Rahsaan “New York” Thomas on breaking barriers behind bars

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:00:00] I wanted my sons to be proud and not look at me as the mugshot. And so I wanted a way to bury that mugshot and replace it with my face on the back of a New York Times bestseller. And I just started writing. 

Sophie Bearman [00:00:23] You're listening to Life In Seven Songs from The San Francisco Standard. I'm your host, Sophie Bearman. Joining us on the show this week is Rahsaan New York Thomas, former co-host and co-producer of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated podcast "Ear Hustle," an often funny, sometimes heartbreaking show about the reality of life inside prison. Which is why New York is a former host...he got out. After spending more than 20 years incarcerated for second degree murder, New York was granted a commutation in 2022 by California Governor Gavin Newsom for his rehabilitation behind bars. That looked like co-founding a non-profit, writing for countless publications, and completing a marathon by running loops around the prison yard. And one quick note about this episode: it has six songs, not seven. Sometimes you can tell a life story in six. Rahsaan New York Thomas, welcome to the show. And I have to ask, how did you get the nickname New York? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:01:28] It's a California custom to call people by where they from. Especially when your name's Rahsaan and nobody can remember it or pronounce it correctly. And I love the name because it remind me of home. And so I didn't complain. I just went by New York. 

Sophie Bearman [00:01:41] So do you know people named like Miami?

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:01:43] Of course. Mississippi, LA. Oh yeah. Of course. Texas. On and on. Most states have somebody incarcerated. I never met anybody from Idaho. Idaho is not representated in the county jail. 

Sophie Bearman [00:01:54] Okay, but what do you do when you meet another New York then? Is there beef?

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:01:56] Well, I debate that, right? First of all, like, where are you from in New York? What part of the city? Are you official? Because I done caught a guy from Connecticut claiming New York. 

Sophie Bearman [00:02:06] What would you call me? Raised on the Upper West Side? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:02:08] You would be official. Manhattan counts. But, like, if you moved when you were five and nobody knows you. You from New York. But were you raised there? Can anybody vouch for you? 

Sophie Bearman [00:02:19] Fair question. Okay. So of all the accomplishments I listed in my introduction, what's been the most rewarding? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:02:25] I definitely feel really proud to be part of the Ear Hustle team, and to be a Pulitzer Prize finalist and to be a Peabody Award finalist twice. And to win the DuPont Award and several Webbys and a whole bunch of other awards. But I also feel like those are team wins, right? And I joined the team that had Curry and Klay Thompson on it, basically. So maybe I was Durant, and maybe I wasn't, but whoever I was on that team, they was winning or losing with or without me, right? I do feel like I added something—. 

Sophie Bearman [00:02:52] You added something special. 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:02:54] Because I feel like the magic season was Season Four, where we got the DuPont, and that was my debut as a host. 

Ear Hustle Clip [00:02:58] We are proud to announce that New York is our new co-host for season four. Oh yes. Brooklyn's in the house indeed. I am so glad to hear you celebrating him now, because during the job search you put him through hell. Well shit, I had to look out for our listeners.

Sophie Bearman [00:03:18] That's a clip from Ear Hustle, a podcast made inside California's San Quentin State Prison, which was named a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in Audio Reporting, the first time that category was even recognized, for bringing audiences "a consistently surprising and beautifully crafted series on life behind bars." As you mentioned, the podcast received an Alfred L. DuPont Columbia University Award as well. 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:03:41] Only producing now. No more host. I ain't going back to prison for ya'll. So, I'm really proud of that, but I think it's hard. I also directed and wrote and produced Friendly Signs, which is an amazing film, a short that I freaking love. We did that in prison. We edited right there in the prison with Final Cut Pro. We ain't have nothing fancy, right? 

Sophie Bearman [00:04:01] What's it about? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:04:02] On the surface, it's about a man whose brother is deaf, and this man named Tommy Wickerd is incarcerated. When he got incarcerated, he felt like he let his brother down because he was the interpreter for his brother. And when he found out that, number one, deaf people were being disproportionately murdered in the California prison system, he's like, I'm teaching everybody sign language as an act of redemption. But the subconscious things that I wanted people to take away from it, too, without asking, though, is that Tommy should be home right now. Yeah, he committed a violent crime, but that's not who he is today. And so I wanted people to think about that. Like, if somebody changed. And then even think deeper, why were they like that in the first place? And let's deal with that. Right?

