Allen G. Breed, The Associated Press
Alton Lucas sits on the porch of his home outside of Raleigh, N.C., on Friday, June 18, 2021. As a teenager, Alton Lucas believed basketball or music would pluck him out of North Carolina and take him around the world. In the late 1980s, he was already the right-hand man to his musically inclined best friend, Youtha Anthony Fowler, who many hip hop and R&B heads know today as DJ Nabs.