I follow this line of thinking to a degree, and agree from the standpoint of, you and I are the same age and came up in a different era from OP. I generally say that if someone was outside a full decade prior to you, that's an entirely different era.
In this thread if I recall correctly, OP said he jumped out after Rich Porter died, and was done some time in '96. I "jumped off the porch" in 2004, 15 years old. My beginning and OP's ending were ~8 years apart, so there's some overlap in era, and I say this double because when I came outside there were still guys from the 90s around. The generational gap wasn't a great one because a number of those guys were still around and I and other youngins were following their lead.
I can't speak to New York specific culture or trends, I'm not from New York and my travels in the streets never took me there. But the stuff homie described earlier, the competition outside, the "wolves", nothing he described earlier was specific to NY...
There were nikkas in the same game across the country in the same environment, same time OP was active 1990-96. So I guess my thing also is, the era OP was active in, and the era homie earlier said was special, ain't that far removed from when people my era started running around, it really wasn't all that foreign. Differences sure, and the shyt in NY where cats have to "rent space" to trap on a block is some shyt unique, I never experienced that. Everywhere I been that drug money was free enterprise.
But overall I think my familiarity from being around kids of the 90s also shapes my perception!
To OP wherever he is
