*Breakfast Club intro*

I’m body baggin everything in sight
The site of a mass murder
A White dude rippin mic’s… rare as black surfer
Ap serve ya
Do a surgical procedures on speakers
Til the EMT’s are pullin off these emcee’s sneakers
I aint grow up like Leave It To Beaver
Or Mike Seaver
I’m from where the white trash invented the wife beater
Hallelujah…
Born in the sewer like Michaelangelo
Donatello and Splinter
Then sent to earth with the antidote
To wipe out wackness
Strike out fast as
Cobra fangs
Blow ya brains
No remains just ashes
….
These days people get amazed by the mental
Cuz I’m secretive as rituals in Masonic temples
I don’t care if they from suburbs, or raised in the ghetto
They grab they pad and they pencil and start tracin’ my stencil
Why you prayin’ to god to get a taste of the devil
How you tryna be real… when ya made by Gepetto
You lil’ marionettes…
Swear ya carryin’ techs
I’ll incinerate ya flesh…
Then bury the rest
I’m east coast as they get

On any stage they put me on

Came out the womb with Timbs and a hoodie on… East… Coast… Rapist

Chorus :

It ain’t hard to tell, I’m the East Coast Overdoser

Got East Coast locked down, pad lock

Verse 2

I’ll make you curse the day you were born
The way you was formed
Make you wish you was the stain on the page of a porn
I don’t take the bull by the horns
I’ll rip the horns from his cranium
I’m nuclear…
Urine test’s fulla uranium
Radioactive… my radio’s massive
Like I’m Radio Raheem
Keep the police passive
Cuz…
Nobody want it
I’m hotter than fire feels
Karate chop cop cars and punch thru riot shields
I’m the bionic man
I’m Lee Majors
Sellin crack in the 80’s
With 3 pagers
I’m the east coast beat killer and rapist
Police sketches identify our faces
I murdered the mic in about 48 states
What I do to mixtapes’ll
Catch me a rape case
Too many faggots gettin money
Get ya paper straight
Yall are gay as a dude usin a shake weight
Yall are snake bait… rats in the boa’s tank
Sayin you killin shit…
Muthafucker you know you aint
I go in the paint…
The defense scatters…
The backboard shatters…
The same exact shit I do rappers… East Coast Rapist

Ok… this is extremely difficult.

There are albums that might “technically” be better than these… but these are my personal favorites. The ones I listened to the most, and still do to this day.

1. Nas “Illmatic”

By FAR my favorite album of all time. Most cohesive, incredible, and monumental album. No other album has ever painted a better picture of grimey NYC life during that era. This album was like the bible to me. It influenced me beyond anything else in hip-hop. I still listen to it, almost daily, and have “illmatic” tattooed on my left shoulder.

The production was flawless… Large Pro and Preem dominated this album, but Q-Tip and Pete killed it as well. The remixes from this album were just as classic. My favorite track: “Halftime”.

2. Organized Konfusion “Stress: The Extinction Agenda”

Illmatic was the most influential on me, as far as how I make songs, and what I aspired to make an album like… but there’s NO QUESTION, as an emcee, I was most influenced by Pharoahe Monch. If you can’t hear Monch’s influence in my rhymes, you gotta be half retarded.

This album was perfect. Every song. From complex flow patterns that no emcee has ever been able to duplicate… to classic joints about every day life and heart ache. “Stress” and “Bring It On” were insane lyrically. And songs like “Stray Bullet” laid the ground work, and set the bar for future story telling and concepts I would do on my own albums.

You see… these albums weren’t just “dope albums” to me. I STUDIED THEM! To the molecular level. Practiced over and over again. Tried to figure out how and why they did certain shit. It’s like training and learning Kung Fu. These albums are my absolute foundation, for myself as an artist.

My favorite track : “Why”

3. Wu Tang Clan “Enter The 36 Chambers”

Wu Tang came out of fuckin’ NOWHERE, with the illest marketing/imagery to ever hit hip-hop. When you’re 14-15 years old… and you see pictures and videos of these guys with masks on, hoods up, and all kinds of swords in dilapidated Shaolin looking temple things… YOU BELIEVED IT! It COMPLETELY suspended disbelief. I still have no clue how RZA did it… but the sound matched too. Every beat, even though it was sampled from ancient soul records and obscure jazz… SOUNDED like some mystical Kung Fu shit. They flawlessly fused the mystery of old Kung Fu flicks, with science of the Gods & The Earths. Wu Tang were like jazz… cuz even when they fucked up, it sounded good. Shit… it almost made it BETTER!