Sophie Bearman [00:04:40] So let's talk about that. Where does your story start? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:04:44] I don't know where I'm from. Um, my consciousness starts in Brownsville. 

Sophie Bearman [00:04:47] What is Brownsville for people who maybe don't know?

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:04:50] The murder capital of New York. Twenty-one housing projects in a mile and a half. A place where people think it's okay to pat and frisk you. It's designed to stack poverty on top of poverty. So if you need something, you can't ask your neighbor for it because they ain't got it either. My family was me and my brother and my mom. 

Sophie Bearman [00:05:07] Is there a song that comes to mind when you think about your childhood, especially your younger years growing up? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:05:13] Yeah, when I think of the happy moments, I think of hip hop when hip hop was just fun. It wasn't drill. It wasn't kill. It was just, you know, good natured. And so I think about it "Rapper's Delight," the very first hip hop album I ever had. That record came out in this sweet spot in Brownsville, where we left the doors open all day, and it was safe. I never felt any danger, never worried about anything. 

Sophie Bearman [00:05:35] And that's "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang. 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:05:38] Yeah, I still remember it. "The hip, hip-a-hop and you don't stop rockin' to the bang, bang the boogie," to the I'm messing it up beat. 

Sophie Bearman [00:05:58] What do you think when you hear it? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:06:00] Just memories. Happy times. Coco-levio, riding my bike. I was blessed to live in an apartment complex that had two buildings, one on the top of the hill and one on the bottom, and the pathways in between were cement. It's called Atlantic Towers, and you can ride from the top of the hill, and you can just take your feet off the pedals. And the hill, the momentum from the hill will carry you down all the way around two hills, and then almost bring you back up the bottom of the next hill. It was so much momentum and it was just fun to ride down those hills, those cement pathways. Then them 80s hit, that crack cocaine hit and it just was different. 

Sophie Bearman [00:06:36] What were you like? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:06:37] Tall, skinny, wonderful curly hair, incredibly handsome, a little awkward. I was into computer games. I had a Commodore 64, and there were periods when, you know, I didn't come out a lot because just too much drama. I was like a square kid, being picked on a lot and not knowing really how to deal with it, not understanding why, and instead of trying to, you know, diffuse it, I'm trying to prove myself by feeding into it. 

Sophie Bearman [00:07:04] Your father. Tell me about him. 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:07:07] Don't know about him. I met him 2 or 3 times. Don't even remember what age. Next thing you know, he's dead. 

Sophie Bearman [00:07:13] Did you have a vision of him when you were younger, as someone you might meet one day, or?

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:07:17] It's fantasy stuff. My mother, she was a college graduate who worked really hard because the college degree didn't mean much. It was in sociology and the money dried up. And so she ended up in corrections. Ironically. I felt like my mom was working two jobs or working double double shifts. Literally an extra at least 34 hours a week. So 70-something hours a week. And I felt like we were a burden to her. Like we were heavy. Like she had to carry us alone. And I thought that my pops would one day come back and save the day, but I didn't even know where he was. 

Sophie Bearman [00:07:49] Tell me about the moment that you found out that he had died. 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:07:54] My grandma called and she said he was dead. He was found behind a bar with his wallet missing, his throat cut. I just hung up the phone. I was just numb because he was always dead to me. But what also died that day was my hope that he would ever come back and save the day. And also, I looked at robbery from that point on, there's something different. Before, it just looked like, you know, you're trying to take my money and I'ma fight for it. But now I looked at it as life and death. So I started walking around with knives and just being more hyper vigilant. 

Sophie Bearman [00:08:22] How old were you? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:08:24] Like 15. 

Sophie Bearman [00:08:26] Is there a song that comes to mind for that? You know, early teens when when everything kind of changed? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:08:32] Yeah. Mobb Deep, "Survival of the Fittest," only the strong survive. It's just about like—it captured the emotion I felt. Like how? I mean, at that time I thought I had to be violent to survive, to make it. 

Sophie Bearman [00:09:05] It's a pretty big change from the first song. 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:09:08] Crack, crack, crack is just different. Little arguments, little things that we fought about can get you killed now.

