The Plot Against Hip Hop Page 8

  CHAPTER 16

  ROUND THE WAY GIRL

  It was a cake gig. All chocolate with vanilla frosting. Every summer Russell Simmons held a soiree at his East Hampton home for his Rush Philanthropic arts foundation called Art for Life. On his large back lawn a huge tent was set up and held dozens of banquet tables, a dais, and a section reserved for a silent auction. You could bid on a night in the studio with a Def Jam artist or ten private yoga sessions at Jivamukti, the popular studio that Russell attended, or an abstract painting by Russell’s older brother Danny. All the items reflected the connection between hip hop and the Hamptons that Russell had helped foster in the mid-’90s.

  Not surprisingly, the crowd reflected that same cultural merger: chilled-out Hamptons habitues, city folk just in for the weekend, and celebrity drop-in’s from fashion, media, and film. The evening had some of the flavor of the event D had worked with Jay-Z months before. But this being the Hamptons and Russell’s home, it was considerably more laid back and very low-maintenance for D and his discreetly placed employees. There was the odd paparazzi getting a little too aggressive. Some guy couldn’t find his girl and asked D’s peeps for help (though D knew she had slipped upstairs with one of Russell’s Hollywood pals). Otherwise it was calm and quiet as a country summer night should be.

  Aside from keeping the peace even more peaceful, D had another mission this starry July night. He was on the hunt for Amina Warren-Jones, who ran a Rush Philanthropic Arts–affiliated charity in Newark, a successful catering business in the Oranges, and was one of the most beautiful widows D had ever seen.

  If Amina was a candy bar, D thought, she’d be a Hershey’s with tasty almond lumps repping her breasts and thighs. She was a lovely chocolate snack of a woman, sort of like Gabrielle Union with the kind of short, wavy hairstyle favored by young Halle Berry. The way she was dressed that day—sundress, dangling earrings, and mules, all in an olive tone—heightened the sensual impact of her brown skin. Amina carried herself with shoulders back and neck straight, as if she was determined to face the world head-on. Long curly lashes framed fierce brown eyes that quickly took your measure and made their judgment. They were smart, intuitive, and pitiless too.

  Living with and loving Malik all those years meant she was blissfully unaware of her husband’s (mis)deeds, knowing only what she wanted to—either that or Amina was a true blue ride-or-die bitch, a gal with a Beretta in her briefcase and C-4 by the front door. D wanted her to be righteously naïve, but her bearing and those penetrating eyes said the woman knew things. D was kind of afraid to find out what, but knew at some point tonight he’d have to try.

  This lovely woman’s late husband had been one serious piece of work. Malik Jones, a.k.a. Brother Malik, a.k.a. Jonesy, a.k.a. Marvin Johnson, had had many names and many identities over the past decade plus. He’d been a club promoter, owner/driver for an escort service, manager of singers and MCs, and had a couple of production companies. No felony convictions—just two marijuana possession misdemeanors. The only hint of violence on his rap sheet had proved fatal. He’d been arrested in Manhattan three years earlier when, while traveling with Baby of Cash Money Records, he got into a shouting match with a white businessman and fractured the dude’s left cheekbone. It was that fight that led to his incarceration at Rikers, where someone tossed a Molotov cocktail into his cell.

  A Google search of images for Malik Jones had found the dead man in the entourages of MCs, as expected, but for a Jersey guy it was a surprise that most were West Coast rappers—Ice Cube, Snoop, Too Short, Dr. Dre, various Dogg Pound members, and several with Suge Knight and Michael Williams, a convicted drug kingpin who’d claimed it was his money that originally founded Death Row Records. Malik had been way deep in the LA rap scene at the height of the West Coast/East Coast wars and seemed squarely on the side of the left coast.

  As D ran all this info (much of it gleaned from Fly Ty) through his mind, he found himself hovering around Amina Warren-Jones. She was beautiful and her late husband was, somehow, someway, involved with Dwayne’s death. It made for a real intoxicating combo. Still, he shouldn’t have been standing so close to the lady as she surveyed a Glen Friedman photo of D.M.C. performing onstage at the Palladium back in the sainted year of our Lord of hip hop, 1985.

