in the room and he was
in the back of my mind I used to say
I have to impress this dude, I have to let him know
that I'm from the hood, I'm from the streets or whatever.
- So, we gave Pac the demo, so Pac listening,
he was like, "Yeah, alright, this cool,
"wow, that's what's up, man."
- But, when I started to talk to him, man,
he let me know from the jump that he not into
that type of conversation, and he started to question me
about the death of my mother and father.
- So, Mu gave Pac the story.
He sat down on the bed in the hotel, literally sat down,
listening, so he was like, "Yeah well you know,
"15, 16 years old, I'm trying to do this Pac,
"and our parents got killed," so Pac looked.
He gave this awkward look, like ooh,
so like, "Go ahead with the story."
So, Pac kept looking, listening to the story.
After he finished the story, on everything I love,
one tear came down Pac's eye, one tear came down Pac eye,
he just looked, put his head down like this,
he looked up, he was like, "I got you Mu."
- So, for me, I was surprised to see that someone reacted
over the story of the death of my mother and father
the way he did to the point that I was trying to tell him,
like, no need to cry, you know what I mean?
And, he was a real dude, he said, "Man, I'ma try my best
"to help you," and ever since that, from that day
and from that meeting, every time that they came back
to New York City, they would call me
and I would go over there and meet with 'em.
For awhile, at the beginning, when Pac kept coming around,
I actually wasn't able to really
speak too much about rap with him.
He knew that I was a rapper, I gave him my CD,
or whatever like that, but at the same time,
I kept saying, "When we gonna have the conversation
"about me trying to get in the music industry?"
But, I guess he was trying to feel me out.
At the beginning, it was more me coming around
and just hanging around with him, you know what I mean?
He wasn't really bringing up the topic, and eventually,
he invited me to the studio. - Pac called Mu,
"Yo listen, I'm doing Me Against the World,
"wanna come over?"
So, we all came over. - He was working on a song,
and that's one of the first times
that I got on a record with him.
- So I had left, dropped Mu off, Mu called me all excited,
"Yo, I'm on the album, man!
"Word up, he put me on the album!"
He was like, "Come back over, pick me up, we on the album!"
So, we back in the studio, we listening, uh-uh-uh-uh.
He was like, "Yo," we looked, bumping our head like,
"Yo, I'm at the end, that's it,
"That's it right there, we in!"
Pac like, "Y'all in, I'ma take care of y'all."
So we all around rollin' with Pac in New York.
- This particular time in my life,
I got kicked outta high school.
We had a new principal that came in,
and she called me to her office, and she said that,
"I asked for the names of the top 100 worst kids
"in the school and your name was at the top 10 of the list,"
and she said, "If you mess up one more time,
"I'ma kick you out," so I didn't take her serious.
I messed up, she called me back to the office,
she kicked me out, and what I really wanted to do
is pursue the career in the music industry.
I got, I tasted it when I was hanging around Pac
and I got back in touch with Kadafi.
I felt like I was already living that life.
So what happened is, Kadafi and Kastro, at this time,
I was calling down to Atlanta,
and they was like, "Why don't you come down here?"
They just basically gave me
the invitation to come down there.
I went back to Corey, at this time C, and he said,
"If you wanna go, man, I'll pay for your plane ticket."
So, he got up the money, gave me the money,
paid for my plane ticket, and I remember going to Atlanta,
and that was the beginning of the Outlaw era.
- When Mu came around, it was like,
I remember him from when we were little,
and it was like, how could you not get along with him?
He was cool, he was like one of us, he was funny,
and we thought we was wild, he was a lot wilder
than we was, though. - What's that?
Tear it down! - Tear it down!
- I'ma tear that ass down! - That's right.
(people conversing) - Crazy!
- I remember Mu when Mu was, like, off the hook.
Mu was like, Mu was basically the wildest Outlaw
in the group, a wild one. - He was all gone
to hang out downtown, and he wasn't even,
he wasn't even old enough to get into the club.
So, we left him at the hotel downtown on P Street,
so when we come back from hanging out,
Pac was like, "Is that Mutah?"
He walkin' up and down the street,
that's bothering people. - He was just a young kid,
very talented, but wild.
- Mu was the type of guy that was so wild that
you kinda had to keep your hand on him
'cause he was just always wanting to fight.
He was always the catch, you always had to say
where is he at, 'cause he's liable to punch somebody.
- This time, I still was a solo artist.
When I met Pac and even got back with Yafeu Kadafi
and the rest of the brothers,
man, I still had the intention,
I always wanted to be a solo artist.
- Soon as he got on the scene, we was already rapping.
We was already a group.
