Guilty by Association

GUILTY BY ASSOCIATION

Damion “Damizza” Young

and

J. Marshall Craig

GUILTY BY ASSOCIATION

The Life and Times of a Hip-Hop GodfatherWith Eddie Gurrola

Copyright © 2011 by Damion young anD J. marshall Craig.

all rights reserveD. no part of this publiCation may be reproDuCeD, storeD in a retrieval system, or transmitteD, in any form or by

any means, eleCtroniC, meChaniCal, photoCopying, reCorDing, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

isbn isbn: 978-0-9847419-9-1

Cover photo by DaviD esterson. all other photos, unless otherwise CreDiteD, are from Damion young’s arChives. every effort has been maDe to Determine photographers’ CreDits anD ContaCt photographers known to

have taken inDiviDual photos. any omissions or errors in CreDits will be CorreCteD in future eDitions as the authors are maDe aware of them.

Printed in the United StateS of america

This book is dedicated to the loving memory of Bigga B and Wino Loks.

You live on in the memory of all who knew and loved you both.

May you rest in peace.

v i i i G U i L T Y B Y A S S O C i A T i O N

A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S

I think the easiest part of this book to write was this — the list of

people in my life I am forever grateful to, and for. Of course, so many

of the important people who are a part of my story are, well, a part

of my story and appear in the tales within; but there are many more

who are just as important but whom I haven’t written specifically

about. I’d like to thank some of those people here.

I have to again thank Granny, without whom I wouldn’t be here

with any kind of story to tell.

And the story wouldn’t have been told were it not for J. Marshall

Craig, who I think is an incredible writer but don’t let him hear that

— his head’s big enough as it is. I’d like to thank his Mom, too,

Carolyn, who very obiously has been the greatest supporter of Jeff as

he’s chased his dreams and seen many of them come true.

My love and thanks to my brothers, Nick and Jason and

grandparents Harold and Millie.

I need to give a special shout out to the amazing portrait painter

Jeff Cornia in Palm Springs, who introduced me to J. Marshall Craig

and to whom he and I are forever grateful.

In no particular order, I need to thank, Steven and Jeremy, Chuck

and Alison and Lao and Lev and Ronnie Blitz (Chuck is the coolest

guy with the coolest friends, such as Ram Dass, whom he introduced

me to ... Chuck’s also one of the sweetest and most generous people

I’ve ever met. I kinda think of him as a superhero, even if he doesn’t

have a cape!); Sergio and family, Joe Brewer, Kevin Carter, Evelyn,

J.J., Nat Nat, Mr. and Mrs. Ramirez, Kameron, Mr. and Mrs. Solodon,

Patricia Bock, Terry Anzaldo, Steve Smith, Michael Newman, Les

and Betty Caroll, Pappa Wino and family, Shawn Baptista, Pauli and

Holly Rockwell, John Quimby, Tucker Bodine and his incredibly

gracious Mom and Dad, Theresa at Shell, Ryan Ford, Soren Baker,

A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S i x

Overtone and Mrs. Overtone, Big Bams and Big Skips and families,

Angela Morelli, Terry & Annette Reid and Chelsey Grady, Lorraine

and Mike Martin, Big Bass Andy, Miss Gerry Moore, Michael and

Marilyn Mileham, Miss Fran, the The Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E., Wilmer

Barriza, Jen at Dreamworks, E. Sanchez, Jacob, Tone, Angel and

Jesus, Eddie G. (whose help with this book was invaluable), Caz,

Einztein, Terry Barnes, Darryl Clark, Vicki Abelson, Dave and Jamie

Way, Sjoerd Koppert and Uru, P. F. Sloan, Bob Geldof, Nigel Grainge,

Patrick Harrington, Dave Stewart and Nadirah X, Stanley Berhines,

Mike Post and Aaron Postil, Big Boy, Debbie Jackson, Fontana/

Universal, Mari, Uncle Issac and Popps, The Don Muggsalini,

Freddie, Stan Shephard, Gabe Osornio and family, Céilidh, Rick the

Bass Player and Phil Jones, Marianna Proestou and her rockin’ hubby

Eric, Michael Jackson (R.I.P.) and the former staff of Neverland,

the Wailers, Jerry Blair, The Brooks Institute, Louis McNally, Frank

Howson, Derek Goodall, Arlette Gomez, Morgan Carey, Jackson

P. Muttley Gore 1, Michael Richardson, Wayne Newton, Vinny

Clamente, Juan, Ernie and Angel, Anna-Boo, Anthony Mazza,

Mikah, Kellen Henry, Godfather J., Boogie and Mama Boogie, the

hilarious Kimmie Dee, Gena E. (thanks for teaching me callout), the

Artist Capps, DJ Couz, Dask, Japanese Bishop and all my Japanese

family, Dope, Miss Ruth, Mario and Sheri Salinas and Brad, Tim

Feehan, the “Grammy Award-winning” Pete Novak, Adub, Marky

G. and Cee, Earl Stevens, Abby Bonell and family, Duro and Clue,

Mr. Cee, Gary Gaston, Down, Fingaz and Flossy, Cheeks (R.I.P.),

Big Bear and Quay and staff of KCAQ, Chris Cutter, Dr. Kris-Tea,

Dom Camardella, Dr. Clark, the Betty Ford Center (shout out to the

Drunk Monk!), Dr. David Gafford, Dizz, Amber Brown, Rusty’s

Pizza, Gabe and 805 Clothing, Cess and Tony the Bus Driver, and,

finally, Chowdy-Tay.

I’m sure I’m forgetting someone, but blame it on the brain, not

on the heart.

x G U i L T Y B Y A S S O C i A T i O N

W H Y T H E H E L L A M I

W R I T I N G A B O O K ?

By Damion “Damizza” Young

From humble beginnings in a dysfunctional Santa Barbara family,

no one could have predicted my meteoric rise to success from my

first radio job at the age of 12 – except, perhaps, for the amazing

Grandmother who raised me.

She encouraged me at every turn — on the condition that I finish

high school. It was her grounding force that paved the way for me

to become one of the most influential power players not only in rap

— where I peaked at No. 4 on Source Magazine’s “Power 30 most

influential people in hip-hop” — but the music business as a whole.

As award-winning senior director of programming/music director

of landmark L.A. Hip-Hop station Power 106, I broke new artists

like Eminem, Fat Joe and Jermaine Dupri, and helped troubled stars

such as Janet Jackson and DJ Quik get out of career slumps and ruts,

all the while befriending everyone from NFL Hall of Fame Legend

Jim Brown (and getting involved in his world-renowned Amer-I-

Can/Unity One foundations) to West Coast icons Warren G, Bishop

Lamont and even Notorious B.I.G. — who, just hours before his

murder, spent a laid-back morning in my office high atop Burbank.

I never set out to dish a tell-all — though that’s what the media

declared at first — and, if you read on, you’ll find I haven’t. Hell, we

even had the front page of the National Enquirer a year before this was

published! I just want to tell you my story. I want to share with you

W H Y T H E H E L L A M i W R i T i N G A B O O K ? x i

my excitement for the music, tell a few of the cool behind-the-scenes

stories you may not have heard — and remember, first and foremost,

I’m a FAN — stories that I love to hear from people who were in the

studio, or on the stage when something incredible went down.

I hope I’m appropriately candid, but I hope I make some

explanation of what I do and why, especially why I’ve spent many

years and hundreds of thousands of dollars coaching and encouraging

emerging new West Coast talent. They won’t all be rappers, or beat

makers, but some may make great engineers, audio technicians,

lighting designers, producers ... who knows. In some cases they were

lost kids headed down the wrong path and I was blessed to have

the good fortune of my Granny’s teachings to share with them: her

optimism, her generosity, love, acceptance and willingness to help

anyone willing to help him or herself.

