by Ja Rule
The next morning after my arrest, I felt like an asshole. I have kids and I had gotten arrested, again. I tried to protect them as much as I could by never speaking about my legal problems in front of them. For a couple of years, I’d been buying time and doing everything I could to delay the inevitable. But, my time had come. I couldn’t put it off anymore.
TAX EVASION WAS ANOTHER MISTAKE I made. Although the papers called it tax evasion, the official charge was Failure to File, which is a little different. I did pay taxes but just not enough. Where I come from, my Moms and grandparents were never fully educated on financial matters. The little bit of money my Moms ever had, she spent. And how could they educate me about something they didn’t have?
My first experience with money came from hustling. We were all young and didn’t know what to do with all that cash that was flowing in like water. When we got paid from drug sales, we just spent what we wanted and kept the rest in shoeboxes. It was not any real money. Drug money and hustle money is always temporary money. It flows right through your hands. Maybe a street hustler can pay some small bills and get some gold teeth, new sneakers, but only a few, at the very top, can get a new house or something that increases in value, as opposed to decreases in value.
When I started to really make money with music, for a while there, I still didn’t know what to do with it. There were days that I would spend $100,000 in one day, knowing that I would make it again the next day at the next show. We spent all of our lives calling it “paper,” which says something.
I’D BEEN BACK AND FORTH to court for years disputing the charges, paying fines and consulting with my lawyer about a plea bargain. There were multiple charges. I had been fighting hard to stay free but the time had come. I almost didn’t have the heart to tell Moms that I was going to turn myself in but she needed to hear it from me. It was going to be all over the national news. I had put my family through so much already.
I was supposed to report to the jail in April, but I got two months to get my affairs in order. On June 8, 2011, I dragged myself and my family to report to prison. I dreaded the long drive into Manhattan. I dreaded the thought of leaving my family. There was not a dry eye in the car, as I drove us to the courthouse in Manhattan.
Always the joker, I said, “I’m going to turn myself in today but what we should really do is turn this car around and go to the airport and flee the country!”
No one laughed. They just smiled while tears rolled down everybody’s faces, except for mine. I was finally being faced with the truth of who I was and what I had been doing.
THE JAIL SENTENCE STARTED with several brief stays at different facilities and then there was a formal sentencing where I would see my family again, in the courtroom.
My Moms and Ish were both crying at the federal sentencing proceedings. They were crying because they both knew what I knew, that I could get between thirty-six and sixty more months that would run consecutively. The moment of truth was upon us. As the proceedings started everything went silent for me. The court officer and the court reporter were moving in slow motion. Time had stopped. All I could hear were my own thoughts bumping up against each other inside my head. I’m letting everyone down. My family. My friends. My fans.
Stacey Richman, my lawyer, was up there doing the best she could for me. She was telling the judge of all of my accomplishments, including my travel to Kuwait for the USO tour to perform for the troops and being nominated for a Grammy Award.
The judge was unmoved.
I could faintly hear Stacey reciting a list of my charitable work, including nonviolence work that I did for local youth. The judge interrupted Stacey. “How ironic that the young man is an advocate for the very same thing that he is going to prison for.” I had to say something on my own behalf, although that was not what Stacey and I had planned.
I almost felt like I had jinxed myself playing all those jail roles in movies like Half Past Dead, Assault on Precinct 13, and Furnace. The words “you reap what you sow” were running through my head.
The judge was speaking but I couldn’t quite tune in to what she was saying.
Suddenly the words “high school graduation” popped into my head. I don’t know if the judge said it or Ish whispered it into my ear from across the room, but my body suddenly went numb.
The judge said, “Mr. Atkins, are you okay?”
I must have stumbled forward. “Yes, your honor, I’m okay.”
Finally, a tear rolled down my left cheek. I knew for sure with the thirty-six months pending, I would not be home for Brittney’s high school graduation. My hurt turned to rage and I could feel my skin tightening and my heart racing inside my chest. I was angry with myself.
“Mr. Atkins, would you like to say anything on your own behalf?” the judge said, dutifully.
“Yes, your honor.” Stacey furrowed her brow. I looked away.
“You may stand and speak, Mr. Atkins,” the judge said.
When I was face-to-face with her, at that moment, I realized that whatever I said better be good. I was looking at possibly thirty-six months, which would destroy me. It could go either way.
I’m sure that the judge had heard plenty of sob stories from rich rappers trying to wiggle their way out of doing their full sentence. I was no different from them, but what I had to say to her was different to me because it was the first time I had ever begged.
I opened my mouth but nothing came out.
“Mr. Atkins, we are waiting,” the judge said, impatiently.
I was shaken as I felt the impenetrable shell that had always protected me fall away from my body, freeing me to be humble.
“Your honor, the thought of missing my daughter’s high school graduation is worse than any prison sentence you could give me.”
“You’ve had all the chances that the law can possibly allow, Mr. Atkins. I see that from your rap sheet,” she said, peering over her glasses. “You’ve been in the system since you were sixteen years old. Nearly two decades.”