Sophie Bearman [00:09:15] Tell me a little bit more about your high school years. 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:09:18] Sheesh, I went to four different high schools. And for the same reasons. Each high school was a safety transfer, meaning that the biggest, baddest bully would try to do something to me. And I would stab them. And my principal would be on my side because like, "Yo, they bullies." Like one dude robbed my principal before. So he's like, "Yo, eff that dude." But these dudes had juice. In other words, they had like an army. Like they can call people. And next thing you know, 70 people are in front of school trying to get me, and I didn't have that. All I had was my little cousin, and he looks kind of tough, but he soft, you know, he's a good dude, but his answer to bullying was to work out. And so he got really strong looking. But he can't see without his glasses. So if he has to fight he has to take off his glasses. Then the strength is useless. Right? But he looks the part. He looks intimidating. And then he's a sweetheart. So if you don't know no better, he scares you. But if it comes down to it, I'm on my own. He tried though. I got to give it to him. But um, to make a long story short, I didn't have that kind of juice. And so whenever something like that happened, I would go to a school in a different part of the city until, that merry go round got me to my fourth high school in Detroit, Michigan. 

Sophie Bearman [00:10:24] Why do you think you were bullied? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:10:25] I look white, and I live in a Black neighborhood. And so they tried to take out 400 years of oppression out on me. And the crazy thing is, I'm half Black and half Puerto Rican. I'm not even white that I know of. And if I am, it's because something happened in slavery that ain't cool. So I should deserve more reparations instead of more, more, more persecution. So, it was that kind of thing. I stood out in this neighborhood not just for being light, but being extra intelligent, doing good in school. My mother was upper class poor, you know, so we we lived in Brownsville, but like we had food in the refrigerator. That's like an advantage, right? I had a bike. I had Nike's. And that made me a target. 

Sophie Bearman [00:11:03] What happens next then? Where does life lead you? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:11:07] I was doing really good. I had a job at Debevoise & Plimpton, which is a top law firm, and I only had a job like as a clerk, a mailroom clerk. But like, I advanced really quickly. I was in the communications department, and the pay was really good, and so I would try to get an apartment to get out of Brownsville and move out of the projects. I was going to take my little cousins and my brother with me. But when I tried to get an apartment they wouldn't give me one. When I tried to get credit—and I didn't know at the time it was my zip code. When you put that 11212 on an application, you denied. It doesn't matter how much you make, where your heart is. They not even giving me a chance. But in the meantime, this neighborhood is nuts. Like people are trying to rob me coming home from work. And then, you know, I took robbery personal. I took it like you're trying to take my ego, my self-esteem. 

Sophie Bearman [00:11:55] Your life. 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:11:57] My life too. So I took it to that level. And so I would carry this gun. And carrying that gun around, it led to me shooting someone over something stupid. "What you looking at?" They mess with a dude that's traumatized. That seen his brother shot in front of him. That had his father murdered. Right? And so I really shot him. 

Sophie Bearman [00:12:13] But to be clear, he survived. And you received a felony. 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:12:16] Yeah. I went to jail for, like, only three years or whatever. Two years. But I was with an amazing woman, super strong, and she would come see me all the time. I don't even know how. She, like, worked. She was in college. She got good grades. She had a son. And one day we were on a visit. And I noticed that she was telling me I could eat what I want, but she wasn't eating. And these visits was like, six hours long. It's a two hour trip there. Probably two, three hour trip back. And so like, when are you going to eat? Like, you know? And I realized she didn't have enough money to feed both of us. And I feel like the biggest loser in a world, like the biggest burden. And at the time, I just felt like, I can't put it through this. I can't have her starving over me. And to get the courage to break up with her I would play that song by Ralph Tresvant "Do What I Gotta Do" and break her heart. 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:13:31] And I did it. Dumbest thing in the world. But I did it. Served like a couple of years and came back on work release. And I'm 20-something now, but once I got that felony, the career path was done. Like college didn't make sense to me at the time because that's going in debt. And then looking at my mom, like you went to school, you graduated, I was at your graduation, you work for corrections! You could do that with a high school diploma. Like, what do you do? Like, what I figure out? And I had two kids. 

