EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,242 words- 0:00 – 15:00
(drumming) Joe Rogan podcast,…
- JRJoe Rogan
(drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.
- NANarrator
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music plays)
- JRJoe Rogan
Joe. Yeah. What's up? Pleasure to meet you.
- SSShaka Senghor
Ah, such a pleasure to be here.
- JRJoe Rogan
My, yeah, it's, um ... I s- I heard your story. Why don't you tell everybody your story? Because the story's ... it's pretty wild.
- SSShaka Senghor
Yeah. So I, I grew up in Detroit, um, working class neighborhood. Dad was in the, uh, Air Force and worked for the state. Mom was a homemaker. So on the outside looking in, it really looked like a household where the kids should make it. Um, but unfortunately, it was a very abusive household. And I ran away when I was about 13 years old. And at the time, prior to that, you know, honor roll, scholarship student, dreams of being a doctor, artist. Um, I wanted to be a doctor 'cause I felt like that was a occupation where I felt like you can help people. And, unfortunately, you know, when I ran away, I thought that I would basically just kinda get welcomed into the home of someone who would see this kid and be like, "Oh, you know, this kid just deserves love," or whatever. But I found myself on the east side of Detroit, in an apartment with a gun to my head. And it was my introduction to the street culture. I was being robbed, um, and I was r- being robbed by this guy who, later we would learn, his name was Tiny, um, even though he was, like, big, fat, probably about six feet tall. And him and his partner, Lily, robbed me at gunpoint, took my drugs, took the money, and I think that was, like, one of those moments where the innocence of being a kid just was shattered. You know? It's like, you know, now I'm in this world where my life is in danger, uh, but I stayed in that culture. My childhood friend was murdered, um, I was beat nearly to death, and despite that, I just continued to sell drugs. You know, it's, it's ... One of the things when I, when I think back to, you know, even that part of my life, you know, there's the glorification of, like, the hustler, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- SSShaka Senghor
It's like, you, you know, we're out here making money, we're doing things, but the reality is, it's a kid navigating a very dangerous adult world at the time that crack is just penetrating the, the community. And one of the, one of the things that always go back to this image of the first time I made a lot of money, and I just had this wad of cash, like, it's just, like, all singles, $5 bills, $10 bills, and I went to the store on the corner, and I bought all the cereal that I can think of.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SSShaka Senghor
Like, all the cereal that I could not ... You know, my parents, they, even though, you know, my dad made decent money, like, we couldn't always get all the cereal because it was, like, all these kids. And then I bought, like, chocolate milk and strawberry milk, and then I went back to the crack house.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- SSShaka Senghor
Um ...
- JRJoe Rogan
And you were, what, like, 13?
- SSShaka Senghor
Literally, like, 13 years old. And so, you know, I stayed in that culture, um, and then when I was, like, 17 years old, I was standing, March 8th, I'll never forget that day, I was standing on the corner, and I got into, like, a minor conflict, um, and then I got shot multiple times. And that was probably the most serious turning point in my life. Um, after I got shot, they called ambulance and the ambulance never came. This, at this time, I'm on the west side of Detroit, and I'm just sitting on the porch, bleeding, and my friend, he was like, "Look, I'm gonna have to take you to the hospital 'cause the ambulance is just not gonna come." And I remember getting in the car and he's just like, you know, "Breathe, like, you gotta take these deep breaths because, you know, this is how you're going to navigate the pain." And the reason he was able to do that, he had got shot the year prior, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SSShaka Senghor
So it's just like, he got shot, his friend got killed, so the gun violence was just, you know, it was so much a part of, like, the culture and, and, that I grew up in, that I didn't think about what was happening inside of me as I got shot. And so I get to the hospital, they take two of the bullets out of my leg, and they leave one bullet in. And basically, they patch me up and ... And I remember my dad coming to the hospital, and at this point, I was the third of my brothers to be shot.
- JRJoe Rogan
Phew.
- SSShaka Senghor
And I'll never forget this look on my dad's face of, like ... It was almost a look of, like, defeat, you know, of like, "How do I, how do I save my, my boys?" You know? And so, when I, when I left the hospital, like, nobody, like, the doctor, the nurse, nobody just was like, "Hey, you're gonna have all these fillings." And so, I get back and I'm in the neighborhood, and, you know, I'm angry 'cause I really wanna get revenge on this guy who shot me. Like, that's the number one priority for me, is like, you know, "I gotta get ... I gotta retaliate." And then I'm standing outside, um, this is probably, like, day two, I had crutches, so I'm, like, literally in the neighborhood with crutches, patched up bullet wounds. I'm standing on the corner, and I remember a car coming down the street. And, like, my body almost seized up, and I was like, "Why do, why am I, why am I feeling this kind of, like, anxiety?" Not, not now it's anxiety, back then I, there was no name for it. Um, but I couldn't tell my friends that I really was afraid of standing outside and being exposed.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- SSShaka Senghor
Yeah. So that was 17 years old. And so, what happened after that was ... I began to tell myself this story that if I found myself in conflict again, I would shoot first, and I began to literally carry a gun every day. It wasn't the first time I had carried a gun, but, like, I began to carry a gun, like, every day. Like, it didn't matter what I was doing. Using the bathroom, gun is on the sink. I'm going to sleep at night, gun is up under the pillow. Probably wasn't (laughs) the smartest place to, to sleep with a gun, but that was the nature of how I felt, you know, what I was dealing with. And so I started to tell myself this narrative, and about 16 months or so later, maybe 14 months, um ...... I was DJing a party. And, you know, I love music. I, you know, I come from Detroit. It's, uh, it's one of the greatest music cities, um, you know, in the world. And so I'm DJing this party, and shots ring out. People are running, scrambling, you know, g- getting away. And, you know, the people whose party I was DJing, they come to the back, they're like, "Somebody got shot in the front so we got to shut everything down." So we shut the party down. Um, we're on, like, super heightened alert. You know, we're getting ... making sure everybody ... We got a head count for, like, our crew. And, you know, it's me and my girlfriend, and we're going back to my home. Um, and I remember I was walking. We had walked around to the party. We were walking back, and this truck pulls up. And it's, you know, this car full of guys. And so, you know, I'm on edge. I got a pistol on me, so I'm like, you know, "What's, what's happening?" And he was like, "Oh, no, we just ... You know, did y'all know that Derek was the guy who shot the guy in front of the house?" So now we got at least some idea of who ... what the shooting is about. So we get back around, and when we get on our block, car's coming up the street. And there's a guy inside the car, and he's like, "Yo." You know, he calls me over. And I'm like, you know, "What's happening?" He's like, "Yo, wanna make a deal?" Blah, blah, blah. And he got two guys that I don't know. And I'm like, um, I'm like, "No, I don't wanna do the deal right now." Like, it's a lot going on. And, you know, so I'm, I'm a little amped up. You know, it's, it's a little- you know, a lot going on. And so we get into this verbal altercation where he's, like, adamant about me selling some drugs to him. I'm adamant about him, like, you know, getting off the block. And so that escalates into, like, a full-blown argument. And one of the guys in the car with him, he joins into the argument. So we're like all back and forth, back and forth. And there's a moment where, you know, I turn to, um ... So the moment I turn to walk away. And I, like, literally took, what, probably, like, one or two steps. And I thought I heard one of them trying to get out of the car, and I turned and fired four shots that tragically ended a man's life. Um ... You know, it's one of th- it's one of those moments that, um ... I always think about that moment. Like, what if I would've just took, like, a second step, you know? What if I would've just, like ... I mean, it was a series of what-ifs, you know? Um, but when I, uh, tragically ended this man's life, and it wasn't the first time I had been in a gun battle. It wasn't the first time I had been in any of that, that, that lifestyle. I felt it. I felt like I did something that was, like, you can't undo. Like, I just ... Like, I felt it in my spirit. Like, at 19 years old, I'm like one month into being 19, and I was just like, "I fucked up." Like, "I've, I've, I've done something that's not ... You can't, you can't repair that." You can't, you can't come back and say, "I'm sorry." You can't come back and be like, you know, "I made a mistake," or, um, whatever. And, and so, you know, the car screeches off. You know, people are, you know, running inside the house. Everybody's just like, you know, "What the, what, what is happening?" Um, I made everybody leave, and then I was like, "I gotta go on the run," or something. Like, I don't, you know, I don't wanna get arrested. I don't wanna be accountable. Um, but I was arrested probably a day or so later. I was charged with open murder, and I was eventually convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 17 to 40 years in prison at the age of 19.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- SSShaka Senghor
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whew. So take me through what it's like when you got convicted. You, you know now you're going to jail. What is, what is this feeling like?
