by Ja Rule
Although there were forty-ounce bottles all over the floor and ashes, cigarettes and remnants of joints buried in the upholstered sofa that was spilling its foam guts, I was at home down there, even then. I was more at home there than on the block, running up and down the stairs or giving crack to fiends. The studio has always been the only place that I could feel blood running through my veins. Aisha complained that I was never home, but I was keeping the promise that I had made to her and to myself.
TVT RECORDS HAD A TASTE OF SUCCESS with Mic Geronimo in 1994. “Shit’s Real” was instantly an underground hit. It made it to number twenty-three on the Billboard hip-hop charts. Steve Gottlieb of TVT understood that underground rap was a market unto itself and was looking for the next big thing to give his small indie label some more relevance to the ever-growing hip-hop phenomenon.
Irv promised he would share our tape with Steve as soon as it was finished.
When Irv told us that Steve was interested in signing us, without a second thought, we went straight downtown to meet him. We had big dreams and dollar signs in our eyes. We didn’t know anything about how the music business worked. All we knew was that Mic Geronimo had a deal and a video and soon we would too.
Steve Gottlieb was a short white dude with a long black ponytail. He looked more like a hippie than someone who knew anything about hip-hop. He walked around the office in his bare feet. When Irv took us down to the Village, where the TVT office was located, we couldn’t help but notice how stark and corporate it was. Lots of white walls, desks and computers. There was no music playing, only the sound of lawyers and accountants making spreadsheets and crunching numbers. The most obvious problems were the blinding fluorescent lights and the fact that the air was clear. There was no one smoking weed, except for one man in the conference room, Gil Scott-Heron. At the time, I didn’t know him by face, but I knew his music and the Last Poets. Gil was always in the conference room smoking and we were glad to join him. We would talk as often as we could. Since we were young, Gil schooled us on the business. He talked to us about his ups and downs in the business. I value the time we spent with him and I will never forget it.
We were all sitting in his office around his little round desk. “I like your sound. And, I like your name,” Steve said with a silly white-boy grin, his bare feet propped up on the desk, wiggling his toes.
Although he never said it, I realized that Steve liked the idea that we were hustlers, which would give TVT the street credibility they wanted.
Everyone at TVT sat on the same floor so the office was kind of boring. There was no creative vibe in there at all. The A&R guys were sitting right next to the lawyers. Everything was white in the office, especially Steve and his staff. Steve was a different kind of dude. He was one of those white hippie kids who looked like a hippie but his looks were deceiving because he went to Yale undergrad and Harvard Law School. All I knew about him was that he was going to give us money and a video. The rest didn’t matter.
“Get the Fortune, muthafuck the fame,” was the first line of the rhyme that we had been working on. My verse started:
Don’t risk it, Ja Rule’s known for makin fat shit
Fully-loaded clip, usin’ wax for targets
Rattattat, rewind the DAT, Black
I got your mind wide open and your wig pushed back
GOTTI WAS PROUD when he presented us with a stack of small-print contracts and a $10,000 check to be split evenly between the three of us. All of us were high as fuck as we posed with Steve and Irv for our signing photograph. The photo would go under a similar picture with Irv and Mic Geronimo. Mic and Cash Money Click would be the only rap artists at TVT. There was a lot of history at TVT. That’s where I first met Treach and Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails. Trent was trying to get off TVT. He was telling us how much of a thief Steve was.
Steve missed out on signing many acts. TVT could have been Def Jam. Many rappers approached TVT before going to Def Jam, which was becoming an institution. TVT was independent and an ideal place for a startup rather than going to Warner or Universal to get your stuff placed. Steve passed on Dr. Dre’s The Chronic. He passed on Snoop, The Lady of Rage, Jay-Z and DMX. All of that was brought to his desk before it went anywhere else. He eventually went on to lose me and Nine Inch Nails. Steve didn’t get it. He wasn’t in tune with the culture.