So this book’s for you, Granny (even though I know there’s a lot

of stuff in it you won’t like!).

Granny and me dancing in First Class on a flight to Hawaii.

x i i G U i L T Y B Y A S S O C i A T i O N

After all, when it comes down to it, it’s mostly about Granny,

when we get to the root of the lessons taught, the lessons learned. Of

course I acknowledge my family at large, brothers Jason, Nick and

Bo, my maternal grandparents and my estranged father and mother,

but my life wouldn’t have been a life were it not for Granny.

It was funny when she met my co-writer, J. Marshall Craig, who

has become a lifelong friend during the journey of writing this book.

Jeff asked my rural Louisiana-born Granny point-blank if she liked

rap music.

“No,” she answered.

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate it, the effort that goes

into creating it and the fact that these young people are expressing

themselves in a positive way to change themselves, and hopefully

their situations, for the better.”

Damion “Damizza” Young

Santa Barbara, California (The 805!)

2011

x i v G U i L T Y B Y A S S O C i A T i O N

P R E F A C E

By Terry Reid

This is an account of a test, the test of a man’s soul.

To find oneself a messenger of a whole generation is a terrible

burden. From my own ride with the 1960s “British Invasion” I’ve

watched it again and again like a movie on endless repeat, the

casualties stacking up like quartertones.

Inside social and ethnic street reality is to be found a bond to the

people and the music we love. Grabbing the trapeze of that bond and

holding on for dear life to embolden it is the hardest challenge.

Damion’s story is a fast one, moving at speeds that are difficult to

comprehend outside this little world into which some of us are born

— like it or not, navigating it successfully or not — to create music

in all of its forms.

Terry Reid and me on a break from recording Seed of Memory at his home in Palm Desert.

P R E F A C E x v

I learned of the man through my longtime friend J. Marshall

Craig as he was writing this book; but I met the man about two years

ago through a song that I wrote and recorded more than 20 years

ago. One phone call he made showed me a passion and sincerity

and a love of all things good in music. With quite a bit of hesitation,

he explained how he felt the need to “flip” my song on a loop and

add his own new words; his understanding of my lyric of war (the

song is Seed of Memory) was totally reflected in his talking blues rap.

Same story, different time and place: Conflict and tragedy separated

by more than half a century, with very few lessons learned along the

way. We were each conveying the same message.

As you read this book you will see the familiar, how the giddying

heights of stardom and attention creates an intense burden that bears

no resemblance to intention and creativity, and almost always exacts

an unequaled toll emotionally, psychologically and even physically.

You’ll meet a man who’s a survivor in a race that many run, yet

so few finish with grace and kindness, heart intact, spirit unsoiled.

Call him a talent, call him a maverick — even risk calling him a

genius.

I call him a friend.

Read on. And listen closely.

Terry Reid

Palm Desert, California

2010

x v i G U i L T Y B Y A S S O C i A T i O N

i N T R O D U C T i O N

By J. Marshall Craig

What in the hell is a white Canadian who knows nothing about hip-

hop doing at 4:30 in the morning, trying to catch a few Zs on a couch

in Snoop Dogg’s and Warren G’s studio, in a nondescript industrial

plaza in L.A.?

Thinking, mostly.

Yes, despite being amidst — no, immersed — in the impossibly

low-frequency beat thundering through the bluish horizon of burning

weed, I was thinking.

About rap.

And how I was about to get a crash course in hip-hop and find

an ear for the beats that constitute the most popular, prevalent and

influential music in modern Western culture, all the while chronicling

the incredible life-so-far of one of the genre’s most important players.

There is a lot to hip-hop — far more than the bombast in the car next

to you at the stoplight or the explosion of lights, dance and sound on

your TV or that club downtown. Whether you love it or not, all music

fans owe hip-hop a huge debt of gratitude: Fundamentally, it saved

us from disco.

I have conflicting caveats: I hope your name is in this book; and

in some cases I really hope it’s not. No offense, it’s just that Damion

“Damizza” Young has the often-unnerving habit of being blunt.

We’re talking uncomfortably candid. I found this out the moment

we met; he put on no act and didn’t make any attempts to be any

more cordial or nice than he naturally is, which is very nice. Still,

as refreshing as this honesty and lack of Hollywood pretense is, I

i N T R O D U C T i O N x v i i

tilted my head a little when he called me “dogg.” Where I grew up

in Canada, you would have been hit across your buzz-cut skull with

a lacrosse stick for calling someone that. But Damion speaks this

way to everyone from the neighborhood kids to Dr. Dre, his beloved

“Gangsta” Granny to Jim Brown and former Vice President Al Gore.

It’s because he’s real.

Check this out:

“Tommy Mattola? Yeah, the first time I met him he asked me

about Mariah. ‘So, you fuckin’ her?’ He was the president of Sony

Music Entertainment, asking me if I’m banging his ex-wife. That’s

when I knew I’d made it in the music business.”

That’s candor with a capital ‘C.’

Damion likes to say he’s “guilty by association.” No wonder.

Stick around — we’re going to lift the veil on his 30-plus-year,

mostly behind-the-scenes involvement with the biggest stars in

recent music history. Of course,

people, politics and places have a

huge role in the Damizza story:

There’s Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg,

Puffy, Bishop Lamont, Warren G,

the Central Intelligence Agency,

Michael Jackson, Ja Rule, Ice

Cube, gorgeous women, Eminem,

nights when bulletproof vests

were a very good idea, Jennifer

Lopez, Al Gore, 50 Cent, Jay-Z,

Nate Dogg, Kurupt, Layzie,

Krayzie Bone, Pam Anderson,

dreams achieved and dreams

tossed away, 24/7 (and 9/11) with Mariah Carey, the Federal Bureau

of Investigation, scantily clad women, Jim Brown, tattoos, nights

when bulletproof vests would have been a very good idea, a $200,000

J. Marshall Craig and Damizza working on a draft of

Guilty By Association.

x v i i i G U i L T Y B Y A S S O C i A T i O N

weekend at Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho house smoking dope, guns,

millions of bucks gone missing, retirement at age 27, a two-year stay

at the bottom of Absolut bottles and the requisite stint at Betty Ford,

hanging with Biggie hours before he was murdered, naked women,

gangs, sex with naked women and, since it’s not too early for dinner,

a whole lotta take-out pizza.

Oh, and the coolest Granny in the world.

One dogg year later, I’m guilty by association.

Read on. You will be too.

J. Marshall Craig,

Santa Barbara, California

2011

N O B O D Y ’ S K i D 1

N O B O D Y ’ S K i D

From Doorstep to “Damizza”

I didn’t start out at the top of the charts, which is to say that I didn’t

come into this world facing the greatest of expectations. Rather,

when I was born, chances were that I, like millions of other children

in similar circumstances, would live a life struggling against all odds,

if not outright misfortune.

In fact, October 10, 1974, very nearly came and went without me

being born at all.

My Dad was on the fast track to a questionable career running

drugs with a California bike gang, and my mother was a kid just out

of high school who, if she had early ambitions, saw them dashed by

an accidental pregnancy. Dad’s mom, Granny Claudia, was the wife

of a local businessman while my mother’s parents were retired CIA

operatives living under the guises of being an electrical engineer and

housewife.

The two families clashed and blamed each other for their children’s

predicament, but either way the pressure of a marriage came to bear

and, indeed, came to pass. My older brother Bo was born soon after.

