"A combination of Pappy Mason and Larry Davis. Martin and Malcolm/ This is bigger than the album." - Jay-Z on "Best of Both Worlds" w/ R. Kelly

"...Lay down ya wages/ I'm wild like Larry Davis.." - MC Hood(RIP) on "Scenario"(Remix) w/ A Tribe Called Quest

On November 19, 1986, a swarm of New York's Finest set out to eliminate a young man that they used as a pawn in the crack cocaine trade in the drug infested slums of the South Bronx. One aspect of their attempted hit that was never considered was that he might resist, and he did. At the conclusion of the melee that erupted Mr. Davis' sister GIna's house, six N.Y.P.D. officers suffered from gunshot wounds, Larry escaped unscathed and lead New York on one of the biggest manhunts in its history. Approximately a month later, Larry Davis surrendered to authorities, fought the capital attempted murder charges against the police officers and won. Twenty years later, Larry Davis a.k.a. Adam Abdul Hakeem is viewed as a 'hood folk hero and has the full support of his crew that he left in the free world as teenagers. Now grown men in their own respects, Shams DeBaron and Cool Chuck a.k.a. Voice Box maintain their loyalty to their condemned compadre by moving forward in the industry that they assert was theirs for the taking before Mr. Davis' incarceration. HHNLive.com took the opportunity to kick it with Shams about his history in Hip Hop with Larry Davis and the circumstances surrounding his partner's fate on the 20th anniversary of his encounter with those killer cops.

"It was so acceptable.", Shams declared in a reminiscent tone. "It was almost like do you just stay with nothin'? That's what most of our life was like. We ain't have nothin'. You went from being in a situation where you had absolutely nothing to where you just had thousands and thousands of dollars comin' to you. That's hard to turn down when most of your life you lived poor." Sham's mother was a single mother addicted to drugs, which led Shams to be alone and homeless by the tender age of 12. In spite of his obvious disadvantages, he was present during the Hip Hop's blossoming and honed his rhyming skills under the name "Shamrock" on stages with legends such as Jazzy Jay, Cold Crush, and Grand Wizard Theodore. Well known in the neighborhood for fixing motorcycles and making music, the adolescent Davis took Shams under his wing and into his mother's home. Larry was an entertainer, but Shams was a rapper from the street that was able to adapt to Larry's unheard of Hip Hop/R&B sound. As teenagers, they began to record songs, operate and eventually own their own studios, which allowed them to mentor other artists in the neighborhood such as Nice and Smooth and Ultramagnetic MCs.

'85 - '86 The Crack Era

Children as young as 11 years old were entrepeneurs of the new, lucrative drug market plaguing the 'hood. Larry, Shams, and Chuck tried their best to keep their distance from the epidemic that was set to annihilate their generation. "You gotta understand. In this time period, we was 13, 14, 15 years old. We're older men now. My son is 14. He's a little kid to me. It's just crazy 'cause it's like damn, you're 14 and you're goin' to the mosque and martial arts and all that.", Shams added about his advanced youth. "When I was 14, you know what I was doin'. I was wildin' out. When this crack shit came it was crazy." With all external forces utilizing the new drug as an excuse to kill and imprison Black youth, Larry, Shams, and Chuck maintained their vision of making it out of the hood doing what they loved most. Nevertheless. every chance for opportunity that was recognized, those same external forces set up stumbling blocks to keep young brothers condemned to failure. The crew, then known as the "West Side Boyz", began to indulge in the crack influx in their neighborhood, which was readily being supplied by none other than the N.Y.P.D. As the police grew more and more treacherous with their tactics, the crew began to see a sure end if they remained business partners with the crooked cops. The conflict arose when the police decided that the boys couldn't resign just like that. Larry, being the elder and apparent leader of the crew, was a target so that the officers' dirty deeds wouldn't be revealed. Little did they know that Larry Davis was not going to go down as a routine, typical hit. Shams said, "When all that shit jumped off, the press said everything. They said he was a hit man. They said he was a vigilante. They called him the "crack city terminator"... While he was on the run, they already creatin' a climate that would justify them just goin' and straight killin' him. I know him. This is a man that took me off the streets when I was homeless. Looked at me llike he had tears in his eyes."

2006 - Fam 4 Life Era

Shams has been one of the most outspoken voices in defense of his lifetime friend and confidant, regardless of how he was perceived by the media or the masses. Even after Mr. Hakeem's incarceration, Shams has worked with numerous individuals and organizations in his defense, which led to the documentary "The Larry Davis Story", produced by Troy Reed and Street Stars. Dame Dash has even shown interest in the prolific legend by engaging in negotiations with Robert Deniro's Tribeca Productions to produce a feature film about that fateful night twenty years ago. "Larry's story is so dynamic and so unique... You have that attraction because it has that negative, violent element to it.", Shams explains. "..but that's the story of all our lives. We're not gonna glorify none of that. That's not the guts of this story. There's more to it. If we're gonna be responsible and think in terms of young people yesterday and today, we have to find the dynamic of that story that's gonna balance it out." Shams continued to set his mark in the rap game after Davis' impasse, most notably producing Tim Dog's "Penicillin On Wax" which was co-produced by Ultramagnetic's Moe Love and Ced Gee, and his sophomore effort "Do Or Die". He has his own production company, Strictly Beats, which is currently putting out bangers with his native BX crews Indastreez Muzic and Courtlandt Cartel, which features Voice Box as one of their premiere artists. "I'm not tryin' to step on nobody's toes or nothin', but a lot of beat dudes is in trouble when Shams hits the scene.", Voice Box boasted. With all of this on his plate, Mr. DeBaron still stays focused on the 'Free Larry Davis' campaign. "Once you're my man, we're family forever. That's what it is. Fam For Life."