We was Dramacydal or the Young Thugz or something like that,
and when he came, he had two songs.
He had Money Had Me Feelin' Like a Star,
Money and Murder, and another song.
- We ended up doing a song together called Killing Fields.
Me, Kadafi, E.D. and Kastro, at this time,
the name of their group was called the Young Thugz.
Pac went back to New York City and he happened
to call down to Atlanta, and we played the song for him,
we played the song over the phone for Pac,
and he thought that we belong as a group.
He said we sound good together, so that's when he started
to put me in the group, the Young Thugz.
- And, he added a extra grit to it,
and a lot more soul to what we was doing,
so he was, like I say, he was a piece that was missing.
- I guess, at this time, we'd just hear that lucky beat,
man, that dope beat, and we came up with a dope song,
and Pac would say, "That's what I wanted,
"that's what I was trying to get out of y'all."
We went on to become Dramacydal, and from that song on
and a few other songs, he said that I'ma get y'all
a record deal with Interscope Records,
so he sent a few songs with him, and they agreed,
and that's the first contract that we ever signed
was with Interscope Records.
Pac happened to, one day, leave Atlanta
to go to New York City, and we get the phone call
in the middle of the night from his girlfriend Keisha,
and she spoke to Set, which is Pac's sister saying,
"Pac just got shot." (gunshot firing)
It felt like, even growing up, that every time I got close
to an individual, even in my neighborhood,
something happened to 'em, you know what I mean?
So, I started to thinking, now that I'm close
with this individual and he was treating me
like a little brother, it's something gonna happen to him.
(swooshing)
Soon, word got back that he was okay.
The next day after he checked himself out of the hospital,
he called the house, he spoke to E.D,,
Kadafi said, "Let everybody know he was okay,"
and then he asked to speak to me,
told them to give me the phone,
and when I got on the phone with him,
I was excited to speak to him, but I was more happy
that he was safe, and he was saying, his exact words was,
"You didn't think that I'd let them
"take me away from you so soon."
Most people from the outside looking in,
and the way the media portrayed it,
they thought it was a robbery,
but them people came to murder him.
Word was on the street that people like Biggie and Puffy,
they knew that this individual was gonna try
to do this to them because the same individual
who tried to put this hit out on Pac,
the word on the street is that they was extorting Puffy
and Biggie and all these type of cats,
so the information started to get back to us real quick.
A few weeks after that, he actually got arrested,
but while he was arrested, he kept doing
what he said he was gonna do.
We went to Interscope Records, we signed a contract
with Interscope Records while he was in prison,
so it was just me, Kastro, and E.D.
went to Universal Studios, stayed in the suburbs,
Interscope pick us up, take us to the studio,
and we did an album.
Pac would call in from prison, he got on a few songs.
Actually, he was the first artist to be involved
in a song from prison, he was on hooks.
We'd put the microphone to the speaker,
the phone to the speaker, and he'd start spitting the hook.
So, that album was dope, man, it was some of the best music
we'd ever done, they promoted us.
Interscope Records had us in all the magazines.
I remember one day we visited him, he said,
"I'm not gonna release that album on Interscope."
He said, "Matter of fact, I'm signing a record deal
"with Suge Knight." (angelic music)
This time, Death Row Records was
the number one record label.
They had Snoop Dog, they had Dr. Dre, they was making,
they knew how to promote their artists, put it that way,
and Death Row Records was different for me because it was,
you'd be in the studio and it's full of bloods and crips.
You got Snoop in the studio full of crips,
Snoop Dogg'll be in this studio, we in this studio
full of bloods hangin' with Suge Knight.
It always seemed like it was a tense atmosphere.
It was one of them things that, it was a situation
you had to always be on point.
It reminded me of the streets, it reminded me,
the studio actually reminded me of the streets in Jersey.
After getting shot and doing a year and a half in prison
and coming out dropping the number one record,
the people was losing their minds,
you walk in the mall with him.
It was just one of them things that
he was the number one celebrity,
and he was the biggest star at that time.
Now, he went from selling three to four
or five million records to selling 20 million records.
- Pac said that, "I wanna give you guys names
"something different than most
"or all the other rap groups out there."
At this time, a lot of people were changing their names
towards Italian mob figures or Italian names,
so Pac said, "I wanna give you guys names
"of so-called enemies of the West, or so-called tyrants,"
and when I was young, I used to have a very bad temper.
When I met Pac, I still had this chip on my shoulder,
and he said that I basically had a short man complex.
It was an inside joke, so that's how he gave me the name
Napoleon, after the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.
- He had the Napoleon complex, he was short. (chuckling)
You know what I mean, he was little,
so it was only right that his name was Napoleon.
