The soon-to-be-released documentary proves surviving the city's toughest hood is no joke.

By Eric K. Arnold

Straight outta Hunters Point

'THE BLACK MAN'S reality is so surreal, no one believes it," Cecil Brown, the UC Berkeley professor and author, once told me. Brown was speaking of the work of Chester Himes, widely acknowledged as the first African American detective fiction writer and the author of the Harlem Crime Series. Brown could have been speaking about the predominantly black Bayview-Hunters Point district. If life there were a major-studio movie, it'd be a mix between Colors, Boyz N the Hood, and Juice – with a bit of Erin Brockovich thrown in. No big-budget Hollywood film, however, could ever hope to capture the intensity of the Point's real drama.

Nestled into one of San Francisco's hills, the Hunters Point public housing projects offer their residents a priceless view of the bay. But oil-stained concrete streets, gangsta beats, and guns are what you can expect here. Young black males make the too easy transition to gunslingers and drug dealers, older residents have prison records longer than their employment history, there are deadly neighborhood rivalries, and early-morning drive-by shootings – not to mention chronic alcohol and crack addiction – are commonplace. No question, the usual suspects are to blame: undereducation, underemployment, high rates of teenage pregnancy, rampant sexually transmitted diseases, and other serious health concerns. It's exactly what you'd think you'd find in a neighborhood just upwind of an electricity plant and two EPA-designated Superfund sites.

Last year a toxic-waste fire at the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard burned for at least six weeks before federal officials notified the city. (The caustic combination of chemicals was never identified, though a navy spokesperson was reported as saying the incident posed no significant health risk.) Bayview-Hunters Point has the dubious distinction of having the state's highest asthma rates, too, according to a Kaiser Permanente study completed in 2000.

Amid these harsh conditions, in the past decade Bayview-Hunters Point has been a prime breeding ground for rap music. Indeed, it's hard to imagine a more appropriate soundtrack for life in the ghetto. The harsh realm of violent rap lyrics speaks directly to the young black males of the inner city in a way other music does not. Likewise, the music reflects this often hazardous environment. With college and the promise of a better-paying job just a dream for most hustlers, rap music is the means of generating legal income. In every public housing project citywide there are hundreds, if not thousands, of would-be rap artists and dozens of independent, underground labels laying down hardcore, gangsta beats.

Along with the braggadocio and one-upsmanship common to rap, the Point's artists reveal a frustration that's rarely reflected in Soundscan tallies or Billboard chart slots. The lyrics to Ant Loc and Capone's "Silver Spoon," to name just one song, articulate what's behind the thugged-out mentality common among H.P.'s younger generation:

Living in a ghetto all I ever knew with nothing to do / Running from the boys in blue / I wasn't born with a silver spoon / Fuck the punks I got nothing to lose / I'm a nigga like you going through drama like you / Word from my momma in the middle of these times got me through / Since I was little been by my side never told me lies and stayed true / Now I'm living my life don't know what the fuck to do. (Ant Loc)

Since day one I ain't have shit / My pops left my mother for another passion / And that's some sad shit / Dealing with this addict / Smoking crack in front of his baby son I guess it's a bad habit / Dealing with this bad shit makes it hard to get ahead / Fuck it/ Cut corners instead, living like I'm dead. (Capone)

Few positive role models exist for H.P.'s teenagers, other than dope dealers and ballers. To earn their "stripes" on the block, some youngsters will do anything – even kill another neighborhood kid. As stated on RBL Posse's 1994 song "Bluebird," "It still gets deeper and deeper / The deeper that it get in this game, it got these young niggas sick/ Lettin' loose on a nigga/ Even if they figured you was bigger, they would still be your grave digger."

Mr. Epps's neighborhood

Since the rise of N.W.A., gangsta rap – known for its nihilistic, ghettocentric worldview and often criticized for its misogyny and glorification of drug dealing and gangbanging – has become a billion-dollar industry. Given the genre's commercial success, it would be easy to regard tales of ruthless street soldiers, hyped-up hustlers, stone-cold players, and Lexus-driving pimps as the fanciful creation of the music business. To the average suburban fan, gangsta rap's famous hoods – N.W.A.'s Compton; Snoop Dogg's Long Beach; Bootleg's Flint, Mich.; C-Bo's Sacramento; Keak the Sneak's East Oakland; and Bone's East Cleveland, Ohio – might seem as mythical as Frank Herbert's Dune or J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth. When you've heard thousands of people get murdered in stereo, it's all too easy to think it's exaggeration; no one really gets shot, and if they do, they don't die.

