BLACK LOVE & THE ORAL SYNDROME: The Conclusion

Things were looking up for our group. People liked us and came out to see us play in droves; record execs, A & R reps, and producers were interested; George Lyons was delighted to have us appear once a month, even though The Roxbury was the kind of club I tried to avoid when I was out and about.

I remember some of the skanks at that club, cozying up to me when they thought I had blow on me. They high-tailed it out of there when I informed them that I only smoked bud. These girls felt pot was beneath them-- it was either cocaine or no-caine in their world.

It didn't matter to me, because I was still seeing Eve, and I was faithful. Then, she broke up with me. I was suddenly free to see whomever I wanted to see. That's when I met Anna, through mutual friends. Anna was a completely different person than Eve, and she helped me get through the breakup period.

That's also around the time that things started to go sour with the group. Up until recently, I was always willing to place the blame solely at the feet of the rappers, especially Donald and Johnny, whose friendship was tested by some dramatic bullshit. But as I look back on it, we just weren't ready. We thought we were ready, but we weren't.

The problems really started when we decided to go into a professional studio to cut some tracks. Paulie and I were the only ones making any real money, and the burden of coming up with funds fell upon us. We were able to scrape up $500 to get three songs done on 24-track reel-to-reel tape at a professional home studio located in Granada Hills.

The sessions turned into a party, much to the chagrin of the engineers, who didn't appreciate hangers-on and people smoking blunts in the vocal booth. I was totally embarrassed at the whole situation, because it seemed to me like a bunch of people acting like rock stars when we really hadn't done shit yet.

I have never been content to assume that stardom is a given-- yeah, it's fun to act like you're a star, but that's only after you've done some hard work. The same thing happened later on, in the band with Holly Golightly. What is it about singers or vocalists who think that it's more important to live the rock and roll lifestyle than it is to practice and produce professional-quality music?

Soon Donald and Johnny would pepper their conversations with talk of "When we make our first mil" and "I want a stretch limo with a TV and a sauna"...

Ronnie didn't have his head in the clouds, but there were bigger problems with him: it turned out that the kid was functionally illiterate. He was only a few months younger than me but he couldn't write or read to save his life. This is a big problem, especially if you are a rapper-- you need to be able to at least read and write. Unless you're Biggie Smalls memorizing your rhymes in your head, a rapper that doesn't read or write is pretty much useless.

Ronnie more than made up for it, though, with his engaging prescence and positive attitude. Out of all of the rappers, Ronnie was the most fun to be around. Ronnie taught me the virtues of hooking up with plain chicks, a sensibility that I would implement later on, well after the band was done-- dude was handsome and loved women of all shapes and sizes; no pussy snob was he. Eventually he ended up having a baby with a girl who was a knockout, a former model with legs for days and light eyes. I guess the law of averages really does work, because some of the women Ronnie used to roll with were not the kinds of women that rappers tend to pursue.

Johnny had a girlfriend also, an aspiring R&B singer whose father had a studio. Donald was hanging out with his "Nubian queen", a girl who had a temper and an attitude. Paulie wasn't interested in getting laid-- he just wanted to make music and money.

We ended up with some halfway decent demos from the studio sessions, but Paulie and I were disappointed. The rappers had complained about the sound mix and wanted changes in the EQ, which I protested-- I knew that what we were hearing on the playback monitors was not an accurate representation of how the final songs would sound. That didn't sate Donald and Johnny, who pushed for a more bass-heavy mix. Even the engineer, a long-suffering fellow named Phil, agreed with me, but Johnny and Donald were putting the pressure on, despite the fact that they contributed nothing in the way of money to the sessions.

Of course, the demo was too bass-heavy, but Donald and Johnny didn't apologize or feel any remorse. They ended up blaming Phil, who only did what he was told to do.

