Combat Jack With Today's Mathematics

All good things come to an end and the kids go back to school next week. Being that I'm headed outta town, as promised, here's a throwback of my world famous, award winning blog series recapturing my Top 5 gulliest moments I experienced first hand in the music industry, shit you won't hear about anywhere else on the whole effin planet but here!

PREVIOUSLY: #5, #4, #3, #2

Courtesy of Byron Crawford

#1. The Time I Smoked A Blunt With Tupac ([||] and sorta)

Back in the early 1990's, I was working with some more gully Mount Vernon niggas. One'a my former clients, Kenny Smoove landed a label deal with Atlantic Records because of his hit production on the group "Intro". He discovered and broke the group "Changing Faces" with their smash hit single "Stroke You Up" produced by and featuring R. Kelly (no Michael Jackson pederast). Shit was looking extra good for Kenny. His next project was a rap group called “Ground Zero” who were supposed to be like the East Coast version of NWA. Don’t worry if you don’t recall hearing about them though, they were dropped from the label like about a week after this story took place, but I'm telling you, these negroes were really crazy, like, not right in the head.

They were all cousins (I think maybe inbred) and when they weren’t rhyming or writing “hot shit”, they'd get all smoked out and drunk and start fighting each other for real. Bare fists and knuckles real. Dudes were so crazy even, and if I'm lying, I'm dying, that there was this one incident when, in the midst of a drunken spell, they started fighting amongst each other in middle of the street, said fight eventually escalating into a "friendly" game of gun play where one of ‘em shot another one either in the arm or the leg. Real shits and giggles these guys. Believe me when I say these cats were effin idjits!!! Good dudes though, just not too mentally balanced. Anyways, they had a “road manager” who went by the name of “Easy Lee.” Easy was one of those pretty boy [||] type of dudes with a million dollar smile who was in all actuality, real grimy, so much so that that you wouldn’t wanna trust him near your cash, your girl, your moms, your kids, your video games, your gear, you flat out couldn’t trust this fucker. I wonder why he didn’t just call himself Greezy Lee.

Anyways, Ground Zero stayed producing joints in the studio with Kenny, shit started gelling, sounding mad proper and eventually they ended up getting a gig to perform way out in this ghetto ass club in Queens, New York. It was a promotional date and they were one of many acts opening up for the legendary, late, great Tupac Shakur. This was around the time that ‘Pac was starting to establish his name on the fact that he just made his acting debut in the film “Juice”. I'm thinking "Above The Rim' also. So on the night of the scheduled performance, Me, "Greezy", Kenny, Ground Zero, and a few other cats drove out to the club. When we got there, the place was packed with a line going around the entire block. To make matters worse, this was like the coldest night I ever experienced in my life!!! I'm talking a few years before this global warming thing, where it was seriously 2 degrees with a wind chill factor of like negative 25! Some real BRICK shit. Outside, there were hundreds of chicks waiting to get in, hoping, praying to catch a glimpse of Tupac. I gotta give it to them 'cause they was out there dressed in the skimpiest of halter-tops and opened toed shoes. I didn’t get it because I was wearing like three pairs of socks and a pair of 40 Below Timberland boots and being that it was so cold, my toes felt like they were being sliced and diced with razor blades.

To make shit even more horrific, the bouncers at the door didn’t give a rat’s ass who the eff me, Kenny Smoove or Ground Zero were and most definitely were not letting us in. After waiting for like an hour, Tupac shows up with his crew (including the future G.O.A.T., Biggie Smalls, who at the time was content playing his position as one of ‘Pac’s weed carriers). To this day, I’ll never figure out how, but Greezy Lee somehow managed to slip into Tupac’s entourage and disappeared inside the club alongside them. Five minutes go by, I know for sure that my feet are frostbitten and that I'll probably have to have one of ‘em surgically removed thus becoming gimped up, Ground Zero start getting antsy, cussing at each other, shoving and looking like they’re about to start fighting, shooting in the crowd and at each other when Greezy pops out the club with out his million dollar smile and a bouncer, points in our direction and tells dude to let the us in. Me, Kenny and Ground Zero gets escorted in and right as we're about to pass security, this other bouncer let's everybody else in and cuts the flow by sticking his meaty ass hand in my chest, thus blocking my entry. Freezing, stuck and knowing that I just blew my last shot at getting into the ghetto ass club with the name I forgot, I sadly watch the posse enter, doors closing behind them.