But try to tell that to Starvel Junious and Jarvis Baker, two Hunters Point teenagers who were murdered May 3, 2000. Or Ty Laury, a father of two, killed March 10, 2001, at the intersection of Evans Avenue and Middlepoint Road. Or Mr. Cee, a member of RBL Posse, fatally wounded on New Year's Day 1996. Or, for that matter, Kevin Epps, 33, who narrowly missed the spray of AK-47 fire while hanging out in the West Point housing projects, a.k.a. "Westmob," a.k.a. "the 'Mob," last December.

Epps, a Hunters Point resident turned filmmaker, was shooting footage for Straight outta Hunters Point, a full-length documentary tentatively scheduled for independent release in June, when he came this close to becoming another statistic. Out of nowhere, he says, a car careened around the corner, automatic weapons blazing. Epps says the incident was a random attack. "They sprayed from here" – he points to one end of the block – "to the police station up there," he says, indicating a San Francisco Police Department substation at the other end of the block. During the gunfire, he recalls, "the police were in there, but they didn't come out."

It was Epps's familiarity with the architecture of the West Point housing projects that stopped him from catching a slug or three. "I just tried to stay close to the concrete," he says. A 15-year-old friend wasn't as lucky and now has a nasty scar to prove it. But maybe Epps's friend was lucky; the bullet passed through his leg and missed vital arteries. Epps recounts the incident casually. Having grown up in the shadow of similar violence, he seems disassociated from the near-death experience. It's almost as if it happened to someone else.

But for Epps, who lives with his common-law wife and daughter in a split-level condo two blocks from the West Point housing projects he was raised in, Hunters Point is more than just turf, it's home. And though he stands on the verge of artistic success, disentangling himself is not easy. Hunters Point remains lodged in Epps's psyche, like the doughnut marks staining the concrete at the intersection of West Point and Middlepoint Roads.

He wonders about the effect of the austere concrete-and-wood structures, mostly bereft of vegetation, on the mentality of their residents. "Me, man, I've looked at some books, and seeing how these houses were designed like military barracks, I'm like, 'Damn, does that affect your train of thought?' It's like a military compound, a prison compound."

Steady mobbin'

I first met Epps, who also goes by the name Y2K, in September 2000, after hearing about the film in progress from one of my editors. I arranged to meet him one afternoon on Market Street, and together we drove to West Point, a place that as of late has been in the news constantly.

For the past year and a half the Westmob gang has been embroiled in a deadly gang-related war with another H.P. neighborhood organization known as "Big Block." It has been reported that the disputes centered on drugs, rap music lyrics, and neighborhood bragging rights, but the historical reasons for the anger that plagues H.P. residents are not quite so superficial.

Epps, for one, traces its roots back almost a century, when the settlement developed as one of the first black communities on the West Coast. "These projects were built before 1900, then the government took over," he says. "The shipyards were used for maintenance. During [WWII] a lot of the bombs were loaded right here. And a lot of black skilled workers migrated here."

After the war, though, many H.P. residents lost their jobs. And things went from bad to worse in 1973, when the naval shipyards closed, leaving H.P. residents – from whom the navy drew much of its labor force – in dire economic straits. By all accounts the base's closing devastated older folks in the community, many of whom then had to rely on government assistance. In the mid and late '80s the crack epidemic created a thriving black market. Selling crack remains a viable trade in the district to this day.

In areas where illegal drugs thrive, there are certain truisms to contend with, and Hunters Point is no different. The 1st and the 15th of every month, the days when welfare checks are distributed, are busy for both the clockers, street dealers, and the ballers, the midlevel dealers who supply them. Standing on the block hawking pocketfuls of stones is not without risk. Many clockers carry firearms. If you're caught slippin' on the block without a strap, you could be easy pickings for the jackers, hardcore thugs who specialize in robbing drug dealers. Certain individuals go so far as to wear bulletproof vests. And if the jackers or rival crews don't get you, the police might. Almost every day in H.P., an SFPD task-force unit is making an arrest or searching someone's vehicle with a drug-sniffing German shepherd. Until it was forced to disband in March 1997 because of lawsuits and allegations of inappropriate behavior, the SFPD's high-powered CRUSH (Crime Response Unit to Stop Homicide) unit, infamous for high-speed pursuits and an aggressive, overzealous attitude, made Bayview-Hunters Point its major stomping ground.

