The Jamaican Posses Take Over America: Kings of the Crack Era

The Underworld Podcast · Jan 31, 2023 · 51m

The Wall Street of Patrick Bateman was just ramping up, and rap had taken over the Bronx and Brooklyn as Jamaican-American deejays like Kool Herc were inventing and spreading the new genre. But there was another group of Jamaicans that had come to America with a different plan. As the Cold War played out in 1970’s Jamaica, the two main political parties competing for the country each had a street gang they used to get the vote out in certain neighborhoods and keep the vote from getting out in others. The street gangs grew powerful and skilled in violence, but soon turned their attention from…