But my Dad wasn’t going to hand over his leathers, cut his hair and

get a nice shiny job in an office or bagging groceries, so he was soon

out the door, taking whatever chance the marriage had two-wheeling

north on California’s coastal Highway 101 with him.

My young mother was left with more than the infant Bo — she

was pregnant again.

This time, an abortion was the plan.

As fate would have it, Granny stepped in and said she would take

2 G U i L T Y B Y A S S O C i A T i O N

care of the baby if nobody else would. I came that close. In the space

of one sentence I went from an about-to-be-aborted fetus to a human

being who would be blessed with the fate of living, loving, and being

both witness to, and participant in, the heights and depths of the

music business.

Granny saved my life.

And from what Granny has told me, those first months were

rough, as I was bounced between grandparents. It all came to a head,

she says, before my first birthday.

The rumble of Dad’s Harley had

long faded northward. My mother

bundled me up in a bassinet and

packed a little metal suitcase

with what few things were mine

and, like the worst children’s

book cliché, left me, literally, on

Granny’s doorstep.

As Granny recalls, my ribs were

showing from malnutrition, my

eyes were sunken, and my diaper

hadn’t been changed in days.

“You were in a really sad

state,” she recalls. “I took you

straight to the hospital in Goleta.”

I still have that little suitcase. I don’t know why, beyond it

reminding me of my incredibly humble beginnings. I notice it nearly

every time I walk through the garage and if I’m ever getting too

cocky, nothing brings me back quicker than remembering I came into

the world truly nobody’s kid, and that every good thing that has ever

happened to me can be traced back to the grace of Granny. I wish it

was the last time she’d have to rescue my ass, but...!

Dad’s father — Granny’s first husband — had split when

The early days — always the happy kid because I had

Granny.


Dad himself was a child. Granny had remarried a Santa Barbara

automotive repair shop owner named Wally. Unfortunately, Wally

failed to share Granny’s devotion to me. In fact, he didn’t even want

me in the house. It wasn’t a problem for long, however. An aviation

enthusiast, Wally enthusiastically flew his Cessna into one of the

picturesque mountainsides above Santa Barbara one day. If this were

not enough challenge for Granny, Dad had gotten another woman

pregnant. Within weeks of Wally’s spectacularly unsuccessful

aerobatics, the new baby died, only days after being born.

Granny had been saddled not only with me, but the responsibility

of burying her husband and a dead grandchild. To hear her tell it,

she found strength in caring for me. Gotta love the gangsta Granny!

I became her life and she became mine. She is the most amazing

lady in the world. They don’t make ’em like her anymore. Hers is an

unconditional love. The day that she passes, a huge part of me will

die with her. That’s why I always told her I will never be able to live

in our house when she goes, because every single turn that I make

here will remind me of her. I love that woman. Talk about a blessing

… my life would be nothing were it not for her.

Thirtysomething years later, I do have a relationship with my

extended family. (Or at least I will until this book hits the shelves,

quite possibly.) Dad eventually left the biker world and settled down

to have a family, fathering two more sons, Nick and Jason. Nick’s

great and we’re close, but we don’t share many common interests, so

I don’t spend as much time with him as I wish I could. But I adore

that child! Jason’s a little younger and less athletically inclined than

Nick (just as I am!), so we hang out a lot more. He is and always be

my “little buddy.”

Unlike Nick and Jason, however, I never lived with Dad and

often went months without hearing from him or seeing him. In the

ensuing years we’ve spent more casual time together, but it was more

as drinking buddies than father and son. I’ve found it kinda sad,


but I couldn’t help but notice that Dad’s interest peaks and he is a

little more attentive whenever the subject of conversation is music

or famous friends rather than anything else in my life. Maybe it’s his

way of connecting. I mean, I love him. He’s my Dad. But I always

wanted him to be my father.

I call Granny “Mom.” Because she is.

The woman who gave birth to me has played absolutely no role in my life, which I say without bitterness or regret. However things came down, I got the Gift of Granny. I won life’s lottery when it came to being raised, so I have nothing bad to say about my birth mother. I don’t know

her, although she moved back to Santa Barbara to care for my ailing maternal grandparents, and I respect her for that, but I’ve only met her maybe 20 times in my life at this point.

However it played out, I got Granny so I’ll always have gratitude, not a whiff of bitterness, toward my birth mother. I really stress I have a wish to be nothing but cordial but this book is about the truth. And the truth

is the first time I remember her reaching out to me was right after I’d appeared in an interview on CNN. I’d given my grandparents a credit card for Christmas and she called and asked me where hers was. She also pulled an emotional bribe on me, saying that I have two half-sisters living on the East Coast somewhere. That was a shocker. I still don’t know anything about them. The woman who happened to give birth to me had little interest in me until I got a little famous. Hey, it happens.

I’m extremely fond of my maternal grandparents. My grandfather Harold is so sweet, a quiet, unassuming and extremely intelligent man. My grandmother Millie is a fiery Turkish woman who has always been loving, even if she can still scare the hell out of me as age and

Dad and me at Disneyland ... a very rare occurrence,

us doing anything together.


dementia begins to take a huge toll on her. She speaks eight languages fluently and as long as I’ve been grown up enough to be aware of my surroundings, remember her wielding a butcher’s knife as if she were a double-O.

Until only very recently grandfather Harold never mentioned much about their past or what they did or where they have lived, though grandmother Millie would occasionally make cryptic remarks about having worked in some area deep in the Pentagon … and there are plaques and awards on the wall of Harold’s den — supposedly off limits to the kids — that make it clear they’ve lead very secret lives. In only the few months before this writing Harold admitted to me they were very highly placed CIA operatives ... in fact, Harold was one of the founding members of the CIA. Not that he’ll tell me any more than that. It drives me nuts, but I’m sure most stories will go with them to their graves. Man! I wanna know who killed JFK! I want the lowdown on Roswell!

When Wally died, he left massive debt, unbeknownst to Granny,

with his auto business. With the same determination and strength

with which she protected me, Granny threw herself headlong into the

business world. The local independent garage owners’ organization

didn’t want to have her as a member, yet a year later were so in awe

of Granny that they voted her in as president. She pulled the garage

out of debt and turned it into the biggest automotive place in town,

with me by her side. No matter what she was doing — work at the

garage, Zonta International (a community service club), the Girls

Club, whatever — I’d be bundled up at her feet in my playpen. It

was an amazing way to grow up. Older people fascinated me by

the things they said at the garage or in club meetings. Far better for

a kid to learn about the world around him than suck his thumb in

ignorance, I figure. Granny took me everywhere. I learned so much

by just asking directions instead of driving in circles. She taught me

that “this too will pass” and “we do what we must” — common sense

from a truly wise woman. When I was older, Granny fulfilled one of


her life-long dreams and opened a Polynesian dress shop in the heart

of downtown Santa Barbara.

I worked part time at Michael Anthony’s Pizzeria across the

street and Mrs. Field’s Cookies next door. I was a smart kid and they

let me use the register, which was a gas for a 10-year-old. When they

got really busy someone would come over to Granny’s shop and ask

me to help on the till or even pitch in making cookie dough. It was a

great experience exposing me to the business world.

That’s not all. Granny gave me the next in a long and continuing

list of gifts: the gift of music. At home, there was always music in the

air. Over the Rainbow from Wizard of Oz was probably the first song I

remember hearing. I was in the local Peanut Gallery and Granny took

me to plays because she wanted me to experience the magic of the

arts. I was raised on Freddie Fender, the Ink Spots and Judy Garland.

