New York Heroin Kingpin Caucus endorses Rudolph W. Giuliani for President in ‘08!  Nicky Barnes and Frank Lucas make a rare appearance, endorsing presidential candidate Rudolph W. Giuliani in this exclusive video clip.

Barnes, the focus of the forthcoming documentary film, “Mr. Untouchable” by filmmaker Marc Levin (Slam, Brooklyn Babylon etc.) appears here via phone with Frank Lucas, the real life character, on whom the forthcoming major motion picture “American Gangster,” is based.

These two notorious gangsters, and arguably the two biggest heroin dealers in the history of New York City, explain why it is that they support Rudolph W. Giuliani, former mayor of New York City, for president in 2008.  This is real Street Politics.  Check it out, exclusively at:

http://www.hiphopcrack.com/viewVideo.hhc?videoId=295

www.crackspace.com/mruntouchable

Julie Lucas (Frank’s wife), Producer Mary-Jane Robinson, Director Marc Levin and writer Mark Jacobson with Frank Lucas, the American Gangster.

The historic Nicky Barnes/Frank Lucas conversation happened on Saturday evening Oct 6th in New York city at Blowback Productions. It was the first time the two heroin kingpins talked in 25 years.  Frank Lucas arrived in a wheelchair with his wife and entourage. Nicky Barnes called in from an undisclosed location.
 
They talked for about an hour. It wasn’t the guns blazing showdown we  expected(if history and Hollywood are to be believed these two guys were vicious rivals), though  there were a few tense moments - Nicky pushing Frank on if he put a hit on him and  Frank vehemently denying it. But for the most part it was two original gangsters reflecting on their lives, legacies and mythologies.  It was something! Their genuine affection for one another and that time in their lives was surprising and tender.

There was a twisted banality to their interaction.  Nicky showed real concern about Frank Lucas now being in a wheelchair and Mr. Untouchables’ final offering to the American Gangster in saying good bye was to give up his vitamin connect. Once they traded heroin now thirty years later, bothfeeling their own mortality slipping away, the conversation turns to hogs wart and Echinacea. When asked what his epitaph should say, Nicky said “I know what I want mine to say, ‘boy was he old, was he old’”! He has cheated many a conviction, death threats, hit’s and life in prison but the grim reaper comes knocking even for Mr. Untouchable.

Mary-Jane Robinson, Producer:  “To me it was really humanizing - both sad and strangely beautiful. These two once ‘great’ men, now old, in Frank’s case almost crumbling before our eyes and yet so filled with vigor and energy like a moth flying over and over into the window.  I felt oddly proud of Nicky, he talked rings around Lucas and was able to change the view of every man in that room. Hardened street men who knew or thought they knew who and what Nicky was - a rat - but after hearing him talk for an hour their hostile faces softened and soon they were nodding along to all of Mr. U’s philosophizing. Lucas’ entourage told me afterwards that he turned them from haters to believers. That’s some powerful preaching that he was doing….”

Marc Levin, Director:  “My take away headline was: MR UNTOUCHABLE AND AMERICAN GANGSTER ENDORSE GIULIANI FOR PREZ. I was amazed how both Barnes and Lucas went on about how Guiliani was a man of integrity although they hedged their support by saying if they had to put down money, they would bet that Hillary Clinton will win and be the next President.  Nicky recalled how Guiliani wrote a note to President Reagan on his behalf.  Frank chimed in about the former Mayor’s merits.  Some New York City firemen and police may hate Guiliani but two of the biggest drug dealers in the history of the city believe Rudi Guiliani is the man who should be the next President of the United States.”

Video/audio highlights to come…

Photos by Daniel Levin

Mary-Jane and Frank share a laugh:

Frank Lucas–Who is the “American Gangster?” 

An Interview with Journalist Ron Chepesiuk,

Co-author of Superfly: The True, Untold Story of Frank Lucas, American Gangster

 Ron Chepesiuk 

Q) Was Frank Lucas the biggest drug dealer in Harlem in the 1970s?

