by Nikki Turner
He was going to get Sheena and the kids and be out. Where … he didn’t know, but he knew he had to relocate for a while. As he approached the door, all he heard were cocking automatics and all he saw was red beams all over him like the measles.
“Act like you want it, nigga,” one of the gunmen hissed. Crook knew he was outgunned, and he didn’t want to bring beef to his door, so he dropped his gun.
“Aiight, dog, you got it. You got a winner.”
“Ike wanna see you,” was the reply.
They moved up on him cautiously, patted him down thoroughly, then directed him downstairs and into a waiting stretch Humvee. Larceny was already inside when Crook climbed in next to him. Three of the gunmen got in the back with them, then they pulled off heading for Ike’s spot in Wayne, New Jersey. When they arrived, they were taken inside and shown to the basement. Ike waited inside and there was plastic all over the floor. When Larceny and Crook saw the plastic they looked at each other. “It all depends on you,” Ike said.
The gunmen stood behind them and Ike stood in front like a general. One word from Ike, a nod even, and the firing squad would silence their madness.
“What the fuck is wrong wit you?! You disrespect my party, my guest, me, matter-of-fact, fuck the guests, you disrespected me! After I brought you in, tried to look out for ya’ll dumb asses, this is how you repay me?! Bring me unnecessary heat?!”
The two assassins remained silent.
“Speak!!”
“Yo Ike man, I—” Larceny stumbled over his words. He wasn’t scared of death, but he just didn’t know what to say. But Crook did.
“He deserved it,” Crook told Ike flatly.
“He deserved it?” Ike echoed. “He deserved to be fuckin’ splattered all over the fuckin’ street ‘cause he ain’t want to help you rap? Nigga, is you crazy?!” Ike released an aggravated chuckle that said he had heard enough and was ready to see somebody bleed.
“It wasn’t about rappin’, yo,” Crook continued. “You heard the way that bitch-ass nigga talked to me, tried to clown me and all I asked for was a chance. You don’t wanna help … cool … fuck it … but he totally disrespected me. We tried to beat his ass right there, but his bodyguards stopped it. Maybe it could’ve ended there, but wasn’t no way I was gonna let this nigga think he was safe ‘cause he had the odds. Fuck odds. Fuck ‘em then and fuck ‘em now. If you kill me right now then you doin’ all these industry niggas a favor, ‘cause from here on out, anybody tell me no, gonna die the same way.”
Ike looked at Crook’s stone-faced expression closely, then stepped up to his grill.
“What if I tell you no, huh? Then what?”
“Then I’m a die right where I stand,” Crook replied without emotion, as he looked Ike in his eyes. Ike saw that same intense hunger and hopelessness of a man that had nothing to lose.
“You serious, ain’t you?” Crook answered with his look. Ike continued, “The only reason you ain’t dead now is because I respect what you did. If you woulda came in here tryin’ to apologize, talkin’ about you lost your head, I woulda shot yo punk asses my damn self, but I respect what you did and I respect the fact you standin’ up for it now.” Ike stepped away and turned his back as if he was thinking. Then he turned back to him.
“Aiight, I’m a fuck wit you. Let me holler at some people, put something together. But dig … we do this my way, you hear me?”
Crook shook his head slowly.
“Naw, Ike, wit all due respect, me and Larceny made the world hear us, we the ones on the front line, so we do it our way. You can holler at who you want, but if they say no, they die. Period.”
Ike knew he had a monster on his hands, but being a greedy nigga, he could see the potential in the situation. Crook would probably end up dead, he figured, but he’d be able to cake off his remains for a long time to come.
“Let me talk to a few people,” Ike repeated, silently acknowledging Crook’s terms.
“For now, though, you moving; you, too, Larceny, you’ll be wit me.”
He looked at Crook. “You got some money?”
“Naw.”
“Give him twenty cent,” Ike told one of the gunmen who immediately left to retrieve the money. “Get a place for you and your family somewhere safe, aiight? Stay off the streets,” Ike told him as the man returned with two ten-thousand-dollar stacks of money rubber-banded together, and handed them to Crook.
“That should be enough to keep you outta trouble, and if it ain’t, it better be,” Ike added.
