by Ja Rule
It was fucked-up to see what people were going through. They all were letting their jobs, their homes, their children and their mates slip through their fingers without a second thought. All because of drugs. I ain’t gonna lie, that shit was depressing as fuck.
We had a saying on the block, “If they ain’t buying it from me, they buying it from somebody else. May as well be me.” This motto clouded my brain, stopping clarity from getting in. The motto was all I could hear through my weed-highs and selfish needs. In those days, I didn’t give a fuck about anything or anybody. With loot, I could take Aisha to Red Lobster and get all of the gold fronts, three-finger rings and Carhartt jackets that I wanted. I definitely could have used some guidance in my life at that point.
It was a hard thing watching how crack destroys people, but girls particularly. There were too many Tanishas, Kims, and Tonyas to name. It seemed like only a couple of weeks would go by and they had all sunken into shriveled fragments of their former selves. Tanisha was on the fat side in October. By Thanksgiving, she was slack-jawed and skinny. Her juicy ass was all gone and all that was left was flat and bones. Kim used to have a beautiful smile in the summer, but when the kids were back in school in September, her front teeth were shit brown and rotting out of her mouth. Her lips had formed an ashy rim around them and she was constantly licking them, looking for the saliva in her mouth that was no longer being produced. Tonya’s hair used to be so pretty and long. Now it stands all over her head, unkempt and unclean. These women had been reduced to fiends. They were no longer human. They were stick-figure sketches drawn in permanent ink, dangling in reality, never to be erased.
We were all getting high off one substance or another to numb us from our reality, the reality of struggle.
BESIDES, I WAS ON TO bigger and better things. Another motto we had was work less and make more money, so I started selling harder drugs, heroin. We sold it out of apartments and not on the streets because the junkies needed to shoot up as soon as they got it. That’s why heroin was such a great hustle. We knew for sure that the dope fiends would be back because if they didn’t come back, they’d get physically sick.
Business was so good that I started selling heroin in Schenectady with Chuck and my friend P. We called ourselves “the Four Horsemen,” even though there were only three of us. That shit made us laugh our asses off. We were traveling back and forth for weeks at a time to sell heroin. We had customers, but to cut travel costs, we lived with one of our customers where we would stay for three weeks at a time. Chuck had a car and as we drove the three hours each way, Chuck and P would let me freestyle for them. They let me do my thing all the way up there and back. We never listened to the radio, it was strictly time for me to work on my shit. That’s the way it was when I was with my real homies. They encouraged me. They knew that if I worked hard enough I could blow up and not have to hustle.
Chuck introduced us to Tameka and the Four Horsemen became her lifeline. We used to trade her drugs in exchange for a place to stay when we came to sell. Tameka was a young single Black mother. I could tell that Tameka once had a pretty face. Now her small face drooped and sagged like her life. Tameka lived with her seven-year-old son, Marcus, who had no dad and reminded me of myself.
Every time we went to Schenectady, I felt like I was walking into my past. Although Moms never had a bunch of thugs staying in our house or giving me drug money as allowance, it was the empty spaces in the house that reminded me of my own. Everywhere I walked, something seemed to be missing and it was called a father. Whatever I said to Marcus made him smile from ear to ear. Even when I told his l’il ass to go to bed. Whatever attention I gave Marcus was like candy. In those small moments with Marcus, I was filling his holes with what I was missing.
Sitting there in Schenectady, I saw how sad and true it is that so many of us experience tough upbringings. We come from broken homes, broken hearts and broken spirits. We come from homes that suffer from not enough money, not enough food and too many ways to escape. That’s where the mischievous criminal mentality is born. It is kids, the unwanted and the have-nots who take it on.
P, Chuck and I would make ourselves at home, spreading out all over her place, bagging up drugs, drinking 40s, rolling joints and sleeping through the days when we weren’t working. We thought we were making money while providing a male role model for Marcus. It was obvious that Tameka could barely take care of him. We would buy him clothes, buy all of his meals from McDonald’s and give him some spending money when we could spare it. We told him to save it and not to spend it. Whenever I handed him another dollar, I’d say, “Stay in school. Get your education, l’il man.” While we stayed with Tameka, we also serviced the rest of the neighborhood.
Whenever I had some downtime, I had a notebook in my hand. Marcus thought I was smart. He looked up to me. I was scribbling rhymes. I was still working hard on “Story to Tell.” The line just stared back at me from the page:
And just to get to God, I’ll go through hell . . . and leave the world with a story to tell.
Then, the rest of the chorus came:
Listen up I got a story to tell
I’m prayin to God, I know I’m goin’ to hell
If it’s out of my hands, I’ll let time prevail,
Listen up I got a story to tell
“What are you writing?” Marcus asked me when he caught me with the pen.
Without looking up, I said, “A rhyme.”
“What’s that for?” he said, his face all scrunched up.
“You know the rap songs you hear on the radio? I’m writing a song like that. Mine’s is gonna be on the radio, too, someday,” I said, hoping what I was saying was true.
“What’s it about?”
“My life,” I said, peering around at his crumbling life.
“What’s this?” Marcus asked.
