7 Mile

Chapter 11

After dropping Nate off at school I got out my tape of Run DMC's Tougher Than Leather tour. It was one of the best live hip hop shows I had ever seen. Kim sat down to watch it with me, the show was fucking crazy, The Beasties opened up the concert and brought out a giant dick. Performance meant everything, and boy didn't I know it myself.  The Beasties played a big part for me in my music, obviously because they were white guys rapping in a predominantly black music form, and they was a lot of fucking fun, they was themselves, no fronting, and I'll bet millions of kids around the world could relate to where they were coming from, especially me. When they first came out, they had mad respect in the underground, they had it all covered. It was them being themselves that helped me figure out how to relax and be me. Made me feel like I could get up there and rock the mic and rock millions. That's what every wannabe rapper wants, it's what I wanted.
LL could rap about the girls, and Rakim, with his wordplay, could get real deep with it. Boogie Down Productions could actually teach you something, which is incredible when you're just listening to music for the vibe. Masta Ace had amazing storytelling skills, his thoughts were so vivid.

After watching the tour Proof and Denaun turned up and we kicked it for a while, talking about music and my thoughts from yesterday about coming up with some fresh concepts, or new pairings, and the guys liked the idea,

"Ay so we can make a start of it today, I mean get it set up in your basement? Cause man the next few days are gonna be real tight for me" Proof looked at me,

"Yea, I'm down for that, for sure"

"Wait, hold on..." Kim interrupted, "Are you forgetting about something?"

"What?"

"Uhhh, he's around 4 foot? 6 years of age? Ring a bell?"

"Ohhhh shit, yeah uh, man I got Nathan yo" for a minute I got too excited about the idea of starting up a new project and actually forget my reason for being stuck at my moms,

"Damn dog... I mean, Kim can't you do the brother a favour? For us?"

"Proof you have got to be shitting me? After what he's done to me you want me to do him a favour?"

"It's cool, we can hook up in a few days aight?" fuck Proof?! Now I was getting her eyes burning into the side of my face, landing me in hot water like that, fuck was he playing at?

"No, just... go. I'll get Nathan from school"

"Man see" Proof rubbed together his hands with a shit eating grin, this was nothing to be happy about, I knew Kim and this wasn't her giving me her blessing to go out, fuck I wasn't that fucking stupid,

"Are.. you sure?" I asked her, she could probably smell the fear coming off of me,

"I won't say it again, so either go now or stay, do whatever"

"Ay, Kim thank you girl"

"Don't thank me Proof" she got up and walked,

"Man come on! Before she comes back with a blade and fucks you up!" He laughed and pulled me up from the couch, the clown,

"Dog this ain't funny, she's gonna cut off my damn balls and feed 'em to me when I get back" we all rushed out the front of the door.

As we all sat around together brainstorming I could already feel an essence of something forming, but I just really didn't know what yet. We were all friends and associates together in this room, mainly through Proof and the Detroit scene. There was Bizarre, of course everyone knew Bizzy, Denaun and his friend Kuniva, those two rhymed together, called themselves Da Brigade, Bugz who introduced me to some dude called Swift who was in a group called The Rabeez with Bareda, man they were dope, and I was sat here with my long time partner in rhyme Manix.
All evening we rapped and recorded together, but not as a collective, we was doing our own separate things, but it made sense economically, we had to share resources, shit was always lean in The D.
With Denaun on the beats we all went hard on the rhymes. It was very competitive as far as who got on what track, how much space there was for each rhymer. When I rapped a take and they all liked it, we stopped the tape to figure out who was gonna blaze it next. So everyone was all standing around my basement waiting to get their chance, everybody was so tight.