from streets that brought many asunder today hawk watchers we present to you there are three stories in their own works so that hopefully through discovering how these three sons of baltimore found their beauty their artistry and their success we too can find our own beauty in the struggle as we start watching the hawks. good. to see the bottom sit. like you but i got. within three. weeks of.

the right. time to get serious and i'd look at my calendar to see where i got to be the next day was going to relax on the ground and i like my manager. to take stuff off the issues it's like it's like just don't have to touch it you'll be fine and it's not i just don't touch it. the first time. my. name is aaron maybe a are old and they why beyond. blue. that's. a beat. em out like well like i like. i'm ok when i was in high school and really when i was in college up at penn state like you could get opened up to this world that all these people lived in for their entire lives and you're just why. so i mean that even if. you had been on the

embers you know that your norm but that's their goals as much as you can understand . what life is like for them they can't even begin to fathom what it's like growing up. i was a street guy and. i stressed a street i. was at a drug game and. i wanted out and i didn't really know what i wanted to do but i just kind of felt like you can you can make money doing anything if you good at it so while. i went to college and when i first bought a liquor store i bought a liquor store and i said so myself i said you know. you know you have your freedom . you've been through all of these crazy things and you're fortunate enough to be

here so you'll be a horrible person if you ever sold a drug again. but this liquor store right. you know because when you from a hurt you don't really have like. it's not really a lot of a lot of. different types of success that exist out there you know. what you're seeing in your really see the art world like that you see in the business so i put this latest book our stadium hideaway all of our street from a young age art was always a mechanism myself you know i dealt with a lot of things in my life that really forced me to struggle with how to react to trauma it's a pain to a loss losing my mother to young age definitely affected me in a very traumatic way i was six years old when she passed away and you know that was one of the first times that i really was in

a position where i was reaching out just looking for something anything that would help me to fill that hole that was in my heart you know and art was always that that that catalyst for me it was always that vehicle by which i could escape whatever i was dealing with whether it was through you know drawing painting. once i was really able to start the grass literature and to formulate my own thoughts i started writing. and. in doing those things not even not only did i get. a measure of healing from a lot of those instances but i was able to tap into something that was much greater inside of me that you know that i was able to take. refuge in you know and that was the creative process itself i started to realize how much i loved it how much. i had a passion for being able to express myself in different forms and to force people to kind of look at their lives and their relationships in

a different way based on my own experiences i think that's a powerful element about art that. that allows you to really go deeper like within yourself so that process for me never stopped and and that's always been something that continuously is the hardest i go back to saying how am i making. these emotions and these thoughts that i had real visceral and. almost tangible for somebody else. i never really liked writing. growing up i just did it because it was a requirement for school but i got accepted to virginia state university in two thousand and eleven and. i was major in a sport management. and i was taking. english my freshman year first semester and i had this professor named dr ana westbrook and he introduced me to.

real black history you know in the literature were and i was reading a lot of maya angelou and likes to hear and then. you know realize that a lot of ass stuff was some of that sort of things that i was listening to. hip hop erat so our re i started reading a lot of larry from j. cole jay z. makani eight you know and i would say you know this is the same as the things that are marine in class. you know been better motor rap because that's where i grew up or enough fell in love with it in a deeper sense so i read their stuff and i would say to myself you know what like i can do this you know so i started writing i will share my poetry or my ras what i want column our cousin avon he was going to be doing at the time and a couple more friends from back home and they. you know they found love with it but i didn't really believe them because i know that i'm their friend and i needed if i

was bad i don't think it would be like you know conny just some straight trash right so i would type up stuff on a computer and i will make up a name you know a say it's from like some guy named james with a spoon or something like that and i was to make us and a like that anyway and all of your friends think something is bad or even tell you you know express it is there was a model yes so i started to believe them a little bit more you know so fast forward to two thousand and thirteen miles apart is mental organizational college and i was having a survey. and they had a dance organization that was supposed to perform for in a mission but they ended up backing out so we was on our board me and assign moves on. do find a mission are raise my hand and i say you know what i did in the mission and he was like do what and i said i'm a performer and he was like cuomo and i like some poetry ok because i will got nothing to lose you know right so i make a mistake show