Lights, camera, action

A montage of police cars with sirens blazing, hustlers on the block, and TV anchors hyping the connection between violence and rap, all set to H.P. rappers' music, makes up a five-minute SOHP trailer produced by director-cameraman Epps and editor Joshua Callaghan, who met at the Film Arts Foundation, where Epps was a student. The trailer looks similar to those for other movies, with one difference: it's not a fictional account shot on a studio lot.

Epps has worked on the documentary almost every day for two years. It's his tribute to the Point and, he hopes, his means of transcending the ghetto. Asked why he decided to become a filmmaker, he replies, "It ain't enough room for everybody to be rappers. That's why we're trying to implement these other venues and outlets. There's only so much room. There's only a select few that can actually be rappers, but it's so diverse, you can have a lot of other shit going on."

When the Junious and Baker killings occurred, Epps ended up being in the wrong place at the right time. Being a H.P. nigga does have its perks; he was able to shoot footage without raising eyebrows. The resulting film presents a mostly sympathetic view of the Point from a street-level perspective, yet at the same time doesn't sugarcoat the effects of violence there.

"We lost some souls. We can't go back," he says. His greatest wish is that Straight outta Hunters Point – currently in post-production – will unite the Point's various beefing factions.

The film, Epps says, not only recounts the events following the Junious incident but also includes background on everything from the Point's turn-of-the-century origins as an army post (before it was handed over to the navy) to its conversion to low-income housing to the race riots in 1966, when a white police officer shot two unarmed African Americans in the back.

"We've got the whole evolution of how Hunters Point became Hunters Point," he says. "We've got some historical stuff and different interviews from people [who] have been there 40 or 50 years and the things they went through.... I brung it all the way up into the hip-hop."

SOHP includes interviews with many of the seminal figures in H.P.'s rap history, including Black C. of RBL Posse, Herm Lewis, and Douglas "Boobie" Stepney.

No doubt the most successful rap group in H.P. history is RBL Posse, whose three albums combined have sold between 500,000 and 750,000 records (exact counts are hard to determine, as RBL's fans buy music at non-Soundscan stores). RBL were courted by labels such as Def Jam and Relativity before signing with Big Beat/Atlantic in 1995. Mr. Cee, though, was killed before the album was completed. And Big Beat seemingly had no idea how to market the group, attempting to change the signature RBL sound and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on studio expenses and samples.

Though they didn't become as huge as expected, RBL's success served as an inspiration to H.P. artists, as well as to Lewis, a community activist who started his own H.P.-based label, Black Power.

In 1993, Lewis released Trying to Survive in the Ghetto, an album credited with setting off the independent-label compilation movement locally. He describes the album as "a unified effort" that brought together H.P. artists such as RBL with S.F. rappers such as Cougnut, JT the Bigga Figga, San Quinn, and 4-Tay. Trying to Survive set a precedent for inner-city entrepreneurs across the Bay Area (see "Rap in Hunters Point," page 10, and "Black C on Hunters Point and S.F. Hardcore Rap," page 11).

"When a lot of these ballers and high rollers seen an individual like myself, a non-rapper, put together a compilation with a variety of rappers," Lewis says, "they looked at it like, 'Hey, Herm put together this compilation, and he's not even characterized as a rapper.' ... That's what a lot of people started doing."

Among those influenced by H.P.'s rap scene was Master P, whose 1997 West Coast Bad Boyz Vol. 1 compilation aped Trying to Survive with songs like RBL's "Trying to Make a Dollar out of Fifteen Cents," the album's biggest hit. P, of course, went on to become a multimillionaire with his No Limit label. "Once he moved down South [New Orleans] with this Bay Area game, he put it out there in those communities, and they were fascinated by it," Lewis says. "And he just kept going."

West Point's Baby Finsta also acknowledges RBL Posse's influence. "I really related to [RBL]," the gravelly voiced rapper says. "I used to holler at them and try to get on they tape when I was 10. That really did inspire me to come with my own [stuff]. I dedicated myself to that, to do it for the Point." Since then Finsta's worked with JT the Bigga Figga, among others, and is featured on two songs off the SOHP soundtrack.

Still, despite the success of certain artists there, it's not easy for a rapper from H.P. – no matter how tight your flows may be – to get established in the industry. "There's a lot of talent here in the Point," Finsta says. "It's fittin' to go major. It just needs more distribution. The songs that [artists] got here is major, but sometimes motherfuckers around here be hating on you, like 'I don't wanna be down with this music,' because of the shit they hear in the news. But it's shit that motherfuckers live."

