When we were last with Gerald, he was a young man in New Orleans learning the life of the hustler with his best friend, Gregory…
Me and Gregory would talk about what we wanted. I would say, “Man, I see a dude with them green and white Stan Smith Adidas. We go to Foot Locker this weekend and knock them joints off.”
Or I would say, “Man, shit, you see them Guess pants just come out? Them Coca-Cola jeans?”
They were fascinating to us, but we was out of a low-class family, we really couldn’t get them kinda jeans.
Kangol Hat was a style of hat. Duckie Glasses. 14 karat gold glasses. In my neighborhood, when you wear glasses like that–silk nylon t-shirt, Paris Shirt, tanktop and nylon drawers–if you wear them kinda drawers, or glasses, or Kangol hat, they consider you as a gangster. A thug.
I would say, “Man, I seen one dude with a nice Kangol Hat. You know, like LL Cool J.” I see something like that, I say, “Dang, boy, that’s a young dude got that shit on.” But, you know, they might have been out of a middle-class family.
A lot of us like to wear gold in the mouth.
The generation look at the gold different today than what we look at it back then. Our gold thing was — when you see us with gold, that mean we go hard, or we a hustler. You know we get money. You can see the gold.
Even when you go out of state and people not familiar with you, they know you a hustler. Guys with no gold in their mouth know that you a hustler. Some of them think you a drug dealer.
They look at it like, “He a hustler. He a drug dealer.”
It’s not like that now.
Back then we used to travel. We went to Memphis one time. People in Memphis was like, “Damn, they got the hustle down there”. They recognize us.
I had two gold in my mouth at the age of 17.
I was in and out of my Momma’s house, but I’m also stayin’ at Gregory’s house.
I use to communicate with my sister and brother. One of my sister–we was real tight. She’s the one that help me whenever I stay in New Orleans now.
From the time when I was a teen, to today when she’s really proud of me because of the new route that I’m going… And she used to tell me that I could be a writer, or whatever I wanted, but now this is actually what I do. But she would tell me back then, “You sit back and talk with some of the stuff that you say today, you’ll be surprised with all the shit you could be in to. I ain’t got time for that shit.”
When I got my gold in my mouth though… I was a hustler. You couldn’t tell me nothing. I was about some hustlin’.
To be continued.
