Harps & Violins

Based on a true story... Tough love was the name of the game. Syn and Malik Samuels got more than their share of that from their Dad. David Samuels Sr. was a caged lion -- a product of the Panther Party at a time when the air was saturated with hatred for blacks. He put a lot of bite into his dogs and made them fight each other for practice. What he didn't realize was that someday, one of his dogs would bite back. At seventeen, Syn was at the top of his game. Like his Dad, he grew into a big, beautiful chunk of black onyx -- hard as stone, and determined to be king. Taking everything he had learned from his father, Syn earned his 'rep as a bad-assed gang leader, building his own modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah in the 'hood, in Queens, N.Y. On that inner-city battlefield, he miraculously found what he believed was the perfect wife, one who was not of the hood-rat variety. He was wrong. She broke his heart in every conceivable way. Frustrated and angry, he sank deeper into a life of crime until a fatal, head-on collision took the life of his best friend, and his own, too. He crashed. He died. He saw the Inconceivable and the Unbelievable. He was held accountable. He returned to earth, facing the most difficult battle of his life -- a brain-damaged unit struggling to redefine himself, while trapped in the same surroundings that had caused his death. Harps & Violins. A story of redemption.