RALO PART 8: LEARNING MORE ABOUT HIS FAITH BEHIND THE PRISON WALL HOW HIS LIFE CHANGED WHEN HE ACCEPTED ISLAM

Tales From The Jails Host sat down with Ralo from Atlanta. Ralo addresses the snitch allegations and how his relationships with other rappers have been compromised. Ralo addresses the new goals of rebuilding his neighborhood. Ralo speaks about his life as a Muslim and how he decided to build a masjid.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:22

I'm gonna stop asking you this, like, you know, so what made you, you know, uh come to the point where you like, I'm gonna build a master? Like, what was your thinking process? What did you think about doing that?

SPEAKER_01 0:32

I had one to um, I had got caught with a cell phone at Robert A. Dane detention facility. I had paid $25,000 for this phone. Nobody had a phone on that compound at that time, so it was real, real hard to get a phone, but I just upped the annie and you know, I ended up robbing me an officer. I got charged for this, and I played out to it as well, so I'm cool on the charges. But um, and they had shipped me to um this jail in Floyd County, Georgia. And it's in um Rome. It's in Rome. And when I got there, it was only one Muslim in the um whole compound. I mean, in the dorm that I was in, that I got, I had got in a fight downstairs, and then they moved me to the murder dorm while the murder was at. So goddamn, what happened was I just had left Robert A dating where I was the email, and then we had a little smaller, tight-knit community. Well, um we had a certain schedule. I wake up, we'll pray together. We caught we got a brother that called us down. We had a little smaller community.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

And when I got to that facility, you know, I started, I wanted it, I desired it, because that helped me. Like, I don't think brothers, some brothers don't understand that like it's important to be around other Muslims so y'all can keep each other grounded. So when I got to that facility, after I got the finding, they moved me to the murderer dome on High Mats, I um, it was one Muslim in there, and he used to pray inside his room. And I was like, man, ain't nobody, I ain't finna do that. The Allah says that he made them the earth a Musala. And, you know, it's for the woman to go pray in secret. And the man is supposed to play in the most public area or whatnot. And um, I started praying in the dorm, and he prayed with me twice, I want to say. And then other brothers started coming around like, hey man, I want you to teach me the thing, because automatically I just be wanting to advertise Islam. And um I ended up converting for the brothers, you know. You know what I'm saying? Over a like uh over a little time, of course, I got in wars with the Bloods, the GDs, and things of that matter, but most of them end up converting over. And um, of course, I repeated this at 10 more spots, nine more spots. I repeated the same thing. So I was like, shh, I'm kind of holding that bound to Islam. So I started reading into the top seals and reading the stories about the companions and stuff like that, and it just gave me this massive motivation that like shit. When I get out, I got to have no moose. I got to be able to um maintain and build on to what I've been doing. And it kind of gave me peace. It gave me uh it gave me this peace that I just can't buy. You know, I don't had a lot of different things in life, material-wise, and money, period. But um, that the peace that Islam had gave me and has given me, it's just priceless. So it was just like, that's the first thing I'm gonna do. I'm gonna build a mill moose so we can continue. Because I was able to teach, you know, brothers that didn't have no teeth in their mouth from Melf. And um, they was elderly brothers, 50, 60 years old, that barely even knew the ABCs, but I I I I taught them how to pray. I taught them the father how to do a lot. I taught them, you know, different services and stuff. So I that that was my motivation, you know. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

So now, uh, how long this master been? How long how many years?

SPEAKER_01 4:09

A year. Since I got out of prison. Wow, one year.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

So man, so you then you come home, you know, and you you experience that being in jail. You're like, man, when I get out, I'm uh I'm gonna build a master. But we know how we always think about stuff like that while we in jail, right? And then when we get out, we get home, we get caught up in, you know, like just life in general. How did you maintain that focus like I like and just stick to that? Like, was what was it that made you like just stick to that plan?

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Cause like when I went to prison, because if we go back before Meatball died, before Meat Bow got killed or whatnot, um when I came home from, you know, county jail praying in front of my bros while we was at the trap. Everybody made fun of me, because they ain't know what a lot of mean and stuff like that. They were mocking me, because you know, I'm 17, I'm fresh out of prison and whatnot. And um I went in prison, I was in county jail, excuse me. So when I went to prison, I ended up seeing how the brothers would just had this unity and this brotherhood and this love and compassion. So when I got out when I was younger, I had said, man, I'm gonna bring debt and which I seen in jail on the streets with the Muslim. So I um I ended up going through a lot of different wars because I was blood at that time. And um we ended up winning. We ended up winning those battles, alhamdulillah. And um with debt, that always been my motivation. Like, no matter what the hell go on, I'm gonna make sure I hold up the battle, is the banner of Islam for the Muslims, because when I left, it seemed like it, it don't seem, but we had a massive Islamic shift in Atlanta. Like when Rallo left, a lot of brothers went Ephi. A lot of brothers went to practice in other religions, and it was almost as if Islam had fell off in Atlanta when I got locked up. So when I got back, I'm like, yeah, I got that fucked up. I'm finna, we finna turn this shit back up. Like, like, ain't nobody in the hell, y'all. We finna raise this banner back up of Islam. And um, it just that just was my passion, and that shit just nothing was gonna stop me from doing that. Even if I had to die, I was gonna do that.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

So come like like in Atlanta, right? Like, I'm I'm not familiar. I'm familiar with you know things from what I see on TV and how I, you know, I see like people. And I be thinking that a lot of times that people are from Atlanta. But by speaking with the brother Ali, he was like, nah, people just be moving here and then they're not really, they're not really here from Atlanta. Are you originally born in Atlanta?

SPEAKER_01 6:58

I had learned some things when I was in prison from um the DC brothers. They got a car called a DC car in prison. Shout out to the DC brothers. And um, I used to be like, what part of DC you from? He's like, nigga, I ain't from DC. I'm from um I'm from a certain section of DC. Southeast all that. I'm Southeast. Fuck DC, they used to say that. So when you ask me that question, it's hard because you gotta think about it, like when I was a kid, I ain't never come out of the bluff. You know what I'm saying? My mom, I went to school right here at Bethune Elementary. I went to um Kennedy Middle School, I went to Douglas High School. I'm a real west side nigga. I might have gone on the east side for a small period of time of my life. So like when they start, like, because you gotta think about it, when we was in school, if we see some weird shit, we fought. You know what I'm saying? So like I can't really, a lot of shit that been going on in Atlanta, when you seen it, is when I started seeing it. Okay. You know what I'm saying? Like, I never seen a lot of this sucker shit that's going on. So like, like, I've been in the bluff all my life, and it went number some selling dope, selling pussy, and um, selling dope and selling pussy. That's how that's how I went on in the bluff all my life. Wow. So that's all I seen.