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.

Jrnl Entry No. 3.20.2000

You know, fuck talking about these bitches. I’ve realized that most of my stories have been about these stupid and smart bitches here in N.Y., and bitches of my past. I’ve been writing my cousin and telling him about these hoes around here who will not talk to me, will not come to my apartment. My take is this. If these hoes around here can’t recognize a nigga tryin’ to live a good life and handle his responsibilities, a real man like they are always complaining about that there are none, then fuck em.

N.Y. I’ve concluded is a bunch of small towns within a big city. Everybody here is scared of the next guy if they don’t know him, and for an outsider like me who no one knows, no one is tryin’ to talk to me. I’m gonna weather the storm of this bullshit city for a while though. If nothing happens, fuck this place; a bullshit big city filled with people who have bullshit dreams, and most who have no talent that will help them accomplish their dreams.

I went to N.Y. Comedy Club on Saturday to the 12 A.M. show. They showcased about six or seven comics, and only one was truly talented and funny. His name was Dean Morrison I think. If I was looking for someone to sponsor and make hot, he would have been it that night. The rest of the comics had their moments but none of them had that glow like this kid did. I wish him the best of luck and hopes he get his big breaks because talent like his deserves big dollars and recognition.

Sunday I stayed in bed all day and watched a little bit of a couple tournament college games. I was there lonely, thinking what and the fuck am I doing here in this city. It seems like I’m wasting my life away; not making enough money, no woman, no crew to run with, no nothing. But I’m just figuring with time it will all get better. I may as well keep moving in a forward direction.

I completed two new songs within the last like two weeks. I should probably just sit down at my sampler more often because every time I sit down, I produce something that sounds good to me. I bought a bootleg copy of Irv Gotti Presents The Murderers CD on Saturday and I listened to it. The shit was pretty bogus to me. These albums that these niggaz is puttin’ out deez dayz are just wack. They tryin’ to be on some different shit but the shit just does not work for me. The tracks are not what I want to hear. I want to hear tracks like that Screwball H.O.S.T.Y.L.E track, and that 50 Cent track “Murder, I Don’t Believe You” Those were two of the slaminest tracks I’ve heard this year come out of New York. And that shit is really disappointin’ me man. This shit that is getting put out is not exactly the shit that I’m tryin’ to roll witt. I have run into two MCs so far in this N.Y. land and they both on some ole shit that I really don’t like. I’m gonna produce shit for whoever wants it whether I like their flow or not because believe it or not, the wackest shit gets put on top.

I called my daughter and she was watching a Blues Clues tape and didn’t want to talk. She didn’t even want to come to the phone. Victoria told her “come and see who on the phone.” She didn’t say nothing like your daddy’s on the phone. I thought about calling her back and telling her about that shit, but I let it go and said fuck Victoria. She’s the stupid bitch for not wanting to promote a good relationship between her child and the father. Let her be simple. Her simpleness is why she’s still livin’ with her mom and dad at age 28, been left alone by two good niggaz in the last two years, and nothing seems to be working for her so far in life. Jealousy, envy, hatred, and evilness will get you nowhere. Youthink she would have figured this out by now. She used to worry about me not believing in god. I’m jesus compared to her ass, and all the evil shit she has on her back for me.

One day I came to realize that you pray for something and you are supposed to keep praying for it, and be patient, and eventually god will give it to you. What kind of bullshit is that? I prayed for a record contract for years and nothing ever happened. Then they always have an excuse; well, that is not what the good lord intended for you to be. The lord has a plan for everybody. So the lord doesn’t want me to be what I want to be and what I will enjoy being. I damn sure ain’t enjoying this working at these corporations shit too much.

My grandmother has been praying for what seems like all her life, and she ain’t got nothing good from it. She had a husband who cheated and beated on her, and she cheated on him. Only two of her seven kidz have real jobz and their own homes. All except for two, the youngest two, have been married or are married still. None of the married ones have had happy marriages. My Uncle Michael’s wife has been cheating on him every since the beginning of their relationship, and I guess she has stopped at this point around age 45. They’ve been together since like age 20/21. I guess they call themselves happy now. They both have good paying jobs, and just bought a brand new home in the suburbs of our bullshit city Warren. He went away to the Marines about eight / nine years ago. When he came home from basic training his back was out for some reason. Word was that his wife and her mother and brother had beat him up, or that basic training was a little much for him to handle. About two years ago I got word that what really happened was that when he got home from basic training, his wife was fucking another man in their apartment. When my uncle walked in the apartment and went upstairs in the room, the guy jumped up and beat his ass because he knew karate or something.

