 So I'm here with KK Newell and I want to talk a little bit about this breaking news that's come out over the last couple weeks about Demetrius Big Meach Flannery, Black Mafia family for people that know the story of the Newell brothers, KK and his brother, Dog, who are now a composite character on the television show, BMF on Stars. Their claim to fame is that they were the guys that really put Demetrius Big Meach Flannery and his brother Terry Flannery on in the drug game and became their first major wholesale Kelo Connect. You wouldn't know who BMF was today if it wasn't for the Newell brothers. But they were like, in some ways they were like two passion ships in the night as the Newell brothers era, their reign was coming to an end in the late eighties, early nineties is when Demetrius and Black Mafia family were flourishing and becoming these icons of the hip hop world, of the crime world. So let's start off with before we get into this news that's been coming out about paperwork being shown that Demetrius possibly cooperated in the early 2010s and helped put away a Black Mafia family member on a series of murders. But what was your impression or was there any impression when you were locked up between 91 and 2001? Did you hear about what the Flannery's were doing? Did you have any idea that they had grown their business to where it was? No, absolutely. It was some guys who came in that knew them and they knew the situation that them and they would come in and they would introduce themselves. You know, I was like, okay, but far as me knowing anything about what they was doing when I was locked up, I wasn't paying attention to it. I think when I first got a hold of what they was doing, it was a GZ song that was on and not young GZ. It was a GZ song. I was riding with this guy, this particular guy from the project, and that's the first time I ever heard GZ and I was like, who is that? He's like, oh man, that's GZ. I was like, okay, he say, that's BMF, Black Mafia family. I was like, who is that? And he started telling me, that's Big Meach and T. I was like, Big Meach and T. And that's how I got hip to him. I didn't hear him about that. And I was about in, I'm going to say, 2003, four, five, or something. That was the end, you know, 2000, I came home in 2001, in the 2001. So it had to be about 2002, three or something like that. Yeah, so what's interesting about Black Mafia family, and it reminds me of something that you said in your book, if these bricks could talk, you said, my era, we weren't putting up billboards. We weren't trying to market ourselves, you know, the more in the shadows you could be the better. And what is most interesting to me about the legacy of Big Meach is that he subscribed to that philosophy of thought for the first dozen or so years of his reign. And then he was the biggest drug dealer in America. And really, the only people that knew about it were kind of his inner circle and people he grew up with. And I think that bothered him. So then he pivoted away from that philosophy and it's not a coincidence that when he started promoting himself as this big drug dealer, when he started putting up billboards all up and down I-75 on the on the ride from Detroit to Atlanta, some of them literally, you know, facing DEA offices when you start, you know, snubbing your nose at the government and trying to become a hip hop icon, which he did. But the result was, you know, that that era of your run was two, three years as opposed to the era of your run when nobody knew who you were was 12 years. Yeah. Yeah. So it was the first time or that was the first time you heard about him. But then did you do you remember hearing about the bus that came down in October of 2005, Operation Motor City Mafia Bus? I was the biggest domestic drug dealing case in American history. I was I was right here and didn't hear nothing about it. There wasn't a lot of news about it in Detroit Press, because in one thing it was kind of viewed as an Atlanta story. Right. Right. I was trying to keep my ears from the streets. Right. I got a job and everything. And I wouldn't that didn't concern me no more. You know what? Go ahead. So me, you know, him and his brother take please. They're away for 30 year sentences for nonviolent crimes. They both went away at around 35 ish. Terry's come out on a medical compassion sentence reduction. He ended up doing 15 years. He's been out since right when the pandemic broke in 2020. But Meach is insulated to get out until 2028. He was, you know, unless you're somebody that knows the drug game, you'd probably don't know who Terry Funner is. Unless you're watching the show now before the show. But if you listen to hip hop, you listen to rap music over the last 15 years, you know, Big Meach gets name-chacked or shouted out on a pretty regular basis by all the biggest rappers, Jay-Z, Drake, GZ, Little Wayne. And so Rick Ross with the famous, I think, on Big Meach, Larry Hoover. You're right. So he's become this. You know, I heard someone make a statement. I don't want to take credit for it, but I thought it was it was very stew where he said that, you know, BMF and Big Meach, they didn't influence hip hop culture. They were hip hop culture and kind of they kind of still are, which makes this news that came out over the last week or two. That much more of a bombshell. So I don't want to belabor this, but I'm just kind of interested in your take. It looks like one of. Big Meach's former associates, a rapper that was rapping on the BMF label, Blue Da Vinci, who had a falling out with Demetrius over the last handful of years has been vocal on social media, kind of teaming up with a jailed member of BMF, Cuffee Gatling, who was from the St. Louis crew. For people that need a quick primer, BMF ended up leaving Detroit and expanding around the country. They had satellite franchises in like 20 different states. And the St. Louis crew was a very important group in the structural Black Mafia family. And Cuffee's brother, Wani or Magic, was the leader of that crew. He died in prison of a asthma attack. But Cuffee didn't go down in the original Black Mafia family bust. He went down a couple of years later. All right. And now we're seeing some paperwork. And again, I don't know the context of the paperwork, but there is some paperwork that has made its way public that claims that Cuffee's. Arrest and Cuffee's conviction for these murders somehow in some way was set up by Demetrius Flannery from behind bars, trying to get some type of sense, sentence reduction and using his one of his close female friends, Tammy Collins, as the conduit. Right. Cuffee believed that Tammy was sent to him by Meach to get him to do illegal things to get to get to get him to get Demetrius a sentence reduction. Right. And it's been a rumor that that Cuffee has been floating out there for the last four or five years. But it looks