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 6^th 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 No. 8.4.2000

I don’t know where was the last place I left off about my life. Today is the day before my –birthday. I’ve been here in New York for a year. I still haven’t gotten any pussy in this town yet. And I’m not only out for just pussy. I’m actually looking for a long lasting relationship to grow into marriage, but the girls who I like and talk to are either from out of town, have a boyfriend (so they say), or both. I guess I don’t like New York girls because every time someone catches my eye that I actually go and approach and talk to, they are from Jersey or somewhere else, never New York. Most New York women wear weave and make-up, and those are just two things that I can’t have in a woman to be mine.

I’ve made a few steps in advancing my production career. I’ve given my tape to many rappers: Rampage of the Flip Mode Squad; Lord Have Mercy formally of the Flip Mode Squad: Raekwan of the Wu-Tang Clan. I gave a tape to Special K of the productions team “Teddy Ted and Special K”; Black Rob’s brother who is also his manager and an MC down with Black Rob who goes by the name of Poo Cabroxi. I gave a tape to this girl I planned on dating but she worked too much and at bad hours. Her MC name is MINK. She called me and said that she wanted to put out her own CD and wanted to use some of my beats. She came over and got another snippet tape of my newest, latest. I told her I wouldn’t charge her in exchange for her letting me get a track on a majorly distributed album if she gets a deal like that, or just hook me up with industry connects that will help me get production deals. Poo Cabroxi called me and said that he has a meeting with Puff Daddy, and wants to hear some of my beats. I’m going to tell him the same thing as far as charge go. I am not in this to make money off of demos. I want to make major doe, so if an MC doesn’t have a major or even minor distribution deal, I don’t want nothing but the connections of contact for future projects.

I’ve decided it’s time to cut Ohio loose and live here in New York for real. Over the past year I have been home at least once a month to see my daughter, Sausha, Lauren or Rebecca. I’m not at all attracted to Rebecca so she is the first to be gone off of my list of people not to see anymore. I let her come to visit me twice. She looks disgusting in clothing, like she is still pregnant, and that combined with our complicated past just turns me completely off. She is just lazy or works too much. She eats healthy, but she doesn’t exercise often enough to get rid of that stomach. I guess she figures as long as she can suck a good dick, especially mine, and keep her kidz father, Thomas, happy, even though she claims she can’t stand him; she figures she doesn’t need to work out. I made the mistake of coming in her the last time she was here. She has gotten pregnant three times since we have started seeing each other a year ago, but she took some pills called Cytotec, which is for ulcers and cause pregnant women to have miscarriages. She claims she is getting attached to me even though she knows we can never be nothing again, so I hope she doesn’t get pregnant and try to keep it and me in her life. She has two kidz and she says she wants a third, but not right now, and not by Thomas; which he can’t have anymore because he is fixed. I’m gonna wait till she has her period and tell her that I do not want to see her anymore.

Sausha, every time I left from seeing her, she made up her mind not to talk to me anymore, and she told me that when she moved into her new house, she wasn’t giving me the phone number or the address. I decided that I could live without her too so I was going to be done with her.

I then went on a quest to try and get Lauren to move in with me in New York. She wanted to get married. I said that I would marry her, believing that I could be happy with her. I even bought her a little engagement ring. She wanted to have a wedding which I did not in the first place, and plus we couldn’t afford it. At the same time my cousin was having trouble with his wife and she was putting him out of the house. They never lived together before they got married or even had a long relationship. This scared me, and I told Lauren that we should try living together before we get married because it’s a whole different life, especially in New York.

She was so dead set on getting married. We argued back and forth. I gave in, and two weeks later, I changed my mind again because marriage and kidz are not beneficial to a man in marriage when a divorce happens, and I explained to her that I was looking at the overall picture of happiness and sadness. In sad times, especially if a divorce occurs, a man loses. I told her that I was still willing to marry her if she was that dead set on it. After her hearing my discussion and reading a few letters I had written her, she decided to scrap the marriage idea and sign up for the army. And she said there was no changing her mind. She said I had changed my mind enough and this was it. Our discussions got heated, and no compromise was being made on her part. I said forget it too, and asked Sausha to move with me because we had discussed it before.

