Respect Da Hustle

My boys in the Hills

My name is De'Andre Robinson, but you can call me Dre. I was born and raised in the Hills. I seen where it started from, and where it is now. I am the oldest and only son. I have 2 sisters who I think were put on this earth just to get on my nerves, so I was so happy to have three other brothers. From the day I met them, I knew that we would be brothers for life. I just prayed that we would live long enough to make it up out of here. 

Growing up in the Hills had it's advantages, but more of a disadvantage because you were only leaving up out of here two ways. Dead or in prison.  I knew that there had to be another way out, and I was determined to find it, and make sure that my brothers made it out as well. Between my Mom's, and Grand,  my boys were the best part of growing up in the Hills. The Hills is what we called it, but it was actually called Rosewood Hills. It was the part of SC called the Rosewood area. There was the good side, where the middle class stayed, and then there was the Hills. It wasn't like projects bad, like you see on TV, or read in books, but it was close because we were the forgotten part. We're the oldest part of Rosewood, and it was starting to show. Some of these buildings were built by our elders when they first moved here, so there's history here, but that didn't stop the hustle here. During the day it looked peacefully, but at night, it was every man for themselves. You've heard the saying that you better be in the house before the streets light comes on. Well you didn't have to worry about that in the Hills, because the only people who were out were the dealers, stealers, and swingers. During the day you had your average dealers, but if they knew who you were, you might get a little respect, but that was earned not given. Now if they didn't know you, that was a different story. So family functions were out of the question here, because you damn near had to pass a pop quiz just to get to the stairs. I hated it here, because every other day was an adventure. 

I grew up in the hustle, because my daddy ran things in our building, so nobody would dare step to us. It wasn't rare to hear gunshots at night. I had grown accustomed to sleeping on the floor, because bullets have no name or since of direction. One thing I knew for sure was that we were protected. My father was not one to be messed with. He was six feet five inches tall and was built like a train. He was also one of biggest dealers in the Hills. I knew what he did, but he made sure that my sisters and I didn't get wrapped up in that lifestyle. We didn't want for nothing, but I just felt that at anytime something bad was going to happen just because of who he was. So I had respect from all the other hot heads in the neighborhood just because they knew that my daddy didn't play, but not everybody had it that easy. Like I said you damn near had to fill out a questionnaire of who, what, when, where, and how you got there. I had friends in school, but I wouldn't dare invite them over to my house, because I already knew the hell that they would have had to go through. See the Hills didn't care who you were, and how old you were. EVERYONE had to go through hell, in order to walk through hell. I've seen dudes get the beatdown just because of what they were wearing, and they wasn't even coming this way. That whole thing being at the wrong place at the wrong time thing. So having my brothers was my peace in the midst of the chaos.

I remember the first day I met Brandon. We know him as B-Rock because he really loves music. His Momma used to throw basement parties before they moved here. He grew up around music, and we would have to listen to a different story each day about a new song he heard, and what his definition of it was. Back in the day his father used to be a disc jockey for a radio station back in the day called The Sounds103.9. His name was Brian Rock Steady at the radio station. He used to hustle on the side, but music was his way out, so when you say like Father like son, these two were that statement. His  Father was killed when he was seven, coming home from work. He had just got through doing a mix at one of the biggest dealers in town girlfriend's birthday party, so he was sitting on a nice piece of change after the party. They said it was robbery homicide. B-Rock never really talks about it, but we know from the bits and pieces that he did tell us, that it still affected him. Because of his love for music, I'm surprised they didn't call him Old Soul, because I swear he was senior citizen trapped in a teenager body. We all met at different times, but we all instantly clicked. I remember when he and and his mom moved to the Hills when he turned thirteen. He was a year older than us, but the rest of us were only a few months apart. He was quiet at first. I know it must have been hard to leave the life that they knew behind, and move here. You can tell just by the looks in his eyes that he didn't want to be here. They had a nice big house, but after the death of this father, his moms found it hard to make the ends meet, so they ended up here. I bumped into him as I was leaving the building to go to the laundry with my mom. All I saw were boxes, and boxes of record and albums. That was the only thing that he wanted from his father was his music. I do believe that they were connected through the sound waves, because he would turn into a completely different person when he put those headphones on. I was just excited to see someone my age moving in, and he seemed like he would be cool, and little did I know that we would become brothers. 

Now Roscoe and I went to the same grade school together. He lived in the next building. We met because our mothers used to work at the same nursing home. They were both CNA's. So since out moms were best friends, it was obvious that we would be since we were around each other just about everyday. They worked different shifts some times, so they became each other babysitter, so I was around Rocky all my life. His Dad was in killed in a car accident on his way from work to see him being born, so Rocky isn't big on celebrating his birthday. For years he still blames himself for his father's death. He said had he not been born on that day, that maybe his dad would still be alive. We still try to push him past that, but he doesn't handle it too well. His momma used to have him birthday parties, and he would stay locked up in his room. That was until I came. Once he knew I was there, he would come out, but wasn't the sociable type. He's still like that til this day. As he got older his anger about life increased, so some days it was hard to be around him. At times I didn't know if I wanted to punch him in the face, or just hug him until he felt better. That was one thing he wasn't big on. Human touch or contact. I remember hearing that boys or men who hugged were gay, which I thought was true until I grew up and started learning things on my own. I felt like that was what was missing in our community....hugs and ways of showing love without feeling all mushy about it. My mom used to hug each time she got. Morning, noon, and night she made us feel like the most important things to her, outside of my dad. 

Markus Williams didn't join the crew until later. I saw him plenty of times in passing, but we never really spoke like that. We took a few classes together, and even rode on the bus together, but it wasn't until I saw some of the guys giving him a hard time when all he was doing was going home, I jumped in. Each building had their shares of kin pins, so it was hard to know who was who. Markus was well dressed, and that didn't sit too well with some of the Bradford building boys. Each building had a name, but the community was known as Rosewood Hills. He was standing his ground, because they were like pit bulls....they could sense fear on you, and they would use that to their advantage. A lot of kats didn't make it, just because of that. He had on some new J's and they was about to beat him down and take them even though they knew he lived in the building, they didn't care. Remember I said that you caught hell no matter who you were. He took the first blow like a G, but I knew this wasn't going to end well, so I just ran to his defense without even knowing who he was. Once I showed up they tried to give me a little heat until I had to remind them who I was. I felt bad for him, but I was impressed that he held his own. See whether you were from The Hills or not, you knew how to survive.

Once we got inside his apartment, his mom freaked out once she saw him bleeding. It was nothing she really could do, but she called his father and went in and told him what had just happened. His parents were no longer together, but they didn't play when it came to Mark, because he was the only child. I didn't find out until later that his daddy was also a hustler, but he was running things on the other side of town where he lived with his new girlfriend. I knew that when he got that call that there was going to be some smoke in the city tonight, and I was glad I was in the other building, because I didn't want to be around when it went down. We call him Markie Mark because he just knew that he was going to rap his way out of the hood. I know without a shadow of a doubt that that is why he and B-Rock clicked instantly because of their love for music. B-Rock would play it, and Mark would find the words to match the beat. Together we were an unstoppable force. That's why we were able to survive whatever the Hills threw our way. All we had were each other and we leaned on each other to help each other plan our escape route. From an early age we knew that this wasn't the lifestyle that we wanted to live. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with having a hustle to survive, but I know that there was more out there, and I was determined to find it. I would place cut out of different places that I wanted to travel, and houses that I wanted to own. My moms used to say that I was always a dreamer, and I told her that dreams are meant to come true and that mine would. I just didn't know how.