- SSShaka Senghor
So when I got arrested, um, got charged, the first thing, I went to the county jail, uh, Wayne County Jail. And going into the county jail, you are introduced to just this other world. You know, I had heard about it. You know, growing up on the streets, you hear about, like, "You don't wanna go to the county jail. It's the worst shit ever," right? And so going into the county jail was like, you know, it was going into a war zone. You know, it's fights every day. It's like, you know, people are testing you. Can they fucking take your breakfast and lunch? So going in, I knew that that was just the reality of, like, you know, anticipating, like, at some point, I'm gonna have to prove myself, and I'm gonna have to stand up for myself. And, and so I get into the county jail, and I end up ... The guy who I'm in the cell with, he's serving life, but he's back on appeal. Um, and so he's, you know, he's kind of telling me all the, the kind of what to expect in jail. "Then, you know, this guy right here on the cell block, he likes to fight all the time," or whatever. You know, but I also grew up, like, in the city, right? So I'm, you know ... I, I, I tell people this all the time. Like, you can ... I don't, I don't do scared straight when I talk to kids about, like, not going to jail, 'cause to me, it's not about, it's not about being afraid. If you from the hood, you probably had a fight or two, you know what I'm saying? Um, but I get in there and, you know, we get into our dustups, and, you know, eventually it's kind of like a hierarchy of, like, you know, who's gonna stand up for themselves. And, and typically guys kind of back down. But early on, I'm like, "I don't, I don't wanna be in jail. I don't wanna be in prison." So I ended up trying to escape from the county jail. And what happened was, there was a guy on the cellblock with me. He was already sentenced. He's about to go upstate and do a lot of time. And one day, he went to recreation and came back with, like, a long pole he had smok- smuggled from the rooftop gym.... and his idea was that he would bludgeon the officer, take the officer's uniform, and then let us out the cell and take us out. And I'm like, "Dude, this has got to be the dumbest fucking idea." (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SSShaka Senghor
Like, we're, we're, we're not making it out of the cellblock, right? But I was like, "Well, what if we take this pole and we bust the window out and bend the beam?" And so, we plot over the next couple of weeks, we like, would take people's, like, sheets. Like, we were bullying people out of their sheets. Like, you can only have one sheet. We were going to take the other one. Um, so we took all these sheets and we probably ended up with probably about 60 or 70 sheets. And we can get out of our cells, so we would ... Basically, you, you, you tie the sheet up into a knot, slide the knot under the door, and pull it up until the door jam. And if you shake it and keep rocking it while you're pulling it up, it'll pop open. And so we would just pop out and we'd be out on, on the, like, literally in the day room. You know, this is back when you could smoke cigarettes in the building. That's the only way we can get a light 'cause the lighter was on the wall. So we would do that all the time anyway. So when it was time for us to do the escape plan, it was about five of us. We all had agreed we're going to go for it, and basically we popped the doors. We're like, busting out the, the glass in the, in the, in the, uh, window, and, um, we're starting to bend the beam. What we didn't anticipate was that they actually do perimeter checks, like, around the jail. You know, we were, we were dumb kids. We're not like, thinking about this. And so, as we're bending it, next thing you know, there's a light flashing up to the window. And you can hear, like, the lady on the radio, like, "What the fuck are y'all doing?" (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SSShaka Senghor
We were like, "We're trying to get out." So now we're like, we're, we're busted so we just throw everything on the, on the tier. Everybody goes back, you know, in their, in their, in their cells. And so it took them probably about a half hour before they even discovered which, which unit we were on that was trying to escape. They came up there like gangbusters. Like, literally it's, you know, it's 20, 30 depths. They just came in, snatching us out the cell, slamming us on the wall, you know. And where they messed up is because they did that, now everybody has glass in their shoes. And so they couldn't even differentiate between who had been out, who wasn't. Um, and so, they, you know, they put us in solitary for that, uh, charged us with attempting to escape. And during that time, I was actually getting sentenced. And none of us would snitch and talk about, like, none of us would tell who it was, so they really was just kind of going on what they thought. So we served that little time in there, but I was getting sentenced. And, you know, when I, when I went in front of that judge, I just remember standing there and listening to them walk
- 15:00 – 30:00
How much time did…
- SSShaka Senghor
through that night, you know, the prosecutors telling what happened that night. And it was the, it was a one-dimensional telling of that story. It was the, you know, it was the very factual, like, "Hey, this guy, you know, he shot, killed this man." There was no context to none of my, my life. Um, and when the judge sentenced me, you know, he said 15 to 40 years for the homicide and two years for, uh, the felony firearm. At 19, I thought my life was over. Like, I thought that was it. Like, at 19, I couldn't even imagine, you know, 17 years down the line. You know, at that age, I couldn't even imagine like two weeks down the line. It felt like a lifetime. So when he sentenced me, I was like, "This is it, man." Like, "My life is over." And so I started my prison sentence with the mindset that I was never getting out of prison.
- JRJoe Rogan
How much time did you wind up doing?
