Table of Contents
WHERE HIP-HOP LITERATURE BEGINS ...
Nothing ever just happens. You have to make it happen. There are builders and great people all around us. All you have to do is find them. Here at Augustus Publishing we have the best standing with us. We would like to say thank you to the following people, first and foremost The Duke Steven Beer, Harvey Tanton, Bill Gladstone and the staff at Waterside Productions, Tamiko Maldonado for all you help, Virginia Vaca, Joy Leftow, Lisette Matos, Robert Guinsler, Marva Allen at HueMan Bookstore, David Wilk, Divine at Books In The Hood, Brett Wright, and the staff at Uptown Magazine, Omar Rubio, Shannon ‘The Don’ Holmes, the great K’wan and Harlem’s own Treasure Blue. We would also like to thank F.E.D.S. magazine, ASIS, Don Diva, Susan Hampstead, Jessica Silver and Shae James for contributing to the growth of the genre. And to all the real scribes out there, Arlene Brathwaite, Caroline McGill, Wahida Clark, Sharron Doyle, Brooke Green, Brandon McCalla. Jules and Nelson Ninn at Nikko, DC Bookman and DC BookDiva, thank you. To Jimmy DaSaint and The Real Freeway Ricky Ross, thank you. Ket at From Here To Fame, thank you. Thanks to the staff at Vibe Magazine, Source and Essence Magazine, B.E.T., XXL and Smooth. Judith Aidoo, Jerry Lamothe and Buttahman thank you. Nakea Murray, Linda Williams, Kaven Brown, Ian Miller, Chris Howard and the Urban Book Source thank you. Antonia Badon, you are amazing. Mr. Polifick Erick S Gray, Mark Anthony at Q’Boro, keep on. Thanks to all the readers, Bookstores and libraries around the country. Hip Hop Literature lives on. Because of your collective energy we’ve been able to put the fun back in reading.
foreword
SHANNON HOLMES
My mother used to always tell me, ‘Boy, all you wanna do is eat, sleep and run the streets.’ At an early age, she could see the transformation that I was going through. She could see her youngest son becoming infatuated with the street life and she was powerless to stop it.
Truth be told, I thought that the Streets of New York had prepared me for everything. I thought I had either done everything there was to do or seen everything there was to see. I believed that New York City was the end all and be all. To me (and other street dudes like me), it was the capital of the world. New York was definitely the center of my universe. It wasn‘t until I got on a real serious paper chase, selling drugs in different cities, did I see that New York hadn’t prepared me for everything. There were still some things I hadn’t experienced, partaken in, or seen. I soon learned that out of town cats got some shit with them too.
While I was hustlin’ outta town in DC and B’more, my young eyes were exposed to many things. I placed myself in situations, life or death shit, where I had no business. With that said, I saw things that would make a grown man cry and the most heartless of killers cringe.
Here’s a taste from deep in the heart of the Streets Of New York. Check it out and you’ll see that this is only the tip of the iceberg…
prologue
ERICK S GRAY
Queens, N.Y. 3:35 a.m.
“You still coming through? I’m waiting for dat dick,” Diamond questioned a prospective client. She was in room 226 of the Executive Motel over on the Conduit waiting for her $100 to show up.
“Yeah, I’m coming through right now, shorty. Give me like twenty minutes, ahight?” Squeeze said, pushing the 4x4 down the Van Wyck while holding the cellphone to his ear.
“Ahight,” she said, chewing on bubble gum and poppin’ it.
“I’m sayin’ tho’, you chargin’ me full price tonight?” he asked.
“I gots to. My daddy is here with his bottom ho’. They both sleepin’ in the room. We gots to fuck up in the bathroom.”
“Damn, the bathroom, ma…? You chargin’ a nigga full price to fuck in the bathroom…? Hook a nigga up, lovely. You know wha’ I’m workin’ wid, look out. I ain’t got dat hun’red right now,” Squeeze explained.
“I’m sayin’ tho’, how much you gots?”
“Like eighty bucks. You good on dat?”
Diamond sucked her teeth without giving the offer any thought. She made a little over $1,200 tonight. Her pimp had her out there on the track since nine that night and she’d been on dick since then with his bottom ho’.
“Ahight, but you gots to make it quick.”
“I’ll be there in ten.”
“You know where the Executive is at in Queens??”
“Yeah, I know where you at.”
“Call me when you get to my floor, okay?”
He hung up and shouted out to his accomplices in the truck with him, “That’s a stupid ho! We ‘bout to get dat money, she just told me dat her pimp’s sleepin’.”
“Word?” Show asked with excitement.
“Yeah, we got this!” Squeeze reassured.
Diamond turned off her cellphone and slowly eased into the room where her pimp was sprawled out across the bed. His bottom ho’ was beside him sleeping. Her Daddy, a young twenty-one year old young man had two of Queens most successful women in the pimp world, was slipping right now. He was asleep when he was supposed to be making money. He was supposed to be up on things, especially his money and his bitches, his bread and butter.
Clad scantily in her mini jean skirt and a bra, Diamond pulled out a cigarette from her purse, lit it and sat against the wall near the door and waited for her date and money to arrive. She glanced at the time. It was almost 4:00 a.m.
Outside the motel, a 2003, burgundy GMC pulled into the motel parking lot and four men stepped out into the cool night air. They glanced around for a moment and then headed for the motel entrance.
“What room she in?” Pooh asked excitedly. He was the youngest in the group, only twenty-one.
“Room 226.”
“Her pimp in there wit’ her? Cuz I ain’t going up in there for some chump change. I need dat money,” Show said.
“Nigga, the bitch been working all night. I’m telling you, if you see shorty, you know she getting dat money for her pimp—she bad,” Squeeze explained. “I say about two G’s or better.”
“Ah, dats what da fuck I’m talkin’ ‘bout,” Show grinned.
The Executive had a reputation for being the ho-tel where anyone can pay up to fifteen, twenty dollars per hour for a short stay. All four