I’d sit with Granny every Saturday night and watch Lawrence Welk.

We’d watch concerts on HBO and I remember clearly having my

brain washed by MTV — Dire Straits and Money for Nothing. What an

awakening, seeing visuals

put to music.

One of my first loves

was Granny’s old 78

record player. If you don’t

know what a 78 is, it means

a record 78 revolutions per

minute. Correspondingly,

a 45 is a record — usually

a single song on one side

of the record — played at

45 revolutions per minute

and 33 1/3 – most vinyl

these days – is, well, you

get the idea. Just as it is Granny and me looking sharp at my

6th Grade graduation.


with tape – even in your camcorder – faster is better. That’s because

the less information you have to put in a condensed area the more

breathing room it has and the more accurate it is. Some of the best

music was done on half- or quarter-inch two-track tape, recorded over

several times as tracks were overdubbed. Like on Beatles records and

stuff like that, things are so well arranged, or placed. That’s why you

hear one guitar in one place and drums in another and a solo in yet

another. As technology progressed with the emergence of computer

programs such as ProTools, the number of tracks became infinite,

which is a mixed blessing. Look at a film like La Bamba and you see

Richie Valens picking take 50 or something for a single; the band

had to play it all the way through perfectly for that one performance

— engineers couldn’t sit back and patch it all together like is possible

today. Hell, even most “live” recordings these days contain studio

“touchups” and overdubs. Say what you want in support of the pursuit

of perfection, modern music will always be chasing the spontaneity

of how it was the only way to do it when pop music was growing up.

A lot of times people just over think what they’re doing. Sadly, vinyl

isn’t being used that much anymore, even if you think it is. A lot of

DJs use a program called Serato, which plays MP3s with a fake piece

of vinyl on the turntable that a computer accesses.

One Christmas morning I awoke wide-eyed and gasped at one of

my gifts: A boom box. My aunt gave me some cassettes to go along

with it — Hall and Oats’ H2O and Abracadabra by the Steve Miller

Band. For the most part, the Steve Miller Band left me cold, but the

song Abracadabra was dope. And the H2O stuff was so melodic, really

good and something I embraced early on because it was basically R&B

riffs with some pop-sensible lyrics, kind of like the Michael Jackson

stuff of the time. Those two cassettes were the start for me. But the

epiphany was when I turned on the radio. I flipped the switch on this

boom box and on came this radio station at 97.5 FM. Every night, and

I mean, every night, I’d listen to this guy named Michael Newman.


Then he gave out the phone number for the request line. Big

mistake! I started to call nearly every time he was on the air. But I

wasn’t asking about music so much as I was grilling this poor bastard

about radio. I wanted an education from him in broadcasting, over

the phone, and I wanted it now! Finally, he said, “Come down and I’ll

put you to work just so I don’t have to talk to you anymore!”

I went to work nights at KHTY — Y-97 Santa Barbara. I was 12

years old.

At the time, Granny was doing six in the morning to noon at the

garage and then going downtown to her dress shop until 7 p.m. Even

after she “retired” she began a stint on weekends and holidays in the

admitting department of the Goleta Valley Hospital. This was all to

support me, Dad (those rare times he was around) and my aunt, who

was in college in Louisiana. Granny worked her ass off — another

great life lesson for me.

I applied myself earnestly at Y-97, filing records and CDs, pressing

buttons on the console when Mike needed a bathroom break, and

other little tasks. Granny, of course, was close at hand. She isn’t the

type to let her 12-year-old grandson work from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. at a

radio station alone, so she slept in the parking lot in the car. I’ll never

forget that. I really wanted to do the job and she supported me, as she

always does. What a huge statement, to sleep in the car outside so I

could chase a dream.

Soon, I was more than just a gofer at the station. One night Mike

asked me what I listened to and what was hot at my school. I became

one of his assets. That’s when I first got an inkling of how radio

works, how songs are picked and moved up and down playlists. He

taught me call-out research. That’s when you take the top 30 records

you have on your playlist and you play them over the phone for people

and you ask them screener questions, like “How old are you, what

city do you live in?” and you chart it according to zip code on what’s

called an Arbitron diary, radio’s equivalent of television’s Nielson


ratings. You play the hook of the song over the phone, and the person

would say on a scale of one to 10 whether he or she was familiar with

it, liked it or disliked. You’d take this information and pick the No.

1 test and that was the record you played the most on down through

the top 10 or whatever. It’s an amazing tool. You’d also ask what a

listener’s favorite TV show was and stuff, so the jocks could work

that into their on-air patter — what happened in last night’s “Snoop’s

Fatherhood” episode or whatever would best apply to the station’s

demographic. Mentioning local communities, hot meeting spots, top

10 TV shows — this always breeds a connection to the listeners. So

does taping callers and putting them on the air. I branched out at the

radio station and began to hang with the morning guy as well. My

pay? Free records! All right as far as I was concerned!

I next got to know the program director, Steve Smith, who

gave me stickers and T-shirts and took me to some of the station’s

promotions. Unfortunately, those rosy days were numbered. Soon

after, Steve left — and so did my mentor, Mike.

The new program director was a guy named Jim Crow. He didn’t

like me hanging around the station and landed on me like a ton of

bricks when I didn’t quite do my first tape dub correctly. He came

into the studio yelling and screaming, telling me to clean out my

locker and leave, and that “You’ll never make it in this business.”

He said he was driving me home and yelled the whole way. I’d

never been yelled at like that. I was scared shitless that he was going

to beat the hell out of me. He made me feel like I was half an inch tall

because I screwed up tape dubs on my first attempt — little wonder,

since I’d never been shown how to do them. He screamed that I’d

never succeed at anything, never amount to anything.

I cried all the way home because I loved my gig at the station. What

kind of asshole treats a kid that way? About two days later he was fired.

He had really fucked with the station, changing the format to Album-

Oriented Rock on a whim, without any of that all-important market

1 0 G U i L T Y B Y A S S O C i A T i O N

research. This rocket scientist loved Led Zeppelin so much he launched

the format change with what he called “Zeppelin A to Z.” It was a contest

in which he played the entire Zeppelin catalogue – a considerable block

of tunes — except for one song. The listener who could guess what song

he didn’t play won a collection of the band’s CDs.

It was like, “Dude, are you stupid?” Even Zeppelin fans called in

complaining.

The afternoon jock, Dynamite Darren Stone, took over the

station and made two important decisions — changing the format

back to Top 40 and re-hiring me. He started introducing into the Top

40 some dance, Depeche Mode and stuff. One day he asked me to do

a sort of rap intro for one of his features and I went in there and did

it and he said it was pretty good. He was the first to teach me what a

hook is. I didn’t know it, but it was my first step in learning how to

write hip-hop.

A local mix DJ was another guy to come in and have a huge

impact on me. DJ Wicked, who has gone on to a great career in

radio, was the first to show me how to use a keyboard and make

beats. He had an ASR keyboard and he used to leave it at the radio

station. Sometimes, when he had time, he’d teach me how to do

loops and stuff. I really look up to him, a humble guy and a great

dude who took a genuine interest in a wide-eyed kid. We had a four-

track recorder in the station so I was making spots, dubs and doing

weekends on the air. I’d spend spare time on the four-track doing my

own stuff, which was cool with everyone at the station since I was

always around helping out wherever I could, basically for free.

Just one year after I started hanging around the station at nights

doing an increasingly important number of roles, things got serious: I

was made the station’s assistant music director and given a paycheck,

heavy stuff for a 14-year-old. Stone apparently saw something in me

and tapped me to work with him during his seven-to-midnight shift.

