But right around that time, my cousin Daddy-O asked me something. He said, “Yo, you heard about those Twelve Jewels?” I didn’t know what he meant. Daddy-O was a street hustler, a cool guy, not a spiritual man. But it turned out he was also a Muslim, someone whose other name, his righteous name, was Born Knowledge. He explained that these weren’t physical jewels, like someone in the hood wore to display his wealth. They were mental jewels—principles, ways of life—and that by obtaining them you would find a different kind of wealth. He said the Jewels were part of something called “the
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