I grew up in Northern New Jersey, about 10 minutes outside of East Orange and Newark, in the late 80’s. When I was a kid, there were no Bloods or Crips in the area, they were pretty much exclusive to the west coast. But by the time I reached high school in the mid 90’s the Bloods had started to become a visible presence in my area. Certainly not to the level of what you would see depicted in a Dr. Dre video or anything, but they seemingly came out of nowhere.
The rumor at the time was that Naughty By Nature (the group behind songs like “O.P.P.” and “Hip Hop Hooray”) had introduced the Bloods into East Orange. As the story goes, Naughty by Nature hired members of the Bloods to be their bodyguards for their shows out in California, and when they returned back to New Jersey they kept two of the Bloods on staff. The two Bloods moved into East Orange and began recruiting kids from the neighborhood into the New Jersey branch of the gang, called the Double I’s. From there, the Bloods eventually spread out to the rest of the Tri-State area.
The idea that a group like Naughty By Nature had actually been the source of these gangs always seemed a bit of a stretch (though a few of their songs do make reference to the Double I’s), however I recently watched a documentary on HBO, “An Omar Broadway Film,” (An Omar Broadway Film (2008) - IMDb) about a Blood member from East Orange. In the documentary, a federal prosecutor mentions in passing that he believed that Naughty By Nature imported the gang.
So my question is, is there any way to confirm this story? The only source on the internet that I could find for this was a wikipedia article (Bloods - Wikipedia) and a message board thread on sohh.com (http://forums.projectcovo.com/showthread.php?t=787316). I’d be interested in coming up with a more legitimate source for the information, but I have no idea how to go about researching it. Thanks for any help.