Sausha said that my asking was a sudden change of heart, and that she had plans on moving into her house, work and go to school. She had forgotten about the idea of moving with me, but she would think about it, and she wanted me to really think about it also. When I first moved I told her to come with me but she didn’t want to. Then, she thought about it and we had a trial week the week of Thanksgiving 1999 with two of her kidz. I didn’t like it, and neither did she. We broke up after that and I didn’t talk to her for two or three months. We eventually ended up back talking, but there was no mention of her moving with me. This was when she made her other plans to try and get rid of me, but she couldn’t.

At the time after I was fed up with Lauren, and I asked Sausha to move in with me, Sausha told me one day on the phone that she wasn’t moving with me. She called me collect on the phone one Saturday night but wasn’t home for me to call her back. I called her house for three days after that and she wasn’t answering her phone and she didn’t call me anymore. It was at this point that I said, “fuck both of them and their three kidz.” I didn’t call anyone. I made up my mind to just chill, and if a woman came along, fine, if not, fine too.

Two weeks had gone past and Lauren wrote me a letter that I received on a Friday saying that she needed me and wanted to see me. I called her and told her to leave her house since she had gotten rid of her kidz thinking that I would get the letter sooner and she would be leaving work that Friday. She said she would come Saturday and take off work Monday, and I said I would take off also.

She came and we had our usual good sex, and we went out and did little shit like go to the bookstore and read. We talked of how would we all fit into the apartment of mine. But she still said that she was going to the military. I told her if she goes to the military that is it for us. First off, it makes no sense for a — year old mother of three to go to the military. She said she feels she has to go to accomplish something in her life and the military would help her do that. We stopped talking about it. She went home and wrote me a little letter with a $25 check in it to make up for the $50 I spent on an amusement park trip that I had forgotten about when she called, and I couldn’t go to because she was there in New York with me.

Sausha called me Saturday collect while Lauren was there and I accepted and talked to her for a few minutes. She gave me her number but said she wasn’t sure if it was the right one, which I could understand because she has no reason to call her own house and maybe she just didn’t have it memorized at the time. I told her that I would call her later. I was going to call that Monday after Lauren left. Sausha called again that Saturday night and I didn’t accept the call because I figured I had the number to call her back, but it was the wrong number. She hasn’t called again.

I think Lauren is still going to the military, but she just wanted to smooth things over with me before she left. Because before she wrote that letter and came to see me, I had no plans of ever talking to her again and she knew that. Maybe she wants to keep a little tab on me so maybe we can get together after she is finished with the military. Well I’m not stressing her anymore. She can do whatever she wants. If I am available when she gets out of the military, I probably will be with her. But a fine handsome young man like myself, I doubt if I will be available after a few months or a few years. This bad luck with women in New York has got to stop soon, and if it doesn’t, I’ll be content focusing on my music. I’m not sweating women no more. I’m very relaxed with the issue at this point in time.

Sausha and Lauren. You may say I don’t love neither one of them, I’m just using thing as a crutch until I find someone I really want. Truth is, that may be true to some degree. I love them both, but they have no careers or solid ways to help me take care of their children. And that is the only thing that stops me when thinking of being with them. I’ve been able to get along really well with both of them. Lauren has the better body and better sex, which is why I made the choice to leave Sausha alone and try to be with her.

One thing that they both do that turns me on and every man probably loves this; they both wear thong underwear for me. I think I have a fetish for thong underwear. When I see a girl wearing tight jeans or tight hip hugger leggings; if she doesn’t have on a thong with them, she can forget about me approaching her. Sausha didn’t wear them until I started getting on her about wearing cotton little girl panties. Lauren didn’t wear them neither at first. I had to coach both of them into wearing them. These two women will do what makes me happy, and I like to keep them happy, and that is the main ingredient with both of them, and that is why I love them. And I am at the point now where I don’t want to coach anybody else on what makes me happy because it is really hard work. And that is probably why I will go back to either Sausha or Lauren if they come back to me. Now I talk to women that I know I am attracted to on sight. I am very picky at this point when it comes to talking to a new girl that I have to approach, and maybe that is why I haven’t found anyone. But in any case, like I said, I’m chilling.