like in the last week or two, it's at least partially been confirmed. Is this something that shocks you? Yes, it shocked me because no, because I think before this, the image of Demetrius Flannery was the ultimate. Oh, gee, the ultimate and someone that's going to stick to a code, someone that would never give anybody. I think he's still going to be the ultimate. I do. I really do. I think he's still going to be the ultimate. Oh, gee, you know, I don't think that nothing's going to be taken away from him, you know, far as the street. In terms of reputation, in terms of reputation, I don't think nothing's going to be taken away from him. I don't think it can be overstated. And I think sometimes because he's not as big a deal in Detroit as he is in other places, it kind of gets lost. But this guy's name rings coast to coast. Yeah, like a, you know, John Gotti or an Al Capone. I mean, the only African-American criminal I can think of that holds a candle to him is someone like a Nicky Barnes. Yeah, or, you know, Supreme Griff from New York. I'm going to tell you a story. I had a friend of mine who was a movie star. And she was in Atlanta one time and she went out and she couldn't get in the club. And she, she, we talked and she asked me, she said, do you know these guys? And I say, yeah, I know him. I'm the one who he was the one who she say you plan. She said, OK, it's unbelievable. I couldn't get in the club. Now, she's a movie star. I'm going to name her name right now. I don't name names, but I do know that at Demetrius's peak in the 2000s, he was romancing a number of Hollywood actresses. Absolutely. But this girl, she didn't know him. She didn't know him. And then on another occasion, just here about a year ago, a friend of mine is in Atlanta. I played basketball with who was living in Atlanta now. He asked me a while back that I know them guys. I told him the same story. And he told me, he said, man, you're not going to. He said, man, that man is like God down there. I said, what? He said, man, he said like this. He says, beyond Sanders. Big Meach and Dominique Wilkins. I said, what is a man? Listen. He's like a God down here, man. And I couldn't believe it. I said, man, you are joking. And so me and Meach has been communicating via however they do it now. They got these J-Page and I told him about the I told him about the situation that what I heard. And he was like, man, yeah, he laughs. You know, he got that little laugh. I mean, legacy is important to him. Yeah, very, very important. So that's why I I wonder what's going through his head right now. Again, there's always context that needs to be shed in this. A lot of times having a conversation with a member of law enforcement can be misinterpreted as a cooperation. So I still have to look through all the paperwork. But it's when when people see paperwork, you know, they. They kind of conclude that that's it. That's the Bible, you know, and sometimes that's not true. Sometimes not to say it's not true or whether it's true or not. I don't know. I don't know. But they can put some things out there that make you seem like you snitching or you are red as they call. I don't like to use that name, but you snitching. And it's not true, but it's kind of it's not looking bright. Yeah, well, I just it I'll close it out, you know, with my two cents here. I've been reporting on the underworld for, you know, almost 20 years now and spent I spent days and days and days going over FBI, DA documents, court files, interviewing guys on the street, interviewing former federal agents and prosecutors. And my biggest, if not my biggest takeaway, one of my biggest takeaways is that 99 percent of these people in that world are cooperating to one extent or another. And that the people that aren't cooperators are the rare, rare, rare exception. And that doesn't mean that everyone that's cooperating, that that knowledge is ever going to make it out past an FBI document. They they're what they call dry snitches, someone that gives information secretly, but would never take this, take the witness stand against. Right. Well, you got to they they they conviction rate. Right. Is 98 percent. Ninety nine percent. They talk about, you know, the federal government wants to convict you of a racketeering count, you know, they could put a cheeseburger at the defense table and they could convict them. I mean, that's how that's how easy it is. But it's it's it's it's very easy, very easy. And I think Meach, actually, it was a gamble, but I think Meach might have been able to beat his case if he went to trial back and I covered what was going to be the trials in the court when the plea deal was made. I read all those, you know, he wasn't caught on any wires. He had no wire and no wire, not caught on any wiretaps was not caught with any drugs. Right. His brother, Terry, was the one who was caught on all the wiretaps. But, you know, if Meach would have gone to trial and got convicted, he was that he was looking at life. So we decided that, you know, I'll take the 30 year plea come out when I'm 60 some and still have some life to live. His brother came out after half the time and I I know that has caused some issues between them. Yes, I know Meach feels like, you know, he's getting a raw deal from the government. But, you know, I think there's there's always context. And when I when I spoke to Demetrius, I said, listen, it's the gift in the curse of being who you are. Absolutely. It comes with the territory. Yeah. So it comes with it. It comes. I said, people don't know who your brother is drug dealers know who your brother is. Right. Right. But the world, they Rick Ross doesn't have your brother's name in the chorus of a top 10 song. All right. So, KK, again, thank you so much for shedding this insight. You want to talk about OG's, this guy is the real OG. So I want to have you back on a longer interview for the OG podcast. But thanks for dropping in here and giving me 10, 15 minutes. It's my pleasure. I appreciate it, KK. And real quick, let everyone know where they can find you. You have a book that's coming out soon. Yes, I have a book coming out. I'm caught if these bricks to talk. You can follow me on Instagram, Alexander K. Newell, KK Newell. I'm on Facebook. That's basically it. You know, you can follow me there. It should be coming out really, really soon, really soon. It's a three part series. Three part, three part installment book. Very short read. The first part is a very short read. Just giving you some information about how we came up and how we was always, always around you. I read it this afternoon. So I give it a thumbs up. Check it out. I'm excited for the next two editions. And like I said, hopefully KK is going to come back and become a regular part of the OG podcast because this is why we do it for the OGs. That's right. That's right. Till next time, Scott Bernstein, OG pod out.