My Uncle Billy cheats on my Aunt Lena because she has no flair (Jazz Pazazz) about herself. My Aunt Micha and her husband have their problems so she says. My oldest aunt married one time and was divorced at a fairly young age, and she has always been sexy to me, but she never remarried or has had a real boyfriend that she brought around the family. The youngest two who have never gotten married: Janet and Kelly. Janet was a sexy thang back in her day; has been sexy up until I’d say about six or seven years ago. She was thick and always wore tight jeans with a body suit. She had a big ole ass and some big ole tidies to go witt it, but she wore too much makeup, which looked good on her back in the seventies and eighties. She and the rest of my aunts always boated that they’ve never been known to be hoes. Janet always carried herself in a lady like manner as far as I saw. She never had a real job though, and maybe that is why no one came along and swooped her up. And maybe she had some bad pussy, didn’t know how to fuck with all that ass she had. I know from experience that if the pussy ain’t good, you will not be kept, and once you are gone, you will not be remembered. Remember that shit ladies! Kelly, she never had a real job neither, and her thickness wore out to be fat way before Janet’s did. I’ve heard her talkin’ some freakiness though, so maybe she had some good pussy but nothing else to go with it to make a man want to marry her. My mom was married to my father who used to beat on her and abuse her. They got a divorce. She was still young and sexy at the time. We moved to California when I was five, and she met her second husband when I was like seven. He was nice to her and me: no drugs, didn’t fight her. They were quite happy I suspect. She even said he had some good dick. Well they got robbed one day in California. Now she is 47, fat, no life, no hope. Just smokes, eats, and sleeps and watch my little cousins when asked.

So my grandmother’s family is not at all a bright, blessed family. She is even living from SSI check to SSI check. If her car breaks down, I don’t know what she is going to do about another one. Well she probably has some money in the bank. I don’t know. I’m her only descendant to date that has graduated from college and tryin to do something big with my life. My one cousin works at a good factory in Warren, Ohio and is doin’ well; bought her a house and is raising her son nicely. His father is in his life a little I guess. She was fucking around with two light skinned niggaz when she got pregnant, and told the wrong one that the baby was his. I think her and her mother have a thing for light skinned and fair skinned men. Her mother called herself in love with this mixed looking nigga named Prince at one point in her life. He was a pretty small time hustler in town or maybe he was big time at one point. I don’t know what happened to him and her though, but that was her man. My cousin Jerome, his mother Micha has convinced him that we are not family any more. He is making a career out of the service in the Navy. He married a white / German woman who cheated on him so they divorced. My cousin Carla had a baby at age 15 by a guy who is in jail for a gang fight where they nearly beat some white kids to death. She just recently had another baby by some guy in jail for statutory rape of a 14 year old girl. She works for this company Wetzel Corp. My Uncle Michael’s kidz, three: one of which is not his, one which is rumored to not be his, and the youngest who is supposed to be his. The two oldest, one has two kidz and the other has one kid, and the youngest has one kid. The youngest, her baby is by the pastor (married) of her old church that my Grandmother used to attend. She has a pretty good job and is taking care of herself and her son. The middle one, his first kid came when he was 17 / 18 by some white girl and her family took the girl and shipped her to California and we’ve never seen the baby. After losing his girl and baby and not being able to do anything about it, he got his balls clipped as to never have another baby ever again. He has gone on to make a career out the service: Air Force. The oldest, I don’t know what she does. She was in the Army. She had a son by some guy in San Francisco. He loves his son, and has joint custody of him. Somehow they had another child, and she has him full time I guess. They were supposed to be fighting when she came up pregnant again. My cousin Samuel has been in and out of jail the last ten years tryin’ to be a drug dealer. He never made it in the drug game though. He tried to introduce me to it, but I was scared of going to jail because of the stories my family told me about getting pumped in the booty. Later on in life, I found out that those stories were not all true; getting pumped in the booty happened in jail, but not to everybody every time, just mostly prisons where niggaz is locked up for life for murder and rape and shit like that. I wished I would have joined my cousin, with my help, we could have came up in the game because while most niggaz was beating people up and fighting all the time, I would have been killing niggaz for tryin’ to take mine. I probably would have still went to college, and have close to a mill or five hundred thousand stacked up by now. He has a mixed little girl, and a black little girl whom his mom helps him with seeing and taking care of. The mixed little girl is out of town with her mom and she comes to Warren I guess every other summer.