N O B O D Y ’ S K i D 1 1

My head ballooned.

I was popular at school,

running with the

adrenaline crowd, and

it didn’t take me long to

start fuckin’ up — but

only outside the station.

I was getting perks,

like being able to add a

song every week to the

rotation, which the record

companies soon learned

about and figured they could exploit by loading me up with free shit. But

I was a purist outta the gate, man. If something was hot, I’d do it. If it

was whack it never saw the light of day. I had no desire to be schmoozed

or bullshitted and paid no attention to those record company fools.

Don’t get me wrong, I was no golden child. I was getting into

stupid stuff outside of work, running around with kids from school.

Getting one of the first tastes of being in front of a crowd, DJing a dance in Santa Ynez, near Santa Barbara.

In the production room at KHTY doing my very first rap jingle.


I dodged a few of the more serious of youthful transgressions — well,

getting caught, anyway. But I’d found my life’s calling, music, and

worked a hell of a lot harder at the radio gig than I did school. And

it paid off. One day, the overnight jock didn’t show up.

Darren said, “You’re on. Don’t talk a lot. Keep it short. You’re

on the radio now, kid.” I was nervous as shit but did what he said. It

went amazingly well and I soon became the regular fill-in guy. That

led to regular Saturday night slots on the air.

At home, instead of doing my homework or studying, I threw

myself into practicing DJing and landed my first gig outside the

station doing a dance. That exploded! I had more jobs than I could

handle and just a few months later had enough money that I stopped

renting sound equipment — I bought the company that was my main

competition, Santa Barbara Sound Productions. It was crazy but

fun. I always had free CDs and radio promo stuff and the whole

thing made me so cool at school. I understood the music, but didn’t

know anything about business, so with the excitement came a lot of

frustration for a 15-year-old.

If my dreams weren’t flying high and fast enough, the station

next asked me if I’d take over as the full-time night jock — and be

music director. I can’t say it didn’t piss off a few adults, this kid who

sounded like a chipmunk leaping over their own careers. But no

one could argue with the station’s No. 1 ratings across the board,

especially people outside the studio. The part I didn’t like at first was

the schmoozing and meeting a lot of people. But it wouldn’t be the

truth to say I didn’t soon grow to like all the attention, and being

treated like somebody important. Who wouldn’t?

Then a new program director came in, a guy named Stephen

Jay. Total egomaniac, who did not like this kid — me — getting all

the attention. But, from Granny on throughout my life, it seems

I’ve been blessed by guardian angels and the assistant program

director, Abby Bonnell, was a total sweetheart and went out of her


way to protect me from Stephen. The owners of the station were

clearly taking advantage of the situation, since I was so young and

despite me carrying a huge responsibility they didn’t have to pay

me very much.

Still, Stephen always had it in for me and never let up. One day he

gave me a pair of tickets to a show and told me that if I didn’t go he’d

fire me. I came in the next day and he asked me how the show had

been. I said it was great, and began to leave his office. Then I stopped,

turned around and told him that I’d lied and that I was sorry — I

didn’t go to the concert because, as I told him when he gave me the

tickets, I wasn’t able to go. Instead of appreciating me not being able

to go through with lying to him, he pulled a sheet of paper off his

desk and ran it through his typewriter. He wrote: I, Damion Young,

lied to Stephen Jay.

He pulled it out and asked me to sign it. It really sucked, but

that’s the kind of person he was. I could have gotten away with

lying, but that’s just not the way Granny raised me. Thank God. I’ve

seen that you can go all the way to the top running on deceit and

dishonesty — hell, I’ve seen it many times over the years. But I love

being able to sleep soundly at night and look at myself in the mirror

in the morning. Sometimes my eyes are a little bleary and bloodshot,

but my conscience is always clear. And that’s something you can’t

buy no matter what color your American Express card is.

By the time I was 16 I was making $30,000 a year. I traded

my BMW in for a Range Rover, started hitting wild parties in the

Hollywood Hills and meeting up-and-coming musicians and actors,

some of whom have gone on to stardom, some not. I had tickets and

backstage passes to every concert and my cool factor at school, when

I was there, was off the dial. And girls? Well, it was the ultimate in

every teenage boy’s wildest fantasies; let’s leave it at that. I learned

excess early.


My burgeoning life of music was not exactly curriculum-friendly

when it came to high school, to little surprise. Granny knew the

difference between true passion and hobby, thankfully, but she’s also

the smartest and most practical woman I am ever going to have in

this blessed life: Not graduating was never an option. Since getting

kicked out of school was a looming possibility, she allowed me to

begin home studies. I can’t pretend it was easy. But I hustled to get it

over with and, well ... I took the easy way out.

A friend at San Marcos High School, Debbie, was amazingly

smart and I paid her to do my homework because I didn’t have

the time or the interest. I just wasn’t feeling it. It was my own little

combination of Risky Business and what I call Damion Young’s Day Off.

And all good right up until exam time.

The teacher said, “You know you must pass this test to graduate.”

I was like, “Well, I really suck at math. I really need some extra

help.”

She said no. My brain started scheming: okay, how can I pull this

off ? Then I remembered that the teacher had once told me she was

a fan of James Taylor. My luck was on. Taylor was booked for the

Santa Barbara Bowl and I told her I could get her front-row seats,

Practicing my DJing chops on Granny’s dining room table.


backstage passes and the whole deal, if I could get some extra help

before the test.

I got a high score and graduated.

I even became valedictorian.

I’m not proud of how I went about it and now spend considerable

time helping kids who are screwing up in school and in life and I

absolutely insist that they do it the right way, not the way I did it. The

lesson I learned, the redemption, at least in my mind, I guess, is that

if you surround yourself with smart people who can help you, even

the impossible dreams aren’t out of reach.

As Granny taught me, “It just might take a little longer.”

But I’ve also learned that you don’t want to hit the age of 35 with

a bit of a lingering, haunting acknowledgement that one’s passion for

something — whether it’s music or sports or being an accountant or

auto mechanic — is lessened if you get there with even the slightest

dishonesty.

O F F T H E D i A L 1 7

O F F T H E D i A L

The Rise and Fall of the world’s most influential Hip-Hop stations:

L.A.’s Power 106 and New York’s Hot 97

Most of what I know about life I’ve learned from Granny. The rest

I’ve learned from being in radio.

From the first time I became aware of that magic little box, I’ve

been enchanted. I remember sitting up in my room, way late into

the night, adjusting the knobs and wondering what might be found

farther along the dial. Radio is the first thing I remember knowing I

wanted to do in my life: Not being a fireman, an astronaut, doctor,

movie star, but being, somehow, on the other side of that dial.

And what a blessing that I would find myself there before I was

old enough to drive.

One of the surprises was that I had no idea how much I would

fall in love with radio and how much it would teach me. By its very

nature it’s not just music; it’s also equal part strategy and analyzing

human nature. I had to learn programming, of course, but I also had

to learn a lot about people’s behavior to be a successful programmer.

Even to this day, 25-some years after I first walked into a station,

people come up to me in Santa Barbara and say, “Yo, I used to listen

to you on the radio.” Honestly, it happens almost weekly.

I just love that those airwaves can have such a lasting effect.

Learning radio from the ground up was part of the gift. When I

was just 12, I was lucky enough to meet Michael Newman, who is

now one of the biggest radio consultants in the world. At the time, he

was the music director and night jock at KHTY in Santa Barbara and

brought me in to board-op for him. Even back then, most jocks would


run their own boards, but he gave me the job to help with his show

because I’d shown such interest in radio and had, frankly, bugged

him so much by calling in every night he was on the air that he let me

come in to the station to run errands.

