Yo what's good evil streets fam y'all know we back at it again with another banger shout out to all my members and subscribers for locking in on the daily that's real talk y'all the whole reason this channel growing and thriving like it do anybody trying to push their music brand or business hit my line evil streets media at gmail.com we can work something out. Real recognize real I appreciate all the cash app love too and if you trying to support the movement you can pull up at evil streets tv on cash app every dollar go right back into building this channel Aight yo let's jump into this grimy street saga so check it when I first started researching this one I thought I had the whole south side picture mapped out Queens the dope game the street legends all that fly shit But then I cracked into this dusty 400 page monster of a book NYPD the city and its police dropped back in 2001 written by James Lardner and Thomas Repetto and hidden deep inside past all the precinct conversations and policy breakdowns was straight up dynamite in the 1970s the GenoVisi crime family supposedly personally selected John pops Freeman to control their narcotics operation in southeast Queens Got on like to rock in my house Anywhere in the real you know saying I know like I was young like 12 years old. Oh, so I just want to store me Give it clear for store for him. You know more like crazy stuff You know like the bottom down in the other shelves All type of stuff this earned a few dollars. So one year I was I was done like a coming double store. Well, even the fact you have a 3 piece of law would have gotten Lining head on Learned Oscar And I was telling them the money, the money, the money on them. He had me, he was doing all sorts of store, going to school and doing stuff. Little stuff. The premium, the kind of pre-harmonist to him. Oh. He was pulling. He was making like, I would, I would turn it up. Oh, he was just, he was just sitting there. Yeah, I was, I was in here, you know what I mean? Yeah. He was on the pop, yeah. He was sitting. But all the old games for the other guys that come into the medium to sit out in, You know what I mean? Because he was somebody in Queens. Yeah, it was somebody who was somebody in the world. Damn. It was through the news. Damn. You know what I mean? It was through the news of the gas vehicles. Wow. Yeah, I got knocked. He never told me. He never snitched. So they gave him Queens. They gave him Queens. He was thinking Barnes and their home. They gave Pop Queens. Wow. So he was, he so pretty much he would be the equivalent to Nikki Barnes wasn't Harlem just like you just said. That's right. Damn. He like a lot of dudes. A lot of dudes don't know that. You saw me. Yeah. I never, I never even heard of him. I never heard of him. What's his name? I know you said pop. Cool. John. First name is John. Uh-huh. Little name pop. Uh-huh. Last name is Freeman. Freeman. Freeman. And he, and you say he lit. He had the, the business he had was a few blocks from your house. Yeah, throughout my house, my mom's career. He, he didn't want to provide his phone for. Oh. I'll tell you who he is. He didn't want to provide his phone for. And right up to her and put that cat on. That cat for pretty much. They pretty put me on. Wow. Tell me you want to hold it down. These dudes I have registered for all these guys. Yeah. You know, no matter race. The bump is taken to my game and make sure I'm right to give me drugs. So, drugs, no, that bump is taken. You throw me into my games and, you know, I took the, you throw me over that. It's like hard. I said, it's my pops. I was lying. Yeah. Yeah. I would, I would, I would fall into the sheet, you know what I mean? Page 288 spelled it out ice cold. The GenoVee's placed pops as one of their black lieutenants. That sentence hits like a jaw breaker. Because anybody who knows even a fragment of mafia lore knows this. The Italians maintained a strict hands off stance on narcotics. Back in them days slinging dope was straight up forbidden territory. You got nabbed pushing heroin or cocaine. It wasn't just the pen you worried about. It was a hit order stamped by your own people. The code was crystal clear. Made men don't mess with narcotics. Not officially. Not publicly. Not never. And the logic was transparent to anybody who survived that period. Drugs transformed men into informants. The pressure on a drug charge was so crushing that even the hardest most solid gangster might crack when the feds wave decades in his face. The mafia wasn't frightened of bloodshed. They was scared of snitches. And heroin manufactured snitches. Quick. Look at the Paul Castelano murder. The streets love spinning it into a power move narrative. Gotti overthrowing the boss. But beneath all that spectacle there was a grimier angle. Rumors of drug recordings floating around. Recordings that could connect Gotti's squad to narcotics. That wasn't just a breach. That was a death warrant. Those recordings didn't just justify the assassination. They practically commanded it. Now here's where it gets real grimy. You couldn't become part of the mafia unless you were Italian. Full blooded. No loopholes. So John Pop Freeman a black man from Harlem could never be made. Could never be officially connected to the family. Which is precisely why the whole arrangement reeks of strategy. If the GenoVisi really appointed pops to push product in queens it makes complete logic. You utilize someone outside the family. Someone who can absorb the heat. Absorb the risk. Absorb the fall. And if anything goes left you shrug. Deny all knowledge. Who him? Never heard of that cat. A built in shield. A flawless clean hands setup. But Pop wasn't no marionette. He was a strategist. Old school Harlem razor sharp with decades of street mathematics under his belt. He entered Queens Silent. Constructed his operation without the flashy spotlight cats like Nikki Barnes soaked in. And stayed in the darkness long enough to damn near disappear from the public files. While Nikki was posing for magazine photos and talking reckless Pop's was accumulating years of untouched profit. And when the walls finally collapsed on Harlem's drug kingpins Barnes was sitting in a federal cell turning state's witness while Pop Freeman was easing out of the game on his own conditions. No indictment no televised collapse no courtroom spectacle just retirement. By the late 70s pops was already in his 70s still controlling the Southside operation until he finally stepped aside. Some say 78 some say early 80s. Dates get blurry when a man refuses to leave a paper trail. But what's concrete is this? Before he exited he passed the power to Ronald Bumps Bassett establishing the next chapter of Queens Underworld. Pop's died sometime in the 80s maybe 83. The records aren't precise but that's the reality about him. He operated so clean so off the radar even history has trouble following him. And maybe that's the biggest contrast between him and the flashier major players of his era. Nikki Barnes got the fame. Pop Freeman got the freedom. In a city full of loud legends Pop stayed silent. And that's why he remains one of the true architects of the Queens Drug Landscape. A phantom in the archives a name whispered by old hustlers a blueprint for how power really operates when nobody's watching a forefather to the game and long overdue for his flowers. Queens didn't always carry that edge people boast about now. Old heads like Lance Fortato from Seven Crowns where it used to move like a sleepy side street. Slow steady almost peaceful in a city constructed on sirens. South Jamaica St. Albin's Hollis all tucked inside that 103rd precinct box 4.8 square miles cut between the Van Weck Chokin the West Hillside Slice in the North Francis Lewis guarding the east and that crooked slash of 110th closing the bottom. It was working folks factory checks kids chasing ice cream trucks a pocket of calm where families felt like they finally had some breathing room. But the city got away of shifting under people's feet. When Harlem and Bedstuy started crumbling after the war buildings going to hell crime ripping through blocks landlords disappearing a whole wave of black excellence packed up and relocated to Queens to preserve what they built. St.