Infamous D

I hustle strictly to change my situation. Competition don't even cross my mind ‼️

Sorry i deleted you on everything you pi**ed me off wyd tho

# THE WAY I LIVE

# # # A Memoir by INFAMOUS D (Ruben Pantoja)

**Synopsis**

*The Way I Live* is the story of a boy born on Chicago's Southwest Side who spends his life searching for identity, purpose, and redemption in a world that constantly pulls him in opposite directions.

Raised in a hardworking Mexican immigrant family, Ruben grows up surrounded by love, sacrifice, faith, and struggle. From childhood he witnesses both the beauty and harsh realities of life—family hardships, poverty, violence, and the pressures of surviving in neighborhoods where gangs, drugs, and crime are often easier to find than opportunity.

As he grows into adolescence, rebellion replaces innocence. Drawn into gang life, hustling, and street culture, Ruben begins living a double life. One part of him dreams of success through music and education, while the other embraces the streets that shaped him. Rap becomes both an escape and a confession, giving voice to emotions he cannot express anywhere else.

The story follows his victories and failures with brutal honesty. He earns his GED, experiences love, marriage, heartbreak, and divorce, but also suffers devastating losses as death repeatedly strikes his family. The passing of his brothers Moises and Jose forever changes him, forcing him to confront grief that words can barely describe.

As legal troubles catch up with him, Ruben is arrested and experiences jail firsthand. Stripped of freedom, he begins questioning the choices that led him there. Yet even after his release, success proves just as dangerous as failure. His music career begins gaining momentum, social media unexpectedly brings him financial success, and for a brief moment he earns nearly $30,000 a month. But without wisdom or direction, money disappears as quickly as it arrives, leaving him with hard lessons about fame, business, and life.

Rather than glorifying crime or portraying himself as a hero, Ruben tells the truth about consequences—the friendships lost, opportunities wasted, and emotional scars left behind by years spent chasing the wrong things.

Years later, he returns to Mexico after more than a decade away to finalize the end of a marriage that had long since fallen apart. The journey becomes more than legal paperwork; it becomes a confrontation with his past, his family history, and the man he has become. On the flight home to Chicago, he reflects on every chapter of his life—the mistakes, the blessings, the people he loved, and those he buried.

At its heart, *The Way I Live* is not simply a story about gangs, music, prison, or money. It is the story of resilience. It is about a man who repeatedly falls, questions everything, loses people he thought would live forever, and still refuses to stop searching for meaning.

Filled with humor, tragedy, loyalty, heartbreak, ambition, and redemption, *The Way I Live* captures the complexity of growing up between cultures, surviving the streets, chasing impossible dreams, and learning that true success is measured not by wealth or fame, but by the legacy a person leaves behind.

This is the story of Ruben Pantoja—known to many as INFAMOUS D—not as the world imagined him, but as he truly lived.