Yo, what's good to the evil streets family, you already know we back with another one. Major love to all my viewers and subscribers and big shout out to every single member holding down the channel. If y'all feeling the content, make sure to hit that like and subscribe button. It helps push the channel forward which lets me keep dropping these videos for y'all. Every single beat you hear in these videos and shorts is cooked up by yours truly. So anybody interested in any of the production you hear on this channel, hit us up at evil streets media at gmail.com. That goes for anybody trying to promote their musical business too. Hit me and we can work something out. We started throwing these episodes up on Spotify podcasts too. So anybody can just tune in on any device while you driving or out there trapping. Link is in the description. I'm launching a Patreon too where I'll be dropping extended videos with more in-depth thorough deep dives so be on the lookout for that. Also anybody looking to support the channel in general, you can send a dollar or a million dollars to our cash app evil streets TV. Every cent donated gets invested right back into the channel. Make sure to drop a comment if you do so I can shout you out on the next video. Alright, I kept y'all long enough, let's get into this gangster shit. Enjoy the show.
You might know what it feel like to get tossed out the projects. Neighbors peeking through them blinds, kids whispering, your whole life sitting out on the curb like it's garbage day. Maybe somebody from your building watching over your bags, clothes stuffed in black trash bags, pots and pans clanking in a box. All of it just sitting at the edge of the property while folks acting like they not watching but they definitely watching. You might know the shame of stepping into elementary school with a wrinkled dirty uniform. Kids roasting you like it's open mic night but your moms did what she could. You might know what it's like to hustle out there with them 12, 12 skinnies trying to flip something light into something major. Maybe you blew your rehab bread on a quarter and now you back to square one. Breaking down that hard white with a dull ass razor trying to get it into dimes but your fingers keep cramping and the cut ain't clean. You might have seen roaches scatter when you hit the light switch or smelled spoiled meat when the electric got shut off and the freezer turned into a coffin for food. You might know that sour chemical funk of crack burning in the next room. Maybe you stumbled on the homemade pipe stashed behind the radiator or under the sink. You might have had whole conversations with somebody and then a day later find out they caught a bullet, just like that, they name added to the RIP list. You might have been in that bullpen at Supreme Court, wall to wall with other cats. Everybody sweaty, hungry, irritated, waiting to hear your name called. You might know the cold ass ride back to the county, shackled up, face pressed against the window, count time, commissary trades, the struggle meal hookups. That first call home, voice cracking while you telling your people you straight even if you not. Maybe you sat through that 30 day psych eval at CTF trying to keep your head up when your mind already halfway gone. You might know that sick drop in your stomach when the judge say your years out loud like he just announced the numbers on the board. You might have looked back and seen your people with tears in they eyes, powerless to change a damn thing. Yeah, maybe you know all that. But what you probably don't know, what most don't, is what it feel like to take a life when you barely even lived your own. To be a teenage murderer walking around with the weight of a soul on your shoulders and the cold truth that there's no undo button. That's a whole different pain.
Born in 1972, Shelton Watkins, better known as Shorty Pop, was raised in the southeast quadrant of Washington DC, where the streets made you grow up fast and only the sharp survived. From a young age, Pop stood out. He had style, could dress, dance, and had a deep love for music that couldn't be taught. That passion ended up steering him in a powerful direction early on, landing him a spot on the original front line of one of DC's most legendary go-go groups, the junkyard band. The junkyard band was born in 1980, right out of Berry Farms, and it was built by a bunch of kids who didn't have much but had enough heart to move a crowd. They didn't come up with guitars and drum kits. Instead, they grabbed what they had, old trash cans, milk crates, plastic buckets, and metal scraps. They turned that junk into rhythm, into movement, into something the city had never heard before. And Shorty Pop, he fit right in. Music was his language and go-go became his voice. The band's gritty homegrown sound lit up the city and they quickly became a movement, inspiring young kids all over DC, Maryland, and Virginia to start their own go-go bands. Even without money or real gear, the message was clear. If you got soul and imagination, you got all you need. By 1983, junkyard band made their way onto the big screen with a cameo in DC Cab, and not long after, they landed a major record deal with Def Jam Records in New York, a huge win for some kids who started off banging on buckets. But the story took a dark turn. In September 1987, the group was shaken by tragedy. Derek Ingram, the original drummer and just 16 years old, was found dead behind a rec center in the 3000 block of G Street Southeast. He'd been handcuffed and shot twice in the head, an execution style murder that sent shockwaves through the community. It was a brutal reminder that in DC, no matter how far you rise, the streets don't forget. Shorty Pop came from that era where dreams and danger walked side by side.
