Tag: DJ Clue

Jrnl Entry No. 3.31.2003

Over the weekend, I was supposed to spend it with my girlfriend but what has been happening in the last month or so is that our weekend plans have been getting botched up into arguments and us not spending the time together. See about a month before that I went on an escapade. I wasn’t feeling Watrina at the time because it always seems as if I’m the one giving her all of the attention. I love her very much and would spend most if not all my time with her if I could. I’m always trying to be around her following her like a puppy dog, and she doesn’t mind so I guess you could say that is a good thing. She could tell me to buzz off so she could do her own thing with her friends, male or female, sexual, non-sexual, whatever. But she never complains about me being there. But on the other hand she never invites me there neither. I invite myself: go to her job and meet her and then maybe we’ll go out to eat; to spend the Saturday with her and her daughter if she is not gone with her father; to spend time or the night at my house, I always ask her for these things. She never does it on her own which makes me feel like she is not that concerned at all with spending quality time with me; she can take it or leave it, it doesn’t matter. So I said, “Fuck Watrina”! I’m not asking her shit: to spend time with her, to see her, to call her.

I was kicking it with my new buddy Metaphor “Simile” “MS” Kipperton, this rapper I met on the New York Music scene who I gave some beats to and because this girl from Youngstown Ohio where I went to college at, managed him before, paid for some of his studio time; through her, he connected with me. He is well known on the scene so he gets in all of the spots for free and most of the time, would get me in for free also, so it was all cool.   We were goin’ out on Saturday night to ”CREAM”, Sunday nights to “CLUB NV” or “TIKI ROOM”, Monday nights to “LOTUS”, Tuesday nights to SESSA”. I was actually having fun, living, which ever since I got here to New York, I haven’t been living because I’ve been too broke, paying bills, or not knowing where to go in the first place.

At this point, I had stopped paying my car note, I didn’t pay half my rent for one month because my electricity was out and my landlord didn’t seem as if he was making a strong effort to get the lights back on through electrical work that he had to have done. I also stopped paying my credit card bill which was draining me of $200 a month. So I had a little money to spend. I bought me a Mitchell and Ness throw-back basketball jersey for $325.00 to have the look of the male music industry scene in at least one outfit.

I wasn’t paying Watrina too much attention. And she didn’t seem to be making a big fuss out of it until like three weeks in, after I didn’t go to her nieces birthday party that she thought I planned on attending to meet most of her whole family and plus she had a magic show by a guy that I hooked up with and my other friend Zero was there. I didn’t go. After that weekend, she started really trying to see me but I was still like no, because every time we see each other, I have to wait around for her to do something else. I wasn’t waiting anymore. If she wanted to see me, no waiting till 10 P.M. or 12 A.M. is what I was on.

After that tirade, we got back on schedule a little, except for that the two weekends after that, we planned on spending Saturday night together, but we never did. One night she claimed she went to the Bronx to party with her friends in a hole in a wall bar and didn’t have cab fare back to Queens. The next weekend, which was actually the Friday and Saturday before this day that I’m writing this; Friday she claimed she wanted to see her daughter before she would send her off the next day to her father for a day and half. So at 10 P.M. she went home and told me to call her in an hour. I went home and shaped my hair up because I had this party in mind we could go to of another music industry friend who was promoting the party and the tickets were $20.00. I called her at 11 P.M. and she was not ready, saying that her daughter wasn’t home when she got there so she didn’t want to leave yet. And she knows that at these parties and clubs in New York, that if you don’t get on line by 12 A.M., chances are you won’t get in till 2 A.M. or later and the parties are over at 4 A.M.

So this was another case where she would have me waiting around on her when she told me she would be ready. I told her to forget it I was going by myself because I knew she was not ready. She said she thought the night was about me and her not the party? Well it was until she mentioned that we could go out, and I got all excited about going out with her looking sexy and being there for this dude because he knows a few people in the music industry and he likes some of my beats and he may manage me as a producer. I never told her that is why I really wanted to go to the party. What I was gonna do was go and get the tickets and come back and pick her up but after I bitched at her about not being ready when she told me she would, which seems like a ritual with her, she said she was out of the mood. So I went alone.

I got there at 12:30 A.M. The guy didn’t arrive with the ticket until 1:30 A.M. and then he was trying to get rid of 8 tickets outside so we didn’t go into the party until 2:30 A.M., and it was cold out there and I didn’t have on a jacket so I was kind of glad she didn’t come. The party was crowded, especially in V.I.P. where we were standing. I really wasn’t feeling it. I just went to see who in the music industry I could meet, which I met no one. It’s kind of hard to meet people in the V.I.P. section flossing with bottles of champagne; at least that is what I think, so I didn’t talk to anyone.  

The most I said to someone was to this lady goin’ in and out of the bathroom with this guy. I said to her, “you better stay outta the bathroom with that gentleman.” She laughed at me and told me, “nothing happened in there; I know him.” As if I cared if she knew him or not, like I was gonna spread rumors around the neighborhood the next day.

I stayed till the party ended. I didn’t try to talk to any women because I wasn’t there for that. Talking to women is a job, and when I got my baby Watrina at home who seems, at times, to really care about me, and other times not, I don’t need to work to talk to other bitches, especially if they ain’t that cute and classy to begin with; which there wasn’t one woman who really caught my eye for me to say anything to.

I got home at 5 A.M. I wakes up at 8 A.M. to wash my clothes and my car, and take a shower to take Watrina’s daughter Queen to dance class at Alvin Alley. I was gonna wait for dance class to be over, and Queen’s father was getting her from there, and I was gonna spend the whole day and night with Watrina. When I went to pick her up, she claims she was ready but she took 10 minutes to get down stairs, which also seems like a ritual when it comes to me and she knows I hate that. I called her 8:30 A.M. and she said she would be ready at 9:45 A.M. But when the time came I was still washing my clothes and my car so I told her I’d be there at 10 A.M. I left my house at like 10:07 A.M. get to her house at 10:11 A.M. and she didn’t get downstairs till like 10:20 A.M. I thought she left and got a cab, which would have made me more heated because at times, she isn’t ready for her daughter’s 10:30 A.M. dance class and we don’t leave until 10:40 A.M., but she couldn’t wait on me? But she did wait on me and when she finally came to the door, I says in a comical way, “I was just getting ready to be like forget you, and leave.” She didn’t smile or nothing, just looked at me like I was stupid and got in the car. She continued to have this stupid look on her face as if she had an attitude with me but wasn’t gonna discuss it with me. So I say to her, “I don’t like your attitude.” I didn’t drive off either, so she says, “what, you want me to get out and take a cab?” I didn’t say nothing but again, “I don’t like your attitude.” She got out the car and took her daughter to take a cab, and I left.

I was ready for a joyous day with her and she gets into my car with a gas face. I just drove off and went home and went to sleep. Around 1 P.M. I woke up and got dressed, went and got my coat out the cleaners, and put my suit, which Watrina made for me, into the cleaners. I drove back home and was gonna go upstairs but I just sat in the car because I really didn’t want to do that. After 5 minutes or so of sitting there thinking where I could go, it hit me to go to Barnes and Nobles on 66th street in Manhattan and read Russel Simmon’s book “LIFE and DEF”. So I drove to the train station, put on my jacket and took the train there. I got the book and sat down and started reading it. I sat there for like two hours steady reading. It was an interesting read because I am a Hip Hop Head who loves Russel Simmons.

After about two hours, I purchased the book and went over to Tower Records to buy Norah Jones’ “Come Away With Me” and 50 Cent’s “Get Rich or Die tryin’” albums. I already heard the 50 album because it was Hip Hop. But Norah Jones won like 10 Grammys for this album and she and 50 had been battling for the number one Billboard top 200 chart spot ever since the Grammys were televised. I knew of Norah Jones’ hit single and I liked it, hoped the whole album would sound like that. I saw the price was $12.77 and 50 was $13.99 so I bought both of them. I really didn’t want to buy 50 since I already had a good bootleg CD copy at home. But I figured, if I’m gonna buy Norah and support her and I don’t even know what this album is, what type of music it is or nothing; I better get 50, the hottest Hip Hop album out of a New York MC since Biggie Smalls “Ready To Die.”

After I left the record store, I went to Houston’s maybe hoping to see Watrina there since she said she wanted to go there; maybe catch her with a date or something because the last like 5 weekends had not been spent with me, and the night before she was acting very suspicious about her phone and me using it and maybe checking her voicemail messages. I got to Houston’s and didn’t see Watrina. I ordered dinner, during with the appetizer I started reading Russel’s book some more, and then after dinner, waiting on them to take my plate and bring my check, I read some more. I left the restaurant and went home and put the Norah Jones album in and started to read some more.