Livin' that life

On my initial visit to H.P., Epps introduces me to the neighborhood's local characters. We meet several people featured in the film, a few older folks, and many of the youngbloods. Walking through the hood, I feel it's obvious I'm not from here. Luckily, everyone seems to know Epps, so my ghetto pass is in no danger of being revoked. Still, I try not to gape at the hood rat who walks by with a T-shirt that reads "Don't Ask Me 4 Shit" or at the older, stumbling gentleman in tattered, dirty clothing, obviously drunk, high, or both.

There are kids getting home from school and teenage girls strolling past puffing Newports. Suddenly, a young boy runs up, yelling excitedly. "The police got everybody on the ground around the corner. I was winning in the dice game, but I had to get up," he tells Epps.

We walk around the corner, where a crowd watches people being arrested. Camera in hand, Epps films as the police search and question a suspect, a stocky black male who looks to be in his mid 30s.

"You got anything else in your pockets?" a cop asks.

"No," the handcuffed man replies, face bowed.

"You sure?" the cops asks.

As Epps is filming, a young girl says to him, "You should have been here last week when my daddy got picked up." Another squad car rolls up. "Five police cars for three people? That's unnecessary," the girl announces to no one in particular. An older woman, maybe in her mid 20s, approaches. The girl addresses her.

"They don't want to find out who's doing all this killing," the girl scoffs at the police. "They just want to mess with some dope fiends." Meanwhile, a number of police surround a drug-sniffing dog as it searches the suspect's car for contraband. Another cop rolls by in a black-and-white and sees Epps at work. After some polite banter, the cop jokes, "We should subpoena the tape." Epps – who admits to having been a hustler before becoming a filmmaker – replies, "Nah, man. I'm trying to stay out of court."

Another afternoon, I observe a man walking through the 'Mob with a tray full of bootleg CDs. He's got the latest E-40, Mystikal, Too $hort, Jay-Z, B.G., and Noreaga: all hood-approved artists. Seeing me scribbling notes, he asks if I'm a cop. I explain I'm working on a story. "What's happening here?" I ask. "What's going on in the ghetto is niggas trying to make some money," he replies.

Others are attempting to use the turf for community-outreach efforts. San Francisco Department of Public Health program coordinator Alonzo Gallaread hands me a plastic bag filled with condoms, lubricants, and a stat sheet. He's here, he says, because H.P. has the highest rate of sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy in San Francisco.

By day, especially when the sun is shining, West Point is as pleasant as the inner city gets. As clockers man their posts on the block, kids ride by on bikes and scooters; neither group takes much notice of the other. Yet at night the Point takes on a different character: it becomes sinister, deadly. Each passing car seems ominous. Will this be the one to screech by, automatic weapons spitting flame from open windows? While I'm on the turf, I make a mental note of physical barriers and exit routes should I be forced to duck and cover.

One evening I'm smoking blunts and drinking Hennessy from a paper cup, listening to Snoop Dogg's Tha Last Meal with some H.P. folks in a van parked outside the 'Mob. The man opposite me, seated in the driver's seat, lifts his T-shirt to reveal a bulletproof vest. I do not ask him if he is strapped; instead, I wonder about my own safety and consider moving to the back, where I am less likely to be caught in a crossfire. I can't quite shake the feeling that at any moment violence might erupt. A few weeks later my worst fears come true: the man's van is sprayed with 80 or 90 rounds of AK fire, with him in it; he dies at the scene.

Another night, I come face to face with Boobie, the CEO of Big Block records. He and his cohorts are relaxing in a van parked outside the Harbor Road projects, watching Scarface on a DVD player. Each time a car passes, Boobie looks out the window, as if to assess whether it's a friend or a foe.

Boobie disputes the press accounts that allege he's a gang leader. The 29-year-old says he plans to file a defamation-of-character lawsuit against two local TV stations that covered a police raid of his home on a warrant alleging there were as many as 15 guns stashed there. (Despite the aggressive, Cops-style daytime raid, no guns were found, and charges against Boobie were dropped.)

"I feel like [the media] slandered my name in the wrong way," he says. "You gotta know a person to judge a person. They don't even know me. They don't know my intentions in these streets. The game ain't got room for bad people. If I was out here doing bad things or creating a bad environment, I would no longer be here. I'd a been dead or in jail already."

Increase the peace?

