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Sonny Chiba was born as Sadao Maeda in Fukuoka, Japan on January 22, 1939. His father was a military test pilot. During his youth, he had an interest in both theater & gymnastics. He was talented enough to make the Japanese Olympic Team until a chronic back injury ended his career. However, he took a strong interest in karate under the guidance of the Mas Oyama during college & soon earned his first black belt. However, his life changed again when he was discovered during a talent search by Toei Studios in 1960. He soon began his screen career under the name Shinichi Chiba, appearing as the space chief in Uchu Kaisoku-ken. Over the next decade, he busied himself w/ appearances in Japanese crime thrillers, steadily building a reputation for playing hard men of few words & direct actions.

With his proficiency in karate, judo & kenpo, he took advantage of the early 1970s martial arts boom sparked by Bruce Lee. He starred in The Street Fighter (1974), playing a mercenary style street thug who would do anything for a price & take on anyone, even the yakuza. The approach of the film was quite different from the Bruce Lee films in that Lee only eliminated his enemies when he was defending his friends or his honor. Instead, he was only aiming for a fistful of dollars for his deadly services & would engage in mortal combat for the highest bidder, although this often clouded his judgement to his own detriment. The only person the Street Fighter respects is his martial arts teacher, karate master Masaoko who manages to easily out smart & out fight him. Upon its release, the film was criticized for its excessive violence.

A sequel quickly followed w/ him back in Return of the Street Fighter (1974), which was then followed by a third Street Fighter movie starring Etsuko Shihomi in the gritty Sister Street Fighter (1974). There was a fourth & final film in the series Gyakushu Satsujin ken.

He had firmly established himself as a key anti-hero of Asian martial arts cinema who said little & used his fists to sort out his troubles. With the demand high from fans, he remained busy on screen for the next 20 years, starring in numerous Japanese film & TV productions w/ an emphasis on bruising fights, samurai swords, yakuza gangsters & beautiful girls in trouble.

Outside of Japan, the Street Fighter film series has achieved enduring popularity through many midnight cult screenings. Their style heavily influenced Quentin Tarantino. He has used strong references & imagery from the Street Fighter movies in several of his films including True Romance (1993) and Pulp Fiction (1994). When he came around to casting for Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), he was eager to have Chiba accept the key role of the hot headed & sometimes humorous Okinawan sword maker Hanzo Hattori. He continued to be a major figure & influence in the world-wide passion in martial arts movies for over 3 decades, contributing to the genre by encouraging & training young hopefuls seeking to make their mark on screen.

He passed away on August 19, 2021.

Humanitarian, father, grandfather, son, brother, friend, author, actor, producer, peacemaker, street legend, gang leader, poet, musician, director, organizer, consultant, advisor, visionary, trainer, diplomat and the list goes of adjectives that one could use to describe the person that we know as T. Rodgers. However, the journey to become this person was neither easy, nor did it happen overnight.

T. Rodgers was born and raised in the slums of Southside Chicago, specifically in the area of 47 th Street. When T. was 12 years old, his mother moved them to Westside of Los Angeles, to the area known as Baldwin Hills. Also known as "The Jungles" (originally called this because of its lush vegetation), Baldwin Hills was once a Middle Class haven for African-Americans but has since become synonymous with gangs, drugs, violence and murder (hence earning it the lifelong name of "The Jungles" because of the inherent danger associated with living there).

Like so many young, black men in the turbulent 1960's, there weren't many opportunities available to T., and he quickly became embroiled in many gang-related conflicts. With the permission of the "Main 21" (a term used to describe the original twenty-one leaders of Chicago gangs who agreed to merge with the Blackstone Rangers), T. formed a chapter of the "Almighty Black P Stone Nation", who at the time, and contrary to popular belief, were in fact a community-based and backed organization and not a lawless gang; somewhere along the way, unfortunately, this would change.

Under T.'s leadership, the Black P Stones became affiliated with and founding members of the Bloods (who identify with the color red), mortal enemies of the predominant Crips (who identify with the color blue). The Black P Stones would thrive in "The Jungles" and become over five-hundred members strong, eventually controlling the largest territory of any other black gang in Los Angeles. At their peak (or some say their lowest, depending on who you ask), the Black P Stones became one of the most feared and infamous gangs in Los Angeles if not the entire United States. This dubious distinction would earn T. a position on the Ten Most Wanted Gang Leaders list by law enforcement in South Central Los Angeles.

T.'s gang activities and overall reckless lifestyle would cause him to be shot four times, stabbed twice and as T puts it, "have more fights than Mike Tyson and not get paid for none of 'em". T. was arrested dozens of times during the course of his "career" but managed to avoid lengthy prison sentences. T. graduated from reform school and later, due to the birth of T.'s first child, T. began to look hard at how such self-destructive and high-risk behavior only had two endings; a life of incarceration or ultimately, death. The result of this "moral evolution" would become T.'s life work and passion as he founded Sidewalk University in 1975 to work at stopping the violence and ease the tension in the streets that he helped to create.

Through his work first as a notorious gang leader and then as a respected community leader, T. was approached to work in the film industry getting his first breakthrough role as Dr. Feelgood in 1987 with Dennis Hopper's now classic, the seminal gang movie, Colors. Since then, T. has appeared in many films and television programs as well as provided technical advising to the 2001 hit Training Day starring Denzel Washington and most recently B.E.T.'s reality show Baldwin Hills.

T. Rodgers had the distinction of being one of the first ex-gang leaders break into main street America via his numerous appearances in major films, television and print.

T. Rodgers has gone, and continues to go where no other gang member has gone before.

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