It was like 10 P.M. The Norah Jones album was light blues, and the whole album was like that single, “Don’t Know Why.” The music was light and her light voice over the light melodies and drums was a very relaxing listen. I didn’t hear the words, just the music and her voice. I’ve listened to the album like 8 times and I still don’t know half of what she is saying on none of the songs. But I could see why America is going crazy over that album. First, it’s the music and her voice. Second, if you listen closely to the lyrics, it’s blues-like and I heard a few of the lyrics and I understand why people are crazy for it. I know music of all genres, trust me, and she deserves every one of those Grammys she got.

So at this point around 10:45 P.M., I called Watrina for the third time of the day to smooth things over to see if she would come to my house for the night. She didn’t answer her cell phone. I figured because she was mad at me and also she was going out by herself, with girlfriends or a male. She didn’t call me back neither.

After realizing that I’d read over half of Russel’s book, I put it down, shut my ringer off my phone and went to bed because I was tired from only getting like 4 hours of sleep that whole night and day before. The Russel book told the story I already knew about starting Def Jam, RUN DMC, PHAT FARM, DEF COMEDY JAM, ending the distribution deal with Sony, signing with Polygram, Lyor Cohen, Russel’s model dating. What I didn’t know was that he took drugs like he did. He gave a few business pointers, life pointers, race pointers, etc.

I got up the next day and put the Norah Jones album on again and cleaned up my apartment. I still had my phone ringer off because I was mad that Watrina hadn’t spent the night with me. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. Eventually around 1 P.M. I turned my ringer on and went about my daily business. I went back to sleep, I got up and got dressed, did some push-ups and sit-ups. I started to cook some steak and potatoes and green beans for myself. I also started to read the Russel book some more.

Now this whole day I was contemplating just breaking up with Watrina because it’s been three years and we have been going through this shit the whole time. It’s really getting tired and old, and I just want to stop the relationship because it seems like all we do, every other weekend is be mad about something. Finally after finishing the book, finishing eating, I decided to call Watrina to talk to her and smooth over this rough edge of a weekend we had. All day I had been thinking about not calling her at all but I broke down.

See what I mean, I’m always the one, making all the effort to call, to spend time together, etc. I called her and asked her, “what are you thinking about me right now?” She had nothing to say. I was looking for her to say, that either she loved and missed me or she wants to break up. She said nothing. So we started going into the weekend issue and she had a little sass and chutzpah in her voice and speech. Let me tell you, “if a bitch is being hard with you and edgy, and unsympathetic, it says that she is tired of the situation or that she is tired of the situation and on top of that, she is fucking someone else.”  

Watrina hasn’t spent really good quality time with me in a month and the last two weekends, she has disappeared on me. At the end of the conversation, because she didn’t say that she wanted to break up, I said, “forget it, drop it. I want to see you.” She said she had to braid her daughter’s hair and she would call me back and didn’t know if she would see me or not. An hour and a half later, after she was in the bed half sleep, she called me. She tells me that she is not coming over because she should have been over last night; like that was all my fault. I called her three times during the day and she never answered her phone and didn’t call me later that night. So I bid her a good night and hung up the phone on her ear slightly. I tried to call her back 10 minutes later to tell her I was trying to smooth things over and she was playing games of you-did, who-did. I called her like 7 times and she didn’t pick up the phone, playing games, but of course she is gonna tell me that she was sound asleep in 10 minutes after getting off the phone with me knowing that I was angry at her for not wanting to come over. So I left her a message that, “this relationship is over! What is wrong with trying to smooth things over by spending some time together and forgetting about Friday and Saturday, and you fucked that up on Sunday. Fuck You! I’m going out to find me another bitch to fuck since you don’t want to come over.”

I went to the TIKI ROOM and chilled; met Metphor and Zero there. I was pollyin’ about music, not concerned about bitches. I met this guy who I’d been looking at for a month now who looks like he is in the music industry. Turns out he is down with DJ CLUE and Dessert Storm and works in the Sony building down the block from where I work. I met this female “Combination” whom I’d seen around at Justin’s Restaurant on Tuesday Industry Nights, and other places like two years prior, and Metaphor said she was a rapper. I met this other guy whose face I always recognize. He managed Uncle Sam, a fallen-off R&B Singer, and a few other groups or singers who have all fallen off. I left around 2:45 A.M. drunk off Hennessy and Grand Marnier.

My mind was still made up that I’d broken up with Watrina. I called her when I woke up at 7:30 A.M. to tell her that I’m bringing her leather she bought to make me a leather suit, and her mother’s plate. She tells me to bring it later. I told her I was bringing it now. She asked, “is it that serious?” I said “Yeah, it’s that serious!” She obviously hadn’t gotten my message. When I got to her house I asked had she gotten it. She said yes, not to argue in front of her father. I told her to her face, “this relationship is over, it’s no good.” She nodded her head, handed me the stuff she’d bought for my daughter from the GAP and I left. It was over in my mind. When I got to work, she called at 10 A.M. telling me that she is coming over my house tonight, so I’m just gonna have to let her in because she is gonna be there. I told her, “don’t come and I’m not saying it’s alright because I’m not gonna do like you, always say something and then don’t do it or be late doing it.” She hung up because she was entering the train station. She called me later saying, “we shouldn’t break up. We have a nice family, and we get along together.” All of which is true, even the part about us not breaking up. I love what we have, truly, but it seems that she doesn’t love it as much as I do, or maybe I don’t love as much as I say I do because we keep having these bullshit arguments, I’m tired of them and I want out! She wants to take some time apart but still be together. I don’t believe in that shit because if you need time apart, stay apart, which we can’t seem to make it together, so maybe we should be apart.

Jrnl Entry No. 9.28.2002

My girlfriend Watrina told me that I gave her a little STD. I don’t understand how because I have had no symptoms of an STD. I guess it is possible since I’m fuckin Carol Ann, Coffee and Haitie from the bank all raw. I hate condoms. I’ve been fuckin Carol Ann for a year and half now so it didn’t come from her unless the last time she visited her fiancé in LA, he gave it to her. It could have come from Coffee most likely. She is a homeless chick from what I know, always moving around a lot. I shouldn’t be fuckin’ her. I don’t call her, but every time she calls me I go and get her. I just can’t turn down pussy if there is nothing else to do. I guess I’m a sex addict. I could have gotten it from Haitie. She was adamant about me using a condom which means she either does it with condoms all the time, or she knew she had a little bug and didn’t want me to catch it. I’d slip the condom off on her and she wouldn’t even know it. We fucked about two three times. She wouldn’t let me get wild in the ass because she wasn’t comfortable yet and her pussy wasn’t used to me. We stopped talking because she sensed that I had a girlfriend and I broke off a couple of dates with her. She wants a nigga to be there at her every beck and call and I wasn’t because I had a girlfriend.

So I took the prescription that my girlfriend gave me and then what did I do? I went and slept right back with Carol Ann and Coffee in the same night, raw. So now I got to continue to use condoms with my girlfriend, which she wants to until she goes back to the doctor. Then I have to go to the doctor to see if I have anything and then if I do, I have to tell Carol Ann and Cofffee to go to the doctor. It shouldn’t be a problem with either of them. Carol Ann doesn’t know if her fiancé is not sleeping with anyone so she shouldn’t have any questions. Coffee is fucking other people and keeps trying to tell me that she is pregnant. She wants either me or a child support check; neither of which she will get from me. Not because I won’t pay or I’ll disappear, but for reasons that only I know and will never tell if I haven’t told already.

I told Watrina to move in with me but she refuses. If she was there, I wouldn’t be able to fuck these other women. Like Coffee called me at 1 A.M. the other night to come over and I went and got her. I tried to use a condom with her but she wouldn’t let me. Carol Ann got her own place again so I could sneak over her house after work or something if I wished, but I probably wouldn’t if I lived with Watrina.

I really love Watrina. She is a beautiful, sexy, ambitious young lady and all that is a good combination. She treats me very well, better than anybody with the exception of Rebecca. I hope I don’t get busted in all this outside fuckin’ that I’m doin and that we stay together. She is it. And if there is an after her, I’m chillin’ the next time around, just fuckin’, no love unless a bitch is beautiful and has a bright future ahead of her and she wants love.

I got a CD burner now so I don’t have to depend on Medeline to make my beat CDs. I plan on putting like 10 songs on a CD at a time and selling them mix tape style for $10 a pop like DJ Clue. Nobody does that so I hope it comes off and maybe some of my beats will get picked up like that to be on professional albums. I’m now in the process of putting snippets of every song I’ve ever done on a CD. With my next tape, I’ll put the full length songs on a CD.