- Napoleon's name fitted him well.
He had a short man's complex, he'd try anybody.
- Napoleon was a short dude, had a Napoleon complex.
He was a rider, he was a rider for the squad.
- So, that's how we formed the Outlawz.
At first it was Outlaw Immortalz,
and then he just cut it to The Outlawz.
- The fame was on another level because,
for the first time in my life, I did a tour.
Tupac, Snoop Dogg, and Dr. Dre and the Dogg Pound,
we did a small tour around America,
and to be able to come onstage with Pac
and to look out, and a football stadium
with nothing but people in the crowd,
and we rapping on the side of him, man,
that was the first time that in knew that this was real,
to see people out in the audience screaming,
as far as the eye can see, people, it's crowded.
That was fame, man.
At that time in my life, I just felt,
when I left New Jersey, I was a kid.
When I started to get around Pac, I started to become a man.
It just made me arrogant, it made me arrogant because
you basically have the whole world at your feet.
- At the time, that music was, it was really hittin'.
Tupac had introduced The Outlawz to his fans.
- There was a certain amount of arrogance they all had
during that time because they were on cloud nine,
I mean, they were at the top, they were selling
millions of albums with Tupac, and I think it felt for them
that they had arrived to that point
that they were all hoping to get to in their lives.
- So, Death Row Records, man, we was living like kings.
(swooshing) (heart beating)
- As I got a phone call from my Aunt Jamila
that said that my grandmother's unconscious.
My grandmother was named Mary Clarke, West Virginia,
she came from down South, so she had
an old school upbringing, and she was just a sweet woman.
One of the reasons I wanted to make it in the music industry
so I can get her up out of the hood,
I can put her in a better living condition, buy a house.
This is the dream that I wanted to do for my grandmother.
- 'Cause after my parents got murdered,
my grandmother was the next close thing to me,
and growing up, I always was close,
I'd stay underneath my grandmother because
I was so used to things getting taken away from me.
- I can admit, man, we were some bad kids.
We drove her her crazy, but she had this way where she dealt
with us that all of us had a certain relationship with her,
a special relationship with her.
- And, I didn't end up growing up, when as a child,
I never knew how I would take it
if my grandmother passed away. - And I remember as kids,
every time she'd go in the hospital,
me and my brothers and cousins say, "Man, I swear to God,
"if Grandma die, we killing everybody in the neighborhood."
We were just, (laughing) this is how much we loved her.
So, when I got up there,
by the time I got off the plane, she died already.
When she passed away, man, I think that was
the hardest death I ever went through.
When you lose your mother and father at three years old,
you're not really attached to 'em, you know what I mean?
I was just a kid, but it was hard for me
when I lost my grandmother, and that's when Kadafi
was in my corner, 'cause I remember, I get the phone call,
and I remember, I just grabbed a gun,
and I had so much anger in me
that I literally wanted to hurt somebody.
And, I end up staying in New Jersey for a while,
and start to run back in the streets, hangin',
start to get used to my old ways.
I had a little fame with me at this time,
so I kinda, I didn't even want, I wanna say
wanted go back to LA because I was on albums already,
I had a name for myself, so I was taking advantage of that,
and months, probably like a month or something would pass
and I get a phone call from Pac, and he said,
"Are you ready to come home?"
Even though I wasn't ready, but I knew, basically,
what that means is to get back out here.
Went back to LA and I started to listening to the songs
on Makaveli, and to me, man, that was the most
different music he ever done.
It seemed like on that album, he touched,
he touched in his inside and basically put it on the music
that I never heard that from him in my life.
After he came to Death Row Records he was more aggressive,
but you gotta understand that he had actually
people that wanted to murder him.
The people that came to shoot him in that elevator
that day in the studio, they came with the intention
to murder him, you know what I mean?
And, the word on the street is that
these same people still wanted to murder him.
One, I think the media really blew it up
and made it an East Coast West Coast because
all The Outlawz, we was from the East Coast.
- Me, I didn't really see it as
no East Coast West Coast thing.
Even though in reality, it kinda was
because it was a problem for the people from the West Coast
to go the East Coast, and vice versa.
But, I was from New York and California.
- It was more of a beef between Bad Boy Records
and Death Row Records, it was more on a personal beef.
- And, the whole incident popped off with Tupac,
and it was like, I kinda seen Biggie struggling with that,
like when a person kinda explained the relationship
that he had with Tupac was genuine and they was pretty cool.
- The Hit 'Em Up song came that Pac was in a studio,
he did one Hit 'Em Up that all of us was on,
and then he came, I think Biggie and them put out a song
called Get Money, something like that, and Pac said,
"I'ma take their beat, switch it up a little,
"and I'm about to dis 'em, you know what I mean?"