Me, if it wasn’t for abortion, I would have 1,2,3,4,5,6 kidz by now. Christina; the fat white girl Carmel; Rebecca; Elizabeth; Sausha; and Victoria who had my baby girl Janelle. Victoria got pregnant after three months of us fucking around. I thought we would make it. I thought I liked her, but as time went on, I discovered that I didn’t like her. And once I left her once and for all the second time around, she has hated me every since and has given me trouble with building a relationship with my daughter. We have a relationship, but Victoria would throw a wrinkle in every now and again, and her hate still remains for me. I love my daughter and try to take care of her, and see her as much as her mom will let me. I have no concern for Victoria, good or bad. And like I said, she has a bad attitude, and her pussy wasn’t that great, so she wasn’t kept, and now that she is gone, she is not remembered.

I just finished my 2^nd 90 minute tape of my songs. As I did on my first tape I left a message telling my daughter that I love her. I also left a message for her mother played backwards. If you can figure out how to get it played forward Victoria, you can hear it. Listening to my songs, there is something about them that I do not like. They are not hard enough to me and they don’t sound… Hold up, I know what the problem is; the problem is that I have been exposed to all this bullshit being played over the airwaves, and I haven’t bought many albums lately to listen to because I can’t afford it. I think my shit has a place on the underground circuit. I have a few songs that can hold their own weight above ground also. I think I’ll be fine with my tracks.

I was going to try and go to Florida next weekend to the Black College Spring Break and stay with my cousin Romeo, but I don’t think I will be able to make it. He offered to give me some money to help pay for the ticket, but I don’t want him paying for my trip like he did the last time I went and seen him in Kansas. I’m a grown man now, and I should be able to pay for my own trip. Back when I went to Kansas, I was still in college and didn’t have a real job. Now, I’m working full time. I can’t really afford to go but fuck it. He’s been living there for five years now and I haven’t seen his home that he and his wife had built, and she is talking about building another one. I hope my wife and I can make moves like them and have a nice home and drive nice vehicles like they do.

I am bringing Janelle to New York with me this weekend anyway, so I’ll spend the time with her. Her mom doesn’t want to let me bring her, but fuck her. I am a man taking care of his responsibility. I have a right to have my daughter come and stay with me a couple weeks every couple of months. She is just being a bitch saying I can’t bring her home with me. But I ain’t standing for her bullshit no mo. I’m gonna tell her like this, “she is my daughter too. If you want to fight me and press kidnapping charges on me, go ahead. But while you calling me complaining about money and insurance, if I’m in Jail, you can’t get shit from me; so going against me, you going against yourself and your daughter.” I’m gonna see what she what she gonna do though. Victoria you better recognize that all this negative energy that you are throwing out is holding you back from the life that you want to live. You gonna fuck around and be living with Jethro and Darlene forever, and just wrinkle up in that house.

Jrnl Entry No. 3.6.2000

Well I talked to Lauren over the weekend, and she said that she was giving consideration to moving here with me. I guess I would like to see if it could be like it was when I fell in Love with her. She was so sweet to me; we went places and did things. She’s going Wednesday to VA to go see about her uncle so she says, and to look into an apartment. I have a feeling that she is not going to come here with me. She told me that her kidz say they don’t want to move here. They want to move to VA. I told her like I told Sausha: kids will adjust.