- SSShaka Senghor
I did a total of 19 years, and out of that 19 years, I did seven of those years in solitary confinement.
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs) Woo. What is that like?
- SSShaka Senghor
It is the ... When I tell people it is the most barbaric thing that we do to people in this country, um, and it's a combination of reasons of why I believe that. One, a lot of people who are in solitary confinement have preexisting mental health challenges, meaning that they have diagnosed, you know, bipolar, schizophrenia. Um, and it's 23-hour lockdown. You know, 23-hour lockdown five days a week, 24-hour lockdown the other two days a week. And it is the most chaotic environment you can imagine. Um, the guys there, you know, to wage war with each other, with just like, the steel footlocker, they would bang it for hours. Like, these guys would just have, I mean, the endurance to do that for hours to antagonize a person next to you. Um, they would have what, what is full on shit wars, like where the, the ... I call them weapons of ass destruction because-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SSShaka Senghor
... these guys (laughs) will like, concoct ways to throw feces on each other. So if they get into a beef, like the way that they would go to war is they would literally ... I mean, and it's, it's ... There's um, there's an ingenuity that happens in prison that's unlike anything that most people can comprehend. Um, we can make weapons out of anything. We can make, you know, tools out of anything. So these guys would literally figure out how to get feces into a toothpaste tube, which mean that they would like, have to like, literally go in the toilet, pull this stuff out, stuff it into a thing, and then they would smuggle it out to like, the cages, right? So five days we would go out to these cages. They're l- it's lit- like ... Just imagine a dog kennel, like a dog run, right, where it's like kennel after kennel after kennel. So that's how they would take us out. And, you know, you, you're in a cell. They come and they-... handcuff you to, uh, these handcuffs attached to a leash. And they walk you down a tier, take you out to this dog kennel, and they let you out. And so they have to give you at least an hour of that a day. And so these guys would come out, and they would be, you know, beefing with their neighbor. And, and now it's a full on... They're just squirting shit on each other. Like, it's fucking insane.
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- SSShaka Senghor
And there-
- NANarrator
Oh, my God.
- SSShaka Senghor
... there was this one guy, man. I remember this one guy. He had a colostomy bag. I mean, this was like the equivalent of having a fucking AK-47, like.
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- SSShaka Senghor
He's like... He's like... This guy.
- NANarrator
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- SSShaka Senghor
And he... Me and him, we were like cool. So he would tell me the days, like, "Don't come out." He would, like, send me a note over, like, "Don't come out the yard today. I'm about to shoot this bitch up." (laughs) I'm like-
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- SSShaka Senghor
... "Dude, what are you talking about?" So he would like go out there and whip the colostomy bag off, and just literally take the yard hostage. Like, "Don't nobody say shit. You say something, I'ma just throw shit everywhere, right?" Um, and so that's how they would wage war, and so that's what... That was the, the, the chaos of the environment. And then, like, you know, we get into it with the officers. Guys would, like, flood the cell block, so they would put sheets in the toilet and just flush, flush, flush, and now the, the whole tier is just flooded. And so it's definitely a biohazard (laughs) issue at, at, at minimum, right? Your, your health and well-being is always being threatened by, you know... I mean, you get... I think we got three showers a week, and the showers are like... They're just back to back, so you're not like... They're not cleaning them out in between showers, so you're literally handcuffed. They take you down to this shower cage. You go in there, and it's fucking snot on the wall, and it's fucking, you know, somebody shaving, because they, they will give you, like, the little razors to shave. And then you got the guys who, we call them cutters. So these are guys who like self-maim. Um, and they would take... I mean, anything you could think of, they would take and just kind of carve up their skin. You know, swallow... Like, one guy swallowed batteries, so they stopped us from like even getting... At one point, we can get like a little tape player, and a guy ended up swallowing a battery, so they banned all batteries, so then we couldn't listen to music anymore. And so it was just like complete chaos, and, you know, it's, it was... It's one of the darkest places, you know, in, in the world. Um, and I've been in different solitary... You know, in prison. I've... Out, out of 19 years, I was transferred, a total of 19 years, to 11 different prisons. And so I've done solitary in like a super old prison, more the modern prison. But the one I did the most time in, which was from 1999 to 2004, um, was called Oaks Correctional Facility. It's one of the more modern prisons. And so, you know, in the midst of that chaos, I decided, like, I got to... There was a couple of things. So one, I had read this book about what's supposed to happen to your mind when you're in that environment, and it talks about like how it will cause you to hallucinate. It talks about how it will cause you to not feel like you have, like, any agency over your life. It affects how you communicate. Uh, because in order to talk, you got to lay on your floor and, like, scream under the door and try to hear a guy, or you got to kind of talk through, like, the electrical sockets. So it's all these different things that I, I kind of knew going in. And so I set up, for myself, because I didn't want to... Like, the only thing I feared about being in prison was losing my mind. I was never worried about my physical safety. Um, you know, I grew up fighting. I grew up with brothers. I... You know, I grew up on the east side of Detroit, so I knew how to, like, take care of myself. Losing my mind was the one thing that I was like... That was... I was afraid of that, because I saw guys who were like normal guys, and five years in, they're not the same. You know, they're not the same. And you see this, like, glossed over look in their eyes, and it's the scariest shit ever to see. Somebody start to hallucinate, start to make up a life that, that, that you know is not true. And so I set my days up like I was at university. Um, and, and I always say this, uh, uh, Joe. This is, like, super important. I was lucky, and I was lucky because I was literate, and like, the average reading grade in prison is about third grade. And I wouldn't be here with you right now if I didn't know how to read. Like, I would not be the person that I am today. Um, and so because I knew how to read, I was able to really structure my days like I was at a school. You know, I would study philosophy in the morning. I would study world history. I would study African history. And then I would just, like, read for pleasure, but I was always like... You know, every day I'm figuring out, "Okay, how, how do I keep my mind moving forward?" And if you keep your mind moving forward, you can actually survive. And it's... You know, it's no different than any other hard shit you got to go through, but it's really like, can you keep your mind taking one more step? And then there were some days where I was like, "I don't... I don't..." Like, "Yo, this shit is too much." Like I'm... I'm feeling myself, like physically, like, "I can't take one more day." And in those days, I would just grab a book, man, of somebody who inspired me. You know, sometimes it would be Nelson Mandela. He had been through like 27 years. Um, and I would just like open it up, and like, "Let me just start reading something." I would read, uh, the poem Invictus. Like, that poem always just kind of brought me back. Like, "You're the master of your own fate." You know what I'm saying? You're the... You're the captain of your soul. So I would go back and read that. There's a book called As a Man Thinketh by James Allen that's about 60-something pages. I would literally... My, my, my version of that was so dog-eared, but I would like literally just open it up, and any page was about-... if you master your thinking, you can master your environment. And so it was like, things like that would keep my, my brain just going forward. Um, you know, I, obviously I would work out, you know, do pushups and, and calisthenics and roll-up. Um, I used to roll my mattress up and you'd tie a sheet, one sheet around it, and you put the other sheet through it, and you make it a handle and now you could do your curls, you know? So I would do that, take that mattress, put it on my back, I would do squats. So I would, I would run my, my routine in there. And just running that routine is really what kept me like, you know, put one positive thought in front of the next, you know? Um, and I mean, at that time, I still was like, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't like a model prisoner. You know, I don't, I don't want the listeners to be confused by that, 'cause it's a little different, right? As somebody who follows the rules and just stays out of the way and get outta trouble, like I was, I was, I was, I was into bad shit in there. You know, I was not... I didn't ever think I was getting out. So I was like, "I just gotta run the environment." You know, I gotta be in control in this environment. I gotta, you know, make all the, the moves, um, to have agency over my life in that environment. And so initially while I was in there, I was just, I was only focused on getting out so I can finish getting into shit.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- SSShaka Senghor
Mm.
