09/29/2025
Many people don’t know this was actually the first project I ever worked on — a collaboration with Antione Clark for F.E.D.S. Magazine about 22 years ago.
It was the first (and only) exclusive interview with Harlem’s own drug kingpin turned government informant, Alberto “Alpo” Martinez. Back then, the streets of NYC was buzzing with questions — had he really turned informant, and did he really do what he did to Rich Porter? Until this interview, nobody had the real story.
Antione interviewed Alpo over the phone from prison for more than 20 hours. My job was to edit those hours of cassette tapes down to just 1 hour — because that’s all a CD could hold back then. To protect against bootleggers (who were everywhere at the time), we tagged the audio with “Produced by Contrackz Productions for F.E.D.S. Magazine” throughout the interview — that’s actually my voice. If you heard it back then, you knew exactly where it came from.
When we dropped the interview, the CD was packaged with every magazine sold. It went viral instantly — sold out overnight. Years later, the world came to know Alpo’s story through the character Rico (played by Cam’ron) in the classic film Paid in Full, but we broke it first — straight from the source.
Today, there are countless copies online doing millions of streams and views across YouTube, IG, TikTok, Facebook, documentaries and more — but the original came from us.
2nd to last photo: me & Antione as teenagers at the legendary Roof Top nightclub in Harlem.
Prayers to all the families that were affected by the actions in this story 🙏🏽.