Jrnl Entry 3.9.2004

It’s the day before The Notorious B.I.G. “Biggie Smalls” “Frank White” was killed in Los Angeles seven years ago. I remember I was working at NRM record store in the Eastwood Mall in Niles Ohio the morning of March 10, 1997 when the news got to my ears. It was close to the time for B.I.G.s second LP to be released, and my first thought was that “wow, he is gonna sell a lot of records.”

So he’s been dead now for seven years and people are giving him an MC crown as the best MC. How and the hell can you receive a “Best MC” title off of two albums; the second, which was a complete flip from the 1st? In my eyes, you can’t. Biggie was good, he may have been able to become the best MC if his career would have lasted more than three years. That is all he gets from me as far as titles go. I can’t bestow “Best MC” or “Greatest Album” in his debut “Ready To Die” upon him. The greatest Hip Hop album of all time that still has not been topped in my eyes is “It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back” by Public Enemy. Then after that is “Amerikaz Most Wanted” by Ice Cube. I guess much props goes to Hank Shocklee and the Bomb Squad who produced both those albums. Then third is “Niggaz4Life” by NWA. I guess much props goes to the West Coast MCs (even though I’m East Coast till death regardless of you pussies who want to shun the difference between the three coast (west, east, and south (which includes the Midwest)) for having made two out of the three.

Just listen to the production, lyrical flow, style, presence, and content (well, maybe not content on NWAs part) of these albums and you’ll have to agree. Ready To Die was a very good album, but so was “Capital Punishment” by Big Punisher, which I’d have to say was, over the top, better than Ready To Die. But no lyrical content, production, style and grace has ever topped PEs second LP. And while Chuck D holds the crown for having the greatest album ever, he isn’t in the top five of greatest MCs so the two do not go hand in hand.

But anyway, back to my life. New York is killing me. There seem to be no open doors here amongst the millions of damn doors that can be opened in this place. Doors for my Hip Hop production are not being opened. Doors for a job at one of the many Hip Hop, as well as Hip Hop influenced companies in this city. This girl I know works for Akedemiks Hip Hop clothing line. I asked her to check into an accounting job for me, and I never heard from her again and she changed her e-mail address. I know a guy who spends his days walking around Def Jam Records, but yet, he hasn’t gotten himself signed, nor has he gotten any of my beats sold. I have a Frat brother here who has so much power here because he throws all of the hot parties where music industry people hang out and depend on him to get in the parties and in V.I.P. Yet, he will not grant me grand access to all these parties and V.I.P. status, not has he offered to help me sell any of my beats through all these music industry contacts he has, nor, even in my unemployment has he offered any type of job with the small/big PR company “Black Diamond” that he is vice president of.

It also seems that I am being racially discriminated against in this city as far as receiving employment. Employers call my house and when they hear my deep African American voice, they just hang up. Or employment agencies will invite me to their offices to fill out an application and talk a little bullshit, and then I will never hear from them again, and when I call and leave them a message they will not call me
back or if I get them on the phone, they will say they have nothing for me. I don’t know what to do. All my unemployment money had run out. I went out to look for a part time job but they seem to be equally unwilling to give an African American a job. Damn, it’s almost like we are right back in the 60s. Here I am a nigga with a college degree, 5 years work experience, yet, there is no job for me even in a poot-butt clothing or shoe store.

This job search is having an effect on my love life. I’ve been with my girlfriend for two years now, going on three. I’m questioning myself as to whether I love her anymore. I’m wondering if that question is because of my depression with not being able to secure employment or if I really don’t love her anymore. I loved her so in the beginning, I was there hand and foot for her, loved to be around her, and I wanted her to move in with me. As time wore on, we had two big fights where she busted out my car window. I threw her cell phone out the window because she was talking to this friend of hers on her cell phone, a guy who likes her. We moved in together, I found this same guys ATM card in her wallet, and then I found it again after I cut up the first one. When we were not living together, she was having a telephone affair with this guy from her job who works in Minneapolis. So while I was giving my all and not talking to other bitches and inviting them to my apartment and fucking the shit out of them, she was talking to who knows how many guys and doing what with them. She has threw all my stuff in
the middle of the floor and told me to leave. We have gotten into another fight where she scratched my face and she had a big bruise on her shoulder from me slamming her against the wall. She gets in an uproar over people calling and hanging up, thinking that I am stupid enough to give some bitch that I fucked or am trying to fuck the house number where I am staying with another woman.