- JRJoe Rogan
So when y- ... So, what- what initially sent you to solitary?
- SSShaka Senghor
So the first time I went to solitary was for an assault on, um, on a, uh, a guy who was my neighbor. And basically, I didn't have any money on my books at the time. And, uh, you know, store day came around and I was like, "I'm gonna go take his shit." (laughs) And so I literally went to rob this guy, and he happened to be coming in the cell at the time and we got into like a fisticuffs and, and so they took me to, uh, solitary for that. And I did about a year for that.
- JRJoe Rogan
A year?
- SSShaka Senghor
Yeah. And then this ... 'Cause what happened was, a officer got assaulted in the process. He jumped on my back and I thought it was like his cellmate coming to help him and I kind of threw him off me and, and so that, that, that was ... cost me about a year. And then the second time, um, this was some crazy shit. So I was at the Michigan Reformatory. And at the time, I'm the line foreman so I'm like, I make sure as we're serving chow that, uh, you know, if this thing is running out of like cutlets, I put the cutlets in the thing for them to continue serving. And we were all about efficiency, like, we wanna move these guys through fast as possible 'cause the, the, the, the chow hall is where all the shit goes down. It's the stabbings go down and it's crazy, so we trying to move guys out. And this guy, man, he's, he's just holding up the line. And so, what happened is that, sometime they would send these guys over to the reformatory, it was like a higher security level. It's the old, you know, it's the oldest prison in Michigan at the time, it was called The Gladiator School. And sometime they would send these guys from like the lower levels who, you know, they're getting in trouble at the lower levels and they would send 'em over there to, as punishment, you know? And usually when they come over there, they don't realize that, that this is a different ... this is a different game. You know what I mean? Like, the, like, the reformatory is real prison. Those lower levels, it's like a fucking camp. You're not dealing with, you know, you're dealing with real prisoners. So this guy comes over, he's holding up the line, and we're like, "Yo," like, "What's, what's the holdup?" And, and so he starts to cuss our crew out. You know, he's like, "Basically y'all, are y'all bitches acting like this? Y'all food. Give me more potatoes." Like, so it's like he's upset he's not ... He don't feel like he's getting enough. And so I'm just li- I'm talking to the guy and I'm like, "Yo," I'm like, I'm like, "Chill out." Like, "What, what, what's, what's the situation here?" You know? And he like, "They acting like this, their food," blah, blah. And I'm like, "What, what you want?" He like, "You know, y'all give me some more of this." So now he's being disrespectful. So I was like, "All right, I got it." So I load him up on mashed potatoes, gravy, call him to the window and I slap him with it. And I was like, "Yo, don't come to the window disrespectful." And so I done slapped him with this whole tray of potatoes and gravy and, uh, and he takes off running and he, he like runs into the officers, you know? And so my supervisor, who was cool, and he was like, "Go to the back," and like hide, you know? So he's trying to hide me, all right? 'Cause I'm one of his better workers, he don't wanna like lose me to, to this. And so, you know, that led to me being in solitary for a year.
- JRJoe Rogan
A year?
- SSShaka Senghor
Another year.
- JRJoe Rogan
For hitting a guy with the mashed potatoes?
- SSShaka Senghor
Yeah, for stopping a guy with the mashed pota- potatoes. Yeah. And so-
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs)
- SSShaka Senghor
... now I'm there for another year, but the last, the last incident, um, which was happening in 1999, me and this officer, we got into a conflict. And the conflict escalated when he pushed me, like literally he wouldn't let me go to the bathroom and he pushed me and then I beat him up. And this was a, this was another of those moments of like ... You know, I th- I think, I think in life, man, that sometimes we don't talk enough about how lucky we are. Um, me and this guy, we get into a, we get into a confrontation, it escalates. At this time, like, I'm 27. Um, all I do is lift weights, work out, whatever. And I don't even realize the difference between like a 27-year-old grown man strength and the boy that walked into prison. Um, and so when I punched this guy, I don't ... In my mind, I'm not even thinking about like how destructive it
- 30:00 – 45:00
In solitary? …
- SSShaka Senghor
is for a grown man to punch another per- another human being. I'm just like, we get into it, the thing it escalates, so I punch him. And I, I ... Soon after I punch him, I like go for the scoop, pick him up, and his leg gets caught under my arm. So I slam him down, his radio flies over the, um, the railing, lands on the floor. Now, when this conflict happened, they're doing what's called emergency count. So every month, in prisons all across the country, emergency count, they blow a s- a siren and everybody, it doesn't matter what you're doing, if you work in the kitchen, you gotta drop what you're doing, everybody has to go back to their cell block.And so what happens is, you know, they'll let people use the restroom, et cetera. But that siren is going. And so when me and him are up there fighting, the siren is going, so the officer downstairs doesn't even know that this is happening upstairs. The thing that saved his life and saved me from a life sentence was his radio flew over the, the gallery and landed. And so a counselor coming in looks and sees a radio and was like, "What? What the ... Why is there a radio here?" Looks up and sees the, the, the confrontation happening. And so he hits his button, all the officers come over. They dive on my back, separate us, take me to solitary. So when they take me to solitary, I'm, uh, I'm raging. I'm, you know, I'm still in that energy. I'm, you know. And the guy next to me, he's banging on the wall. He's like, "Yo, look down." Because I can see down to the cell block. Now, there's an ambulance out there. And basically what happened is when I punched him, I broke his tracheal. And so they had to perform emergency surgery on him in ... literally in front of the cell block. And so I was sentenced to an additional two years and then, uh, what ended up being four and a half years in solitary confinement. And the only, only reason that man did not die that day is because his radio flew over. Um, and, you know, it's one of those, it's one of those things where when I began to recalibrate my life and begin to really transform my life and think about my life differently, it was another one of those things where I realized in that moment I just let my anger dictate my actions. And no matter whether I thought he was right or wrong, I was so angry and so enraged that I just, you know, punched this guy indiscriminately and I literally could have killed this man and I would have literally been serving the rest of my life in prison. And so when that, when that happened, um, you know, I, I remember they, they transferred me that same day. They transferred me, so I was at ... That happened at a prison called Muskegon Correctional Facility. They transferred me to Oaks Correctional Facility. And the first month, man, I was there, the officers would just come and they would, like, talk so much shit. You know, like, "We're going to fuck you up." And, you know, "We're