I haven’t seen my daughter Janelle in like three or four months. Her mom wouldn’t agree to let me keep her in New York every other month for two weeks instead of me driving to Ohio once or twice a month to spend a weekend with her. That didn’t seem fair to me, so I said I would not be taking care of Janelle no more since she wants to put all these restrictions on me when it comes to spending time with her. She said fine, and even told her friends that I would not be in my daughter’s life anymore. I got me another lawyer and we set a court date for July 6, 2000. Victoria has the date pushed back to Sept 1, 2000. I hear she is also moving down south to Atlanta. We are going to have to work out a serious joint custody program if she moves down south. I have no plans on not seeing my daughter as much as possible before she starts all day school.

Maybe Victoria feels threatened that Janelle will love me more or hold me in a higher light than she. Victoria has been selfish with Janelle every since she was born. I may be selfish and stubborn, but I would never be selfish and stubborn with a child, especially to the other parent if I had custody. It will be alright though. I know I will have a relationship with my daughter one day, sooner or later no matter what her mother does to try and stop it. I’ve tried to be cordial with Victoria and her family, but I’m through with being nice. I am not speaking to any of them again. And if they have the nerve to ask why, I’ll tell them. All I ever asked of Victoria was to let me spend time with my daughter. I’ve never given her any trouble about money for Janelle. I never complained about child support. I never bothered Victoria about who she seen as a boyfriend. I haven’t bothered her about anything except spending time with my daughter. I guess I’m wrong for that. She may be trying to punish me for past thing in our relationship, but that is childish, and hopefully she will realize that, and realize that my daughter needs me in her life, what little I can be in it, and I also need my daughter in my life. The past is the past, there is nothing between us but a child who needs both of us, so let it be.

This year, I’m focusing on my job, my music, and my total life in New York. I’m not running home to see any women, I’m not asking any women from Warren to come and live with me. I’m just chilling. Hopefully things go smooth with my visitation case, and my daughter will be a bigger part in my life. At age –, this is what I’ve grown to. My last year, 1999, in New York was half a waste for what time I did spend here.

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. 9.13.2000 “MY HIP HOP STORY” PART VII

In Dec —- I graduated from college. My plan was to move straight to New York or Atlanta. My boy Leon was staying in Atlanta at the time. He told me not to come because he knew a couple of accountant graduates who weren’t having great luck finding that, just so right, accounting job. Now I don’t know, but maybe he was hatin’, and didn’t want to see me prosper because I think I could have found the right job. But then again, when I first graduated from school, I was sending a resume in to anything that had to do with accounting: accounting clerk, payroll accounting clerk, staff accountant. Maybe the people he knew were doing the same thing and getting into jobs that were not so accountant like. So after he told me that, I started focusing my attention on New York, going to the library and searching the N.Y. Times and sending out resumes. I was getting no responses, but I kept trying.

Like in January my girlfriend of three months was pregnant. After that I dropped the New York idea and started concentrating on Akron and Cleveland and Youngstown/Boardman. Even though I graduated from Youngstown State University, I pretty much figured the only way I was going to get a job in Boardman was to have excellent grades; have played on the football team, or to be white. I graduated with a 2.6, didn’t play football and I wasn’t white.

I took a part time job at a record store called NRM in our local mall. I worked there for like two month and then decided that I needed to quit to focus more on finding me a job in my field of accounting. So the search was on and I was getting interviews from out of the Cleveland area, but no offers. After about five months, in June I got a job offer from Dairy Mart Corp, a well-known convenience store chain. My starting salary was $25,000. First thing I did was pay off my credit card bill which was small, only about $3,500, compared to most people I knew at the time. I would pay like $700 a month.

