The cornrows were always done to perfection, even if he had to get them braided courtside courtesy of his Momma Ann. Artistic expression displayed across his body. His fashion choices made some uncomfortable, but felt like representation for niggaz like me. The earrings. The chains. The way he spoke. He became the center of every young NBA hopeful’s mood board before mood boards were even a thing.

He was nothing like any player the NBA had ever seen before. NBA officials, white America, and a couple uppity Black folks peppered in the mix, were not happy. They had questions. Lots of them. Most centered around the six foot rookie who had just signed to the Philadelphia 76ers.

On November 1, 1996, he walked through the doors of the CoreStates Center located at the corner of 3601 S. Broad Street and dropped 30 of the team’s 103 points against the Milwaukee Bucks. The Sixers lost that night, but The Answer? The answer was very clear.

Dressed in an oversized white Sixers uniform, cracking a smile at the crowd as he disappeared back into the locker room, Allen Iverson had arrived.

The answer was A.I.
Nahhh, not that A.I.

[Remember, this was 1996! Stay focused yall lol.]

Allen Iverson was that A.I.

And he kicked the doors off the NBA.

They weren’t ready.

But the kids growing up in hoods all around the world, especially Philly, were.

There was a real shift happening and it was happening in real time. For years kids grew up wanting to be “Like Mike.”

Michael Jordan was perfection. Clean cut. Bald ass head shining underneath arena lights. A smile made for commercials and corporate America. Jordan was aspiration.

Where I’m from, we respected Jordan, but niggaz wanted to be like AI.

The girls adored him.

The boys studied him. Suddenly we all started growing fro’s, growing them to just the right length to be gripped for cornrows. Cornrows multiplied across barbershops and school hallways like crazy. Arm sleeves became mandatory. Tattoos stopped feeling taboo and started feeling like pure honesty, almost like a badge of honor. Even the way young buls carried themselves changed. Smaller guards finally had somebody to point to. Somebody that made being undersized feel dangerous instead of limiting.

Iverson didn’t ask lil Black and Brown kids from places like Philly to clean themselves up before dreaming big. He showed up as himself first. Loud. Hurt. Flashy. Defiant. Vulnerable. Hood. Him!

And the league hated how much we loved him for it. Those niggaz in those suits, seated inside suites, were heated at the mere sight of AI.

That tension became even more visible when you looked over at the sidelines and saw Coach Larry Brown standing there with his arms folded tight, like squeezed butt cheeks holding in a fart.

Coach Brown and AI felt like oil and water at times. One represented structure. The other represented freedom. One believed discipline was love. The other believed survival already required discipline.

But somehow they needed each other.

Larry Brown gave Iverson the structure the league demanded from him, while Iverson gave Brown’s system a heartbeat. It started feeling less like coach and player and more like father and son. The kind of relationship built on constant frustration, impossible expectations, stubbornness, and underneath all of that, love neither one of them always knew how to express.

Ann Iverson was 12 years old when she lost her mother due to an infection shortly after undergoing a tubal ligation surgery when she was 30 years old. By the age of 15, Ann became pregnant and eventually gave birth to her baby boy Allen on June 7, 1975. Since birth the scale was never even for young Allen. Inherently adapting to a life navigated in survival mode. Throughout his life he fought through situations that from the outside looking in seemed impossible to get over. Everything from family illnesses, death, life in the hood, and legal issues that could have put him away for years, but he stepped right over them, like he would do to other players in the years to come while a member of the NBA.

Allen was raised by a teen mother that was able to give him a solid foundation and speak up for him no matter what. It was Ann Iverson that passed down the mantra he came into the NBA with, “Only The Strong Survive.” He was rough as hell around the edges. He didn’t look like the other players. He didn’t play like them either. He was better, and he knew he was better. He’d step onto that court night after night like a fucking lightning bolt. Impossible to guard. The king of handles and crossing over. Adding a new name to his victim list each night. His shit talking on the court was legendary.

