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He rubs his manicured goatee, framed around full lips. “Nah, man. You know how it is, fam. You right, though. My bad. I got back, chilled with the family for a minute, then had to break my sidepieces off with some of this good wood.” He frowns, shaking his head. “Wait. Hold up. Why the fuck am I explaining myself to you? I got back when I got back. I’m here now. What, you want my autograph?”
“Yeah, muhfucka. You can sign over one of them damn checks you collecting.”
He laughs. “Yeah, yeah. You’re the one making all the paper. So what’s good? How’s that sexy-ass wife of yours? You ever mess that up, I’ma be snatchin’ that up. I’ll do sloppy seconds for a life with that fine woman.”
I grin. “Yeah, aiight. Never that. Marika is good, man. You should stop down ‘n’ check for her on your way out. She’d love that.”
“I just might. I see life’s still treating you right. How’s the radio show going?”
“Yeah, man. Radio show is still poppin’. You know the freaks love them some Creepin’ ‘n’ Freakin’ After Dark.”
He shakes his head. “You the only cat I know on the radio melting panties off asses without dropping one damn album or singing one bar. Ya ugly ass can’t even hold a note.”
I laugh. “Man, what can I say? It’s the voice, my dude. The freaks love me. But, yeah, life’s definitely good.”
He nods his head, smiling and taking in the ice in my lobes and dripping around my neck and wrist. “I see, I see.” He inhales a deep breath. “Smells like fresh money all up in this piece.”
“Nah, nah. I’m broke, niggah. You the one doin’ it big, playa.”
“Yeah, okay. The lies you tell, muhfucka.”
I laugh.
But truth is, I’m that cat getting it. But bragging isn’t what I do. Nah. I learned a long time ago that humility gets you a whole lot further in life than bravado ever will.
Watching my moms wake up every morning—not ever missing a day of work, rain, sleet ‘n’ snow—with a smile on her face as she left outta the brownstone we shared with my grandmother, aunt and three cousins in Brooklyn, to scrub toilets for rich white folks out in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, then go clean office buildings at night so she could afford to send me to the best private schools the city had to offer taught me a lot about having an impeccable work ethic. About doing whatever it is you need to do to make it.
On everything, Moms was hard on me because my pops wasn’t around, thanks to a bullet taking his life when I was five. But she had a mission. She was determined to make sure I had a shot at something much greater than what the hood could ever offer me. And she was dead-ass when she’d threaten to beat the hoodlum, the ruffian, the thug, and anything else that represented the streets out of me anytime I let my pants drop off my waist, or she heard me using slang. Other times she’d threaten to ship me off to Martinique to live with one of my pops’ six brothers, or over to Grenada with her family. Becoming a statistic wasn’t an option. Prison. Gangs. The streets. All not an option, if I valued my life.
“I’ll kill you dead, first, before I ever let the streets have you.”
Real shit, everything that I am, everything that I’ve become, is because of my moms. I owe her everything. She was the poster girl for how to make nothing outta something without looking for a handout. And that’s exactly what I did to get to where I’m at today. On top. And I didn’t have to lie, scheme, fuck, bribe, or murder my way up to get here.
But if it weren’t for the fact that my face has been plastered in Vibe, XXL, and The Source—to name a few, you would never know that I’m President of MK Records, and one of the most powerful cats in the music industry. Let Maxim and Black Enterprise magazines and BET tell it. I’m one of the Top Ten Hottest hip-hop and R&B moguls in the game. But, uh, without saying much more. Let’s just say—with looks, swag, money stacked, numerous rental properties, a roster of some of the hottest artists in the game on my label, and a bangin’-ass wife—I stay winning.
“Yeah, aiight, muhfucka,” he says, laughing. “You’re an entertainment mogul. Your name rings bells in the industry, niggah. So save that broke shit for them lames who don’t know you.”
Carlos cracks me the fuck up, for real, for real. As articulate and polished as he is, you’d never know he wasn’t bred in the hood by the way he talks behind closed doors. He has more hood swag than some of the muhfuckas who are actually from the streets.
“Aiight, aiight…” I run a hand up over the top of my head, caressing the deep spin of my waves. “We ain’t gotta broadcast the shit. I’m sayin’ though. What’s good with you? How long you in the States, this time? And when you getting ya ass back up in the lab to drop some heat?”
He nods his head. “Man, funny you should ask ’cause I was just thinking on my way over here that it’s time to get back in the studio and make this money. I’m ready. I’ma be here for at least the next six months.”
“Oh, aiight, aiight. That’s what’s up. I got this producer I think you should link up with. This young cat out in Queens; he’s got some sick tracks.”
He gives me a quizzical look. “So what you saying, bruh? You tryna sign me?”
“Are you ready to grind hard?”
Now I’m not gonna front like I wasn’t feeling some kinda way when Carlos signed a two-album deal with another label, but I understood his desire to sign with a major label. At the time, MK Records—the M is for Marcel and the K is for my last name, of course—was just starting out back then and didn’t have the kind of star power on its roster that it has now. So I respected his hustle. Still, I kinda wanted to hate on him on the low until his debut song, “Lick Her Slow,” dropped and spent weeks on the charts. I knew then he had mad talent. Then when his second single, “Love Box,” peaked at numb
er 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 2 on the R&B charts, I knew dude was about to shut shit down. That joint blew up all the R&B and hip-hop stations and his album Dirty lil Secrets was not only nominated for both American Music Awards and Grammy Awards, but it also sold over 2.5 million copies.
So on some realness, I couldn’t hate. But after his sophomore album, Ballz on Fire—which took two years for him to finish because of his modeling obligations—went flat, the label dropped him like a bad habit.
He shakes his head. “Whoa, hold up. Are you shittin’ me? Or are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
I laugh. “Yeah, muhfucka. What you think? I’m dead-ass. You been outta the game for a minute, but it’s time for you to hop back in ‘n’ resuscitate R and B.”