This is when I started to realize that my opinion didn't matter for shit in this band. Johnny and Donald would pout and act like little kids until they got their way, and anything I had to say was roundly ignored. This was infuriating, especially when someone they respected would agree with me-- all of a sudden, they were willing to listen to my ideas if someone else voiced them.

This also reminds me of my recent experience with Holly and the band. Many ideas and suggestions I had were treated frivolously, and only when someone who had "clout" echoed my ideas did anyone take them seriously. I guess I'm just too mellow, or maybe I don't push hard enough to get my way. Or maybe I'm not as selfish as other people are.

Maybe I should be more selfish and ego-driven. But then, my art would suffer.

*/*

Ronnie's mother was acting as our manager for a spell, but she couldn't commit to it full-time. We ended up hooking up with some monster named Andre, a former security guard for The Roxbury and a former NFL draft pick whose career ended in the Atlanta Falcons training camp-- he twisted his knee before he had a chance to start the season, and that was it for him. The dream of being a pro baller was over, and much like Marion "Suge" Knight, whom he resembled physically, he decided to get into the rap game.

Andre, at first, was solid and cool. He bought us a van for gigs; he bought the rappers custom jerseys and he bought Paulie and I some sleek windbreakers; he lined up shows at places like The Martini Lounge, The Probe, and the Hollywood Athletic Club; he arranged for a photo shoot with a professional photographer.

He wanted us to sign with him, but we couldn't agree to his terms. He wanted us for three years, at 20%, which was too much for us to give up. Splitting 80% five or six ways was going to be a chore, and 20% is much more than managers are supposed to take.

Soon we discovered that Andre, once again in comparison to Suge Knight, was doing some highly illegal shit to finance his enterprises. It was one thing to sell weed, but running guns and selling crack was something that made us wary of Andre's involvement.

Ironically, the band was hitting a creative peak. We rehearsed regularly, getting tighter and tighter and tighter. We changed the arrangements on some of the songs, bringing out jazzier elements. We started hearing about bands like The Roots, who were doing what we were doing. This made us feel like we were on the crest of the new vanguard, like we were poised to blow up.

For me, it's never about following trends-- it's about breaking new ground. I was happy as hell to be in a band that was doing the kind of stuff that later on would be de rigeur on the scene. Grunge was fading, and we would play shows where grunge bands sharing the bill would literally give up playing guitar and switch to spinning vinyl or playing with samplers. By the time the group was over with, half of the musicians I knew had abandoned grunge and started toying around with electronica and acid jazz, areas we had been flirting with since our inception.

When the rigors of hauling our equipment in the A-Team van (as we came to call it) became too much, we would book an occassional "rappers only" show, where we would supply Black Love with a DAT or CD with our original beats, so that we could get exposure in the more traditional hip-hop venues like Flex on Tuesday nights in Hollywood. This tactic was somewhat successful, because we were able to tap into more conventional rap audiences by playing to the rules of the underground. Donald, Johnny and Ronnie would take the stage, do a quick show, and Paulie and I would watch from the crowd, gauging the reaction. The crowds loved the music, and we were confident that we had something good going.

We started to meet movers and shakers, from Channel Live to Evil E. We were garnering buzz. We started to get a rep around town for being a kick-ass live act.

But then, things really started to decline.

We found out that Andre never paid the photographer for the session. This sucked, because we really liked that guy, and he was cool to us. Bad karma. Plus, he wouldn't give us the negatives until he saw some money from Andre. On principle, Paulie and I didn't put any money forth, because we knew that if we did it this time, it would become a repeat offense.

Andre had told us that we didn't have to pay anything while we were with him, but Paulie and I saw things differently. As far as we were concerned, Andre was dangling carrots in front of us but not really doing anything of substance. We knew it was because we wouldn't sign his wack contact. We figured that we would just wait it out until Andre had no choice but to take 10% and give us more freedom to work with outside producers.

But then, the typical drama that plagues every band at one point or another set in: a bitch got in between Johnny and Donald. Or rather, two bitches.