And no matter how mad or uncomfortable he made people, he carried a team suffering through an 18 year drought when he joined in 1996 to places they had never seen before him, all while being 100% himself.

"You got all these personalities; why would everybody dress the same?... Now, I get the flowers for it from them."

-Allen Iverson

Fashion became another battleground entirely. Before Iverson, the NBA wanted its stars polished down into something easier to sell. Suits. Smiles. Carefully curated answers. But AI walked into arenas dressed like the niggaz from the hood that raised him. Four X white tees. Throwback jerseys. Timbs. Durags. Diamond earrings shining underneath camera flashes. Tattoos across his body unapologetically visible. He looked like us. Literally like all of my cousins, or the homies standing outside the Papi store.

The NBA eventually responded with a dress code in 2005, and everybody knew who that passive ass message was really for. Allen Iverson became the face of a conversation much bigger than basketball. Race. Class. Respectability. Fear. The league marketed Black culture every night while simultaneously trying to contain it. AI never folded. Even when they fined him. Criticized him. Called him selfish. Called him irresponsible. Called him everything except what he actually was. Authentically HIM.

Allen Iverson resonated because he showed an entire generation that you did not have to erase yourself to be seen as great. He gave people permission to be complicated. To carry your hood, your trauma, your flaws, and your people with you instead of pretending they never existed. It’s ok to be MISUNDERSTOOD.

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I’m a West Philly bred nigga.
Inherently, I’m a “Do it myself. I don’t need U. Stand alone” type nigga.

I got hella family.
And I love them.

I got a few friends.
And I love them too.

But I’m thankful 4 my small squad of niggaz.
Near or far.

The ones I build with.
Laugh with.
Sit in silence with.

I’m in community with niggaz that I believe were monks, leaders or heads of small tribes in a past life.

Education.
Protection.
Inspiration.

It’s a nation.
A brotherhood.
Unspoken understandings.

These niggaz my village.
Though my momma ain’t birth them,my daughter call them Uncle. [Well one of them she did (Mugg)]

When I call, they come.
When they call, I’m there.

Never gotta question a motive.
Or an angle.

They my niggaz.
But we all Kings.
Descendants of royalty.
Bonds rooted in loyalty.

Yall niggaz mean the world 2 Zai.

Yall the ones that know what I don’t say out loud.

We don’t always talk about it, but we carry each other through this life shit.

I wouldn’t be a thing without yall in my life.
This some for life shit.

Real shit.

Now before I start this jawn, I want to do so by saying that YES, I have three brothers. I love all three of them. But this isn’t about the other two. This one is about the one that has been tap dancing on my last nerves since we were young bulls eating David’s Nacho Cheese Sunflower Seeds on the steps of Aunt Brenda’s crib. This one is for the one that I argue with at least once a week. This one is for the one that I am the most like. The one that, I sometimes have to question if he’ll come through, but always does. This one is just about My Brother and Me.

We grew up together but apart. Our initial introduction to each other was a lie. Sorry, but I won’t use another word to try and save face and or sugar coat shit. I am intentionally choosing to call it exactly what it was, a lie. We were told that we were cousins. What we weren’t told is that my mom, had given him up at birth. She gave her last child, a baby boy she named Kevin to my aunt Donna and her husband, my uncle Wayne. I learned the choice was made because she couldn’t take care of all of us and she felt he’d have a better life with them, than what she could give him. She isn’t here to fact check, so I’ll stick with that version of the story, because there are a couple more floating around between the whispered family gossip sessions.

As young buls Kevin and I connected over music. I looked forward to going to his house, where the majority of family functions were held. Kev had all the new shit. My aunt Donna and uncle Wayne spoiled him, but he wasn’t rotten. Nah, he’s always had a heart bigger than his head. To this very day, Kev will give u the shirt off his back in the middle of a blizzard. That’s just who he is. He’d show me all the new CDs and PlayStation games he had, I didn’t give a fuck about the latter but the CDs were my language. We had similar taste back then and kinda sorta still do. One Christmas Kev had got this microphone, with a stand and speaker and that day we decided to form a lil music group we called “The Philly Boyz,” we recruited my brother Calvin and our cousin Jeff to complete the group.

