I focused on the sexier stuff, prepping my plan for Bivins. I tried to get a sit-down, but apparently his office ran through his aunt, a super nice lady who told me to “put down what you want in paper, dear,” and that she’d set up something. So I waited

I heard about the geographic ground zero of emerging hip-hop: an event called the Lyricist Lounge, which took place at the Supper Club, Tramps, and other downtown New York venues. They had an open mic night, and the place vibrated with the industry’s emerging talent

I rolled in with Cale, and as soon as we opened the door, we started coughing. The place smelled like a stoner’s Christmas, with all the weed burning. We happily lit up and joined in

This was nineties backpackers hip-hop. All you could hear were these deep, deep drums. Everyone wore a backward cap or a skull hugger, and walked around with JanSport backpacks and hoodies and vests. The host, Anthony Marshall, bounded onstage, and the crowd hushed. “Next up is . . . Mos Def!” The room exploded

Mos Def took the mic, and we settled in. Cale pointed out Talib Kweli and Biggie Smalls. There were also some record company reps that all the rappers were trying to impress in the hopes of landing a record deal. In the far corner was Matty C, aka Matt Life, who, when he wasn’t writing for the Source, was an A&R man for Loud Records and produced for Mobb Deep. I felt like this was both the culmination—and the beginning—of something. It clicked at a very deep level in my gut, deep beneath the skin and into the bones, and I needed to be a part of it

After the show, Cale introduced me to Anthony Marshall and Danny Castro

Trying to keep my cool, I handed them a stack of my work. I might have walked into the Lyricist Lounge as a fan, but I wanted to walk out as something more

“This is some good shit,” Anthony said, flipping through paintings and shirts I had done. “What’d you have in mind?”

“I want to paint here.”
“Can’t do it,” Anthony said. “We’re booked every night—”
“No, while they rap. They rap, I paint.”
They looked at the artwork some more and then looked at me
“One condition,” Anthony said. “You draw our flyers.”
The puzzle pieces were snapping into place. Of course I’d be up for doing their flyers, as it was a natural extension, of sorts, of my seventh-grade “Echo for Class President!”

Later Seth called me up to check in, and when I told him about the Lyricist Lounge, he proposed that I also sell a mix tape with every T-shirt. Huh—not a bad idea for a landscape jockey

I pitched the idea to Anthony, and he was down. At the time, Source magazine was the final word in hip-hop; if you were featured in its Unsigned Hype column, you would inevitably be signed. We used this column and Marshall’s connections to eventually release mix tape compilations called Underground Airplay, which would feature rappers from Common to W Fresh

I raced home to my college apartment to share the news with my buddy Ben and my other roommates. “Dude! I’m going to be painting this giant canvas alongside the rappers, and—”

“Uh-huh,” Ben said, not looking at me, his eyes only on watching The Simpsons

“This is huge; it could break my career.”

My friend Sunil ignored me and said to Ben, “You wanna order pizza?”

How could they not get this? I tried one last time. “You guys’ll love it. Mos Def will be there—” “Nah,” Ben said, “I’m not coming.”
“Me neither,” Sunil said

“I don’t get it,” I said, and I really didn’t. Ben was a guy I’d known since I was a kid. He had DJ’d my seventh-grade Valentine’s Day party. He had urged me to run for class president. Now that all the stuff we’d played with was becoming real, not just talk, it seemed like he was disowning me

“You guys want to be rappers,” I said. “What’s not to like about this?”

“Dude . . .” Finally, Ben looked at me. “Rapping’s just for fun. And now you’re trying to go all ‘professional.’ You think you’re better than us?”

Sunil didn’t say another word. He just turned off the TV, stalked into his bedroom, and slammed the door. Ben did the same thing. Seconds later, I heard the locks click. And that’s how my apartment would stay for the next several months, with my roommates—my friends—in their rooms with the doors shut

This made me question everything. How could I move forward when I had lost the confidence of my peers? Clearly, I was no longer credible to people like Ben, and therefore I had to be a fraud to everyone else, right? I was fake to them, corny, nothing but a toy. What right did I have to paint in a club like S.O.B.’s, where real New York rappers performed? You’re not New York, you’re Lakewood. Years ago, I had discovered the iBelieve. Now I became tormented by the iDoubt

I couldn’t shake these fears, and they came close to shutting down my actions. They chased me and choked me until the very day I was supposed to paint at the Lyricist Lounge

Fuck them. If my friends couldn’t back me, then I didn’t have time for them. Now that I had opportunity, I couldn’t squander it by being too afraid to act. This wasn’t a game or hobby anymore. I knew it wasn’t a game for Cale. I knew it wasn’t a game for Anthony Marshall or Rodney Jerkins. Unlike my roommates, they weren’t into urban music and street art because they wanted to shoot the shit or get laid

They were serious; they were real. So was I