  Amina suddenly turned and looked D in the eye. “Well,” she said.

  Caught off guard and feeling completely goofy, D responded, “You’re from Jersey, right?”

  “That’s right. You find that exotic?”

  “No. It’s not exotic. Not at all.”

  “That’s too bad,” she said.

  “Really? It’s too bad I don’t find Jersey exotic? That’s crazy.”

  “It’s too bad because it means that after staring at me all night, the best thing you could come up with was, You’re from Jersey, right?”

  “Whoa. I had more to say than that. Believe me, I did and still do. You just came back with the ‘exotic’ thing so fast I couldn’t get going.”

  “Well, Mr. Hunter, you need to get started.”

  “You know my name?”

  “Yes, but don’t go feeling yourself. I tried to get a friend the contract to do security for this event, but Russell’s people had already committed to you. You have a surprisingly good rep for a former doorman.”

  “Damn. I’m not sure whether to be flattered or insulted. But you knowing that I’m a good dude with a good business can’t be a bad thing.”

  “As you may be aware, I’m here with someone.”

  “Well, I’m working and probably shouldn’t even be speaking to you this way, but—”

  “No, you shouldn’t be speaking to me this way.”

  “Okay. But if I hadn’t I would have regretted it. And that’s a fact.”

  “You are an earnest type of guy, Mr. Hunter. Some would even say kinda corny.”

  “Not to my face. Most people would not say that to my face.”

  “Hmmm. I believe that. And I believe you mean that corny stuff you just said.”

  “Listen, I’m in security. It’s what I do for a living. That means I’m quiet most of the time. I’m not an MC. I’m not slick or any of that fly shit. I do a good job. People respect me. So my question is: are we gonna get together some time?”

  “Are you on Facebook?”

  “Should I be?”

  “If you’re a friend of Russell Simmons, you’re a friend of mine. I’m in his New Jersey network.”

  “Will you accept me as a friend?”

  Amina smiled sly and amused, and walked away. That hadn’t gone as D planned. Not at all. But as soon as he got back to Manhattan, he joined Facebook.

  CHAPTER 17

  DA ART OF STORYTELLIN’ PART 1

  D looked down upon Union Square from the second-floor cafeteria of Whole Foods and watched a squad of breakdancers pop, lock, wiggle, spin, and sweat on the long, gray stone steps of the crowded city park. Ever since the World Trade Center attack, when Union Square had become a gathering place for mourners, protesters, and folks desperate for community, D had found himself drawn to this public space, regularly stopping by to observe the chess players, beggars, lovers, haters, capoeira students, painters, jewelry sellers, and gawkers like himself, along with thousands of others who poured out of a subway station that serviced seven lines.

  He chewed on curry chicken, brown rice, and cucumber while gazing at a five-man crew, armed with a new version of the old-fashioned ghetto blaster. Though it wasn’t a word D used often, the whole thing felt “quaint” to him, like some delicate little vase that had been preserved from antiquity. Maybe up close these were just some funky-smelling young hustlers from the hood (seven brothers and a Puerto Rican gal), but from across a wide avenue and above the park D saw echoes of the city’s grimy past.

  Even back in the ’80s, when Union Square was a haven for junkies and dopemen, breakers armed with cardboard and JVC cassette players had claimed part of the park’s real estate. Their painter caps and fat-laced sneak
ers were as much a part of the city scene as Ed Koch’s “How am I doing?” and once windy, now demolished Shea Stadium.

  As he munched on his curry, D watched the young dancers evoke a culture he remembered firsthand. They leaped and twisted their supple, toned bodies, paying homage to a legacy they were claiming and showcasing their athletic prowess. For the tourist, it was legendary New York grit and swagger—which, unknown to them, wasn’t nearly as pervasive as back in the day. D mused that to some New Yorkers the past was important only as long as you could charge somebody for a taste of it. If not, just move the fuck on.

  Once outside Whole Foods, feet firmly planted on 14th Street, D took in the scene on the ground, watching the vendors crowded along the curb while shoppers brushed by him. He enjoyed all the crazy energy of it, the feeling of being caught in a whirlwind. Then down into the subway station and uptown to a busy day in the enchanted land of new-school hip hop.