(slow distorted music)
- So, when they just tried to go on this full court
onslaught about assassinating Big's character,
and I really didn't feel them cats to be honest with you.
(slow distorted music)
- In hip-hop, you got beef records, but what Pac did
with that record was, he made it very personal,
and he made it to where, I mean, you had to do something.
You couldn't just rap no more, you had to either
do something or don't say nothing.
- It's one of them things that when it came out,
it blew up, because I don't think that nobody ever did a dis
that was that serious, it was serious.
- I was like, man, these dudes is troublemakers.
These cats is starting a little bit too much trouble.
This thing ain't gonna end on a good note if this persists.
- When I got to Los Angeles, he happened to be doing
the last song, which is called Life of an Outlaw,
and that was basically the last song
that I ever done with him, that was it, you know?
(gunshots firing) (sirens blaring)
- Tupac, he got into a fight with an individual
for an incident that happened a few weeks before that.
One of the guys from Death Row Records whispered to Pac
and said, "That's the dude that I got into a fight with
"a few weeks ago, whatever."
Pac, for whatever reason, just snapped
and charged the dude, started fighting the dude.
- So, Pac left me and Napoleon at the house
where we had just came from New York,
took E.D. and Kastro with him, so me and Napoleon,
we was the only two Outlawz not in Vegas.
- This particular time, I left out of Pac's house,
and he called the house and he asked Noble where I was at,
and Noble said he left, but something was very strange, man,
'cause even for me, at that time, I remember,
I felt like something was gonna happen.
Even when I look back at it, I ask myself,
what was that feeling?
I just had this feeling that I said,
"I feel something's gonna happen,"
and that's one of the reasons I left Pac's house.
I just felt like I need to go think.
- When I got back to the house, I remember Young Noble
coming to the gate and his face looked,
he had a strange look on his face, I said, "Did Pac call?"
He said, "Yo, I think Yasmine called, Kadafi's mother said
"Tupac just got shot." (swooshing)
But, the first thing that I said in my head,
when he got shot five times before, he's gonna take this,
come out, do records, sell millions of records again.
We put all types of guns in the trunk.
We drove to Vegas, man we had a trunk full of weapons
'cause we didn't know what to expect when we get there.
I remember when I first entered the hospital
to see Pac in a bed, his mother and Sekyiwa, his sister,
used to always say that he's okay and he looked fine,
but when I actually saw him in the hospital bed, to me,
I knew from right there that it didn't look like
he was gonna make it. (heart rate monitor beeping)
Of course, his mother and sister are very strong individuals
so they kept saying, "He look good, he look good,"
but when I seen Tupac in the state that he was in,
it was hard for me to see him like that.
Pac was a guy that was always loud, always partying.
So now, to see him lying in the bed, he was helpless,
it just didn't look right, and a couple days later,
that's when he passed away. (heat rate monitor flatlining)
(swooshing) (slow choir music)
- Pac loved him, them two was bonding, so I know,
it effected him real, real hard, and if you know Mu,
he's real sensitive, passionate person,
so he felt it hard. - Once Pac got killed,
I think he probably lost a little hope
because everything, I guess, that was close to him always,
somehow someway he dies or get taken away from him.
- His grandmother just passed.
Everybody that was taking care of him,
as far as trying to have guardianship over him,
passed away. - From day one,
he treated me like a family member.
It wasn't like he said, come to Atlanta,
you stay at the hotel, I actually moved in
the house with him. - Pac was his mentor,
Pac was his older brother, he was his dad even
in a lot of ways. - I mean,
like, Pac was my family, that was my brother.
It's obvious how I felt, I felt devastated,
I felt destroyed, a part of me was taken from me.
- Well, when I heard he passed away, I was in Jersey.
Off some bull, probably drunk or high,
and when I heard this, I heard it on the radio.
I was kinda hurt because I couldn't be there,
but at the same time, I felt like the,
was gonna pull through and he didn't.
(sad music)
- Word on the street that it was Orlando Anderson.
This was the guy that Pac fought in the hotel lobby.
Word on the street that it was his boys
that came back to take revenge, which makes sense,
because, especially in America, that's how it worked.
You fight with an individual nowadays,
they come back for revenge, they don't wanna
come back to fight, they gonna come back to shoot.
So, word on the streets, even though they never
found the killer, but that was the word on the street
is that the people that was involved
was from that guy hood from Compton, you know what I mean?
- When you're in the public eye like that,
you just can't go around wild'n out,
smackin', in the head, and it was a lesson really learned
to me, 'cause I come from areas where,
if you do something to somebody, you gotta be ready
for when they come back, and the bottom line is,
I just learned to just be humble.