Since September a Nation of Islam-brokered truce and a highly publicized slew of community meetings have come and gone. What, if anything, has been gained from the intervention by then-supervisor Amos Brown, Mayor Willie Brown, and former San Francisco Housing Authority chief Ronnie Davis, is unclear.

Community spirits were raised briefly last fall, when the Housing Authority announced a plan to build recording studios in six public housing projects, including West Point, Oakdale, and Harbor Road. Shortly after the plan was unveiled, SFHA spokesman Mike Roetzer told me, "We believe the music studios have the potential to build respect and cooperation between various groups and artists."

Though some of the older H.P. residents remained skeptical, Roetzer said, "We have had an overwhelmingly positive response from the young adults living in our developments. They believe the music studios will allow them opportunities for creative expression."

At least one studio was built, and ground was broken for two others, but at press time, none were fully operational. Because the question of how to pay the studio costs was apparently never addressed, the plans have stalled. Indeed, no one is talking about it anymore. And no outside source of funding ever emerged.

Without a viable way to release the music, the gesture is a token one, RBL's Black C implies. "They ain't bringing in the people that can really help them with that, 'cause they don't wanna pay them."

Boobie says he was supposed to be the director for all the studios, but "due to the fact of the media hype and all the blowing out of proportion, they've been lagging on that. It wasn't even our idea for them to try to help us with the studio; we had already built a studio. They came in and make it like they wanted to help and ain't did nothing but lock the doors.

"They don't care about how we live, they're just like, 'Whatever.' They don't wanna put the space for the studios up. They need to let us prove we're ready to do better and see our intentions. We got good intentions, to do music. Let us try. Let us see what's up. Let us dig our own graves. Don't bury us alive."

Still, a number of people have died since studio plans were announced; several were affiliated with music. "I can say it could have been a better place for them, you hear what I'm trying to say?" Boobie says.

There is another reason, Boobie surmises, that the violence at Hunters Point has not subsided: gentrification. "The whole thing is, they want this property. They try to make it like this is all about the gangs and all of this, but it's really about the area. But everybody don't know that. See, I can't convince everybody to believe that the people want the property and they want to get us up out of here so it'll be an easy takeover.... The whole hype is, the land is like, billion-dollar land."

Looking out the window of his van, Boobie says, "See this pretty-ass view? Imagine if there was a mansion sitting right here. How much do you think it'd be worth? Five million dollars. But instead, they got Housing Authority units up here.... They've done developed every [area] but Hunters Point. They've done remodeled Sunnydale, Geneva Towers. They ain't gonna put no new houses up here."

Meanwhile, tensions continue to run high in the Point; reports of gunfire filter in through the grapevine on a daily basis. The Westmob-Big Block beef is as full-fledged as ever. The ghetto remains red hot and ain't a damn thing changed. There have been more shootings, more retaliations, more arrests, and more funerals.

Raw material

One evening I sit in on a SOHP editing session in Berkeley and listen to Epps and Callaghan discuss the film. They've got 50 hours' worth of interviews and scenes of neighborhood activists, rap artists, politicians, police, drug dealers, crackheads, mothers, children, playgrounds, and mortuaries on tape. Each vignette documents another side to everyday life in H.P.

None of the scenes were scripted, they explain; this is cinema vérité in its rawest form. Much emphasis is placed on a guerrilla-like approach to mise-en-scène. Unlike many typically dry documentaries, which position themselves a respectful distance away from their subject matter, SOHP jumps into the fray. If the viewer develops a fascination with H.P.'s street life, it is because Epps is fascinated with these stories as well.

"Like the other day, Saturday. Niggas is ready to go to war," he exclaims. "Kids is ready to go Easter-egg hunting, waiting on the big bus to come, then ... chop chop chop!! Bak-kaka-kak! Pop! Pop! I was on the other side, but I just ran through the turf to see what going on. I looked at all the kids running, the fathers and mothers running to get their kids. They had to cancel it. It's like, we can't even do this. We can't even get an Easter-egg hunt for the babies. It's got to the point where it's something I'm missing, and I'm there every day."

Viewing the faces he's captured on digital video, Epps suddenly gets real quiet. "A majority of these dudes are in jail now, like 40 percent of them," he solemnly remarks. He seems to be close to tears, but no tears will come.

Editor's note: Right before we went to press with this story, we learned that Douglas "Boobie" Stepney had been wounded in an April 26 shooting on Dakota Street. According to the police incident report, Stepney checked himself into San Francisco General Hospital. His condition was unknown at press time.

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