David Lee

My mother and my sisters was raised down this way and the older sister was Rudi Mack. She was married to a man named "Squirrel, they called him. They called him "Red," called him "Squirrel." My father was a mechanic. My uncle Gino was a mechanic, so they worked together and taught me a couple of mechanical things as far as working on cars, fixing brakes. But my father also ran the numbers and taught me how to hustle as a living. But he also taught me how to get my education.

[The] West End was like a gang territory. Like, if you're not from down here, don't come down there. Like, Over-the-Rhine is [pointing in a direction] over there, and that was the West End, so I was like in the middle because they had all of my aunties and cousins down in the West End. My mother moved from the West End, then to Over-the-Rhine, and that was like two different areas.

Either selling drugs or shooting dice, and that was the lifestyle, hustling. And we grew up like that, stealing. And that was basically because— I wouldn't say we was [too] lazy to get a job, but we was lazy as far as, we want the money quick and fast.

Listen to David’s West End story: