BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family

( 61 )

Overview

Two weeks after state and federal agents descended on the White House and a month after a high-profile club shooting left Sean "P. Diddy" Combs's former bodyguard dead, Demetrius "Big Meech" Flenory was granted bond. It was an unusual move in a double homicide, especially one that had grown so sensational. In the wake of the shootings, well-heeled and well-organized residents of Atlanta's upscale Buckhead neighborhood were angrily calling for a crackdown on the violence in their...

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BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family

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More About This Book

Overview

Two weeks after state and federal agents descended on the White House and a month after a high-profile club shooting left Sean "P. Diddy" Combs's former bodyguard dead, Demetrius "Big Meech" Flenory was granted bond. It was an unusual move in a double homicide, especially one that had grown so sensational. In the wake of the shootings, well-heeled and well-organized residents of Atlanta's upscale Buckhead neighborhood were angrily calling for a crackdown on the violence in their neighborhood.

Basically, the Chaos gun battle wasn't the type of crime the Fulton County D.A.'s office liked to leave unresolved. But prosecutors were left with little choice. Their investigation into Meech was simply too thin. No grand jury would indict a case without a murder weapon, a witness, or a confession. Indeed, the case never made it to the grand jury. The most that could be concluded was that Meech acted in self-defense, if he acted at all.

To Big Meech and his crew, to residents of Buckhead, and to other concerned Atlantans, the Chaos investigation appeared to be a battle the authorities had lost. But while the murder case against Meech had fallen apart, the Atlanta Police Department and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration were able to take what they learned from the White House search and combine it with other information they'd already unearthed. Judging from the breadth of the evidence, investigators were able to see that they were on to something. It was something big. It was something organized. It was something called, formidably enough, the Black Mafia Family.

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
Starred Review.

Formed in mid-1990s Atlanta by ambitious, Detroit-born hustler Demetrius "Big Meech" Flenory, the Black Mafia Family controlled most of the American cocaine trade for the better part of a decade. Interviewing members from all levels of the national organization, including now-imprisoned Big Meech, Atlanta-based journalist Shalhoup delivers a stunning exposé of a crime empire that collapsed under the weight of its own success, rising and falling on its charismatic founder's desperate desire for success, popularity, and, ultimately, music-business legitimacy. Shalhoup examines each character in the federal prosecution's comprehensive case, tracing their activities over many years, revealing a lifestyle of over-the-top glamour punctuated by random, brutal violence. Shalhoup quickly, and graphically, dispels the air of hip-hop romance that Big Meech cultivated first through crime and, later, by playing a supporting role in the careers of up-and-coming rappers like T.I. and Jeezy. With superb pacing and a thorough handle on her extensive cast, Shalhoup's true crime debut makes a highly addictive read. Color photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Reviews
Atlanta-based journalist Shalhoup's debut provides a cautionary tale about the overlap between the "gangsta" culture of hip-hop and the criminal realities of large-scale drug dealing. The Black Mafia Family (BMF) mushroomed out of the ambition of two brothers from Detroit, Terry "Southwest T" and Demetrius "Big Meech" Flenory, who grew up in a comfortable working-class home yet were lured as teenagers to the seemingly easy money of cocaine dealing. The Flenorys were clearly smarter than the average thug. They divided their territories early, correctly assuming that parallel organizations would be harder for law enforcement to track. Yet a more profound schism developed with their success. Terry tried to keep a low profile, while Meech found the lure of the high life irresistible. For several years, Meech was a notorious figure in the nightclubs of Atlanta and Los Angeles, as he attempted to "rebrand" the BMF organization as a hip-hop label-among others, he was closely associated with acclaimed rapper Young Jeezy-while living a decadent "iced out" lifestyle. Eventually this distinction drove the brothers apart, and they stopped speaking. Ironically, as state and federal law enforcement worked to build cases against them, Terry proved easier than Meech to snare via electronic intercepts. However, police in Atlanta took Meech's high profile personally-he enjoyed leasing "BMF" billboards and justifying himself in promotional DVDs-and this, along with the grisly violence committed by his associates, made his downfall inevitable. Shalhoup's narrative is a mixed bad. While she deftly tracks the fortunes of multiple BMF associates and their pursuers in law enforcement, her tone is oddly flat,conveying little sense of the personalities of these presumably larger-than-life characters. However, her journalistic chops convey two inescapable messages: The cocaine industry is bigger and more entrenched than most people suspect; and sooner or later, no matter how glamorous, everybody goes down. Another story of excess and wasted lives, from the drug war's front lines. Agent: John T. Williams/Kneerim & Williams
From the Publisher
"With superb pacing and a thorough handle on her extensive cast, Shalhoup's true crime debut makes a highly addictive read." -Publisher's Weekly (Starred Review!)

 

"A first rate read." —On Wax Magazine

 

“…deftly tracks the fortunes of multiple BMF associates and their pursuers in law enforcement… her journalistic chops convey two inescapable messages: The cocaine industry is bigger and more entrenched than most people suspect; and sooner or later, no matter how glamorous, everybody goes down.” –Kirkus Reviews

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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780312674151
  • Publisher: St. Martin's Press
  • Publication date: 1/18/2011
  • Edition description: First Edition
  • Edition number: 1
  • Pages: 320
  • Sales rank: 44333
  • Product dimensions: 5.50 (w) x 8.20 (h) x 0.75 (d)

Meet the Author

Mara Shalhoup is a decorated journalist and a senior editor with Creative Loafing, the preeminent alternative newsweekly serving the South. She started her writing career as a crime reporter at the Macon Telegraph, and has gone on to earn such honors as a Clarion Award, two nominations for a Livingston Award, and recognition from the Atlanta Press Club as the city’s Journalist of the Year. This is her first book. She lives with her husband in Atlanta.

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Read an Excerpt

PROLOGUE: MARCH 2008

As bad as they wanted me, there was no winning.

—DEMETRIUS “BIG MEECH” FLENORY

The most notorious inmate ever to set foot in the St. Clair County, Michigan, jail is reclined on a ledge just off the hallway that leads to his cell. His hair, unwound hours earlier from the braids he usually wears, is pushed back from his face, falling to his shoulders in kinky waves. He’s saddled with a few extra pounds, but that’s to be expected. He’s been locked up in this suburban facility, an hour north of Detroit and just across the water from Ontario, for three Michigan winters. That’s countless days stuck in a coop where you can’t be let outside, not even to exercise, not even for an hour, unless the thermostat creeps above 40 degrees. Fat chance of breaking 40 in February, or even in March. He’s actually looking forward to prison, hopefully somewhere down South where it’s warm.

Still, he’s not complaining. They’ve been good to him here. He’s polite and well mannered, and that’s earned him certain privileges. When visitors come in from out of town—a guest list that he claims has included rap superstars Akon and Young Jeezy (Snoop Dogg tried to come, but got snowed out)—the deputies go out of their way to accommodate them. To the inmate, preferential treatment is nothing new. On the outside, he was used to getting what he wanted. Jail is no diff erent.

Knee propped up, back pressed against the cement wall, he leans into the glass partition. There’s no chair on his side, and though a guard just announced over the loudspeaker to please refrain from sitting on the ledge, he’s sitting on it anyway. So he has no choice but to look down at me. It’s not a patronizing gesture, but one that brings to mind his unshakable pride, his famed largesse, his ability, even now, to salvage some of the grandeur to which he’d grown accustomed.

I ask about one of his other reputed traits, one that paints him in a less generous light—or, as a federal informant once put it, his street rep as “a vengeful killer who threatens people.” He kind of chuckles and takes pause, as if bemused by the question. “I’ll put it to you like this,” he says, leaning in closer, casual and friendly. “If trouble comes to me, then I’m going to deal with it.”

That kind of stuff — petty stuff , stuff that got blown out of proportion—used to happen all the time, he says. There’d be jealousy over girls, or people thinking their crew is better than his crew, and so forth. “Some guys make a fool of themselves,” he continues. “Then, before they know it, they look up and there’s a bunch of us. We just handle the problem the best way we know how.” Again, he claims, that’s only when people come asking for it. He’d prefer to keep things civil. “I’m more old-school, more family oriented,” he says. “I don’t believe in airing diff erences in public places.”

It’s a reasonable explanation, from a seemingly reasonable man. But it’s not hard to glimpse the darkness behind the facade. He off ers it up every now and then. It slips from behind that transformative smile, peeks around a pair of otherwise warm and engaging eyes. Those eyes narrow when I bring up a murder charge filed against one of his closest crew members. It’s the only violent allegation to hit his inner circle that ever made it to the trial calendar. “That’s ridiculous,” he says, though witnesses say otherwise. “I can’t see him doing something to somebody like that.” He blames the murder rap on an overzealous snitch—one who came forward only after he himself was in trouble, and who claimed to have witnessed the killing but did nothing to stop it. “What was he doing? Sitting there watching? It doesn’t add up.”

As for everything else—the two decades in the game, the fast cars and grinding music, the showering cash and fawning respect, the partying that would make Tony Montana blush—well, that made his current situation worth it. The bummer is that he was good at what he did—too good, he thinks, for things to have gone the way they went. It just didn’t seem like his time. If he’d been busted with a hundred keys or had sold to the DEA, that’d be one thing. That would somehow be more understandable. But that’s not what happened. What happened, he believes, was that he became far too fascinating to those who wanted to see him fail.

By the time the Bentleys were rolled out and the billboards went up and the rappers were invoking his name in top-ten hits, he was past the point of return. His only option was to do it big. And if doing it big meant putting on even more of a show for the feds, so be it. It was a matter of necessity. But what about before? Why go down that path in the first place? Why blow it up the way he did, when blowing it up meant blowing it all away? “If I was going to stick with the illegal stuff, I would have sat in and stayed out of sight,” he says. “But what can you do when you’re expected to go out, when everybody wants to see you?”

In any case, he didn’t really think he’d get caught. He didn’t think there was anything he could get caught for. Now he knows diff erent. Now he knows that no matter how careful he might have been, he overlooked one obvious fact: The very combination that fi rst made him a success—his ability to attract attention and his unwillingness to slow down— was destined to make him a failure. On both sides of the law, he became all but impossible to resist. People wanted to see him, and the government wanted to see him go down. “As bad as they wanted me,” he says, “there was no winning.”

So, in the end, he’s glad he did it the way he did, because at least he had some fun. At least he flexed a little muscle, bore a little infl uence. He claims to have boosted the careers of T.I. and Jeezy in Atlanta and Fabolous in New York, which means they all have him to thank. Not that he’s looking for validation, exactly. Just the recognition that back in the beginning, when no one else was paying much attention, he was the one who helped float them. He was the one who helped elevate some of the biggest names in hip-hop (which, at the time, meant some of the biggest names in music, period). He was the one who helped create the fantasy that they’re still living.

Viewed from his exile on the second floor of the St. Clair County Detention and Intervention Center, the past has grown even more distant than twenty-nine months in lockup would have you believe. “Man,” he says, breaking eye contact for a brief moment, as if he could still glimpse that evaporated dream, “I sure do miss it.”

Excerpted from BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family by Mara Shalhoup.

Copyright © 2010 by Mara Shalhoup.

Published in 2010 by St. Martin's Press.

All rights reserved. This work is protected under copyright laws and reproduction is strictly prohibited. Permission to reproduce the material in any manner or medium must be secured from the Publisher.

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Table of Contents

Cast of Characters xiii

Prologue 1

1 Charos 5

2 The Flenory Brothers 26

3 Pushing Jeezy 60

4 Fallen Prince 75

5 Stupio and the Girl 86

6 Space Mountain 111

7 The Bounty Hunter 143

8 Stay Strapped 161

9 The Gate 185

10 The Game Don't Stop 206

11 Breaking The Code 221

12 The Evidence 263

Epilogue 271

Endnotes 277

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4
( 61 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(28)

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(16)

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(6)

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See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 62 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted Mon Jan 24 00:00:00 EST 2011

    Entertaining Read

    Loved the flow of this one. Great story with plenty of details that helped tie together everyone involved. This was my first nook book and I truly enjoyed it.

    If you can look beyond the street life of everyone involved in this story, there are plenty of life lessons to be learned. Contrasting lifestyles and management styles led to two different outcomes in this story. I don't want to say too much and give it away but read this one with an open mind and you walk away with more than you ever imagined.