A) Lucas was a big drug dealer in Harlem during the 1970s, but he cannot boast with certainty, as he and his publicists have, that he was the biggest one. At the time, the heroin trade was exploding; the French Connection, fragmenting; and the La Cosa Nostra’s hold on the drug trade, loosening. This opened the drug trade for the rise of several big-time black drug dealers, including Nicky Barnes, Frank Matthews, Robert Stepeney, Harold “Hollywood” Munger, the black Dutch Schultz and Zack Robinson, among others.  Each had their time in the criminal sun. So saying one was the biggest of all is like trying to identify who is the greatest baseball player of all time or who is the greatest actor. Any claim will be subject to debate.  
 
Q) Did Frank Lucas ever go to Southeast Asia?

A)Yes, he did, but much later that he claims he did. In an interview Lucas told me he went to Asia in 1969 and 1970. Ike Atkinson, who operated a big heroin trafficking ring from Bangkok to the U.S. from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s, says Frank did not come to Asia until 1973. I have interviewed DEA agents who were working in Bangkok in the early 1970s and they did not hear of Frank Lucas, nor did they recall having any intelligence information about him. If Lucas was as big as he said he was in Southeast Asia, you figure he would have been on the DEA radar screen. In 1969 or 1970, the La Cosa Nostra dominated the French Connection, controlling about 95 percent of the heroin drug trade. So why would Lucas take risks, go to a foreign environment and try to develop a completely new system of drug distribution?

Q) Did Frank Lucas have a heroin connection in Southeast Asia through Ike Atkinson?

A) According to Atkinson he did and I tend to believe him. After Ike’s partner, Herman Jackson, was busted in ’72 or ‘73, Ike needed a new partner in the U.S, and so he entered into business arrangement with Lucas. Lucas’ claim that he was the one who initiated and developed the Asian heroin connection is false. That dubious distinction goes to Ike Atkinson.

Q) Did Lucas ever put out a contract on Nicky Barnes?

A) According to press and law enforcement reports, Lucas did put a contract on Frank Barnes in 1975 while Frank was incarcerated in New York’s Metropolitan Correction Center.  But here we are more than three decades later and the bad blood between the two old drug kingpins is still there. If they ever meet again and get a chance to talk, let’s be sure they won’t be near any lethal weapons. 

Q) Did Frank Lucas work for Bumpy Johnson?

A) Lucas says he did and he has made the Bumpy connection a big part of his personal story. I’ve talked to some retired law enforcement officials who knew Bumpy Johnson during the 1950s and 1960s and they can’t recall ever seeing, meeting or hearing of Lucas. I’m pretty sure Lucas worked for Johnson in some capacity, but at this point of time, we have no way of verifying the extent of that relationship. 

Q) Did Lucas shoot a big Harlem drug dealer in middle of day?

A) You are referring to Tango, the 270-pound Harlem bully, whom Lucas has said looked like “Mr. Clean.” Frank Lucas says he did kill Tango and I’m sure the incident will be included in the movie. I have not found any source who can verify that the incident happened. It’s very odd, though, that Lucas would admit to murdering a dude named ‘Tango” but refuse to talk about any of the other, readily identifiable individuals he is accused of committing.

Q) How was Lucas busted?

A) Frank was busted in late January 1975. The authorities raided his home in Teaneck, New Jersey, using information supplied by two busted members of the Gambino crime family. I describe this incident in detail in my book, “Superfly: the True, Untold Story of Frank Lucas, American Gangster.” The bust led to a 40-year conviction and was the beginning of the end of Lucas’ big-time criminal career.
 

Q) Was Frank Lucas a snitch? 

A) Yes, he was, although Lucas has refused to admit it. He wants to make the money and get all the glory that comes with being the subject of a Hollywood film, while still being The Man on the street who rappers rap rapturously about. Tough to do when you have violated the Code of the Streets—“ You do the crime, you do the time (and keep your mouth shut).” 

Q) Did he cooperate and testify?

 A) In responding to the charge of being a snitch, Frank sounds a lot like Bill Clinton in his impeachment hearings when he tried to parse the word “is”. Lucas claims he is not really a snitch because he never took the stand. But he did—in the trial of drug dealer Leroy Butler. His testimony may have led to the arrest and conviction of perhaps 80 to a 100 people, or more. 