Crook looked at the money in his hands, heavy like two bricks. Just like that, he had taken his destiny in his own hands and didn’t take no for an answer. He put his life on the line and came back with it more abundantly. Crook felt redeemed, because for the first time in his life, he felt like a man.
It didn’t take Ike long to pull some strings and get a meeting with another hot producer named T-Beats. T was a Harlemite with that uptown swagger and uptown hustle to match. Ike knew T’s people in the other world they dealt in, but in broad daylight, in T’s midtown Manhattan studio, the business was music spoken through the mouth of two street niggas. Ike walked in and greeted T-Beats with a bottle of Moët.
“What’s that for?” T asked, setting the bottle on the edge of the mix board. Ike sat on a swivel stool across from T.
“Congratulations, past and present. For all that you’ve done, and hopefully, what we can do together,” Ike smirked.
T-Beats sat back in his leather captain’s chair, ice in his brown ear gleaming. “Always down for business, Ike, you know how we do, what you got in mind?”
T-Beats already knew about the situation with Mark Allen. Everybody did. T didn’t know if Ike was involved, but because it went down the way it did, he was curious to know what Ike was coming with.
“Yo, I’m not gonna beat around the bush. What I say, you may not like, but don’t listen as a hustler, listen as a businessman,” Ike began, stopping to check T’s reaction. T was poker faced, so he continued. “That thing with Mark, I had nothing to do wit, it was unfortunate, but its done and the reason is simple. Niggas want in this business and they ain’t wit the politics to do it.”
T-Beats nodded, swiveled his chair a little, then replied, “So what’s that got to do with me? I’m about paper, not politics.”
“Exactly. That’s why I’m here. I need you to front a hot track for a couple of hungry niggas,” Ike stated, getting to the point.
“Hungry like … kill for it hungry? Lay a nigga down in cold blood, hungry?” T-Beats asked, because the industry was buzzin’ about the incident.
Ike knew T was a street nigga, and he didn’t want to come at him and offend his gangsta, so he asked, “What would you do? How far was you willing to go to eat? I ain’t talking music: I’m talking when you was hungry. What did you do?”
T snickered. “Whatever it took.”
“Then would you have wanted to be the nigga on the other side tryin’ to stop you from eating?” Ike questioned, turning the tables.
“Naw, but I ain’t Mark neither,” T countered.
“You don’t have to be, T. All you gotta be is the reason all this music shit is out the window for these niggas, and it’s back to the streets for real. I’m tellin’ you, T, it’s beef, regardless if you win, you still lose. And you got a whole lot more to lose than them.”
T-Beats stood up and walked around the room, then said, “So you sayin’ if I don’t give them niggas a track, then the guns comin’ out?”
“It ain’t just you, T, it’s anybody. Anybody they think standin’ in they way.”
“So these niggas think they can extort T-Beats like a sucka? Like it’s sweet?”
T-Beats was getting himself riled up, so Ike stood up to try and calm him down. “You looking at this all wrong, T—one track—that ain’t gonna hurt you, yo. But if you let pride make you grab your gun, all you’ve worked for is out the window over one track, think about it, T,” Ike explained.
T-
Beats smiled at Ike. “And you, what you got to do with this? You the peacemaker: the diplomat? Nigga, you gonna eat off this shit, too.”
Ike kept it gangsta. “You think I’d be here if I wasn’t? But I’m lookin’ at it like a businessman, same thing I’m tellin’ you to do.”
T-Beats turned away from Ike, and the room fell into a tense silence for a minute. “It’s like this, ‘cause I ain’t got no time to go to war for no bullshit, I’m a give you a track—one—take it or leave it,” T said, then turned back to Ike. “But on the real, Ike, I ain’t gonna forget you brought this bullshit to my doorstep. You coulda went anywhere, to anyone, but you brought it here.” T-Beats eyed Ike hard, then handed him a DAT tape. “That’s it; I don’t want shit off of it. Tell your man, he try some shit like this again, I’ma really see where all ya’ll’s gansta at.”
Ike nodded slowly, letting T’s bravado go unchallenged. He had got what he came for, so he left, quietly closing the door behind him.
Chapter 4
It wasn’t only the industry that was buzzing, the streets were on fire with the story of what Crook did, and of course, niggas exaggerated.