For the next couple months, Kev would spend the weekends with us and we would write songs, create awful dances and plan out our future as the next big music group. We patterned ourselves after the GOATS, the Jackson 5. Obviously, I was Michael front and kind of center (there were only four of us) Kevin was Jermaine and Calvin and Jeff were one of the other niggaz from the litter of Katherine and Joe Jackson lol The Philly Boyz lasted about five months before we drifted away from the idea of being a group.

Around this time music was changing. Hip Hop was law and our ears, and idea of good music, was shifting. JAŸ-Z’’s ROC A Fella Records was the number one label in the world. They had a crazy roster that included a bunch of Philly niggaz, Beanie Sigel, Freeway, Chris and Neef, Oschino, Omillio Sparks etc. Seeing those niggaz that used to walk the same streets as us, on TV with JAŸ-Z, inspired us like crazy. Around that time my dream was to be like Rell who was also signed to the ROC, a singer on a label full of rappers, give me all the hooks! It was also around that time that Kev began to push his pen and not in that young bul that raps type way, he was really spittin, spittin and he was only like ten years old.

A shift in our lives came on December 28,2002. My mom transitioned from her earthly body to her heavenly being. A lot of things were revealed around that time. Two of the biggest WHAT THE FUCK moments were revealed within days of my mom taking her last breath. While sitting around watching my family members write out her obituary I found out kind of matter of factly that my “cousin” Kevin is actually my brother and [DRUM ROLL PLEASE] On the day of my mom’s funeral an envelope came in the mail revealing the person I had called dad for my whole life, in fact wasn’t (by blood at least.) By June of that next year, I had moved with my biological father and away from my life as I had known it. And the people that had helped shape who I was. And away from my brother Calvin (who I had never been away from, since birth) and Kevin, right when it was about to be, My Brother and Me.

When My Brother and Me really reconnected, I was grown as fuck! Like a real ass adult, planning my 21st birthday and this lil nigga was headed to senior prom. He looked dope as shit on his prom, won’t mention the subject he took on the prom, that’s a story for another type of piece……

Anyway, I ended up moving in with Kev, staying at my aunt Donna and uncle Wayne’s crib. That experience was life changing, in the best way. Aside from my aunt Donna , who has since transitioned to her eternal being, was everything!!! My auntie was such a vibe. Sweet, knowledgeable, stern but also loving as hell. My uncle Wayne is such a chill humble dude. Like homie is as cool as the other side of the pillow. But that time was also the first time My Brother and Me actually lived under the same roof. Niggggaaaaaa, it was a party everyday. We were both working, getting money, spending it on dumb shit and liquor and lots of weed. We’d stay up late as hell writing songs or listening to instrumentals, planning future songs. Introducing each other to other dope artists. We even joined a label, Strike Boyz. Our lives were on some rock star shit. Living fast and dumb, but shit would slow down and challenge us to level up, both individually and as a unit, a brotherhood. Just My Brother and Me.

In 2012 I moved out of my aunt Donna’s crib. Had my own spot and I was happy. Stilll doing music heavy. Listening to “Coming Home” by Diddy- Dirty Money, ironically headed home. On the other side of town, my brother was already home, he was in for the night, and decided to chill out on his front steps. I’m in the zone, running that same song back for about the 5th time, when suddenly the song was interrupted by the sound of my phone ringing. Got word that in a case of alleged mistaken identity, my brother was shot while sitting on his steps. I believe that words have power. I enjoy learning new words and taking what I learn and applying them to my art, whether that’s for music, an essay or a poem. I’m usually able to grab words, like a nigga reaching for an iced cold water on a sunny day, but on that day, the words disappeared. I couldn’t find the right one to use for how I was left feeling when the news was brought to me.

