Michael “Harry-O” Harris conducted his first interview after getting released from prison and he wept as he thanked Donald J. Trump and reflected on his years of incarceration.
But before you call him out, consider that Harris, the co-founder of Death Row Records, has served over 30 years of his 25 to life sentence that he received in the late 90s, for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
At 59-years-old, imagine all the life that he has lost, the success he never had a chance to experience, and even loved ones he never got to say good-bye to.
Perhaps, you might cry too.
Also, the tears do not seem to have been connected to his love for 45, but for the years of regret that he has for misusing the gifts that he had been given in life.
A week after being pardoned by former President Donald Trump, the ex-kingpin gave remarks of gratitude towards the man who made history as the only Executive to have been impeached twice.
In his interview exclusively with DailyMailTV, he shed light on the extraordinary poverty that led to his life in crime and what freedom felt like.
“I remember as a young man, a community where everybody’s grass was manicured, even though it was considered a red zone or a ghetto. Everybody had jobs and everybody made sure their kids went to school,” the man responsible for Death Row’s early funding shared.
“Then all of a sudden like a hurricane something happened. It was like a typhoon, and we all got swept up in it,” he recalled. “Some of us became addicted to drugs, and some of us became addicted to selling drugs. But we all became addicted. We all had some form of sickness.
“South Central Los Angeles, where I was raised, was hit really hard. California became this distribution center for evil, for poison.”
With a broken voice, Harry-O said that every time he thinks about his participation in the crimes that led to his conviction, he is sick to his stomach.
“I let them trick me to help kill my people. That’s killing me still today”
Evidence of this change was captured in an exclusive in-prison interview shot by The Independent Rap Uploader.
But when reflecting on what those first moments out of jail felt like after spending three decades behind bars, he found few words. But the words he found were glorious.
“I’m riding in the car with my folks coming back from the prison and I just had a presence of mine [that made me say] ‘I don’t feel it,’” Harris shared to the platform. “I don’t feel what I just left … for that moment I felt like I had never been in prison. That’s how powerful freedom is.”
He thanked the previous administration with emotionality but measured celebration, “I appreciate Donald Trump, his children, his son-in-law. Whyever he did it, he did it when so many others wouldn’t do it.”
“First of all, I’m grateful that God did whatever God do to get me to sit in this seat. And whatever vessel he used. That’s how powerful freedom is. I have a second chance to make different choices.”
“I put in for clemency with Obama and it had to go through so many bureaucratic loopholes it never got to him I don’t believe. But it didn’t happen on his watch.”
“There’s not a dime of difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes down to results to me at this point. Until that change, I don’t have a dog in the fight, unless the people that’s in power deal with the people that are powerless in a respectful way.”
Rappers MC Hammer and Snoop Dogg were influential in lobbying for his freedom. He now says that he will dedicate the rest of his life, being a change agent.
