Original subtitles

[phone rings]

[reporter] DEA alleges brothers

Terry and Demetrius Flenory

are founders of the cocaine organization

known as the Black Mafia Family,

who began their drug-trafficking career

selling crack in the mid-'80s.

[reporter] Two brothers from Detroit

who built a drug empire,

then tried to turn it into a legitimate hip-hop business.

[50 Cent] BMF--you couldn't really miss them.

You watched them get bigger

and bigger and bigger.

[person 2] When you talk about BMF,

they talking about a cultural phenomenon.

[dramatic music plays]

The lifestyle and the music

are tethered together.

[person 3] Everything start with a leader.

I'm a good leader, so I got good people that follow.

[person 4] This is a real mind.

Meech is a mastermind.

[person 5] Terry was meticulous.

This dude was good, man.

[overlapping shouting]

From this day forward, we hot.

You don't know when they comin',

but you know they comin'.

[gunshots]

[person 6] All hell broke loose.

Gunfire was comin' from everywhere.

Death or jail-- one gon' catch you one day.

♪ ♪

It ain't no other crew like this in the world,

and never will be another one.

[person 7] The BMF story is

one of rags to riches

to wretchedness--

the American dream and nightmare

at the same time.

[moody hip-hop plays]

[Meech] E-everybody move like brothers.

[echoing] Like brothers. Like brothers.

♪ ♪

Everybody's shining like new money.

[echoing] New money. New money. New money.

♪ ♪

It ain't no other crew like this in the world,

and never will be another.

[echoing] Never will be another.

Never will be another.

[children chattering]

[Lucille] He was my first-born son, Demetrius,

and we called him Meech.

[chuckles] That's what the world

basically knows him as.

Meech. Big Meech.

Terry is my second-born son.

And Nicole is my daughter.

I always wanted a girl,

so I asked God for a little girl,

and He gave me a little girl.

[Nicole] Growing up in Southwest Detroit,

it was, you know, um, poverty, of course.

They always called us "downriver."

It was rough, but we made it work.

[upbeat bluesy music plays]

[Lucille] In the earlier years, the kids were inseparable.

I remember Terry always trying to follow

behind his big brother...

[laughs]

...and Demetrius would- would tell him,

"You gotta stay home. You're too young."

[laughing] But he always wanted

to go and hang out with his big brother.

[jazzy music plays]

♪ ♪

[energetic music plays]

[Scott] The city of Detroit in the mid-20th century

was the epitome of the American dream.

You know, streets being paved with gold.

And Detroit opened up the floodgates

because of the auto industry.

[Jamon] For years, there had been this story

of Detroit as this model city,

particularly for African Americans.

Black people were becoming the majority.

Black people owned homes.

You had a significant Black middle class.

People all over the country

were looking at Detroit as a model.

Detroit became a melting pot,

and it became one of the most thriving metropolises

in America.

[Jamon] But on the other hand,

there's housing discrimination.

Schools were unequal.

The areas that were predominately white

have all kinds of resources.

And another part of this is police brutality--

Black people being shot and killed by police officers

even when they were unarmed

and even when they were innocent.

[dramatic music plays]

[reporter] Four days of rioting rocked the city of Detroit

in the worst outbreak of urban racial violence this year.

Hoodlumism and lawlessness.

[Jamon] On July 23, 1967,

Black people who've embraced Black power

start a resistance

and a response to the police and their brutal tactics.

This is gonna happen all over America.

It's gonna be a hot world, not a hot summer.

It's a hot world.

[frenetic jazz music plays]

[Jamon] We have a five-day uprising

in the city of Detroit.

Forty-three people were killed,

almost 2,000 injured.

Thousands of buildings were destroyed.

Thousands of arrests were made.

[person 8] Communities have to rise up

and do for themselves.

[person 9] Planners have been planning

for people rather than with them.

[person 10] We gotta all get together like a unit.

And it would change Detroit forever.

♪ ♪

After the 1967 rebellion,

the white flight goes into hyper speed.

It's 20,000 whites leaving every year,

and the auto industry and all the businesses

that were built around the auto industry

are leaving with them.

[distant siren wailing]

[Scott] When the Flenory family arrived in Detroit in 1969,

the lights had really already been turned out in the city.

