5 Percent Nation - The Son Of Uhuru - Terahshea

Harlem changes fast, but some memories refuse to move. We sit down with Terahshea to talk about growing up as the son of Uhuru, also known as Yahora, a man he describes as one of the firstborn connected to Clarence Smith and the early Five Percent era. What starts as family history turns into a wider look at Black identity, street reality, and the kind of love that is tough enough to survive chaos.

We get into the Harlem Mecca years, including what it meant to be a child around the school, how Supreme Mathematics and the Supreme Alphabet lived inside the home, and why respect for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad stayed strong even after leaving the Nation of Islam structure. Terahshea also shares memories of real community work: a breakfast program for Harlem kids, coat and hat drives, and the uncomfortable truth that city politics, including Mayor John Lindsay era agreements, could come with pressure most people never hear about.

From there, the story shifts to the move to New Jersey, listening to Minister Louis Farrakhan, and later crossing paths with Dr York’s Book of Lamb and the Ansaar Allah to Nuwaubian changes that made Terahshea question where the path was going. We close by connecting all that discipline and searching to his fitness journey: ACE, ACSM, NASM, functional training, and what it takes to build a career in the fitness industry without losing yourself. Subscribe, share this with someone who cares about Harlem history and Black culture, and leave a review with the biggest takeaway you heard, what hit you hardest?

Transcript

Welcome And Setting The Record

SPEAKER_02 0:12

What's going on, everybody out there? It's Ron Brown, the fitness professional extraordinaire. Let's say that. All right. Uh, and uh, just so I don't butcher your name, I just want to make sure I'm right and exact. Can you pronounce your name, brother? I'm Tarashe. Tarashe. Peace to Tarasha. Peace. Who is one of the firstborn Yahuru's son? And we came to build with you about your father and of course yourself. One second. Gotcha. So this is my book of life. I don't know if the public can see my book of life. All right. And at the bottom, there's your father's name.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Okay. It's hard to see, but yeah, only because of the plastic, uh, maybe the reflection of the paper.

SPEAKER_04 1:09

Probably.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

I see, but yeah. Yeah, so just uh to to give a quick shout out to the two the the real firstborn of the firstborn's uh son. My sister Makiba is the oldest, my brother Yohara, uh Uhuru, or Yahora, depends on how you pronounce it. They used to pronounce my father's name Yohara uh back in the day. Um, and uh, but it's Uhuru, that's the proper way to say it. My brother Uhuru, and then me Tarashi. And my mother at the time was Urina, who was one of the first, you know, um one of the first earths within the community as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Okay, that's peace. Now, can you give me a little background about let's let's go into your dad first, and then we'll go into you know your background. So your dad, can you pronounce

Who Was Uhuru Yahora

SPEAKER_02 2:05

his name again?

SPEAKER_00 2:06

How his name was yeah, back in the day, everyone called him Yahora. He is the first freedom. That means freedom. That's the Swahili term for freedom during the uh uh with uh um when the Mau Mau rose up against the uh against the British, they shouted the term Uhuru. I'm sorry, why I say uh the Swahili term is Kenyan. Um and uh uh obviously uh uh uh Uhuru Kenyatta was the name of the son of uh of Jomo Kenyatta. My father, rather than taking just the name Freedom, which he could have just been freedom like everybody else, but it was interchangeable. Um he won, he he really was fascinated with you know uh getting, you know, uh, you know, uh logging on to that identity of revolution. So um, you know, he was uh I I will explain to everyone, he was one of the firstborn, one of the first nine that left the nation of Islam, uh with Clarence 13 X-Men. Um they were obviously expelled uh by you know, at the time Malcolm X was the minister. Um and the the his my father used to tell us personally that he didn't like being a robot back in the day. He was a young man. So he didn't like having a dress and a bow tie, he didn't want to cut his hair a certain way. He was the bridge, and they were particularly the bridge between that conservative lifestyle of the nation of Islam and the uh and the street life of Harlem, you know, so it was uh so it was a fit for them that they they really felt

Nights At Mecca As A Kid

SPEAKER_00 4:00

that deeper connection to. And um it was, you know, I from my the time I was an infant up until the time I was about 11 years old, I was, you know, in the school at Mecca um consistently um at odd times of night throughout the entire, you know, uh overnights too. Uh you know, back in the day, brothers sometimes used to sleep at Mecca.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Um before before I before I let you go, I just want to address the chat. Peace of the God, King with the Math. King with the Math is a lost seven in the building. As usual, you're always checking in. Peace of the God. Peace. Uh, how do you how do I contact you? Uh, someone said that. NYPtalkshow at gmail.com. Uh, and my sister, wise Asia in the building. Peace, wise Asia. What's going on? Uh, Queen So so so so see, peace to you. Of course, my brother uh Ben is in the building, the building Islam to the more Islam. Oh, wow. All the god, all the gods right now. It's a family affair, peace. Peace, peace, peace to the god. We got uh the god cast in the building, as I am in the building from Buffalo, New York. Peace to you. Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. The God uh we did a podcast a couple weeks ago. Yeah, so peace to the God. Uh so let's go back into I want to rewind. At what year you were saying that you were going into the law school, and then you were there in the wee hours of the morning or night, and then uh at what year was that?

