Jrnl Entry No. 12.30.2002

So the year is over. My relationship with Watrina is about to be over. We lasted a year and eight months. I guess that is good for her being a – year old who said she didn’t want to be in a relationship anyway. I really dove in with her though. She was my girl. I took her to meet my whole family. I took her on a trip to Florida to meet my cousin/brother Romeo and his wife and kids. Nothing all that bad happened in our relationship except that she talked to a lot of guys claiming that they were friends. I don’t really think that she was fucking any of them, but I’m a realist who will never eliminate the possibility. I’ve been fucking with Carol Ann ever since I met Watrina so whatever she has done to betray me, I’ve done much worse. I was fucking Coffee for about six months of the time. I fucked Sausha a few times in Warren and she even came and stayed a week with me while Watrina was in Jamaica. I fucked three little neighborhood girls on sort of a steady basis for like three months. I fucked Haitie whom I met taking deposits to the bank for my job.

So trust, if Watrina did fuck Thurston who she went on a trip to Vegas with; if she fucked Lamont who used to call her every day; if she did fuck Catcher whom I’d catch looking at her ass on our meetings together because she was his fashion label consultant; if she’s went out with the last guy she gave her number to on the street (the 908 guy); if she fucked the guy she met at her job and told me that she thought he was gay, and the next thing I know he was on her cell phone leaving her a message; if so, I’ve did all the same, so oh well. I haven’t spoken to her in two days. She hasn’t called me and I haven’t called her. If she doesn’t call me by 12 A.M. tomorrow night, I’m calling her the next day and I will say, “this relationship is officially over.” I met this — year old teacher at the Supper Club on Saturday night. So now I have a woman who is older than I am and I will see the difference in the relationship.

I threw all of myself at Watrina and she didn’t do the same. She’s just now starting to show me that she loves me, but this not calling me is not cool. We’ve had two arguments in the last two weeks that have resulted in us not speaking. This last one I thought was cool because I left a message on her phone that it was O.K. I’d make an adjustment in my attitude and we’d move on, but she never responded. Watrina has a bright future ahead of her from what I can tell. She gonna make lots of money and be well off. With a good responsible man by her side, won’t be no stopping her. I thought that man could be me but it’s not looking like that will be the case. My prediction is that she will be pregnant within a year of us breaking up, and trying to make a relationship work with that guy. Good luck to her.

I’m a little scared by our break up but not broken down. I’m not old enough to be trying to save a bitch as if my life depended on it. I still got years left in me before I get to that point. I’ve taken Watrina back at my angriest points and settled and called her on many occasions and apologized to her for the simplest of things and taken her back when she was on my last nerve. BUT THIS IS IT! She has never apologized for nothing that she has done or made me upset about. I’M DONE!

I was out last night with my man Aderale who popped into town for the New Year I guess. He showed up here Saturday night unannounced, which is not bad. I ain’t on that shit really, but maybe he should have called because he traveled here five or six hours. What if I already had visitors or I was out of town. I guess he was just bored and wanted to do something and didn’t care if I was here or not, he just would have went somewhere else I guess. We went to the TIKI ROOM on 22^nd St in Manhattan last night. I was politickin’ in there about my music pretty well I thought. I met this producer YOGI who produced one of my favorite Hip Hop albums, “CRU, Da Dirty 30”. Yogi gave me his number so I’ma try to get in the studio with him and check what he is doing and learn the business from him if he lets me. I got a few other numbers of rappers to send my beat CD to for a listen. I saw Pocahanas from Makin The Band. I didn’t know her but Aderale did. I never saw the show. I got her manager contact to get some beats to her. She raps and sings.

I’m not getting down on myself about this music shit. I have a whole new attitude about it. I wasn’t even excited about getting Yogi’s number or whoever else’s I got last night. If it happens it will happen if it is meant to be. That is how Watrina viewed our relationship and now it is about to be over. She never took it too serious I guess all that much so I’m gone. 2003, single to find a new bitch. I met this girl Julia last night from London. I like the look of her. I gave her my number because she said that she didn’t have a phone yet because she and friends moved here. I hope she calls me.