Black, O and me all laughed our asses off at the TVT check when we left the meeting. That $3,300 each was no fortune to us. We were already pulling down decent money on the streets. The three of us finally decided what would make the most sense would be for us to buy $10,000 worth of crack and flip it. Then, we would all make some real paper.
We would release our first single with “4 My Click” as the A-side and “Get tha Fortune” as our B-side. We would get two videos out of the deal, not just one. We didn’t have money to shoot the video the way we wanted to for “Get tha Fortune.” They only gave us $10,000 to sign, so it can be imagined what the budget was to shoot the video. The budget was low, low, low. We were on a shoestring budget, but we had plans to get around that.
Gotti was friends with Hype Williams. He had done videos with Jodeci, Mary, and Busta. Hype was the man. We were all from Queens. Gotti asked Hype for a favor.
“We got this new group. We need to do two videos because we want to do a video for the B-side, too.”
Hype said he’d make it happen. He was shooting a video for Mary J. Blige, “Be Happy.” This was a big-budget video. Hype “borrowed” some of the film so we could have 35mm film to shoot with, instead of the low-budget 16mm film. We made it happen. We shot “Get tha fortune.” Thanks Mary! This is how you grind. You have to do whatever you have to do to make it happen.
One of our videos would be shot in a gritty staircase in Queens on Hollis Avenue and the other one would be filmed in a shop that was owned by our man Preme. We didn’t have lighting. I remember we had to bring a lamp from my apartment. People around the way were happy to see us shooting a video on their block, hundreds of people came out to cheer us on and to get on camera whenever they could.
I couldn’t wait to tell Aisha that we had a record deal.
I HADN’T SPENT QUALITY time with Aisha in a while so I planned a special night. I was going to have Aisha over to hang with me at the crib to celebrate the record deal.
My Moms rarely cooked, so I couldn’t offer her a home-cooked meal, so I would be the cook that night. I went to the C-Town supermarket and bought a pack of cube steaks, a box of Velveeta macaroni and cheese and a few packs of Kool-Aid. Aisha said it all tasted good. I even made gravy with onion soup and water. We ate a lot and talked a lot. It felt nice being with her in private. After dinner, Aisha and I went to my room. I couldn’t wait to tell her about the record deal. We were lying on my bed and I was just about to tell her my exciting news. But Aisha had something to tell me, too. I let her go first.
“Guess what?” Aisha said with a tentative voice.
“What?” I said.
“I’m pregnant, Jeffrey.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. We both thought that we were doing the right thing and that it could never happen to us. I was happy but dazed. Although it wasn’t good timing, it was perfect timing in some ways. I would be able to take care of us financially, because I now had a record deal. I was on my way. I wasn’t ready to be nobody’s father. I was ready to be a star.
“Word? You sure?” I finally said.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Aisha said softly as she put her head down, afraid to see the look on my face.
We had used condoms for the first straight year. And then we don’t know what happened. I think I was the one who suggested that we use the “withdrawal method.” I’d heard from someone that it worked. Or maybe, I’d heard that it didn’t work.
This news from Aisha was the wake-up call I needed. Having a baby would mean that I needed more money and that I had to get this rap thing in motion.
“Wow, girl, that’s big news, Aisha. How do you feel?
” I hoped my face was pleasant, if not neutral.
“I’m not scared . . . maybe a little. Jeffrey, I just don’t want to be another statistic. I want to have all my kids with the same man.”
Aisha was afraid, I could tell. She was trying to be strong, although I could see her eyes watering. This was that moment in the hood that all chicks fear, the moment when the guy who got her pregnant says, “I’m out.” Or, they simply be out.
I wasn’t going to do that to Aisha. I loved her, even though I was only eighteen. I lightened up the mood for her, like I always did. “Okay. Then have all of your kids with me. Look, we have one out of the way already!” I said, wanting to comfort her and wanting to believe for myself that what I was saying was possible. I was only eighteen years old—nine months from then, where would I be?
“I love you, Jeffrey,” she said, pulling me closer to her.
