BMF: A History Of The Black Mafia Family

BMF's story from rags to riches is one that has enchanted hip-hop for a long time. The Black Mafia Family and their leadership have been name-dropped on countless tracks over the years. Most recently, they are the inspiration behind the 50-Cent-produced Starz TV Series BMF.

“Where were you when Big Meech brought the tigers in? Because I was busy earning stripes like a tiger skin.”– Pusha T, 2018

Thanks to a small-screen adaptation, the wider world is beginning to get acquainted with the BMF story. With that in mind, we’re going to take a closer look at the real life stories which 50 and co. have brought to television screens.

Black Mafia Family, abbreviated as BMF, was the brainchild of Demetrius and Terry Flenory, better known as Big Meech and Southwest T.

Born in Detroit during economic depression, the brothers soon realized that there wouldn’t be many opportunities to escape their circumstances. As a result, they began dealing drugs during their high school days. Initially, they were selling $50 bags of cocaine to locals, although this would seem paltry compared to what they’d one day be moving.

The two first worked under the banner of E.D Boyd’s 50 Boyz crew. Eventually, they got got his permission to expand their operations. E.D later told VladTV that this move didn’t cause any friction as it was what he’d intended for the duo from the outset.

“I told them, I groomed you from day one to be bosses, so this day was coming. That’s the same thing I did.. I’m not in the long haul to be nobody’s worker and that’s what I instilled in them. Everything that I taught them boys, the family values, taking their crews to the mall, they took that shift from the 50 Boyz. They took that shit to BMF. I groomed them well.” 

That said, their rise wasn’t without incident. In the embryonic days of the business, Southwest T lost his eye in a shooting. The assailant’s identity remains unknown to this day. Years on, T was shot four times by opportunistic armed robbers during a visit to a restaurant in Detroit. Big Meech, meanwhile, weathered a hail of bullets from Ladon “Beast” Simon– the real-life counterpart of Lamar in the TV show– following the death of Simon’s nephew.

"They say it was like 18 times," Simon told VladTV.  "Some people say he got hit in the neck and in the stomach and shit. He disrespected me, so he got his ass lit up for running his mouth. After that, everywhere I went, they just run."

Once they’d set up their own conglomerate– which remained unnamed for many years– the siblings began to recruit others. Before long, they’d outgrown their homebase of The Motor City. They moved to Atlanta, where the brothers— Demetrius in particular– would begin to make a name for themselves.

“I've been around a place like Atlanta for a long time," Meech said in an interview from jail with AllHipHop. "I have lived there since the 1990s, been there since 1988. I didn’t have the problems other people had, I was through a lot of things. Almost 90 percent of the cities I touched down in, I had nothing but love. So it was never no problems. And we don’t do no robbing, we just never had no problems. When you get a crew that’s hungry, they might turn on you.”

The Black Mafia Family continued to grow to the extent that they were alleged to have strongholds in Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, and Tennessee. They reportedly had over 500 affiliates on their payroll across the entirety of the US. In addition to their grip on America, the Flenorys were closely affiliated with Mexican drug cartels. At the height of their power, they were purchasing over 50 kilos a fortnight.

E.D Boyd has maintained that Big Meech wanted everyone to know that he was a major player in the drug game. As a result, Meech regularly liaised with many of hip-hop’s biggest stars of the era. The crew became renowned for their extravagant partying. There were tales of evenings with Puff. A story about blocking Jay-Z’s car in, purely to force him to ask their permission to move them. Meech is actually in the video for Juelz Santana's “Make It Work For You” after they linked up during a trip to Harlem.

Although some stars courted their friendship, others, such as 50 Cent, steered clear. 

“I first heard about it [BMF] in 2003,” 50 Cent told DJ Drama in 2019 on Sirius XM. “They were so embedded into the music business, because when you can find your pockets, people like you around. When you at the nightclub and Puffy can’t buy champagne because you bought all of it, they start to have to speak to you. I stayed away from it, because I know who I am, and I know how easy it is for me to… I might have bought something. Or it would be easy enough for people to make me involved without me being involved. I was doing too well. They would reach out to me and I would avoid it, because it just wasn’t good for where I was at."

Over time, Meech’s familiarity with hip-hop stars and love of music would mutate into a pet project, BMF Entertainment. Launched in 2000, BMF served as both a record label and promotional company. They only signed one artist in Bleu Davinci, but the nascent label’s connections were so strong that his debut album contained features from some of the era’s biggest names.

Another artist who benefited greatly from Meech’s patronage was Jeezy. Although Jeezy never formally signed to the label, the Flenorys' support, and proceeds, bolstered his early career.

“He was very instrumental in Jeezy's early career around 2003," said Marla  Shalhoup, author of BMF, The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and The Black Mafia Family. “What he did in Atlanta was promote a lot of parties for Jeezy and helped get his music spread around to all the stripclubs, which is how rappers would make it or break it. He supplied fancy cars and crazy medallion pendants for video shoots. And Jeezy was really open about his very tight relationship with Big Meech. You know, Jeezy shows up in all these promotional videos in which he's shouting out the Black Mafia Family and Meech.”

Where they’d previously been a tight-knit unit, Meech’s flashiness led to a rift opening up between Southwest T and Meech. This led to an informal split. T ventured to the west coast to head up operations in LA, while Meech remained at the base in Atlanta.