I’m going in debt by going out like I’ve been. As of now, I’m $100 in the hole. I’ll take it out of my rent money since my landlord hasn’t fixed my electrical outlets or hasn’t had them looked at by an electrician. I’m trying to get in contact with this guy who does photo shoots of nude guys for gay magazines. He says he’ll pay $250 per session that he uses you for. Maybe I can make a lot of extra money that way. I seem to have a nice body. I have heard too many times that I have a long big dick so that must be true; so maybe this, taking nude pictures for a gay magazines, will pay off if a big way. If not, I’ll probably just end up disgracing myself. But I need more money and I can’t think of any other way to make a quick $250. It is the only option I have so I’m taking it. I got to do what I have to do to survive and live how I want to live.

I haven’t talked to my daughter in two weeks. Her mom took her down south or somewhere for Christmas and didn’t bother to call and tell me. Maybe she is mad because I keep half the child support sometimes when I need it. I do that because she gets my tax return money. I mean hell, I need some relief from somewhere. Who’s gonna pay me back for when she was being unreasonable and not letting me see my daughter? She’ll eventually get all the money paid back to her somehow.

My finances are getting so fucked up. I had to pay $802.00 to get this lady’s hood fixed after Watrina tried to throw her daughter’s bike at me and missed and the bike landed on the hood of my neighbor’s car, and then she took the bike and broke out my rear car window. In all I paid out $1,300 which came from not paying my car note which is already on my credit report as being late because I don’t pay the extra $55 a month for an insurance fee after I dropped my full coverage insurance because I couldn’t afford it two years ago.

FUCK IT, is what they say, because you only live once right? That is why I fuck the way I do because it is or was my only source of entertainment. With hardly no money to go out and Watrina not being there half the time for me, it left a lot of time to fuck other bitches who wanted some. I mean “I ain’t married right?” Isn’t that the statement to shove off the guilt of cheating on someone? SO FUCK IT! I just hope this behavior doesn’t carry over into when I do get married because that will be trouble.

I hope this music shit or something comes through for me with a nice size check in the next year or two because I sure need it. If not, I guess I’ll live like most, with fucked up credit and no money, moving from job to job for a higher salary of thousands, of which I’ll only receive a few hundred because of taxes.

I tell you, life is bullshit. They say even with all the money problems solved, you still have problems, so when does it ever end; when you are dead? Makes you almost want to kill yourself to think about it. Fuck that, I got to have a win situation in life somewhere in the future. Everybody lives for a better future. I live for a better financial future, a better relationship future, to accomplish my music dreams in the future.

What am I living for today when I think about it? I guess I’m living to get home and relax. I’m living to get home and cook me a chicken dinner. I’m livin to get to Justin’s tonight to maybe meet more music people or meet a nice young lady. I’m living for Watrina to call me and ask what is wrong and how can she fix it. I’m living for the next time, which may be tonight, to talk to my daughter on the telephone. That is about all I can think of. But living for those things, am I happy?

I guess they all will make me happy, but I don’t feel they will make me as happy as being in the studio with Yogi recording a Black Rob song for Bad Boy Entertainment, or being a mid to big name producer in the studio with my second greatest rapper of all time as of now, NAS. KRSONE holds the crown for his 15 years of rockin’ his genre and generation. Tupac and BIGGIE haven’t gotten that time in so they don’t get a crown. I’ve already discussed that issue so it’s dead just like they are.

I have an open mind about the future at times, but most of the time I am pessimistic about it. I’m pessimistic about life: my wife will cheat on me and me probably on her; a divorce is possible if I get married; I may not make it in music; I may not get anywhere in this accounting career of mine neither; I don’t see a prosperous future with minor or major riches. I don’t know man I don’t know, but I’ma KIM (Keep It Movin) That I all any man can do. KEEP IT MOVIN!

