The Plot Against Hip Hop (10 page)
“Yeah. This D Hunter.”
“So,” Ice said, turning to D, “you from 315 Livonia?”
“Yes. Grew up in apartment 6C.”
“You know Little Z.”
“No. Not personally. But my brother Jah used to speak about him.”
“Jah?” Ice surveyed D coolly. “What are the names of your other brothers?”
“Matty and Rashid.”
“They both dead, right?”
“Yes. Right on the corner of Livonia and Stone.”
“They call it Mother Gaston these days.”
“Same damn corner.”
Ice took a few steps toward D. “You know, your family’s kinda famous around here. At least to people my age. So you made it out. Good for you.”
“It’s a hell of a way to get a rep.”
“True dat. You got the money?”
D reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a white envelope. He was impressed that neither of the two kids who frisked him had touched the envelope, a sign of discipline in the ranks. Ice gestured to the other older Blood who came over and removed the envelope from D’s hand.
“Ray Ray says you can help me.”
“Malik Jones. He died in a fire at Rikers about three years ago.”
“What about the two kids who stabbed my friend?”
“Can’t help you with them. But you ask some of your police friends about Malik Jones.”
“What’s he got to do with my friend’s murder?”
“You gave me some money and I gave you a name. Once you start asking about this man, there’ll be no turning back. Right now your friend is dead and you been cut up a couple of times. When you start asking about this man, it’ll get more serious for you. But you already know the streets are cold. That’s why I gave you this name. I knew Matty and Rashid.”
“This Malik Jones has been dead so long.”
“True dat. But his life will take you where you wanna go.”
Ten minutes later D and Ray Ray were walking toward the Livonia Avenue subway station.
“Ice had mad respect for your family.”
“I was a child when they were alive. Don’t remember them as well as I’d like.” The sirens of an approaching police cruiser silenced them. D turned and watched the car scream down Livonia, under the elevated subway tracks, past the Rockaway station, and down toward the cavernous public housing.
“What next?”
“Ice knows those two kids who stabbed Dwayne. I’m sure of that. But Malik Jones? The name Malik has come up before. Is he just a red herring, a way to guide us away from the two kids? I gotta look this guy up.”
“I don’t think Ice would have had this meeting if this wasn’t real.”
“Good point.”
“He wanted to check you out. Maybe he’ll come back with more.”
“Maybe. But don’t ask anything else right now. Just lay back. You’ve already earned your money. I don’t want you stabbed up.”
“I’m with that.”
Ray Ray gave D a hug and then disappeared into Brownsville’s darkness.
Standing on the Rockaway platform, D glanced down toward 315 Livonia Avenue. “Malik Jones,” he said into his cell.
“Well, now we have a last name,” Fly Ty said. “Now it’s an actual lead.”
After he’d put the cell away and watched the Tilden projects for too long, D turned and walked to the other end of the long platform. Thanks, Brownsville, he thought. Thanks for too damn much.
I
t 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.
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 sneakers 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.