My dude you need to make a thread called harlem memoirs
You prolly got stories about the dips, mase, diddy too?
My cuzzo used to legit roll with Cam and Mase and Richie Parker way back. A couple of my homies growing up got caught up in the drug-dealing culture, definitely knew and played with a lot of future college and And-1 players. But personally I didn't associate much with any cats who got famous off rap (though I have rapper in my family and have had the chance to kick it with different rappers off the strength of that). I used to see Big L from time to time, but I ain't know shyt about him except the typical hood gossip and legends.
Harlem nikkas always seemed to catch bad breaks, whether it was ballplayers, dealers, or rappers I grew up around. Something always went wrong before cats could rep on a larger scale.
That's just my experience though. And Harlem now is so much different from Harlem when I was coming up that I be feeling like an alien walking through that bytch.
But 125th back in the day on a Saturday....

Seeing King Sun and Kane battle near Dapper Dan's....
I know nothing abut diddy having real Harlem cred. Wasn't he from some other spot but his pops had connections there? diddy wasn't really anybody in Harlem.