going to ..." You know, "You're going to get yours." Um, and, you know, it was, it was, it was the most vulnerable, you know, um, I felt, because I, I knew that it happened in there. You know, I knew that they can come in, they can just say, "Oh, he did this." And they can come in with the goon squad and, and pepper spray you and beat the shit out of you, and you're cuffed up and there's nothing you can really do. Um, you know, so it was, it was very, it was very tense, uh, for about a month or so, you know. And then there were officers who was at the facility where it actually happened at that transferred over, and they kind of knew me and they kind of knew that, you know, the, the, um, the experience with the officer wasn't just like I woke up and had a bad day. You know? They knew it was an escalation. Um, and even though, you know, when I, when I look at it, like, I'm all about personal responsibility and accountability, and, like, I had to eat that, you know, that I was, I was wrong in, in terms of my reaction to the anger. There are things I probably could have did differently. Um, but what they told me at that point was like, "You're never going to get out of here." You know, "You're never going to get out of here." And I remember the first time one of them said that to me, I was like ... I was too naive to really, you know, believe it. You know, I was like, um, whatever, you know. I'll do a year or two down here and y'all will let me go. And then I started seeing guys around me who had been in solitary for 10 years. Um, a friend of mine, he's actually out now. His name is Peter. He works, uh, I think he's, like, a clerk back in Michigan. Um, he was in ... He was my neighbor. He was in solitary for 10 years. There was a guy across from me that was like ... This guy was one of the most fascinating people I've ever met. He was a con man. Like, he was masterful at manipulating the officers. But he was in for 20 years, you know. He had-
- JRJoe Rogan
In solitary?
- SSShaka Senghor
In solitary for 20 years.
- JRJoe Rogan
(exhales)
- SSShaka Senghor
Um, and so when I started seeing that, I was like, "Man, I might, I might never get out of here." You know? And the first two years, you know, I, I was like kind of resigning myself. I remember writing my dad this letter. I wrote my dad this letter and I just said, um, "You should just go on with your life because they're never going to let me out of here." And my dad wrote me back and he said, "You know, I can't even pretend to act like I understand the world that you're in, but I will never leave your side." And so that's how resigned I was to the idea that I was going to die in there. And it wasn't until, um, I was in about two years or so ... Um, or maybe about, about a little over a year, and basically I started journaling and it was inspired by a letter I got from my son. My son told me that his mother had told him why I was in prison, and he wrote this letter and he's like, "My mother told me that you're in prison for murder." And he said, "Dad, don't kill. Jesus watches what you do." When I got that letter, like, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't religious, you know. I'm not religious, not spiritual. But there is something about that that just like struck me, like, in the most heartbreaking of ways. It's like I have a kid out here who I have let down....and whose mother is telling him stories about me without context. And I don't have a way to reach out to him and say, "Hey, son, here's all the shit that happened." Um, and so I was like, you know, "I gotta turn my life around." And I can tell you, like, over the years, every time I got into some shit, I would just be like, "All right. This is it. You know, this the last time." Um, it was always these moments of like, "I'm going to do right this time," but it, it was never about me. It was always like, "I'm going to do right so my dad doesn't have to come see me in jail or come bail me out of my friends, don't have to come, you know, try to get me out of trouble." It was never a real thing. And so, when I started journaling, I started with this essential question of like, "Man, how did I end up here?" 'Cause up to that point, I didn't, I didn't think of myself as a bad person. Like, I didn't think of myself as, like, angry. I didn't think of myself as, like-- I didn't even think of myself as violent. I thought that I had just got into some situations that people provoked me in. And so I asked this question of like, "Man, how did you, how did you get here? Like, you're the smart kid. You know, you're the kid that want to be a doctor, and an, and an artist, and how the hell did you get here?" And so I started going back, and I started asking myself questions based on, when was the first time you got arrested, and what led to that, you know? And then what happened the second time, and when was the first time this thing happened and that thing happened, and who was responsible? And what I was able to do was to ba- I was able to go back and realize that I had all this trauma. I had all these traumatic things that happened to me as a kid, but also had caused a lot of hurt, and I did a lot of things that really was like, "No, actually, you probably are a bad person." And so as I began to write and sort those things out, I realized I had never accomplished. I never finished anything. I started a bunch of things. You know, I never finished high school. I was like probably one of the smartest kids in the class. Uh, went to Job Corps, got kicked out before I finished that. Um, was going to go to the military, never followed up to take the test. So I was a consummate quitter. You know, I would start some stuff and would never finish. And so I said, in my journal, I said, "Listen, if you're going to turn your life around, you have to finish one thing. You have to challenge yourself to finish one thing." And so I'm looking around this cell, and I'm like, "Okay, what can I do?" I've done all the push-up challenges, (laughs) you know, you can do in solitary. Um, and I was like, "You should write a book, but you gotta write the book in 30 days. If you write this book in 30 days, you can change your life. If you don't, you're going to die in prison."
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- SSShaka Senghor
And that was my-
- JRJoe Rogan
(exhales)
- SSShaka Senghor
...that was my challenge to myself. And, and now I'll tell you, like, in solitary, there's no, like, you don't have a, a word processor, typewriter. You can't even have like a regular ink pen 'cause you know those kids are gonna, like, sh- sink somebody or stick somebody. They give you this little flimsy plastic pen. And so I, I remember getting a pen. I got, like, a little pad of paper. Um, and I said to myself, like, "It's no way possible you're going to write a book in 30 days with that pen. This is not possible." And I remember saying to myself, "This is what you always do. You always make an excuse. You always make a way to get out of being accountable. What are you going to do? Are you going to turn your life around, or are you going to bullshit the rest of your life away?" And so I sat there for a while, and I was like, "What if I roll this pa- this pen up in some paper?" And I literally took some paper and I started rolling the pen up so it was firm enough, and it was like the size of a regular pen. And I wrote that first book in 30 days, and I knew I would never go back to prison if I ever got out. But at that point, I still didn't know if I was getting out.
- JRJoe Rogan
So what did you write?