Sophie Bearman [00:13:56] Two kids with a different woman than the one we've been talking about. Tell me about becoming a father...and their mother. 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:14:03] Um, me and her didn't work out. I got locked up, and that was too hard on her. But um still, like, I was there for my kids regardless. Like, no matter what. I love them to death. At the time, I thought that the most important thing I can do for them is make money. And if I couldn't make money and get them into a safer environment, then what kind of father would I be? I'd be like my deadbeat father. And that's how I got into selling drugs. My plan was make enough money and quit, right? That was my plan. Go start a business. Open a barber shop. I learned how to cut hair on Rikers Island, ironically. I'm pretty decent at it. But just—I couldn't figure out how to transition in regular life. I didn't figure it out. And I started being really good at selling drugs. Even though I hated it. I hate it. It's the grimiest, it's the hardest, it's fast money, but it's hard work, is super dangerous. But it was the only thing I ever made a type of money that I felt like I could move my kids out of the neighborhood and make sure they had what they wanted. I can get the barbershop, you know, and so I would make a certain amount of money and quit. But when things didn't work out, I would go right back to it. 

Sophie Bearman [00:15:11] It's time for a quick break. When we come back, New York shares how he found his voice within the California state prison system. Stay with us. 

Sophie Bearman [00:15:18] And we're back. So New York. How did you end up in California?

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:15:40] No good reason. Came to California to get away from the police in New York. 

Sophie Bearman [00:15:44] Basically on the run. 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:15:47] Not basically. I was on a run. 

Sophie Bearman [00:15:48] I mean, your life really changed when you got to California. 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:15:51] I did a lot of bad decisions. First of all, lack of money management. I had like a Mercedes, an Acura, a crib in La Jolla, and I can't work. So these are not good decisions for a guy on the run. I lived beyond my means. And it led to trouble. Led to me being involved in a marijuana deal. And I went there with a loaded gun and the attitude that they gotta give me my money or it's going to be a problem. And they came with guns and no money and it was a problem. I just made the horrible decision to defend a bag of marijuana. To take a human life over a bag of marijuana. And that's something that even the law and my heart can't justify. 

Sophie Bearman [00:16:31] And then you entered the California jail and then prison system. And then you are also a father now, incarcerated across the country from your children. What promises did you make to yourself about being a father, make to them? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:16:46] I read somewhere that a child that doesn't know he's loved end up having emotional, psychological issues. And so while I can't be there for him, but I'ma let him know I love him. And so, every birthday, every Christmas, I would send a card with, like, 50 bucks, 25 bucks, something, just to let him know I didn't forget you. I want to be there. I would just write, whether they wrote me back or not, and I would just write and just call when I can. I heard that song by India Arie "Good Man," and I just sent the lyrics to the song to my son's mother, you know, tell her to play that song for him and let them know that I failed them by like, I had great intentions, and that I'm a good man.

Sophie Bearman [00:17:55] How old were you when you went to prison in California, and how old were they? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:18:00] I was 29, and they were like six and four and a half. 

Sophie Bearman [00:18:04] Is there a time when you were incarcerated that you started to, like, find yourself changing? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:18:12] I definitely was tired of violence. I wanted to change, and I felt like, if it's always self-defense, if I'm always in a right, why am I committing this much violence? Like who—what normal person commits this much violence? And so I started my journey. And I don't even know this dude, he just walked up to me one day and said, "Yo, brother, there's nobody you going to beat up or kill that's going to get you out. In fact, that's going to make it worse." And I don't know why, but those words, you know, sometimes people say things and you don't hear them. But for some reason it hit me. It made me realize that all my life I've been getting really angry, but my anger was destroying me. And now I started going to Muslim services. I was going to all services, really, like Christian services, Buddhist services, just trying to find like, why? What's the point of life? What's the point of all this? I wanted my sons to be proud and not look at me as the mugshot. And so I wanted a way to bury that mugshot and replace it with my face on the back of a New York Times bestseller. And I just started writing. 

Sophie Bearman [00:19:07] Why do you think you turned to writing? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:19:09] Writing became an act of self-defense and survival, and the only thing I had because when you're in prison, you lose 90% of your rights. But the one that you still have, your voice is still free. And writing is all you have when the phone calls are $25 each. It's the only form of communication you really have. And so I wrote like with paper and pen ,with like a typewriter, with each ribbon costing like fucking 6 or 7 bucks and only 25 pages. And I came up with this 250,000 word manuscript that took me like ten years to write and landed at San Quentin, finally, after 13 years incarcerated all together. And they have everything. They have creative writing. They have a college program, a poetry class. A journalism guild, a newspaper, audio program. I joined everything, I joined everything. And that's when I found out that my book was trash. It was horrible. A book's supposed to be 80,000 words. I was 170,000 words too long. My descriptions were generic. I described people by their height, and their complexion, nothing about their personality, nothing unique. But I also learned how to write and learned I could write. That innate ability just needed to be nurtured. So it became my sword in a good way. 