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Going uh as early as uh about 78, uh up until um around about 80, maybe 84. We had to stop going. There was a shootout across the street, used to be a big chicken spot across the street, and unfortunately, I got caught in the middle uh of it as a child. Uh so I mean, you know, um it got back to my mother, so I couldn't do that no more. Um so it was uh that was uh as a you know on a regular basis, you know, and then by by 87 we moved to Jersey. So that was uh, you know, so and then after we moved to Jersey, we would try to bring brothers who uh you know were fascinated with the five percent, you know, back into as visitors, you know, mostly, you know, on some tourist type stuff. But prior to that, you know, me and my brother used to draw our artwork used to be right up as soon as you walk in the door, our artwork would be right up there. I forget one of the other guards, uh their sons was a was an excellent uh artist too. And uh, you know, it was like the only place that we went outside of our block, we where we where we were. So it was very important. So the values that my father would teach us um having to say peace all the time. You know, when you you're trained when you're a little boy, when we're little kids, we're little people, we're walking around five years old, hi, and you know, you're getting your hands squeezed and having to say peace um all the time.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Uh yeah, not to interject,

Breakfast Program And City Politics

SPEAKER_02 7:40

I gotta say peace to wise the dome TV, peace to wise the dome TV. Everybody's coming out tonight, man. What's going on? Uh man, you you you're popular, brother.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

I'm happy to hear it. And then we and then in that late set from uh from the late 70s through the early 80s, uh in my memory, uh, I think that we did have a breakfast and a summer program for children, Harlem children, at all uh at uh altogether. Mayor Lindsay was a part of of uh of helping to secure food for the program that we that we had as kids. So um we did in the vein of the Black Panthers for a while that I saw per you know personally. I don't know how long it's uh when it how long it was gone before me, and I don't know what happened after me, but I know it was phasing out um when I was when I was still there.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Um so so just to be right and exact with what you're saying, you're saying that there was a breakfast program at the law school.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

We had the breakfast program at Mecca, yes. Yes, we did. You know, we would get the uh uh it was box cereal, you know, little boxes of cereal, little cartons of milk, and little orange juice. It wasn't much, and I and it was fruit. And it was uh obvious, it was, you know, the city, you know, the city provided. The city provided. So, you know, there, you know, the gods early on had made a uh a deep connection to Mayor Lindsay, right? So people think of Mayor Lindsay as a very um liberal mayor, you know, because there was a riot, you know, uh prior to so they the brothers uh at the uh you know took over the off the state office building across the street. You know that, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:38

You know the brothers took over the state office building?

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Yes, yes, so yeah, so then they they um so the mayor and the deputy mayor at the time, and I wish my mom could tell me his name at the time, uh, they came to an agreement with the brothers, and they they let them that the the building was theirs, was given to them by the city, city, yeah. Um but people think of mayor lindsay as a as a very liberal, soft dude. Mayor Lindsay wasn't soft, and Mayor Lindsay's deputy mayor wasn't soft. They threatened. They threatened my father in front of my mother. They threatened uh, I don't think Young God was there too. I forget who who was there as well, but the uh they they said, you know, in terms of the rioting, um the deputy mayor said this has to stop. We put many people in the Hudson River, never to be heard from again. My mother will tell the story to this day. Back then, this is prior to peace. Uh, this is prior to uh what Harlem has become. Back then, they told my family that you know, the my mother and my father, and other people in that office that Harlem was going to be exactly what it is today. And they said they weren't gonna let anybody disrupt what it was gonna be. So they came to an agreement, and uh that that's part of how the building was secure. It was yeah, it was an agreement, but it was like there will not be riots like this no more in the city, or basically, y'all can, you know, uh everybody dies. Oh, no, yeah, no doubt.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Oh no, most people wouldn't know it. Most people wouldn't know it. My man showed the blueprint, it showed the blueprints the layouts to how it was. So that's how interesting. Like, I grew up with that in my ear all the time. And what really, you know, got me to you is when you had your uh you made your post about being in the nation and the five percenter, you know, and being a five percenter. And I was like, uh, I want everyone to know that we were raised in the apartment to honor and respect the honorable Elijah Muhammad like you wouldn't believe, to the point where I told you this before on the phone, that when they started talking about the Islamic religion in my score and with the PS 153, um Adam Clayton Powell, when they started talking about um the religion of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, the only Muhammad I knew was the honorable Elijah Muhammad. Um so I'm like, oh I we we follow Muhammad in my household because we kept a big you know picture of the honorable Elijah Muhammad in our living room. So I took I took this picture to school, be like, yeah, this is Muhammad. And then I think I scared them. They're like, oh you're one of them. I'm like, well, yeah, you know, this is Muhammad. So we that there was never, although they left, you know, the the nation, they the love for what the honorable Elijah Muhammad did for our people was instilled in me as a as a baby, and uh, you know, and indelible to me as a child. So uh I that that's what made me want to you know uh reach out to you and say, listen, that that back in the day the brothers really loved the nation of Islam. I see it today too, by the way. You know, I see I see a lot of brothers with man respect today, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:37

Indeed. So now I want to give us a little more about your your dad and his character and how he was, you know, back in the day. Okay, so first of all, where are you guys from? I want to start from there.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

We're from Harlem. We're from Harlem. We were born in Harlem Hospital, like you. Um, so we were born in Harlem Hospital. Uh my mother, except for my sister, she was born in Columbia, Presbyterian, but the you know, the nuclear uh nuclear family. Um his father, uh my my father uh was conceived in Leesburg, Georgia. Uh, but never lived, was uh never lived there. Uh was