My favorite track: C.R.E.A.M. (even though it’s played out… it’s still one of the most perfect hip-hop songs of all time)

4. Ice Cube “Death Certificate”

All these artists nowadays try to say “It’s a movie!” … Bullshit. There’s only ONE album in hip-hop that is ACTUALLY LIKE A FUCKIN MOVIE. And that’s this album right here. This is like audio form of Boyz N The Hood… but even more in depth.

The production on this album is unbelievably complex. Definitely influenced by the Bomb Squad’s production style. Still have no idea how they did shit back then, with a fraction of the technology that we have today. *shot out to Sherron Shabazz on the correction*

This album is amazing. Ice Cube was one of the greatest rappers of all time. I hate his music now, but I can’t take away from what he gave us in the past. This album was a huge inspiration to me.

My favorite track: “A Bird In The Hand”

5. A Tribe Called Quest “Midnight Marauders”

Immediately, from the jump… before you even get to the music… this cover has some of the most legendary hip-hop icons of all time. I remember hearing “Award Tour” as the first single from this album, and I fell in love right off the bat. When the album was finally released… I almost took for granted how good hip-hop was… and expected it to be like that, forever.

Q-Tip wasn’t the most technically skilled lyricst, but his voice, flow, and ability to make GOOD SONGS… put him at the top. The thing that propelled this album to the level of “unfuckwithability”, was the beats. The music on this was unreal. Perfect samples, perfect drums, perfect mixes, perfect sequencing… perfect everything. The weird robot voice Midnight Marauders Tour Guide, sounds like a modern day GPC voice… but it was the glue of this album. This album is attached to some of the best memories of my life.

My favorite track : “Lyrics to Go”

6. Gang Starr “Hard To Earn”

I remember how long it took “DWYCK” to finally see it’s way on to an LP. That one record was soooo big, and should have come out on “Daily Operation”. So when that dropped, with no “DWYCK” I was confused and bummed out.

Finally, 2 years later… “Hard To Earn” dropped and “DWYCK” was added to the track list. The song still didn’t feel old to me, and the rest of that album blew me away.

This is hardcore east coast shit. Preem’s beats were so different than everyone else’s. Just look at “Speak Ya Clout”, “Tonz O’ Gunz” and “ALONGWAYTOGO”. A fucked up mish mash of chaotic soundin’ samples over hard ass drums. INCREDIBLE. Then you had “Mass Appeal”, “Code Of The Streets”, and “Suckas Need Body Guards” for the fly slick shit. Another perfect album.

My favorite track: “Mass Appeal”

7. Souls of Mischief “93 til Infinity”

Hiero was one of THEE illest crews in ‘93. Del’s first album was cool… but when he dropped “No Need For Alarm”, you knew shit was on another level lyrically and production wise. Casual’s “Fear Itself” was jazzy, brooding, ruminating and all around ill as fuck. Shot out to the song “It Ain’t My Fault”!

Those albums were dope, but were still trumped by the eclectic four man squad, with uncanny flows. These muthafuckers brought a whole new MEANING to the word “flow”. It was unreal how they put words together. It was the definition of “fluid”. The beats on this album had some of the best samples I’ve ever heard, still to this day. I used to be homies with A-Plus back in the day (like 1994), til Del and I had a verbal altercation on the phone… but they were really cool dudes. I’m sure Del doesn’t even remember it now. Anyway.. this is definitely one of my favorite albums of all time, and still gets constant play.

My favorite track: “Make Ya Mind Up”

8. Jeru The Damaja “The Sun Rises In The East”

When I first heard Jeru, I was 14 years old (1993), learning the ropes at WHUS 91.7. His song “Come Clean” dropped… and I wasn’t even sure if I liked his flow. It was VERY choppy, and abrupt. A stark contrast from the previously mentioned Hieroglyphics camp.