  D hopped off the N train at clogged Herald Square and walked west past Macy’s, Penn Station, and across Eighth Avenue on 34th Street. Despite his large body and black clothes, D got no slack from the women with stuffed plastic shopping bags who bumped and slammed into him as if the security guard was invisible.

  So he was quite relieved to arrive at the Hammerstein Ballroom where VH1 was holding its annual Hip Hop Honors broadcast and much of his D Security team was employed for the night. In the lobby D was greeted with hugs and shakes from other beefy men in dark suits, many of whom wore small gold-on-blue D Security lapel buttons, which were awarded to those who’d been down for five years or more.

  While D was looking into Dwayne Robinson’s death, he had not been neglecting his business. Fear was still paying the bills. In fact, fear was one of the great growth industries of the twenty-first century. The WTC attack had set the tone for the new millennium, and if you were in any form of the security business, your bills were paid.

  At the Hip Hop Honors, the fear was never of the audience, which was made up of recruited kids who stood on the Hammerstein floor and danced and cheered at all the appropriate times. Nor was D worried about the folks sitting in the mezzanine, despite the open bar and tons of record business vets in party mode.

  It was the artists themselves who were the biggest source of potential danger. If you were doing security at a hip hop event that brought together MCs from more than one clique, posse, label, hood, city, or region into a single backstage area, your team had to be up on any and all beef, whether announced on AllHipHop.com, proclaimed on a mix tape, or just heard in the VIP section of nightclubs from South Beach to the Meatpacking District.

  This year’s HHH lineup was rich in possible beef. There were a couple of old-school New York pioneers on the bill, many of whom thought today’s upstarts used “Mickey Mouse rhymes” and argued that the young rappers should be “paying a tax to the creators.” There were MCs from Atlanta and Miami who gave lip service to “respecting the pioneers,” but really didn’t give a shit what these graying New Yorkers thought. Luckily, there were no Miami-versus-Atlanta troubles—MCs seemed to move between these two Southern cities with ease.

  However, within these two towns there was beef galore. Who was really king of the South? Who was really the boss of MIA? Local beef between artists with national followings could explode into violence if scheduling and security were not well designed. (Trick Daddy was going on early in the evening to keep him away from DJ Khaled and Rick Ross. Though T.I. and Ludacris got along, relations between elements of their entourages were tense.)

  These were just a few of the issues D and his team sat discussing at a round table in the basement of the Hammerstein Ballroom. Times of arrival and departure for talent. Where’s T.I.’s dressing room? Where’s Gucci Mane’s dressing room? How do we keep the talent’s security guards from eating the crew’s meal? The latter sounded like a joke but it was a potentially volatile situation. Teamsters and production staff got agitated when non–crew members, particularly brothers in white T-shirts, filled plates from their dinner-break buffet.

  Fisticuffs between teamsters and personal security often jumped off at music video shoots. That could get ugly real quick. So this issue took up a considerable amount of time before the meeting adjourned.

  After another quick walk-through, checking out the key entrances and exits for talent on stage right and left, D walked into the high-ceilinged ballroom, gazing up for a minute at the cherubs floating up and then down toward the stage where a rehearsal was in progress. A medley of Atlanta hip hop hits was underway with Asher Roth, a young white MC with a strong college following, negotiating the tricky cadences of Big Boi’s rhyme on an Outkast classic. This was dangerous ground for any MC, much less a white kid with only a couple of hits.

  The stakes were high for Mr. Roth since this HHH, like every year, the final rehearsal performances were watched by a who’s who of MCs coming, going, hanging out, and quietly critiquing their peers. It was D’s favorite part of the day, since it was MC on MC, everyone stripped of their pretension and ego. Very communal and also very serious. He’d seen Melle Mel watch LL perform one year and marveled at the two possible rivals giving each other dap. He’d seen Big Daddy Kane perform lazily at a run-through and heard Fab Five Freddy give him a pep talk that may have inspired the most electric performance in the show’s history. Today, as Roth walked to the edge of the circular stage, D noticed Bun B, one of the most lyrical Southern rappers, nodding his approval. Roth saw this and they made eye contact, a silent acknowledgment of his skills.