After learning the basics of engineering I tried to soak up as

much as I could about programming, learning why certain records

get played — and, more importantly, why they get played over and

over again.

One day, Michael told me and another intern, Steven, that there

was an opening on the morning show for one day. An on-air opening.

Man! With that, Steve the Paper Boy and Damion the Devil Child

were born. I had so much fun and I was just kind of natural at it.

Michael said I could come back and do some bits from time to time,

and I was thrilled. Sometimes when Michael needed a voice to call

in and be all excited about something on his show, I would play

the voice. In time, he had me start doing commercials, despite my

squeaky pre-teen voice.

When I was about 15, the station decided to give me a Saturday

night mix show. That also evolved into DJing live at some of the

local clubs during events. I still sounded like a chipmunk though,

so they weren’t gonna put me on the air to talk yet. To practice, I

started doing overnights, where I would only talk once an hour. At

my house, I would record my mixes onto DAT files, and then play the

mixes while I was in the studio and just sit back.

My friend Peter Spiess, who helped build the radio station, and I

would also go out to dinner during my shift. So I would start playing

my pre-recorded show, and then leave and get something to eat while

listening to myself on the radio. This gave me a different perspective

on my own show because I could hear first-hand what would and

what would not get reactions from listeners.

After continually working these shifts, I started playing some of

the syndicated programming, too. Eventually, I became the assistant


music director. I

always had an ear for

music. I don’t know

how or why, but I

could pick hit records.

After I broke a lot of

future hit records on

the air during my

Saturday night show,

I started to develop

relationships with the

record companies.

Along with my being

able to pick the hits came credibility.

When the night shift, from seven to midnight, opened, it was logical

to give it to me. It came with a lot of controversy though, because

16-year-old kids never really had radio jobs. The child labor laws gave

us a problem, too. We had to fudge a little bit of the paperwork because

it was illegal for me at my age to work until midnight. But we said I

pre-recorded the last couple hours and got past that.

During that night shift, I could play whatever I wanted to. It really

helped me to develop a sound. I could play Nirvana one second, and

then play Tupac the next and no one ever said anything. I would

also take calls on new records and see how the listeners reacted to it.

That really helped me later on in life as far as programming goes. I’ve

always felt that the best way to start in any business is at the ground

level, and that’s exactly what I was doing here.

A few years later, I became the assistant program director of the

station. Then, one day, my boss came in and said, “I’m leaving.”

I said, “Well, what’s gonna happen?

He said, “Well, you’re only 18. Do you want to become the program

director of this station? You’re pretty much doing the job anyway.”

Taking phone calls and requests at KHTY in Santa Barbara.


He was also the weatherman at the local news station, and he was

moving to Vegas to take another weather job.

He said, “I can be a consultant if you still need the training

wheels, but the only thing you don’t do at this point is manage the

staff.”

Now, managing a staff at 18 years old is a little hard. Everyone’s

older — some much older — and most of the staff members have

been doing their jobs for 10 years or longer. So there were times it

was uneasy when I had to assert myself. But I found that everyone

was comfortable with what I did, and they knew that I was capable,

so they all just backed me up and let me do it. To this day, I can’t say

thanks enough to the staff of that station for supporting me.

And primary thanks goes to the owner of the station at the time,

Steve Engels. Before he gave me the job he asked me outright, “Do

you think you can do it?”

I said, “Yeah.” He then asked me what I would change.

I told him I thought the station was abstract.

“We’re playing Boyz II Men, The Cranberries, and rap records,

all mixed together. But if we went hip-hop …” before I could even

finish my sentence, he said, “No! Hip-hop’s not big enough from a

sales point of view. This is a rock town and there wouldn’t be enough

advertising. We’re gonna go alternative.”

I said to myself, “Well, OK, now I’m at a crossroads. I’m either

gonna have to do alternative rock, which I know absolutely nothing

about, or I could quit.”

I went to my Granny and I asked her about it. She said,

“Sweetheart, the best thing to do is to just hire some people who are

smarter than you (again, a lesson she’d taught me before) at what you

do, and take the job.”

I said, “OK, well how could I do that?”

She said, “Well, who are the most knowledgeable people in

alternative in Santa Barbara?”


I said, “There’s a cross-town alternative station and their music

director is a lady named Deanne Saffran, who eats, sleeps, and drinks

everything alternative.”

So I hired her as the music director. I basically programmed

alternative like a Top 40 station, using all the same cookie cutter

rules. On our first ratings book, we became the No. 1 station in Santa

Barbara for 18-34 females, which was our target demo. We also hit

No. 1 for 12+ and No. 1 18-34 males. I was lucky, and with Saffran’s

help, we just picked the right records.

The radio station did really well, and what I quickly learned that

alternative had a lot of local artists that were big. We had Toad the

Wet Sprocket, Dishwalla, and a host of others. I started to notice that

if these local acts, along with big-time producers and artists, were

associated to our radio station, it would make us look big. The other

priceless fact that I picked up on was that everything always comes

down to personal relationships. That worked perfectly for me. My

Granny always told me that if I was nice to everybody and respected

other people, they would all want to do business with me.

So I started to create relationships everywhere these bands would

play or have interaction. Morning Glory and The Wherehouse were

the big record stores in town. I made friends with everyone there,

and everyone at the venues. I met Moss Jacobs and Sam Scranton as

well, who were big concert promoters in the area. Moss was a young

guy, too, and he thought it was hilarious that someone under 21 was

programming this alternative station.

It wasn’t a cakewalk, however. I had a battle on my hands with

a competing station, KTYD, that had been playing this format and

some of this music since before I was born! Their motto was “15

Years of Great Rock-N-Roll.” They were also, ironically, No. 1 for 15

years, until I came along at age 20 with the team I helped assemble

and, in our first ratings book, knocked them out of the water.

After being on top for a while, Steve Engels came to me and said,


“We need to make a change to the oldies station we have, and we need

a new program director. You didn’t know anything about alternative,

and you pulled this off. Do you want to give this station a shot too?”

I said, “OK. Why not?”

So I went to Granny again and said, “I don’t know anything

about oldies.” She said, “Well, I do. Why don’t you just apply what

you did at alternative and just change the music?”

We had a great guy on staff named Jeff Miller, who just had

a way with promotions. For instance, the local band Toad the Wet

Sprocket was gonna do a charity show. After talking to Moss and

Sam, we worked it out so our station presented the show. This was a

real turning point for us.

Our competitor, KTYD, had every local show at the Santa

Barbara County Bowl. Although we got involved with the show, we

weren’t the only sponsor. Everybody was involved. So Jeff and I sat

down and thought, “What would be the best way to really own this

show? How could we get a huge buzz, generate news coverage, and

make everybody in Santa Barbara think this was a KHTY show?”

Jeff had a crazy idea. “Why don’t we get a helicopter and a bunch

of toads. We can staple some mini parachutes to them, attach some

free promotional items too, and have someone throw them out of a

helicopter over Goleta Beach.”

I said, “Dude, we would get in so much trouble for that. The

animal rights people would go crazy, and the news would go crazy.”

He said, “Yeah, but that’s exactly what we need them to do. We’re

not gonna kill a bunch of toads to do this. I have an idea …”

So we went on the air the next day, announcing “The Toad

Drop.” It was planned for Goleta Beach at noon on a Saturday

afternoon. We said we were going to drop 97 toads from a helicopter

and listeners catching them could win tickets to the concert, free gas,

bumper stickers or CDs.