a fastball at the february two thousand and thirteen. i got on stage for the first time ever to speak in front of a crowd perform in front of a cow and i perform this poem and i had got a standing ovation in front of like two hundred people and i said to myself you know you're not the smartest man in the world but of deceit first time and you know you can spy all of these people and get them to stand up for me and clap you know day in you can only get better so tonight is day i went to ghana and i want to change my major from sports management to english habits as two thousand and thirteen had just been performing a write in and then i will call for foot off attorneys in the sororities on can different groups organizations then that spread to like the richmond impeded and we . did i was right again i mean i've been an artist my whole life you know i was creating before i was actually able to form words and speak. you know at the

age of eleven and you know i did my first commission job for the. state of maryland city of baltimore it was like a forty fifty foot mural or north avenue in st paul street you know i was mentor by guys like larry poncho brown charles big you know. i've come into contact with you know the family of ernie barnes and you know they've they've they've been a great resource for me and you know navigating my way as a professional artist so that's always been a part of who i am and and and in a big element to you know my life but. after playing after majoring in art in school and leaving for the n.f.l. and playing there for five years of benchley i made the decision to retire and to pursue my art and commune. engagement full time the only tough are asking about it for me personally was. the fight of being not just accepted but respected as

a professional artist and. and really being able to let people know not just how seriously i take my craft but how this is not just something that i've decided to do one day this is been a lifetime pursuit for me. you know so my parents you know it was tough for them obviously when i say you know what my intentions were because they obviously didn't see that at the best decision to make at the time you know why not keep playing why not but they understood me as a person and they understood what was important to me and when you talk about you know the community engagement the art and everything that i'm doing right now i was still doing that as an athlete but it was a problem that you know my my priorities were in the right place or i should be you know using my time more efficiently as athlete but this is always been something that was just as important to me if not more so important to me than the game

because growing up idolized guys who who who are bigger than their respective sports you know guys like muhammad ali you know guys like jim brown guys like kareem abdul-jabbar jack johnson you know even younger guys that were influencing the younger generations like allen iverson you know these people to me. they were bigger than their professions because of the stances they took because of them being being unafraid and being unapologetically themselves then staying true to where they came from and staying true to what was important to them i always wanted to be that type of figure that type of athlete and when i reach that point of actually being there being a first round draft pick and making millions of dollars and you know saying all right i'm an n.f.l. player. when i was exposed to the. bureaucracy of. the fact that it's a corporation now so whatever the corporate interests of your teen your own or the organization that pays your bills and signs your checks that's what's supposed to

be important see that's what you're allowed to care about and invest your time i just always was anti that system. as we go to break don't forget to let us know what you're going to topics to cover the facebook and twitter as your poll shows or to call coming up we continue our look at the lives and experiences of baltimore's all three subs there may have been a bloody bell in the walk and as we discover the beauty struck and continue to watch. him begin. to set up have been miles from the independent.

for that they didn't. own up at a sauna we were meeting they. were sort of my lemon who speculate him to me or the here now with me as a hunk on the move. i now at the five the. hell are you i'm only but that never. seemed like him to make the rhodium it worthy of the marrow have gone floating closer gave up because of me it's because he is so see you so now when i leave.

they call me a useful idiot i mean you called me a useful idiot a useful idiot useful idiots go expressing my opinions on t.v. there are still sins of us doing it behind his record is the same strategy we attack persons instead of talking about what's next why stop me from getting this close to the white house i'm with a group code pink why not ban the color pink one hour stretch beyond the right i should be sent to the town because i want to try to break me on the wheel but out with a long time of this sort of nonsense you don't scare me and i'll continue to voice my opinion i'll continue to speak out in good company i'm in good company you're going to be you want to do this because we are free thinkers. the village of collect she has been nicknamed sleepy hollow because for some unknown reason its local residents have found victim to sleep pathetic.

troll smaller. over the course daniel to chile which she would use if you chance you how you ran your issue and you called it in with the goodness and that's at the time was an issue in the sort of but i'm also going on with the question are stored on peaceful people or it's a super sinful to go with them had to put in the position motifs will. smith has actually grown egress from where did you do what we have are to agree. that though it's the wolf. this with all. the working for me that. my cylinder did you have of those there of the gods. right here well if you were in your first point i think i'll.