What is life bringing me, I don’t know? I’m tired of the unknown, but still I’m goin’ slowly and with less fire than before, but I haven’t quit. I’m gonna go until I reach age – and if nothing by then, I’ll go back to school if I’m still working as an accountant, to go and get my MBA. And that is my life plan. I don’t know what else to do. Watrina says I need to be an A&R but you can’t just pop up and be that. A&Rs start as interns; or they get hooked up through friends which I have none in the music industry. She says I should go to some modeling agencies during lunch because I look good. But I don’t have any pictures. She has a $500 camera but hasn’t taken any pictures of me. She took some last year but won’t give them to me to take to agencies because she says they aren’t good pictures.

I don’t know man. I’m trying to talk Watrina into buying this house that my cousin is selling in Ohio. It’s only like $15,000 at most and it already has tenants and all we’d have to do is be landlords and collect $300 a month rent, which will turn into income when the house is paid off. Real Estate is a little plan of mine if I ever get my hands on some money. I’m trying to save a little money now, $25 a paycheck for emergencies or whatever if an emergency never comes up. I’ve been paying my car note like every other month since I’m already classified as late because I won’t pay the $53 a month insurance fee they tacked on when I dropped my insurance about two years ago. That is how I’m livin’. I’m kind of on edge but fuck it, what can I do? Watrina is optimistic about the future, which is another reason why I love her. If I didn’t have her I probably wouldn’t be in New York right now. I don’t even think she knows how much I love and need her right now.

Jrnl Entry No. 4.19.2001 “Rufus Blaq”

Sunday April 15, 2001 coming home from Hezikiah Walker’s church in East New York Brooklyn, I got off the A train at Nostrand Ave. I got off the train in pursuit of this female that was giving me a little eye contact on the train. She was completely not my type but at this point in time with no girlfriend, no sex, no nothing, I figured I’d lift myself up and go for it regardless of the fact. See, she got on the train with three kids. She was thick/fat with some big ole tidies. She started saying to the kids as she noticed me glancing at her, “y’all ready to go home and see mommy huh?” I took it as she was giving me the hint that these weren’t her kids, which if that was what she was doing, it was a good hint. At this point in my life, I don’t care how horny I am or how fine you look, if you got more than one kid, you gets no holla from me.

But anyway, I get off the train and follow her, but I decided not to talk to her. I’ve never been around Nostrand Ave and Fulton before and I noticed that it was like the old 125th st in Harlem that my friends and I used to visit from Ohio. So I goes looking around for a little bit. After about 10 minutes of walking around I stopped at a store before I was getting ready to catch the train to go home. As I get in line at the store, I see this guy who looked familiar to me. I hesitated a little, and then I shouted out “Rufus.” It was Rufus Moore AKA Rufus Blaq.

Now this kid from Youngstown, Ohio I met years ago when he and his dance crew “Eazy Access” used to perform at local talents shows in Warren. They could never compete because they were like professionals and everybody loved them. And when my fraternity used to throw parties on the college campus in Youngstown, he and his crew would always be there. I’d always big-up (sat whats up to) Rufus and the crew and they’d do the same in return. Rufus was also cool with Derrick “Dink” Trimble (R.I.P.), my frat brother. They kind of resembled each other and Rufus would say that Dink was his brother.

Now I remember at one party Rufus was coming in with his crew and they stopped to talk with me and some of my Frat brothers. Rufus said that he was about to move to Atlanta “to become famous.” Those were his exact words. I didn’t exactly know what he had planned on doing because I only knew him as a dancer. So I kind of thought he was gonna try to become a dancer/choreographer for videos and tour shows. So anyway, he disappeared and the crew told us that he moved to Atlanta. About a year later, I saw him at this after hours hang out spot in Youngstown on Market Street. He got on the microphone on top of the bar and he free-styled a nice rhyme for the crowd. He told me that he had written a song for Erick Sermon on some sound track. I think he also told me at that time that he had a record deal with Giant Records. I was like “cool.”

He went away again and about a year later, I seen him on a video with Pudgy The Fat Bastard and Young Zee doing a remix for the group “SOLO” and their song “I Got Heaven Right Here On Earth.” I thought to myself that his album should be following shortly. I had also heard a DJ CLUE mixtape with this LOX song on it, and the last verse, this cat sounded like Rufus. I could never talk to anyone who knew him and what he was doing so I couldn’t verify that it was him. He had made it into the Hip Hop record business. I was happy, never one to hate on anyone for accomplishing something. In fact I was also glad because I knew him and could probably talk to him about the music business since I had been interest in it also.

His album never came out on Giant Records. I thought he was coming out on So So Def Records because there was an ad in the source with all the So So Def artist listed, and one of the artist on there was Mr. Black. That was the name I heard Rufus call himself on the intro of the “I Got Heaven Right Here On Earth” song video, and since he had moved to Atlanta, it made perfect sense. About a year later, I saw him in Warren at this talent show after party at the Regency Hotel. I wanted to talk to him and get his number and ask him some questions about the business but it was in a loud party so we chatted about whatever. By this time I had discovered that the So So Def artist was not him and I asked him how is that gonna work in the business with both of them having the same name. He told me whoever comes out first or whoever rocks the hardest will be Mr. Black. I also asked him about the LOX song and I recited this lyric of his, “Is you doin the stickin or is you gettin’ stuck / Is you doin’ the fuckin’ or is you gettin’ fucked.” He told me that it was him. He gave me his number in Columbus, Ohio where he was staying at the time. I tried to call him a couple of times. I think I talked to him once.

About two years later after that, I gets a call on my voice-mail service at my moms house and it’s him tellin’ me that he was gonna be on the Vibe Show that night with Salt & Pepa. I don’t know if he was just happy and called everyone he knew or was I special somehow? So I watched and taped the show and he was on there with Salt & Pepa and he had a verse on their new song “Are You Ready”.  A couple weeks later, I seen the video and he was in it. About three/four months after that I heard a song on the radio by Salt & Pepa called “Gitty Up´ and he was on it at the beginning of the song. I knew it was him. I knew his voice. And then I saw the video for it and he was in it. He was on, and I all I wondered to myself was HOW? How did he do this, get with the leading super star ladies in rap, legends, Salt & Pepa?

After about a year after that Salt & Pepa debut of his, he had a single out called “Out of Sight.” I saw the video for it. I liked the song. It had a catchy hook to it. It wasn’t exactly hard core Hip Hop like I hoped it to be but hey, that is the way the music industry was moving in that time, away from hard core which didn’t sell that well, to the mainstream trying to sell platinum. At initial listen, I didn’t like the album. For one it had like three remake beats on it, and I hate remake beats especially the kind that they were using at that time. The greatest of all time remake beat, ever in Hip Hop was The Isley Brothers “Between The Sheets.” For two, he wasn’t flexin’ skill like I knew he could because I’d seen him rap before. And what was on his album was not what I expected from him. I just listened to the album the other day, which was called “Credentials”. All except for those remake songs, I liked it. He had a few hard core beats on there but he wasn’t flippin the skill like I’d known him to do. Maybe his producer Chad Elliot was against it.

So now, I ran into Rufus in the store and he gave me his numbers. Prior to running into him in the store I had asked for his number from one of my frat brother’s producers Pace Maker. He wouldn’t give me Rufus’s number, which I understood. He told me that he had to check with Rufus first. It’s been a year and he still hasn’t been able to check with Rufus about me getting his number. Technically, he didn’t know if I knew Rufus or not, and it seems as if he was not trying to find out either.

Now I’ve spoken with Pace Maker on many occasions about Hip Hop, about my beats, about his beats, and about my Frat Brother Stephen “The Fat Rapper” Collins’ Hip Hop career. I met Pace once in the studio in Ohio when they were recording one of The Phat Rapper’s songs. I thought him to be a cool cat and I liked him. We (him, me and Stephen) went out to eat after we left the studio that one night. I sent Pace some of my beats to get some critique on them and he did the same. He didn’t like but two or three of the thirty song snippets I sent him. I liked about six of the fifteen/twenty snippets he sent me. I think he is a talented producer, who if I had an album coming out, I’d rock to one of his tracks. I’ve written lyrics to two snippets on the tape he sent me. Outside of Stephen not letting me produce a song for him, and Pace not wanting me to produce a song for Stephen neither, I thought we had a pretty cool connection; until I ran into Rufus that is.