I didn’t do much this weekend. Friday I was with Kathy after work, and went to some free jazz shit at the Modern Museum of Art which was pretty cool. We went back to her apartment after that. One of her roommates was having a party. She didn’t want to attend, but I told her that since we were there, we may as well go out there to have a couple of drinks and chat for a while. She wanted to go back to her room so we did after about twenty minutes of sitting out there listening to talk about Law School at Columbia and NYU.

We went back to her room and watched T.V. I noticed she doesn’t have a pleasant looking ass, and that she doesn’t wear thongs, which was kind of turning me off a little. Her ass would probably look nice if she let it loose from those little girl panties that she wears. I like her lips though. But ultimately, she is wack and I can’t have her. I sat in her room until 2 A.M. We got to kissing before I left. I was going to go after the ass, but she was grabbing my hand when I put it up her shirt talking about she was ticklish. So I stopped and got ready to go home.

Saturday I stayed in the house all day until six when I went to The Garden State Plaza Mall in Jersey to go and get some batteries for my watches. The one Romeo bought me for graduation, I dropped it at a Biggie Smalls concert, and it hasn’t worked since. I never took the time to get a battery for it or go and get it checked out. I thought something else was wrong with it since I had dropped it, but turns out it just needed a battery. I bought another watch after that one broke, a Kenneth Cole Watch. So now I have two watches; a Seiko and a Kenneth Cole. Both are pretty nice watches, but the ultimate watch that I want to get around my wrist is a Mavado. Everyone, especially rappers go crazy over Rolex with diamonds in it. Rolex aren’t anything special but a name and a price, but Mavado has a unique look to it like it should cost what you pay for it.

Sunday I didn’t do anything but go to the grocery store to pick up a few items. I cooked at around 7 P.M., a boneless rib piece, some potatoes, and corn. I ate and started watching Surviving The game with Ice Tee and Charles S. Dutton. I called Lauren for a second time around 12 A.M. I gets lonely in that apartment, and need someone there or someone to talk to. I guess that is why I have been trying to get someone to move in with me.

I haven’t had any luck with New York girls and starting relations with them so I gots to resort back to home. I would love to have Lauren around with her little sexy self. But if she doesn’t move with me them I guess I will just chill and wait to find a girl in N.Y. I’m not gonna get back with Sausha because that is not what I really want. She is lacking in a lot of areas as far as I am concerned. She seems strong and ready to move on with her life, so I’ll let her.

I started a melody to a song on Saturday with the guitar instrument off one of my disk. It’s gonna be like a slow beat, kind of funky. I think I should just follow my heart when it comes to creating songs, and stop being concerned with what is playing on the radio, and what the hottest rappers like DMX and Jay Z are blowing up with. If what’s in my heart doesn’t get me to where I want to be in Hip Hop, I guess it wasn’t meant to be. If I don’t get any production deals or if I don’t find a job that I’m interested in paying me well, I’ll probably move from New York. This place ain’t worth the head ache. I’ll probably move to Atlanta and live a simple life; that is probably when my production career will kick off if it doesn’t kick off in New York. I’ll probably always keep the dream alive of being a producer. I’m gonna go home today and finish that song I started or get most of it done.

I probably won’t call Lauren today since she says I am calling more than I have ever called. I wonder does she know what she was doing when she let me take those pictures. Maybe she did or maybe she didn’t, but whatever the case, I have them in my bathroom mirror, and I look at them and just think how nice it would be to have her by my side the way we used to be. I think I will give that advice out to women. If you want to keep yourself on a man’s mind, let him take some sexy pictures of you in thongs and what not. He will never forget you. Well he could forget you if he has a woman walking around the house on a regular in thongs providing him with good sex like how I had Rebecca; I had forgotten all about Lauren. It wasn’t until I was single again that I thought about Lauren again. But I thought I was over Lauren completely, but as you see I am not, and I guess I never will be, and with the pictures, I will probably never ever forget about her.

My dad is over 50 years old, and told me a story about a woman he used to date that he lost touch with when he moved to Florida from Warren. He says he still has thoughts about that woman. I will probably be like that about Lauren if she doesn’t come to stay with me. Sure I will move on, but in the back of mind will always be Lauren. I hope I don’t have to live like that. Most people do, and as fate will have it, I probably will too.