Corner Stores
In The Middle Of The Block: ©1999

The Urban Look Part 3:
Urban Renewal

You can ride the number 10 bus from point A to point B and watch the buildings begin to drift... Uptown!

This is the minority section of the city and 8th Avenue is like a river that pumps the blood into this borough, but if you thought that apples couldn't bleed?

Ya betta' ask somebody

Or better yet you can save time and just ask me, and we can play Tit for Tat as I kindly ask you to remove your socks and shoes from your feet and let your soles touch these sidewalks as you muster up the strength to relate to this hard knock life

But you should already know the official particulars

The quick money and dirty hands

Crack came into the neighborhood and sucked the life out of the city, killed two birds with one stone and sometimes it seems like nothing can save us!

Some say I should pray... but a prayer sometimes seems like it’s nothing but a nick-name for an overrated jump shot that was slowly released from the fingertips of that high school kid down the block named Moses

And I don't know if you notice it or not but my neighborhood has more churches then schools

In fact there’s a Church on all four corners surrounding the housing projects like a fort

And it’s got the residents trapped

And every school playground has a child named Moses that wants to jump and handle his way out the hood

Yet they allow pressure from the atmosphere and their peers to hamper their ability to improve their skills and like Moses they’ll be just another story of a child that came close...  But never made it!

So welcome to life is a bitch!

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Pretty Ugly
A Harlem Situation © 2003

Once you drive up the New Jersey turnpike with Chuck Love and his escalating gun running scheme, you'll be hooked till the end. Rounding out the crew of shady and self-centered characters are Apple, Chuck's high school crush now involve with Big Zach, a cutthroat Sugar-daddy and Eyonna, Apple's roommate and sometimes-best friend. These four play out a scheme to make money that takes them from the mean streets of Harlem to the backwoods of Kentucky and back again. In between there are reality glimpses of Harlem street life, invitations to explore the hustler mentality and just enough mischief to set the pace toward a powerful ending. Folks of all walks of life will find themselves learning a lesson or two for Pretty Ugly.