(sad music)
- So, after the death of Pac, me and Kadafi,
we went back to New Jersey.
I actually went back to New Jersey when my hood
was basically beefing with some cats
from another neighborhood, and they actually was coming
around on my block looking for my cousin Roddy,
and I happened to one day be outside on the block
with my brother Seike, and a van pulled up
and they jumped out, shotgun, and they ran down on us,
and they was looking at us, and they happened to find out
that my cousin Roddy wasn't there, so they basically
jumped in their van and he went around the corner.
The next day, I went back out the block, the same thing.
They came back around looking for my cousin, Roddy.
They was jumping out with the guns,
just pointing guns at everybody, so if I'm coming from
just losing Pac, from getting shot up,
I wast taking that lightly, so one day,
they actually came back on the block and I said,
"Man, it's either me or them."
What if they come out this time and start shooting?
And, I ran upstairs to the apartment
where they used to hide the drugs,
hide the drugs, hide the guns, and my cousin actually
grabbed a gun, my cousin Reef, and I actually started
wrestling the gun, getting the gun from out of his hands,
and I ran downstairs, and when I came outside
of the building, the van was actually out there.
They was about to jump out, put it that way.
(prison doors closing) A few days later after that,
I got arrested for something different,
for some weed or something, I was around somebody
that had some marijuana with 'em and I got locked up,
and when I was in the cell, it was only for a week or two,
when I was in the cell, I was thinking, man,
and I basically said, "This is the reason I left New Jersey,
"what am I doing?"
I wanted to pursue a career in the music industry.
What am I doing back to square one?
So is said, "When I get out of here, I'ma tell Kadafi
"let's leave, man, let's go pursue
"our career in the music industry."
So, I got out and I told Kadafi,
"Man, let's just get up outta here," and he said,
"You go and I'll meet you out there."
I introduced Kadafi to my cousin Roddy,
and they built their own relationship, man,
they became friends and they started
to hang around each other without me.
I introduced Kadafi to Roddy basically saying also
that Kadafi was in good hands.
I know that if anything would happen to him
while he was around Roddy, I know Roddy the type
that ain't gonna let nothing happen to him, put it that way.
So, when I left New Jersey in October,
I get a phone call in November,
(cell phone ringing) and I remember Kastro
coming in the room and he said, "Man, Kadafi just got shot."
(gunshot firing) - And we found out
about Yak on the morning of the Pac memorial.
That morning is when we found out about Yak,
so it was like, you know. - A few hours later,
we got another phone call that came from New Jersey
and said that it was Mutah's cousin, it was Roddy,
and I remember I just broke down and started crying.
- The feeling, after we found out who shot Yak, was
sickness.
We were shocked and we were sickened.
It was like we were dealing with so much already.
- I believe Kadafi's death affected my brother
probably harder than Pac's death,
because it came from the hands of my little cousin,
and growing up, my grandmother raised me,
my two brothers, and three of my other cousins,
so we grew up as brothers all our lives.
- Yak was his best friend.
As far as I know, that's how I met him, (chuckling)
that's how I met Mu through Yak, and...
I know that had to hurt. - It just left a hole,
it just left everybody in a weird position
because his cousin did it, he introduced them to each other.
- Dealing with it through he clique,
dealing with it on the family level,
there was arguments, people fought, people stopped speaking,
and people argued. - One end, you got
Kadafi's family feeling a certain way about my family now
because my cousin killed their family member,
and my brother's stuck in the middle because
he loved Kadafi like a brother, and he also loved my cousin
like a brother. - But Pac moms,
one of the things I can say, even though Kadafi
was her nephew and that was my cousin
that actually killed him, they never once
made me feel uncomfortable in that house.
But, deep in my own soul, I felt uncomfortable.
Even though they treated me like family,
they stood up for me. - He's stuck in the middle,
but my brother was, it was kinda hard 'cause he really,
he didn't really wanna take no sides,
but what's right is right, what's wrong is wrong,
but after he talked to my cousin, my cousin said
he didn't mean to do it. - And I went to him
and I asked him, "What happened?"
He was looking, he had this look on his face that
he was looking like he was hurt and sad.
He looked like he was in shame, put it that way,
and he would explain to me,
he said, "I was playing with a gun,"
Cause was the other guy involved, he said that he put Yak
in a headlock, "I pointed the gun in his face,
"and the gun accidentally went off, so we ran,"
and I was like, "Man, if it's an accident,
"you should turn yourself in," and the reason why
I felt like he should turn himself in because, one,
I didn't really feel comfortable with my cousin Roddy
actually killing Kadafi, it was a close friend of mine
just walking around like that.