Sophie Bearman [00:20:14] What was your toughest time while incarcerated? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:20:17] It was definitely during Covid because I got hit from so many angles. First of all, my family's from New York and all I kept hearing about was the death rate in New York, and I kept calling home and cousins on my father's side—my stepfather—kept dying. And I'm like, that's close to home. Like sheesh, I think they lost seven. And then San Quentin gets locked down. And so now Covid's coming at me. And I got it. And it laid me down for ten days. And George Floyd got murdered. And when I saw that it was just a combination of depressing circumstances. And then the other part about it was, I thought that I proved myself to society, that I'm a good dude. And you're a writer now. You got a college degree now. Like, all this new stuff, right? And they still talk about your violence from 20-some years ago and take your chances with death. You know, it just showed me the system didn't care. 

Sophie Bearman [00:21:04] Are you turning to any music in this moment? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:21:07] One of the songs I would listen to is The-Dream. He had a song called "Black." And the lyrics go something like "feeling real Black right now," and I'm understanding the connection of seeing George Floyd murdered like he was worthless. Making other young Black youth feel worthless. And not value Black life. And feeling like nobody's listening to me and nobody cares because it's happening to somebody that's a different race. It had me feeling real Black. 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:22:01] That's how I was feeling. I was feeling like my life didn't matter, that you would just deliver a virus here and then let me take my chances with it. Right? Like you wouldn't have the decency to clear us out. It was cold. It was cold. So that was my song. I would use that to help me, motivate me to run the extra laps. Run a little faster. I played it on repeat. 

Sophie Bearman [00:22:21] You even ran a marathon a little bit before that, right? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:22:24] I wasn't running that much, but yeah! So I don't train very well. I kind of show up and slug it through. I'm one of the slowest dudes in the world.

Sophie Bearman [00:22:31] But hey, if you get it done. 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:22:33] I get it done. Two marathons under my belt, each one slower than the last, but I finish. I'm a finisher. Determination. 

Sophie Bearman [00:22:40] Going back to your father. You got some news about him, in 2017, around then, from your brother? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:22:48] Yeah. I grew up under a myth. I was told my father was murdered in a robbery. And that's when around that time I started carrying knives and looking at robbery as life or death. But I found out he never got murdered. My brother tracked me down and told me, like, "Why you keep writing these stories about our father getting murdered? Our father didn't get murdered. He committed suicide." Like, "Nah. No way. Grandma told me he got murdered." He sent me a copy of the suicide letter, and that's, like, it devastated me, you know what I mean? It's like, damn, all this violence started because of a lie. 

Sophie Bearman [00:23:16] You constructed this whole persona after that happened at 15, and it's just—poof. Not even, not even real. 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:23:24] Not even real. Back then, I looked at every robbery as life or death. Every single robbery as life or death. And I had the attitude that you got to kill me for mines anyway. I'm not letting you take my self-esteem. And so all of that happened, based on the lie. 

Sophie Bearman [00:23:39] Tell me about returning home to New York. 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:23:43] For me, it was a process that started in 2018 and was finally victorious in 2023. I think the highlight was when I came back for the New York City Marathon, November 5th. I made a pact with Claire. Claire Gilbert was a volunteer at San Quentin for the journalism guild, and so we talked about running the New York City marathon and San Francisco marathon together. And when I got out, I looked her up on social media and told her to start training. 

Sophie Bearman [00:24:07] You wanted to keep that promise? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:24:09] Nah, I was just kidding. But once I said that, you know, she took me seriously!  

Sophie Bearman [00:24:14] Maybe she has been running. 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:24:15] She said, "I ran six marathons already. This would be my seventh! I am training!" Like, oh damn.

Sophie Bearman [00:24:19] You need to start training.

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:24:21] I need to start training. She sent me the training plans, like, oh my God, what did I just do? I said, "Alright, if we are going to do this, I ain't just running around in circle, I ain't in prison anymore. We're going to do this as a fundraised for Empowerment Avenue. So let's do it like that."

