![]() ![]() And though rap would continue to depend on the hustlers and gangsters for its creative muse - sometimes to its detriment - hip-hop was now big business. When McGriff went in, rap was the little brother to the streets. Related Story A hustler’s prayer: Biggie Smalls’ final 24 hours encapsulated the man he wanted to become Read now The crack game was different, as reaction to the 1988 murder of New York police officer Edward Byrne reshaped police tactics. ![]() The world he reentered in 1994 was starkly different from the one he left almost a decade earlier. Unlike Miller, who is still incarcerated, McGriff actually saw the outside world again. He was ultimately sentenced in 1993 to six consecutive life terms for drug trafficking. Though no slaying was ever tied back to him, bodies began piling up at an even faster clip until Miller was arrested in March 1990. Miller kept the business running - authorities estimate the operation brought in nearly $500,000 per week - but he relied more on violence. Of the two, McGriff was seen as the negotiator. In 1987, McGriff went to prison for narcotics possession, leaving Miller in power on the outside. The money, power and respect they commanded for a handful of years became a creative inspiration to a formative generation of young hip-hop artists such as LL Cool J, Nas and countless others. What McGriff and Miller were doing in Queens rang bells in Queens and across the city. Nas narrated the story of Supreme Team, a three-part documentary on Showtime. And, most importantly, they were the ones no one wanted to cross. ![]() They were the ones handing out jobs when Reaganomics was bleeding Black neighborhoods dry. While rappers, athletes, entertainers and street figures ran in the same circles, hustlers and gangsters were the gatekeepers in terms of how their communities dressed - think Jam Master Jay’s Adidas-inspired fashion. The social hierarchy then was different from the present day. Roughly around the same time McGriff and Miller’s organization came to power in the early ’80s, a musical genre called hip-hop was beginning to take shape. To many growing up in these impoverished areas, the drug dealers represented the only tangible forms of success to which they had direct access. Yet, as the documentary attests, the Supreme Team was both feared and idolized in its Queens neighborhoods. If the Gambinos were a “family,” the Supreme Team were Black guys destroying their own community. If John Gotti was a “crime boss,” Lorenzo “Fat Cat” Nichols was a thug. Singer Frank Sinatra’s mob ties provided his career an edge long before “street cred” in hip-hop became a prerequisite.īut America has never been able to see a Black figure with street power in the same way. The Godfather trilogy and The Sopranos are staples of American pop culture. Read nowĪmerica has always been fascinated with the Italian mafia, its self-made, against-all-odds ethos and its often bloodthirsty addiction to monopolistic authority. Related Story Nipsey Hussle finally received justice. Layer in their association with hip-hop and the story stretches far beyond newspaper headlines or nightly news broadcasts. McGriff and Miller are equal parts protagonists and antagonists, heroes and villains, as they detail the rise, fall and impact of their short time atop New York’s underworld in a series of taped speakerphone prison interviews.Īs with kingpins such as Frank Lucas, “New York” Freddie Myers or Nicky Barnes before them, McGriff’s and Miller’s legacy is complex, convoluted and problematic. Nas, the Queens MC whose breakthrough 1994 project Illmatic memorably recounted the era’s experience of drug violence, directed and narrates this story of the influential crew. That was the name of a street drug business in New York led by McGriff and his nephew, Gerald “Prince” Miller. That question hovers over Showtime’s new three-part documentary Supreme Team. Nevertheless, one of the biggest names in hip-hop put an offer on the table. Maybe it was too late or not the right opportunity. The head of a notorious 1980s-era criminal operation would have had to leave behind a life that brought him money and power - but also a decadelong stint in prison. Kenneth “Supreme” McGriff had a chance to go legit. Yo, when you hear talk of the Southside, you hear talk of the Team/See n-as feared Prince and respected ’Preme/For all you slow motherf-ers, I’ma break it down iller/See ’Preme was the businessman and Prince was the killer … - 50 Cent, “ Ghetto Quran” (2000) ![]()
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