80's Baby: When Crack Made Kings

By the beginning of the 1980's, the Bronx had become a godforsaken slum, making it the ideal location for an epidemic. That epidemic arrived in the form of crack cocaine, which hit the streets with a savage force setting off an explosion of violent crime unlike anything ever seen before. The birth of crack brought with it more money, more guns and more gangs, the faces of which were younger, hungrier and more vicious than their predecessors. In 1986, Hassan, a student of the streets ascended above all other ghetto dons and planted his flag at the top of the drug game. But what crack giveth, crack taketh away as jealousy, rival crews and the federal government began chipping away at his once mighty empire.