Sophie Bearman [00:24:32] Empowerment Avenue is, of course, the nonprofit you started to empower incarcerated writers and artists. But yeah, so, you're returning to New York to run the New York City Marathon. There's pretty much nothing bigger than that. Are you listening to anything? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:24:47] Of course. You already know Alicia Keys. "Let's hear it for New York." She didn't even know she was talking about me when she made it, you know what I mean? She think she talking about the city.

Sophie Bearman [00:25:01] That song speaks to you.

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:25:03] That definitely speaks to me. It's an amazing song. 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:25:17] I was going to see my family, my sons, my mom. 

Sophie Bearman [00:25:21] What was it like to see your family walk, me through that moment? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:25:25] First of all, I had embarrassed my mom. My mom was like a three star chief on Rikers Island and her son was Daily News' most wanted. And so I publicly embarrassed her. Now I'm publicly somebody she's proud of. Right. And so to see, like, the change, it feels really good. 

Sophie Bearman [00:25:41] What about your kids? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:25:43] Super proud. They stay rocking with me. And in fact, I got a chance to, like, take my son and my daughter-in-law and my three grandkids and my brother and my nephew to a Brooklyn Nets game. I bought really good seats, and the CFO is a friend of mine. And so he found out that I bought these seats and he hooked me up. He let me go to the courtside while they were practicing. They took me to the VIP lounge so we can get food. And I got this treatment in front of my son and like, it's like a dream. Like, to take my son to a game was just a dream come true as a father. And to have the next generation with me and my grandkids, it just felt, it felt amazing. And to see the Brooklyn Nets throw their arms open wide for me like that in front of my family like I'm really somebody special, and I'm just this regular dude. But my grandkids would never know it, don't tell them, they think I'm something special now. 

Sophie Bearman [00:26:31] So, whether it's running a marathon, surviving a prison sentence, trauma from childhood, what's your advice for someone who may be struggling to keep going? 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:26:43] There's no easy answer. It's going to be hard. Everything is not going to change tomorrow. It took decades for things to go right. And so you need faith. You need faith that all of this is going to mean something if you stay strong. Right? The other two pieces of advice is two, when you change your attitude towards what you're going through, it gets easier. Like when you work out, you feel pain, but it's making you stronger. So understand it has a purpose. And the third advice is the advice that got me through Covid. That really brought me here now because Covid was rough. I was sitting in that cell. And then I realized, wait a minute, I'm locked down all day in this cell and I love to write and I love to read. This is not a punishment. This is an opportunity. Right? So the same circumstance that I looked at just the day before as horrible, I'm stuck in a cell 23-hours a day. You know, you might get out for a shower, go get your tray. They do yard every other day. If you don't got yard today, you really ain't going nowhere. You stuck. Programs shut down. This is like torture, right? And then I might die. Well guess what? Nobody can—no journalist can come into prison right now. The only way to go and get this scoop is through me. And so one of my first major pieces, I hit Business Insider right off the top, my first major piece. And they paid decent. All this pain became purpose. And so now that's how I try to get through life. I look at when something bad happened to me. I vent because I'm human. I'm like, "This is some bullshit," I complain. That's dumb. But then I'm like, wait, what's the purpose in this? And because I have that attitude, that struggle and pain equals purpose, I can endure it a lot easier, even though it's still going to be some bullshit tomorrow. But I know one thing that'll make your life ten times easier. It's just—look at everything you're going through as having a purpose, and try to find a way to turn it into positive energy. And that will help you get through the lean years and it'll make you through the great years. 

Sophie Bearman [00:28:28] Rahsaan New York Thomas, thank you so much for telling us about your journey. 

Rahsaan 'New York' Thomas [00:28:33] You are welcome. 

Sophie Bearman [00:28:59] Life in Seven Songs is a production from The San Francisco Standard. This episode was produced by me, Sophie Bearman, and our senior producer Jasmyn Morris. Our executive producers are Griffin Gaffney and Jon Steinberg. Nate Tobey is our creative consultant. This episode was mixed by Cold August Productions. Booking help from Meaghan Mitchell. Our theme music is by Kate Davis and Zubin Hensler and Clark Miller created our show art. Our music consultant is Sarah Tembeckjian. You can find this guest's full playlist at sf.news/spotify. I'm Sophie Bearman. Thanks for listening and see you next time.