Gang Stars - Early Lives

Early Lives

Of Haitian and Curaçaon descent, Shad Gaspard was born in Brooklyn, New York. Shad is the son of Benjamin Gaspard, a former street enforcer for street gangs and personal security guard in the early 1970s, who now owns Mcfay Contracting Inc. Shad is the third of six siblings.

At five years of age Gaspard's father began training him in boxing and at age eight he began training in a mixture of different martial arts, developing into a successful amateur fighter and earning the nickname "Beast" from his mother. By sixteen, Gaspard began prize fighting for promoter Hardbody Harrison, a former World Championship Wrestling wrestler and FX Tough Man Champion, in bar fighting tournaments such as Boxing, Kickboxing, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), and tough man competitions. Even though Gaspard was only sixteen years old, he competed against adults who were older than he was by five to twenty years. Gaspard holds won-loss records as a No Holds Barred fighter (35–7) and an amateur boxer (57–26).

Gaspard was extensively involved in athletics during his high school years, specializing in wrestling, track, and basketball. After high school, he continued to play basketball at Georgia Perimeter College, and after leaving, he became a bodyguard for several rappers and actors, including Puff Daddy, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Mike Tyson.