A Thin Line Between Love and Hate //D. Swing//

The Beginning.

                               1990

"K-Ci you dumbass, you got us lost again"

"Kiss my ass, D, you didn't know where the fuck we're going either", K-Ci snapped.

"If you followed my directions we would've been there 12 hours ago", DeVante argued while checking his watch.

"Can you niggas shut the fuck up already? Yall both dumb", JoJo intervened.

"Mothafucka, I followed your directions, that's why we're lost in the first place." K-Ci replied, Ignoring JoJo. DeVante, K-Ci, JoJo, and Dalvin followed DeVante's crazy idea to basically run from home, drive up to New York, find Uptown Records, have the A&R listen to their demo tape, and hopefully get signed. Normally, they wouldn't give into any of DeVante's wild suggestions, but he gained some sort of rebelliousness ever since he auditioned for Prince.

"DeVante, you know you're fucking stupid right? Got us driving aroud New York for 12 hours like we The Jacksons. You know if we don't get this record deal, we gon be ass out, my daddy said if I don't get signed, don't come home." K-Ci turned to DeVante and mean muged him.

"For the last time yall, we gonna get this record deal, all they need to do is listen to our tape and like it and get Andre Harrell to sign us. If they don't, I guess we just gon have to be homeless then, but yall act like thats so bad."

"Do you actually hear yourself when you speak, like honestly?" Dalvin questioned.

"Dalvin, why are you here?" DeVante teased.

"YALL LOOK, IT'S OVER THERE!" JoJo pointed to a tall building with big, bright letters spelling "Uptown Records".

K-Ci parks the car near the building, and the four boys walk to the front desk.

K-Ci doubles back when he sees a familiar face.

"That's Heavy D over there!" K-Ci whispers, loud enough for them to hear.

"What yall here for?" The receptionist at the front desk asked.

"W-we just want somebody to hear our demo", DeVante uttered, nervously holding the demo tape in his right hand.

"Go ahead and wait in the lobby"

45 minutes later

"Kurt? We have 4 young men here waiting in the lobby to see you." The receptionist buzzed into the A&R's office.

"Go ahead, good luck", and with that, the four boys walked into the A&R's office.

They walk into Kurt Whitley's office and automatically get straight to business. They sit down in front of him and start to play their demo tape.

After the 4th song on the album, Kurt starts to fall asleep.

"Um sir, we just drove all the way here from Charlotte, North Carolina and we would appreciate it if you would listen to our demo without falling asleep." JoJo says as politely as possible.

"Andre ain't gon sign yall. Y-yall suck ass, go back to the south or wherever the hell yall came from." Kurt slurred his words while wiping the drool off of the side of his mouth. It seems like he was partying the day before because he looked a little hungover.

Right then and there, the country started to come out of them.

"Man, how the hell you know what that man like?" K-Ci threw his hands in the air as a sign of frustration. Kurt waved them off.

The four boys walked out of the office, and there stood was G-Whiz from Heavy D and the boys.

"Was was all that singing I heard?"

"It was us, we was playing our tape", De answered.

"Can yall sing that live right now?" G asked.

Right then, they started singing Forever My Lady, acapella. Heavy D must've heard them from down the hall because he walked over and started listening.

"Yo come here", Heavy motioned for someone to come, just then, Andre Harrell came over to where everyone was.

Andre nodded his head to the velvety sound of their sweet harmonies and vocals.

"Heavy, Let's talk outside"

Dre and Heavy went outside to talk, no one knew what they said but Andre came back, smiling.

"Where yall staying at?"

"Um we kind of homeless at the moment, and we ain't got no more money" Donald scratched the back of his neck.

"Yall gon get signed today, for sure. Yall got a name yet?"

"Jodeci, the Jo for JoJo, the De for me, DeVante, and the Ci for K-Ci", DeVante explained, introducing the three others.

"Jodeci...it has a nice ring to it." Heavy said, wagging his finger in the air.

"Well I know yall hungry so let me take yall to a restaurant and maybe we could discuss the producing arrangements", Andre spoke with his hands.

And from there, the Jodeci legacy started...