Unruly (15 page)

The whirlwind of my life was pulling me in so many different directions. I planned to go visit him in the hospital. I wanted to and until I got there, I called him almost every day.

The last time that I spoke to him he said, “Son, you have a sister in Queens.”

I didn't know what to feel but I said, “That's great. How old is she?”

“She's about your age,” he whispered.

I didn't want to react. I didn't want to remember the pain that my father's womanizing had caused Moms.

“You should go see her sometimes. She has a son, too. You are an uncle.”

I wasn't sure about that. It would hurt Moms if I got involved with the child that my father had when he was married to her. Married to us.

“Yeah. I'll try,” I finally said.

My Cousin Corey called to tell me that my father had passed away. I regretted that I never got to Florida in time to see him one last time. I was saddened by my loss and angry at the speed at which time flies.

I thanked Corey for letting me know and got off the phone with him, quickly. I didn't want to believe it. I called my father's number one more time with speed dial. The phone rang and rang and rang.

The least I could do was give my father a place to stay—with me. If I couldn't have him in life at least I could have him in death. His ashes rest in my home office.

 

*

July 26, 2012

Well, here I am sitting in my 4x10 cell, just a few days over a year to the day that I arrived at Midstate. I'm hot, with my little fan that's blowing just enough air to keep me breathing in this mother fucker. As I listen to my Walkman while the radio is playing a throwback of the Fugees “No Woman No Cry” through my headphones that I made into speakers. What a life. Thank God this shit is almost over. It's been a Hell of a ride. But I'm looking forward to getting off this train. Next Stop Home. It hasn't been all bad, though. You'd be surprised how much you can grow in a year. I've learned a lot about who I am and who the people around me are. I've always thought about what it would feel like to see my life from the outside looking in and I guess I'm getting that chance except I'm actually getting a glimpse from the inside looking out. What I've seen is not the person I envisioned. I use to think only I knew what was best for me but I've put myself in situations I wouldn't allow my worst enemies to be in. So does that make me my own worst enemy? From where I'm sitting writing this right now, I would assume so.

 

*

TWELVE

My Wife

FAME GIVES YOU AN UNREALISTIC VIEW OF YOURSELF AND
the world. I admit, sometimes, I took my fame too far. When you're famous, everyone caters to your every need and want. Everything is done the way you want it without exception. It can give you a crazy way of thinking and seeing things, mostly yourself.

Everything was incredible during this period. I was winning awards and traveling all around the world. I was able to buy my family homes. I was proud to tell my Moms that she could quit her job. In 2002 I won a BET Award for Best Male Artist and an MTV Award for “I'm Real” with J-Lo. Everyone was calling me to write songs for them. Labels were restripping albums to add a song written by me. Artists like J-Lo, Mary J, Enrique Iglesias and even Fat Joe. I was the first rap artist to be asked to write records for R&B and pop artists. At the time, I didn't understand what it meant to be nominated for any of those awards. My dream was to go gold. I never thought or knew about what it would mean to have a number one record. Today, I look at an artist like Jay-Z and his first number 1 record was “Empire State of Mind.” This let me know how big it was to hold that spot. There aren't many rap artists to hold the number one spot. I was even number one in the UK. These kinds of accolades were for pop artists, not rappers. When I was number one, I was ahead of artists like Britney Spears. On an occasion, I had either three or four records in the top ten at one time. That hadn't been done since the Beatles.

I think Big said it best: More money, more problems. I remember the minute that Aisha told me what happened. My DJ, DJ Daison, was hanging out with all of us. Aisha was with her girls at the night club. Daison was hanging out with them and he must have noticed that Aisha had an American Express Black Card in her wallet. He lifted it.

Ish realized right away that the card was gone and called the accountant. When we went to cancel the card we noticed some unauthorized purchases showing up from an online company that sold DJ equipment. Once I spoke to American Express, it all became clear. Someone named Daison Floyd was purchasing the DJ equipment.

We were on the road. I didn't say anything about it until the time was right. I was enraged, but kept my cool. I asked the tour bus driver to make a stop, with one thing only fixed in my head. I had always lived by the principle of an eye for an eye. If you steal something you should get your hands cut off. This is how life should be. If you rape someone you should be castrated. I feel if those things were implemented into society, we wouldn't have all of the troubles that we have with crime.

Like I said, I never liked sneak-shit-type crimes. We were on the road. I had the driver stop at a hardware store so I could get some tight gloves and a baseball bat. No one knew what was going on, but since it was my show and I said let's stop at the store, there were no questions.

