I remember: In 1988, a friend of mine was the night manager at a Foot Locker warehouse. I’m not sure how he got away with it but he would walk out with at least 30 boxes of sneakers every night and we would sell them on the streets for half price. One day my cousin was selling the sneakers on 125th street. After the day was over, he decided to take a cab back to where the sneakers were stored. After arriving at the location, my cousin was short 50 cents and the cab driver, who happened to African, was livid.

The driver jumped out of the car and started yelling, “pay me now, pay me now!” A friend and I ran over to the cab to find out what was going on and to be sure my cousin was safe. At this point, a second African cab driver pulled up and demanded the 50 cents. He pulled out his wallet and showed us a picture of himself wearing a gi and warned us that he was a black belt. Another friend who happened to be in the neighborhood, who also didn’t see the picture of the second cab driver in his karate suit, came out of nowhere and sucker punched him in the face and the cab driver proceeded to whoop his ass with the most amazing display of African karate I’ve ever witnessed!

Just as we all started to jump the two cab drivers, more cabs pulled over, more drivers jumped out! We were surrounded by gang of African cab drivers! Luckily for us the cops pulled up and broke up the melee.

-dj