But as time went on… not only did Jeru’s music grow on me… I ended up thinking the muthafucker was a genius. His rhyme schemes were incredible…. and the knowledge he was dropping was deep. The beats were some of Preemo’s best. Preem produced the entire album… and Jeru reaped the benefits, career wise. If you don’t have this album… GET IT! You will be impressed.

My favorite track: “My Mind Spray”

9. Fugees “The Score”

1996 was an extremely dark time for me. The year prior, I lost my mind experimenting with weed and developed a very bad panic/anxiety disorder, which I still carry to this day. One of my closest friends, Louie Montalvo, and I… were as inseparable as twin brothers. We chilled every single day… went everywhere with each other… and went through Hell together. What I mean by that is… Louie decided to try acid one time, and had a bad trip. I reference this on my “Eastern Philosophy” album, in a song called “I Remember…”. Well Louie’s bad trip made him develop a severe paranoia for just about everything.  And being that we were so close at the time, I inherited this experience. We were constantly stressed out, and always thought we were “bugging”… the term we used to describe the anxiety and paranoia. At the height of our stress… two albums dropped, that felt like some type of cerebral or spiritual medication. GZA’s “Liquid Swords” (Liquid Swords dropped late ‘95, but went well in to 96) and Fugees “The Score”. These albums would be the soundtrack to our recovery, healing process, and the bridge back to sanity.

“The Score” in particular, resonated with us. The Fugees were reborn as well… with all new flows, a renewed sense of production selection, and a cohesive album that moved like a children’s read-a-long book. The album is a certified classic. Its hands down one of the best albums of all time, across all genres of music. “Ready Or Not” was dark and spooky, and still gives me goosebumps, if I play it while driving through Hartford (where Louie and I were roomates, and joined a b-boy crew who lived there). Still wish I had a version of this without Pras. He was fuckin GARBAGE.

My favorite track: “Zealots”

10. Notorious B.I.G. “Ready To Die”

Me and Open Mic almost killed this cassette. We played this shit SO much. The beats were unreal. Every track was harder than the previous… the whole album was solid. First time I heard Big on “Party And Bullshit” I was an immediate fan… but this album made me a fan for life.

This album is pretty much a standard for people to say is one of their favorite hip-hop albums. But when you were a teenager during this time period… it made it that much better. You experience music differently when you’re a teen. You appreciate it more. It’s so important to your life and TRULY does become your soundtrack. You begin to remember and recall events, by when an album dropped, or when something came out. Every time I hear “Everyday Struggle” or “Big Poppa”… I think of high school… and certain events. It’s a huge part of my life, that made my life better. 

My favorite track: “Unbelievable”

IF I was doing a Top 11, instead of Top 10… #11 would have been Big Punisher “Capital Punishment”. The only reason it didn’t make the list, is because it came out much later than everything on the list… And I’ve had more time with the other albums, and listen to them much more. But “Capital Punishment” is fucking CLASSIC!

Other honorable mentions:

Raekwon “Only Built For Cuban Linx” Honestly, this should REALLY be on there.

Black Sheep “A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing”

Jay-Z “Reasonable Doubt”

Boogiemonsters “Riders Of The Storm: The Underwater Album”

Pete Rock “Soul Survivor”

Mobb Deep “The Infamous”

GZA “Liquid Swords”

Method Man “Tical”

Group Home “Livin’ Proof”

Public Enemy “Fear Of A Black Planet”

*Hangin’ out with Rakim…

Even when I was very young, 9 or 10 years old… I was fanatical about hip-hop. More so than most kids my age. They were mostly obsessed with toys and cartoons and shit. I mean… don’t get me wrong, I LOVED G.I. Joe’s and Transformers too… but I studied Big Daddy Kane and EPMD more than the average little kid.

And even at that young age… I knew there was something different about Rakim.

Something that set him apart from everyone else rapping. I wasn’t intellectual enough at that point to grasp the depth of his lyrics… but it sounded fuckin’ crazy to me. When you’re that young, you’re not as worldly… and your imagination runs away with you. So compared to every other rapper in that era, Rakim sounded like… a fuckin’… WIZARD or something.

Rakim quickly became my favorite rapper… and held that position indefinitely.

As the years went on, he became even iller… and more of an enigma.

