Brooklyn MC, Maino, recently spoke to HipHopWired about police brutality increasing as well as his recent dealings with the “rogue squad” when this May, his best friend “80,” was shot in the back by NYPD. Maino revealed, “ Yo man, it's disgusting. It's something that we've been enduring all our lives and before we were born. In the situation with my peoples we got the money and the means to make sure that they don't get away with it but what about the families that don't have the resources to really fight the system. It's crazy man, and people gotta wake up. They put these police in our neighborhood and they're not always right, they're not always mentally capable of dealing with young Black men, man. Straight up.”

Airing out some of America's dirty laundry, Maino also spoke on “The Prison Industrial Complex” and how jails don't rehabilitate you to come back into society and live a productive life. He revealed:

“No, it doesn't. Prison does not rehabilitate you. I'mma tell you something man, I'mma be straight up honest with you. Prison didn't rehabilitate me, before I did music I had every intention of coming back home and doing what I'd been doing. It didn't matter if they locked me up for one year or ten or twenty, I was gonna come home and do exactly what I'd been doing. It didn't matter, they were just holding me up. I found music on my own, it was because I had the opportunity and the time to find it. I had to rehabilitate myself. Prison doesn't rehabilitate you because first of all, they put you in there and they give you inadequate training.

Like you're studying to be a carpenter or a welder but you're using old school equipment from the 80s. Come on man. The design is for failure man. It's designed for failure. Like why do you think the resentment of them is so high? People go to jail, do this amount of time and go right back. It's designed that way. The only thing I can say about prison is if you are in prison, you need to take that time…if you have any smarts about yourself, you would take some time on your own and try to figure out what you need to do for yourself. That's what I did. It wasn't about them giving me anything. I took the time that I had while I was there and started to figure something out for myself. They didn't rehabilitate me, cause I'mma be honest. If I didn't find rap man, if I didn't find music, if I didn't fall in love with the game, my future would've been ugly.”

Maino also stated that his partna “80” was slowly recovering and that in time he'll recover. “ He's holding up, he's definitely a strong individual and mentally he's gonna get through this situation but it's a roller coaster though. I have to be honest with you because my dude is a very strong dude in the streets and for him to have went from being the person he was to now having to sit down for a little while, it's really hard to deal with emotionally but he's fighting man and he's getting his therapy. We definitely hopeful and we know that he's gonna stand again.”

Maino's debut album If Tomorrow Comes is also in stores and features the new single “Million Bucks” and features Swizz Beatz.

As previously reported, , Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested Thursday trying to get into his locked Massachusetts home. According to his lawyer ,Charles Ogletree, Gates returned from China to find his front door jammed and forced it open with the help of his driver. He was inside several minutes before an officer showed up and asked him to step outside. A woman had alerted police that a man was trying to pry open the front door of a nearby house. According to police, he then called an officer a racist and said, “This is what happens to Black men in America.”

He is the director of Harvard's W.E.B. Dubois Institute for African and American Research and Editor-in-Chief of TheRoot.com, an online African American magazine.