Rufus told me that Pace was in New York recording a song that he produced for Angie Stone through Rufus’s hook-up. Now if this is true, Pace came to New York and didn’t try in no kind of way to get in touch with me so that I could kick it with him and Rufus. And just before I bumped into Rufus, I had e-mailed Pace to talk to him since I hadn’t e-mailed him in a while. He said he hadn’t talked to Rufus in a while, that Rufus was a busy man and he still hadn’t asked Rufus if he could give me his numbers or give Rufus mine. So finding out he came to town and didn’t even try to holla at me tells me that we do not have a cool connection. It also led me to think that Pace is trying to keep me away from Rufus because he knows Rufus is well connected in the music industry and wants to keep all the hook ups for himself as a producer and not let me get any hook ups through Rufus. So until I find out different, I ain’t fuckin with Pace no more. And I ain’t tellin him that I finally got in touch with Rufus. My last test to find if Pace was really here is to ask Rufus Manager was he here. She’s straight up and will straight tell me. I asked both her and her boyfriend who was also Rufus manager and they confirmed that Pace had indeed been to town; a snake fake mutha fucka who doesn’t want you around because that may lessen an opportunity for him in the future; crab in a barrel ass nigga.

So, I gets in touch with Rufus and what is Rufus doing at this time? He’s writing R&B songs for this production company to submit to labels, mainly J Records, which has a little (well A LOT) to do with Clive Davis after he got let go from Arista Records. I called Rufus about three or four days after I had his number and left a message on his voice mails telling him how lonely I was and needed some friends, some women, etc. He calls me later that night around 11 P.M. while I was working on a Hip Hop track and he tells me to come to this studio.

I get there at 245 Canal St b/n Centre and Layfayette. He plays me this song he wrote called “Blowin’ It.” It was a nice song and he had a rap verse on it. He played a few more songs for me and they sounded nice also. Rufus told me that’s all he does is write songs by day, record them by night in the studio. He tells me about the production company, Ark Angel Productions and the camp there of rappers and singers that he’s bringin’ in. He listened to a few of my beats and said that I could produce a few songs for his artist, “Stack”. He heard a lot of weak stuff though because at this time I was tired with music and wasn’t making much and I wasn’t carrying around beat tapes anymore. Like the previous year, I wouldn’t leave the house without a tape in my hand.

Rufus said that I could be a part of the family because I was his friend who showed him love way before he was an artist on any label or signed to any production company and because he has mad love for my Frat Bro. Derrick “Dink” Trimble (R.I.P.). Being in the frat will help in the short or long term. If I hadn’t joined the frat, Dink wouldn’t be my frat bro. I wouldn’t have been able to talk and poly with Rufus before the parties started. He never would have looked up to me, which I think he did because I was an Alpha and a college student; thus, he probably wouldn’t have been and wouldn’t be accepting me as someone trying to be his friend, and trying to slowly get him to get me into this music game with him.

Rufus was like the best dancer in the group I recall. Kehl was also the man, and Ferino did weird shit on the dance floor. I liked them all because they were little somebodies. Like I said before, I’d always try to be cool and surround myself with people who had a quality about themselves. Rufus and Eazy Access had that quality. Rufus has, as far as I can tell, accepted me as his friend and into his music family. I’m goin’ over to his apartment today after work.

Rufus has projects goin’ for Angie Stone’s new album; Blaque’s new album; Salt’s new album; and Olivia, who’s signed to J Records, her debut album. He had the girl who sang the hook on the QB “Ooochi Wally” song, in the studio, and they banged out a nice song together. He writes these R&B songs with that hype-ness and energy that he used to put into his freestyle rhymes that I expected to be on his “Credentials” album. He’s definitely goin’ places with this music and will be plenty paid through a publishing deal very soon if not sooner. I told him the music money doesn’t matter to me. I don’t want your money, and I won’t pressure you to put me on in this music game. I love being around the music and I’m thankful just to be able to come to the studio and watch niggaz work on new songs. I told him that I was happy for him and will never hate or be jealous of him because of what he has that I don’t have. Rufus is a very down to earth artist and I hope our friendship can grow stronger and more personal and musically as well. Whether he knows it or not, I admire him for jumping from Youngstown, Ohio down to Atlanta, back up to New York and actually made it somewhere in this music maze. He’s already done what I’ve set out to do by leaving Warren, Ohio to be here in New York. I also, just as I always have, admire his talent. I’m not religious so I can’t say that it was divine intervention that I bumped into him and I think he’s a good friend to have. He’ s currently being faithful to his girlfriend of three years, Aiesha, not to say he ever cheated on her because I don’t know that. They just had a daughter, and Aiesha is still bangin’ as far as looks and body go. He believes in God and just wants a happy life with is family and music. Through my wishes, may he be blessed with all he’s been working for all these years and more because I want every black man to succeed in whatever it is he wants to succeed in, and I would hope that every black man would want the same for me.

HAVE YOU EVER HAD A FRIEND OR ASSOCIATE THAT MADE IT INTO SHOW BIZ?

Jrnl Entry No. 7.27.2001

Well what is there in my life right now? I have put the smack down on Watrina and let her know that if she really likes me, she better quit with this “just friends” shit, and stop talkin’ to other niggaz on her cell phone while I am right there with her.

I just completed my resume cover letter to send out to some record companies. I’m trying to get a job at J-Records, Clive Davis’s company. This guy Clive is going crazy. He has like five acts out, all R&B, at the same time and they are all doing well: O-Town is platinum, Jimmy Cozier who has a hot song on the radio. Busta Rhymes Flip Mode Entertainment is gonna be distributed by J-Records. Now with all this activity going on, they need accountants hopefully, and I want in. I think that job would be the answer to some of my problems right now, or a job at a label that I am familiar with and know a little something about that has a Hip Hop and R&B department.

My job just frustrates me more and more each day. I have been given the warning that if my performance doesn’t improve, I’ll be fired. I think they are gonna end up firing me because I have no interest in this place and building materials. The people here are not people I can relate to: Italians, a gay guy, a Hindu Indian, another gay guy who tries to talk like he understands black language to a certain degree, a Jewish man, an Irish man, and a Spanish Columbian girl. I don’t give a fuck about communicating with none of these muthafuckaz. And as I’ve written, we pretty much don’t communicate, don’t even speak.  

My daughter went on strike talking to me for like a week and a half. She wouldn’t talk on the phone to me twice when I called. I called like three times the next week and she wasn’t there over her grandmother and grandfather’s house because I suppose she and her mother have been spending time at their new house as Janelle calls it. Victoria called me and let Janelle talk. I asked her for her phone number and address since it was becoming apparent that she just wasn’t forking over the information without me asking for it. She said, “you’ll get it.” I’m like can I have it now? So she gave me the phone number. That’s all I need for right now because I ain’t got nothing to send her in the mail. I don’t know what the hell Victoria thinks I want from her. My daughter sounds older and older each time I talk to her. It’s a joyful noise when I get her on the phone. I love it and I try to keep her talking to me as long as possible asking her questions, and her only answer is, “I don’t know.”

I told Watrina that I don’t plan on having any more kids. She asked me, “If you and I were to get married, you wouldn’t want to have a kid with me?’ I told her that I can’t afford it financially or emotionally, another split up with a child of mine. Things go bad, it’s all fucked up and I ain’t takin’ another chance with another kid, of me and the mother not ending up together. I think personally that a lot of women have kids for all the wrong reasons; some even have kids by a well-to-do gentleman just to get a child support check. It will never happen to me again. NEVER!

I just got off the phone with Watrina. She wants to come and see me when I get home from work. I told her that I didn’t want to see her with red hair that she got put in her head to go to Jamaica. I told her I don’t like weave. I don’t like weave. I will not approach a woman with weave in her hair. I cannot see myself falling in love with a woman who does not have her natural hair unless I compromise, or it looks really natural. And even still, I will crack on it till the end of time. You can’t run your fingers through that shit or rub it, nothing. I’m about to stop telling people that Watrina is my girl and just refer to her as “this bitch I’m fuckin’ with”; because we really ain’t got too much serious going on at least not on her part. She likes me but she ain’t thinkin’ on the level I’m on right now about relationships. She’s a nice girl, but she ain’t lookin’ for what I want so whatever is gonna be with us will just be.

My life is a big ass question right now. Will I find my wife? Will I get on in this music game? Will I stay in New York for much longer? Will I find a job that I’ll take serious and excel at, particularly at a record label? Watrina mentioned to me that she doesn’t understand how people say that they are searching for a wife or husband, you just meet that person. I started to explain to her that she was that person to have: intelligence, security, stable, good looks (maybe), good sex (maybe), etc. You search for a person who has as many of those qualities as possible. Or you want a person who just comes into your life on a humbug and you get into a relationship with them, to have those qualities. If a person doesn’t have the qualities that you want in a mate, you two are not gonna make it.

As to the question of how much longer will I stay in New York, I don’t know. I’m thinking of making a career change to Jr. High School math teacher. I think I would like to do something like that, but I don’t know if I’m gonna stay in New York permanently because you can’t make it here unless you are rich or very well paid. It seems as if I will not get very well paid as an accountant. And everybody says that teachers are underpaid, but yet when I was in school, they all drove new cars. New York is the pits: expensive, unsociable, crowded. Those three things make this not a very nice place to be trying to make a living in. I’m just barely surviving right now here.

