Ali

Ali was born in Los Angeles, California, in April 1979, the son of Larry (“Red”), an emergency medical technician (EMT), and his then-wife, Sandra, a radio dispatcher. He grew up in the Pueblo Del Rio Housing Projects before living in the Florence area, followed by a tough neighborhood in Altadena, CA. He is the oldest of one brother, one sister, and two cousins who all grew up under the same roof. At age 13, he joined the notorious Pueblo Bishop Bloods. During a rough-and-tumble childhood and on a mission to make a name for himself with his homies, he often found himself incarcerated in places such as Central, Los Padrinos, and Sylmar Juvenile halls, Challenger, and Camp Gonzales. In 1994, his mother decided that she could not handle him anymore and sent him to live with his father in Long Beach, and later Lakewood. Back in the projects, he would help establish the YGs, better known as, the Young Gunners, in the Pueblo Del Rio.

He spent his early childhood with relatives on the small side the Pueblo Del Rio (near Slauson Park), in the heart of the Eastside Low Bottoms. At age 9, he moved to the Florence area near Roosevelt Park, where he first encountered cholos and Crips. A few years later, he took the name Red Devil from Pueblo Bishop and named for his reddish complexion and tastes for all red everything. Later, his handle changed to YG Dawg and shortened to YG. He quickly found himself in a lot of trouble with law enforcement and was in and out of juvie throughout his adolescent years. When he was 12 years old, his mother sat him down and explained that she could no longer be a wife to his father due to their constant fighting. His mother then took him and his brother and sister and bounced from the suburb of Ontario very briefly to Rancho Cucamonga in the Inland Empire, and later to the Westside of Altadena.

This territory is known as, “The Blocc”, and home to one of the most violent street gangs in Los Angeles County. This area is held down by the well-known and established Crips gang known as the Altadena Blocc Crips, or for short ABCs. Altadena and its ABCs are nowhere near the Eastside Low Bottoms, and he was likely the first that ABCs had encountered from Pueblo Bishops on their streets, but this didn’t stop the squabbles and gunplay that would shadow him for the next few years as he attended Pasadena High School. It was then he decided to relocate back in his projects.

He got together with a group of young Pueblo Bishops like Lil G Poo, Lil Geesta, Lil H Dog, Lil K5, Lil Ben Kapone, K.O., and G Benzo. Together, they would all become very influential in the commencement of the Young Gunners.

A beef with Varrio South Side 38 Street over territory became a factor in establishing the YGs. The Young Gunners decided to take the 38s to war, in ninety-six, fueling the YG movement in the projects, and escalating racial tension in the Eastside Low Bottoms.

Though he wasn’t known to say much, Ali was always a frontliner and a rep for the Pueblo Bishops. In the winter of 1997, with a baby on the way and little money for the future, Ali embarked on a robbery spree across the Bottoms, that landed him in state prison for the next five-and-a-half years. He sought spiritual enlightenment, attending religious services hosted by the Nation of Islam while in prison. He paroled in 2003, and worked as a welder and dabbled in music, recording records for his demo tape. He began to collaborate with music producers Kaydoe, Foxxx, D Branch, and Fortune 5 Million Productions as a lyricist, heating up the underground rap scene. In 2004, Ali joined the Kanons, a rap group that featured Booyaa and Thugg, and began recording a series of records, and performing live in small Hollywood venues. Three months later, Ali was arrested and charged with four counts of unarmed bank robbery. In 2008, he was convicted of first-degree murder, attempted murder, and was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences.

This experience affected him profoundly. At age 28, in the L.A County Jail, Ali decided that he had enough of living on the edge and wanted to take his “Shahada” at the direction of General Tone Stone (Salahudeen).

Later, he was hand-selected to be the Salaat-ul-lmam at Pelican Bay, Facility A. He tried his hand at writing in the feds, but didn’t start seriously until after he had an encounter with a brother or three in the Bay. The brothers suggested that he should return to writing and study the trade of online business. They also encouraged Ali to incorporate the teachings of Al-Islam, the orthodox Muslim’s way of life, into his work.

In 2013, one year after leaving Pelican Bay, Ali wrote Broken Wing Book 1. The book describes his experiences and his discovery that horrible things occur in the lives of good people. A year later, Ali wrote a sequel book, Broken Wing Book 2.

Ali will not surrender his dream. He has launched his own publishing company and gone on to write many other short stories, screenplays, stage plays, and music that he hopes will touch the hearts of people everywhere.

God willing, he will go on to sell more copies than any other writer in urban literary history. We may well refer to him as the “Lil Shayk” of Street Lit.