The recent New York Times article on Jay Z and the movie “American Gangster”
has got everyone talking.
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.