Bio
Between that, overhearing what Moms played while cleaning or while teaching me how to dance, music was my source of enjoyment. I didn’t even make my own music yet, or try to. I was getting’ props drawing and painting…6th grade art class while in kindergarten, work in the Brooklyn Museum… all that.
Beyond being in the smart classes and art classes, I was always in the principal’s office. When my father passed away and Guelo (my grandfather) shortly there after, I got really depressed, defiant and inquisitive. Mom had to fight the Board of Ed to keep my ass out of special ed and in the classroom. I got kicked out of four schools by the time I was in second grade. Besides actin’ out, visual art was my expression and music my comfort. I loved singing “Candy Girl” on the school bus.
One day, I’m on the bus with this older cat that used to baby-sit me. He’s rockin’ out on a walkman, breakin’ his neck to LL Cool J. He played “Rock The Bells” and “My Radio” and I was hooked. Every Friday I was tuning in to the rap attack- getting my fix. So for the next Christmas I can remember after I got that Turntable, I got a SONY dual cassette deck radio. Now I was staying up to tape Rap Attack and trying to record anything I could.
Every time I drew something it got ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ or was used by my shrink as a diagnosis. People seemed to think they were getting to know me, but they weren’t. I figured with music, rap in particular, I could tell them about me straight up. Just like Rakim was doing. So I started writing songs.
In Junior High I met Malik and Nayquan. Unlike my other friends, they decided to opt in on the scholarship to prep school that would get our asses out of the war-zone. These were the first people I shared my songs with, the first people I wrote songs with and to this date Malik is still a person I write songs with.
After we had all spent a year getting electrocuted by the culture shock of living with America’s upper-crust, we formed a rap group, Partners in Rhyme. And no we didn’t rhyme about boarding school or politics. We wrote about sex, drugs and violence. Not necessarily in that order. I don’t know about Malik and Nay, but I wasn’t too into really talking about myself straight up like I thought I wanted to do. I was talking about what I wished was true. All the poetry I had been writing told the real deal. But that stayed in the books.
By the time we all went to college, Nayquan was no longer around and it was just me and Malik. We changed our group name to Lyracane and started making tapes of our rhymes on other peoples beats, until I met Mark…
Mark Ronson was the reigning DJ king at Vassar College. One day a bunch of us went to SIR studios in Manhattan where Mark’s stepfather, Mitch Reed of Foreigner, was going to hook us up with some studio equipment. Mitch gave Mark a guitar, a bass, a 12 track recorder and an MPC 360. We were back in the dorm the same night making songs.
When summer rolled around, me, Malik and Mark would make songs every weekend. The process was great. Chill and listen to some beats on Friday night, go out to the clubs and party. Wake up on Saturday and write all day. Go back out to the clubs. Buy some records to sample on Sunday and then record. This was the first time it dawned on me that music could be a career. I was with focused people doing focused things.