The Five Percenters

Sensationalized and reviled as the Hell's Angels of black America, the Five Percenters (also known as the Nation of Gods and Earths) began as a cluster of outcasts from the Nation of Islam's Harlem mosque in the 1960s. Led by a man named "Allah," Five Percenters taught the city's black youth that they were gods. From their marginalized beginnings, the Five Percenters' history has been charged with drama, spanning the war between Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad, the Attic a prison revolt, Brooklyn turf gangs and 1980s crack empires, and now count high profile hip-hop stars among their adherents. With unrivalled insider access to the movement's elders, oral tradition and community literature, Knight reveals the hidden reality behind the myths, rumours and hearsay, and explores the origins and development of this misunderstood community.