Donald's "black queen" was becoming the Yoko Ono of rap, whispering things in his ear because she saw dollar signs. This caused friction between Donald and Johnny, but it wasn't until someone burglarized Johnny's girlfriend's father's studio that shit went down. Johnny accused Donald, who was always broke and always conspiring to jack someone for money or equipment, of masterminding the burglary. This offended Donald, and the two had a major falling out. Johnny, of course, took his girlfriend's side, and Donald was too busy being led by the nose by his girlfriend to set the pride aside. The former best friends were no longer speaking to each other, and it looked like the band was ready to self-destruct.

By the time we hit the Roxbury stage for what would be our last show, tensions were so high that they were manifesting during the stage show. That night, I had promised a radio show host that we would let his two female dancer friends shake their rumps on the side of the stage. I did this because he was going to play our music on his show. The radio show wasn't a big thing, but it was radio play nonetheless.

I forgot to tell everyone in the band about this decision, and so during the third or fourth song Donald couldn't help but notice two white chicks bumping and grinding on the stage. In the past we'd had trouble with drunken groupies crashing our set, so Donald stopped the band mid-song and went into a tirade. He kicked the girls off the stage, and we re-started the song.

I was fucking livid, but I think about that whole incident now and realize that it was actually kind of cool. If I had been in the audience instead of on stage, I think witnessing something like that would've been exciting, extraordinary. I cooled off after some of my friends reassured me that the incident added spice to the show. Some of my friends even thought that it had been planned.

That same night, some guy who worked with me at the telemarketing firm I was using as a day job had shown up. He came to the front of the stage and passed me a lit blunt. I toked it, and was surprised to find that it was real bud. I passed it to the guys in the band, and they were equally shocked. You see, a few months earlier, Donald almost got us thrown out of the club for smoking a blunt backstage with his girl, and now here we were, in a crowded club, playing music to a throng of wasted partyers, smoking weed in front of the entire place!

The after-party was a celebration of my birthday mixed with the joy of finishing yet another live gig, but in the air that night was a finality, a sadness indescribable. I know it sounds trite and corny to say it, but I think everyone knew that it was all over-- this was our peak. It wasn't going to progress and go further than this. Donald and Johnny were becoming even more strained, and Paulie and I were burned out on trying to keep this show on the road. Andre virtually disappeared from sight, and when our drummer told us that he was going to go to New York and take film classes, we knew that the ride was coming to a complete stop.

It officially ended when George Lyons called us the following week. Paulie had to be the one to field the call. He told me that when he informed George Lyons that the group was done, there was silence on the line. George Lyons then asked Paulie if there was any chance that we could get the group together for one last show. Paulie, ever the pragmatist, told Lyons that it wasn't likely.

Paulie told me that George Lyons sighed and hung up promptly.

*/*

I know that Paulie was so disillusioned by the whole thing that he gave up on music for a long time. We eventually moved out of the North Hollywood apartment and found a spot in Sherman Oaks with my friend Nona, who later went on to be Paulie's girlfriend. By that time, trying to get Paulie to work on tracks was like pulling teeth, and in the summer of 1996 I moved out of that place and into my own spot in Sherman Oaks.

Paulie, now in a relationship with Nona, went back to aircraft school and got his pilot's license. He ended up spending his time dabbling in off-road vehicles. Sometimes he would work on music, but he was pretty much done with rap. Only recently has Paulie ever expressed any hurt over the Black Love experience-- about a year ago, before he and I embarked on this animation project, he let loose with the following:

"We were this close," he spat. "Man, we were the hottest thing. We were the shit! Fuckin' Johnny, fuckin' Donald..."

Ronnie ended up moving to Lancaster with his model girlfriend, where they raised his kid. I would bump into him and his cousin every now and then, and the love was still there, but then we would go our separate ways and not see each other for a spell.

