Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
I wasn’t there on that rooftop where the second most famous four-word phrase in Black history was uttered but I feel like I was there, almost like a witness. When Gee Money told, nay implored to Nino, “WE ALL WE GOT!” he changed the course of unity for us all.
9-1-1 Emergency! Reconnect the community!
Nino Brown and Gee Money were a legendary drug-dealing duo from Harlem. I know drug dealing is heavily frowned upon, as it should be, but the way they inspired the community through their words and phrases lives on. They’re both dead — Nino and Gee Money, that is. Nino caught a bullet while being led out of a courtroom and Gee Money, well, allegedly, Nino Brown shot him but, really there’s no proof. Besides, I don’t believe it anyway.
Gee Money and Nino were tight. They were the “Let’s play basketball together in Stacy Adams and dress pants” kind of tight. You don’t do that unless you completely trust your teammate. I’m not sure if you’ve ever played ball in Stacy Adams but it is one of the hardest things to do; Stacy Adams shoes have zero traction. And they played ball on New York City’s concrete courts. They also got into real estate together, purchasing (some say they just took it, but the public records are really shoddy from back then) a huge mixed-use development in Harlem that they called The Carter. It had floors for business and floors for living. Nino and Gee Money were way ahead of the multiple-streams-of-income crowd.
Anywho, they shared almost everything but when you share almost everything, something is going to go awry. Gee Money, they say, wanted to do business on the solo tip and well, that’s when everything fell off the tracks for the duo. Now, despite their issues, they had an empire to run…
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