Although the cause of the problem is not public knowledge, BMF capo J-Bo has said that Terry was diluting the cocaine in order to undercut Meech. When people began complaining, the beef between them intensified. Reportedly, by the time that the FBI apprehended them, the siblings were not on speaking terms.

Even as Meech made himself at home in hip-hop, it didn’t mean that violence ceased. After a dispute over a girl bubbled over, the BMF crew was allegedly involved in the infamous murder of Diddy’s bodyguard Wolf Jones, at a nightclub in Atlanta.

“When they came outside, he shot Meech and them and it caught him in the buttocks," revealed Bad Boy Head of Security, Gene Deal. "Meech ain’t want to do nothing to him, he had enough crew outside to deal with that. The dude who got close to Wolf, the dude that killed him was the guy he got down with Brooklyn. He needed some money, he was a shooter, Wolf told Meech to put him on the payroll and that’s the dude who shot him."

To more cynical onlookers, Big Meech’s decision to venture into music was simply a means to launder money. Marla Shalhoup argues that the music wasn’t a front but rather, a gateway to legitimizing BMF once and for all.

"He certainly was able to create a massive buzz and that was in large part through massive amounts of money. But I think that he also had this charisma that was pretty much undeniable. People would either run the other way when these guys came into the club or be overjoyed because all the women would soon be drinking $600 bottles of champagne. Meech really had genuine hope that he could transition out of the drug game into a legitimate enterprise. And that's not an unusual trajectory. It's somewhat of a cliché...But, for him, it was maybe a matter of timing.”

Later down the line, Meech, localized similar sentiments during a rare interview from behind bars with AllHipHop, stating:

“All my friends were involved [in the music business], like Puff, JD, Jeezy, Slim Thug, Nelly. These people were involved in music and it made me want to be more hands on. I saw how a lot of artists were getting jerked and that’s something I was going to change, once I got my foot all through the door. But the government saw me with my foot almost closing the door and they ended up giving me these trumped up charges.”

As is always the case, no empire of this nature can last forever. Once the FBI launched what was codenamed Operation Motor City Mafia in 2003, it was only a matter of time until the net closed in. 

In 2005, Meech and Southwest T were indicted under the CCE (Continuing Criminal Enterprise) statute. This legal apparatus carries stringent sentences in the same vein as a RICO charge, often amounting to life imprisonment. The charges filed against the Flenory brothers were two of over 150 indictments relating to BMF. In doing so, the FBI essentially eradicated BMF’s entire network. Even Jacob Arabov, better known in hip-hop circles as Jacob The Jeweler, was prosecuted on money laundering offenses. He eventually served two years in prison on a lesser charge of falsifying statements

According to the Department of Justice, “at its peak during 2003-2004, the BMF was moving hundreds of kilograms of cocaine into Atlanta, Detroit, and other distribution hubs every month."

"The drugs would arrive in vehicles – often limousines – with secret compartments or 'traps'. These same trap vehicles would then be filled with cash (the proceeds from drug sales) to be sent back to the Mexican sources of supply."

In the process of the indictment, the feds seized $21 million worth of assets, including cash, jewelry, 13 homes in Metro Detroit, Georgia and Los Angeles, and three dozen vehicles. During the two year long investigation, they accumulated over 900 pages of wiretapped conversations between Southwest T and others. Many of the conversations pertained to not just the operation, but Terry’s fears over Meech’s excessive partying and the attention it drew. 

In November 2007, the brothers pleaded guilty to running a continuing criminal enterprise "involving the large-scale distribution of cocaine throughout the United States from 1990 through 2005." By doing so, they got a 30-year sentence. Robert Corso, who was in charge of the case, claimed at the time that it "demonstrate[s] that no matter how large the operation, or how much money a drug trafficker makes illegally, eventually the law and justice will catch up. This community and communities across the United States are safer with the Brothers Flenory behind bars.”

Although it is nonexistent today,  Demetrius Flenory Jr. or Lil Meech– who plays his father in the  BMF TV series– can relive his halcyon days of power while incarcerated. 

“What’s crazy is, every jail is different”, he revealed. “Some jails don’t show premium cable, premium channels. So, he got blessed that the jail he’s in, he’s able to watch the show.” 

Meech who is now 54 years old, is seemingly aware of his enduring influence on hip-hop culture. He told DJ Vlad during an interview from jail that "even 2 Chainz told me when I spoke to him… I got a foreign whip, you got everybody down here driving foreigns."

The show which documents Meech and his brother’s lives has been a smash hit. And, according to its writer, Randy Huggins, it sticks as true to the actual events as it can. 

"I took some liberties, but everything there is based on a story," Huggins informed Urban Hollywood 411. “Obviously, you can’t have people’s names in there. Obviously, some of the places may have changed.”

However, it’s still pretty close to life. “I don’t think there’s a character in there that I hadn’t heard of,” he said. “I may have to take creative liberty to make an art pop a little bit more... take a creative license to make a scene funnier, but that’s just part of telling a story. This is not a documentary.”

In 2020, Terry Flenory was released on compassionate grounds during the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately for Big Meech, his attempt to be released on the same grounds was halted. According to attorneys, his disciplinary record in prison and continued infatuation with “money, cars, clothes and hoes” meant that he hadn’t been sufficiently reformed. 

As it stands, Big Meech’s release is earmarked for 2028.