Without looking up, I said. “Put it down, man.”
“Look at me!” Marcus said dramatically. When I looked up he was holding one of the guns that P left on the couch. He was posed with the gun pointed at me like he had seen it on TV a million times.
“Marcus, put that down! You could hurt yourself with that, man! That’s only for grown-ups. You promise you won’t touch it ever again?”
“I promise,” he said, pouting, hoping that he hadn’t made me mad.
IF YOU GIVE PEOPLE GUNS, they’ll use them. It was like the wild, wild west sometimes in the hood. Often for no reason, bruthas just wanted to shoot up places. Shit would pop off instantly and there would be a shootout on the block or in someone’s backyard. For those who didn’t get shot, it was funny and made lots of great stories that would be told over and over again with new details and a slightly different twist every time. They would be shooting each other over something as petty as a game of dice.
I remember the time my homies Champ and LayLay were blazing one night out on the Boulevard. Champ had a nine-millimeter Glock and LayLay had a semiautomatic. They were playing a game of dice and one of them rolled and the die went into the crack in the concrete. No one watching the game could really decide what it said.
“It’s a six, nigga!” Champ argued. “You owe me.”
“Nigga that’s a two! ”
They went back and forth about what the dice said and then Champ just started blazing. Everyone scurried, running for their lives. People were jumping into garbage dumpsters, hiding behind doorways and ducking down behind mailboxes as soon as they started shooting at each other. After the police were called and the sirens finally quieted, everyone on the block just went back to what they were doing. No one was hurt that time.
You could be at a house party with all the honeys looking sweet and bruthas dressed tight and some muthafucka would pop his trunk and suddenly people were scurrying like roaches, running and jumping over fences to get the fuck out of the yard.
Another time we were at a house party and someone tried to holla at one of the chicks. She told him that she had a man. Apparently because he wasn
’t there, this dude thought he could holla at her anyway. The girl wasn’t checking for no one else. After a while, he got mad and left the party with his boys and after an hour they came back to shoot up the place.
When I realized that shots were ringing out, we all dropped our drinks and I yelled “Shiiit!” as Devin and I ran out the back door and over the gate. Chuck was right behind me. At least, I thought he was. When I looked again, he and Devin were gone. The alley seemed to swallow them up. They had ducked into a storefront and locked the door. When I caught a glimpse of them, I went back but they had locked me out. All that was out there to help me survive was another fence that could possibly get me out of that shit. I jumped over and there was a gray-and-white pit bull looking at me like dinner.
As sweat poured down my face. I slowly slumped down off the fence, avoiding eye contact with the pit. I moved slowly. I moved slowly, carefully and quietly. The pit watched me. I slowly walked across the yard in front of him and respectfully excused myself. That shit was close.
SIX
Screaming
ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN. BLACK SURPRISED ME WHEN HE TOLD me that he had been going to the studio and playing around with some rhymes. He always said he wasn’t serious about rapping even though I knew he had skills. He came to me with a cassette tape that he’d made with his man DJ Irv, and Irv was working with named Mic Geronimo. They were just playing around, freestyling and shit. I listened to these mix-tape joints and they were not bad at all. Black’s skills were definitely there.
“Yo, I want to go to the studio with you next time. Put me on.”
Black said, “Bet. I told you I wanted to introduce you to Irv, anyway.”
“I thought you were just a street nigga who happens to rap.This shit here is dope.”
“I’m just playing around. Next time, I’ll put you on.”
“I’m ready for that shit. Let’s make it happen.”
DJ IRV MET MIC GERONIMO at a high school talent show. It seems like they met and all of a sudden, Geronimo had a record out, called “Shit’s Real.” TVT records had made a low-budget grainy video, but it was a video, nonetheless. Mic Geronimo was crazy dope on the mic, but I was confident that my skills could definitely hang with his. Black thought he was taking me to the studio like a fan or some shit, he didn’t know I was playing to win.
The wicked aroma of weed is the cologne of hip-hop and it caught us as soon as we walked into the building.
I was ready to do this.
The recording studio was actually an apartment that Irv’s friend owned. It was a small space but it had a mixing board, a makeshift microphone and some do-it-yourself soundproofing. The booth where Mic was recording was tiny but it got the job done.
The studio was dimly lit with candles. There was an assortment of menus, pizza boxes and ashtrays on the coffee table. My senses were on overload. The smells of the weed and the pop and buzz of the wiring swept over me. I wanted this to be my life.
BLACK HAD BEEN BRAGGING about knowing Irv for a long time. He introduced me, saying, “This is my man, Ja Rule, the MC I was telling y’all about. He’s nice. You should check him out.”
(My friends called me “Ja” based on my initials, short for Jeffrey Atkins. Then one day, when we were at the park, Kamal B. Wise who was part of a group called Total Pack, put the “Rule” on the end. It caught on real fast and stuck.)
When Mic Geronimo came out of the booth, I could see myself standing where he stood. He was just a regular dude with gold fronts and a low-cut fade.