“Your honor, my fate is in your hands and you don’t know anything about me, except for what you see on that rap sheet. I’d like to tell you a little bit about who I really am.”
“Mr. Atkins, we don’t have all day.”
“Your honor, I bet you didn’t know that I’ve been with the same woman since junior high school. My wife’s name is Aisha Atkins. She’s here with me today. We have three incredible children, Brittney, Jeffrey Jr. and Jordan. My daughter is going to college in the fall after she graduates.”
The judge finally looked up from her paper. “Go on.”
“Your honor, I’m not the guy they portray me to be. I’m a good guy, a family man. Not a gangster. I’m just a normal guy who went through a bad time. I don’t deserve to miss my daughter’s high school graduation. I can’t miss it.”
“Mr. Atkins, what makes you different than anyone else who’s in your position?”
“Your honor, I never graduated from high school. I dropped out in the eleventh grade. That has been a shame that I carry with me to this day. My Moms, who you see behind me, has never gotten to attend a high school graduation except for her own. I’m her only child. My sister was stillborn in 1982. I have disappointed my mother and my family too many times. I worked so hard for years so my own children could stay on the right track. I was crazy before but I now understand how important education is. It’s the least I can do for my children.”
“Go on,” the judge said, her gaze softening.
“I’m a young man who’s had a lot of success but unfortunately, I didn’t always seek out the right people in my life. Your honor, I admit that I’ve been irresponsible and a poor role model, but I’m not a bad guy. You see that I have a family that loves me and supports me, even here. The media is trying to paint me as an evil rapper. I’m not that person anymore. You know what I do every day? Father my three children and be a husband to my wife. I never had a father of my own, your honor.”
“Mr. Atkins, do you know how
many performers I see with no fathers, children and wives? Have you said everything you needed to say?”
“No, your honor. I just want to say, we performers have an onstage persona and then we have who we really are, which is the side that no one ever sees. I’ve finally grown up over the last few years. I really want to break the cycle of undereducation, poverty and crime starting with myself . . . and my community. Like I said, my daughter will be attending college in the fall. That’ll be the beginning. I need to see her graduate, your honor. My promise to Brittney eighteen years ago depends on it. Thank you for listening, your honor.”
“What did you promise your daughter?”
“That I would raise her, guide her and save her.”
THE JUDGE GAVE ME twenty-six months to run concurrently with my twenty months with the State, in prison, and two months of house arrest. I had already spent April and May at home on house arrest where I wore a monitor on my ankle that tracked my movement. I had parole officers coming in and out of my house unannounced to take urine samples from me once a week, making sure that I was clean. I felt like a fool. Aisha was charged with the task of keeping me in the house at all times and she would be asked to do it again at the end of my twenty months, when I returned.
Two years in jail would mean a dramatic loss of income for my family. I had bought houses for my mother and my grandmother. I’d sent Ish’s sister Antoinette to college. I even remember the time after my first album that I took my boys on a shopping spree and the tab was $500,000. I had been frivolous with money for too long. This was yet another wake-up call. I realized that I needed to get rid of things and habits that I no longer needed. My mother would have to move out of her house and come and live with us. I had bought her a large four-bedroom house for her to live in alone. My mother’s sister Dawn and brother, Dennis, both needed a place to stay, so I ended up taking care of all of them in that house. I didn’t mind, but I was going to prison and we had to make some significant changes. I’d have to get rid of the Maybach and we’d all have to watch the money more carefully. I knew it would work out, just as it had when Brittney was born. We never missed a meal or a mortgage payment. What mattered most was that I’d be home to see my baby girl graduate.
WHILE MY JAIL SENTENCE was fast approaching, it was a dark and humbling period for me. It was the perfect time for me to make another creative album so I called in producer 7 Aurelius who had worked with me on Pain Is Love. I called the new album PIL2, Pain Is Love 2. Over the years I’d learned how the fame game worked. I understood that fans’ love strictly depended on my hits, not my music. With PIL2, I’d see who was really listening because it was strictly for people who really loved music, not just hip-hop heads. PIL2 didn’t have party songs. It was an album with meaning, as I continued to grapple with the truth of myself.
On this album, I worked with a group of artists such as Leah Siegal and Anita Louise. I also brought in a Korean singer named Somong and vocalist Jon Doe. All of the tracks were musical and harmonic, with rapping but also a lot of melodies and vocals. Each song had meaningful lyrics that pertained to all of the questions in my head about where I’d been and where I was going.
On the album, I tried to paint pictures with sounds and lyrics. I felt these new sounds and sights were forcing my true fans to grow with me. To think differently, to be different themselves and to trust.
As I sat in the studio making PIL2, the candles burned in the darkness as I watched the film Exit Through the Gift Shop over and over again. It’s a “documentary” by street artist Banksy, about an eccentric character played by the real-life street artist Mr. Brainwash. Mr. Brainwash becomes obsessed with street art. The character goes on a mission to find the aloof Banksy. Once he meets him and other street artists, he decides to become a street artist himself. The film looks at art, asking the question, What is art, actually? Who decides art’s value, the artist or the audience? What makes it art: The materials used? The venue that displays it? Or simply popular opinion? What makes art authentic? Is there any such thing as inauthentic art?