It caused an instant commotion. People were outraged and we

were all over the news.


When we got to the beach that day, news vans were there along

with hundreds of listeners and, of course, animal rights people

picketing and cops keeping an eye on the whole affair. When the

toads started hitting the ground, the place went nuts and the cops

moved in and tried to shut us down.

It was great. All of the local news covered it. It even made state-

wide news! We realized that this was the way we needed to do things.

We needed to step outside the box and come up with more creative

ideas like this.

And while I admit it upset some people, there was no way it

would have worked if we’d announced we were using rubber toads!

People just assumed we were dropping real, live toads.

It was one of the pivotal moments in the station getting a lock on

A highlight from my KHTY days, meeting Quincy Jones along with his then-new artist Tamia, Nancy Klugman, Warner Bros.

West Coast promotions queen, who was a big supporter of me throughout my radio career, and the station’s great PR

director, Jeff Miller.


Santa Barbara.

After a while, we started getting more and more leverage with the

concerts we got. And even if you didn’t necessarily like alternative

music, you would listen to this station just because of all of the

craziness we were doing, and not just that, but we sounded like the

young listener. We had a great DJ staff. This one jock Sammie the

Gun was a total rocker chick who worked for KNAC in L.A. back in

the day. We put her on for our afternoon drive. She had this sense of

humor that was great, and she knew so much about the bands that

the listeners could really relate to her.

I also tried to find different things that would set us apart from

the rest of the stations. When I was on vacation in England, I was

looking at the Smashing Pumpkins Stateside CD, and I noticed that

there was a song called Pennies that was a bonus cut only released in

the UK. So I came back to Santa Barbara and put that record into

rotation, and it became a huge hit. The record company was floored

and no one else in the market knew where to get it.

Soon after, I was at a Smashing Pumpkins show in Los Angeles,

and the local Mercury Records rep Jim Stein came up to me.

He said, “Hey, Billy Corgan’s over here, do you want to meet him?”

I was like, “Hell yeah!”

So Billy comes over and says, “Man, you’re young! You’re a

programmer?”

I said, “Yeah, KHTY in Santa Barbara.”

He said, “Santa Barbara? That’s in between San Francisco and

Ventura right?”

I said, “Yeah.”

He said, “That’s really cool, what do you play?”

I said, “Well actually we’re playing this song of yours I found

overseas that’s doing really well. It’s in power rotation for us right

now. It’s called Pennies.”

He said, “Wait a minute. That’s hilarious! Hold on a second, let


me get my wife.”

He brought his wife back and said, “Honey, remember when we

were coming back from San Francisco and we heard Pennies on the

radio? We pulled over and we sat there just to listen to that radio

station!”

She said, “Yeah, you almost drove off the road when you heard

it come on!”

He said, “This is the dude who played it!”

I started to realize that if we had exclusive material from artists

who were huge, the listener would come to us first, which would make

us more powerful in the marketplace. I started to notice that even

KROQ in Los Angeles started following our moves. So we started

having influence on the national scene in what people were doing. It

was also a novelty that Jeff and I were kids running this station, and

we obviously knew what we were doing. Eventually, record company

execs would come in to meet with us and ask us to pick their next

singles on a national level.

One day, Tracy Skelley, a rep from Geffen Records, sent me a

new CD by a band called Garbage. I noticed the producer was Butch

Vigg, who produced for Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins. Butch

was also the drummer in the band. By then, I began to really like

alternative, and I started to develop an ear for what was a hit. So we

took three songs off that album and started playing them. We started

it at seven to midnight and the overnights to get people familiar, but

before I knew it, these records started to blow up.

It ended up that we got credit for breaking Garbage. The record

label called me and said, “Thank you so much for playing Garbage,

you were the first station to play it! We owe you one.”

Garbage went platinum that summer. They became so big so fast.

When Smashing Pumpkins and Garbage went on tour together that

summer, I called up the record label and said, “Remember when I


said you guys owe me a favor? I want to call in that favor.”

They said, “Well, what do you want? Do you want to fly out to

see one of their shows?”

I said, “No. I want them to do a show in Santa Barbara.”

They said, “Well, what, the Santa Barbara County Bowl?”

I said, “No. I want an exclusive show in Santa Barbara, but I

want to do it at a club.”

They said, “They’ve got a No. 1 album on the Billboard charts

right now. They can’t do a club. There’s no way you can do it.”

I said, “Well, you gave me your word that you owed me one.”

They said, “We’ll call Butch Vigg and see what he says.”

So they called him and explained the situation. They said there’s

this kid in Santa Barbara who broke Garbage. He was the one who

really started this thing. Butch told the label that if they’d said they

owed me a favor, then they did. He told me later he’d told the label,

“If you tell somebody you’re gonna do something, you’re gonna do it.

I don’t care if you guys have to pay out of pocket, we’re gonna do it.”

We put the tickets on sale and they sold out in one day. Shirley

Manson, the lead singer of the group, said, “Where’s the dressing

room?” when they walked into the venue.

I said, “It’s a club. There is no dressing room.”

Butch said, “Yes! This is exactly what we need before we go out

on tour, as club gig! This is awesome!”

The show had caused a buzz all around Southern California, and

one of the people who came was the music director of Power 106,

Bruce St. James. I was never shy about my ultimate goal. I had told

everyone, “One day, I’m gonna work for Power 106.”

It was hip-hop that I wanted to do. People would tell me, “You

have such a great career set up in alternative,” and I would say, “Look.

Alternative is a great format, and I have fun doing it, but I don’t want

to do alternative. I want to do rap! I’m gonna work at Power 106, and


that’s how it’s gonna be.”

So Bruce St. James came down and saw the show. He came up to

me and said, “How the fuck did you do this?”

I said, “Well, you just invest with artists early and get the right

relationships with people and the record companies.”

At the time, Power 106 didn’t really have good relationships with

the artist community or with the music industry. Bruce was very

controversial. At one point, he put out a memo to all of the record

companies saying, “We’re not even gonna take your calls anymore.

We’re gonna play what we want to play when we want to play it, and

you’re gonna do what we ask if we play your record.” Bad move.

A lot of the artists and a lot of the record companies didn’t want to

support Power 106 because the station didn’t have a relationship with

them. Everything in the music business comes down to relationships.

Bruce said, “Fuck record companies.”

I said, “I’m not sure that’s how you should do it.”

He said, “Well, it’s a different format that you do.”

I said, “OK, whatever.”

He said, “Are you staying in alternative?”

I said, “My dream is to work for Power 106. If you ever have any

openings whatsoever, I don’t care if it’s washing vans, I want to work

for Power.”

He said, “Well, we don’t really have anything open.”

I said, “Like I said, even if it’s washing the vans, I don’t care.”

He said, “Dude, you’re a program director of two stations here.

Why would you want to give that up to work at Power? It’s stupid.”

I said, “Look dude, anything that comes up, let me know, and I’ll

decide whether it’s stupid.”

He said, “Well, we have a Sunday night board op position open.”

I said, “I’ve been a board op before. I’ll do it!”

He said, “Dude, come on.”

I said, “Seriously!”


He said, “This is Sunday nights from seven to midnight. You

really want to come in and get back to work in Santa Barbara every

Monday?”

I said, “I have a department meeting at 8 a.m. on Monday, but I

don’t care.” I used to drive to L.A. every Saturday night anyway to go

buy records and listen to Power.

He said, “OK, let’s do it. I’ll have someone call you if you really

want to do that.”

I thought he was bullshitting, but two or three days went by and

Cory, who was program director Michelle Mercer’s assistant, called

me and said, “Hey, I don’t know if Bruce was joking or not, but I

heard that you wanted to be a board op here.”