Watrina has an idea to start a denim manufacturing company. I told her I’d try and help her collect information and help in any way I can. Hopefully she’s serious and we really do this. That could be my ticket to financial freedom. Financial freedom only comes through working independently for yourself.; working for someone else if that someone is a friend of yours or they just like your work ethic will also get you somewhere. But for the most part, working for someone else, you’ll be working hard and getting really no recognition for your work. I just thought of an idea to start a Hip Hop and R&B Distribution company. I wonder what would it take to get that off the ground. This thought is only coming as a result of Watrina’s idea to start a clothing manufacturing company. She’s in the fashion industry and I love the music industry that I just can’t seem to get a piece of. It is right here in my face, but I can’t grab a hold to it and pull myself in, and it seems as if no one else wants to pull me in neither.

I still got Windexter on my mind. He is friends with DJ Clue’s manager and the A&Rs who will be working out of Desert Strom Records. I’m about to sell my soul to get into this music business. I came up with the idea just to break the ice that I should sell my tracks for $5,000 off the books for a track on an album that sells platinum at a royalty rate of $.05; that is cheating myself out of $45,000. But no one is gonna pay a no name, no hit Hip Hop producer $50,000 so I got to do what I got to do to get in this game.

There is this BET/BILLBOARD Hip Hop & R&Bsummit at the Hilton Hotel on the 6th Ave Aug 28 – Aug 30 2001. It cost $500 for registration so I won’t be registering to get in to attend any events. I’ll probably just go and hang outside. I know madd kids is gonna be out there rapping and shit. Maybe I’ll pick up an artist that I can work with to rhyme over my songs that I’ve produced. I’m working on this banging joint right now. It was initially supposed to be called the Harlem Shake, but it’s too slow to be a Harlem Shake dance song. I need Tilly to play toms over it for me. It’s gonna come out dope, just another song to put in my vault for nobody to listen to. Maybe one day I’ll stop but no time soon, and then again, maybe I’ll never stop. I’ll just continue to make songs all my life just as something to do in my spare time even if I never get on as a producer.

Me and Watrina are supposed to starting working out in the morning at the track in Astoria Park over by where we live. I really didn’t want to do this because I have to be up at 6 A.M. running around a track and doing push-ups and sit-ups and shit. But then I thought it would be a great way for us to expand our relationship and get closer by spending more time together. My frat brother Mortier Maison said he went and worked out with his wife the morning after he met her and they ended up married. So I figured I’d give it a try. Watrina is falling for me more and more each day I think. But then again, this is New York and bitches and niggaz got games for ya ass. So where as I think she is being sincere, she could just be spending time with me for something to do and not really liking me at all, just a fling. In my case, I like her so I’m just flowing with the flow. You know I love my damn self so if she flakes out on me, I’ll be alright regardless.

But sometimes I wonder am I a fool. It seems as if I have been trying to get a woman and make her mine for me to marry in the future ever since I was about 23 years old. There was Lauren whom I thought I loved and wanted to try and spend the rest of my life with. Then there was Victoria who ended up pregnant and I was thinking maybe she could be the one. Then there was Sausha who was very nice and I loved her the most, more than the two up above. She was just behind me as far as life goes; no gainful employment skills, no college education. She wasn’t willing to follow me along to NY to try and live my dream partly because she couldn’t and maybe also partly because she didn’t want to, and maybe partly on my part not wanting her to also. Now I have Watrina whom I think is very nice, considerate, doesn’t seem to be a dumb materialistic girl like a lot of NY black people are. I am thinking that we could last awhile. I seem to think this about these women, but two years later it seems to end for some reason or another. What is it in me that wants to have a steady woman? Why don’t I want to be a player? Maybe it’s a result of aids and the fact that I hate sex with a condom. Maybe I’m just a sucka for love.

All of life’s little questions, or rather my life questions. I ain’t got the answers. I ain’t searching for them too hard neither, or maybe I am which is why I feel depressed and down sometimes. I wish my life would all come together: money, one woman who I love and she loves me, nice house, nice care, nice investment for the future. Maybe one woman is the start to all the rest that I think will give me piece of mind I don’t know.

Jrnl Entry No. 10.20.2000

The year 2000 has come and is just about gone. I have sat and looked at everyone living their dreams and accomplishing their goal. Suga Shane Moseley, Marion Jones, Maurice Green, David Justice, Lenny Krazleburg, DMX, Rock Wilder, etc. I look at these people, happy for them that they have achieved what they wanted to achieve. I wonder as I look at them, how did they achieve it? Well, there seemed to be some type of forum for most of these people. Take Marion Jones for example. She decided she was going to run track instead of play basketball. She trained hard every day in practice. When national championship or Olympic trials came around, due to her training, she won the necessary races, and boom, she’s a star. In the Olympics, she won gold in the 100 meter sprint. Now endorsements will come her way offering her millions to advertise a product. She’s set for life. David Justice, who knows when he decided to start playing baseball, but he decided some time in his life. He eventually probably played for a minor league team, and then got picked up to the majors. Now he is going to the World Series for like the third or fourth time in his career. He has hit two major home runs in his career to either win his team the World Series or get them into the World Series.

The point I’m trying to make is that for people like Marion Jones and Suga Shane Moseley, there is or was a forum for them to contend in. After so many contentions, if you win most of them, you will be the star. For me, there is really no forum that I can hop into. I want to be a Hip Hop producer. There are many Hip Hop producers out there now like DJ Premier and Pete Rock and Rock Wilder who are stars in the game. As I look at them, I wonder to myself, how did they get there? There is not a place where producer can go and play their beats against other producer’s beats, and whoever is judged to be the best gets to produce a song on an album that is sure to go platinum, and net you, at the least, depending on your deal, $80,000.

I’ve heard that in this forum of Hip Hop artist and producers that you have to know somebody in order to get in. If you know nobody, how do you get to know somebody? Everybody you meet, like I met Dazon of Murder Inc. one night at Club Cheetah; if I’d told him I was a producer, he would have paid no attention to that. How, how, how is my question. I can make the hottest song of this century, but if I know no one to get it into the ears of someone connected in the music industry, my song is useless. It’s not the same as for a basketball player who starts in Jr. High School, then plays in High School, then to college. If he has built his skills to perfection, he has a chance at getting picked to play in the NBA. All while he is in college he is watched by NBA scouts who will either get him picked in the NBA, or if he is no good, he won’t be picked.

Some may think I want this Hip Hop thing to happen overnight for me. I’ve told the story of my Hip Hop yearning which started 13 years ago. I’ve got Demo tapes. I’ve been producing beats in my head for years with no outlet to get them into real sound form. Now I have equipment to make the beats in my head real. Now I’m in New York where everything happens, but where do I go from here? There used to be a lyricist lounge spot in the early 90s where MCs could showcase their talent. A few MCs like Mos Def, Rah Digga, Talib Kweli have come to be where they are today because of this forum. Now there seems to be no forum especially for underground Hip Hop. The industry is killing underground Hip Hop, which is what I have loved from the beginning of my interest in this shit. Now, if you don’t sell a million or 500,000 with your first album, the label drops you. Back in the 80s, MCs like Kool G Rap and the Gangstarr group had 3 albums, none of which sold gold, but they were still in the game with a recording contract.

So the market for my production is getting slimmer and slimmer by the day and year. No one wants to give a new comer a chance. That seems to be the way it is but yet in still, it is not that way. How did MCs like Roc Marciano get into the Flipmode Squad? How did the producer Jay Dee get to be doing songs for and a part of a production team with A Tribe Called Quest? How did the MC Consequence get to be featured on A Tribe Called Quest Beats Rhymes and Life album? That was also the album that featured Jay Dee as a producer, so maybe Tribe just said “we are gonna let others shine on this album.”

To me it seems to be luck of the draw. I don’t know where to go to meet MCs or producers or artist for that matter to showcase my skills. Everybody says go to the Fat Beats store in the village. This place is a record store, not a lounge or a club. I went there one Saturday and I met two producers. I got their numbers and called one of them, but he never returned my call.

I’m thinking of starting a Bonny and Clyde group, or a group of girls because the industry has nothing like that. But even if I start this group, how will we get in with the industry or showcase our skills? How do I find a manager? I guess I could start asking people these questions. And maybe that is the key, a manager. Pay someone 20% of what I make because I know no one and they know everyone or someone who I’ll maybe never have a chance of knowing that could get one of my songs out to be heard by the people. There could be a chance that I could do it by myself, but I think that chance is very slim. You hand people a Demo tape of you, and they never listen to it, or they never get back to you.