- SSShaka Senghor
So the first book I wrote was a novel. It was a fiction novel. I lo- I, I love reading. You know, I was really fortunate to, to really be able to, um, to escape through books, you know? So I was like, "Well, I want to try to write a book," you know? And I, I, I loved these stories I was reading. I was reading, like, Westerns, Louis L'Amour, um, uh, my favorite, one of my favorite authors, uh, Donald Goines. So he had these, all these street books like Dope Fiend and, you know, uh, Black Gangster, and it was like all this kind of underbelly, uh, Iceberg Slim, Pimp, all these stories were stories I had read early on. And these guys, they were like me. Like, Donald Goines served time in prison. And so I'm like, "Well, if these guys can write a book, then what if I give it a try?" And so, uh, my first novel, um, was literally about this girl who played street basketball. Her dad was like a street basketball legend. And so I wrote that book, and I remember just like, I had never felt a greater sense of pride in myself than the writing that book on a notepad. And I still, I still have the original, uh, books that I wrote in, in solitary confinement on notepads and on the back of paper. Uh, I'll make- I'll send you some pictures of it. It'll, it'll-
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- SSShaka Senghor
...it'll blow your mind. Um, and I remember writing that book, and I got out. So I write the book....this is some wild shit. So after I write it, I'm like, "Well, a book really isn't a book until somebody reads it." And so I climbed down on my floor, and I'm like, "Yo, like somebody wanna read, read this book I just wrote?" And I remember this guy at the other end of the tier was like, "Don't nobody wanna read that bullshit. This ain't Oprah." (laughs)
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- SSShaka Senghor
So, so, so, so here it is, I'm like...
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- SSShaka Senghor
...I'm trying to like, I'm trying to turn my life around. I'm like, "Now I gotta shank this guy for disrespecting me." You know what I'm saying?
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- SSShaka Senghor
So, but it was like, it, it ended up, it ended up when he said it, you know, my ego, you know, it's like I'm, I'm, you know, I am on the yard like I'm a shot caller. I can have you done, right? And then I stepped back and I was like, "No, he actually just gave me a go." Like, if I'm going to, if I want to take writing serious, I need to set a goal for what do I want to happen with my work, you know? Um, and then another guy, he agreed to, to, to read it. And now, so I'm in solitary, so it's not like I can just walk out the cell and get a guy to book, right? So we would make these fish lines out of our underwear. So we take all of the string out of your underwear, you, you attach that to a toothpaste tube that you're squirting all the toothpaste out of and stuff with paper. So you stuff it with toilet paper, wet toilet paper. Then once that dries, it has enough weight that you can slide it up and down the tier. And so... and then sometimes we would use our socks. Most of the time I, I used socks. Um, but you just unravel that string and then you can slide it up under the, the, the door and then you can, you know, attach whatever to it. And so I attached the, the, the book to it, man, slid it under the door, and I don't hear from this guy like all day. So now I'm like nervous as shit 'cause I'm like, "This is my only copy." You know what I'm saying? (laughs)
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- SSShaka Senghor
I was like, "I done gave the guy my only copy and he ain't responding." But then he came back to the door, man, and he was like, you know, "That's one of the best books I've ever read." And I was like, "Wow." It like, it blew my mind for like literally about five minutes. And then I thought about it, I was like, "Man, he in solitary confine, man, he over there bored as shit." It could have... (laughs)
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- SSShaka Senghor
I could have sent him anything.
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
The assault was on…
- SSShaka Senghor
I could have sent him a recipe and he'd be like, "It's the best chicken soup recipe ever." Right? So, but I was like, "Okay, maybe if I send it out, you know, send it out to people." And so I started sending my writing out to, like, I have a brother, he's my, he's my stepbrother. And like out of all my siblings, he's the one of us that's like always played by the books. You know, he went to school, he went to college, and he is an engineer at like, one of the big three. And, and he just always done it by the books. And I remember sending it to him. And he had never wrote me in prison. Like, never wrote me in prison. I sent him the book and I remember, I still have his letter to this day. And he wrote back and he said to me, "This writing is better than most of the people I went to school with, and I want to help you figure out, you know, how... a path forward." Um, and so just getting that, that affirmation for somebody who, he wasn't in the streets, he wasn't in a prison cell block, though he had did it the right way. Like, just that little boost, man, was like, "Okay, maybe I'm onto something." You know? And so I wrote my second book, um, uh, like right after that. And I gave myself the same thing, "You gotta finish it 30 to 60 days." And then I started a third book, man. And I, um, I went into the deepest bottle of depression that I had experienced in prison. And it was because by the time I got to writing book three, I realized I had this incredible talent and that it had always been there, and that I had let all the trauma, all the violence, all the street life overtake my life. And I'm like, "I'm in this environment. I can't give birth to this dream." Like, um, uh, so it was the, it was the most... Like, getting sentenced was like my life is over. Not being able to actualize a dream based on a gift I was given, that was devastating, you know? And so I was going through this depression, and I did what I always would do, which was go back to those books. And you know, I was, I was getting heavy into philosophy, which was like the wildest thing. It's like, you know, growing up, you know, you hear philosophy like, oh, that's super boring, you know? But I was getting into all this philosophy, man. And I, I remember going back to James Allen book, and it was really talking about this idea that you think into existence the life that you want. And if you focus your life on negative thoughts, you're gonna only produce negative outcomes. And when I went back and I read my journals, I saw the pattern. The pattern was super clear of like, I bought into this negative narrative. So me being in prison was not a shocker to me when I went back and read through my journal. And so I said to myself, "If this is true, and if this is absolutely true in a negative, then it has to be true in a positive." And I began to just refocus my energy on getting outta solitary. And I remember saying, "If I'm gonna get outta here, I need help." Like, they're not like... the way it looks on paper, they're not just gonna let me out, you know? And so I wrote this, I wrote this letter to the warden, and it was a super philosophical letter about the truth. And what I said to the warden was like, "When I walked into prison, my statement was that I was not gonna follow the rules, and that I was hell bent on destroying my life." And I'm like, "If you look at my record, you would know that I've honored my word." Like at that point I had probably, maybe I think about 34 misconducts.... and they ranged from everything to dangerous contraband, to assault on staff, assault on inmate, you name it. And, I was like, "So, the thing you know more than anything else is I'm a man of my word. And what I'm telling you is that if you, if you believe that, that to be true in the negative, I just need you to believe it to be true in the positive. And if you give me this opportunity to get out of solitary, I wanna focus on two things. I'm gonna mentor these other young guys, and I'm gonna focus on becoming a writer." And I sent that letter to the warden, and the warden literally wrote me back. And he said, you know, "Despite my hesitation here, I believe you, and I'm gonna advocate for you to get out." And so he began to advocate for me to get out, but he had to go through multiple series of, like, his supervisors because the assault was on a inmate. And so it took about another two years before I got outta solitary.
- JRJoe Rogan
The assault was on an officer?
