I remember being in Atlanta in 1993 for the Freaknic festival. For those of you who are too young to remember Freaknic, I will describe it to you like this; it was an annual weekend of hot women, hot cars, and hot parties in hotlanta! It was a Friday night around 12 a.m. and I was standing by the bar of one of Atlanta’s hot spots having drinks with my cousin Booo and some friends when 2Pac and his entourage walked in. This was pre Death Row so his entourage only consisted of around 3 people. The party was overflowing with women so we all stood by the bar drinking and conversing about how hot the women were and which woman we thought we could leave with after the party.

After two rounds of drinking, Pac decided to pull out a bag of weed. He asked me if I had a cigar and I responded by saying no. One of his boys handed him a cigar. Pac carefully split it, emptied the tobacco and proceeded to roll a blunt. After rolling up, he then realized he forgot his lighter and asked if I had I carried mine. Once again I responded by saying no. After asking a few other club goers for a light, someone handed Pac a book of matches. He lit up the blunt, took a couple of pulls and started to pass the blunt my way. I declined and told him that I had quit smoking. Pac looked my way with a smile on his face and as he exhaled he yelled, “D don’t smoke the chronic no mo'! D don’t smoke the chronic no mo'! What is this world coming to?” Everyone found this hilarious. Just as Pac was about to hand the blunt to Booo, the cops walked over and grabbed them both! I guess it was a good thing I didn’t smoke the chronic no mo'.

-dj

Posted by D-Nice at 09:16 AM | Permalink

It was the summer of 1988. We had just released the second Boogie Down Productions album called “By Any Means Necessary” and we were about to embark on our first U.S. tour. It was called “The Dope Jam Tour” and the line-up was Eric B & Rakim, Dougie Fresh & The Get Fresh Crew, Kool Moe Dee, Boogie Down Productions, Biz Markie, Ice-T, and J.J. Fad. WHOA! I thought that we were stars until our tour bus showed up. I will never forget. It was a powder blue Prevost with a large mural of a pink mermaid painted on both sides of the bus! Here we are, Boogie Down Productions, one of the hardest rap groups at the time, and we are about to travel through 60 cities on a powder blue bus called “The Mermaid.”

The Mermaid was an old bus that was used by Cher 10 years earlier. Everything inside of this bus was old. The TV’s were old, the seats were made of old velvet and the walls were covered with wood paneling. I remember we were leaving California on our way to perform in Las Vegas when the Mermaid started experiencing engine trouble. We were in the middle of the Mohave Desert on a two-lane highway with no town in sight and the temperature exceeded 110 degrees! It was hot as hell and we were in purgatory! The comical part of this story is that a priest, who was traveling to Nevada with foster kids, charged us $500 to drive us to Vegas. AMEN!

-dj

Posted by D-Nice at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Part of the reason I'm reluctant to go pro with my photography is because there are still some things I can't do! One day I was hanging out at the Violator office listening to demos with Andre Neal when a former Violator manager walked in and said to me, "Hey D, Busta is in the studio with Old Dirty Bastard. You should stop by and get hot some shots of them working together." Now, how could I pass that up? At that point ODB was just home from jail and it would have been good to welcome him back. I gave Dre dap and said, "I will return in a few." I jumped in my car and raced over to the studio. Just as I arrived my blackberry started to vibrate. It was the same Violator manager. She said to me, "D, we really need you to do us a favor. Busta is shooting a commercial next week and they need to make prosthetic legs for a scene. They need us to send them a picture of Busta's legs ASAP. Can you take a picture of his legs for us? " I said, "WHAT, are you out of your f@#king mind? There's no way I can take pictures of Busta's legs!" She tried making me feel guilty by saying, "Please D, take one for the team!" Now I'm thinking, 'there's no way Chris Lighty or Busta would ask me to do that!'