I waited until later that night in the hotel. We were in Sacramento, California, and I had a beautiful suite with a big glass window looking out over the city. All I could think was I should whack Daison's head off right there. I reconsidered because by doing it near the window, I might break the glass and that wouldn't be good. I went into the bedroom of the suite. Everyone else was in the living room. I summoned Daison to come into the room so we could go over the show one more time. I had my gloves on, which sometimes I wore on stage. I had the bat in my hands and Daison didn't question it. All I remember is that I blacked out as soon as I started hitting him with that bat. I could hear the bitch whining, “What the fuck are you doing?” After a few more hits, he was able to run out of the room. I could see the look on his face. He thought I was going to kill him. He probably saw a blank stare from me. He didn't recognize me. I had turned into a different guy.

Everyone saw me coming out of the room behind him with the bat in my hand. Daison was holding his head, which was bleeding. I screamed, “Yo, Life, step on that nigga's arm!” And he did. When I got over there, I was hitting him with that bat so hard that I couldn't even stop. Even my boys were saying, “Rule, you've done enough. You proved your point. You're gonna kill him, Ja.” My mind was in a different place. I could hear them but my hands couldn't stop. Someone had to stop me. Later my homies told me that I was yelling at him. “I had love for you, nigga! I brought you into the circle. I fed your family, nigga! You betrayed me!”

Daison didn't seem to understand that I was giving him a chance when muthafuckas wasn't even feeling him. It was like a straight slap in the face. They were callin' him a pretty boy and shit. They thought he was weak on the turntables. I had always been good to him. I was paying him $1,500 dollars a show. I had over forty shows booked that year. That's $60,000 plus all meals and accommodations
paid
. I wasn't a regular selfish type. I never treated my people differently than I treated myself. If I was staying in the Ritz-Carlton everyone was staying in the Ritz-Carlton. But, if someone does something foul to me, they get what they deserve. I could have beat Daison with my hands. I wanted to break his bones.
I wanted him to bear the weight of
what he did by stealing from my wife.

I really wanted him to know what he did was wrong and sit with that while he was in the hospital. He needed to know that he
fucked up
. I also did it as a message to the others. If another muthafucka in the crew was thinking of crossing me, they would think about it twice. We settled out of court. Daison sued me for assault. I paid him $80,000. I never spoke to him again.

I don't like to get mad at people. It takes up way too much energy that could be used creating music. I hated turning into my father.

 

ON APRIL 6, 2003,
I almost passed out in the fucking hospital. I had never experienced such a feeling in my life. It was a take-my-breath-away, head-spinning, sweat-pouring, blurry-eyed
anxiety attack.
It was a frightening sensation. It took over my whole body. It felt like a tsunami had lodged inside of me, pushing me over from the inside. I was at the hospital waiting for my third child, Jordan, to be born.

“The umbilical cord is wrapped around the baby's neck,” the doctor said to me.

There's a chance that my new baby boy may not live
. But, God was listening. I wouldn't have been able to live if Jordan didn't make it.

But he did.

Jordan, as Jeffrey Jr. did, will grow up a wealthy kid with everything at his disposal.

 

I RECORDED
R.U.L.E.
UNDER THE INC. LABEL, AND IT WAS
released in 2004. The joint was still hot no matter what the hip-hop heads were saying. The joint “Wonderful” with R. Kelly was hot and talked about all the fake-ass bitches that I'd met. It went number one in the UK, which never happens for American artists. The other hot joints were “R.U.L.E,” “Never Thought” and “Life Goes On”—all
hot
joints. “What's My Name?” was a club anthem, and “New York” was strictly for my New York fans.

 

DURING THIS PERIOD,
I was at the height of my career, but the music game was dragging me down. I felt the stress that I had felt when I was hustling on the corner. Now, instead of pushing drugs, I was pushing
hits.
It's the same hustle. You have to get your music to the fiends, the audience and the DJs are like the lieutenants stirring up the sales, getting radio interested in your shit. You have to make sure that the DJs that have your music are the ones with the right connects. It can't just be any DJ. Most of all you have to be out there, visible, showing the world that you are keeping it real. I had to remain strong and aggressive at all times. I really had to
hustle
to have a hit record and then I had to battle to keep it.

There were more run-ins with the law. My patience with bullshit was wearing thin. Everything and everyone in sight irritated me. In 2004, I was arrested for punching a man in a club in Toronto, Canada. All the way in Canada it was more shit having to do with 50 Cent. Don't get me wrong. These were not fights because someone was simply listening to 50 Cent or wearing a G-Unit T-shirt. These were matters of being disrespected. The guy in Canada said something to irritate me. He said into my ear, “G-Unit.” It was an impulse reaction because he was just too physically close to me. That was the reason I punched him in his face. It was totally unnecessary. The case was all over the newspapers in Canada and the US. I
hated
putting Aisha and the kids through all of this stuff.

