2004 has been a frenetic year for my company and me. We’ve developed websites and provided online promotions for Violator, Alicia Keys, Ruben Studdard, Christina Milian, Neptunes, Anthony Hamilton and many more. Although things were pretty hectic with the business, I still found time to jumpstart my deejaying career and also explore the craft of photography. Within 5 months I’ve managed to spin music for companies like Pepsi, Martha Stewart Living, FHM, Diesel, Moet, Martell, and Lincoln Center’s Young Patrons Society. Some of my friends have said that since I do so many jobs and I never leave home without my camera, I must be of Jamaican decent with Japanese tourist tendencies. There’s a good reason why I live this way.

Six years ago my life was in complete disarray. I was still caught up with wanting to be a recording artist and I found out the hard way that the music industry is not kind to aging rap stars. After the applause was over, I found myself burning in hip-hop purgatory. I had a conversation with my then 70-year-old uncle about life. I reached out to him for financial help, and that help came some of his words of wisdom. He told me about the sacrifices he made when he was younger and how he had an opportunity to play baseball in the negro league but decided to join the military for stability in order to take care of his family. He explained to me that he regretted that decision for 40 years because he never knew what his life could have been like had he decided to go the baseball route. His advice to me was to always follow my heart and I will never have regrets when I reach 70. I live by those words.

I would to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported me. You have all played a major roll in the evolution of D-Nice the artist and Derrick Jones the man. May we all prosper in 2005!

Derrick

Posted by D-Nice at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

I remember being 13 years old and receiving my first real lesson on how God doesn't like ugly and also a lesson on southern remedies. I used to live on 118th & 7th Ave in Harlem. There was a building directly across the street from us that had a play area for residents only. I snuck into the area so I could play with the other kids that lived in the building. There was a jungle gym that had a 6-foot high plank. Some of us kids would jump from the plank and grab onto the bottom row of a fire escape ladder to swing and then jump off. Well, there was a mean old lady who lived right next to the fire escape and she would complain every time we played in that area.

This one particular day I was so fed up with her complaints that I walked to the end of the plank, turned around, dropped my pants and told her to kiss my ass. All the kids started to laugh. Once again I thought I was cool. I was so caught up with them laughing that I didn't realize that she had opened her window and started to swing her broomstick at me. Both of my feet slipped off of the plank and I fell onto my testicles and then to the ground from 6-feet high. Ouch!

Aside from the obvious pain, I also scraped off the top layer of skin from my calf. I limped home in severe pain to clean the wounded area. I asked my aunt for bandage to cover the area and she sat me down and told me about a southern remedy that would help the wound heal faster. She told me to go in the corner and grab some spider webs and place them over the scar. I looked at her like she was crazy but somehow she convinced me that this would work. I thought everything would be just fine until a few weeks later when my wound turned green! It's seems my aunt's southern remedy caused my calf to be infected with gangrene.

I ended up in the hospital for 3 weeks. There was a 95% chance that they would have to amputate my leg. Luckily for me, the infection did not spread to the bone. That was the last time I was ever mean to an old lady and the last time I ever listened to my crazy ass aunt!

-dj

Posted by D-Nice at 09:37 AM | Permalink

I was one of the most mischievous kids in my junior high school. I once ran for class president in the 7th grade and won because I called all of the girls to the rear of the classroom one by one, where I opened my pants and revealed myself to them. They thought I was cool. :-)

I used to hang with a kid in junior high school by the name of J-Boss. J and I pretty much did everything together. I remember we were being chased through the school hallways by the truant officers. We ended up running into the boy’s bathroom. There was a small locked door in the rear of the bathroom. Afraid of being caught, I pulled out my pocketknife and pried open the door and we hid inside of the room.

I kept hearing female voices. I noticed that there were six vents on the walls so I walked over to one of the vents to take a peak and discovered that we were directly behind the girl’s bathroom and the vents were positioned right behind each toilet! Jackpot! Exposed ass everywhere! It was the perfect hiding spot until J opened his mouth and told others about it. By the next morning the bathroom was overflowing with boys trying to get a sneak peak. It eventually got back to the staff that we had access to this room and they shut us down. It was fun while it lasted!

-dj

Posted by D-Nice at 09:39 AM | Permalink

I remember: In 1988, a friend of mine was the night manager at a Foot Locker warehouse. I’m not sure how he got away with it but he would walk out with at least 30 boxes of sneakers every night and we would sell them on the streets for half price. One day my cousin was selling the sneakers on 125th street. After the day was over, he decided to take a cab back to where the sneakers were stored. After arriving at the location, my cousin was short 50 cents and the cab driver, who happened to African, was livid.

The driver jumped out of the car and started yelling, “pay me now, pay me now!” A friend and I ran over to the cab to find out what was going on and to be sure my cousin was safe. At this point, a second African cab driver pulled up and demanded the 50 cents. He pulled out his wallet and showed us a picture of himself wearing a gi and warned us that he was a black belt. Another friend who happened to be in the neighborhood, who also didn’t see the picture of the second cab driver in his karate suit, came out of nowhere and sucker punched him in the face and the cab driver proceeded to whoop his ass with the most amazing display of African karate I’ve ever witnessed!

Just as we all started to jump the two cab drivers, more cabs pulled over, more drivers jumped out! We were surrounded by gang of African cab drivers! Luckily for us the cops pulled up and broke up the melee.

-dj

Posted by D-Nice at 09:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Ok, I need to share my thanksgiving moments with everyone. I'll start with Red Alert's birthday party on thanksgiving eve. It was absolutely insane! I went through so many old school songs, taking everyone on a musical journey. The crowd, which included the likes of Chris Lighty, Kwame, Grand Master Flash, Sincere Thompson, Beast, Uncle Ralph, Ed Lover, the Industry Co-sign crew, Darren Pheffer from Power 105.1, and so many others, never stopped dancing. At one point I took a chance and started playing slow songs from DeBarge, The O'Jays and Switch, reminding everyone what the Red Light basement parties were like back in the day.

After the party I headed to Maryland to spend thanksgiving with my family. Now I have a question. Am I the only person out there with an aunt that used to cook well but now in her older age the food is extremely bland? My gosh, she insisted on cooking everything! I couldn't eat a full plate of food! Everyone close to me knows that I'm a sweet potato pie fanatic. I didn't have one slice of pie because it looked like it was prepared with papier-mache. And another thing, why do older people feel that when they slice the turkey, it's ok for them to use their hands? The worst part of it all is that she packed it all up for us to take home. Now that's a real doggy bag! :-(

-dj

Posted by D-Nice at 09:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)