Styron Pennywell
Atlanta, GA
After watching New Jack City, I dreamed of being Nino Brown’s accountant. He was the only respectable brown face that didn’t have to shoot anybody. I was eleven and gang-banging was on the rise in the early 90’s, spreading it’s way through the deep south, black boys with bravado, eyes sparkling behind black Ray Bans, aka’s stitched into baseball caps, rap music thumping out of candy colored rides, me fearing the violence yet seduced by the glamour. Fortunately, my parents moved us out of the furnace and I discovered sports and the arts—my brother never quite escaped the fire.