She thinks she has the right to rise up in my face like she is going to whip my ass. I don’t want a woman who thinks that she can fight me or want to fight me over her jealousy issues. I want a sweet bitch who trust me even though men fuck other bitches, I am her knight in shining armor, who fucks her well, cooks for her from time to time, and cleans from time to time, who looks good, dresses well, even though unemployed, who has the potential to earn good money. I’ve been taught that next to a rich man, the good man I just described, should not have much problems getting along with his woman, but yet I am. I think that had I have found a job by now, I would have moved.

I hear I’ll have problems out of every woman that could be worse than what I already have so I should be thankful for a non-gold digger, who works, who is not on my back about working, who fucks, cooks, and cleans well. Yeah, all of that is fine and well, but I want to be in love. I am not in love anymore especially with the finding of that second ATM card, where I moved to Atlanta, and that last big fight we had with the scratches and bruises. Over this past weekend in Ohio, I ran into this old
sweet little girl I used fuck in college. I was thinking as I was talking to her, I should have stayed with her, she’s cute, wears her real hair (another problem I have with Watrina, while she has beautiful hair, she wears ugly weaves sometimes and it pisses me off), and she likes me. But I’m in New York and she is in Youngstown and I am not trying to go back to that corny place.

I was also thinking about Lynaye all weekend. I’ve had a crush on Lynaye ever since I made up my mind that it was her I wanted to talk to and not her friend Summer. See when I first met them after they performed on a talent show, Summer had nice tidy’s while Lynaye had the better looking ass. After seeing them a few more times together, I decided that Lynaye was for me and I went on my quest to get her. It started with my being an Alpha in college and her always attending all of the Alpha parties. I seen her in my local mall and I approached her and she was receptive. I got her number and called her and rode my motor scooter to her house. Her family, mom and sister were nice to me. I felt as if there was no doubt she would be my girlfriend and for the second time in my life I would experience true love. But I never asked her to be my girlfriend and she never asked that of me. She was young, in the 12th grade and I was a sophomore in college. We hung out, or rather she used me to get popularity amongst her peers in high school. I tried kissing her one time when we were alone and she blew that off. And she told me this long list of things a guy
would have to do to get her in the mood, like massage her head, which I thought was stupid. It seemed you would have to go through a lot to get those drawls so I never really tried to make a move on her again. However, she was so beautiful to me, from time to time we’d hang out still. Just so happen she moved to New York two years before I did right after she graduated from college. We touched base a few times but still never brought out the love interest I had in her because she had boyfriends and I had Watrina the last time we touched base. But now, Lynaye is single, and Watrina and my relationship is not what I want it to be. So all weekend I’ve been thinking about calling Lynaye and having dinner with her and telling her how I really feel and asking her for the chance to love to her once and for all. I think she is beautiful, has good employment, and it would be a fresh love start because Watrina has killed my love for her, at least for the moment.

But this morning when I woke up, the urge to call Lynaye was not as great as it has been all weekend nor as it was when I went to bed last night with Watrina in my arms. So I don’t know. And they say, the grass is not always greener on the other side. Watrina is here for me right now in my time of need, but I feel the need to get away from her and her violent stints of jealousy before I seriously hurt her and end up in jail. I shouldn’t be with anyone whom I think I will have to fight and be locked up for. I’ve been dating other bitches: Jackie, Natlie, Tiffany, Tracey, Traci. I talked to women on the phone who wouldn’t hook up with me: Kristy, Jennifer, Rachel. But none of these women have offered me anything, not even the pussy just to fuck around with. So what is happening with me? I don’t have a job, and to my surprise, a few family members are helping a me a little. My cousin Shaneequa gave me $200.00 when I went to see her. I don’t know if she was trying to play me or not by handing me the money right in front of Watrina. My Uncle Luther has offered his helping hand if I ever need anything.

My girlfriend is just now showing respect and interest in me that she should have shown all along considering how I was treating her. Now that she is cooperating, I’m not sure if I want her cooperation. I’ve tried to a non-success rate, to fuck other bitches. My music and everything else seems to be going nowhere. I wrote a documentary that I just sent in to be copyrighted but I don’t want to start on that until I incorporate my Production company, and trademark my name and logo. And on top of all of this my grandmother, the oldest of the next generation in my family, is dying from Diabetes complications. So nothing seems to be going as plan, and everybody’s suggestion is that I try God! When God gives me a good job and happiness in my life, maybe I’ll try him. But for now, I’m on my own.