When I graduated from college, I had made up my mind that I wanted to be a Hip Hop producer. I started telling my friends and whoever would listen that was what I wanted to do with my life, not accounting. After I finished paying off my credit card bill, I started saving for my ASR 10 keyboard, which I purchased in March of 1998. Me and some friends of mine had also made plans to purchase a sampler. We all paid $15 a month and got an ASR X which was mainly kept by Burton and Billy. Our plan was to make a CD with about six songs on it. I wasn’t supposed to purchase my own sampler, we were all just supposed to purchase one together and have it from house to house to make beats together, but I couldn’t see myself working like that.

We started off rolling. Nelson and I were writing songs to the beats Billy and Burton had done, and it seemed as if we got off to a great start. We had some pretty good songs too. But then Billy decides that he wants to rhyme, which I’m not too impressed by his rhyme skill. We changed the plans and basically threw out like six songs we planned to record and started over, and this would be the cycle.

We went to one garbage studio and recorded two songs and we were on our way. We went the next week, and the engineer guy didn’t show up. We had two more songs ready to go. Nelson and I could get together like a crew is supposed to and write a song in 30 mins to an hour. After we couldn’t get in touch with the engineer, we had to find another studio which we did like four months later.

So here I was rapping again. I started out as a solo MC, and now here I was rapping with the guy Nelson, who was once my DJ. After we broke up TWC, about six months to a year later, he started writing rhymes. If that was what he really wanted to do back when we were together, he could have said so, and we could have found another DJ. I was in group mode now; me and Nelson as the main MCs, and Billy and Burton and me on the production team. But yeah while I was in group mode, I think Billy was in some other mode. He could never write with us, and he seemed to be hard pressed to do songs with him and Nelson on the vocals because they were a group after Nelson and I broke up. Billy would always change his mind on songs that we were to go into the studio and do. Scrap the old and pick up the new, which I thought was flaky. We couldn’t decide how many songs we would all produce each. I came with the idea that we split production, but Burton and Billy disagreed.

By the time we were ready to start going to the new studio and record, I was moving to New York to work and pursue my dream to get into Hip Hop production for real. I would come back to Ohio every two weeks in order to maintain a relationship with my daughter and my girlfriend Sausha. So now that I was gone, we would go to the studio every time I came home. I had no money for studio time because the initial move to New York kilt my finances, and I just couldn’t afford it. I was barely living. Well, I was living, but I had no money for extra-curricular activity. I told them I would pay them when I got my income tax return. We recorded the two songs that we did in the garbage studio over and they sounded good. We recorded about seven or eight songs in all.

The songs we recorded, I wasn’t too excited about them. The songs that Billy and Nelson did by themselves, I could see Billy’s enthusiasm like on Fresh MC, and Holy War. In our songs there wasn’t enough interchanging between us like most groups do. Billy would always say, “let’s do one 16 bar verse each and that would be it.” We never could write a song with subject matter because we never got together to write songs. If you listen to groups like The Flip Mode Squad, Wu-Tang, Slum Village, those groups interchange rhymes like they all in it together and write it together and were all feeling it. I tried to express this to Billy and Burton but I never got heard. On a song that I produced called “We don’t dance”, Billy says he didn’t like the song. He wrote a wack verse to it. Nelson ripped the song down with his lyrics, and my verse was alright. I just got the feeling from Billy that he wasn’t into the total group thing with me included. Now him and Nelson, yeah, but him, Nelson and me, no! To this date, we still need to complete one more song. It probably will not get completed. Personally I have no money for this project. When I was in town, I made the suggestion that we put like $75 each in a pot for studio time. They x-ed that idea.

I feel Burton and Billy think they know too damn much about Hip Hop to let anybody have some input without disagreement. I’ve kind of proven this to myself when I was working on songs with Priest and The Sewer Rats. Me and Priest completed a track in like an hour. The Sewer Rats recorded one of my songs in the studio; put some lyrics over my beat and it came out dope. This happened because they let me do my thing and I let them do their thing. The beat me and Priest produced, I layed down a piano track, he layed down a bass line and a beat. I did the beat over and added some other stuff and it was complete. I could never do that with Burton or Billy. So who knows what will become of us. I want to be in a rap group. I feel group albums more than solo albums, and the group albums usually sell more. I was thinking of getting two females and starting a group.