The Way he carried himself in videos, and Yo! MTV Raps appearances, was like an ancient mystical wise man, who knew some shit that the rest of us didn’t. He was calm, cool, collect and genius. You can’t front… if you paid attention to Rakim, that’s how he was.

His (& Eric B.’s) album “Let The Rhythm Hit Em” was so dark and grimey… and further fueled my imagination and education.

The song “In The Ghetto”, was the first time I ever heard the word “apartheid“… and it also put simple, yet profound things, in to perspective for me. Case in point :

“Thinking how hard it was to be born/ Me, being cream with no physical form/ Millions of cells with one destination/ To reach the best part… that’s life, creation/ 9 months later, a job well done…/ Make way… ’cause here I come”

They tried to teach that shit to us in school… but hearin’ it the way Ra presented it, put a different pep in my step.

Anyway… let’s fast forward 8 years.

1998. Me and Open Mic had just finished our “Sure Shot Affair” demo.

One night we went to a show in Boston to see 7L & Eso perform… they were opening up for Rakim. I shook Rakim’s hand, and briefly built with his road manager at the time, the legendary Bill Blass (R.I.P.).

*That’s Bill, far left*

Large Professor referenced Bill, on “Live At The Barbecue”:

“You’ll be as crispy as my man Bill Blass”.

Anyway…..

Bill told me that the next day, they’d be doing a show at Eastern Connecticut State University (ECSU), which is in Willimantic, CT… where I’m pretty much from. Bill said I should come through and he’d put me on the list.

The next day Open Mic was working, so I rolled with one of my best friends, Louie. If you’re a fan of my shit, you’ve definitely heard me talk about Louie on pretty much every album.

*That’s Louie with the Yankees hat and black hoodie*

So Louie and I head over to Eastern, in his beat up ass 1987 Chevy Cavalier… which looked like this :

We saw the tour bus pull in, and appeared to be lost on the small campus. I walked over to the bus and the door opened… out steps Bill Blass, and he was visually relieved to see me. He didn’t know where they were supposed to go, and they were running out of time. I helped them find the office and everything was running smooth. He said “You’re gonna be our “go to guy”… which I had no problem with.

Me and Louie followed Bill on the bus, which normally is a “no no”. Dudes do not want other dudes on their bus, who they don’t know well. It’s just an unspoken tour rule… but this was an exception. Rakim greeted me again… way cooler than I anticipated. I basically thought he’d be polite but not acknowledge me… that wasn’t the case. He was way more talkative and social than I ever pictured, being that I had that mystical image/persona of Rakim chiseled in my brain for so long.

I’ve never really been “star struck” (except when Jay-Z walked up on me and Motive one time at the 40-40)…

But I was in awe…

I was in awe the way Malcolm X must have felt, the first time he met Elijah Muhhamad. I almost couldn’t look him in the eyes. This was the God. I was overwhelmed.

I know all that seems crazy… or might sound corny to a couple of you… but I’m telling you exactly how I felt at that moment.

Ra had his sons with him on the bus, who were about 5 and 8 (I’m guessing)… and a small entourage. One guy I remember named Mike D (no, not Mike D from Beastie Boys) was funny as fuck.

I pulled out a box of Altoids mints, and offered him one… and he said “What the fuck is that? Some acid or some shit? I know you white people fuck with drugs heavy”.

Ra quickly intervened and schooled Mike on what Altoids were. Me and Louie were dying laughing over the absurdity of the whole conversation.

Moving on…

The guys wanted to head to their hotel for a little while before the show later that night… and asked if I’d show them where it was, ‘cause they weren’t familar  with the area. When the girl from the school told me which hotel it was… I had a good “idea” of where it was, but I wasn’t positive. However… I didn’t tell anyone that… I just said “Ok… no problem… I know where it is.”

So Louie and I jumped in his ‘87 Cavalier and led Rakim’s tour bus off in the direction of uncertainty. We’re driving and driving for about 40 minutes before I decide “FUCK… I have NO CLUE where this fuckin’ hotel is!”. They put them up somewhere in the BOONIES. I had Louie pull over, and I jump out of the car to talk to Bill. I was nervous, because I definitely felt like I fucked up.

