Time Out New York
March 24-30, 2005

3 QUESTIONS FOR...
Bonz Malone | thug historian

1. The new DVD series The Infamous Times covers the New York underworld from gangbangers in the Brownsville projects to Sue's Rendezvous strip club in Mt. Vernon. You're on volume one uncovering the man from whom 50 Cent got his name. What prompted the project?
Anything that is on the street will affect mainstream society, and these stories are better than any Hollywood fantasy. I've always said that hip-hop, organized crime and porn grew up on the same block. America's most controversial DVD series has to have the wildest neighborhoods, the hottest clubs and the hardest elements. We had to put something out that the streets would just rip apart when it hit.

2. Why start with a Fort Greene gangster from the 1980s who was killed at 23?
50 Cent was the 'hood's version of Billy the Kid. Every day there was somebody he shot and killed. Or stuck up. Or cut up. And 15 years later here comes this rapper who said he used to hear the stories of 50 Cent from older guys. And he was a hero to him.

3. Do you worry that The Infamous Times glorifies an antisocial lifestyle?
That's just stupid, anyone saying we're exploiting the markets and the communities. If we were just glorifying that, we wouldn't show people that if you live this life, there's a price to pay for it. The way 50 paid it. The way 50 the rapper will pay. Everybody pays. I hope the streets continue to embrace tragic stories of lives that did not have to be wasted.
—David Gerlach

© 2009 david gerlach | contact: davidgerlach at yahoo dot com