“I love you too, baby girl,” I said as my mind wandered to the tour that I hoped I’d be on with Mic Geronimo someday.
I was excited about the baby, but I knew that would mean I would need to make even more money. I wanted the money to come from rhyming and not hustling. If that wasn’t the case, it would be true, Aisha would lose me.
“JEFFREY, DO YOU REMEMBER when I told you that I wasn’t scared? I lied. Reality hits me every time I see how big my belly is getting.
“Oh my God,” she whined, “I’m going to have to take care of this baby all by myself, since you’ll be on the road.” She rolled her eyes and turned her back as she buried her face into the pillow.
There were a lot of nights like that when we were together but didn’t have much to say. Everything that was happening was too heavy to talk about. We just had to let that shit simmer. Talking too much wasn’t going to help. The baby talk was starting to scare me, too. I didn’t know what to say to her. Was she expecting me to say that I would be there to help with the baby? I couldn’t speak too soon. I didn’t want to make any promises that I couldn’t keep. Shit was popping off for my music. They were planning a tour that I would be on. I would always love the baby and Aisha, forever, but I may not be there to change diapers and shit. I would be out on the road, on stage, signing autographs—where I belonged. I would be being the man that I said I’d be.
I’m a godsend, the fallen angel and I do sin
Far from perfection but still considered a gem
Thank you lord for givin’ me wind beneath my wings
When the miracle spittin there shall be no witnesses to da pain
And my ignorance, I charge to da game
So many love and slain by bullets wit dead aim
I weathered the change
I read over the verse one more time. With my verse staring back off the page at me, I wondered why I wrote the word “godsend.” Was I a godsend to anyone? Certainly not my father. Was I a godsend to Moms or had I done nothing but give her problems?
For Aisha, I was a godsend, maybe. She did say to me that I was the most stability she had ever had. She was for me, too. It was in the back of my tattered notebook that was running out of pages. It would soon be time for a new one or to retire those notebooks altogether. The verse was okay, but I wasn’t feeling it all the way just yet.
I did have a strange feeling that there was something with me, looking over me. Maybe God didn’t forget us, after all. Maybe it was Kristen. I could feel it. Kristen’s spirit was giving me wind beneath my wings. I smoked a little more trying to figure it out. A title for this joint finally came to me. “We Here Now.” I didn’t want to write it down, just yet. I wasn’t fully ready to commit to anything.
IN ALL OF THE EXCITEMENT of having a video and a pocketful of drugs to sell, in the blink of an eye, Black got caught out there, and because he had some drug-related priors, he was arrested and ended up doing time.
The dream was dead before it started. The Cash Money Click project was on hold.
From Steve Gottlieb’s perspective, five years was a long time for a label to stick to a commitment to a trio with one-third of its members in a cell. He said, “I can’t make videos with just the two of you.”
DJ Irv was finally getting some recognition as Mic Geronimo’s producer. Suddenly, his presence grew and being known as simply DJ Irv was not enough. Jay-Z gave him the nickname Gotti after John Gotti of the infamous Gambino mafia crime family in Brooklyn. Jay-Z was always on that gangster shit. Gotti liked the name because it symbolized a “Boss” and that is who he wanted to be in the rap game. DJ Irv became Irv Gotti.
In the meantime, Gotti had already started scheming and planning a solo project for me, despite the entanglement with TVT. Steve Gottlieb, who was once our savior, quickly turned into an enemy. Our frustration with the situation was so bad that I started drinking and smoking more than ever. The realization that I would be stuck a hustler for the rest of my life came into full view. There was seemingly nowhere I could go, musically. I had gotten a record deal but couldn’t record.
I thought about running up in Steve Gottlieb’s office with some guns, which would have been easy to pull off. I had heard a rumor that Treach from Naughty by Nature had done this already and got released from the label. Then I realized that this situation was not that type of a situation. A corporate type like Steve Gottlieb didn’t live by the codes of the streets. All he would do is what corporate people do, sue. All that would have happened to me if I ran up in there with guns is the receptionist would push a button under her desk and I would be getting a baton upside my head on my way upstate to be in the same cell with Black.