As the movie played endlessly in the background of my late-night recording sessions, I got glimpses of it as I worked. The images of the artists and snatches of their dialogues dove into my subconscious. The actors were toying with the big questions that I was pondering, too. The more I watched the film, the harder I worked, tweaking each song as if it were my first. The songs were provocative and somewhat dark. There were titles like “Real Life Fantasy,” “Drown,” “Black Vodka” and “Strange Days.” I worked and worked to make the album exciting and unusual. I wanted the album to be an original. I worked like a mad scientist, knowing this would be my last album for a while.
There was nothing to lose. I no longer had to care about beefs, fans, praise or disses. I was on my way out of the loop and on my way to my artistic self. It’s what I had always wanted out of making music but didn’t know it.
FIFTEEN
Changing
Lord, can we get a break
We ain’t really happy here
When you look into our eyes
You see pain without fear
The inmates had been chanting that shit from my first album. I had written it for them to sing. It killed me that I was in prison with them, chanting my own prophetic words. Black men singing for freedom.
AT MY HOME in the New Jersey suburbs, “prison” had become a household word. Instead of Aisha feeling ashamed about me being in prison, several women consoled her with the news that their husbands had also gone to prison for white-collar crimes. The white-collar crimes seemed innocent, yet they still equaled time. Everyone in prison had breached the trust of people who had trusted them.
Aisha and the kids adjusted as well as they could, with a lot of tears that I never saw. Every weekend they would drive three hours to see me. I was usually tired on the visits because we were always up late the night before, watching movies, shooting the shit and acting like little kids sneaking around doing shit that we weren’t supposed to. My man Smitty played lookout while we blew cigarette smoke into the vents so that the CO wouldn’t find out. Q led the bread heists when we would hide bread in our stash box in the chow halls to help us add bread to our mostly meat shipments that we received in the mail. It was really high school shit, which is what we had been reduced to, kids in the playground.
Friday and Saturday nights, we were allowed to stay up until two a.m., looking at each other in disbelief at the bare, smelly rec room’s pale cinderblock walls. In the beginning, we all looked forward to the late nights, but after a while, it became a drag. I started leaving the fellas in the rec room and going to bed. We were all devastated at the shittyness of life. To pass time, we would escape with entertainment. We would watch movies that would take us far away from that place.
Fresh haircut, fresh greens and a pair of the new sneakers that Aisha sent me were what I would put on to go down to meet my family in the visitation room, otherwise known as the dance floor. I was glad that a glass divider didn’t come between us. As I walked out to see them every week, I would do my best to appear okay. I was dealing with this shit the best I could.
They came every week with rare exceptions. I spoke to the kids almost every day. We tried to keep it as normal as we could. I hoped for them that it just felt like I was away on tour. But I wasn’t. Instead of hitting stadiums and stages, I was touring the bowels of America’s broken correctional system.
I did not go directly to prison. Like the animal that I was treated like, I was regularly shuttled from prison to prison, bus ride after bus ride; pushed, shoved, insulted and neglected.
My first stop was Rikers for three days. Then I was taken to Ulster Correctional Facility. It was the place they take you before they place you somewhere permanent. Oneida was next. It was eventually shut down due to budget cuts. From there I went to Essex County for almost a month, waiting to be sentenced for tax stuff. While I was being shuttled from Oneida to Essex County, the marshals went right past the ex
it for my house, the place that Aisha was taking the kids to school, making their meals and paying our bills. I couldn’t stand to think about what I was missing.
From the Green Monster I was shipped back to Oneida for a few days before it was closed down. The marshals were cool. They took good care of me while I was in their custody. A few days later I was moved to Mid-State Correctional Facility, where I stayed for the duration of my incarceration. The next stop was Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, which is a holding facility before a federal sentence is decided on, then to Ray Brook in upstate New York, an hour from Canada. By the time I reached Ray Brook, with only a few months to go, I told Aisha not to come visit me anymore, I was sick of the whole fucking thing. We all knew I’d be home soon.
With all of that moving around, every time I went to a new prison, it felt like the first day of high school. Everyone inside has their guard up. I learned early on if you are solid and confident and don’t take shit from anyone, no one fucks with you. Once I got cool with everybody, they opened up to me and told me that they were fans of mine. Some of them told me that they thought I would be stuck-up but once they realized that I was a cool dude, it was all good and they could really talk to me.
I KNEW THAT AISHA took her time getting dressed to visit me, not wanting to violate the strict dress code for women. After long drives spent with a car full of somber passengers, she would never risk being turned away. Aisha had seen women being turned away at the security gate, simply for their inappropriate clothes. Visiting women were not permitted to be stylish or provocative. Ish usually wore the same sort of thing every week. Flat leather boots, UGGs or sneakers. She was to wear “clothes that didn’t accentuate.” It didn’t matter to me what she was wearing, whatever she wore warmed my heart as if it was the first time I saw her in shop class in the eighth grade.