Jrnl Entry No. 2.10.2000

I do not like a woman who is not ambitious and adventurous. Why do I say this you wonder, just out the blue huh? Well last night I was talking to Rhonda on the phone and she was talking about coming to see me in like April, and she was talking about how I would still be working. She said she wouldn’t go anywhere by herself even if I gave her directions because she is a woman, and I guess women aren’t strong enough to find their way out on their own for the first time in NYC by themselves. That right there told me that she and N.Y. would not get along because she would be afraid to move anywhere. I already got a feeling that she thinks she is too clean to ride the train. So I gues that ends my thoughts of being with her soon.

I have sort of come to the conclusion that I should leave Ohio in Ohio and start a new New York life on a search for a New York wife. I feel that I love Sausha and could live with her, but bringing her three kidz and her to New York will not work out especially how I’m tryin’ to live. I want us to work and not depend on the system for anything. She is used to depending on the system. She works from time to time, and at times she doesn’t work because she knows that she has the system there to back her up. Really she needs the system to back her up with three kidz and no father present. I don’t think she would ever be able to make it here in N.Y. unless she worked two, three jobs and was tired and frustrated all the time. I don’t want my life to be that way. So I think I am going to tell her that I live her, but her moving here would be a big burden on my shoulders that I am not trying to carry right now.

I’ll probably keep talking to Rhonda to see what she wants to do, which will probably be nothing. I know for a fact that once she actually sees this place, she will never be willing to move her and her daughter here. And I think that Rhonda and I have known each other too long and feel that we can say anything to each other, get smart with each other and that is O.K. Like last night I asked her did she have the Genuine CD, and she said, “no, should I?” Now I was saying to myself that smart remark was totally uncalled for. Her and I talk cool when we are not really tryin’ to get together. I guess it’s only meant for us to be friends. I mean I’ve had her clothes off three times in my lifetime and my dick didn’t get hard either time. Yeah, I’ll just take my time with her, and I’m gonna tell Sausha that I want to take my time with her also, and which ever works out works out. If neither works out that will be fine also.

I will keep my eyes open on the New York Streets for something beautiful coming my way. I was going to go to this talent show at this college to try and meet a girl. But I said forget it because like I’ve said before, it’s time to move from the twenty one to twenty three year olds and move toward the twenty six to twenty eight year olds; a sexy young beautiful thang my age; a real woman, doing real things you know.

I’m seriously thinking about just taking Sausha in. I can’t stop thinking about her. At this point in our lives we would probably get along the best. Maybe I should sacrifice being selfish for what I want and really give her the push that she needs to be the woman that she wants to be. I know she is willing to work. She is not gonna leave me hangin’ takin care of her kidz. She tries to satisfy me. I can tell that someone like Rhonda will have attitudes sometimes and be like fuck me. I don’t think she will let me fuck half the time that I want to. Like she said on the phone one day, she ain’t gonna be lettin’ no man abuse her body. And I think that she is already set in her ways and got things she won’t do. See with Sausha she will be getting set in her ways with me, not without me.

Rhonda is set in her ways without me. She will have to learn to satisfy me, and from her attitude just by talkin’ to her, she doesn’t seem too concerned with learning to satisfy a man. She is playing hard like she doesn’t care about a man right now. I mean after I told her that I think about her a lot, and that I would like to try and work on a relationship with her, she really gave me no response. She hasn’t been thinkin’ about me. She’s tryin’ to be all cool like “if it’s meant to be, it will be.” I don’t think Rhonda will ever get to the point of loving me like I want a woman to love me. She has probably been through it all with Parker, and now she is hardcore. This nigga had kidz while she was still with him, and bitches knockin’ at his door while she was there. So now she has a hard heart. I ain’t got time to be tryin’ to soften her heart.

You know really, I don’t know what I want to do. That is what I will tell Sausha is that I don’t know what to do. I just can’t rush into her and the kidz moving here and how we are gonna make it together. She should understand that; after all, they ain’t my kidz.

It’s the next day and I went to the talent show at Adelphi University in Long Island. There are a lot of good looking girls at Adelphi. I met up with Silvia, a girl I met there once before. She called me once but never again because she says she lost my number. I told her she stopped calling because I told her I had a daughter. She seems like she would be a lot of fun. She likes to dance. Every time I looked she was on the dance floor. She is also beautiful, to me that is. You know many people have many versions of what beautiful is. She is thick like I like. There is one problem with thickness; thickness can never have a kid because it is already on the verge of fat, and a baby will just blow that verge to being light weigh obese, and I can’t deal with obesity.