Q) Did he get busted again?

A) He got busted in 1984 for trying to sell one ounce of heroin for a kilo of cocaine and $13,000. At the trial, Lucas claimed he was still an informant working undercover for the DEA. The problem—no one in the DEA knew anything about Frank’s alleged undercover work, and the jury didn’t buy his story. You won’t see that aspect of Lucas’ story in the movie.

Q) Why did Hollywood decide to do a movie about him and not Nicky Barnes or Frank Mathews?

A) Pure luck. Frank was living in obscurity in New Jersey when Mark Jacobson penned that 2000 New York magazine article about him. If someone in Hollywood had not been looking for the subject of a good script and had not spotted that article, and if Denzel had not agreed to play his character, Frank would, no doubt, still be history, and not on the verge of being transformed into a Hollywood legend. 
 
Q) Who do you think was the Black Godfather of the era?

A) Nicky Barnes. No black drug dealer from the 1970s had a bigger persona.  Like the song, Nicky was “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.” No one from that era, moreover, has a bigger presence in the gangsta culture of today than Mr. Untouchable.  Ironically, that may change with the movie “American Gangster” and Lucas’ explosion on the popular scene.

Q) Has Lucas read Nicky’s autobiography, “Mr. Untouchable”?

A)I‘m sure he is aware of the book. Lucas is a control freak, who likes to be on top of things. He may have had somebody read the book to him, though. One law enforcement official whom I interviewed in investigating Frank Lucas believes he may be functionally illiterate. That may have been true at one time, but I’m sure it must have changed. Being able to count all the money you’re making from your resurrection is a good incentive to become literate. 

Ron Chepesiuk is the co-author of Superfly: The True, Untold Story of Frank Lucas, American Gangster, (www.franklucasamericangangster.com/) and the author of Gangsters of Harlem, (www.gangstersofharlem.com) Drug Lords: the Rise and Fall of the Cali Cartel (www.ronchepesiuk.com/) and the just released Black Gangsters of Chicago (www.blackgangstersofchicago.com/).

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/arts/music/20jayz.html?_r=2&
adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1190301837-hIPB8FDfkQhGjdwA10J7pQ&oref=slogin

I was on the courtroom set of “Law and Order” when I read the article.
I called Damon Dash, who is working with us on “Mr. Untouchable” and
was Jay Z’s former partner at Roc-a-Fella records. He had just recorded
an intro to the mix tape by Hi Tek for our film which is opening on October 26th.
Damon had seen a preview of “American Gangster” and he felt it was
good but didn’t really capture the Harlem he grew up in.

“I hope American Gangster is this season’s The Departed,” I
said. “But it’s Hollywood make believe. We got the real thing!!! How
could Jay Z not realize that?”

“He’s from Brooklyn Marc,” Damon answered.

Now I realize Damon and Jay had quite a bitter falling out. Their feud is an eerie
echo of the competition between Mr. Untouchable, Nicky Barnes, and American Gangster,
Frank Lucas, as noted by a perceptive blogger on Missinfo ( http://www.missinfo.tv/?p=287)
last week. The battle between the heroin kingpins of the seventies and today’s
hip hop moguls is all about power, ego, respect, and legacy. It is fascinating
that Jay Z has been inspired by the Frank Lucas story and Damon has been obsessed
with the Barnes story for years. Today’s successful hip hop entrepreneurs
recognize they are some how connected to yesterday’s drug kingpins. It’s
the story of Godfathers and sons.

In this case I’m obviously biased, but Damon is the one keeping it real
while Jay Z, who I admire, seems to have been inspired more by Denzel’s
portrayal and Ridley Scott’s direction, than the facts about Frank Lucas.

Frank Lucas was from South Carolina and had a crew known as the “country
boys.” He may have had a heroin connection in South East Asia but he was
not the man. He was not the business innovater who vertically integrated the drug
market and changed retail marketing with the “New York quarter.” He
was not the man who organized other New York kingpins into a syndicate called
“the council.” He was not the man who declared independence from the
Mob. He was not the drug dealer who the President of the United States saw on
the cover of the New York Times Magazine and then demanded be busted. He was not
the black godfather. Nicky Barnes was.