I REALIZED THEN that I had to do things differently. Different things call for different measures. Although Steve was corporate, he was still a fighter. Steve had the law and a signed contract on his side. I couldn’t win and I couldn’t get out of the deal. He still held the power no matter how many guns I could get my hands on. I had to face it, my career was dead for the next three to four years.
Even though I had faced the reality, after a while, Gotti and I couldn’t sit still anymore. We had a video that was out there and we needed to promote it to spark some more attention despite the situation. We had a strategy that we called “Jack the Box.” Back in the day, The Box was a cable program that would allow viewers to call in and request the videos that they wanted to see.
Gotti and I would watch the Box religiously, and we would time our requests according to whenever Mary J. Blige and Method Man’s joint “You’re All I Need to Get By” came on. Every time it came on, we would call in to request “Get tha Fortune.” Finally, the plan worked. One day, Lyor Cohen, Russell Simmons and Jam Master Jay, God rest the dead, were watching The Box and admiring how hot their Method Man and Mary J. Blige video was. It was on The Box at least ten times a day. It so happened that “Get tha Fortune” came on right after Mary and Meth.
As I later learned, Jam Master Jay stood up in the meeting and said, “That dude is going to be a fucking star!” He was talking about me. His statement triggered Lyor Cohen and the powers that be at Def Jam to find me by any means necessary. Jam Master Jay had his own studio and although he was working with Def Jam he was also working on his own artists as well. To get their attention was an even bigger honor.
SHIT WAS HAPPENING. I was getting attention from the right people. Jam Master Jay and Def Jam were talking about me and Irv had hooked me up with his friend Jay-Z, who wanted me to be on one of his joints, “Can I Live.” He asked me to come meet him in the studio and lay down my verse. When I got there, it was too late. But I learned something from the experience. I learned that I needed to go to the next level.
“Nigga, you late,” said Jay-Z as he emerged from the booth. “I think I got it. Sorry about that. I’ll put you on another joint soon.”
“You did the verse already? Where’s your notebook?” I asked.
“Don’t have one. It’s all in my head,” Jay said, proudly.
No way—who the fuck does that? I didn’t want to act too surprised, but I was. I couldn’t even fathom that h
e could hold all those rhymes in his head.
I realized that if writing rhymes was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, I needed to know my shit off the top, like Jay-Z. The paper was just a crutch.
I KNEW JAM MASTER JAY from the neighborhood. And he had a studio on Jamaica Avenue where I could go and meet up with Black Child, who was one of JMJ’s artists at the time.
“I love your energy man. How’s TVT treating you?” asked Jam Master Jay.
“It’s kind of a long story, but I’m not really recording with them right now.”
“Word? You should come fuck with me.”
Then a chubby kid came in from out the back. I had recognized him from the streets. It was “Boo-Boo,” who was now going by the new name, 50 Cent.
“Hey 50, this is Ja Rule. Ja Rule, this is 50 Cent, my new artist.”
We had already met. 50 Cent knew who I was, and was a fan.
“Yo like ya new shit. We should do a song together,” said 50.
“Yeah, ya’ll should put that together,” said J.
“Yeah, we could do that,” I agreed.
50 was a real quiet dude, not saying much and watching everything I did.
The only one who didn’t think that was a good idea was Black Child. Black was Jam Master Jay’s top artist. But 50 was starting to become JMJ’s favorite. Black felt that if I was going to do a record with anybody it was going to be with him, not 50. So me and 50 never got the chance to do the record. I believe this is where the animosity started.
When I got ready to leave I gave a pound to Jay and his new artist.
Black said when we were outside, “Fuck that nigga.” Black didn’t really like 50 Cent.
I WAS EXPECTING a baby and Aisha was home alone most nights when I was out partying, or so it seemed. The more Aisha talked about the baby kicking, all I could think about was when I would be on the road and see posters with my face all over the streets.
