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.

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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