VIDEO: Pee Wee Kirkland Final.mov

REWRITTEN: 2026-05-12 23:46:41

SCRIPT 624 OF 686

============================================================

Yo what's good to the evil streets fam, y'all know we back at it with another one. Mad love to everybody watching and subscribing, extra shout to all the channel members holding it down. If you messing with the content make sure you hit that like and subscribe button. That's what keeps the channel breathing and lets me keep dropping these videos for y'all. Every single beat you catching in these videos and shorts, that's all me on the production tip. So anybody trying to get at any of the beats you hearing on this channel, shoot that email to evil streets media at gmail.com. That goes for anybody looking to push their music or their business too. Get at me and we can work something out. We started throwing these episodes up on Spotify's podcasts too. So anybody can just kick back and listen on whatever device while you driving or getting to the bag. Link sitting in the description. I'm launching a Patreon joint as well where I'ma be dropping extended cuts with way more thorough breakdowns so keep your eyes open for that. Also anybody just trying to support the channel period you can throw a dollar or a million dollars to our cash app evil streets tv. Every penny that comes in gets put right back into the channel. Make sure you comment if you do so I can give you that shout out on the next video. Aight I kept y'all waiting long enough let's get into this gangster shit. Enjoy the show. They called him the Bank of Harlem, P.W. Kirkland was pushing Rolls Royces while he was still a teenager. So what made one of the coldest point guards in the nation turn down a contract from the Chicago Bulls? This the story of Richard P.W. Kirkland. Smash that subscribe button let's get locked in. P.W. Kirkland might not ring bells everywhere but in the world of street ball he's straight up legendary status. He's recognized as one of the most lethal basketball players to ever touch the grimy blacktop courts of New York City. But P.W. wasn't just a legend when he had that rock in his hands he was a legend out in them streets too. Harlem in the 1960s and 70s was its own universe especially in the hood where choices were slim to none. Like Biggie famously put it either you slinging crack rock or you got a wicked jump shot. P.W. Kirkland dominated both lanes. He was a magician with a basketball and controlled the drug trade like a kingpin. Back in P.W.'s era white rock was the poison of choice and it swept through the streets like the black plague destroying families one hit at a time. For young cats coming up during that time hustling wasn't just about getting paper. It was a lifestyle a ticket out of the crushing poverty that had them trapped. Over time the hustle turns into an obsession an addiction to the flashy whips and designer clothes that represent success and freedom from the struggles of ghetto living. But here's the question why hasn't Hollywood snatched up P.W.'s story like they did with other notorious drug lords? Well truth be told Hollywood did try multiple times actually but P.W. shut them down every single time. Why? The actors glorifying gangsters while skipping over the deeper more layered realities of their lives and the political concepts that some of them had to try and uplift their communities. P.W. Kirkland was one of those cats who wanted to create change. According to P.W. there's multiple reasons why he's not interested in no tell all story. First off it would never be the whole truth. Plus he doesn't want to put other people's names out there especially since a lot of them moved forward and created respectable lives for themselves as judges, lawyers and other professionals. Dragging up their past would do more damage than good. Another reason P.W. rejected Hollywood is something that went down back in the 90s when he was still locked up. They came at him with a questionnaire to help write a script about his life but the very first question hit him wrong. It suggested that because his mother couldn't take care of him he had no option but to turn to crime. This question was a deal breaker for P.W. He didn't even look at the second question. There was no way he was going to put blame on his mother for his decisions. Everything he did was his choice and he wasn't about to let nobody paint a different story. Richard P.W. Kirkland was born May 6th, 1945 in Harlem, New York. P.W. came up on the east side of Harlem on 116th Street with his sister and two brothers. The Kirkland family was struggling financially. One of his earliest memories was waking up in the morning and shaking the cereal box around so the roaches would fall to the bottom. But P.W. didn't like the feeling of being broke so from a young age he jumped off the porch and started living a fast life. First he started moving newspapers but eventually he would link up with some older cats and they started boosting cars and plotting schemes to knock off jewelry stores. It's said that P.W. and his crew would jack jewelry and bring it to the Italian mob and the Italian mob would bless P.W. and his homies with work. P.W. was 14 years old sitting on six figures in his pocket and he was known more as a middleman when it came to the drug game. See P.W. was never caught up with any hand-to-hand transactions and he also never touched any drugs around the time when everybody was getting lifted. It's reported that P.W. would give loans to struggling small businesses when he was only a teenager. Around this time P.W. also started casually playing basketball. At the age of 14 P.W. dropped 70 points in a community center game and he would earn his rep as a scoring machine around Harlem. At 6 foot 1 P.W. had lightning quick agility. They compared him to his rival at the time, Tiny Archibald. So P.W. was naturally blessed at the game of basketball and his IQ let him see the plays before they went down. He would go on to play at Manhattan's Charles Evans Hughes High School where he would become an all-city point guard. P.W. started his high school run off slow, only averaging 16 points a game. But one day an old head would pull