Why did Hollywood make a movie about Frank Lucas? Good question. Damon says that
a few years ago he pitched the Nicky Barnes story to Denzel Washington and Denzel
said he would never play a rat. So let’s get something straight about this
snitch debate. Frank Lucas was a snitch way before Nicky ever cooperated. He was
busted and cut a deal to save himself and testified for the government. Now Nicky
Barnes also flipped and ended up testifying against his former patners in the
Council and many others. But unlike Frank Lucas and more recently Sammy Gravano,
Barnes did not snitch to get out of prison. He did it for payback.

Now obviously Barnes, the Council, Frank Lucas, another kingpin of the era, Frank
Mathews, and many others, all sold heroin, an illegal drug that caused much destruction
and devastation. But this discussion is not about right and wrong. It’s
about the myth of the gangster as the way from urban poverty to a piece of the
American Dream. It’s about who controls the street- the ethnic succession
from the Irish, to the Jews, to the Italians, to African Americans.

Now two giants of the hip hop generation, Damon Dash and Jay Z, are leading the
way back to the source - the birth of the black gangster myth. Each has his own
take. Now it’s time for everyone else to join the debate.

greetings - we here at blowback productions are excited to join the wild, wacky world of web commandos, guerillas, artists, provocateurs, politicos, media marauders, and various other subversive souls surfing this next wave - here’s the latest on our fall offensive - our newest film, MR UNTOUCHABLE opens on October 19th - CAPTURED is being finished in the next week and will have its first sneak preview screening September 20th. We are also in the process of developing a groundbreaking docu-reality series, “Brick City.”

But the US Open still has a few days left so we will wait to officially launch the fall offensive till next monday evening when we rally at the Kinz, Tillou & Feigen Gallery at 529 W. 20th Street for the Clayton Patterson Lower East Side preview reception.

Until then enjoy the first poem inspired by Mr Untouchable (see below entry)

Take the ball on the rise and keep it open

avanti

senor11

“Nicky had a bleating lamb,
It’s soul was white as powdered snow,
But everywhere that Nicky went,
the Lamb was bled — it dare not go.”
– “Rules and Procedures”
Paragraph 6,
“The Dance Protection Program”

Nicky Barnes  “danced” harder  than his rivals,

Faster than the cops,

More sweetly than the smack itself.

More sharply than he smiled,

More wildly than he fucked.

Whiter than his teeth

Darker than his curly ’stache –

More shiny than his jewelry.

He supplied what the dance demanded –
the corporate shuffle,
the ghetto jab,
the Harlem Rope-a-Dope.

He witnessed all
and protected nothing –

You can’t kid a Kidder
and he was the biggest Kidder of all.

Deception, yes
Betrayal, yes –
No one saw them coming –
because they did not watch Nicky’s dance.

He witnesses no more

but dances still –

as he can do no other.

His empire gone,  he dances.

His network,  sundered — by his own hand –

he dances.

We see his like in darkened clubs,
They take the floor in fresh clean shirts,
Pants pressed so neatly.
Slow they start — the beat rises.

Upper bodies straight, the feet move
the body follows –
faster than the eye can manage in the shadows –
faster still than words travel
in the sound, in the loudness,
in the mix, in the turmoil.

Nothing is concealed in this Dance of Deception

The Dance is all that remains of Nicky’s
whirling wheel–
Energy is conserved here,
And Dark Energy conserved — absolutely.
Of gravity defiant,
the Dance seizes the Dancer.
Protected from on high,
Empowered by the Higher Ups,
he grins through sweat and reigns with a
vengeance
–
unrepentant, un-reconstructed, addicted.

It’s been a long time comin’. We know you’ve been waiting for the news on what films are coming soon, what trenches the Blowback team is digging now, and what new characters we’re welcoming into the fold. Keep up with us here, and keep in touch.

–over and out.