often when one tries to do the right thing the system of oppression addiction and greed follows them anyway and it. is this struggle that the voices of baltimore call out more importantly when one is faced with the opportunity to take the easy way out and simply remove themselves from

a community that has caused so much trauma they refused the fight for places like baltimore isn't going to happen in the halls of justice but in the hearts minds and deeds of those who call it home and that's half of the getting in the struggle to walk and starts by talking about how he went from dealing drugs to owning a legitimate business but what he found is that the problem isn't what we push or take it's how and why we need it in the first place the problem is the pay there is more from author and educator dean watkins on discovering the depths of the cycle that keeps so many in his community and others from raising their veins in faces to the some. of the stores right dentistry from your corner there was another one right so i agreed to come to but i felt like i could do this you know so two three months go by and i'm not making any money and this is like. if i'm going to pay if i will

if i'm paying like fifty give you an example if i'm paying fifteen dollars for about oh i'm trying to sell it for like sixteen there was a curious shot but the street who was passive seen that was for about a because we had the same distributors so they would spend fifteen on a slip out of what they were selling the for like fifteen ten and i'd like you know how you would how are you doing this like i did know and i was frustrated my bar was small right there larry it was small. there was three big plug poker machines in there so you know me take them out and i'm just going to you know connect with it promote it and we're going to have more parties and be more drink specials and things like that so i called the number on a machine got it on one of machine and i said look. you know my name's dee you know his ability to know his business to old people or gun you should come pick you machines up i want to throw him away so i said this guy is tight and it's like for people start real tight suits is real so fashion forward guy he slides in with a tight suit on and he's saying you know like like you know like what you did with

the place you made some changes you cleaned it up it looks good i hear and i'm like oh my god i just wait for your approval we get these machines out he moved these machines in a little suit. saudis machines and stores my whole life and i knew people played them but i never play close enough attention to understand if they actually paid out so. he said you know give you give you ten thousand dollars if you keep it you know. we split the money fifty fifty you did great business together you don't like it you know at this a couple of months take him out i said cool so he left and came back with a check and i was like. no then he left again it came out with cash and i speak this language very well so. now the machines are going to make him i mean this is great like it was it was actually like a great fame so one night there was a woman who played the machine has a lot and we were in

a bar alone and i was moving some boxes around and i was you know taking inventory and saying what was going on and. i walked out when i saw her sitting next to a machine and she was like slumped over she looked really really sad on my pet what's wrong with you is she still had it we're going to form one of everything i said what's wrong with you she said the machine beat the hell out of me so i just got a match it was a hundred dollars i put the whole thing in there i don't have anything to weeks so i was like you know this is horrible and i felt you know like. bad so i want to back up what i had three four hundred dollars i had like a little stash in the back and i came out of that you know what. hey you take that and you don't even got to pay a bet unless you feel like it you know but it's what i want today and she was like you sure you know you can be like i can hear you you know starving and so i go back into the. room you know finished what i was doing or came back out she put the

money in the machine i said this is going to do this no more next day i put it on the market so when i first started it wasn't about aspiring it was just about being nice and like good you know when i listen to music i like music. that you know make me want to rewind the bill and my god what did you just say like let me run it back that's what i wanted to be but then i realized how important my messages could be right and i would share these poems and people kind of you know what i mean me you know what that made me think about my father when the poem was about my little brother you know or this poem a spy in me you know and i never. heard these type of things about me ever and life by server was all i had been had that much of an impact so. i started to take heed and utilize their in a vice strategic way because i sort of recommend it was stand of a feet and i came in. did i say you know that's what i need to keep door you know

so challenging myself to start learning more history because i hated history you know because i just never understood are the who cares about what happened back then right we need to focus on it now but in our realize how important history was so then you know research on more learning more and becoming more in turn with black history you know and i'm like it's a lot of people that's not going you know so i have to be that plug right that middle man and tiger has got some you want to me is like yo want to you might be the only babu that people really. take the things that are in our put it to do our party because i don't people listen to me and if i had his influence i don't want to be telling them to do you know ah. it over on thing because just how you know it wasn't a good way i could be a force in a bad way so you know it's already a lot of negative stuff on the outside of going to the beach you know other person just you know making people go a long way when i have the potential to make them go to the right way i didn't believe that. the best way for me to serve my community was just to you know do

