Some of my early learnings about being a man pretty much was the first part of learning to be a man was going to the potty. Because, you know, as a mom, single moms do it a lot. And they do it a lot because they have to, but when it's a man around, to actually show you how to pull it out, and you seen it done, it helps that process. Um, I didn't have my father around when I was little like that, um, but I have my grandfather around. And, you know, I learned how to potty. Because he would make me come to the bathroom. I thought this was weird when I was younger, and he will pull his thing out and go, and my potty was right there, and he will pull my pants down, and he will want me to do the same thing that he's doing. Because I used to wet the bed all the time. And every time he went to the bathroom, he would pull me with him. Come on, put your thing down with you just you gotta I gotta go right now.
The second learning was into my childhood, I realized that when the man of the house was not around, because they went to prison, that things would be hard in the house. So I also realized, young, that, you know, like, you have to be a provider, or you're going to literally starve, like, I was, you know, I was in situations where I was younger, we haven't eaten in days, like ate scraps. And that was due in large part to the male not being able to be there to help provide, and the woman not having the means to provide.
The beginning stages of me learning how to be a man from a boy was in prison. When I first went to prison, I was 18 years old. 19, I was saved. To state prison. That taught me my first lessons into being a man, I learned how to be a man, amongst other men in prison. There were men that were idiots. There were men that was intelligent. There were men that were peaceful in there, and there were men that were troublemakers, and that, you know, aggressive, you know, but at the end of the day, they all were men. Like we're still men at the end of the day. That's what I realized, like men to be a man you had to do a certain you know, you have to be you have to take care of yourself.
I came up in the era of the Nation of Gods and Earths, I was big on that. I felt that the God Body Nation of Gods and Earths was powerful, something that I can look up to, and these men can teach me how to be a better man. I started to be involved in the Nation of Gods and Earths, I'm studying lessons and things of that nature. And it gave me a sense of pride as myself.
So, the transformation that I went through as a young man, I wanted to be accepted, you know, being a person that had no father figure consistently in my life. My relationship with my father was never good whenever he was around, I had a thing of wanting to be accepted by other men. I felt that the God Body Nation of Gods and Earths was powerful, something that I can look up to, and these men can teach me how to be a better man.
When I pulled up in the prison. The God Uhera was there. He was one of the first borns he came under the Clarence X Smith, who actually started the Nation of Gods and Earths who was with Elijah Muhammad and all these people, he branched off from that and started the Nation of Gods and Earths. I even heard about him in another jail that I was in, you know what I mean? So I was finally in a prison where I get to meet Uhera. And, and it's like, Yo, he sent them a message, to say, "Yo, tell Apocalypse to come to the yard today,"
I go to the yard. He's a scrawny, man. He wasn't what I thought of he would be because of what everybody talked so much about. But, it was his mind. When I spent the yard with him, and I finally got a chance to talk with him, and we spent the yard. I finally got a chance to see him and also being in the prison with him. During that time, he took a liking to me. So he mentored me, got me down the right path. He always saw good in me. Like he was very positive, very righteous.