  It was a moment that made D remember why he’d once loved hip hop. That exchange wasn’t done for a Flip camera or YouTube. It wouldn’t be chronicled in the Source or blasted across the net via AllHipHop.com. For D it was as genuine as hip hop once was and always should have remained. It made D smile.

  His BlackBerry buzzed and he saw a text, a New Jersey number, and his mood grew even lighter. I’ll be there. Can’t wait. It was Amina. She and a girlfriend were coming as his guests and D was giddy. Sure, she was the widow of a mysterious East Coast/West Coast thug who was somehow tied to a close friend’s murder.

  But damn, she was fine, and they had mad chemistry. D hadn’t felt this excited about a woman since his ex Emily some five years ago. If he was really a detective this would be dangerous, but D was just a guy asking questions, a very lonely, curious man. He could make people feel safe. Yet no one held him when he was tired and his tears always dried on their own. His HIV status made relationships complex, but his desire to be loved was so, so elemental.

  As the casted audience of good-looking folks filled the orchestra floor and an older group of friends and music biz types sat down in the balcony, D wandered between the television production trucks behind the Hammerstein on 35th Street and the backstage area, listening on his headset to the chatter of production assistants, floor managers, and his security staff. Reports of red-carpet arrivals, delayed town cars, and revised script pages came in nervous waves. The production offices were filling up with marijuana fumes wafting over from a nearby dressing room, which was doing nothing to calm the growing anxiety as the clock moved inexorably toward taping time.

  And then D was running toward the stage, excited voices filling his earpiece. “Altercation stage left!” Flo Rida, maker of pop-rap ditties and tall enough to be an NBA point guard, was not happy with DJ Khaled, the de facto king of Miami nightlife, maker of party anthems and close compadre of rap giant (in sales and size) Rick Ross. Along with several associates, the two men were having a heated argument.

  During the performance of one of Flo Rida’s hits, Khaled, who was DJ/musical director for the medley, had let a recorded voice intone “Maybach music” two different times. That “Maybach music” phrase was synonymous with Rick Ross. Flo Rida and his peeps saw this as some kind of dis, while Khaled said it was a simple mistake. Whether intentional or not, D knew that from small disagreements big guns sometimes emerged.

  A scrum had formed stage left. There was some scuffling
. A few “motherfuckers” had been exchanged. Many hard stares. D arrived. Cooler heads. Calmer words. Beef squashed. A truce for tonight. Back in Miami, who knows? Not D’s problem.

  The dust-up turned out to be just the prelude to a rocky night at a normally smooth-running show. There was an edge to the evening. Not exactly a mean edge—more like a sense of joyous anxiety, like anything could happen and wouldn’t that be fun? Which isn’t great for television but is fuel for the fire of a real hip hop show, since it lets the street into the building, connecting the highly professional to the culture’s unpolished roots.

  Like a boxer, D was on his toes a lot during the taping, bouncing from backstage to the front of the house, admiring how Bow Wow, seemingly too young to understand nostalgia, tapped his childhood for a dynamic version of Kris Kross’s “Jump,” and being amazed at how enthused a New York crowd could get for Dirty South hits like Juvenile’s “Nolia Clap.”

  D’s favorite part of the evening was peeping up into the mezzanine where, looking so sexy she belonged on stage, Amina sat at a front-row table in a low-cut top, gladiator sandals, and brown legs for days. From various angles of the Hammerstein, D gazed over at her, while also clocking her very attractive caramel-colored girlfriend with long braided hair and an older black man, fiftyish, vaguely familiar, who shared the table with them.

  Toward the end of the taping, which ultimately looked smoother on the tube than it felt behind the scenes, D moved through the crowd of dancing fans, took a side staircase that carried him past honorees like Luther Campbell, Jermaine Dupri, and the three producers of Atlanta’s Dungeon Crew, and then went up to the VIP-laden mezzanine.

  People were standing and dancing next to tables (and on a chair or two) as Khaled and Rick Ross, resplendent and ridiculous in a waist-length fur coat, proclaimed “We always win!” from the lip of the Hammerstein stage. Amina, twisting her hips like a snake through sand, waved D over and embraced him warmly.