Kershaun Scott with Boyd and Lucinda

"We lived by a creed: If you hit me, I will kill you. It wasn’t get even, it was get one up.”
Kershaun Scott a.k.a. "Li'l Monster" was born in L. A. is one of six children.  He had a normal upbringing in Crenshaw until the family moved to 69th Street and Denker Avenue, in South-Central, and his father faded from the scene.
Scott is still known in Los Angeles as “Li’l Monster,” a name he earned by following in the footsteps of his older brother, Kody “Monster” Scott, an original gangster with the Eight Tray Crips. When he was 15, Kershaun Scott shot and killed one teenager and injured four others to avenge the nonfatal shooting of his brother. He was tried as a minor, convicted of murder, and served five years with the California Youth Authority
In the 1980s, “Li’l Monster” Scott, like everything in my life, I gave it my all,” he says. “I was an all-around gang member. I would get out in the street and fight, write my name or my gang’s name on the wall, I would rob you, shoot you, do whatever it took to promote my hood and my name. I believe my brother and I took gangbanging to another level. Scott rose quickly within the Eight Tray Crips, until his conviction for avenging the shooting of his brother in 1981. Fresh out of prison in 1986, he renewed the gang life, which by then included dealing crack. Although he says he never touched the drug, he concedes enabling it to ravage others.   In addition to being an ex-gangster, Scott is a writer and a speaker who has reached out to youth all over the country. He is scarred by his past yet unapologetic. It made him who he is. By communicating with at-risk youth in the inner city, he believes he has made a difference.