Maybe my stuff is no good enough. I don’t know. All I do know is that this situation is depressing me. But I’m stuck because I believe in myself and I don’t want to go anywhere else. I believe it can happen because it has happened for so many people: Teddy Riley, Pete Rock, Premier, GURU, DJ Mark The 45 King, Marley Marl, DJ Clue. Wait a god damn minute; all the people accept for two are life-long New York residence. I’m from Ohio. Maybe that is the problem. Maybe there is no problem at all. I’m searchin’ for answers. I’m searching for direction in this journey; peace of mind with it.

Try god, is what you say huh? I tried him when I was younger. I prayed so long, I became an atheist. I prayed and prayed for a record contract, but still to this day, I have seen no record contract nowhere in sight. Jay Z confessed that he was a criminal before he became a star. But yet in still, he became a star. I’ve been a fairly good boy all my life, and I have not received one big dream. Well, maybe one, which was to get a Honda scooter when I was 13 years old. I got it and that was probably one of the happiest moments of my life before my daughter was born. Janelle being born was a happy moment which has turned grim because I have to go to court to see her like I want.

I guess I have been blessed as people say. I’ve been blessed with a college education, a job, a new car, my dream of living in New York. Well, let’s back up a moment. My dream was never really to live here, my dream was to be here to get into Hip Hop. Hip Hop is my dream, not New York. I wanted to come to New York but if there was no Hip Hop, I don’t think I’d be here, or would have wanted to come here. Hip Hop is what made me take my first trip here, not New York just in itself. I’m searching for Hip Hop but is seems hard to find. The Hip Hop I’m searching for seems to have died, and now a new species is being born, well, is born.

All I want is to have a song on an album and get paid a royalty for it. I don’t want to be the top hit maker, or the highest paid for that matter. I just want to be a part of albums coming out on labels, and get paid a fair amount in the form or a royalty check every quarter. That seems not too much to ask, or that it shouldn’t be that hard to accomplish. But this industry is selfish, and doesn’t seem to want to let anyone in unless it’s a crime partner or brother or close friend. I’ma make my mark somewhere in this shit. SOMEWHERE!

Jrnl Entry 9.13.2000 “MY HIP HIP STORY” PART VIII

Yeah, I live in New York now and have been here for a year. That feeling I used to have when I’d visit of walking around blending in as a New Yorker with Timberlands on and baggy jeans caused me to move here. I am finally here now, and it’s not feeling good at all. My plan was to move here, find me a couple of women to chill with, and make moves in the music industry. What actually happened when I got here was that I wasn’t able to meet any women, none! I thought I could maybe meet people out shopping or something, in a nice lounge bar, but it’s not like that here. Come to think about it, I don’t think it’s like that anywhere. When I was going out in Cleveland, I never picked up any women. I guess women don’t talk to you if they don’t know you or know of you, or someone that they know knows you. “I know I look good so it couldn’t be my looks.” (Ed O.G.) When Ed O.G. made that song “Gotta Have Money To Make It Witt The Ladies In The 90’s” He was telling the truth for the 90’s and beyond because it’s year 2000 and the same applies. If you don’t have a fly ride or are not a celebrity in New York and don’t know nobody, you are doomed.

I’m here trying to accomplish my dream of getting into Hip Hop, but with no women and no friends, it’s getting hard. I’ve talked to at least 100 girls in the last year, more than I’ve probably ever talked to in life, and didn’t strike anything with any of them. I talked to about 5 over the phone and nothing became of them. It’s ridiculous that there are millions of people walking around in this city and you can’t talk to anyone, at least not on a meeting and get to know on a relationship level. New York has some of the finest women of all races walking around, but you go and speak to them and it’s like “why are you saying something to me?” Even if you are polite, you still get dissed. Right now as I am writing this, I am depressed and don’t know what I am going to do. I don’t even like being outside in the city. I feel like it’s just me here and the rest of the outside world I’m seeing through a sound proof glass.

I went out last weekend with Burton who came to New York from Ohio. I talked to a really nice young lady by the name of Michelle at the Club Two Eyes We exchanged numbers and she gave me the wrong number. I talked to about four other girls that night and gave them my number and no one has called. Women here don’t give out their phone number like I can get to em’ and kill em’ through the phone. I told Michelle, if after calling a couple times and I see that you are not interested, I will not call anymore because I don’t have time for that. I told her I was a mature young man looking for a mature young lady, out of college or stable in her life. She told me she was in graduate school. I asked if we could get to know each other? She said yeah and we exchanged numbers. I called her Sunday night, and she gave me the wrong number. It just gets me down that I can introduce myself to a woman that I like, talk to her for a moment, and then she gives me the wrong number. I’m at the point now where I’m telling myself that I will not introduce myself to anymore women in this city.

I haven’t made any connections in the Hip Hop world neither. I ‘m kind of confused as to what type of Hip Hop I should be making. Underground artist such as Mos Def and Slum Village, who both have dope albums, they don’t sell. I want this music to be my living, and a good living. How am I supposed to live producing songs on albums that don’t sell to provide me with that living? The tracks being produced out on the mainstream, I don’t like half of them. I just try and make funky music. It must not be funky enough because out of like 25 tapes that I’ve submitted in person to rappers such as Raekwon of the Wu-Tang Clan, Talib Kweli of Black Starr and Reflection Eternal, and Rampage of the Flip Mode Squad, I have gotten no calls. I gave a tape to Black Rob’s brother and he gave me no call. I gave a tape to this kid named Poo Cabroxi, he called me and wanted two tracks on the tape. After I gave him the two tracks on a separate tape, he never called me again. He was telling me that I was gonna be recordin’ the songs in Daddy’s House Studios because his boy who wanted the songs was signed to Bad Boy Entertainment.

I sent a tape to my cousin who used to work for Motown. She is in Atlanta now. She didn’t respond. I cursed her out for not responding to me to tell me anything. She talked to me like she was some big A&R, not my cousin. She said since I cursed her out, she cannot help me. And she was working in the same office building as the Organized Noise producers who produced Outkast. She never introduced me to no one, so I said fuck her. I also know a guy who is down with DJ Clue. He is one of my good friend’s cousin by the name of Windexter. He was on the inside cover of Clue’s first mix tape on a major label. He grew up with Clue’s manager Richie. Every time I call this guy, he is never home. Or when I do talk to him, he never seems to have time to hang out, not even as a friend, which was my initial plan anyway because I thought he was a cool cat. I asked him to introduce me to Richie one time. He told me to call him one Saturday so he could listen to my tape, but he wasn’t home when I called. I even told him that if I get paid, I’d pay him, but he still hasn’t responded to me.

So I’m just here and I don’t know what the hell I’m gonna do with my life. I’m not gonna quit yet. I’m just feeling really down. So what started out as a bud in 84/85 lead me here to New York City feeling kind of depressed in the year 2000. I expected the rejection in the music industry, but the rejection from these women, I didn’t expect, and I am not handling it so well. But hopefully with time things will get better. I feel I want this music Hip Hop dream so bad, that I’m willing to go through all this because anywhere else I’ll have nothing to chase but a corporate ladder, which I don’t feel like chasing right now. I have a feeling that chasing that ladder will probably take me further in life than this Hip Hop dream, but what can I say. I want Hip Hop to be my life, not accounting in a corporation and definitely not in an accounting firm. It’s providing me with a means to live, but it’s not in my heart, HIP HOP IS!

Jrnl Entry No. 12.8.1999

Well I got fired / quit my job at The Gap. “I used to work at Foot Locker but they fronted / Got fired or I quit it / However do you want it.” (Lauren Hill “Everything is Everything) I got written up on my second incident and they were giving me a final written warning before firing me on my next warning. The first warning was do to some tight, no pussy getting manager of loss prevention. I was sitting down on the escalator because I was tired from running up and down the stairs all day after getting home the previous night at 3 A.M. So he’s right down at the bottom of the escalator and I see him looking at me as I was riding down and knew he was going to say something to me. He comes up to me and says, “hey, don’t sit on the escalator.” I looks at him as says “O.K.” and then I continues to go and do my job. He wanted to lecture me though and asked me my name, and did I think it was professional to sit like that with customers looking right at me. I was tired and wasn’t hearing him. I told him that I understood what he said, and that he didn’t have to be so serious. So he tells me to come here again while I am walking away. I just kept on walking and he follows me. I don’t even know who this guy is all in my face like I’m his son. After he says a few more times for me to come with him, I goes. We meet up with my floor manager as we walking back to his office, and she comes with us. He explains to her that I sat down on the escalator and that he feels I should be sent home for the day. He said I totally blew him off when he told me not to sit on the escalator and that I was showing off in front of people when I told him not to be so serious. I explained to her that I heard what he said, I got the message, and that I would not sit on the escalator anymore. I mean what did he want me to do; start sucking his dick to show him I was paying him full attention. My manager agreed with him and sent me home, which I was quite thankful because I was operating on two and half hours of sleep. I went home and slept the whole day.

