Gods & Gangsters. Solomon
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pushed the alto and knocked dude out cold. The third dude dropped the mic and ran. The crowd went from crazy to bananas, screaming so loud for that real shit, that bitches was getting nosebleeds.
“QB in the house!” Power bellowed.
“Buck! Buck! Buck!” Kane barked, stepping over the sprawled body of the sleeping singer.
“Yo DJ, fuck that corny smooth shit! Gimme that real shit!” Power demanded.
The DJ in the booth looked at Duppy. He was fuming, but he could see the energy in the room was on a thousand. He reluctantly nodded. The DJ cut in the boom bap with a thunderous scratch, then the beat for Wu-Tang’s “Protect Your Neck” exploded like a terrorist bomb in the club.
Kane set it off, spitting about growing up in Queens Boro and the way that makes you into steel, forged in the city’s fire.
Then Power took over. Doubling down on Kane’s line. Murder and terror just a way of life. You fight back or die.
The crowd lapped it up like thirsty bitches on a dry day. The DJ clicked hard with Power and Kane’s attitude, and gave them the sickest beds on which lay their lyrics. The club rocked, the bass boomed. Even Duppy’s head bodyguard was nodding along like this crazy shit was getting inside his head.
Duppy, finished the last dregs of champagne from the bottle and then popped the cork on another from the ice bucket. One more look at the madness in the room and his eyes were counting gold bars.
Q.B.C. were definitely moneymakers.
Track 2
“And that’s how it started.”
“I’m more concerned with how it ends.”
“Make up your mind. You said start from the beginning,” he reminded Detective Spagoli with a swarthy smirk. Spagoli sat back in his chair.
“Q.B.C. is responsible for several murders and the distribution of tons of cocaine up and down the east coast, correct?” Spagoli questioned.
“Indeed,” he confirmed.
“So what in the hell makes you think I give a fuck about when they started rapping?” Spagoli hissed like a boiled kettle. Leaning on the table he looked him deep in the eyes.
He took his last cigarette and crumbled up the pack. He held up the pack and looked at O’Brien.
“I’m out of cigarettes. Maybe you can get me a fresh pack? Or maybe she can go,” he remarked, then looked at the two-way mirror. “Baby, can you handle that for me?”
“You’re cute. I bet the booty bandits in Leavenworth will feel the same way,” O’Brien sniped.
“Well, that’s why I’m here, correct? So I don’t have to go to Leavenworth, right?”
“As long as you tell us what we want to know,” Spagoli reminded him.
“Then it’s time we talk about her…”
“Guitar Jimmy, stick wit’ us ‘cause you ‘bout to hear that murder shit,” Power bragged as he and Kane walked out of the engineering room and headed for the booth.
Once inside, Kane pulled out the bottle of Henny he had inside his bubble goose.
Jimmy gave them a disapproving look.
“Chill, Guitar Jimmy. This the magic potion right here! Start the track,” Power told him.
“Yo, I’m goin’ in there wit’ them!” Messiah announced, once he saw Kane turn up the Henny bottle.
The whole clique followed suit and Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief.
While in the booth, the buzz sounded like the block.
The beat kicked in, Power swigged from the bottle, gripping it by the neck like a broad he just bagged, bobbed to the beat and began:
As Power and Kane went back and forth over the track, Jimmy could only bop his head. He had never heard a sound so street get so melodic, almost hypnotic, at the same time. Just when Jimmy thought he had heard one of the realest rap records ever, Kane blurted out, “Yo, yo, turn that shit off! Turn it off!”
Power looked at Kane himself. “What up, thun?”
Kane shook his head. “Yo, who did that track?”
Jimmy answered, “DJ Diamond. Hottest producer on Duppy’s team.”
“Man, that shit is wack as fuck!” Kane blasted. The whole time, only Power and Kane could hear the track, so Messiah stepped forward and said, “Let me hear it.”
He took the headphones from Kane and Jimmy played the track. After only a few bars, Messiah took off the headphones and announced, “Yo, that shit is ass!”
Jimmy looked pissed as fuck. “You think you can do better?” Jimmy challenged Kane.
Kane hit the Henny and glared at Jimmy. “You God damn right.”
“Come show me.”
Kane didn’t hesitate to do just that. Power knew Kane had never made a beat in his life, so he wondered what made Kane so confident that he could. It didn’t take long for him to find out.
“Yo, the bass line is pussy. It need to be like the pulse of a killer at midnight,” Kane said.
“At midnight?” Jimmy echoed. “I have an idea what you’re talking about.”
“Like this,” Kane replied, then verbalized what he meant.
Jimmy used the keyboard to emulate it.
“Darker,” Kane said eyes closed. Feeling it deep.
Jimmy, understanding Kane’s visual better, dropped the key an octave. Kane smiled his sinister grin. “Yeaaaah,” he nodded.
Power watched as Jimmy and Kane went into a musical zone that had them both focused. Every suggestion Kane visualized, Jimmy was able to bring out. When they put it all together, it was a certified hood banger. “God damn, you did your thing, God,” Power exclaimed, giving Kane dap.
Kane smiled cockily. “Told y’all I could do better.”
Jimmy face was impressed. He hadn’t expected this and Power could see it in his eyes.
“Man, you’re a fuckin’ genius!” Jimmy said with feeling. He picked up the phone on the mixing desk and dialed a number, smiling and shaking his head at the same time.
“Yo, you need to get down here ASAP,” Jimmy said, then hung up.
“Who you just call?” Power questioned.
Jimmy looked at him. “Duppy”
Duppy hung up the phone and looked at the woman sitting in front of his desk. He had seen plenty of beautiful women before, exotic beauties of every ethnicity, but he had never seen one so mesmerizing. Her mother had definitely named her right…
Egypt.
She had the natural cat-eyed look that most women need eye-liner for. Her skin tone was the color of an Arabian sunset. She was slim, but statuesque and shapely. She could’ve been Greek, Latin, Italian or a mixture of it all.
But she was a black woman through and through, and she had the voice to prove it. Her voice was just as beautiful as she was. It was as soulful as Alicia’s and as strong as Whitney’s - she was the truth and Duppy knew it.
“So you want to be a star,