Love At Home Street Code Outside

SPEAKER_00 14:20

born in Harlem. So um and uh my father. So here's where it gets to be the the sweet stuff stops. Uh my father was the most loving man to his children ever. My father used to make us hug him and kiss on the cheek and say, I love you every time in every setting on the streets of Harlem. But my father was a person who uh ran afoul of the law. Okay. Uh the streets was rough back in the 70s and 80s, obviously. My father was rougher. Um word is bond means a meant everything, everything to him. So if something happened to one of the gods that was um that put them in danger, and they came to my apartment to ask um my father to handle stuff, and he gave his word that he he did it. So um I can tell you that uh because this is this is not out of uh not being out of school, but they grew uh when they were in a nation, they got really tight with a brother who became a Sunni Muslim. And this brother did not like the idea of Clarence 13 X-Meth being referred to as a law. So he would rip the poster down, the picture of uh of the father down. And my father did go to jail for attempted murder, um uh on on a brother that he was close to when he was younger, but but that's how serious he was about you know the that respect. And the beautiful thing about it, I told you, is he did not kill that brother. And when my father got out of jail and uh and and um we were introduced to that man in his home in Brooklyn, and they loved each and they had mad love for each other. Yes, yes, yeah, how did that happen though? You know what I mean? So um, yeah, so that's that that you know, so that was a abuse. So I I got to see, you know, some really interesting things, but you know, that you know, I think that's well known and that's okay, you know, to talk about, but other than that, uh your heart freedom was a uh a great brother, but uh nothing to play around with. Okay, yeah, but a loving father, so much love, so much love, and because he never got it from his father. My grandmother helped raise us, but she was tough, so she didn't show him that you know there was no affection there, you know what I mean? And but family was everything to him to the point where the only time my brother got a spanking is when he called my grandmother she. What are you talking about? She, you talking about my mother, your grandmother? You don't refer to her as she. So that was that type of even though my grandmother, you know, couldn't really show that kind of love. My father had that kind of love. He look, you know, it was rough for him. He joined the nation when he was nine by himself.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

By himself, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

My father was was uh, you know, my grandmother was rough on him. I love my grandmother. I'm my favorite person, um, but she was rough on him, so you know, he would he would leave a lot, and he joined the nation by himself.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

So he joined the nation by himself.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

We had no older people, nobody, nobody.

SPEAKER_02 18:41

Um so how did he connect with the father?

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Oh, the father was at the yeah, was uh was uh yeah, yeah, already already at the mosque, yeah. And then they were fighters, they were all martial artists.

SPEAKER_02 18:53

That's a question I would like to ask about the martial arts. So, what martial arts did he practice?

Martial Arts Training And Giving Back

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Um we were taught uh a keto by my father, but I don't think they were taught a keto. I think they were taught uh I think he I don't know where my father learned the keto from, um, but I think they they learned a Korean martial arts because that's where you know uh the father would have picked up.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

Oh, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Father learned the Korean arts.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

Yeah, Korean martial arts. Yeah, and Ron Van Cleef, um, who became a uh star, used to train in Harlem as well. And he taught Korean martial arts, like a type uh maybe Tang So I forget what he taught.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

Well, one thing I know about I don't mean to catch your wisdom, but one thing I do know about Ron Van Cleef. Yeah, Ron Van Cleef is Chinese Goju.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Okay, so he probably yeah, I don't know what he initially uh but look at look back in in his history. Yeah, that was what yeah, yeah, in his early history. I don't I think Ron Van Cleef also came from the Korean War. Double check. Okay, and then and my my knowledge is going back to the 80s with this, because I I told you I I um I cut away from it. So we were trained in a in a keto when we were younger, uh, and and and that's the uh art that the brothers would do. And they again, the all of the training was at the school, you know, and then yeah, you know, the demonstrations were always at Parliament. Um, speaking of which, talk about the charity that the brothers were able to do back in the day. The the holiday giveaways, we used to do coat drives, hat drives.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

I don't know if all that stuff was going on when we were still I had to drop a bomb because that's what it's all about, the basics.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

The sisters used to knit the hats. If they there were not enough winter caps, the sisters would make caps, scarves, and knittings, you know, to make sure that there were more, you know, it wasn't just about getting things from the store, it was making sure the babies and and other people had had something to, you know, had winter clothes. I mean the early 80s and late 70s, New York was ugly, man. It was not good looking. It was it was bad. It did not look good over it. It was over there, looked bad. Um, it's Disney compared to what it used to be back then. You know, it was getting rough, you know. Heroin had ravaged everything. The the little parking lot next to the school, you know, um was not a great place, you know, back in the day. So um it was uh you know it was important to see the community still working at that level. And when you hear the stories of how the Black Panthers were. In Oakland, and I have these indelible memories of what I was able to see as a little boy from our people in Harlem. It was a beautiful thing. So other than that, you know, my you know, my father showed us more of the softer side of him than a lot of that, the harder, you know, the hard side, you know, that uh so we would train um because my parents were divorced, uh, and we would be with my dad on the on the on the weekends. All we did was train on the weekends, you know.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

So the whole weekend is training.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

As much as possible, remember to be honest with you, a lot of people wanted his time. You know, a lot of people wanted his time. So it was it was still, it was the streets did, you know, so morning time we would train it every typically every Saturday. So he'd be home in the morning watching it, and then there would be times that late at night when he came home and we would sleep, and you wanted to test them reflexes, golf club to the ankles. If you didn't jump, if you didn't uh if you didn't jump, uh you know, so it was it was it very interesting. Uh we lived on 150th Street, St. Nicholas Avenue

The Last Years And A Stolen Life

SPEAKER_00 23:20

for anybody uh at that time, builder builder 488.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

So the battlegrounds.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Yeah, builder 48, yeah, at the time. Then he got locked up for quite some time um for a while. And then uh, you know, after that, it was rough after he got home the last time. He didn't he didn't live much longer after that.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

Okay, so he came back home in what year?