My next incident about a month later was on the same scale. It was 11 P.M. quitting time, my third day straight of working two jobs, and I was tired and ready to go home. There was 5/10 minutes of work left to do and I told her that I was going home. The work would get done by the morning crew. She said that walking away was not acceptable. As I was walking away, I said “write it down and I’ll sign the paper.” When I came to work my next scheduled day I went to her and said I was sorry about the other day, that I work every day from 8 AM to 5 PM and by time 11 o’clock comes I am irritable. She takes me down to her office and tells me that my behavior was not acceptable which I understood. I told her that my availability needed to be changed to 3 days during the week and one day during the weekend in order to prevent these type of incidents from happening again. She basically told me that she already adjusted my schedule for four days a week and no weekends and that she couldn’t adjust it again. We were going back and forth with me telling her that four days a week straight of working two jobs leaves me with no life, and she basically was telling me tough tidy, and if I had another incident I would be fired. After I saw that she was not going to compromise with me on my schedule, I just said “I’m going home. Do you need your shirt back?” I took the shirt off and handed her my discount card and left.

The problem on part time jobs is that they don’t seem to understand the concept of part-time. They want to work you as much as possible. Part-time means you work when you want to because you have another full life and responsibilities to attend to. They should try to accommodate you as much as possible, and if they can’t work you as little as you want, they should work you a little less. Part-time jobs are for extra money that you really could do without because nine times out of ten you are not paying any major bills with the money. But part-time companies want to treat you like you need their job and they are doing you such a big favor by letting you work; therefore, you should happily abide by all the rules and work whenever we want you to. If they want to do people a favor, hire them full time and give them benefits, or work around people’s schedule as much as they can.

So it feels good to go home after work again and chill. Yesterday I went searching for some boot leg CDs around 34th St and Time Square but found none. I went back toward  home and went to the grocery store and then home. I called my new shorty, but she wasn’t home. I was about to work on my new song and she called. It was about 10:45 PM and she called me. I didn’t get off the phone with her until 2 A.M. I think she likes me a lot from what she knows. I like her also. It may work out to be long term if she is as sexy as I think she is and as she tells me she likes to be. She has that bad word in her vocabulary though, “Ghetto.” She doesn’t seem to use it as much as Victoria did, but its in her vocabulary. If she thinks she likes me now, wait until I dick her down and get my mouth on that pussy, she going to go crazy. She often makes comments that we should go here or there one day, or that I should go shopping with her one day; hints that we are going to be together in the long-run. I don’t like that. I usually like to take it day by day.

I’m still nervous about this kid situation. I seen on the news where a man was paying $12,000 a month child support. His wife was married to him for 700 days; time enough to make him believe she loved him, to have a kid, and divorce his ass and get paid for 18 years. The news says that the law says that a child has the right to live the lifestyle of its father while it is with the mother. I have no problem with that. I will buy my child whatever it wants. But if we have to pay all that money mandatory, then we should have the right to choose to have custody or joint custody or something. A lot of women are abusing child support. The woman originally wanted $112,000 a month in child support. Melonie says she is not mother material right now, and that she wants to be married before she has a kid, but I bet if I start bustin nuts in her ass, she will come up pregnant and want to have the baby. I’m kind of used to bustin nuts out of the pussy since I have been doing that with Sausha for a year and a half, so I should be able to continue my pattern.

I think that Melonie will probably not work out because she lives in Jersey and I live N.Y. I am not moving over there and she probably has no plans of moving over here. If it wasn’t for those damn bridges that you must pay $4 to go through I would be happy to stay in Jersey. But you never know how shit will go, we probably will be together for a while. I want a bitch right here in N.Y. though. A bitch who has her own shit. When I run across one, I’ll definitely get on. I see mostly bitches with weave in their head, which I don’t like. I was telling Melonie last night that I do not step to a woman who is not wearing her real hair. I just don’t like it, I can’t compliment it, and it is like a turn off like cigarettes.

I’m gonna try and go over Melonie’s house tonight, well no I’m not. I know one thing though is that I will not be on the phone all night bullshittin’. I’m gon cook and hop on my ASR 10 Sampler. I have been thinking about CLUE the past couple of days and how I should have shouted at him. He probably would have been cool. I talked to him at the Jay Z concert in Pittsburgh but he wasn’t paying me any attention. Being in an area where everybody isn’t on his dick, he may just conversate with a brother.

The next mutha fucka I see though I’m hittin him with my speech that I prepared I don’t care who it is. Them mutha fuckas got to know that they need to put people on just like someone put them on. If I was a star, I would probably spend most of my time listening to demos, and if I heard something that impressed me like my frat brothers tape, I would do whatever I could to get him on. I mean CLUE wasn’t always CLUE and Jay Z wasn’t always Jay Z, and Nas damn sure wasn’t  always The Rapper Nas. He was some quiet kid who never let anybody know he rapped.

I feel like I’m in prison not being able to do what I really want to do, which is make some money in Hip Hop. I feel trapped. I mean I want to sit at home all day and make songs and get paid for them. I want to be steppin up in the club at 12:30 A.M. on a Sunday night not worrying about getting up for work in the morning. I want it so bad, I can taste it. I’m gonna get it. In my heart, I got so much love for this, I got to get it.

I just completed a verse to my incomplete song about my love for Hip Hop but Hip Hop has no love for me or MCs who give their all on the mic. Hip Hop only shows love to simple gimmick cats like DMX. Even Jay Z is sounding a little repetitive. Like Jay Z says he don’t write rhymes down anymore, he makes them up as he goes along in the studio. your best shit doesn’t come out that way. Like his best shit was on his first two albums. His third one was cool, but far from the potency of his first album. He had clever lines back then, now all his lines are sounding the same and that is what happens when you stop thinking about what you want to say and analyzing it and rewriting it when it sounds corny.

I think writing is one of the reasons KRSONE has stayed fresh for 11 to 12 years. Writing keeps you on your toes with the skill. Biz Markie said he never wrote. He has a song with Will Smith and he is saying the same shit he was saying ten years ago not writing, and that is why he feel off. And niggas like Pharoe Monch who has one of the dopest albums with some of the dopest lyrics, he get no love from Hip Hop, no record sales, no cash, just mad respect from niggaz like me for his true skill and art of spittin rhymes. It never pays to be an abstract artist with real shit and talent until you die, and with Hip Hop, even dieing won’t bring true MCs like Pharoe Monch much recognition.

Jrnl Entry No. 12.6.1999

I gets home from Warren last night about 12:20 A.M. I figured I’d ride through the city to try and find me two boot leg CDs. I was gonna get Rakim and Raekwon. Yeah, that’s right boot leg. I told myself, especially since I got bills now and no money, that I am not spending another dollar on Hip Hop CDs until I make some cash in the rap game as a producer or rapper. I have been rapping and shit since I was 14; that is twelve years. Its time for Hip Hop to support me a little. At the least pay off my car or credit card or something.

So I’m riding down around Times Square but I don’t see anybody with any CDs on the streets. I passes by 43rd St. and I see a crowd of people and cars lined up. I decides to ride down the street and I sees mad bitches and niggas lined up to get into this club. I tell you that is the shit I love about New York. You just ride down the street on a particular night and you can run into a fat ass party going down till 4 A.M. in the morning. The spot was called Club New York. I guess it was hot for the night.

I went and parked my car on 39th Street and walked back up to 43rd Street. I walks by and stands outside the party. I’m seeing Yukon Danali’s, Navigators, Acks, Benz V12 600s. Just as I was about to leave because I didn’t have the $20 or $30 that I know it cost to get in, I seen CLUE and a bunch of niggaz following him walking up. Now DJ CLUE is like a house hold name in Hip Hop. I’m just looking at the Nigga like an ass hole. I don’t know what was going through my mind. I leave the spot and goes back to my car because I gots to go to work in the morning. As I’m walking back, I’m thinking to myself “damn, I should have said something to that Nigga about me being a producer trying to get on.”

Its like when I see these people, I’m at a lose for words. I prepared me a little speech last night though. Its goes a little something like this. “ A Yo CLUE whats up? How You? I’m a producer trying to get on in this industry. Why don’t you do me a favor and take my tape. If you like it and think you can help me give me a call. If you don’t like it, don’t call and I’ll see you again. I know you don’t know me but can you do that for me?”

