Keith Corbin - California Soul: An American Epic of Cooking and Survival

Watts, California. August 2018. Morning.

The first thing I remember was the white Camaro.

Id been back in Watts for three days. A year earlier, Id moved to Oakland to work as director of operations for the LocoL Restaurant Group, but I came back frequently to see my family and check on the original LocoL, in Watts. On this visit, I was making my rounds with my younger brother Marlon and his four-year-old son, to say goodbye to family before catching my flight back to the Bay. Around nine a.m. , we left my mothers house in her new Toyota Venza and drove through the Jordan Downs projects where I grew up, to see friends and soak up some of what I had been missing in Oakland. I made one last stop, at my aunts, and then headed to LocoL to work until my flight to Oakland. As we drove away from her house, we passed the white Camaro.

As soon as we went by, two dudes jumped out. Looking quickly, I saw they had gunsand not just any guns. These motherfuckers had AK-47s. Instinctually, I knew they were Bounty Hunter Bloods from our rival project, Nickerson Gardens. There was a war going on, and they were here to kill.

As they started shooting, I screamed at my brother, Go! Go! Go! Bullets hit the windows and doors. The headrests exploded. I turned to the backseat and tried to get my nephew to keep his head down. The Venza bucked over the bumps in the road as my brother hit the gas and made a right turn onto Grape Street. We flew through the Stop sign on 102nd. Less than a minute later, we were at LocoL.

Somehow, miraculously, no one in the car was hit. My nephew was in shock, too little to understand what had happened. But the car itself looked like a murder scene. Both headrests had bullets lodged in their poles. The dashboard was shot up. The back hatch was riddled with holes.

What happened next was the result of instincts sharpened from my years in the game. There was no thinking, no back-and-forth, no debate. There was no screaming and hollering, just a lot of energy and quick movements. I knew I had to leave a body in Nickerson Gardens before they even got back to their hood. My homie Montana came out of LocoLs kitchen. I told him what had happened, and he got in my mothers car. I hopped back in, and we drove to her house to grab a couple of .45s and a 9-millimeter.

I came back to LocoL just as my cousin was pulling up. When I let him know what had gone down, he didnt hesitate. Im going, too. We can use my car.

Less than five minutes later, my cousin, my brother, Montana, and I were parked on Compton Avenue, out in front of a liquor store across from the Nickersons. We were looking for any Blood, anyone affiliated. And soon enough, a dude in his twenties wearing a red hat came out of the store. He would do.

With my 9 mm in one hand, I cracked open the door and turned to look over my shoulder. And in that moment, seeing the faces of my brother and Montana, I paused. This shit didnt feel right. I got back in the car, shut the door, and put my gun down.

Fuck this, I told my cousin. Lets go.

As we drove away, I watched the young dude in the red hat get in his car, oblivious to the fact that his life had been so, so close to being over.

I was done. This was the end. I had to get out now for real.

Over the course of my forty years, Ive played lots of roles.

Ive been a bogeyman, one of the demonized teenage drug-dealing gangbangers America was so scared of, who grew up in the 90s in the worst projects in Watts during the height of the countrys infatuation with gang culture and gangsta rap.

Ive been a prisoner in some of the most dangerous maximum-security prisons in America, surrounded by inmates serving life sentences for murder, making moonshine in my cell and stabbing people in the yard for survival.

Ive been an ex-felon who tried to go straight and worked his ass off to get promoted in a civilian job, only to be fired because of his past and left wondering if gangs and crime really were the only paths available.

Ive been a press-friendly selling point, the feel-good hire at an ambitious restaurant that was supposed to revitalize my community.

Ive been the chef and face of a fine-dining restaurant that headlined national best lists and hosted private dinners for Jay-Z, the cast of Black-ish, and John Legend.

And after the George Floyd murder, as Black Lives Matter took off across America, I was bandied about by white folks as part of some sort of woke narrative to help assuage their guilt. Ive had white women in Beverly Hills pull up alongside me and apologize for the way police pulled me over. Ive had random white people in my Instagram DMs telling me they love me.

The book youre about to read isnt a gangland morality tale or a prisoner-makes-good drama or a chef memoir that paints my life as a uniquely American success story. Most of those stories end when the protagonist is deemed transformed enough to step through a magic door and enter mainstream white society. I know that song all too well. My magic door was supposed to be cooking. But when youre a Black man coming from where I come from, that door may open, but you never make it all the way through.

This book is my opportunity to ditch the tropes and tell my whole storythe story of what its like to grow up Black in America under some of the worst circumstances; to see unspeakable tragedy; to commit acts of violence and crime; to get locked up and then locked up again; to attempt to go straight and find the system unforgiving; to find a passion and go for it; to succeed and fail and be forced to fight for your place at the table. This book is called California Soul not just because thats the type of food I cook or because Im uniquely tethered to the place where I was raised, but also because Ive poured my soul into this story and I want you to know that, when you read it, youre staring at a piece of me and my truth.