I felt like something had to, something should be done,
but of course, Roddy is my cousin and I love my cousin,
so I don't want nothing bad to happen to him,
so I just figure, man, you should turn yourself in
to face responsibility, you know what I mean?
If it's an accident, you have to, because I looked at it,
if he would've ran, then it would've
looked like it wasn't an accident.
Eventually, he turned himself in,
and he did about 10 to 12 years in prison for that.
- My brother understood him, I guess he forgave him, man.
Man, but his family didn't forgive him,
but that's understanding.
If somebody killed my family member,
they said that I was high on drugs, I'm sorry,
I'd probably have a hard time forgiving him, too,
so I understand that, but my brother forgave my cousin,
but it still was difficult for him.
- It felt like, man I couldn't believe that,
one, I lost my grandmother, then Tupac,
and then Kadafi, man, I couldn't believe it.
After that, I just started to basically,
we started to give up, 'cause you losing
everybody around you, what do you do?
The only thing that I wanted to do after that
is get high and drunk.
Every single day of my life after that,
I made sure that I was numb.
After the death of Kadafi and the death of Tupac,
I get a phone call one day, and I think this all
was in the same year, man, that's what made it even hard.
I get a phone call from my aunt, and she said,
"Somebody just jumped your brother."
Seike, Sleek, he was named after my father.
We knew him growing up, but I can't recall
when he came in our life.
We was close with him, we spent a lot of time with him,
he used to come visit us on the weekend, so we was close.
- The way his face and his head, it was swollen
as if somebody jumped him, so when he went to the hospital,
the doctor at the hospital, he looked at him and he said
it looked as if he got jumped with pipes,
like somebody beat him with pipes and a bat,
not knowing all this time that he had a bullet in his head.
Come to find out that he shot himself in the head.
I do remember that some people in my family,
they used to refer to him as their step-brother,
and I remember at a young age, when they used to say,
"This is your stepbrother, this is your stepbrother,"
in actuality, this is actually my father's son,
so he's my brother.
It's some times that we felt like some of the family members
ain't really, you know, we ain't open up to him
like we should've, put it that way.
I think my brother Seike, he was hurt on the inside
because he felt like he didn't fit in like the rest of us.
- Seike affected more lives, you know what I'm saying?
He was already a heavy drinker, a real intense dude,
(laughing) for lack of a better word,
and I think that just added to it.
It added to all of us, but not as much as Mu,
'cause we all loved Seike, too.
Seike was a good guy, and we had a lot of love for him,
so it's never good when you lose somebody close to you.
It's never a good thing. - Basically, I felt like
I was losing my mind, I almost lost my mind.
I turned to drugs, I started experimenting
with different drugs, I was getting drunk every single day.
To the point that I won't never walk out of my house
without being drunk, it was a time of my life,
a five year period that, every single day for five years,
I was intoxicated and this was how I wanted to live my life.
- Everyday at 6:30, he would get a bottle of Hennessy
and some Coke, and he would drink everyday nonstop,
and walked around with a gun, always wanted to fight,
always wanted to start trouble, always looked for trouble.
- He started getting heavy in that liquor,
trying anybody, he had a death wish.
He'd go up on anybody, smack 'em.
- Every other day I was going
to nightclubs just to start fights.
I just had so much anger in me at that time.
I didn't wanna live or I didn't really care.
I just gave up on life.
We was back in Los Angeles at this time.
We signed a small contract with Death Row Records.
- And, my brother and them, they needed to make some money.
They had to take care of their family,
had to take care of themselves, they had bills,
so the only people that came to them was Suge.
From there on out, it didn't work out.
- We wanted to make music, even though it was hard
without Kadafi and without Pac actually being
in the same studio that we used to record
with Pac and Kadafi, so we went into the recording studio.
This is what we knew.
We started our own company called Outlaw Records,
and we started to make our own money independent
because we'd put a record out there,
sell about two or 300,000 copies,
and we was getting about $10 a CD,
so $10 of every copy was going to us,
so we was making a little bit of money.
So, we did a small tour, we went to Germany,
different places around the world.
As far as success for my personal life, I remember,
I had homes, I had my own house.
I thought that this was the American dream.
I remember I bought a house in a gated community,
all million dollar houses.
I'm probably the youngest homeowner in that estate.
Only African American in that estate.
It was a gated community, and I just felt like I made it,
but one of the things that was missing was happiness,
and I used to think that happiness,
well maybe I was in this house too long,
and I went and bought another house,
and I went and bought another house.
