Frank Lucas ~ Fulsome

Jay-Z: American Gangster (entire album)
From: American Gangster (Roc-A-Fella, Nov. 6, 2007)

Read: It Is What It Is by Elliott Wilson (YN) from his On and On: The Jigga Opinion relative S Dot’s take on:

First week album sales predictions
Curtis, Marshall and Andre
The best MC’s today (present company excluded)
Ann Jones’ baby boy
Foxy Brown
The rocks thrown at his Presidential throne
Failing to acquire the rights to rename the NJ Nets arena
The real Frank Lucas.

Also note It Is What It Is by Elliott Wilson (YN) from his The Making Of…: “Roc Boys” produced by: Sean “Puffy” Combs and The Hitmen (LV, Sean C, D-Dot, and Mario Winans) and the Uncontrollable Hustler’s Ambition entry.

+Rolling Stone: Jay-Z Returns to His Roots For “American Gangster” - Inspired New Album

Below find excerpts from: Lords of Dopetown written by Mark Jacobson and published October 25, 2007 by the New York Magazine in their Dirty Money current issue:

During the Harlem heroin plague of the seventies, few dealers were bigger than Frank Lucas and Leroy “Nicky” Barnes. Both made millions selling dope, lived the wide-brimmed-hat high life, enabled the addiction of whole neighborhoods, and, eventually, got caught. Both were locked up and later cooperated with authorities—some might call it snitching. Now, with Lucas confined to a wheelchair and Barnes in some Witness Protection Program locale, each is the subject of a current film. Barnes reports on his life and times in the flava-full documentary Mr. Untouchable. Lucas hit the ultimate Hollywood jackpot, getting Denzel Washington, no less, to play him in American Gangster (reviewed this week in “The Culture Pages”).
And so, three decades after their heyday, these former street titans are still generating commerce. This makes sense, as both insist they were businessmen, first and foremost. The trick for an ambitious black man in the seventies dope game was to minimize the sway of the Italian distributors who had controlled the Harlem scene for decades. Using sheer volume as an edge, Barnes cut increasingly favorable deals with his Mafia partners. He had the biggest clientele—hundreds of thousands of repeat (and repeat) buyers. It was a captive market, and he was their low-cost retailer. Lucas, more of a boutique operator, managed to bypass the Italians altogether by establishing the grisly but exceedingly lucrative “cadaver connection”—a direct line from Asia’s “Golden Triangle” poppy growers straight to 116th Street, smuggling heroin inside the coffins of American soldiers killed in the Vietnam War.
When the possibility emerged that these two old-school street rivals might be willing to engage in what could only be called a historic conversation—they haven’t spoken in 30 years—it was easy to envision yelling, phone slamming, and maybe even a death threat or two.

My two cents:
I was made privy to copy of American Gangster this past Saturday. Although I am a fan, Denzel’s pageantry of signature facial expressions and standardized cavalier bravado have been mundane since Ricochet yet for AG they’re chock full (no-homo). Though casting was “best in years” for a Hollywood A-movie the action was shiftless and the idleness molded boredom save for the shooting scenes which best explicated the destruction of a bullet.
Get in gear to ready yourself for Dame Dash's (producer) Mr. Untouchable.