SPEAKER_00 23:46

I think 86, and he and that was it for him. He was on a run on the streets, um, all of uh as long as he could, then he he died. My father was stabbed in his heart. Uh I don't know what happened by police. Um by police. Yeah, look it up. My dude who did my father's open heart surgery at Harlem Hospital. First to get first to get open heart surgery at Harlem Hospital. You couldn't guess who did my father's open heart surgery. You wouldn't believe it if I told you. Marcus Garvey has a son that was a cardiologist. And and Marcus Garvey's son sewed my father's heart together.

SPEAKER_04 24:35

That's interesting. Very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Yeah, so that was a, you know, again, those are the I guess the highlights, you know, because everything ended for us in '86. So, you know, other than like the you know, the the details of, you know, the the the day-to-day type of life stuff, other than that, it was, you know, it was basically uh a short-lived experience with uh with the fire percentage.

Moving To Jersey Keeping Identity

SPEAKER_00 25:10

So what happened for us from there? Me and my brother on our own, when we moved to New Jersey, we started following the minister, Minister Farrakhan.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

Okay, so now before we go into that, uh we got a god who says, Do you know your older brother a law freedom?

SPEAKER_00 25:31

My older brother is freedom. My older brother is freedom, your horror. That's my that's my we're only we're only uh 16 months apart. Where I grew up with, yeah, he lives in Sweden.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

Right, yeah, you were telling me that.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

Yeah, yeah. He when he came back from St. Croix, uh, my brother kind of uh came back from St. Croix. We moved uh, we were living on Central Park West in like 2008, 700 80 ish. My brother came back and started helping the guards with some some he's a graphic designer. So he went back uh back to the school as soon as he came back from St. Croix. So he jumped back in for I don't know how long my my brother jumped back in into the mix um after 2007 or 2008. So he he got introduced to a whole bunch of people uh after that. There's a brother named Amin who typically he's close to us. He works with the Wu, Wu-Tang clan. He uh sometimes he'll work with Lord Jamal, sometimes uh um he is me and Amin and the family we've been down since we were like since I was like 15. So he's also in the he's in the community consistently more so than we are. So he knows um he'll probably talk. A lot of brothers if they know a lot about us, they would know from Amin, who's always out there.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

All right, yeah. So we pretty much, you know, got a got a uh a short glimpse of what it was like to be, you know, around your dad and his his uh character. Uh so when you guys moved to Jersey and you started following Farrakhan, what was the you know trajectory from there?

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Okay, so what it was was obviously going from Harlem to the suburbs in Somerset, New Jersey, close to Rutgers University, it was predominantly white. So we we uh after that first summer, uh we wanted to really um keep our identity the way we we we had it and the work, you know. At the time the minister was doing a lot of radio, uh his radio show, and we just wanted to stick with what we what we knew, you know, and we thought as young men we were evolving, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:04

Wait, wait, before we go there, I don't mean to cut your wisdom. I want to rewind back before we go to Farrakhan, real quick. So, did your father stress the importance of knowing supreme mathematics alphabets at once?

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Oh, absolutely. It was it was uh I it was I said it in part of my wedding vows. That's uh uh so yes, so it was um it was the only the the culture inside the apartment was knowing the supreme mathematics, knowing the supreme alphabet, and the dietary laws. Nothing with pork, nothing with pork. It says shortening, it don't matter what it said before. If we see the word shortening, and that then we had to read a lot when we were kids. Uh, you know, so that was um so the restrictive diet uh and and um and and the respect, you know, the greetings, like the day-to-day life, right? So the boring stuff. The day-to-day life was, you know, uh following the, you know, uh uh reading the supreme um wisdom, reading uh the mouth, the uh learning, you know, the count and learning, you know, the alphabet properly. That was just it was not a uh we didn't have a disciplined household where you had to sit down and be quiet. It was we watch cartoons, we watch things, and then you know, we sitting there and and looking at at the time, it was just uh uh Xerox copies of paper, you know, and having to do it and having to write it out. Um, but because he was a divorced father and just uh and and and a man who really wanted to reconnect, wanted the family to get back together, you know, the bigger part of his life with us was trying to be, you know, trying to find a way back to a family union, you know, uh, and it wasn't gonna, I knew it wasn't gonna happen. It was a you know, kind of one of the early things about psychology, you know, the psychology that I that I was able to see, knowing the difference between, you know, what you want, your fantasy, and what your reality could be. So, you know, if you think of our household, it was the the the the lessons were interwoven into our life like you weave you know uh thread into a you know into a quilt. It was just there. Um, it wasn't something like we weren't studying for a test, we weren't trying to impress anybody, it was just what you do. Uh and um oddly enough, we left the nation, the you know, we left it all behind when it started to become popular in hip-hop. When everybody else started doing it, we were gone. We we we we left, you know, and and and were more focused on, you know, um the tenets of you know, listening to mostly Farrakhan's mission at the time was to stop the killing mission. So those lectures were eye-opening and that, you know, talking about parts of you know, violence and and you know, black, you know, black violence and and family and stuff like that that was so different than the the uh what's it the rote learning of the of the supreme wisdom. We thought we were growing into a different thing, and then two years later, my brother wanted to learn Arabic, and I told you this. Um we were pulled away from the nation of Islam and started following the Anter Allah community of Bushwood

Book Of Lamb And Dr York

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Brooklyn, and we know how that ended.