They got there at the end of the party.

[mellow R&B plays]

♪ ♪

[Roland] I met the Flenory family

when they moved across the street from me.

I was sittin' on the porch watchin' 'em move in.

My first impression was, I could tell that, you know,

they didn't have, you know, good clothes,

quality clothes, and things like that.

But Demetrius came over across the street

and introduced hisself to me.

And then his little brother Terry

saw him over at my house and came over.

We instantly became friends.

[Nicole] Roland come from a big family.

We kinda really looked up to them

because we were a small family of five

and we were all we had.

Roland's like a brother.

[Roland] Hangin' with Meech,

I taught him a little bad stuff, you know,

smokin' marijuana and stuff like that,

you know, at a young age.

We was little kids, but, you know,

hey, I come from a big family,

and they were smokin' weed.

[laughs]

[jazzy music plays]

♪ ♪

[Lucille] Their father, Charles, and I

first moved to Detroit

because he got a job working for Fleetwood Cadillac.

Detroit was kinda lively,

but times were tough, you know.

It was a pretty poor time for a lot of families,

not just us.

Charles was a very loving person.

Caring, you know.

[Roland] Charles was a good man,

hard-working guy.

Good father. Very nice guy.

I used to go to work, do construction work.

I'd come home, and he's sittin' on my front porch,

waitin' on me.

But really, Charles wanted to be a professional musician.

He loved music.

[Lucille] Let me just say music was like--

I used to call it his girlfriend.

[laughs]

Charles and Demetrius was really close.

[bluesy music plays]

[Lucille] Demetrius' dad would get on the guitar,

and we'd have jam sessions.

[Nicole] Well, music brought peace.

It took you away from

anything that was difficult that was going on.

It just kinda brought us together

where you bury or forget about what's really happening.

[Lucille] Charles had this vision where he wanted

to go to school and learn to be a recording engineer.

So what he did...

he basically bartered with this recording studio.

He would do carpentry work for the studio

in order to pay for his education.

He would bring a guitar home instead of a paycheck,

and that wouldn't pay the bills, you know?

Couldn't eat a guitar.

[Roland] The Flenorys... it was hard time for them.

They get they, uh, gas cut off.

They'll use kerosene heaters.

But... that didn't bother them.

[quiet music plays]

[Nicole] My mom made miracles.

There was one Christmas.

Our gas was off.

So she cooked things on a hot plate,

and she made Christmas dinner.

[Lucille] I tried to make it the best that I could.

I was determined, you know,

to... to have a holiday dinner.

♪ ♪

[somber music plays]

♪ ♪

The money... it caused a strain on our marriage,

you know.

I was the one that decided

that it was time for us to, you know, part ways.

[Nicole] My mom felt as though the marriage was exhausting

when constantly having to come up with money

and never getting over the mark

or having a savings or being able to travel.

It was always bills, bills, bills.

[Lucille] We were divorced um- at 19 years.

It was never because we stopped loving one another.

And I felt that maybe I could do a little bit better

by taking care of the obligations by myself.

[Nicole] It was difficult.

The divorce... it took a toll on us.

It was really a tumultuous divorce

because my dad didn't want my mom to leave

or to leave my mom.

[Lucille] I don't think any of my children

were happy about it,

but I think our divorce really affected Demetrius.

[Lucille] He was feeling like, "Okay,

now I'm the man of the household," you know?

He kinda had the way of, you know,

"I wanna help take care of my mom."

'Scuse me.

♪ ♪

So he turned to the streets.

[mellow percussive music plays]

♪ ♪

[Roland] First of all, Terry and Demetrius...

when they both was kids,

they start sellin' little bags of weed.

They needed to do somethin' to get him some money.

[Scott] Detroit hustles harder.

I mean, that's the mantra of being from Detroit:

Think big, live big,

make a lotta money, and live your best life.

Everything, when it came to Detroit drug bosses,

was gettin' rich in the coke game.

Detroit in the 1980s was the Wild West.

It was this surreal environment

of comic book-like figures

becoming rich off drugs.

The largest players to win the cocaine period

in the city of Detroit were the Curry brothers,

Maserati Rick, Young Boys Incorporated,

Demetrius Holloway.