I’ve been trying to figure out a way to approach niggaz every since I got here. I’ve seen Funk Master Flex, Lord Finesse, Grand Master Dee of Whodini.  I talked to DJ Premier, but I didn’t ask him to help me out. I just ask him how do I go about getting on as a producer. He told me to go to the clubs. I’ve been to a couple of clubs and seen nobody. When I did see the couple of people I mentioned above, I didn’t know what to say to them. I talked to DJ Big Kap but he brushed me off real quick because I really didn’t know what to say to him. I tried introducing myself to him, told him my name and shit and asked can I talk to him.

You got to get at these niggaz at least as an introduction. You got to get straight to the point, and that might not even get you nowhere. Just get at em every time you see somebody. When you see em again, holla at them again. After a year or two, people will notice you and see that you are determined and will maybe help out. THAT’S WHAT I GOT TO DO! TIME IS MONEY!

Jrnl Entry No. 9.29.1999

Well what can I do? My bills are like $100 more than my monthly income. I’ve put in for a few part time jobs and nothing. The places where I wanted to work said that they are all booked up on the weekends and they are not open late enough for me to work after six o’clock. I can’t go out to the clubs and meet anybody in the music industry because I don’t have the money to go. I have a little Hip Hop connection with Jay through Darry. I could probably make a bigger connection with Dessert Storm DJ CLUE Crew if I got in touch with Windexter, but he is never home. I can’t go to any labels because they are closed on Saturdays and that is the only day I have time. I work out of the way of all that shit. That is why I wanted to work somewhere around Broadway so that I could reach a couple of labels on my lunch break by train.

So I’m stuck unable to execute my plans because of money and work location. All I do is go home after work, cook, maybe sit and watch tv or start with my sampler. I can’t even afford to take the train into the city or to drive and waste all my gas. I have to save every dollar I can, how I can. It is kind of depressing. I thought that I would be alright here with bills and things and have a few extra dollars to party, but it just ain’t so.

At lunch time on my job, I just stare at the big buildings across the river, dreaming about how I can get a production deal or a deal for my Warren Posse crew. We’ve been in the studio and have come up with three very nice songs. But now I feel that the bullshit is about to start coming on. The songs Billy is talking about recording are very, very wack to me. I think they are going to throw everything off. I hope he records these shits and they sound just as wack to him as they do to me. But I ain’t gonna say nothing because everybody thinks that they know so much about this Hip Hop shit. Like they tried to tell me that the “Warren Posse Strikes Back” song wasn’t going to work out because of this and that. When it was done, they liked it, not loved it, so they say, but liked it; when before they didn’t even want to record it. I like the song but I think Nelson could have calmed down on the yelling in the break and during his lyrical flow. And even with that, it still sounds kind of cool. I hope “We Crew” and the other song they plan on recording has the same effect on me.

When the project is done I will probably try to shop it around here for a deal and see what we can come up with. I need to be shopping The Phat Rapper’s shit to someone. My problem is I don’t know the first step to take. I’m going to see if I can go to labels on Saturday and talk to someone. If I can’t, when I get a personal day, I’ll take one to go and visit some labels and see what I can make out of the day. It’s all I know, and maybe it will lead to something else. I got to get discovered somehow because that is what I came up here for, to make some grands in the music industry one way or another, that is going to be my future; this accounting shit is not working. Maybe I ought to try and visit some labels after work and see if I can get my foot in a door. I got to try something.

That is my problem, I’m not trying hard enough to really talk to anyone. I’m sitting around on my ass complaining when I ought to be out there trying to make moves. Yeah, I’m going to start bringing me a change of clothing for after work and head over into the city instead of just going home and sitting there. I just might run into something. Go hang out by some recording studios or something. I gots to make this work for me. I think I’m sitting around waiting for it to work for itself. I got to get up. I know once I’m over there politican in the city, I will feel charged and there won’t be no stopping me. The city just makes you want to do something, it gives you confidence. Of course, that is if you can move around because being stuck in traffic can kill your spirit like death I tell you. You just feel like you are in the car dying, moving five miles an hour; super slow motion.

I’m about to do this. Fuck this shit. Tomorrow, I’m going to the city after work and do something to advance my career.

HAVE YOU EVER FELT STUCK IN A SITUATION; KNEW YOU HAD TO MAKE A MOVE TO GET OUT, BUT YOU EITHER DIDN’T MAKE THE MOVE OR THE MOVE YOU MADE DIDN’T WORK OUT THE WAY YOU HAD HOPED?

Jrnl Entry No. 8.2.1999

The Life and Mind of an Only Child

I got to call somebody to ask what are the hot spots in town for the hip hop industry. Maybe I’ll call Windexter and politic with him a little bit. But I don’t know about Windexter, is he just quiet or what, but he don’t seem too interested in becoming my friend. I’ll call him anyway though to see if we can hang out one night that he is off because he claims that he is working two jobs and never has time for anything, but yet he was in the Clue album commercial behind The Lox, and he was on the Clue album cover. So this nigga got time for something besides work.

Niggaz always acting funny, especially stars. Like when I saw Clue in Pittsburg and ask him did he know Windexter, he brushed me off like “Yeah, I think so.” Maybe stars hear so much bull shit in their ear that they get to a certain point where they don’t even listen to mutha fuckas anymore besides their close friends and manager and other stars and what not. How you not gonna know a nigga who smack dead on the inside cover of your records, cds, and tapes?

Windexter know that I rap and stuff. When I first met the nigga, we were all listening to my tape that I made back in 88. Maybe he just don’t want to hook a nigga up. I don’t see why not. Niggaz is funny I tell you. Maybe everyone in every race is funny like that but I wouldn’t know because I don’t deal with other races. I mean if I can help a nigga out in any kind of way I’m gonna do that. Like with Stephen “The Phat Rapper” Collins, my rapper dude, fraternity brother. I’m gonna try and put his name in some niggaz ear when the right nigga comes along. I think he got mad talent and deserves to be on. I think I got made talent and deserve to be on too, but some reason people don’t listen to my shit and say anything about it. They mostly ignore it. Sausha used to say if she liked or disliked a song, but now she doesn’t say anything. She just ignores them. But anyway, somebody gonna listen to my shit one day and put me on.

And another step I got to take is go the tunnel and talk to Flex and/or Big Kap about what can I do to get on. Somebody gonna lead me in the right direction. And maybe I’m rushin’ this shit and should relax and just let things take their natural course; make some friends, and one friend leads to another friend, to another club, and maybe to somebody who knows somebody  who knows somebody him or her who knows somebody. This new guy that just started working here he seems pretty cool, maybe I’ll hang out with him to see where he leads me.

This music shit is all I seem to think about. I made this slammin smoothe piano beat last night that I called “Fly Piano.” It is very simple. I’m trying to figure out if I should add anything else to it like a background noise; maybe not since most my other songs have it. I think I’m gonna put some funky moans in it though when I get me an adapter to go to my head phones to use them as a microphone to mic the moans in. I also got to get in touch with my frat brother Lame Culcher. He said that he know some A&Rs he could give a tape to. He ain’t never at home though, and I have left messages on his answering machine for him to call me back but he hasn’t. I also got to call Saul Shompson. He has been here for a while and he should know of some spots, but maybe not he is not Bi-sexual anymore and just straight gay.

I don’t know what the deal is here with mutha fuckas. They always gone and not answering their phones. Like the one Saturday when I was calling Windexter and paging him. He didn’t call me back. Maybe this is a test to see if I can make it all on my own with all new friends and no help from anyone besides the new people that I meet. I told Windexter a long time ago that I was moving to Queens and that I wanted to hook up with him when I got here. I’ve called him a couple of times and talked to him. I even called him when I said I would be looking for an apartment and told him that I wanted him to show me around town. I called the Sunday before I was to come and he was outside fucking around. The nigga has never asked me for my number. I don’t know. Now that I’m here, I’m gonna try and make friendz with the nigga one last time, and if he is not receiving to my friendship fuck him. I’ll see him when I see him, maybe at a release party when he’s rolling with Clue and I’ll be with my own camp of artist who I’ve produced a record for.

I ain’t here to kiss ass of mutha fuckaz who ain’t really trying to help me. It seems like I’ve been running into this shit all my life; mutha fuckaz who don’t want to help me. From my Aunts and Uncle not wanting to rent me a car to take trips for fun. To my own cousin, who was down with my aunt during child hood and the teen years, not really helpin me get a deal. If Sary Kim was really trying to help me get a deal, when I got frustrated and was calling her answering machine leaving messages about the wack artist Motown was signing, she would have eased my nerve with some encouraging wordz. Well fuck everybody. I’m here now and the world is mine to conquer. Ain’t no stopping me you sonz and daughers of punk bitches and bastards.

HAVE YOU EVER HAD A FRIEND OR RELATIVE THAT YOU THOUGHT HAD POWER AND/OR CLOUT BUT THEY SEEMED UNWILLING TO USE THEIR INFLUENCE TO HELP YOU ACHIEVE YOUR DREAM?