Bill didn’t seem to care… he said “Fuck it… let’s just get back so we can do sound check”. He told me to jump on the bus with them, so they don’t get lost… and we followed Louie’s hooptie back to campus.

At this point Ra asked me “So, what is it, that you do?…” and I told him “I’m an emcee”. He seemed amused by that idea, and told me I should spit something for them. They were probably under the assumption, that I’d be some horribly corny white kid.

You have to understand… this was before Eminem blew up. He only had “Just Dont Give A Fuck” out… this was before “Hi… My Name Is”. So people’s perception of white artists, was still tainted by the Vanilla Ice era… even though it was so long ago.

I kicked a verse for them, that was full of my normal punchlines, and some alien references and shit… and they lost their fuckin’ minds on the bus. They definitely weren’t expecting that.

Rakim got up and gave me a pound.

Rakim told me I’m incredible. After that moment… no negative review, no criticism, no hate ever mattered. I don’t give a fuck what anyone ever has to say… because Rakim told me I’m “incredible”.

When we got back, they had set up a green room area for Ra, which was pretty much a class room, that had a TV, with a Play Station in it… and food for Ra, entourage and kids.They brought the food out, everyone was eating… but I was playing the back, trying to be humble… and Rakim himself said “Yo, make sure Apathy eats too.”. I know that seems trivial… but it was a huge deal to me. That was the realeast shit.

Open Mic got out of work and joined up with us a little later. We watched Ra perform and he tore shit the fuck down. I’ll NEVER EVER EVER forget… he performed “Follow The Leader” SITTING DOWN… IN A CHAIR… and the crowd went fuckin’ INSANE! I still have never seen a rapper command that much power and respect. Ever.

Rakim is truly, and always will be an enigma.

I had Ra sign The 18th Letter CD and cassette that I bought a few months prior in late ‘97… and he signed a shirt for me. I still have the shirt. Never wore it. He signed it “Apathy, Rakim Allah, Peace”.

I have no shame with being a fan, and showing love like that to an artist that had such a huge impact in my life.

I hear a lot of kids say “I dont wanna be on your dick or be a fan boy” or apologize in other ways… or even say “No homo” after giving me a compliment to me… and I think that’s fucking ABSURD.

Without fans, this music is nothing.

I will continue to be a fan. A FANATICAL fan. And meeting my idols, means more to me than anything. Hip-Hop is my life… and always has been. I thank Rakim for the music… and being a good, humble person… and one of the best memories of my life. Word up.

R.I.P. Bill Blass.

Like I said…

When I tell these stories, they’re not always gonna be in order of when they happened, from one blog to the next.

Every once in a while, I hear stories…where people say they met Pete Rock… and that he’s a dick head to them. Or he acted fucked up, or arrogant to them some how. 

I’m not sure if Pete was having a bad day, or those people were full of shit…

But Pete Rock was one of the coolest, most down to earth dudes I’ve ever met.

So… in 2003, my partner in crime (Celph Titled) and I, had linked up with Pete and made arrangements with him to go over his crib… and work on some joints.

At that time I was signed to Atlantic, and we were gonna work on some songs for my major label debut (which never happened). Celph and I drove from Manhattan, over the Tappan Zee bridge on our way to Pete’s crib. Like two geeked out super fans, in disbelief that we were about to go work with one of the true gods of hip-hop production… we had a Pete Rock marathon in the car, all the way there.. pretty much playing every album. We’re fans first… that’s just the reality of it.

This was before GPS and all that shit… so we were going off good old fashion directions… occasionally calling Pete, to navigate through the monotonous maze of suburban neighborhoods, that Pete was centralized in.

We pulled up to the raised ranch, with the garage door open… and the first thing we notice… is a virtual sea of records in the garage. Obviously not a prized collection of vinyl, or anything of value… because it literally looked like a sea. Thrown in carelessly and randomly, creating a trash pile effect. I was a little surprised by that. 

But after Pete greeted us, with pounds and hugs… we walked past the pile, and I saw what it was. Bullshit throwaway records and promos that Pete must have accrued over the years. Garbage from record pools, and infinite free promo records. Enough to fill a two car garage!  I felt better already.