I remember walking in the studio thinking to myself, 'D-Nice is not taking pictures of Busta Rhymes' legs.' I guess I must have had a crazy look on my face because Busta looked at me and said, "What's the deal, D? Is everything cool?" I said, "Yes, I'm cool but I need to speak to you for a minute." I wanted Busta to know I had nothing against him but I couldn't take pictures of his legs. So, we walked into the main room and we both had a seat. I said, "Yo Bus, you're my dawg so don't take this the wrong way. I came to get some shots of you and ODB working when I got a call asking me to take pictures of your legs for the commercial you're shooting, and I can't do it." Busta calmly looked at me and said, "Don't worry D, I can't let you." HA! We shook hands and I was out! No pics of ODB! No pics of Busta! And damn sure no pics of his legs! LOL

-dj

Posted by D-Nice at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I remember at the age of thirteen I was going through an identity crisis. All of the kids I played with in my old neighborhood had curly hair and I kept thinking to myself, “I need curly hair!” I remember explaining to my aunt BJ that I was upset because I didn’t have curly hair. She said it’s ok; I’ve got just what you need. She went to the bathroom and returned with a T.C.B. relaxer! I was so excited! Here I am thinking that I’m about to have curly hair when what I was really about to get was a perm! Hey, I was thirteen, I didn’t know any better!

My aunt told me that she would give me my curly hair later on that night but at this point, I couldn’t wait so I started to do it myself! I opened the jar, grabbed a comb and started to slick my hair back with the creme thinking to myself, “I’m about to have curly hair!” WRONG! I let the relaxer stay in my hair for at least 3o minutes until my scalp started burning. By the time I rinsed it out, my hair was completely straightened! I kept thinking to myself, "What have I done?" We didn’t have much money so I was forced to rock my hair like that! I remember having a bad case of split ends, new growth and whatever else that came along with a bad perm! Oh well, so much for my curly hair…

-dj

Posted by D-Nice at 09:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I just got off the phone with Special Ed. The conversation totally took me back to the days when we used to hang out at Latifah’s place in Co-op City, located in the Bronx. La's crib was the hot spot! At any given time you would run into everyone from MC Lyte to Chris Lighty. I remember after recording my song "Call Me D-Nice" I went to La's crib to play the song for everyone. I knew it was a classic after seeing the expression on her face when the beat dropped! Dun, duh, dun, My Name Is D-Nice!

Those were the days when the hottest cars rappers could afford were Honda Accords and Jeep Cherokees with 15 inch rims! Those were the days when Chris Lighty was driving a white Chevrolet Corsica! Now, you know that was long ago! I had to dig in the scrapbook and share some old school pics. Although I didn't shoot any of these pics, they are part of my personal old school collection. Anyway, Ed is in town for a few days and he’s going co-dj with me tonight at Serena playing pure old school! I’m letting you know right now, it will be 75% old school hip-hop played so don’t start requesting too many new joints!
-dj

Posted by D-Nice at 09:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I remember our first time traveling outside of the Bronx for a performance. It was in 1986 and I was 15 years old at the time. We were using one-way plane tickets en route to Rochester N.Y. to perform at an event that was supposed to be sponsored by the local radio station WDKX. The station was to provide us with transportation back to New York City once we arrived in Rochester. After arriving in Rochester, with no money for hotel rooms, we were invited to stay at the home of a local resident by the name of Scotty who was friends with Scott La Rock. Little did we know that Scotty still lived with his parents who were devout Christians and they despised rap music and had no idea we were rappers. This probably would have worked out fine if “Super Ho” Scott La Rock hadn’t brought along a female companion.

After catching Scott locking lips with the young lady in the middle of the night, Scotty’s mom immediately sprinkled us with holy water and showed Scott, KRS-One, and myself the door, allowing only the girl to stay. We ended up breaking into a motel room and kept quiet hoping that no one would find us there. The next morning, after “checking out,” we found out there was no show sponsored by the radio station and we had no plane tickets to get home! We ended up spending the next night sleeping on the steps of an elementary school, only to be awakened by kids throwing rocks at us. Fortunately, Scott’s grandfather wired us the money needed to return home safely.

-dj

Posted by D-Nice at 03:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)