Reggie's time as a sports editor at the Grambling student newspaper suggested he had it all in front of him. He was a gifted rider with a ton of talent and street smarts. But after a violent encounter at the school, Reggie got on a bus, which was a two-day ride home, and something in his head snapped.

When he got to Oakland, his family met him at the bus station. And the person who walked off the bus left them stunned.

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In 1989, Reggie Payne became a local hero when he overcame the hardships of Oakland’s 69 Village to attend Grambling State University. Yet college life some 3,000 miles away is anything but easy. While he dives into journalism as an editor at the student newspaper, Reggie becomes a first-time father and endures an alleged beatdown via a fleet of Tiger football players that changes his outlook—and messes with his mind.

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In 1971, Harriet Jefferson gives birth to her first child, a baby boy. Reggie Damone Payne is born in San Leandro, just south of Oakland, the oldest of four children.

Reggie Payne's biological father was out of the picture and Harriet moved in with her future husband, Rufus Jefferson, shortly after her son was born. That created a close lifetime relationship Reggie had with his mother and stepfather of growing up in Oakland's inner city and learning from them how to navigate away from the distractions of the streets and focus on things that truly mattered. Education, family, love.

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In the summer of 1993, Rick Jervis and Jeff Pearlman—two college journalists at the time—arrived in Nashville for a summer internship at the daily newspaper, The Tennessean. It was a dream come true, and to their surprise and delight, they were accompanied by an aspiring Oakland rapper/Grambling student named Reggie Payne. His hip-hop moniker: Sexy Sweat. Over the next eight weeks, the young men developed a bond that, Rick and Jeff believed, would last for decades. Instead, Reggie vanished from their lives—and left behind a gaping mystery. Where did he go? What did he do? In short, what became of Sexy Sweat. Thirty years later, Rick and Jeff decided to find him—and were shocked and devastated by what they uncovered.

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