Sitting in the waiting room with my family. Praying for news that would bring about some type of healing. One bullet hit him. One bullet did 9 things. One bullet fucked up his liver. One bullet stole a kidney from his body. One bullet had nine family members sitting in a waiting room joined in prayer. One bullet had me step away from the rest of the family in the waiting room, off to a corner I put on my earphones and began to write.

“Rolling down the streets of south west Philly I think I got a quick bone to pick…”

I let the beat play a little more. As I reflected on the good times. The good times when it was just My Brother and Me. Getting stuck at the fact that his heart wasn’t touched by that bullet. His heart made up his whole way of being. I grabbed the pen again,

“How is he your friend, one day yall shaking hands and the next day he’s staring down the barrel of your clip?”

I moved back over to be with the family, lending a shoulder for my aunt to cry on. Joking around with my sister Chrissie. Trying to stay strong for the family. Putting aside my emotions to become a rock for them to lean on, while I said silent prayers to the Rock of which I lean. Leaning on my pen, I let it bleed on the tablet once more.

“Comforting my auntie, my sister, she crying, I’m holding back cuz I can’t cry here…”

Soon enough, Kev was laughing again. Back to spittin. Back to being Kev. I ended up moving him in with me, taking him away from the environment that almost took him away from us. I ended up getting him a job at the spot I was working at. Those words I was writing in the waiting room that night ended up being turned into lyrics for a song that I would later call “Real Shit” and would be a part of the tracks that would make up my debut Mixtape “No Filter” The first single from the ‘No Filter’ mixtape was a song that I penned with the help of my best friend Britt and my cousin. The track was titled “It Was All A Dream” , a play on the song “Juicy” by the late, great Notorious BIG. My single artwork was super special, it featured a photo of my new nephew, wrapped in a blue blanket, fro sticking up fighting against gravity and his middle finger up, giving it that hip-hop edge that I wanted on a song that I decided to sing on. This was my first nephew. His father was my Mom’s last son, he was given the name Kevin Jr, but we all call him Lil Kev.

Rolling with the punches and playing with the cards in our hands, cards we were given, but never asked for. We learned how to adapt in real time. Legal issues and addiction would sometimes get in the way of My Brother and Me, separating us from being us. Some things that used to be jokes amongst us, started to take sudden turns that would end in war. Never physical wars, a war of words. Using the words we were taught or learned with our own free will to use for our art, began to be flipped and used to cut, breaking each other, tugging at our hearts.

My Brother and Me have an unspoken rule to never be at odds for too long. We acknowledge that things, disagreements will occur but our bond, the blood that we share, that runs through us both is stronger than any misunderstanding. Love is the center. I am a follower of Christ and Kevin practices Islam. The Quran states that a kind word accompanied by forgiveness is better than charity followed by harsh words. The Bible encourages believers to use their words to bring grace to those who hear. Forgiveness is big for My Brother and Me. We utilize the power of words and changed behavior to push past any hiccup or road block that tries to box us out.

Whether it’s picking through liner notes of a random record from my collection or discovering a Marvin Gaye song that neither of us has ever heard. Or the times when Kev has to break down lyrics of a Kendrick or Cole song, line by line for it to finally click on my end. Or me introducing him to the music of Dawn Richard, the through line is clear, it is music that stands at the center of our universe. Music is our core. It is music that showed us possibilities when we were young. It was music that helped heal wounds of a relationship built on a lie. It was music that helped me see my brother a little more clearly. It is music that speaks, when the words aren’t powerful enough. It is music that will always be there for My Brother and Me.

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I met Brittttttt in August of 2008. We had both just graduated high school and found ourselves giving a year to change the world.

It was opening day of our year serving the students of the Philadelphia School District through City Year, an education nonprofit that places young adults in under resourced public schools as mentors, tutors, and student support leaders. The goal is helping students improve attendance, behavior, and academics while building stronger school communities.

We weren’t in the schools yet. This was the beginning. They placed us on what was called a “Crazy Team,” basically a group meant to help us get to know the people we’d potentially be serving alongside. Some would become our permanent teammates once we entered the schools and the real work started. Others were just passing through our story for a season.