And then you had White Boy Rick,

who was a 16-year-old drug world wunderkind,

a narcotics prodigy

operating at the highest levels

of the drug game in Detroit.

[Rick] We all started on the streets.

Listen, when Detroit started to fail,

our jobs started to go away...

...kids that I knew that were good kids,

they got involved in the drug business

to try and help their parents pay their bills.

YBI was a big drug organization.

It was the way they did business,

like Fortune 500 companies.

Everybody knew who YBI was.

They knew, you know,

if that stamp was on dope back then,

you knew that you were getting good dope.

[Roland] Me and Demetrius used to ride across town

to a car wash that was owned by Maserati Rick.

Maserati Rick was the first person in Detroit

with a Maserati.

So we had guys like that that we looked up to.

We would just park across the street there

and just watch them.

Studyin'. We studyin' the game.

[Lucille] I felt like my children

were easily influenced by other people,

you know, with their flashy cars and jewelry.

But I would tell my children, you know,

that that's not the route to go.

And I would call it the devil's way, you know.

There's no way in the world

I was gonna compete with that, you know?

[dramatic music plays]

[Scott] It was around this time

that Demetrius encountered a real turning point

and hooked up with E.D. Boyd,

who was a local drug dealer.

♪ ♪

[E.D.] I was raised in Brooklyn.

I was 14 years old when I came to Detroit.

I came from the streets.

My whole family, you know, all the men in my family,

were street guys, and I just adapted to it, you know?

It--the-the game is a addiction, you know,

just like the drug.

Money--you want more money, more money, more money.

[Derick] Edrick was outta New York.

Back then, that's like when the rap had first took off

and all that, so Edrick had, like, a different style.

He came with the, like, gold chain and all that.

♪ ♪

He had the, like, brand-new leather coats.

He had the flyest cars.

But he was hardcore, you know what I'm sayin'?

He was a good guy, but he ain't take no shit.

[E.D.] I always want to be a boss, okay?

I don't think about that workin' money, you know?

That ain't no money. The boss get the money.

It takes intelligence, and it takes...

[laughs]

You can't be scared.

You gotta wanna take risks, okay?

And yo, don't worry about what the other person doin',

and, you know, get you a crew together

that's gonna follow you and boss up.

[punchy music plays]

I met Meech,

and, you know, we chopped it up.

I liked what he was sayin'.

He said, "Man, look, I see what you doin', man.

"I'm tellin' you, man, I could be down with you.

"You know, I could do this,

I could be this, man. I'm your man."

[E.D.] You could see it in his eyes, man,

he- he wanted money.

He was hungry.

I said, "Okay, I'll tell you what.

We can do somethin'. Let's try this out."

And that's how it started.

Demetrius met Edrick...

and he introduced me, and then Edrick tested us

to see, could we handle what we can do?

I had this thing that I was doin'

eight balls for $50

'cause of the plug I had.

A plug is your supplier.

I had a Mexican plug.

That's the first thing you lookin' for

is a good plug, okay?

You got a good plug with a good price

and a good product...

[scoffs] ...you could tear the city up.

I had the ticket, and I had some pure shit.

[Derick] He gave us some stuff, you know,

to see what we can do wit' it, you know,

see if we can, you know, sell it and all that

'cause, you know, just because you have dope

or a product don't mean you can sell it.

[E.D.] But it took on so fast

that it just destroyed everybody out there.

They was like, "What the hell? How-how is he doin' this?"

When you in that type of game,

it's either you gon' be in jail, kilt, or whatever,

so you can't go into it halfway.

So we said we--

"Hey, if we gon' do it, let's do the shit."

♪ ♪

[Roland] That's how they got into the game.

They started off the 50 Boyz.

[E.D.] It was three 50 Boyz--

the Flenory brothers, Terry and Meech, and Derick.

[Derick] Meech was the, like... lieutenant,

so he was over us.

I sold a lot of the stuff,

and if we had, like, some problems or somethin',

I was gon' help protect the crew.

Terry was the businessman.

He kept the tracks, the money and everything.

At first, Demetrius didn't want me to sell drugs.

But I became a 50 Boy.

They was sellin' 50 rocks. I was sellin' 50 powder.

We hustled from the time we got up,

from 6:30 in the mornin', to what--

sometime 2:00 or 3:00 the next mornin'.

