Everyone knows the story. The Chambers Brothers were four siblings from Mississippi: Lester, Joe, Willie, and George, all avid readers who liked to keep up with current events. But being professional musicians, it often took a week or more for their favorite newsmagazine to catch up with them on the road. In 1968, the long-awaited arrival of one particular issue inspired their hit song "Time Has Come Today," with its famous ticking clock. Far out, dude. Those were the days. I remember when we dropped …
But wait! It turns out this episode of BET's hit documentary series American Gangster has nothing to do with that band. These Chambers Brothers are four siblings from Arkansas: Billy Joe, Willie, Larry, and Otis, who hit it big in the '80s as Detroit crack dealers. Hey, sorry for the confusion. Blogcritics are only human. Even we make the occasional mistake.
Anyhow, in the series' fifth episode (first aired in December 2006), the crack-dealing Chambers Brothers are depicted as "titans of industry." A newspaper headline likens their drug operation to a Fortune 500 firm. Narrator Ving Rhames explains, "With an army of teenagers working an estimated 300 crack houses, the Chambers Brothers were making untold millions running the largest crack ring in U.S. history. At the height of their reign, it's estimated the Chambers Brothers made more money in a single year selling crack than Chrysler made selling cars." Of course, that was back when Chrysler made money selling cars. Nowadays we'd have to say the Brothers made more money than Chrysler lost selling cars. But you get the idea.
Writer Barry Michael Cooper, one of the series' regular cast of talking heads, reinforces the Brothers' business model. "These guys had actually studied the blueprint of GM and the [other] Big 3 automakers to really design what they were doing." Former DEA agent Thomas McCain is similarly admiring, telling American Gangster, "They came from right down where Walmart started. I think if these guys had taken the skills that they had, put that into a legitimate business environment, and you could be successful."
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