I also met this girl who says she is about to graduate and is going to graduate school because she wants to make six figures. I hope she is getting some job experience to go with all these degrees that she is trying to get. It is a whole different world out here than anyone can imagine. I’m finding that out now that I am living on my own. Maybe with an MBA in hand, she can make six figures. I don’t really like her, but I think it will be nice to talk to someone who has some real traditional plans for success not dreams like I have, and dreams like Latonia has of becoming a famous choreographer.

Today I’m going to get a view of Big Pun’s body in the Bronx. He had madd skills like an MC is supposed to. I liked him. He had a very good first album that sold platinum. His new album will probably be on some bullshit because the whole Hip Hop world is on some bullshit now tryin’ to sell a bunch of records. White people control the world, and they are controlling the Hip Hop world as well. Maybe this is not the case but I know the Hip Hop I’ve been hearing lately is not impressing me.

Swiss Beats is a good producer, but he is staying within a niche, which I hate it when producers do that; the same with DJ Premier. Everybody thinks he is like the Hip Hop producer God. He uses the same formula for everyone’s songs that he do. Sample a noise two, three times and flip the sample back and forth in a musical way over a hardcore beat. I applaud Swiss Beats for being original, be he really is not being original because it sounds like each new song is a sample of the last one.

MCs are watering down their lyrics like DMX, screaming and hollering about the same ole shit. Jay Z just free styles on the mic and he sounds like it. I’ve said it before that his first album was the best lyrically; classic lyrics! He sales two million right out the box so he doesn’t care anymore, and got the nerve to be sayin’ on some song I heard that he is still hungry. Pharoah Monch, now that is a hungry MC. He gets second runner up for best album of the year, The Roots get first both for their album and the live album.

Big Pun’s first album was a great of all time; not because he is dead, or because it went platinum, but simply because it just was. It was a real Hip Hop album mixed with a little bit of mass appeal, but not enough to distort it. For example: Busta Rhymes album “Extinction Level Event”. At the first listen I was sick with all the songs he had on it to try and grab mass appeal. He had all those bounce and party songs on it, and Bone Thugs and Harmony rap alike songs, I didn’t want to hear it again. One bounce song I can do with, but he had two or three too many. And for what? The album only sold as much as the one with “Put Your Handz Where My Eyes Can See” did, which had no bounce songs on it.

I seen Darren Lighty’s name on a song of Will Smith’s album with Kay Gee of Naughty By Nature. My frat brother says he lives next door to him. Darren could be my key to becoming a producer for real. But I bet you Cultcher is just gonna bullshit me. He probably will never talk to Darren and give him that tape I sent him, and that is even if does live next door to him. I’ll see.

Living here for seven months, I’ve discovered that New York is bullshit. You can never make enough money in this bitch. Your car gets all scratched up on the street somehow. I’m accumulating scratches little by little. You can’t drive anywhere during the day because of traffic and cabs and shit. Any outing that you may want to partake in is gonna cost you thirty to forty dollars. The bitches are bullshit: either they got a boyfriend, they scared to get to know you, or they just ignore you when you try and talk to them. They are nice to look at, but they won’t even let you get close enough in trying to get to know them to kiss em let alone fuck. Most black women in the city are busted, wearing weave thinkin’ they are cute when all they really got is a big ass and maybe tidies to go with it. But yet in still, I can’t return back to Warren, OH. If I move to Atlanta that will be too far away from my daughter. I want to maintain a relationship with her. Hell, her mom may move in a couple of years. I’ll wait and see.

I’m too timid to talk to people when I see em about me being a producer. I got to break myself from that and just start kickin’ it to whoever when I get the opportunity. I had the opportunity to talk to Biz, Lord Finesse, Grand Puba, Red Alert, U-God, Kool Keith, Big Kap; and I didn’t take advantage of none of those opportunities.

I really don’t know what I am going to do about a woman, about my money situation, about my music. I’m not confused on these subjects. It’s just that things aren’t going the way, even half the way I planned them. Then again, I didn’t plan anything really. I just moved hoping something would fall into place. Thing haven’t fallen into place, nor are about to fall apart, but the thread is coming out of the seam.