    I was able to dig deeper and find many other intereting life lessons with this one.

    3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Thu Apr 08 00:00:00 EDT 2010

    I Also Recommend:

    Dutch

    What you didn't know about BMF--you soon will

    I read an exerpt of Mara Shalhoup's BMF-The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and The Black family Mafia in The Atlanta Magazine. I was very intrigued. I immediatley went to barnesandnoble.com to pre-order 3 copies. One for myself and two to give away. I couldn't wait until the book came out in early March 2010.
    Mara Shalhoup definitely did her reasearch! The book is very detail oriented and gives so many actual names and occurences of things that the BMF were involved in from the late 90's to 2006. It tells the feelings up uproar not only for the members of the gang but the Atlanta Police Department too.
    Being from Atlanta, I knew that BMF stood for Black Mafia Family. You would see it advertised not only on billboards, music videos, but mainly on black t-shirts. Not only was it a gang, but it was a family--it was friends. Names from Young Jeezy to Bobby Brown are all throughout the book. The book is very informative. The author reterates names frequently to remind the reader since so many people were involved. Big Meech almost seems like a character instead of a real person. It was amazing to learn that the Flenory brothers started small and blew up in not only Atlanta but L.A. as well. I really recommend this book for any reader that wants to learn more about BMF and how their drug trade entagled so many people and caused so much violence but at the same time made millions of dollars.

    3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted Tue Aug 31 00:00:00 EDT 2010

    Aweseome Book!

    First, this book is well written. It's in chronological order and easy to follow. As another rater mentioned the author will remind the reader of who a person is and what they did when mentioned in later chapters. If the myth of BMF is really as great as they are said to be the author did her part in making the myth better than it was before.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Sun Apr 18 00:00:00 EDT 2010

    BMF and Meech -- Why do I care?

    Mara Shalhoup stays true to her news reporting style and writes a reporter story of Meech and his brother, Terry, their rise to create BMF, and BMFs ultimate dismantling by federal law enforcement. The story opens with a promise to give you the inside story behind two Detroit brothers and what led to the federal bust of the largest crime organization recorded thus far in the 21st century. There is some interest in the overlay of the Hip Hop Music industry and the BMF characters. Yet, the reader soon becomes frustrated as they struggle to get closer to the character of the men and their lives so that we can connect, empathize, love or hate. Shalhoup character builds come from a lens of a survellience camera leaving the reader emotionless to care about the families and the cities impacted. The title with Meech at the center belies the book's real intention. Mara can't seem to help herself as she gets distracted on a side story of Kiki's BMF involvement--the son-in-law of Shirley Franklyn, former Mayor of Atlanta. Shalhoup, as if tired herself by her own characterless neutral reporting, quickly wraps the story up toward the end with what inevitably is for the reporter the end of the story-- imprisonment. Shalhoup's book only wets the appetite for a story that really satisifies those really interested. For now we are still left wondering who is Meech and Terry and what is the real story behind the story of the incredulous BMF legend.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Mon Jul 21 00:00:00 EDT 2014

    Loan to mason

    If you give me your bio I can add you in.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Mon May 26 00:00:00 EDT 2014

    BMF4LIFE

    FREE MEECH

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  • Posted Sun Jan 26 00:00:00 EST 2014

    more from this reviewer

    Brothers Demetrius "Big Meech" and Terry "Southwe

    Brothers Demetrius "Big Meech" and Terry "Southwest T" Flenory built one of America's largest drug empires: the Black Mafia Family (BMF). The brothers started in Detroit and expanded to distributors in Atlanta, California, New York, D.C., Missouri, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama and the Carolinas. After nearly a decade, BMF had hundreds of crew members, a fleet of expensive cars and millions of dollars in drug sales. They associated with some of the biggest names in rap music and the celebrity world.

    Author Mara Shalhoup painted a detailed picture of BMF and its leaders, the quiet Terry and his flashy brother Big Meech. The book is full of interesting information and name-dropping, though was sometimes repetitive in events. Like its title, it told the rise and fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family in a literary documentary style.

    Literary Marie of Precision Reviews

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Mon Apr 22 00:00:00 EDT 2013

    Great book!