In 2005, I was arrested for driving with a suspended license and possession of marijuana. The walls of fame had come tumbling down.

A couple more people had gotten killed in Detroit, linked to Eminem's Shady Records. Now that Shady Records and Aftermath Entertainment were involved with 50 Cent, the fans in Detroit were a part of the beef. Eminem saw that he and 50 Cent were taking on each other's beefs and getting people killed who had no real affiliation with them. I even talked to MTV about it and I said the beef thing was wack. I told them that I was done with it. I hated being in trouble with the law. It just didn't look good to my kids.

 

IT WAS AROUND THIS TIME
Aisha called me screaming on the phone. She was screaming so loudly that I had to excuse myself from the meeting that I was in. She screamed so loudly that she was losing her voice. I slid into an empty conference room and let her get it all out. I thought something had happened to one of the kids. My heart was racing so hard that I couldn't breathe. Finally, she shrieked, “I heard it on the radio. Don't deny it. Don't deny it, muthafucka!”

I had no idea what she was talking about.

“Do you know a bitch named Karinne? Because this is what she said about you ‘
Ja entered my body and I felt both pain and love simultaneously.'
” Aisha said angrily.

“I don't think I know her. Who is that bitch? Where would I know her from?” I said carefully.

“You may not know her but you certainly fucked her! Five days you were fucking her which is why you never answered your phone in California!”

“What?” My heart sank. “Babe, let me call you back. Someone just came in the room. I will call you right back. Stay calm. I love you.” I said as I pushed
END
.

Karinne had written a book, and I had to get my hands on it to manage this shit. Aisha knew everything already and I had to catch up.

 

I CALLED IRV.
“Find out about Karinne. She wrote a book and I'm in it. Find it. Find it!”

They were talking about the book
Confessions of a Video Vixen
on every urban radio station across the country. Karinne Steffans wrote about all of her exploits with people in hip-hop that she'd fucked. There was a chapter in the book called “Pain Is Love.” There was nowhere to hide.

Fame is the most dangerous drug of them all. Who would do that? Why would a single mother embarrass herself in order to make a little money and a lot of
unfortunate
fame? It's clever though, how she turned it into a franchise. But, today, nobody wants anything to do with her. One has to be careful about what they build their fame on. Snitching and hoeing are a weak foundation.

I thought that Aisha had already read each page over and over again, ingesting each word, ready to spit them back at me, but she hadn't. I didn't know what to do or where to go. I'd told Aisha that I'd call her back, but for the first time in my whole fucking life,
I was scared.
I didn't think I could take any more, with the police trouble, the media reports and now Aisha policing me more than ever.

 

BLACK HAD SURVIVED PRISON
and I'd blown up. He was released during
Rule 3:36
. The year 2003 was the perfect time to do the Cash Money Click album with Black and O. I still wanted to do something good. It was important to me that I kept my promise to Black and O.

I went to Lyor and he gave me a verbal go-ahead to go over to TVT and do it. We recorded a full album that was dope. When it was almost finished, Lyor pulled the plug on us. He said simply, “Ja, you're not doing that.” It became a new fight.

Steve Gottlieb of TVT proceeded to sue Def Jam for $100 million. Def Jam told Lyor that he would be responsible if Def Jam lost the case. For the first time, Lyor wasn't straightforward with me. He gave me a test and I failed it. He just wanted to see what I would do if I told him that I would record for Steve after all that Lyor and I had been through. Because I was thinking of my boys and not the business, I thought it would be cool. When he told me that I could do it, he was testing my loyalty. I failed. He pulled the plug. It wouldn't make good sense to “lend” me to Steve Gottlieb. I was one of Def Jam's top-selling artists.

Lyor felt that I should've been wise enough to tell Black and O that we weren't going to be able to do it. Cash Money Click was good, it just got fucked-up beyond our control. Making that album with them was the right thing to do. We called it
CMC EST 1995
, Cash Money Click, established in 1995. The album was hot. However, it was
never
released and there are no traces of it, anywhere.

In my situation, I could understand how slaves must have felt when white men were fighting over the fruits they had the potential to gain over the slaves' labor. It was about power, which is what white men need to live. All I wanted to do was keep my promise to my fans. Now I recognize the importance of keeping the big picture in view.

The lawsuit definitely strained my relationship with Lyor. Eventually, I did show my loyalty to Lyor in court, and Def Jam won the case.

Looking back, the whole thing was a pissing contest between Lyor Cohen and Steve Gottlieb. They needed to show whose dick was bigger. That's how the corporate boys fight—in court.