SPEAKER_02 31:57

Right. So let's talk. Yo, so let's talk about that. So you you you you you're dealing with uh the nation of Islam, missing the Farrakhan. Yeah, and so did you guys join the mosque?

SPEAKER_00 32:10

No, there was no mosque near us, and by the way, uh you know, I don't tell a lot of people this, but people know if you look it up, my my stepdad at the time was John Amos from Good Times, James Amos. Oh wow, right. So so yeah, so it was not just you know, it was all of us, you know, listening to you know the the uh the lectures of um of Farrakhan. So um um so it was just a different life. So there was no, we were between a town a place called Franklin Township and another uh podent place called Tukesbury. So there was no mosque for us to go to. We we we wanted, you know, we had a brother who moved in from Brooklyn who became FOI and he was close to us. But now by the time my brother uh my my my my homeboy Khadir um you know uh joined the joined the fruit, we were studying the teachings of uh of uh of who is Dr. York, uh Imam Isa, as we used to call her Isa, yeah. Imam Isa Hakel Mati.

SPEAKER_02 33:15

Um so so hold on before we get there, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:18

So with you guys in Jersey, so how did you get the teachings of York from we were still going back and forth to new uh to New York City so uh all the time. So there were these brothers in Jalabia selling a book with the honorable Elijah Muhammad's picture on the cover called the Book of Lamb. So what we thought we were buying was another literature from the nation of Islam and written by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. But when we got the Book of Lamb and we brought it back to Jersey, my brother dissecting it, you know, my brother devour, you know, kind of obsesses over things when he gets um when he when he gets his hands on it. And then he's a my brother's a polyglot, he likes to learn languages, even though he didn't want to do he know he wanted to be a good student, English student. He didn't want to be an A student in English. My brother ended up learning Arabic, ended up learning Hebrew. He speaks Chinese now and he speaks Swedish fluently, but because so he speaks all of these languages fluently. Yeah, yeah, he he dropped the Arabic, but I think he's going back to it because in Sweden he wants to. I know he he works with the underprivileged uh Syrians refugees out there. So I think the the reason why he's gonna go back into Arabic is to you know work on the streets with with the with the Syrian brothers and stuff, refugees from the Muslim countries. Um but um with the Book of Lamb, that's how we did it. That's how we got into it. So then it was getting the tapes, right? Then we would go to get the tapes, then it would uh then it was uh um and to buy book other books and pamphlets and incense and oils, and of course, that's the identity we chose for ourselves as high school students. We wouldn't brought this.

SPEAKER_02 35:16

I don't mean to catch a wisdom, yeah. So your mom, she didn't go with you guys.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

No, no, my mom was completely out at the time. Her mom was my mom, once she left the naked uh the five percenters, my mother was just focused into her life as an actress. Um, and a uh, you know, just the the biggest thing for us, but biggest thing for my mother was her was always gonna be what the community brought to her because she was raised, her godmother was a Garvey. So, you know, so she was um she she it's just who she is, you know what I mean? You know, it's the Harlem in her. So part of that, you know what I mean. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:02

That's it, we gotta clip that right there. It's just the Harlem in us.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

That that that's what it is. So, you know what I mean. So my mom has always been involved in our world, no matter where life took her. My mother never forgot what she was, uh, and who she is. So, but um, but never organizations. My mother, you know, uh like my father, they didn't really want to be involved in any, you know, and and you know, and and things that would tie them down. My brother and I, however, you know, just the identity being the identity, identifying yourself and learning the language, learning Arabic, learning to pray in Arabic, was a big that was a big deal. That was a big lore for him. And for me, the the the oils and segregating yourself from you know the you know the masses and stuff like that was was was a big deal. And um, so it was that and then what kind of solidified and how the community came together, you know, uh a few other brothers, like my brother Amin, or told you right now, uh with the guards a lot, he was part of the community too, for a while. So they would go all over. They would go to they would go out to Bushwick all the time and and meet up with people. And um the the community just found itself.

Meeting The Imam Son By Chance

SPEAKER_00 37:30

It just found itself. We had our own apartment, so me and my brother, so people would come near a lot when we were still in high school. And uh one day we were doing, we were learning Sufism because he there was a part with a point with where uh Imam Isa at the time was teaching Sufism, so we're learning chanting. And uh as we're praying and we're looking at the book of Lamb, I stopped and I said, I was gonna go to the grocery store to get the brothers, you know, some snacks so we can have something in the apartment. And I said, I know Imam's son, and you know how black people never believe you about nothing. You know what I mean? You know, so you know, and it wasn't they didn't just say we don't believe you, you know. They uh so I'm with a bunch of brothers in my apartment, so nobody believes me. I'm like, I met him two years ago. This kid was in ESL, as black as cobalt, but in ESL. And he was like, I don't speak, you know, English is my second language. I'm Sudanese, I speak you know, Arabic. And I was like, Oh, I thought ESL was only for Spanish. This is the rewind two years. Two years. I said I knew this kid two years ago, then we went on the class trip together. We used to, we used to do martial arts together. He told me his father had something like the FOI called the SOI, the sword of Islam. And I'm like, this is his this is definitely his son. Nobody believed me. I didn't see this dude in two years. I walked out my door, got on my bicycle to to to ride to the grocery store. This dude is riding, walking around in my neighborhood. Never saw this dude for two years. I'm like, yo, Ibrahim. After chanting, after chanting, after setting, realizing that I know this man's son, hadn't seen him in two years. I go outside and almost immediately I'm like, Ibrahim, and he goes, Yeah, I'm like, you remember me? We were in art class together, we used to fight together. Yeah, I remember you. I'm like, come with me real quick, bust into my like Hawaii 5-0, kick my door in, open the door, like brought Ibrahim in front of the brothers, pointed to the uh to the picture of Imam Misa. I said, Who is that? He's like, That's my father. I said, I ain't seen this brother in two years, and it was chilling, and you know, uh, that they had moved from Bushwick to New Jersey to what they thought was the boondocks to get away, to get away, so we showed up to his crib like 11 deep. It wasn't good.

