CONTENT PAGE
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Book Reviews
Pg5 ----------------- Suffer With Me Pg6 ------- Two Masks One Heart Pg8 ------------------ 2 Sided Mirror Pg9 -------------- Keisha & Trigga 2 Pg11 ------ Streets Bleed Murder 2 Pg12 ------------- The Arrangement Pg34-35 ------- Street Dreams and Nightmares Excerpt
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Exclusive Interview
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Model Photoshoots
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Featured Articles
Pg14-19 -------- Crack Rock To Gemstones Victor “Poochi” Rodriguez
Pg14-19 -- Featuring @Aloha.Angel.Official
Pg7,13,20,24,31,32
Pg22---- 2 Cents With Ms. Dime by Dime Cole Pg26 --------- Thug Passions by Reds Johnson Pg29 ------ Mourning Music by Anwar Muslim
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SUFFER WITH ME
-Tyrone Bridges 119320B/ Southern State Correction Facility/ Delmont, NJ You want streets? Suffer With Me. You want suspense? Suffer With Me. With just enough drama to keep you optimistic about giving someone your heart. Suffer With Me is a good read, with just enough of everything else to make it more than what is considered a “hood book”. From a gangsta changing his life to a woman with an abusive, jealous past that may take what she worked so hard for away. Suffer With Me will keep you guessing and then still have your antennas up even after it ends. You think you’ll know but you have no idea. Suffer With Me. -Tariq Wright 261492C/ Southern State Correction Facility/ Delmont, NJ
SUFFER WITH ME
Wow! Talk about a wolf in sheep’s clothing, with its well-developed plot and myriad of exceptionally colored characters. Suffer With Me grabs and holds fast as it drags the reader through one thrilling turn of the page after another. Suffer With Me is an impressive and shocking joyride/psycho thriller, which not only challenges the notions of what a “true to heart” Urban author’s book should or shouldn’t be, but he has erased the lines in such a way that it will leave his con-
temporaries scrambling to keep up.
In a day where “Urban Fiction” has become synonymous with “grossly exaggerated”, Robert Laboo presents a tale tailored in originality. Suffer With Me is the story of a wayward detective being stalked by a serial murderer. She crosses paths with Benjamin Cooper who is a rehabilitated street figure being tortured by karma. What is most appealing to me is the storyline. “Who’s doing it?” That’s the question you will continually ask yourself throughout this novel. The author has somehow managed to create a suspense thriller worthy of the time of a James Patterson devotee, while wrapped in a gritty robe of streets. Making it relatable for any Al-Saddiq Banks fan. It has just enough of both worlds to become Urban Fictions first crossover. This book will win back 98% of the readers like myself who are beginning to lose faith in the genre altogether. -Just Mii Thoughts/ Southern State Correction Facility/ Delmont, NJ
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EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
CRACK ROCK TO GEMSTONES
JIMMYSODOPE- How did a Puerto Rican rise to power in the Russian and Jew dominated jewelry business. The story of Victor Mendez aka Poochie the Jeweler and the Tajia Diamonds empire is one of sacrifice and faith. Tajia has done pieces for 50 C e n t , Robinson Cano, Fernando Tatis, Daddy Yankee, El Alpha, Jim Jones, Robert Eastern, Danny Garcia, Adrian B r o n e r and so many more. Now based in New Y o r k City, the journey begins in Newark, New Jersey...
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Victor “Poochi” Rodriguez You know, people talk about how bad the hood is and how people don’t make it out to here. Fortunately, I was blessed to grind hard and learn. One thing I got to always thank God for is N e w a r k , BrickCity. You learn the good, you learn the bad. But if you have a little bit of book smart and you have street smarts, you can actually succeed far in life. That’s what a lot of people don’t understand. We’re blessed. Even though the hood is bad,
and a lot of people don’t make it out the hood, Our youth is getting killed from from gun violence and, it’s sad because at least us growing up, we had different morals. We had different aspects of life you understand? Like, we were able to go outside and play. We used to be right there on 8th street balling all day all & night. It used to be one or two in the morning, we just play b a s ketball, hang out, just make jokes, play around and just just enjoy life. Now these kids nowadays are always on computers, on the phones. They don’t go outside. They don’t even know what it is to go outside and play or play with their friends or enjoy life. So it’s nowadays it’s crazy. And then when the kids do come out, all they know is trapping and hustling. And, oh, let me shoot this person or let me kill this person to be a gang member. A lot of these kids don’t know what it is to have a childhood.
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
JSD- Role models are one the things that Newark has yet to have in surplus. Since the student is at mercy of the teacher, generational trauma gets passed around like a black and mild smoked down to the plastic. There are a few outcomes that can manifest from a troubled childhood but two are most common, the child follows i n the same path of des t r u c tive habits taught by elders and other influences. The other common outcome is the child can learn from the mistakes of the people in their environm ent . VR- I was under the middle child. I wasn’t the youngest. I still have three younger brothers and sisters under me. But it was there’s eight of us and total. So I got to learn a lot from them. I had a brother who all his life was either stealing cars or robbing. Then he got with a girl ended up on drugs and I saw his whole life just
go crumble, you know, on heroin, breaking him down and doing prison time. He’d come out for a month or two & to go right back to jail. I saw my other brother who was so book smart that he tried to do too many things at one time in college and end up going crazy. You know, my other brother was smart, but always wanting to be built and bulky and on steroids. So all that taught me on what not to do. Because they taught me that there’s many routes in life, you could go and it’s fucked up. My sister was trying to do her thing and she had a child at a young age and she was struggling to find jobs and work. So all this this just made me stronger.
JSD- Now more than ever, financial literacy is the topic of discussion. Victor was fortunate enough to grow up in a family business but that didn’t mean the education came easy. Victor’s father owned a grocery store in the west ward of Newark. The Mendez corner store was a staple in the hood. Back when a bag of chips was 25 cents. We couldn’t wait to go to the corner store before school. Victor’s experience was different. VR- I had my mother & my father. My father was a person who had a lot of wives and a lot of children, right. So my mother was my mother and my father for many years. My father started coming into my life
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MOURNING MUSIC
“I WAS 17 LOCKED UP IN A CELL, GOT WORD THEY JUST KILLED O/ I WAS CONFUSED, O WAS THE GOAT HOW THEY KILL HIM AND HE STAY WIT’ HIS POLE…” -KING VON
the streets. Where people are taking to social media with wanton acts of violence. On March 10, 2022, a popular TikTok duo Allie and Consuela Jones, dubbed the”famous twins” were arrested. They took to social media in Mobile, Alabama and filmed a fight that would lead into a shooting that left two injured. After the shooting they still refused to turn the camera off as they pursued another vehicle. Never considering the harm BY ANWAR MUSLIM the footage could do to In an era when drill music their future. They were has become the predominant soundtrack to the Urban geography worldwide. King Von speaks from beyond the grave in his post-humous album “What It Means To Be King”. It’s swiftly approaching two years since the extremely talented Chicago rapper was tragically gunned down in Atlanta. Yet his music is still laced with all the ingredients that sealed his untimely demise. Upon his death it was speculated that he was responsible for the death of Gakirah “K.I.” Barnes and a slew of others. My question is, is this only music? It seems the drill scene fuels the current unruly nature of
MOURNING MUSIC
both charged with 2nd degree assault. A charge, which you can tell from their mugshots, meant little in comparison to the fame the charge would gain them. This is just another example of how the drill and social media age coincide and form a dangerous recipe of negligent behavior. Some end in death while others end in jail. Either way, tears will be shed because someone will be missed. I hope you enjoyed this weeks edition of mourning music.
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SPECIAL PAGE INFO
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