    Love it!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Mon Jul 09 00:00:00 EDT 2012

    Read

    GREAT STORY!!!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Mon Apr 02 00:00:00 EDT 2012

    Interesting

    I purchased the book to read up on people that I personally know... It's a good book very informative!

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Mon Dec 26 00:00:00 EST 2011

    Waste of time

    Could of easily been shortened by 100 pages. Overly repetitive and boring.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted Thu Jun 16 00:00:00 EDT 2011

    Good Read, Highly Recommended

    I found this very detailled account of the rise and fall of BMF to be very fascinating and informative. It was easy to read. The only thing that would have made it better would be to have more interviews with some of the major players in the book.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Tue May 03 00:00:00 EDT 2011

    loved it,!!! didnt last ling enough!'''''!!!!!!

    i loved this book! words cannot express the power money had on the BMF ORGANIZATION!' LOV U MEECH!!

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  • Posted Sat Apr 23 00:00:00 EDT 2011

    more from this reviewer

    interesting

    interesting to know the story behind the lyrics of the songs. good read, informative

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  • Posted Wed Mar 02 00:00:00 EST 2011

    Great Read

    It gives a good insight to the foolishness of drug dealing and how perception is not reality. The flenory bros. thought they were big time when in reality they were small fries destined for prison or death. The foolishness displayed by these men was clearly seen in how they conducted business and tgeir belief in their street code haha. They lived by the code death before dishonor but they dishonored themselves by selling drugs. My father and Uncles were the same way in the 80s cost my uncle his life and my father 10 years in prison

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted Fri Feb 04 00:00:00 EST 2011

    more from this reviewer

    The Failed Drug War

    I enjoyed reading this book. It showed to me how the war against drugs is a waste of time. The feds and other agencies use a lot of resources and many years bringing this drug crew down you would think that use of time and money could be used to stop the drugs from coming into the country then there would be nothing to sell. Ms. Shalhoup had very detailed accounts of events that happen such the wire tap conversations and other details from both sides of the law.

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  • Posted Sun Dec 12 00:00:00 EST 2010

    more from this reviewer

    BMF

    "I think I'm Big Meech." Who hasn't heard or repeated those lines from Rick Ross's 'Blowing Money Fast'? Well, in "BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family" journalist Mara Shalhoup recounts the details surrounding, like the title states, the rise and fall of the Flenory brothers, Demetrius aka Big Meech and Terry aka Southwest T. The Flenory brothers came from humble upbringings in Detroit , Michigan . Their father worked as many as two jobs at a time to provide for the family. Despite his best efforts, the family could not escape poverty. Subsequently, the two brothers took to the streets selling cocaine and so began the makings of an empire that would come to be known as BMF (Black Mafia Family). It was an organization that would go beyond the boundaries of Detroit to include Missouri , Georgia , and California . It was an organization that would earn over an estimated $270 million dollars. It was also an organization that would crumble under intense investigation, indictments and snitching. Ultimately, it was an organization that would end with its founders, Terry and Demetrius, in prison along with many of its members.



    "BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family" is informative. It is also very technical and sterile. I would have preferred to hear more from those involved and less from what is on the record. At times it read like a news report. There is nothing personable about this narration. The flow is not always smooth and the author often reiterates facts.



    Even so, "BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family" is an interesting read. I had watched a documentary about the BMF, but there is only so much that could be told in a short period of time. Mara Shalhoup's book filled in many of the blanks. At this point, though, I'd still be interested in hearing the personal account of either Flenory brother. If their portrayals were accurate, it'll be Big Meech.



    Reviewed by: Toni

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  • Posted Thu Oct 07 00:00:00 EDT 2010

    Informative...

    I thought that the book overall displayed the events behind the Black Mafia Family however you can tell that the book was bias from a journalist/media standpoint. I read another book entitled The Portrait of a Black Mafia Princess by Ingrid N. Allen and that one (though fiction) gave more of an insiders account of living life within organization.

    In my opinion both books were good.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted Sat Jan 29 00:00:00 EST 2011

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted Wed Jul 20 00:00:00 EDT 2011

    No text was provided for this review.

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