SPEAKER_02 40:37

So, what happened then?

SPEAKER_00 40:39

So that so ma his mom closed the door, locked the door with her daughter inside, because they thought that we were sent. It was just a coincidence. We were just like teenagers, like coincidentally within miles from each other. So, yeah, because the brothers came through job, but you know how you're excited about getting involved in something, and then of course, it's like you know, meeting, you know, like uh I'm sure like when Elijah Farrakhan is out in the streets, people are gonna be like, yo, you know, you the minister and uh most Elijah Muhammad's grandson. So it's that type of deal. So that but that so that was interesting to say the least. But I personally bailed out before they went to Georgia because they flipped

Stepping Away Into Politics And Study

SPEAKER_00 41:30

the script to um you know from from being the Antarol community to the United Nuwapian nation of moros. And I'm like, ah, this is a lot of changing. I'm like, I don't know if my man is is um, I don't know where we're gonna go next. I honestly I didn't want to become a Christian. So I'm like, is is he gonna like where are we gonna when is this gonna stop? So I'm like, and then that part of it was like I want to become Christian, and the other part was like he changes identity a lot. Like a lot of people do have schizophrenia. I'm like, are we following, you know? So it was interesting, it was still a a part of a world. Um, and then after that, uh after that experience, it was just me. I went from the social religious aspect of our blackness being Harlemites to the political understanding of political world that we live because we were also raised to understand the political world that we lived in. Still grew up in the we were still growing up, we grew up in the in you know, at the end of the civil rights and the in the um, you know, in in the Malcolm X era. So, you know, us learning international uh and national problems became more of it. So I be I I dug deeper, you know, as a personal knowledge, it was more about learning about what was happening in the world, what was what was going on, um, you know, in in in in uh in in in places like Tulia, Texas, where the whole town, black, the all the city, almost every black citizen was arrested. I think that was 95, got into the Palestinian conflict, and um in 96 got into the Palestinian conflict as in learning about it in 1996 in 1996, and then um you know, so we stepped away from a lot of the uh the the uh the everything except for the million man march. When the million man march happened, I um I went to the million man march because that was important for us.

SPEAKER_02 43:54

So did you go with your brothers?

SPEAKER_00 43:57

One one, my brother uh Yahara didn't go to the million man watch um at the time. He, you know, he, I think at the time was still, you know, with with with uh Ima Misa. It was a you know, they unfortunately again being young, you think that you move past what you consider rhetoric, like rhetorical questions, and then you try to go deeper. Young people always say, especially when you're seeking knowledge, you think you've learned it all. Oh no, then I went back and listened to almost 50 years of the minister's lectures.

SPEAKER_02 44:39

Brother, listen, let me tell you. Starting at Randall's idea, I'll tell you, brother. I was I was not Farrakhan. That was not my it's just that wasn't it just wasn't for me. Like you, but I started watching Farrakhan recently.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

Yeah, I got you, brother. I got you. Y'all were talking about FBA versus the diaspora last night. Okay, Farrakhan had this conversation at Randall's Island in 1974. Listen to the Randall's Island, listen to the Randall's Island address. Farrakhan was telling you, Caribbean brothers, you have to stop coming over to this country. Talking about that ain't my brother. Listen to that. It's a long, it's a two-hour, it's a two-hour address at Randall's Island, 1974. Um Palestine and and uh and uh Israel the Israel-Palestine conflict. Firecon was talking about that in 1987, 1986. I didn't even, of course, as a kid, you don't notice that that what was going on, but I went back and listened to I when COVID hit, I um went back to listen to about the pat 50 years of lectures given by the minister.

SPEAKER_02 46:04

Brother, I didn't even know he had that many.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

Goes back the the earliest ones you can find on YouTube goes back to 74.

SPEAKER_02 46:12

I think I uh yeah, I watched, I believe two or three of them. These are long, long

Revisiting Farrakhan And World Analysis

SPEAKER_02 46:20

lectures.

SPEAKER_03 46:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys can you believe can you believe the brothers standing up there talking for that long?

SPEAKER_00 46:25

Yeah, yeah. Listen, during it, so during COVID-19, which I'm in alignment with what he was trying to tell us there, big time. Um, I also one of one of the sisters who was like the one of the loves of my life, a beautiful sister, was MGT for a while. So she and she married into the nation and and and stuff like that. So well, I already stayed connected through her. So um, but that that was it. It was just, you know, trying to learn about the world through our through our culture, through blackness, not being taught everything through mainstream or even left, you know, even left-wing media like WBAI, which was big for me. Um, it was uh really uh and and leftists, you know, like Michael Parenti was a pretty solid brother in the Black Agenda Report people. These back in the 90s, there was a lot of deep information that was being taught to the world about what the United States was. And Andy's lectures, I found that Farrakhan hit every last one of these notes, including one where he was at the open line, on open line with uh on KISS FM with Brother Intume. And you can still look this up, where they were talking about the John Jaweed and South Sudan, and that and that conflict nobody tells it like he did. They were they invited the minister out there to to intervene in that conflict. You have to listen to that open line. I think that was from 2004, 2005-ish. Listen to that one when we talk about South Sudan, and uh it just goes to show you that this this man had his finger on the pulse of what the world is talking about now. Everyone is talking about it now, and I'm talking about white people on the far right are saying things that that Farrakhan was saying back in the day. I'm talking about veterans, CIA officers are talking about the things and saying the things that the minister was talking about back in the day.