that said go n.f.l. thing you know go find you know some sick kids in the hospital and you know give them a bunch of jerseys and you know try to convince them that they're going to be ok and all that kind of stuff you know but really just making a commercial for the n.f.l. you know or you know been saying you know you want to change your community go find a vacant lot you know and then find a whole bunch of poor kids from the projects and bring them down and have them drinking gator aid and running around in doing a whole bunch of tricks and given a whole bunch of jerseys and you know film it make a commercial for the n.f.l. i wasn't with them like i saw my involvement in the community being much more intimate. my life pursuit being something that in my mind really impact the lives of the people that. i was most concerned with with help and influence and so that's what i'm doing. and i really think books before me you know.

from this well a neighborhood he's bought a more and. saw any and everything that you don't want to child to see and then the cross streets of school. and it's like huckleberry finn and it's like tom sawyer and it's like you know they get to be followed by like a slave to like i want to paint gates or something and i'm in this world where like my friends going to run with thousands of dollars worth of jewelry ride dirt bikes we you know we live in we live in movies every day everything was fun and exciting and just driving a car before beautiful and that work was so at that particular time of my life it was really flat to me and. i don't think reading was a think so when i got to college and you know and i came across books like the sister soldier the coldest one ever change my life i didn't know you could write like that and that kind of like. a little spark and you know it just it lit a spark it was a spark to turn to like a blazing fire because from there i started reading to be poets and i started

reading you know to feed the dusky esky and you know i've read any and everything you know tony morrison of even you know even if you sign a receipt at a denny's i've read it so you know i turn it into light and it was turned into a journey for me and that journey i discovered that a lot of people had the luxury of telling black stories and this is black and white people. probably asians too but they have the luxury of telling black stories but they don't know any black people it's like how you write about what's going on in the streets he's bottom line you never walk the room how you write about poverty and never was hungry like how are you telling the story and i'm not saying that you know the research you know you can't research these things and get sources develop understand it but i'm saying you make him bold claims that you not even get another kind of walk around you just you reporting from a drone you know and i don't really think that's fair and i saw a big lane for me and i didn't take it lightly like i want to got an m.f.a.

and you know and i didn't go to you know to go to school for journalism but i study you know a journalist. and try to develop my own style and my own voice and i just knew like going to be ok in this industry because there's no one there who is willing to go to places i want to go so a lot of people talk about it all fake it but i'm actually going to go there so that's kind of how i got my start. late reader curious became a spy like all of the missing elements of stories that were out there and i figured i could fill in some of those gaps if you're a black person who's like a young journalist now times out of ten you come from some type of family where i was absent you come from some type of privilege where it was something that seemed like it was doable i've never ever ever met a journalist until i became one like you know it's people from my neighborhood people from my neighborhood who. you know i'm the only journalist that they know that they have read or met. while i was their interest you know the introduction

and to you know reading some articles and things like that because you know i put it down for them and i want to see what was you know what was out of the what was just a soldier different me so you know. if nobody from these neighborhoods are telling the story being told no a story will be told to be told by a person who doesn't have proximity to those issues and i think that's dangerous that gives they give society the space to kill us this is why a person like their own will think you have a twenty second interaction with mike brown in kilo. and that is our show for you today remember everyone in this world we are not told we are loved up so i told you all i love you i roll them in time top of the wall and keep on watching the hawks and have a great day and night everybody. see

the good capitalist american and mandamus good insurance for gun owners don't be such a shy communist loving bootlicking should not be insurance company c.e.o. just taken money willy nilly for making people here want to addicts do something constructive impose got insurance and stop the bloodshed. in america a college degree requires a great deal. a decades long dead. studying so hard it requires trust. go through mediation to enter an elite

society. and. sometimes quite literally. want other true colors of universities in the u.s. . we've been cheated again and again and over yet again by what we can fully understand is that north korea has never failed the kind of pledge they said they would and their nuclear and missile development has come to a point where we got to pay the greatest amount though he because of the danger they pose.

lebanon's prime minister suspends his resignation following a request by the country's president the pm sparked a regional political crisis two weeks ago when he said he was stepping down. international olympic committee makes another ruling in the russian doping scandal banning for russian skeleton athletes for life. and. for broadcasting live direct from our studios in moscow this is r.t.

international i'm sean thomas certainly.