And then get right back up and do it again.

♪ ♪

[E.D.] Every Sunday, it was mandatory

that we sat down like a family and ate.

At that dinner table, if you had a problem,

we settled it then, you know.

We never--you know, it was never no fightin' between us

'cause I said family doesn't fight.

I was definitely a father figure to them.

You know, I raised them like they was my sons.

[soft music plays]

[Scott] At that point, they started makin' money.

You know, within six months, they were able

to make their family's house payment,

able to put groceries on the table.

Everything changed at home.

Now Terry got money. Demetrius got money.

They helpin' out the mama with the bills,

with the house.

You wasn't having no more lights or gas

bein' cut off no more.

The refrigerator ain't empty.

♪ ♪

[Lucille] They hid a lot of things

up under my nose that I didn't even know about.

[Roland] You know, the mama didn't wanna accept it,

but she accepted it

because they don't wanna lose the house.

Terry just said, "Well, hey, you know,

throw the bills on the table, and I'll pay 'em."

Terry the one that stepped up to be the man of the house.

There was a change.

There was a change with friends,

with girlfriends,

clothes.

[E.D.] When you young like that,

that gets to your mind, and all it tells you,

man, I want more and I want more.

Okay?

And that's--and Meech, Meech was like that.

It was never enough for Meech.

He was hungry.

[Scott] As Demetrius and Terry are getting bigger

and learning the game,

naturally, this breeds rivalries.

It breeds jealousy.

When you in the drug game, man,

you beefin' with--

you don't know who your enemy is

and your friends is, you know what I'm sayin'?

[Derick] The problems that come with the money--

people that was envy of us...

you can be the best guy in the neighborhood,

and you can feed everybody in the neighborhood

and throw picnics,

but there's always one guy in that picnic

that's hatin' on you.

[Scott] The first couple chapters

of the BMF story,

the number one villain is Layton Simon, the Beast.

Layton's reputation was for hair-trigger violence,

for being unstable, unhinged,

just someone that scared the living daylights

out of almost anybody that he encountered.

[Roland] Layton is a terrorist.

He terrorized people.

[Derick] The devil. Layton Simon is the devil.

Layton had a-a gold chain 'bout this thick

that would come down to his private section

with a big map on it.

And he'd have on Adidas suit

with some gators on, every day.

He was a beast. And he hated us.

[Scott] At that time, in that part of the city,

Layton was the big drug don.

He was making lots of money in Southwest Detroit.

When we came around, we took his territory.

Layton had the whole neighborhood shook.

Layton had the whole neighborhood on lock

before we came around.

[E.D.] He was mad because I was just

outbidding him on everything that he was doing.

[Scott] Demetrius wasn't intimidated by Layton Simon,

and... this caused issues. [chuckles]

♪ ♪

[E.D Violence is gonna always catch up wit' you

in some kinda way.

[engine turns over]

When you in the game, you know, it follows you.

[edgy music plays]

♪ ♪

[Derick] You could be sitting right now in your car,

having a wonderful time, and somebody come out

and blow your brains out.

♪ ♪

[Roland] It was Layton lookin' for Demetrius.

That was the only thing on his mind--

Demetrius, Demetrius.

You know, he tryin' to kill us.

[engine revving]

[Derick] We didn't fear him.

We took over his territory,

but we took everybody territory.

If you come for us, come.

This is it.

♪ ♪

[Roland] Layton drives fast, modified cars.

One day, Layton followin' Demetrius...

just rammin' the back of Demetrius' car.

Rammin' him.

[tires squealing]

Demetrius say, "Man, fuck this, man.

"I'm tired of runnin' from him, man."

Let's fuck him up." I say, "Okay."

Layton pulls on the side of us...

...and pulls out a Uzi and point it at us.

[suspenseful music plays]

And I just grabbed the seat lever

and just let it go all the way back down

and just grunt.

♪ ♪

And next thing, you can hear his motor

roarin' as he just pull off.

[tires squealing, engine revving]

And I pull the seat up and say,

"Man, this motherfucker crazy."

♪ ♪

[distant sirens wailing]

[Scott] The entire dynamic changed that night.

After that, it was all-out war.

[heavy music plays]

♪ ♪