CHAPTER TWO
1997- Flashback To Mundo
Olmando “Mundo” Henriques was the epitome of NYC, and a citizen of the world.
Born in Brooklyn Hospital, he grew up splitting his time between Clinton Hill and Cambria Heights, Queens. His mom’s people were from Guyana. His dad was Panamanian. Both had relatives in Jamaica that they stayed close with and Mundo was brought up to have strong ties to all three countries. No surprise that his full nickname was Mundo World.
Mundo and I first crossed paths when I was living in Connecticut. He was an associate of an associate- part of a city crew that used Hartford as a place to offload subpar product or a hidey hole when New York got too hot. Guys who were really about grinding it out, turning over endless weight 24/7, headed to Baltimore or Houston with dreams of building an empire. Folks who wanted to take it a little bit easier or who had reason to stay closer to home made in-roads into third-tier cities like Hartford, or, say, Newburgh, NY. It was a quick enough drive and you could always send someone on a bus if you didn’t want to risk getting caught riding dirty. And at the end of the day, crack was crack and fiends were everywhere. If you had product it would sell no matter what stoop or corner you stood on.
Back then, I really didn’t know that much about Mundo- other than the fact that he was so obviously Brooklyn, the rest of his biography was a blank slate. And there was never anything romantic between the two of us. I remember the first time my boy, June, introduced us- I thought Doe was sooooo fine. But it was one of the rare times I exercised self-control and tried to think of the bigger picture. Somehow, I knew I wasn’t gonna be in Hartford forever, and Mundo would be a good person to have in my Nextel log when I was ready to put in work in one of the boroughs. Mundo told me much, much later that the first time he saw me, he was all, “Who the fuck is this off the chain hip hop white girl in a Knicks jersey and bike shorts and how is she able to do so much dope without falling out?” One thing I did know, even back then, was that Mundo wasn’t really down with hard drugs.
I wasn’t sure how any of this would shake out, but meeting Mundo made me really want to explore my options in New York City.