SPEAKER_02 48:51

Now, I want to go into okay, so you you you answer a law, you left, you got in a little bit into politics and just basically autodidactic, like just on your

Building A Career In Fitness

SPEAKER_02 49:05

own. So, how did you get into the fitness industry and in what year?

SPEAKER_00 49:10

Okay, so and uh as a college student, I I uh at my second year, um, I was about to become a father, and I was up at Syracuse, and there was an undergrad. I was taking radio and television production, and as an um, there was an undergrad there who was a ACE certified personal trainer. So in 95, I took my um 95. I got certified by ACE, the American uh and um and there was another the exercise institute had at the time when it was training us to get certified by ACE, was doing its own certification uh program too. So I my first two certifications came there. 1997, when I went back to college uh after fighting for custody for my son, um I became American College of Sports, Medicine, Health and Fitness Instructor.

SPEAKER_02 50:12

Um, and post-that's what I have right now.

SPEAKER_00 50:15

Yeah, H okay. So that was uh so ACSM. So what happened with me and where my certification circular life went uh became I I wanted to work in these gyms, commercial gyms, and I wasn't getting traction at any gym that was paying the big money. You know, you you know, it's like, oh, you have an ACE. We only take people with NSCA um uh or American College of Sports Medicine. So I became American College of Sports Medicine certified, and then the one one gym that was paying good money at the time in the 90s over $20 an hour. It's like well, we only take NASM. So I became NASM certified, the National Championship of Sports Medicine certified, and then from there, uh I and I was reading, I'd gotten so into the fitness world, I'm like, who the hell trained Michael Jordan? And Tim Groger didn't come up, not the guy, uh the Chicago Bulls. And I got the name Paul Check and Kim Goss. So I started to become Czech certified. Um, and Czech changed the game for me in terms of like uh in terms of functional fitness, um working outside of the confines of the gym. Back in the day, a good gym had about 20 pieces of selectorized. We would have 20 chess machines, you know, Psybex incline, cybex flat, cybek decline, and then you repeat the same, you know, with with Nautilus, Body Master, I carry on. So it was all a good gym back when I started, was supposed to have all of this machine equipment. Paul Tech was like, you got to train the body. You have to train the body holistically and in a way that you're understanding, you know, the you know, the deep lateral uh longitudinal subsystems, the lateral subsystems, and and and understanding how to activate the transverse abdominus and the multifidus. So I got really into that, way ahead of my time. Because, you know, now I'm showing people, but I'm check certified, and and people are like, what is that? That's nothing. Do you have an ace certification? I'm like, ACE is like the big you know, so I was chasing these dollars, so it was it was frustrating, and because I was uh uh I had my radio and television production uh under my belt, I decided to move to St. Croix. My mom moved there in 2000 after 2001.

SPEAKER_02 53:00

So you guys are saying basically from St. Croix, like your your your heritage?

SPEAKER_00 53:05

Absolutely not. Oh we moved there just because not yeah, not at all. We're from Harlem. Yeah, so uh my family's on my mother's side from Virginia, the Newport News Matthews area, and my father's uh people are from Leesburg, Georgia. But um no, we die as a as a young father, I wanted to produce my own TV show. My mom was producing theater out there, trying to produce theater out there. My brother went out there to um to help my mother set up her computers, and some chick was out there, and he's like, I ain't coming back. And he's like, Bring my nephew to St. Croix because you out there by yourself, you know, and the family got to be together. So I moved to St. Croix to start my own fitness television show. So I did that for two years. And then, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:00

Now I wanna, I wanna, well, I we got we got a question in the chat before we before I address that that question in the chat. This is some personal training talk, but you know, uh, this is probably like they don't care about this stuff. Uh you know, uh uh as far as certification, so uh check, right? Uh check certification, yeah. Is it this kind of the same if is NASM?

SPEAKER_00 54:25

The same concept. Okay, so uh the national NASM uh changed several times. Uh I started when Goldman was doing it, it was a bodybuilder certification. Then I got it again when um when uh um I forget his name. Uh he worked with he worked with Cybex. Um he worked with Cybex, so it was basically uh and then um they tried to get Paul Czech and um Charles Pollaquin uh to to create the curriculum, but they were doing their own thing, so they ended up getting Clark, Dr. Clark, uh Michael Clark to do it. So what Michael Clark did was took what Paul Check was doing and what Charles Polliquin was doing, and he created the optimal performance training uh model for NASM. Correct. Um ASM was three different three different types of certifications in 1988. Goldman started it, and it was all about Goldman worked with muscle and fitness. So when I say bodybuilding, I mean meat head bodybuilding. Yes, and then uh then it was about uh using the gym equipment uh properly. Uh I'll come up with dude's name um in a minute, um uh who took it over. He has his own certification thing now called RTS. But prior, yeah, so um so prior to um so when I I I got it uh prior to when when Neil Spruce owned it uh before Clark took it over, Neil Spruce owned Apex and he owned uh which was a supplement nutrition company as well, and he owned NASM, and then Michael Clark took it over. So what you see now is what he took from Paul Check and Charles Paula Quinn and uh Juan Carlos Santana and they Juan Carlos Santana, brother.