We made our way from the garage in to Pete’s basement/studio area. I already knew this wasn’t going to be THEE old school famous Pete Rock basement, from the Yo! MTV Raps era, or the inside cover of Main Ingredient… I knew Pete moved… but still… I was completely geeked.

We stepped in to the finished basement room which was his newer studio/production spot, and noticed a door leading in to another room, filled with records. These were obviously Pete’s actual gems. He definitely had some serious shit in that room.

The room wasn’t real big, but what blew my mind, were the contents of the room.

Celph and I sat down… and the first thing we notice… is an old SP1200, lying on the ground… next to a discarded, slightly bloody, used finger band-aid.

That’s STILL not what blew my mind.

Sitting next to this antiquated SP1200 were several floppy disks, used to store beats. I watched Celph’s face morph in to a “holy shit” expression, when we read “World Is Yours”, “Public Enemy Remix”, “T.R.O.Y.” and multiple other classics… JUST SCATTERED ON THE GROUND! ON THE CARPET! RIGHT AT OUR FEET!!!

We couldn’t fuckin’ believe it!

I felt like some sort of archaeologist, sitting in the same room as the Ark of the Covenant… or the Holy Grail…

I had to ask Pete if that was ACTUALLY what I was looking at… and he confirmed.

Ok… with that moment out of the way… we got to work.

I played Pete some of my material, and he was excited and relieved that my music was actually real good hip-hop shit.

We decided we were gonna start from scratch and make something fresh. He started playing sample after sample, record after record… and finally found one that I was adamant about Pete flipping. It was a haunting opera/chorus sounding singing… from either women or children (I couldn’t differentiate), and Pete looped it up.

Hours went by of us just shootin’ the shit… talking about music… Pete fuckin with acapellas over the beat, and listening to other old beats from the SP1200. 

Pete went upstairs… and came back with food for all of us… which I thought was pretty cool of him… cuz we were abso-fuckin-lutely starving by this point. Celph ended up falling asleep, in the next room on the floor, that was full of Pete’s actual vinyl collection.  And we wrapped up the session about 6-7 hours later.

I left with the new beat we made, and several old MPC and SP beats.

I never ended up using any of the beats for various reasons, due to Atlantic bullshit..

But the beat Pete worked on for me… ended up being “Voices” by my homie Edo G, which is a very dope song.

Even though I never finished a song with Pete… just that experience, was a huge moment for me. A memory that I’ll have for the rest of my life. And a moment I never would have dreamed possible, when I was 13 year old Ap… buying my first Pete Rock and CL Smooth tape.

Coming up as an underground artist in the mid to late 90’s was unreal. The music was at it’s best, technology was exciting but not overbearing and intrusive… and there was still a very healthy divide, between fans and artists.

Looking back on everything that myself, my friends and crew, got to experience… I really felt I needed to chronicle a lot of this shit.

I’m gonna start putting up random stories here and there, in NO CHRONOLOGICAL order… that I felt were interesting.

Hope you enjoy.

———————————————————————————————————————-

1994, was one of the best years of my life.

I was a freshman in high school, just started taking rapping seriously, and the music was amazing.

This was the year that “Flava In Ya Ear”, “Bring The Pain”, “Time’s Up”, “The Most Beautifullest Thing…” “Gotcha Opin (Remix)”, “Bucktown”, “Nappy Heads remix”, “How Many Emcees”, “Juicy”, “Mass Appeal”, “D. Original”, “The World Is Yours”, “i used to love h.e.r.”, “Afro Puffs”, “Mad Izm”, “Crooklyn”, “Regulate”… all came out!

Sorry for the lengthy list, but it’s important you realize how fuckin ill this time period was.

We were almost spoiled, with the releases that were coming out. Constant classics! Rap City was a religious experience at the time.

The music was not predictable in the slightest. People were sampling rare jazz and soul, which created this mysterious and almost spooky vibe at times. Smif-N-Wessun “Bucktown” to Wu-Tang “C.R.E.A.M.” all had this imagination inspiring sound. I know that sounds corny, but there’s no other way to describe it. Shit was grimey, basement, creepy, and dope as fuck.

