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The AB Crew: The most dangerous new niggas coming into the rap game right now…

“I always said that we was either gonna be the illest rap team or the illest gang, bottom mutha’fucking line”, Saigon remembers from his early vision of Abandoned Nation. It was around 1997, in a Correctional Facility in Upstate, NY, when the Nation first started to take shape. Passing through notorious jails like Napanoch, Fishkill, Coxsackie, Comstock and others, Saigon and his team each earned their own rep’s for getting busy. In and out of the box, fighting, cutting, stabbing or whatever it took to get by, everyone held it down individually. But when they finally came together they found they all had the same problem: they were alone. They had each been “abandoned”—by family, friends or society as a whole. As time went on, they grew to depend on each other and soon became like a family. And thus, Abandoned Nation was born. At first it was Saigon, Omega, Omnipotent, B.I.C., Lucky Childz 16, Naquan and others. Although formed partly from a common love for hip-hop music, judging by their members’ past criminal records, the AB crew could have easily succeeded as a gang too. Convicted for a list of crimes ranging from drugs, to assault, to manslaughter, they were locked up for extended periods of time in maximum-security prisons, many serving over 10 years each. But it was their time spent incarcerated that prepared them for their mission once they came home.

Saigon was already holding it down on the rap tip in the yard, which is where he got the name Da Yardfather. Then once he had a team organized and behind him, he became unstoppable. But it was deeper than music. It was more like a movement. “We was in there on some music shit or whatever, whatever”, Lucky, one of the Nation’s MCs explains. “But at the same time, niggas was eating together, holding it down together. If shit pop off with anybody in the team we was there. It was always like a family thing with the Nation. So outside of rap niggas is gonna stick together regardless.” Stick together they did. And as time went on, like other fledgling nations, AB began to grow and expand. “It’s like as you go along and shit just grow”, Saigon explains. “The numbers is probably in the hundreds by now in the penal systems, you know what I’m saying? Cause one person takes it and he goes and he grows with it. That’s how things grow.”

“In September of 1997 I met the nigga Gitty”, recalls Omnipotent, the self-proclaimed old timer in the crew. “He was Be Lord back then. This kid was the most talented mind I had ever heard rhyme.” Though impressed by Saigon’s exceptional wordplay, it was secondary compared to the fact that what he was saying made so such sense to him. The two started going to the gym together and having fascinating sessions where Sai’ would literally become a computer and spit countless verses he had been working on or had previously written. That’s where the discussion of the power of hip-hop and the passion to make a difference came to the forefront in their lives. It was time to do something about what was occurring in the schools and neighborhoods they came from. It was time to give something back to their community besides the poison that was being filtered in through countless means. Yes, they began as convicts, murderers and hustlers, but that was in no way at all the limitations of their talent. There was so much more to be done to make sure their kids would have options that they themselves never had.

Some of the most brilliant minds are incarcerated. Many of the potential leaders of our world have succumbed to the streets and have either died or have lost their lives to incarceration. Abandoned Nation is opportunity to change that fact. It is a chance to, not only make a difference in a child’s mind, or the listeners life, but Abandoned Nation is a repatriation of the community of impoverished ghettoes everywhere. It is ultimately a commitment to leave no one behind. Beginning with a multi-media entertainment company and eventually expanding into a cooperative of enterprising businesses, A.B. is a culture that not only encompasses art, but life and community as well.

Saigon is the 1st in a line of talented individuals with aspirations very different than their predecessors. Each member has a graphic and intriguing story in their own right, yet it is what these former convicts have set forth to accomplish behind the leadership and voice of Brian SAIGON Carenard who himself has built a major name for himself in the rap world lacing fans with numerous mixtape joints, already considered street classics by many, that is so important. Even hip hop greats like Jay-Z and Nas have gone on record and reiterated what the streets are already screaming: that this kid Saigon is the next hip hop great. After years of hard work, sweat, determination and preparation, Sai has teamed up with Just Blaze’s (the man behind the sound of the Roc as well as many other multi platinum hits) Fort Knocks and Atlantic Records to release his highly anticipated debut album, “The Greatest Story Never Told”. All the hard work, patience and dedication has made it clear that Saigon and Abandoned Nation’s story won’t go unheard for long.

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