This is a true story. Got a DM that said I want to work with your clientele but I don’t want to pay them.
I advocated for working and explained why paying my client for their WORK is a good thing. This follyman said I don’t like to “ruin the magic” with money. I was like YO...the artist is a Father rAp is LABOR what is u saying right now fam!?!?
A few back and Forths later the dude who I don’t know him could be producer or a label owner tells me “I’m on vacation in Monaco with my Wife”.
I lost it inside my head. Vacation!? Monaco!? Money makes you lose the magic of music!?!?! What in the indentured servitude fuckshit!?
Like most of my clients are Dads they have real mouths to feed and making great Hip Hop music that makes us ALL a decent living is a MUST. The babies deserve for their fathers to be paid fairly. Rap is labor. Poverty is violence. Gtfohwtbs
I was in the back of a pearl white stretch limousine in a gown and a faux fur On my way to an industry soirée. My 2way pager 📟 started to go extinction level event crazy. Aaliyah BabyGirl Houghton’s plane crashed after Damon Dash forced her to rush her trip. Tears ruined my face
I asked the limo driver to take me to Harlem I paged Niki to get dressed urgently she met me downstairs in a real fur and full glam. We went to the all night diner and had fries mozz sticks root beer floats onion rings burgers - veg 4 me - and cried in our floats. We barely ate.
Niki asked to stop and cop on the way home. I asked the driver to pull over and I considered for the first time ever in my life using drugs. We dropped Niki and her bag off up top. I’m a dealer not a customer. I fixed my face and swung by the industry soiree it was done. Limo’s
I was very sick and don’t remember what tour this was or if Tajai sent to me or it was on socials. I just know this is a photo that gives a glimpse of the fellas and how hard they work. Deeper still this is DEL. He crouches down or sits on a curb he’s like a skater 🛹. 1000 words
I try not to regret. I don’t like to say I wish… and I HAVE had the chance to be on a few days of a tour run with Hiero or Souls. I’ve been on the bus or the van - sometimes Domino or Casual didn’t like that I was there and that’s part of their dynamic too! BUT I never got to…
Be the road manager for Hiero or Souls. A few non-hieroglyphics have done it. No one can do it BETTER than Tajai it Domino. But I’ve done it from bed in Oakland in so much pain - advanced shows for Souls/strong arm steady with Tajai doing the overseas in person road management…
Coachella. I'd been the very first year ever, when it was held in Summer. It was ONE HUNDRED TWENTY DEGREES FAHRENHEIT and I was running from stage to stage taking pics and documenting for platform.net (the original website of crafted by the grafted!!)
performing inside a hot dusty sweaty tent, his plastic Elvis/Jermaine Jackson wig literally & figuratively melting into his actual scalp... It was a menagerie of dusty filthy barefoot patchouli-scented mixed with underarm-funk whitewimminz with like ... 50 BIPOC dancing on beat.
Flash forward so so many years to the @coachella with the MadVillain performance. Imagine myself, DOOM, @madlib and assorted people from stonesthrow-whateverthefuck backstage in "VIP" which is still a dusty field with some airstream trailers. Standing around, shooting the shit.
I'm going to be giving the FLOWERS today to one of my most Beloved loved ones. Before he stopped eating pork, he was the ONLY man for whom I'd ever make pork sausage or pork chops ... now he eats more healthy & enjoys a lot of soups.
PLEASE feel free to chime in with your favorite songs, videos, images, memories, FILMS, TV SHOWS, books, etc. Let's give it UP today in the name of the Lo Lifes, BIC VIC LO, @ThirstinHowl3rd the original PoloRican ... a man with a thousand names and a hundred thousand raps. ...
At the studio/lab in Medina/Brooklyn I constantly played music. There was a used music shop down the road. Prior to moving to NY for work at Complex, I had come to visit to stay with my Play Brother JASE and his at the time lady. ...
So when the job came up, and DOOM and GRIMM required for me to move to NY, all at once...I asked play bro bro and he said come live there and get a place in his building. I did and it became the studio, the office, the mixing/mastering lab, of course the kitchen/restaurant, etc.
I purchased a CD changer stereo my first day then filled it with 25 of my favorites. This "Dropped" and it was old yet new ... I had all the discs in the changer along with 3 SADE discs, 3 Anita Baker discs, and some Soul/Oldies compilations. NO RAP.