Jrnl Entry No. 1.13.2001

HIP HOP, I am so frustrated with you right now and direction you have taken for a good cause, but in the process, you have destroyed the essence and rawness of the music that once lived through Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap, KRSONE, Rakim. The cause which you have pursued is money, and money is being made, by god, it is being made by the millions. records are selling double platinum, quadruple platinum, but something is definitely lacking for us old Public Enemy lovers. One, the lyrics are sagging with laziness all over each new release of an album battling for a top spot on the charts.

MCs are making shameful quotes such as “I don’t write my rhymes down. I just make up the song in the sound booth to the beat as I go.” Jay Z, I can tell you did that all through 1999 and 2000 because that’s when I started to get a little tired of your shit. I was so tired that I didn’t purchase the 2000 album or the 2001 album. You went from one of my top MCs with the brilliant flows and choice of words on your first album, “Reasonable Doubt”. “You coppin’ me like, white crystal / I gross the most at the end of the fiscal year than these niggaz could wish to.”; to being of the worst MC on my list with “In My Life Time Vol. 4.” The MCs on your label follow the same. When I heard Memphis Bleek onReasonable Doubt, “Coming of Age” I was an instant fan. When I heard “Memph Bleek Is” I was an instant hater. I didn’t hear that album nor the new one for 2001. Lyrically you all watered down your flow. Beanie Sigel came into the game like that so I was never impressed by him. And what was on your mind when you even thought Amil could hold her own without you on a solo album?

But of course you don’t give a damn about me and my opinion, who was once of the opinion that “this guy rapping with Jaz on “Originators” is wicked.” Jay ripped ”Can I Get Open” on the Original Flava album and a few other songs. Reasonable Doubt was one of my favorite albums that year to come out. But this means nothing because all those projects sold less in total compared to what that garbage album with ”Big Pimpin” on it. But you got to know and in case you don’t, let me tell you that when you lose a true fan who was there from the beginning starting with Hawaiian Sophie even though you didn’t rhyme on that, you’ve lost everything and it’s gonna hit you hard one day. (I read this 10 years later. Jay Z was one of the tope selling, top grossing PAID MCs. LoL)

Hip Hop right now is about the very thing that MCs used to despise, commercialism. Whereas we all used to be as one, there are now two audiences. The industry shows no love for the underground. The underground is really underground now, with the only way to get a record out is to put it out yourself, and hope by some major miracle that it gets heard. Back in the 90s, at least niggaz could get record deals: Black Moon, Heltah Skeltah, Smif & Wesson, Artifacts, Bush Babies, Madd Skillz. Even Notorious B.I.G. and Jay Z’s first albums could be considered underground albums that just blew the fuck up because they deserved to. That’s why you stopped rapping Pace, whether you know it or not. Back in the early 90s, that 5 song EP I got of yours would have made a little noise if on a major label like Elecktra. But in the late 90s to 2000, that shit will create a buzz, but it will be heard by very few. So it’s either we become Jay Zs and Puffys or we die. I hate to say it, but contrary to DJ Premier’s words on Gangstarr’s last album “Moment of Truth”, the roaches in the underground are dying, at least in America.

This is what I wrote to my frat brother who is a nice MC by my standards, who also won’t let me do a beat on his upcoming independent release album. Fuck you for that Stehen. I ain’t asking no more to do a beat for you. You know I make beats so if you want some, you’ll ask for some and actually get them recorded. If not, fuck you again! I also sent this message to one of Stephen’s producers named Pace Maker. He is a cool cat who used to rhyme, but I think the pressures of commercialism and knowing that MCs such as himself have little chance for success, stopped him from wanting to be an MC. He begs to differ, and truthfully, only he knows, I’m just guessing.

Pace Maker: Like Premo said underground hip hop will never die. It might not be accepted in the mainstream, but quality music will always be made. I stopped rhyming because I felt my skills were outdated and I felt I had nothing else to say. You got to understand also that you don’t have to be on a major label to sell underground hip hop music. You could sell 30,000 copies of a record put it on your own and make $500,000! You wouldn’t make that much if you went platinum of a major label.