On that first day, they threw us right into service.

We got sent to Marian Anderson Rec Center in South Philly for one of many beautification projects. The senior team had different assignments set up around the rec center. Picking up trash. Painting murals. Touching up King Ball and hopscotch lines so the kids had games to play. Painting swings. Cleaning slides.

And then there was the task I got assigned, painting the long rusted gates surrounding the entire rec center.

It was me and a small group of folks all eager to get down and dirty in the August heat. I wasn’t one of the eager ones

My first thought was honestly,
I wonder if McDonald’s will hire me back?
They wouldn’t. Especially not the way I quit. Lol.

And then, over in the distance, I saw this light skin girl with the coolest colored hair. Freckles like Pepper Ann. A bomb bracelet. Some dope shorts and a fresh tee. Shordie was not here do be painting no damn gates.

Then I looked down and started laughing hard as hell.

She had tied plastic bags over her sneakers.

“These Chucks are new, I’m not getting paint on them,” she said. They were these Bob Marley type print.

“Yeah… she’s gonna be my friend,” I said to myself.

Writing this 18 years later, I never could’ve imagined that moment would lead to us becoming best friends. But here we are.

Britt and I completed our City Year together. Through the highs, the lows, and all the bullshit in between. We made it to the other side tighter than a niggaz jeans in the skinny jeans era lol. Her family became my family and mine became hers.

And it all started in a park on a hot ass summer day.

And then there’s Que. Or Quinny. Depends on how I’m feeling that day.

I met Que through Britt.

Keepin it one hunnit, I only met him because I was jealous this yellow nigga had become close with my best friend. They had a class together and started hanging out all the time and I was annoyed as hell about the whole situation. Every time I talked to Britt, she brought up this niggaz name Lol.

The first time we all hung out, we went to this hookah spot in Old City. It was BYOB and Britt wasn’t 21 yet, so naturally we showed up with some cheap ass tequila and proceeded to drinkkkkkkkkk.

I ain’t wanna look weak in front of the “new friend,” so I challenged Que to what I guess you could call a drink off.

Shot for shot. Talking shit. Laughing. Vibing.

Next thing I know, I’m laid out in the bathroom fighting for my life.

Okay, maybe not dying, but definitely close to those heavenly gates.

Que found me laid out on the floor in my own vomit. Britt had tapped out too. This nigga helped both our drunk asses out the spot.

I honestly don’t even remember if we paid the bill. I just know them people wanted us OUT. And out we went.

I remember stumbling outside drunk and embarrassed. And of course, because I’d been drinking like a damn fish, I had to pee again.

Que suggested we hit a nearby club so I could use the bathroom.

Yall… I genuinely do not remember how it started, but somehow I ended up arguing with this big ass security guard outside the club. And I mean arguing arguing. The tequila, had whispered sweet nothings to me, telling me I could knock this big ass man right on his ass.

The one thing I do remember clearly though is,

Que stepping directly between us before my nerdy drunk ass got folded.

It was in that exact moment I realized this cool ass, in shape light skin nigga that reminded me of Larry the Lobster from Sponge Bob, wasn’t a threat to my friendship with Britt.

That was my brother.

And over the years he kept proving it.

Whether it was stepping in front of another big ass nigga I decided to talk shit to. Giving me a couch to crash on. Looking out for me with jobs. Or being a last minute babysitter for his Goddaughter Sage, who’s best friends with his daughter Amari, my Goddaughter.

Britt and Que are the siblings I always wanted.

Two loyal ass, funny ass, get on my nerves ass niggaz.

Crazy thing, both of them are from North Philly. Matter fact, damn near everybody I love deeply is from North Philly. That side breeds some of the best people Philly has to offer.

I’m just grateful.

Real grateful.

By the way, Britt tried to kill once, while she was training me at Planet Fitness, tryna get me that R&B singer body. And Que, shares a birthday with Michael Jackson, thee Michael Jackson.

O yeahhhhhh, I ain’t explaining the title either.

They understand it.

Ask them nigga. Lol.

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