- SSShaka Senghor
Yeah, on a officer, yeah, yeah. Yeah, on a officer. And so it took literally another two years, um, before I finally got out. But (exhales) once I got out, I took those handwritten books and I typed 'em all up, you know? And I mentored those guys, and I began to tutor the guys who they said couldn't read or wouldn't read, and I found that if I gave them books that were similar to their life, they would put in more effort. And so that's what I focused on, you know? Um, and then I typed those books up and I was like... I started to send them out, I was sending stuff out. I got, like, a... I still got, like, copies of my query letters, man. I was just sending stuff out in the dark. Like, I sent, like... Jay-Z was, like, the president of, like, Def Jam at one point. I was like, "Oh, you should publish this book 'cause you rap about this shit. I, I really live it." (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SSShaka Senghor
I sent it to him, and I was just like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Did he respond?
- SSShaka Senghor
No. You know (laughs) , never...
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SSShaka Senghor
Never got a response (laughs) . But I did get a couple of response from, like, some, like, independent publishers and they was like, "No, we're not interested right now, but thank you."
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- SSShaka Senghor
And I just kept going at it, and then I was like, "You know what? I'm responsible for my own dream." You know? And so I took the money that my, my parents sent me and money I hustled on the yard. I still had hustles, they just weren't, like, illegal hustles. So I wasn't doing, like, drug smuggling. But I would sell, you know, the, the merchandise on, on the yard for twice what it's worth and I just took that money, man. I saved it up, and, uh, I published my first book from prison in 2008. And, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
How did you do that?
- SSShaka Senghor
So I, I bought this book... I ordered this book called The, uh, Self-Help Guide to Self-Publishing, and I taught myself everything I needed to learn about publishing. Like, I knew how to get a copyright, a ISBN number, uh, I had a partner outside who believed in what I was doing, and I basically would just be like, "Here's the steps I need you to take to, you know, execute this." And found a graphic artist and a printer, um, and yeah, and published the first book. And then the prison sued me for the cost of my incarceration.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- SSShaka Senghor
Yeah. And they tallied it up to, like, a million dollars. Yeah. 'Cause basically what they did is they literally went and said, "This is how much it costs for you to be in prison at every prison you've been in per day." And so higher security levels, it was about 150 something a day, lower sec- security levels, like 70 something a day. And they was like, "By the time you get outta prison, it'll be about a million dollars. And so we want 90% of anything you earn off this book." They thought I had got a book deal. They didn't realize I had, like, self-published. And I was like... You know, the, the thing that, that struck me about that when I went through the, through the, um, through the actual hearing with the judge was I was like, "Man." You know, I, I wrote this powerful letter to her and I was just like, "Look, I'm coming home with a conviction." I got three felonies, right? I got... I'm convicted of, uh, second-degree murder, felony firearm, and this assault on a officer. And I'm like, "If I put that on a resume, nobody's gonna hire me when I get out." And I'm like, "Fair, I get it." Like, I... If I'm, if I'm in a hiring position and I saw, if that... I only saw that, probably not hiring that person either. So I'm giving myself a chance, you know? I'm trying to give myself a chance. Like, I don't wanna go back to the streets. I wanna, I wanna be able to contribute to society, but I know society's not going to give me an opportunity, so I'm creating an opportunity for myself, you know? And so I went through the court case and they... This is how, this is how they ended up not getting any money, right? So I backdated a contract to myself saying that I would only accept 15% of the proceeds... I mean, 10% of the proceeds once the company recouped its production cost. So they went from suing me for, for 90% of $15 per book, to only being able to sue me for 90% of a dollar 50 per book 'cause I backdated this contract. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SSShaka Senghor
So (laughs) I used to work in a law library, so I was like, you know, "I know contractual law is binding, and the lawsuit was only binding as long as I was incarcerated." And so I just made sure that I didn't make any money, you know, until I got out. Um, but the letter that I wrote to the judge, like, it was important to say that, is that, listen, at that time, you know, it's 15 years ago. I've been out 15 years now. At that time, nobody was like, really talking about second chances if you have a violent crime.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- SSShaka Senghor
You know, if you had a non-violent crime, there's a chance you can get a job when you get out. Um, and so I was realistic because I'm like, "Yo, nobody's gonna hire me, so I gotta figure out how to make it happen myself." And so I went through that lawsuit and, and it was, it was tough, you know? It was tough because I'm like, "This is the first time I'm trying to do something legit." Like, I'm, I'm... You know, I've sold drugs, I've hustled on the yard. I'm trying to move into, like-... doing something with my life, you know? I don't wanna be, I don't wanna be thugging it out forever. I don't wanna be, I don't wanna be one of those people that go in and out of a prison system, you know? I don't wanna die here. Like, I wanna ... And I wanna actually add value. Like, I know some things that I think is helpful in the community. But if you take this away from me, then what do you, what do you expect me to do?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- SSShaka Senghor
You know? (sighs)
- JRJoe Rogan
So, they were under the impression that you had got some crazy big book deal.
- SSShaka Senghor
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And so they were just trying to stop it and trying to fuck up your dream.
- SSShaka Senghor
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SSShaka Senghor
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs) God. I mean, I kind of almost can see it from their side, if they hate you.
- SSShaka Senghor
(laughs) Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know?
