I met Monster Kody at Henry Clay Jr High when we was all fresh off the porch trying to make a name for ourselves in the Cripworld. It was 1977. And monster wasn’t even from ETG yet, he was still claiming 11 Duce Hoover Crip at the time, and his row dog was Lerch from 107th street Hoover Crips. (See my book GSTAR.) but the last time I saw him was in 1988 in new Folsom prison B-facility. The prison was so new it still had the SHU in half of the facility. It was a level 4, maximum security prison built specifically to contain the warring gangs in old Folsom and san Quentin. Eme/Surenoes, Jama, Crips/Bloods It was the first of 3 maximum security joints being built. The other two were Corcoran and Pelican Bey. They weren’t finished yet, so all the riders were still in new Folsom.

That was a crazy yard with Emes, BGFs, Crips, Bloods, others. The cold part, damn near everybody on B-Yard was fresh out of the SHU from the war in old Folsom. Any person with common sense could see that it was a matter of time before it blew. Many whispered that it was a set up. I whispered it too. 

I bumped into monster walking around the track, I was fresh fresh out of the SHU, but he had been there for a minute. He was riding with the new Afrikan car and calling himself Sanyika Shakur. Yet, he still fucked with the homies (he was Monster). Didn’t nobody question him about his position. Afterall, the yard was full of soldiers, riders, shot callers, some real heavy weights and most had been released from the SHU. 

So I bumped into Cuzz on the track and I hadn’t seen him since the juvenile tank in the LA county jail in 1981. But he had seen me in San Quentin when he was in east block SHU and I was in the north block SHU. His cell was yard side, and he could see north block’s yard through East Block’s big window. When I bumped into him in B-facility, he said he use to see me through the window getting at the homies on the yard all the time. I was on some Crip/revolutionary shit then. And I was spouting it everytime I hit the yard, still I kept it crippin. Nevertheless, I started reading business books and studying capitalism, and by the time I was discharged from the SHU, I was mostly finished with that revolutionary shit. So when he said that, “I said I’m a capitalist, Cuzz.” Monster, or should I say, Sanyika looked at me like I slapped him. He was really on that New Afrikan to the point that I could never perceive Cuzz as A gangbanger again. But shit happens. Needless to say, we didn’t communicate much after that. Then, he went home. The next thing I knew, he had a book and was rich & famous.

In reflecting on the way Cuz died—in the horrible location of a homeless camp, in a tent of all places. How is it that this fate befell such a distinguished member of the Crip community? Afterall, monster wrote a New York Times best seller, and had become an activist. They say, a gang activist, that could’ve been later, but I know monster was a Crip/revolutionary in the vein of CCO and the Black Panther Party. He was a member of the New Afrikan Movement, and that’s not your everyday BLM protester. At one point in the belly of the beast, I had that same political mindset with a gagster twist.

So I am trying to understand how monster died in a homeless tent. He knew too much and understood too much, not to mention, he came in contact with money and opportunities that most gang members will ever see in a lifetime, so how did he not leverage that into a successful life, or political career. Was the hardships of Black American urban life such that it disillusioned Cuzz and made him start smoking crack? What was it? I have some ideas, and I will express them in the following series of post.