16 year old Derek Ingram was taken out execution style. Hands cuffed behind his back, two bullets to the head. Cold, ruthless. The same streets that raised Derek were the ones that claimed him, but around the way, he ain't just remembered for how he died. He's remembered for what he brought to the block when he was alive, that love for music. Derek was that young dude with a fire for the drums, beating life into whatever he could get his hands on. Paint buckets, tin cans, broken toys, anything that could make a sound. He rocked out with the junkyard band. The rawest go-go crew DC had to offer. These were inner city kids making straight up junk funk out of nothing. The band had heart, rhythm, and a sound that couldn't be duplicated. When they got signed to Def Jam, it felt like the city was finally getting its shine. They dropped an EP with bangers like The Word and Sardines that had the whole area rocking. Then in 88, they hit the big screen again with a film appearance in Tougher Than Leather alongside hip hop legends Run DMC. But behind the scenes, the streets were still pulling on them.
Pop, Shorty Pop. He was dealing with his own demons. Folks said his childhood was rough, full of pain and instability. He bounced around, sometimes crashing with friends, skipping school, getting caught up in dirt. And that was a problem for the band who had tight rules about education and behavior. The junkyard didn't just want talent, they wanted discipline. Pop had the first but struggled with the second. By the time he was really making a name for himself in the music game, Pop had already made one in the streets. Word was out. He was on the radar, known as a wild young boy with a rep and eventually became wanted in connection with a homicide. The story of junkyard band is about music, hustle, and the raw grind of growing up in DC. But it's also about how fast the streets can take from you, even when you on the come up.
In 1987, Shelton Shorty Pop Watkins was starting to stir things up for real. He was going to Kramer by then, same school where one of the older heads' grandmother worked. She used to look out for him, make sure he ate, check on him, see if he needed anything. But even with that care, Pop was already firing up that motor. He was getting active. Back then, the scene in front of Anacostia was live. That's where everything was popping. Bikes flying up and down 16th Street, the whole strip lit up with energy. And every Friday, like clockwork, Pop would be right in the middle of it. He'd have a little squad with him, young cats running around with that dangerous energy that comes from having nothing to lose and everything to prove.
By late 1987, that energy turned deadly. A kid got killed, and Pop's name came up in connection to it. The details were murky, the way they always were in situations like that. Who did what, who pulled the trigger, who stood back and let it happen, it all blurred together in the fog of the streets. But one thing was clear: Shorty Pop, the talented drummer from one of DC's most promising young bands, was now a murder suspect. He was a teenager. Still had baby fat on his face in some of his photos. But he was also walking around with the knowledge that somebody was dead and he was tied to it.
The junkyard band had rules. They had a mission. They wanted to keep these kids focused on the music, away from the street life that claimed so many. But the streets don't care about rules or missions. The streets don't negotiate. And Shorty Pop was caught between two worlds that couldn't coexist. The world where you're making music that moves people, performing on stages, getting record deals and film appearances. And the world where you're running with crews, caught up in beefs, where everything can change in an instant.
Pop went into the system. Whether he was guilty or involved or something else entirely, the legal machinery cranked up and he got swallowed by it. Young, Black, male, accused of murder in Washington DC—that equation had a predictable outcome. The system didn't care about potential or talent or the fact that he could make magic happen with a pair of drumsticks. The system saw a threat, and it processed him accordingly.
The junkyard band continued on without him. They put out more music, kept the movement alive, kept inspiring kids to pick up whatever they could find and make it into something beautiful. But there was a hole where Shorty Pop used to be. A reminder that even the most talented, even the ones with real potential to change their circumstances, could disappear into the criminal justice system in the blink of an eye.
Years passed. Decades passed. Pop became a ghost story, a cautionary tale, a name that old heads would reference when they talked about what could have been. The kid with the gift. The one who had a real shot. The one the streets took anyway. His story became entangled with DC's story—a city where the same blocks that produce world-class talent also produce world-class tragedy. Where kids can go from performing in front of thousands to locked up in a cell in what feels like overnight.
The legacy of Shorty Pop and the Junkyard Band is a complicated one. It's a legacy about resilience and creativity, about kids from the bottom creating something that would echo through DC culture for generations. But it's also a legacy about what happens when the streets are stronger than dreams, when the system is more powerful than potential, when a young person's choices—or circumstances—can erase everything they could have been. Shorty Pop's name lives on in the history of go-go music, in the stories old heads tell, in the music the Junkyard Band left behind. But his absence is just as loud as his presence ever was. He represents the road not taken, the album never recorded, the stages never graced. He's a reminder that talent ain't enough when the dice are loaded against you from birth. That's the real tragedy of Shorty Pop—not just that his potential went unfulfilled, but that his story is one of thousands in cities across this country. Young, gifted, and Black, caught between genius and circumstance, and ultimately claimed by the very streets that created him.