At this particular time in my life, I had a townhouse
and I had two other houses, I had three houses,
but I was very depressed. - I saw him struggle.
I saw him just, he was heavy in alcohol, he was,
and I feel him, and if you know Mu's history,
you know about his family and his parents being killed,
and I was like, man, this dude is dealing with so much.
So, I seen him wild out with the girls,
wild out, drinking alcohol, getting drunk, fighting.
- In the studio, I remember, he was always liquored up.
He was always liquored up and smoking weed,
so he was always a little belligerent
and a little more physically active
than the rest of The Outlawz. - So once he start drinking,
I guess it'd numb away his pain and make him
forget about reality and he'd live in that moment,
so it'd become addictive, and everyday he would drink,
and for me, I used to always tell him, like man,
you need to stop drinking, man.
He wasn't like someone that's drinking everyday spitting up.
He can drink and you'll never know he was drunk,
that's probably how much he was immune to it.
- At that time in my life, man, I was going through
something serious because, in the inside of me
I wanted happiness, but at the same time,
I was giving up on life. (angelic music)
The night in the studio when I got into a fight
with my little brother, man, I was drunk out of my mind,
and I got into an argument with him
and he said something I didn't like,
so immediately, I just started fighting.
- Going off, I always talk back.
Mu say something, I always got something to say.
Disrespectful, and we just started fighting.
- When I had him on the ground, man, I basically was
hitting his head against the ground to the point
that he started to bleed. - When Mu seen I was bleeding,
I had to get all them stitches in my head
'cause I hit my head on a window that had bars.
- And, it happened to be a Muslim brother
who was in the studio with us at that time,
but he was in another session. - Walked into the studio,
there's blood everywhere!
I mean, tables are turned over, chairs are everywhere,
recording equipment is laid out everywhere.
- After hearing the commotion and seeing the fight
or whatever, he came outside and he calmed me down,
and he started to speak to me.
- After what happened, I asked him
if that was his brother's blood on the floor,
and he said, "What?"
I said, "Is that your brother's blood on the floor?"
And he said, "Yeah," I said, "That's your mother's blood
"and your father's blood also."
I said, "Can I ask you something?"
And he said, "Yes."
I said, "Imagine tomorrow waking up sober
"and realizing that you killed your brother.
"How would you feel about that?"
And, tears started coming down, coming from his eyes,
and I knew that that was checkmate.
I knew that was the turning point for him.
(angelic music) - And he kinda basically,
I remember he kept in touch with me
and always asked me to come to the Majid, and for awhile
I was ignoring him, and when I first went up there,
I remember I went up there deep,
about 20 or 30 boys with me, and I went in there expecting
that it's just gonna be like how I roll everywhere else
with a posse or crew and we're just gonna hang out,
but when I went there, that's when I seen
something different that basically inclined Mutah
to wanna know more about what these people was upon.
- And, so more and more he wanted to know
more about where my inner peace was coming from.
- He started explaining to me a little about
the religion of Islam and prayer time came,
and he said, "You should pray with us."
I said, "Naw, come on, man," I felt a little hesitant.
He was like, "Naw, come pray with me, get up."
I said, "Man, I don't know how to pray, I don't pray.
"What should I say?"
He said, "Just go with the motions,
"and you could ask God for anything.
"Whatever you wanna talk to God with, you can talk to God."
So, I remember, while I'm in the line with him,
everything he's doing, I'm actually looking at the side,
if he put his hands right here, I'd do it,
and I was just going with the motions with him,
and when I put my face down to the floor,
I actually started praying, and I remember,
for the first time in my life, I felt peace,
because this actually was the first time that I remember
putting my face on the floor praying to God.
That same night, when I went home,
I actually started reading the Quran.
This is a book, I always heard of the Quran,
I knew that this was a book that the Muslims read.
I just never really paid too much attention to it.
I never really thought about it as being something serious,
but that day, I said, "Let me read."
I started to pay attention to the words in that book,
and I said, "Wow, it's as if it's talking to me,"
and I said, "There is no way on earth
"a man could come up with these words."
And, I was around people like Pac, like I said before, Pac,
he was a genius when it came to writing raps,
and I'm talkin', man, it's not too many rappers
that can come to the level of Pac
when it come to writing even poetry.
My own parents, as far as I know, my mother and father,
they was part of the Nation of Islam.
When I found out that the people that killed
my mother and father was from the Nation of Islam,
I actually thought that they was Muslims,
so I grew up having like a hatred towards Muslims
or hatred towards Islamic 'cause I thought that
these were the people that killed my mother and father.
- Parents were Muslims, and Muslims killed his parents.
So, he had every, he couldn't stand no Muslim.