I had two amazing things going for me, that brought me way closer to the music, than the average person :

1st: I was working at a college radio station…  WHUS 91.7, on the campus of Uconn. (you didn’t have to be a student to be a staff member, and I was 15 at the time.) I would get EVERYTHING before anyone had it. Tons of singles coming in, every week. (I can’t tell you the feeling I used to get, when we’d get a new Nervous Wreck 12”, and I’d see that little logo on there with the yellow background… I just knew it was gonna be dope!).

and 

2nd : I was the newest edition to a local group called The Demigodz, who were making music, on a level I had never experienced.

I had mutual friends with some of the members of Demigodz at that point, and would listen to some of the early demos. Their shit was sooo dope to me. They were rapping about shit that NOBODY was rapping about at that time. Aliens, and metaphysical shit, and sampling weird bugged out music. I was blown away… and I wanted in.

Here’s a photo of the original Demigodz crew in 1993, just prior to my joining… and no I’m not in that pic. Open Mic is on the far right though.

I arranged a phone conversation one day with Open Mic (who had a different name at that time, that I can’t remember now… maybe it was Prototype)… rapped for him… and was immediately placed in the group.

We made our first song together (that is lost forever, and I wish I still had) called “Feet Don’t Fail Me Now”… which sampled Organized Konfusion for the hook. We recorded it on Open Mic’s four track in his basement. Shit was classic. At that time we almost sounded like some mixture of O.K. and Souls of Mischief.

6 months later, is when shit started getting far more interesting.

At this point, Open Mic was used to going to NYC, to work with people and had lots of connects… but I had never been out of CT. We started going to NYC regularly, and would constantly be out on 125th in Harlem.

Now there’s something you need to understand about this time period, with 125th…

It’s not anything like it was back then, now! AT ALL!

Back then, 125th street was a hip-hop head’s mecca!

There were vendors lined up EVERYWHERE with tables, selling mixtapes, bootleg albums, bootleg kung fu tapes, clothes, hats (at the time, those hats that Buckshot and Smif N Wessun made famous, the winter hats with the brims, were poppin), muslim oils, Holy Tab scrolls… EVERYTHING!

But the biggest attraction, were the ciphers…

Me and Open Mic would literally be in a cipher in Harlem, with Big L, Kurious Jorge, Children Of The Corn, Get Fresh Crew… you name it… they were there.

But listen… This was PRE-EMINEM era… so being white, and actually having skill, was fuckin unheard of. I know there were a handful of white rappers from NYC, but when we would go out in those ciphers… people looked at us like we had 3 heads! They would trip the fuck out.

One night, we were in the Bronx, in front of The Fever… and I was spittin in some cipher… and this one dude was gettin’ real bent out of shape, because I was making him look bad. And some white kid, making him look bad in front of everyone, was not something he was willing to tolerate.

So he started lifting up his shirt, exposing a revolver and was yellin out loud “Yo fuck this shit! I’m bout to set it!”

Open Mic couldn’t see the hand gun, and thought he was talking about rapping… so Open Mic started yellin back at him “FUCK IT THEN! SET IT!!!”

Man… you should have seen the look on my face. I almost shit myself when those words came barreling out of his mouth.

This dude who was with us, named Etcetera, grabbed Mic by the arm, and led us in to a store… where we dipped out a side door, on to the next block. When we explained to Mic what happened… he just said “oh shit… that kid was garbage anyway”.

We had no place to sleep in the city that night… so we slept on the train, sitting up… riding it back and forth, all night.

A night like that, would sound like Hell to me, at this age…

But back then… that was some of the best times of my life.

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As time goes on, I’ll be posting more stories from my history… meeting Big Pun, chillin at Pete Rock’s crib, hangin out with Rakim…

This was just the first introduction…. and the beginning of my history as an emcee.

Shot out to my best friend and brother, who brought me in to this shit… Open Mic!

Demigodz circa 2002

Whatup everybody? Just starting the new blog up now. But this is the place to come, to get all new info about my releases… whether it be solo shit, Demigodz, Get Busy Committee… You name it. Might leak new songs thru here as well.
I’ll also be posting random shit, that entertains me, or might drop a few Welcome To Assholeville blogs, here and there.

Celph Titled and I have partnered up to form our official label “Dirty Version”. This is how we’ll be putting out all our future releases, as well as other groups.

Stay tuned for line up, and release schedule.

One
Ap