Johnny and his girl went off to do their own thing, but they eventually broke up. He still works on music, most notably with Tha Giftshop, his latest group. The last time I saw him was very recently-- his brother was getting married, and there was a mini-Black Love/Oral Syndrome reunion at Johnny's pad where he held the bachelor party. The only person missing was Donald.

No one knows what happened to Kool Don Farrar. The last time I saw him was not good-- shortly before the group died, Donald received a devastating phone call from a family member informing him that his sister was shot to death by her fiancee, who later turned the gun on himself. I have never seen a grown man in such pain as Donald on the day he heard that news. It was an inconsolable grief that probably changed him for the worst. He went back to Boston to see his family, and rumor has it that he stayed there, got hooked on crack, and is on the streets.

I am really saddened by that. If that is true, it is such a waste. For all of Donald's faults (and he had plenty) I was also inspired by his creativity. I meant it when I said that he was Charlie Parker with words. If ever the term "street poet" meant anything, it was in relation to Donald's rapping. I don't think I will ever meet an MC with the skill that he had, ever again.

Wherever you are, Donald, I hope that someday our paths cross again, in a positive way. There's so much unfinished business. I listen to those tapes every now and then, and they are still potent. Time has not dated them. They are more original and vivacious than three-quarters of the dreck that is on radio today. One reason why the songs still pack a punch is because we made them during the era before Tupac and Biggie died, when MCs rapped about things other than bling bling and hoochies and thongs and Cristal. The underground was overground, and lyrically MCs were raising the bar on what could be said in a rap. Musically, we were pushing boundaries, not just trying to sound like The Neptunes or whoever is the hot producer of the moment.

Donald used to instill consciousness in his raps. Johnny was the ladies man, the sex symbol of the group. Ronnie was the wild performer, enthralling the crowd with his ceaseless energy. Paulie and I were the mad scientists, concocting unholy grooves in our lab, making asses shake and MCs salivate as they clamored for a spot on our tracks.

I shake my head as I write this. The opportunity squandered, the talent wasted, the memories fresh and vivid. I still love hip-hop, and I pay tribute to that time in my life by writing my own rhymes, making my own beats, trying to encourage others to find the voice that I discovered in myself years after the fact.

I learned many lessons, but I also realize that I have many more to learn-- my experience with Holly Golightly has shown me that I am still too passive when it comes to my artistic visions. I shouldn't take a backseat to anyone, because unlike everyone else I am not doing this for some sort of glory or recognition. I don't care about making tons of money-- I only want to make enough to survive comfortably and to be able to keep creating art. I don't care about being hip, because the hippest thing a person can do is to follow his or her own instincts, despite what everyone else thinks is cool. And I certainly don't care about what other people think, because otherwise I would've given up on all forms of art completely by this time.

I told myself years ago that if I have not gotten anywhere signficantly by the age of 35, I was going to pack it in and stop creating. I'm 31 now, and that leaves me with four more years to go. And I think I mean it-- I don't want to be some middle-aged gloryhound, trying to resuscitate a career that never was. I've seen too many people doing that, and it depresses me, because nowadays entertainment is a young person's realm. The money people want twenty-somethings and teenagers that they can manipulate and exploit. Art Alexakis from Everclear notwithstanding, it is rare to see anyone pushing forty who is breaking out with something new.

I still have my writing, which is something that improves with age, if you ask me. And I have set myself down the path to become a painter-- I just need to buy brushes and paints, and I'm ready to go. My mother gave me an easel this past weekend, and I have some canvases. Paulie, who bought me the canvases, has faith in my ability to produce some good paintings. Right now, he is sort of like my sponsor.

Maybe while I'm painting, I'll play the Black Love/Oral Syndrome tapes. Maybe it will inspire me to create some type of ode to the early '90's, specifically between 1993 and 1995, when I was on fire and putting everything I had into my art. Or maybe it will inspire me to keep pushing forward, remembering the past so as to not repeat the mistakes made in haste and out of insolence.

Maybe.