The kind of music we make would be embraced better overseas. That’s why we’re putting together an overseas tour and an EP release for The Phat Rapper. So far he has about 15 new joints recorded. Shits gon’ be that heat! Keep ya ears and eyes open.

This is me and Pace going back and forth on the subject. We have these spats sometimes with no one really being the winner.

Me: Yeah but besides the money, MCs want recognition also. Who wants to rhyme if nobody is hearing you? And all mutha fuckas is hearin’ now days in America is the bullshit rhymes Jay Z is spittin over mostly bullshit tracks. I’m just sayin that the underground had a voice that wasn’t so hard to hear back then; now, if there ain’t a Fatbeats recod store in ya town, you shit out of luck. And you worried about what you sayin, just listen to Ghostface. 85% of the time, he ain’t sayin’ shit and he knows that.

Pace Maker: You got a point about the Fat Beats situation, but if we can do what we love to do for a living and live a comfortable life off of selling 30,000 copies that’s love! Unlike Ghost (wit his dumb ass), I truly consider myself a poet, so I made sure everything I said had meaning and made sense. Just cause he say dumb shit and sell records (yeah he got my money too, but never again) don’t justify it as being ok to do. You right it ain’t all about money. But life is about finding yo niche and doing what you love to do for a living, so you’ll never feel like you’re going to work. Making $500,000 off being heard from 30,000 fans is enough exposure for me. I’m sure Phat (Stephen) feels the same way. Ask him.

Me: You’re right. Maybe I better start rethinkin’ my strategy in this music shit. About Ghost, I think his style is fly. The more I listen, the less is makes sense, so it never gets boring.

But I guess this is just a phase that all music goes through. I’m currently watching this movie about Jazz that is showcasing all the greats: Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Chick Webb etc. It is talking about jazz and how it basically started in New Orleans and spread to Chicago then to New York which became the mecca. It spoke of how jazz was becoming too commercial in the 1930s during the depression years. Benny Goodman was considered the King of Swing in those days because the white people just latched on to him, even though Duke Elliington was doing swing three years earlier before Benny hit the scene.

Benny Goodman’s band went into a challenge with Chick Webb at the Savoy to see who really was the king of swing and Chick Webb and his band ate Benny and them alive and bowing down. It’s like what’s goin’ on in Hip Hop at this very moment in time with Eminem. He is selling more records than any solo artist ever has in Hip Hop history. He is not considered the King of Hip Hop; for there are and were too many great MCs for him to hold that title. But he does get respect as an MC who raps his ass off, I must say so, and in a battle against the best he could hold his own.

Benny did Jam sessions with other less fortunate artist than himself, and he never bragged about his position in Jazz, he just simply played good music and was respected by most his peers as a good musician. Duke Ellington never changed his sound to become commercial. He stuck to what he loved and he still came out of it a legend.

This is an eye opener to me because I love underground Hip Hop but it seems to be dying from the scene. I often say I’m confused about what type of music to make: what’s on the radio or what I love. This Jazz special has brought to light that if you stick to what you love, it will love you back in the long run. This jazz special is Hip Hop before Hip Hop was born. It speaks of the same issues: commercialism, different genres, the best and who the public makes out to be the nest. Hip Hop is a mirror image of Jazz music. And this lets me know that Hip Hop still has a long run ahead. The special is in the 30s, and it hasn’t gotten to the 50s with Charlie “Bird” Parker, Miles Davis, and Dizzy Gillespie yet, who were legends in their time. I just got to New York a year and a half ago. I got time to become a legend in my own right. The Jazz Show has shown me that if nothing else, I just need to work a little harder and do what I love, not what I think everybody else is gonna love.

Jrnl Entry No. 9.13.2000 “MY HIP HOP STORY” PART IV

I called Stu Fines Wild Pitch Records office. I would be the first guy from Warren, Ohio to make it in the music industry. He said he got my tape and he wanted to hear something else. He had gotten the first tape with I’m Hype on it. I sent him the new tape with the “Doo Wah Ditty” song I titled “I’m Getting Busier” on it. He called me back saying “I like the music, but not the lyrics.” I was like what, to myself of course. I was thinking “I know my lyrics can’t be worse than MC Hammer’s.”