- I said, "Let me go watch the Malcolm X movie again,"
and when I watched it, to be honest, this is the first time
that I watched it sober, and I really paid attention
to the movie, and that's when I really, even though,
I always knew that he left the Nation of Islam,
but he actually exposed them to let 'em know
that his is not Islam, the Nation of Islam
and the religion of Islam, two different religions.
- After the death of Malcolm X,
and Malcolm X going to Saudi Arabia and exposing
the Nation of Islam, my father and mother,
they left the Nation of Islam and they became
Orthodox Sunni Muslims, but when I seen
the Malcolm X movie again, and at the same time,
I was reading literature of the Quran and things like that,
it let me know that I shouldn't hate a whole group of people
for what somebody did to my mother and father
that actually didn't even belong to that religion.
- Right after that, I remember saying, "Man,
"I need to go to Hajj, that place where Malcolm X
"went to a Mecca, it changed his life,
"I need to change my life."
So, I accepted the religion of Islam,
and a few months later, (mumbling) went to Hajj.
It was something that you felt that was different
that I never felt before, to see people from all
walks of life, from all different races,
from all different, so many different countries,
I've never witnessed nothing like that in my life,
to see people that you don't even know,
but they're calling you brother,
and they invite you to come eat with 'em.
It was almost too good to be true.
I didn't believe that people actually exist on this earth
that just, with this brotherhood.
I didn't believe that it existed.
- He went over there, and when he came back,
he had this story about it that was amazing,
and he was definitely a changed brother.
- When I returned back to American, man, I remember
everything was looking different to me.
In fact, because this was actually the first time in my life
I spent two weeks without my cell phone,
two weeks without talking business,
two weeks in the middle of a desert just contemplating
and praying to God, so when I came back, of course,
naturally I didn't wanna be around the stuff that I left.
I didn't wanna, The Outlawz was on tour.
I couldn't see myself onstage at that time,
rapping around cuss words, I couldn't see myself going back
to a lot of what I was trying to run away from,
so that's when I called The Outlawz up and I said,
"To be honest, I'm not gonna meet y'all on tour,"
and that was the last time I ever toured with The Outlawz
or ever been in a group with 'em.
I just started trying to get my life together.
I came back as a whole nother person, man,
I looked at life different after that.
Prior to Islam, man, I was very aggressive, very angry,
and it wasn't nothing for me to take my anger out
on an individual and hurt someone.
It was the first time in my life that I even read about
something that gave the rights to a woman,
and put a woman in such a high status,
coming from the music industry, I never looked at a woman
in that way in my life, and for the first time in my life,
I actually would think about, before I do an action,
or before I try to hurt someone.
Eventually, I walked away from the music industry,
but at the same time, I felt like
something was still missing.
I just felt like it wasn't for me to walk away
from the music industry and actually just sit
in my living room, or sit in my room, and I sit,
I felt like I still needed to put the message out,
or still had a voice that I wanted to speak to the youth,
and that's when I decided to get on
and get into motivational speaking.
As-salamu alaykum. - Wa-Alaikum-Salaam.
- That's when I lost contact with Yafeu,
and I happened to run into his mother,
and when I asked how he was doing, she said that
Yafeu was trying to pursue a career in the music industry,
and she said that, in fact, he has a brother
by the name of Tupac Shakur.
Because I felt like one of the reasons
I actually got into the music industry
because I had a voice, I had something
that I wanted to speak, but you don't have to be caught up
in that lifestyle thinking that this is the only way
that's gonna bring happiness to you, so I felt like
I had to come back to the kids and let 'em know that
there's a better way. - I think that it's great
that Napoleon is a motivational speaker
because he's speaking from a real point-of-view.
- Well, when I looked at him, he definitely inspired me
to wanna give back to the youth
and give back to the community.
- No matter what you goin' through in life,
you can change, 'causes he's living proof of it.
- He's a strong brother, he's making the big impact
on a lot of people, Muslim and non-Muslim,
and personally, I'm striving to be more like him.
- He's doing, he's a motivational speaker now,
he's all over the world, so he's trying.
I think he's really, it can be a good thing.
- 'Cause the dude did a straight 180
and turned his whole life around, and I seen it can work.
I seen it can happen, you could definitely do it.
- Overall man, my brother, he's a different person now, man,
he helping others, he helping people now.
- I basically gave up on life, and I used to say, man,
if me living and breathing on earth
and it's this painful for me, there is no need
for me to live anymore, and I actually used to just wanna
give up on life, but after accepting the religion of Islam,
it basically gave me a whole new meaning of life,
so for the first time in my life,
I had some hope for something positive.
(slow choir music)