BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family - Hardcover

Shalhoup, Mara

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312383932 ISBN 13: 9780312383930

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2010

Synopsis

In the early 1990s, Demetrius Big Meech Flenory and his brother, Terry Southwest T, rose up from the slums of Detroit to build one of the largest cocaine empires in American history: the Black Mafia Family. After a decade in the drug game, the Flenorys had it all a fleet of Maybachs, Bentleys and Ferraris, a 500-man workforce operating in six states, and an estimated quarter of a billion in drug sales. They socialized with music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, did business with New York's king of bling Jacob "The Jeweler" Arabo, and built allegiances with rap superstars Young Jeezy and Fabolous. Yet even as BMF was attracting celebrity attention, its crew members created a cult of violence that struck fear in a city and threatened to spill beyond the boundaries of the drug underworld. Ruthlessness fueled BMF s rise to incredible power; greed and that same ruthlessness led to their downfall.When the brothers began clashing in 2003, the

About this title

About the Author

Mara Shalhoup is a decorated journalist and a senior editor with Creative Loafing, the preeminent alternative newsweekly serving the South. She started her writing career as a crime reporter at the Macon Telegraph, and has gone on to earn such honors as a Clarion Award, two nominations for a Livingston Award, and recognition from the Atlanta Press Club as the city's Journalist of the Year. This is her first book. She lives with her husband in Atlanta.

Reviews

The Black Mafia Family, ostensibly a hip-hop record label, was actually an urban midlevel drug-distribution network. Originally based in Detroit, the operation expanded through the genius of the Flenory brothers. Demetrius “Big Meech” was the flamboyant personality behind the Atlanta operation, and Terry was the low-profile and conservative operator of the L.A. operation. With major direct cocaine sources out of Mexico, these brothers escalated their distribution to more than $250 million wholesale value before their downfall. They operated for a period apparently with immunity in Atlanta but were eventually caught through the persistence of a couple of local police and two nationwide federal drug-enforcement networks. Before their fall, the Flenory brothers managed to spread their taint of violence and drugs to reach several prominent people, including Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin and singer Bobby Brown. The rapper known as “Baby Blue” fell as part of the BMF crew, and rapper Young Jeezy escaped by the skin of his teeth. Shalhoup, an award-winning journalist, offers an insightful look at the street-drug industry, which casts a wide net of beneficiaries as well as victims. --Vernon Ford

Edition details

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312383932
• ISBN 13: 9780312383930
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320