him to the side and challenge P.W. to fest it up, challenge P.W. to take it to the next level. So that's what P.W. did. He started festing it up, started putting up 50 points a game, 60 points a game. But P.W. still was halfway in and halfway out. He wasn't completely focused on organized basketball. P.W. still loved street basketball and he still loved getting money. On this time, P.W. had been recruited by the basketball legend Bob McCullough and Bob was now the commissioner of the Rucker Park League in Harlem, New York. So Bob had P.W. running on a squad with Willis Reed who would eventually become an MVP and a two-time NBA champion. With the love and success, couldn't nobody tell P.W. nothing. Around Harlem, he was definitely the man but P.W.'s high school coach didn't really mess with P.W. He made no effort to help P.W. secure a scholarship at a big-time college program. So after high school, P.W. would attend a community college in North Carolina where he averaged 41 points per game. From there, he transferred to Norfolk State in Virginia where he played alongside the legendary Bob Dandridge who was from Richmond, Virginia and would eventually become a two-time NBA champion with the Milwaukee Bucks. So in 1968, they both started festing it up. P.W. and Dandridge led Norfolk State to an impressive 25 and two record. The next year, they went 21 and four and they realized it was time to go to the league. It was time to declare for the draft. So that's what they did. Dandridge was drafted in the fourth round and P.W. went in the 13th round to the Chicago Bulls. But P.W. was still connected to the streets and he was stacking way more paper in the streets than he ever could make in the NBA. So he decided to decline his contract and he went back to Harlem and started stacking it up even more. You know what I want to ask you? How much did the Chicago Bulls offer for you to turn them down? It was 40,000 dollars because they didn't pay that. It was more than they gave. This was in the 1970s. Yeah, no, before 1970s. 1970s? Yeah. It was more than they gave most people. But the reality was, I mean, it wasn't compared to the money that I was doing at the time. It was like, what was the comparison to the money you was doing? That was not money. That was gambling money compared to what I was making on them Harlem streets. I was out here making thousands a week sometimes tens of thousands a week depending on how the operation was running. The NBA contract couldn't touch that. That was chump change in comparison. P.W. had turned down his shot at the pros and by the early 1970s he was running one of the most lucrative drug operations in all of New York City. His network stretched across multiple boroughs and he was moving serious weight. P.W. was smart about his business though. He kept a low profile, didn't flash his money too much publicly and surrounded himself with people he could trust. He invested in legitimate businesses to launder his cash, properties, clubs, restaurants. That's what separated P.W. from a lot of other hustlers out there. He thought like a businessman not just a corner boy. But eventually the streets always catch up with you. Federal agents had been watching P.W. for years. In 1973 they finally moved on him. When they raided his places they found stacks of cash, jewelry, and enough cocaine to put him away for decades. P.W. was indicted on multiple counts of drug trafficking and conspiracy. This was his first real taste of the federal system and it would mark a turning point in his life. Throughout the 1970s and 80s P.W. found himself going in and out of the prison system. During his time locked up he had plenty of time to reflect on the life he'd been living. He started reading, educating himself, working toward his GED. P.W. became known as someone who studied the system, understood it, and wasn't bitter about his situation. He used his time constructively. When he finally got out, P.W. was a changed man but not completely. He still had his hand in certain things but he was more cautious more calculated. He had seen what the game really was. He watched friends get killed, families destroyed, and young cats follow the same path that had only led them to prison or the grave. P.W. became something of a mentor to younger hustlers. He would pull them aside and break down the reality of street life. He wasn't glorifying it anymore. He was speaking truth about the emptiness of it all. By the time he did interviews like the one you just heard, P.W. had already spent decades in and out of prison. He was in his 70s reflecting on decisions made in his youth. He was philosophical about it, matter of fact. He didn't make excuses for himself but he also understood the context of his choices. He was a product of Harlem in the 1960s and 70s where the options were limited and the temptations were everywhere. The legacy of P.W. Kirkland is complex and layered. He's a cautionary tale about talent wasted on the streets, about choosing fast money over opportunity, about the seductive pull of the hustle. But he's also a testament to human resilience and the ability to grow and change even after decades of mistakes. P.W. never let the system break his spirit. He never let prison turn him into a bitter or hardened statistic. Instead he used his experiences to try and educate others, to warn them about the trap that had caught him. In the world of street ball, P.W. Kirkland will always be remembered as one of the greatest to ever do it. In the world of the streets, he'll be remembered as a hustler who made his mark but ultimately learned that the money and the fame weren't worth the cost. That's the real story of the Bank of Harlem. Not just a gangster but a man who lived, learned, and tried to give back before it was too late. That's what separates P.W. Kirkland from just another hood legend. He came back around and tried to change the narrative. He tried to save others from making the same mistakes he made. In that sense, his legacy transcends the streets and the court. It's about redemption, growth, and the understanding that no matter how far you've fallen, it's never too late to stand back up and try to make a difference.