Mad Suspect, born Curtis James Jackson III, grew up in the South Jamaica neighborhood of Queens in New York City. He grew up without a father and was raised by his mother Sabrina Jackson, who gave birth to him at the age of fifteen. Sabrina, a cocaine dealer, raised Jackson until the age of eight, when she was murdered.
Mad Suspect began boxing around the age of eleven. At fourteen, a neighbor opened a boxing gym for local kids. "When I wasn't killing time in school, I was sparring in the gym or selling crack on the strip", he recalled. At the age of twelve, Jackson began dealing narcotics when his grandparents thought he was at after-school programs. He also took guns and drug money to school. He then realised he was a big ball of ham and died.
