Through never-before told details, "King of Thieves" takes you deep inside an unforgettable Brooklyn tale of crime, desire, revolution, Ralph Lauren, and the unrelenting quest for identity in a country determined to deny it.
WOLVES IN SHEEPS' CLOTHING
For a group of teenagers growing up in the battle-scarred Brooklyn of the early 1980s, facing the trifecta scourges of crack, AIDS, and inner city gangs of a size and ferocity that made The Warriors look tame, that fairytale saying has epic meaning.
It all began with necessity. Guided by Dave Burroughs—soon christened “Dave-Lo”—a group of disparate teens turned to shoplifting, or “boosting,” to put food on the table and a little money in their pockets.
But as their skills matured, and the demands of their clientele became more upscale, they weren't content any longer with just “boosting” the finest luxury brands for others. They wanted a part of the American dream for themselves. And one designer represented that fantasy image par excellence: Ralph Lauren.
When you saw someone wearing that Polo horse on their clothes, it was a sign, a status symbol—they had made it. And their fever for Ralph would cause the crew to change its name to "The Lo-Lifes" to reflect its quest, but also spike a revolution across the city that wouldn't end there. It was incredible.
First, a group of Utica Ave. and Brownsville, Brooklyn kids wearing Ralph Lauren while living in the hardest, most devastated areas, was in itself a political statement. The city, the country, the world may have left them to die in there, but they wouldn't be kept down. They were going to wear the universal sign of success and remind everyone that they existed and, more, that they were thriving. And soon, everyone in the projects wanted to look like them, making them not only trendsetters who ended up in the papers and police blotters, but also heroes.
Second, in keeping with the simultaneous hip-hop revolution, The Lo-Lifes mixed, scrambled, and sampled Ralph's design for maximum color, style, and fashion. Their eye-popping outfits made them instantly recognizable and also instant targets.
Because with that kind of fame, and that level of high-profile "boosting", it was only a matter of time before the stores struck back and nothing would be the same. Including, and most especially, one of their key leaders, Dave-Lo.
This is his story. In his footsteps, you'll experience not just the tale of The Lo-Lifes from origins to dissolution, but also one man's journey from frustrated artist, to painting his "boosting" masterpiece, to jail, fatherhood, maturity, and finally becoming a clothing designer himself.
Check out the sample chapters below!
Click the fullscreen icon (far right) for an enhanced reading experience
Dahla Bill Dave-Lo is one of the most prolific criminal masterminds the world has ever known, the modern equivalent of Ali Baba, stealing veritable treasure wherever he goes. After hard times fell upon him as a child, he developed a passion for the hustle of robbing and stealing, and he was christened Dahla Bill. By the age of fifteen he was forced off the mean streets of North Philly where he'd developed the tricks o his trade, and moved back to Brooklyn, where he assembled his proverbial forty thieves, and became the most prolific booster of the era. Before social media was known, Dahla's name was ringing from hood to hood, ghetto to ghetto, and state to state. Before long, his popularity started to stretch from Brooklyn across the country. And unlike other superstars springing out of the projects at that time, he wasn't a rapper, or a movie star, he was a hustler, the real thing.
After quieting down in his thirties, and climbing the corporate ladder, Dahla Bill Dave-Lo has returned from the shadows, re-entered the limelight to tell his story, from epic rise and fall, to resurrection and return to glory with his own clothing line, EAIF, so fire that others may now want to steal it.
Nicholas Mennuti is the writer of the espionage thriller Weaponized (Mulholland Books/Little Brown), which had film rights purchased by Universal Pictures and Scott Stuber and Scrap (NeoText). Nicholas's short stories have appeared in AGNI and Conjunctions, and he has written about the intersection of technology and entertainment for the Huffington Post. He is also a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts Dramatic Writing program.