I didn’t know what the best approach would be. Should I just start freestyling right there? Should I shake hands or should I just wait until they invited me to do something? I looked over Mic Geronimo’s shoulders into the makeshift booth that was once a closet. My eye stayed on the microphone. DJ Irv was ready to be entertained. He looked at me and gestured towards the booth with his chin.
“Enter at your own risk,” he said with a sly grin.
I had no fear.
I walked into the booth and Irv gave me a beat. I asked him to slow it down slightly to match the song that I’d been working on.
Listen up I got a story to tell
I’m prayin to God, know I’m goin to hell
If it’s out of my hands, I’ll let time prevail, huh
Listen up I got a story to tell
Son in B’more, we scored more, than ever before
Copped the two-door, six-double-oh off a raw
Show no love for loss since big eight be that lucky
Number, we slammed eight of those in Kentucky
Kept the currency comin, mo’, diamonds
New clothes LA hoes that’ll ride us pronto
Once you, lived in luxury, you can’t leave it
Find yourself, turnin’ broke bitches into divas
Can you believe this?
And just to get to God, I’ll go through hell
And leave the world with a story to tell, heh
Listen up I got a story to tell
On the streets we got guns and drugs for sale
And you hoes know the game that we play is real
Keep your mind on the money and your weapons concealed, huh
Listen up I got a story to tell
I’m prayin to God, know I’m goin to hell
If it’s out of my hands, I’ll let time prevail
Listen up I got a story to tell
DJ Irv’s head was bobbing. He was impressed with my skills. He liked my energy and the fact that I didn’t want to come out of the booth. Mic Geronimo was feeling me, too. When I finished “Story to Tell,” I walked out of the booth and DJ Irv rushed me with the most important question, “You freestyle, too?”
“No doubt,” I said.
I spit something off the top of my head.
I handled my business.
“I like your confidence, man,” he said, looking me straight in the eye.
Irv turned to Black and said, “Y’all should become a group. Ja Rule, O and you too, Black. Think about it. I think it could work.”
Mic Geronimo gave me a pound. “That’s what’s up.”
When we got downstairs, Black handed me a joint that he had in his pocket. He lit it and took the first drag. “Let’s make this shit happen.”
I took the joint and looked at it long and hard. “Okay,” I said. Smoke burst out of my mouth as I said, “It’s about time.”
BLACK CALLED IRV and told him that we were going to start the group, as he recommended.
“If you put it together, I’ll do the rest. I have a lot of shit about to jump off. I can make it happen,” Irv assured Black.
When Black got off the phone, he looked at us and said, “What shall we call ourselves?”
We went to the source, which was our favorite movie, New Jack City. We had been watching it weekly since 1991 when it first came out. It was about an infamous drug dealer named Nino Brown. Nino Brown changed my life. Nino was calm, cool, collected and driven. He was the shit. He had money, women, guns and most importantly, he had power.
Everyone we knew in the hood was going through hard times, but on-screen, all the obstacles that were in our way seemed to disappear. At the time, New Jack City was the only movie that represented the East Coast. Most of the movies that were out, at that time, were West Coast–centered. Movies like Boyz N the Hood, Menace II Society and Colors. Being from the East Coast, I wanted to know why they were killing each other over generational beefs? Out there, it is like: “My father and uncle died in this, so I guess I must represent by defending the family.” This is the philosophy that was portrayed in West Coast movies. Our thing, on the East Coast, was all about getting money. It was nothing personal. It was just business for us. What the movie New Jack City represented was success in a way that seemed attainable. At that time, we believed that the only way out of the hood was to play basketball or some other sport, rapping and drugs. Those were our options.
Whenever we would dive into that large screen of th
e movies, it was as if we had been magically transported off the block, leaving all the powerlessness that came with the hood. The lines were blurred between what we saw in our movie heroes and who we were. We wanted badly for it to be one and the same.
In the movie, Nino Brown ran a whole building called The Carter in Harlem. It was like a small corporation. Nino’s crew was called the Cash Money Brothers and so naturally, Black, O and I named our group the Cash Money Click.
“That’s it!” Black said while we were watching New Jack City for the one hundredth time.
“Word,” said O.
“I’m feeling it. That shit is tight,” I agreed.
We started working on a rhyme called “Get tha Fortune,” because for us, it wasn’t about the fame, it was always about getting the paper.
The three of us spent many nights at Dyna Dog studio where I had just met Mic Geronimo. Irv had arranged some free studio time for us to get our joint ready. The studio was so hood that we used a stocking over a hanger to make a spit foam in front of the microphone. When we were in the studio, we would drink whole bottles of Rémy Martin and smoke bags of weed. I had a growing tolerance for drugs and alcohol, or a deeper need to escape, and I didn’t care which one it was.
In the studio, we’d get so high that we could barely see. I must admit that I loved the feeling of being high. It gave me something that nothing else could, except for sex. I believed that being high pushed my creativity. The Rick James song “Mary Jane,” which came out two years after I was born, was still a legendary anthem to weed.
The music had always been at full volume ever since the days that O and I were the nomads, a couple of years before. We recorded in my man C-Style’s basement studio. I always remember how my man’s basement would shake and rattle at the deafening beats that were busting out of the speakers.
