80s drug kingpin and Don Diva publisher Kevin Chiles pens a book of vivid reenactments of his life as a up and coming Bronx street hustler to the millennial visionary he is today.
From his days as a humble basketball playing hustler at Bronx Community College where he began to formulate his illegal business, Chiles’ story always refers back to his allure to Harlem street life. The Crack Era, which many from that time period says began in 1984, offered a seemingly beneficial opportunity to escape the pitfalls of unemployment, miseducation and poverty. Chiles provides a front line commentary of the people, places and things that served as the main ingredients of “The Life”. Honorably mentioning his hustling Uptown contemporaries including Alberto “Alpo” Martinez, Rich Porter, Azie Faison and Gusto as well as the places to be like the Rooftop Roller Disco and the infamous Polo Grounds, the founder and CEO of street publication Don Diva Magazine gives a vivid description of the mentality that led teenagers such as the aforementioned down an inevitable road of death and incarceration.
Not one who focuses on just the upside of the drug trade, the 53 year old Bronx native details many drug busts, including those on the legendary NJ Turnpike known as “Cocaine Alley” as well as the lives and years lost due to the illegal pilgrimage between New York and Washington, D.C.
From court cases to robberies by former friends to father/son fistfights, The Crack Era offers a unprecedented peek into the carnage of a drug war on American soil and the results of the aftershocks that many of the war’s vets still carry to this day.
