June 8, 2020 – Black Mafia Family are intending to re-brand in an effort to change the historic drug empire’s image. According to sources close to the situation, “BMF” boss Demetrius (Big Meech) Flenory and other BMF luminaries want to evolve the narrative from bling and blow to “Building More Families,” creating a new acronym and socially-conscious direction for the hip-hop culture staple once famous for its trap-house chic decadence and shaping the dope-boy standard of today. The iconic 51-year old Flenory, described by some as the black Al Capone of the New Millennium, at least in terms of social relevance, is awaiting word from U.S. District Court Judge David Lawson in Detroit on his request for compassionate release related to the COVID-19 health crisis. His younger brother, lesser-known BMF co-founder Terry (Southwest T) Flenory, 50, was released on a compassionate release last month. The pair of siblings, their vision, ambition and hustle, inspired the trap-rap sound that emerged in the southern music scene of the 2000s. The Flenorys built BMF from an eight-ball crew operating in Detroit’s Monterey neighborhood – resting in the shadow of the Ambassador Bridge separating the U.S. from Canada – during the late 1980s and early 1990s into a massive narcotics conglomerate that had franchise outlets around the country and controlled wholesale cocaine trafficking in two dozen different states. By the 2000s, Big Meech was posted up full-time in Atlanta (immersed in the bubbling Southern hip-hop movement through his affiliation to trap rap pioneer Young Jeezy) and Southwest T was running the clique’s homebase of Detroit through a series of intermediaries while living in Los Angeles. Big Meech, Southwest T and their entire highly-structured, bi-coastal BMF troop was toppled by the DEA’s landmark Operation Motor City Mafia bust in October 2005. Big Meech and Southwest T both pleaded guilty to heading a continuing criminal enterprise two years later and accepted 30-year prison sentences instead of rolling the dice at trial. Rapper and actor 50 Cent is producing an upcoming scripted television show surrounding the story of the Flenory brothers and BMF for the Starz cable network. Talks of a paradigm shift regarding BMF and its image aren’t completely new. As BMF soldiers and crew leaders began shuffling out of prison in the past decade, chatter of taking BMF in a different direction within the organization abounded, per sources. Last fall, Big Meech hosted a going-back-to-school drive in the parking lot of a Dearborn, Michigan clothier from his Oregon federal prison cell, sending his son, aspiring rapper “Lil’ Meech” with free school-supplies and backpacks for the students who attended. Lil’ Meech, 20, is reportedly in talks to play his dad in the 50 Cent show on Starz, which was green-lit back in the spring and boasts Detroiter Randy Huggins, a writer on 50 Cent’s hit Starz show Power, the last several years, as its showrunner. Upon being released from his decade-long prison sentence in the summer of 2015, BMF lieutenant Chauncey (C-Bear) Johnson openly discussed his intent to remold the crew and BMF name — with Big Meech’s blessing — into a luxury lifestyle brand and community outreach group. Johnson, 49, was one of the Flenorys’ childhood friends and main shot callers in Detroit at the peak of their reign. Original BMF members Dexter (Sosa) Hussey and Harold (Halloween) Mills own separate versions of the registered-trademark copyright and licensing for the term Black Mafia Family and the shortened phrase BMF. Mills owns the term and phrasing for merchandising. The 54-year old Hussey has the term for film and television rights. Hussey was the Flenorys’ chief logistics officer; he engineered the groundwork and infrastructure for expansion in the late 1990s by carving out difficult-to-track distribution routes for the crew and crafting protocol for courier methods. He got out of prison in 2015 as well. Last year, he released a book titled Blueprint To Conspiracy – The Untold Story of The Black Mafia Family.
