Queens Logic

user-pic
Posted by Paul Kopasz
June 12, 2006 6:23 PM
1400095239.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg





Queens Reigns Supreme
Anchor Books, 240 pp., $12.95

The full hip hop story in all its detailed and messy glory has yet to be told. Just as the murders of Tupac and Biggie Smalls and Jam Master Jay (of Run DMC) remain unsolved, the backstory of the last 20 years remains largely shrouded in rumor and doubt.
Ethan Brown's "Queens Reigns Supreme" goes as far as any book yet in laying the groundwork for understanding the shifting currents of the world of black music entrepreneurship and gangsta coke commerce. The author shows, with decent research, that the crack business in Jamaica, Queens in the 1980's morphed almost intact into the multimillion dollar rap music industry of the 1990's and today. So we get a full rundown of all the players -- not just the victims listed above but also Russel Simmons and Irv Lorenzo and his brother Chris (known as Irv Gotti and Chris Gotti). The Gottis, who run a label called Murder Inc. (now just known as 'the Inc.') provide context almost singlehandedly. The real protagonist, though, has his name (at least his nickname) splashed across the very title of the book. That man would be Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff (also known as "'Preme") who, after recently being targeted by the FBI along with the Gottis and indicted on multiple counts of money laundering and racketeering, walked away free along with his codefendants. It's a gripping gangster story, every bit as dramatic as any old-time memoir of the Al Capone days, and more moving because the events it describes are fresh from contemporary headlines. Plus, this guy 'Preme is one serious badass villain.

As a sort of blood stained Greek chorus, there are supporting characters who perhaps each deserve their own books. Harold "Pappy" Mason and Lorenzo "Fat Cat" Nichols, along with Gerald "Prince" Miller keep the blood flowing and the body count high. Rappers and actual musicians are present, as well, from turntabulists as old-school as Kool Herc and Kurtis Blow right up to Tupac and 50 Cent, but the focus is definitely on the criminals. It might be said that in the 1980's in Queens and Brooklyn, all the gangsters wanted to be rappers and all the rappers were wannabe gangsters. Eventually the two groups seemed to meld and a new culture sprouted -- or a new variant, to be more precise. There is not a chapter -- barely a page -- that doesn't include a murder, either impulsive or premeditated. Halfway through the book, we get an in-depth reconstruction of the murder in Queens of rookie cop Eddie Byrnes, who was unlucky enough to draw the assignment of guarding a witness in a Pappy Mason murder trial. George H. W. Bush famously invoked thsis killing in his electioneering rhetoric about "getting tough on crime" and "taking back the streets." With neighbors like the characters in this book it seems unlikely that anyone anytime soon will take back the streets or anything on the streets. At least not in Jamaica, Queens.
Categories:
Leave a comment
(Real names only, please. Comments posted with pseudonyms may be deleted.)