SPEAKER_02 56:40

I haven't heard that name. What happened to him?

SPEAKER_00 56:42

He has his own but during the pandemic, Juan Carlos Santana uh started his own personal training certification and was certifying people for twenty dollars in certain models, 1999, and selling fitness equipment. I think Juan Carlos Santana became more financially successful in his entire life during the pandemic, doing those cheap certifications for both the Spanish and English audience online. And and and his model is uh deep. So I so during the pandemic, I needed to stay um to stay into it. So I did I definitely did um say with uh with uh Warren Carl Santana. Tom Tom Purvis is who I started the NS NASM under. Tom Purvis, who owns his who runs his own stuff. Now, so that that's how deep I'm like I'm deep, deep into it. Then uh I met Fred Hatfield in 1998 from the ISSA when I had to get certified.

SPEAKER_02 57:41

When I met Freddy, hold on, hold on. I'm trying to figure out if you got more certifications than I do. We might have to battle, we might have to do a certification battle.

SPEAKER_00 57:51

Yeah, yeah. I I'll send you my my Instagram post um where it's showing what I went through. That became a Pilates instructor.

SPEAKER_02 57:58

Wait, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. So let me ask you this. So Matt Pilates certification. I'm Matt certified, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:06

Pilates and uh uh Pilates Institute of America, uh uh with stot S T O T T Pilates. But Fred, I met Fred Hatfield because we had a gym in East Brunswick, New Jersey called Workout World. And we were they they would come to places to try to you know do weekend events to do certifications. So I met Dr. Squat there, and uh I had to become certified because when I started talking to him, I was like mad naive about bodybuilders, like which one takes steroids? Well, took steroids back in the day. He's like, they took all took steroids. What the fuck is wrong with you?

SPEAKER_02 58:46

And I'm like, well,

Firstborn Questions And Closing Plugs

SPEAKER_02 58:50

brother, I'm like, I would I wanna I want to go to this this this question before we kind of we could go on and on about personal which which which we will which we will we all right so we got uh did your father tell you any personal stories about him and Allah? Did you have a relationship with any other firstborn?

SPEAKER_00 59:12

Bishmal was one of the brothers who I had a relationship with and I god. Bishmal and I god were always at our at our house. The father at the time when we were kids, um, you know, there was no um the only uh the only thing that was important about that was his reverence and the fact that my father did time in jail for attempted murder for someone for for one of his homeboys ripping down the picture of uh of the father. But no, my but my mom and my aunt Celeste did tell me stories because they knew knew him well. He was older, he was much older than than them, by the way. Um my my father was young God was the youngest God at the time, but my father, I think, was the second youngest guard at the time. So um it was mostly um the mission. What was different about the uh the the brothers is that it was important for them to get out of the mosque and to get out the temple, it's called the temple at the time, and to be on the streets. That was the biggest thing. Get out on the streets. So although you know, uh nobody was an angel, you couldn't disrespect sisters in front of the in front of the school. You couldn't put your hands on sisters in front of the school. Uh, and uh so they were taught to be vigilant in the in the in the streets in terms of the positive stuff, um it was it was a bit more street than the F FOI was teaching brothers to do, you know, the lane, you know, it wasn't as disciplined, it wasn't as disciplined, but other than that, no, it was just about, you know, he was he was back to the essence by the time I was a before I was born, and and and um yeah, no no no stories, no stories at the time, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:20

Got you. On that note, brother, thank you for your time. I really appreciate you coming up and building with the NYP audience. Thank you for everyone tuning in. I just want everyone to keep in mind this is a platform about unity, bringing the community together. So we have Moors on here, we have Pan-Africanists, we have Muslims on here, we have all communities on here, and that's all I want to say. So tomorrow, tomorrow, it's a it's a what is it? Tomorrow's Thursday, tomorrow's Wednesday, tomorrow's Wednesday, and then Thursday. We have just it's just the rest of the week is Moorish. And then and then Friday, we're gonna put up um a throwback from the five percent nation. And then uh, I think Sunday we're on with the Muslim brother. Uh before we cut out, you know, give people your handles and where they could find you and and all and all that.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:22

Uh you can uh go to my fitness page, it's t fitness for you uh on uh on YouTube. And my Instagram is my name Tarasha Fitness for you. Uh Y O U. Uh I'm sorry, T Fitness for Y O U on Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:50

All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:51

And uh yeah, and then uh some my my my page from there, my my fitness page from there, the fitness page. If anybody wants to check out the um, you know, the the the fitness page, you'll you'll be able to see some of uh you know, some training tips and techniques and things like that that you could try on your own. Um and when we come back for the fitness show, we'll talk about my book, my my powerful arms book, and a couple other books that uh we have for fitness as well. So look forward to it.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:22

The first the first fitness show I want to build on what we have to go through in the fitness industry.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:28

Yeah, that that was big. That's a good one. That's a good one. And I'm looking forward to uh talking about that. Indeed, indeed.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:36

Yes, thank you for coming out this evening. Thank you to the whole uh chat and everyone that came out to watch us. Thank you to the viewers who are gonna watch it later. Thank you to everyone who's gonna listen to this on Spotify and Apple, and we are out of here.