“Word up. Crook smacked Duke up, the producer mu’fucka, and shot him in the club!” one cat was overheard saying, which later became, “shot Mark Allen, robbed him for fifty g’s then killed him!”
Whatever the story, niggas knew the reason. He tried to front on Crook’s hunger and got ate. Every hungry nigga understood and respected what Crook had done, because they, too, knew the feelin’ of cats trying to shit on their dreams. They had heard all the no’s, the can’ts, the won’ts, and had doors slammed on them as well. But Crook wasn’t having it, he stood up.
Even the cats Crook had robbed or beefed with saw Crook in a new light. So now, when his name was mentioned, it was usually met with, “Oh, Crook, yeah, that’s my mans.” Whereas it used to be, “Fuck that bum-ass nigga.” Everybody loves that gansta shit! Crook had moved, but not out of Newark. He got his girl a piece of a Honda Accord to go back and forth to work in. While he did what he always did, walked the same streets he always walked.
The day after Ike saw T-Beats, he and Larceny came to Crook’s new crib on Hunterdon Avenue, blowing the horn. Inside, Crook was bent over his book of rhymes, putting together what would become his first single, “Gun Music.”
“Yo, Crook, Crook!” Larceny yelled, leaning out of the passenger seat of Ike’s cocaine-white Escalade, hovering on 24s. The system was blasting the track that T-Beats had given him, and Larceny couldn’t wait for him to hear it.
“Yo, Crook!”
Crook came to the window and peered down into Larceny’s smiling face. “It’s on, dog! Bring yo punk ass down here!” Larceny hollered.
Crook threw on his brand-new Tims and took the steps three at a time until he was out the door.
“You call this safe? You practically moved down the street,” Ike chuckled. “Get yo crazy ass in.”
Crook climbed in the back and Ike pulled off. Larceny turned around to face Crook. “Nigga, tell me that shit ain’t hot!” Larceny exclaimed, referring to the track. “T-Beats is a sick-ass producer.”
“That’s the track?” Crook gasped. He couldn’t believe his ears. The track was so hard it hit you like a fist. It sounded like a premo banger with a twist of RZA’s flavor.
“Kick some shit, dog, let me hear some shit,” Larceny demanded and Ike laughed.
“For real, you got me out here extortin’ niggas for tracks and I ain’t even heard you rock yet.” You don’t have to ask Crook twice, the rhyme was already fighting to be spewed forth. He just sat back and let the beat enter him like a dope feen with a needle. He mentally mainlined T’s track then …
The slums I’m from is like a hell on earth
Where the only way you leave is in jail or a hearse
Bitches strippin’, niggas whippin’ in kitchens
Black child runnin’ wild, they daddy rottin’ in the system
So we ain’t the type of niggas to let you eat in our face
Without pullin’ the guns out and leave you sleep in your place
So to all you hungry niggas ride wit Crook on this new shit
Fuck this R&B rap, let ‘em feel your Gun Music!
After that, all Ike saw was dollar signs. He had the next big thing in his backseat and he planned on capitalizing all the way. He turned the music down and asked, “So what’s next? I got you the track, now what?”
“Get the single pressed up,” Crook began. “Blaze a mix tape and get some radio spin. The stores will be kickin’ in our door, dog, word up!” Crook knew exactly what to do, because he had studied the game for so long.
“Aiight, you just keep bringin’ that heat and I’ll put up the dough, fifty-fifty. You wit it?” Ike proposed.
“Fifty-fifty,” Crook confirmed, and gave Ike dap over the seat. “Our own label. I’m tellin’ you, yo, we ‘bout to blow!”
“Yo, what we gonna name the label?” Larceny asked.
“Nigga, what else … Gun Music Records!”
Once the mix tape hit the streets, it was the only CD cats was pumpin’ in their whips. Everybody was on that Crook shit. What made it so gangsta is that it was named “Mark Allen R.I.P.” with a newspaper article and photo of the club murder scene and Crook was spittin’ over all of Mark’s hottest tracks. The streets loved it and Crook and Ike couldn’t keep enough CD’s before they had to press more. Matter-of-fact, all Larceny did was burn CD’s all day. That and get high.