- 1:00:00 – 1:15:00
Right. …
- SSShaka Senghor
the cell block. They like clean up, they pass out the food trays. So they usually come from the protection unit. The last year they stopped letting them guys come in 'cause it was just creating too much conflict, 'cause they was like ... They got beef, now you over here and guys were trying to get to 'em, so it was crazy. So the guys who was coming over was from general population, and these was like guys I knew, you know? So like the last year I was there, you know, they would come through, man. They would smuggle me candy bars. I hadn't had a candy bar in like three years, you know? And, uh, I remember, you know, one of my guys come over. He smuggles, he ... I, I hear the broom hitting the door and I look up and it's like two flattened down like Snickers that he's been like probably putting in his shoes. I don't know where he put 'em at. I didn't, I didn't even ask questions. I didn't wanna ask questions. Um, and I remember like running 'em over with cold water so they can solidify. So when I tell you it was like the, tho- them, them Snickers was like the best (laughs) like ever. Like, I mean, the, the details of how I can taste that given I had been, been gone from it. So, I told them guys, I was like, "Man, when they let me out, it's gonna be like George Jefferson strolling outta here," you know? And so, that's literally how it was, man. They popped that door-... and then I took my little bag of shit, and my books, and threw that thing. And I'm, I'm George Jefferson Stroeh, and I'm like, I'm out. I'm like, "Y'all have never seen me." 'Cause I had really... You know, I, I, I, I, I looked at it like this. I was like, you know, up to that point in my life, I had, I had let myself down so many times, you know. I had been beat down by life, the traumas, the, the fucking... all the things. And it was the first time I felt like I was fighting for myself. Like, I felt like I was fighting for myself. Like, "I'mma, I'mma get out of here. All the things I said I'mma do, I'mma get out and I'mma do 'em." And it's gonna be the first time that I'mma stand on something that really aligns with that little boy that I always knew was there, and I'm gonna fight for this kid. And so I was so... I, I was like, "I'm, I'm moving on up, but I'm moving on up into, like, a higher purpose in my life." And that's when I got out, man, and, and I went to work. I'm like, literally went to work. I took those books, you know, I typed 'em up, you know. I figured out, you know, how to publish a book, you know. I started preparing for parole. Um, the year that I published the book, I went up for parole that same year, 2008, and, um, I was at a prison. At this time, they had transferred me to lower security level, so you start to work your way down, which is its own craziness, you know. 'Cause I'm- you know, I, I did... At that point I'd only did hard time. Um, and going down in security level is, like, crazy, you know, 'cause you're... Now, you're dealing with these guys just coming straight off the streets. They're like... You know, you're dealing with... There's kind of a hierarchy in the streets, you know. There's a hierarchy of mindset in the streets. Like, guys who are usually good at selling drugs, they're li- they're literally operating at a different, like, intellectual frequency than guys that are, like, doing petty theft.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- SSShaka Senghor
And so now you're, you're, you're in lower levels. You're dealing with a lot of guys who really have... should probably be in an addiction environment versus actually prison. Um, you're dealing with your, you know, failure to pay child support, DUIs, um, low-level drug offenses, you know, petty theft. So you're dealing with a different mindset of guys who are really still... They're trying to heal, you know. They're just coming fresh off the streets. Um, and it's an open setting, so I'm going from, like, being in a cell by myself to, like, now I'm in this, like, cubicle with, with, you know, these random, you know, guys. Um, but I was just preparing myself, man. I was like, you know, "I, I want to get out and I want to add value to society." And so, you know, they had transferred me, so now, at this point, I'm way up u- up... I'm in Northern Michigan over in the Upper Peninsula. It's about 12 hours from, from, you know, my hometown. My dad comes up, my dad, my stepmom, my oldest son, and, um... Man, we go into this parole hearing. It probably lasted, you know, maybe a minute. You know, this lady, she was just like, "Why did you do what you did?" It was, like, a very hard line, just the f- the facts, you know. And I was just like, "Ah, I'm not getting out." You know. Like, I knew it. Like, that, that hearing was so fast. She didn't even, you know, listen to my dad. It was just very curt. And I was like, "Man, I'm, I'm, I'm... know I'm not going home yet," you know.
- JRJoe Rogan
And so how many years in was this?
- SSShaka Senghor
So at that point, I had 17 years in.
- JRJoe Rogan
And how much time do you have to wait before you could apply for parole again?
- SSShaka Senghor
So technically, it can be anywhere from 12 months to 24 months. They give what's called a, uh, a flop or a passover. Uh, so they gave me a 12-monther, and usually you go back within about 10 months of that, um, to go back to the same process again, and sometime less when they're trying to, like, deal with budget issues and kind of get guys out. So I went back probably about 8, 10 months later.
- JRJoe Rogan
What did she say to you-
- SSShaka Senghor
Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
... when, when she denied you parole?
- SSShaka Senghor
She didn't say... She didn't tell me she was denying me, like, in the... in the hearing. It was just the way that the hearing was handled where it was like... She didn't ask, you know, "What are your plans when you get out? Who were you before that incident? What led up to that incident?" Like, it was just very, you know... Basically, "You killed someone, and that's it." And I think when I was even trying to explain to her, I think she just kind of, like, shut it down. You know-
- JRJoe Rogan
She put you in a category.
- SSShaka Senghor
Yeah. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SSShaka Senghor
She shut it down, like it was almost like me explaining to her was making an excuse, you know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SSShaka Senghor
That was the way that she responded. And I was like, "Man..." It was... It probably didn't even take a full 60 days before I had a decision back, you know, that I was being denied.
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs) That's got to be a horrible feeling to just be in a category where they don't take into account any of the circumstances, don't take into account any potential growth or this direction that you're trying to move your life into. You're just in a category. You're a murderer.
- SSShaka Senghor
Yeah. Yeah. You know that's the... That's the s- the scariest part about, you know, our penal system overall.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's no rehabilitation.
- SSShaka Senghor
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
You have to do it... Well, I mean, like, your story is so sim- similar to many stories that I've heard.
- SSShaka Senghor
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, I've done a lot of, uh, podcasts with my friend Josh Dubin.
- SSShaka Senghor
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know Josh?
- SSShaka Senghor
That's the lawyer guy, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SSShaka Senghor
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
He's the guy who he used to work for the Innocence Project-
- 1:15:00 – 1:17:23
You're just putting the…
- SSShaka Senghor
it was so obvious to me, like, what the problem was. Like, "If you just move this over, like, a, a quarter of an inch, it's probably gonna work the way that you envision it," you know? And I remember saying that to him, and, and just seeing him, like... It was almost like a light bulb just fired off in his head, and I was just like, "Man, that was, that was wild 'cause this is a smart kid." And he's just... You know, this kid is brilliant, right? And so I said, um, "I want to do a prison hack here. And I want to challenge these students and faculty to solve some problems based on the problems we had to solve in prison." And so they said, "Yeah, you should do it." And so I literally told them all the things that I wanted, and I came up with five design challenges. And one of them was you got to design a tattoo gun out of a tape player motor, a good tire string, and an ink pen. You have to make what we called a stinger, which is, like, kind of like y- So you have a hot pot, right? So in prison, in order to, like, heat up our noodles, we had to, you know... Especially if you're in the old prisons... Excuse me. If you're in the old prisons, there's no, there's no microwaves. So you have to figure out how to heat them up. And so we would make what's called a stinger, which we would take an extension cord, cut that up, and then you attach, like, nail clippers to it, and you got to splice them, and then you put it in the water and plug it up, and then it heats your water up. And so now you can make your noodles, your coffee.
- JRJoe Rogan
You're just putting the cord right into the water?
- SSShaka Senghor
Yeah, but if you do it, you got to put it in first before you plug it up. Because if you, if you, like, plug it up first-
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- SSShaka Senghor
(laughs) Yeah. If you plug it up first, then it blows the power out in the cell block. Now you got a whole nother problem. Um, and so we would... That's how we would heat up our noodles, our coffee, oatmeal, whatever. And then I had them, um, if... Back, back in the day, we used to get these little radios. They're not boomboxes, but they're like little GRadios or something. And they, they disabled, you know, you from playing, you know, your tape player to them because there's no tape player attached. So you had to figure out how to connect that to the big radio, and then it plays from your tape player through the big speaker. And then I had them, uh, make a lighter out of batteries and wire, and then to make a fishline out of the same materials I told you about earlier, the string out of just socks. And, um, and so I gave them, like, three hours to complete these challenges. And we're going for three hours. They blew the power out at MIT Media Lab. (laughs)
Episode duration: 2:43:15
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