So after that, about six months later, I made another tape. The feature song was called “I Write The Song.” I used the beginning bass track of the song “Pumpin It Up” by Parliament. This song was another hit, another perfect arrangement. I thought these songs were such hits because no one had used them at all. Sampling was rampant, but no one had touched these songs yet. I also looped another Parliament song, still another perfect arrangement, but not a hit song. The purpose of this song was to tell Stu to “Let Me Be Me,” that I didn’t rhyme like Gangstarr, the only group on his label at the time that I knew of; that I didn’t rhyme like Chuck D or Heavy D. I sent him this tape, and he never responded. I called him a couple of times and wrote a few letters. After about a year and a half later, I made another song using Shabba Ranks and KRSONE Remix to one of Shabba’s songs.

When I was in twelfth grade, I was in love with this white girl named Samantha. She was my girl and I was her guy. We were both in the band, which was how we met. And we were the talk of the whole school, band boosters (parents) and all. We held hands down the hall and gave each other a big french kiss after every meeting between classes. No one wanted us to be together. She was a white girl for real, not the cool white girl who hung out with black girls and had been with black guys before. She was a virgin, hadn’t been with anyone, and didn’t hang out with blacks or try to be black. She didn’t do that after we were not together neither. But you could just feel the tension when we walked down the hall. She even lost her two best friends because she chose to be with me. But she didn’t care. I was the first to dick her down and she loved me no matter what.

I can’t remember exactly when I wrote the song but the structure of it was like this: verse 1 was about Samantha and how no one wanted us loving each other because she was white and I was black. I sent the tape to Stu Fines and got no response, but still wrote him from time to time and tried to call him. I remember when “Main Source” came out, me and my boys were on their nuts. I wrote Stu that this group could be big if he did the right things. “Lookin At The Front Door” was pumpin’ at the time, but it was time for another single. The only other song that really grabbed me that I thought the masses of people would like was “Peace Is Not The Word To Play”. But there was one problem with that, it only had one verse of rhymes and the rest was cuttin’ and scratchin’. I told Stu in a letter that if Large Professor put two more verses on that song, it would be dope. What do you know, about two or three months later, I see the video for the song with the extra verses, but it was wack the way they arranged it, not at all what I had in mind.

I was a freshman in college. I had completed my first year of school, pledged A Phi A and I was enjoying my summer. I was working at Bank One as part of my scholarship intern program. I was ready to record another tape. I had the beats looped and ready to go. I went to my cousin and he said he needed a part to record and he didn’t have it, but I think he was just bullshittin’ me. So I couldn’t record anymore. So my dream had kind of started dying from there. I still wrote songs here and there, but I had no studio to go to and no beats because that looping shit I was doing was old to me and I needed fresh, real beats that I had no access to.

At the end of the summer, I was off from the bank, just got paid, and I had like $300 with nothing to do with it. It was a Thursday night, and I was sitting home, and I just made up my mind that “in the morning, I’m driving to New York.” From Warren, Ohio, I could take 80 East all the way there. My car didn’t look like it was in the best of shape but it could move on the high way, and I hadn’t had any problems out of it. It was a 1980 Buick Skylark that was busted up where the windshield meets the roof because I had hit a deer that tried to jump over the car to avoid being hit when it ran out into the street. I didn’t tell anyone I was driving to NY because I didn’t want to hear anyone’s mouth about the car not being able to make it. I got up that Friday morning and started driving. It took me about six hours to get there. I initially passed New York up and drove into Connecticut because I was looking for a sign that said “New York City, This Way.” There was no such sign and there still is no such sign. Once in Connecticut, I stopped at a gas station and asked where was New York City, and the attendant said, “back that way.” I went back and when I seen signs that said “Mount Vernon” I turned off. I was driving around looking for a mall or something. I stopped in a sports store, and to my amazement, they had Champion Sweatshirtsin every color imaginable. Champion sweatshirts were the shit at that time.