Crook was opening for big name acts as far away as Philly, doing guest appearances on albums and even radio remix singles. Not to mention the labels. It was a bidding war for who would sign the hottest rapper since 50 Cent. The influx of money allowed Crook to get Sheena a 2000 BMW 325i, she quit her jobs and he put down on a house in Irvington, New Jersey. Sheena was in heaven seeing her man finally happy for the first time in her life, but she didn’t realize there was much more to come.
“Yo, let’s shoot some dice,” Crook announced one evening after dinner. He, Sheena, and the kids had just eaten a hefty lasagna meal Crook had whipped up and everyone was stuffed.
“Boy, I don’t know how to shoot no dice, and you ain’t teachin’ my babies no stuff like that,” Sheena chuckled.
“Naw, it’ll be fun. Besides, it’s good to know in a bind,” Crook urged her, pulling her out of the chair. “It’s like a family fun game … in the hood,” he joked. “Like Monopoly, that’s dice, too!”
Crook handed the dice to Tameek. “Aiight, Tameek, roll ‘em.”
Tameek threw the dice and they landed on two threes. It was Syasia’s turn next and she rolled a seven.
“Damn, girl, I need to take you on the block with me.” Crook laughed and Sheena hit him. He picked up the dice then turned to Sheena. “Your roll.”
“Vic, I don’t wanna roll dice,” she whined. “Let’s watch TV.”
“In a minute.” He smiled, putting the dice in her palm, and balled her hand. “Now shake ‘em up.”
Sheena shook the dice but felt something else in her hand. She opened her hand and saw a diamond ring sitting between the dice. Her heart skipped a beat and her eyes got big as plates. Crook took her hand and said, “For real, baby, life is a gamble, make me a winner.” Her eyes brimmed with tears as Crook slid the ring on her finger. “It ain’t much,” he conceded, “but I promise when—”
Sheena silenced him with a “shut up and tongue me”—they kissed—”I’d marry you if it was a rubber band, baby. I love you … Crook.” She smiled, calling him by his nickname because he had truly stole her heart with the proposal.
“Mommy and Daddy gettin’ married!” Syasia cheered and Tameek did, too—mimicking her big sister. That night Sheena put it on Crook’s ass, leaving him almost wondering why.
The next morning, Crook was awakened by the phone ringing. He rolled over groggily and picked up the receiver. “What?” His voice crackled.
“We got a problem,” Larceny told
him. “Come out to Ike’s.”
“Yeah,” was all Crook said, hung up, and went back to sleep. But Larceny knew him and called right back. “Man, get yo lazy ass up. It’s serious.”
“Aiight, aiight, I’m comin’.” This time, Crook was on his feet. He pulled up to Ike’s condo in Sheena’s BMW. The same condo Ike had him taken to that night. He hopped out, chirped the alarm, and rung the bell. Larceny answered the door in a robe and sweatpants, greeted him wit some slick shit, then took him to the kitchen. Ike was sitting at the table fully dressed and reading the paper, while a cute chocolate chick named Michelle cooked breakfast.
“Hey, Crook, you hungry, baby?” she asked over the frying eggs.
“Naw, boo, I’m good. Wifey don’t let me leave without a hot meal in my belly.”
Ike put down the paper. “Airplay is dead.”
Crook just looked at him, like he didn’t understand. They had pressed up over a million singles and sent every major urban station in the country copies. Everybody was on that Crook shit, wasn’t no way radio could front.
“What you mean dead?” Crook probed.
“Just what I said. They ain’t played the single one time since I sent ‘em out,” Ike explained, slamming the paper in disgust. “We got over two hundred grand invested in CD’s, waitin’ to ship and not one single fuckin’ spin!”
“They get the CD?”
“Of course they got the damn CD,” Ike hissed. “I sent the shit. They just refuse to play it, talkin’ about it’s controversial, too street.”
“Fuckin’ cowards,” Larceny spit. “It ain’t no more controversial than the shit them puppet rappers be sayin’, yo.” Larceny was hot. Michelle brought the eggs and toast to Ike and Larceny along with some orange juice, then bounced out of the kitchen. Ike took one bite and dropped the fork; it hit the plate with a ceramic clang. “Yo, what the hell is we gonna do wit a million CD’s?”
Larceny shrugged. “Sell ‘em out the trunk?”
Ike looked at him, like, wrong answer, shut the fuck up.