I said, “Yeah! When do I start?”

She said, “You’re a program director, right?”

I said, “Yeah.”

She said, “Are you sure about this? You’d just be a board op.” In

the back of my mind, I was thinking, what DJ could it be working

with? Every DJ works his or her own board now.

I told her, “I don’t care, I want to be on the team.”

She said, “OK, well, come in Sunday night and meet with Ernie,

the main board op. He’ll tell you what to do.” I guess they thought I

was stupid.

So, I showed up on Sunday. I walked in the door and I saw Kurtis

Blow. I immediately exclaimed, “Holy shit! You’re Kurtis Blow.”

He said, “Hey, how’s it going? Nice to meet you.”

This was right after Nas’ If I Ruled the World came out, which

was sampled from Kurtis Blow and Whodini. Kurtis Blow did an

old school show where he would play classic records and have

Grandmaster Caz, KRS One, Run DMC, and all of these forefathers

of rap come in as guests.

Kurtis Blow was there when Def Jam started in Russell Simmons’

dorm room with Lyor Cohen. Rev Run was the son of Kurtis Blow.


It was like, “Holy shit. I just walked in my first day and I’m

working for this guy?”

He said, “Look dude, as long as you don’t mess up, every week at

the end of the night, I’ll tell you a hip-hop story.

I said, “Done deal!” Of course, the first couple shows, I screwed

up. It was terrible. But eventually he started teaching me about hip-

hop and introducing me to the other legends that would come in as

guests. We became good friends.

After a few weeks of that, The Krazy Kids, who are now working

in Phoenix, said they wanted me to do their seven to midnight shift

on their Saturday Night Street Party show. I was excited as hell to do

that too!

I started going to L.A. Saturday nights, doing the show, go to a

hotel and go to sleep. The next day, I’d go see a movie at Universal

Citywalk, visit a few friends, do the show Sunday night, drive back

to Santa Barbara, and sometimes go straight to work at my regular

job. Richard “Humpty” Vision, who was doing a show called Power

Tools from 4 to 6 a.m. on Sunday mornings, asked if I could board-

op for his show too. I started doing that too, and that’s when it got

really crazy.

Michelle called me up one day and said, “Hey, you’re doing a

great job. Were you ever on the air in Santa Barbara?”

I said, “Yeah, I was, but I came off when we switched formats to

alternative.”

Another thing I would do as a program director was go on the air

every once in a while myself to see how everything flowed.

She said, “Do you want to be on the air here?”

I said, “That’s been a dream of mine ever since I was a kid. Hell,

yeah.”

She said, “We have this spot open after Power Tools from 6 a.m.

to 8 a.m. Would you want to do it?”

I said, “Sure! I’ll just stay after Power Tools and do it.” Now I


was an on-air personality at Power 106!

As all this was happening, Kurtis Blow decided to leave. I came in

one Sunday and Michelle said, “The old school show isn’t on tonight.

Come by next week, and we’ll have a new host.”

I said, “Okay, cool. Who is it?”

She said, “It’ll be a surprise.” I walk in next Sunday, and it

was Ice-T. I was like, “Holy shit!” Basically, we formed the same

relationship Kurtis and I had. I would ask him all these random

questions and he would be like, “How do you know about all of

these records?”

Bruce ended up leaving his position as music director a couple

months later, and when Michelle asked him who would make a good

replacement, he said, “Damion Young.” To this day, I appreciate

Bruce St. James for not only bringing me in to Power 106, but also

for giving me my position.

I was in my office in Santa Barbara at around seven one night and

got a phone call, asking for Damion Young. “This is Michelle Mercer.”

I said, “Oh great, what did I do? Am I getting fired?”

She said, “No, you’re doing an amazing job! As a matter of fact,

I want to talk to you about something else. Do you want to come in

and interview for a programming job? Bruce is leaving, but someone

he recommended was you to work in programming.”

I said, “Wow. What position?”

She said, “Well I don’t know yet. We’re talking to a couple people.

We need to fill the music director position, the assistant music director

position, and the programming assistant position.”

I was thinking, “Okay, I’m interviewing for the programming

assistant position.”

Whatever it was, I was flattered. Regardless of whether it was

a full-time job or a part-time job, I would leave all of it in Santa

Barbara to come work at Power, because that was my dream.

I sat down with Michelle for the interview.


She said, “What do you think of Power 106?

I said, “I think it’s a great radio station.”

She said, “Well, say you were the music director for Power 106.

What would you do?”

I said, “Well, I…” I thought it was a trick question. I said, “Well,

everybody’s got an opinion. I like my job. I want to keep working

here.”

But she said, “Really, what would you do?”

I said, “I don’t want to answer the question.”

She said, “Why?”

I said, “Because I really like my job, I don’t want to get fired,

and I don’t want anyone to take it personally. I just have a different

philosophy on where radio’s going and what radio is.”

She said, “Well consider this your immunity. We’re not going to

change your hours, I’ll give you my word. Just tell me what you really

think of Power.”

So, I went for it.

“Well, it’s kind of fucked up.”

She said, “How?”

I said, “Well, Power doesn’t really have an identity. We’re ‘L.A.’s

Party Station,’ which is a techno moniker. We’re playing a lot of

techno, and then we go into Boyz II Men, and then Tupac and then

Mobb Deep. The imaging is off. The artists and the record companies

don’t work with us anymore. What are we doing?”

She said, “That’s interesting that you say that. You definitely

have some strong opinions.”

Then I opened up for about a half hour about what was screwed

up with the radio station. It was mostly the music that I had a problem

with. I thought to myself, “Oh, well. I’m not gonna get a programming

job here because I basically just told her that her station is trash.”

I said, “Hey, by the way, what position am I interviewing for?”

She said, “The music director position.”


I almost passed out. I was like, “Can I change my answers? I

was 100 percent honest, but maybe I was a little too blunt and maybe

I said something that was out of line. Just because I feel this way

doesn’t mean that I won’t do the job you give me.”

She said, “No. You made some very valid comments and I

appreciate your honesty. We’ll be in touch with you.”

I was like, “Wow, I bit the big one.”

A week went by and I didn’t hear anything. Then I heard that

other people were interviewed for the job. She called me later that

week and said, “Hey, you’re on the air this weekend right?”

I said, “Yeah.”

She said, “Well, when you get off the air, I want you to stop by

my house. I want to have a conversation with you.”

I thought, “She wants me to come by the house on a Sunday

morning? Is this a good thing?”

I imagined that she was going to listen to me on the air that

morning and then decide whether or not I got the programming

assistant position. There was no way I was getting that music director

position, because I totally put my foot in my mouth, I thought.

So I showed up at her house, she opened the gate for me and

asked me how my shift was.

I said, “It was good!”

She said, “I wanted to talk to you about some of the things you

said to me.”

I said, “Umm … well first let me apologize for what I said.”

She said, “No, you were right on some of the stuff. Some of the

stuff was a little harsh, and it’s really hard to hear, but you did have

some good points. What would you do at Power 106 if you were the

music director?”

I said, “Well, I was reading this article in the R&R about attention

to detail.”

And she said, “Wait a minute.” She walked in her house and


brought back that same issue of R&R. She opened the magazine and

read, “Attention to details, down to everything. You’re hired.”

I said, “Huh?”

She said, “Is fifty thousand dollars a year all right, plus

benefits, plus a five thousand dollar bonus based on ratings for

every jump?”

I looked at her and I said, “Wait a minute. Did I miss something?”

She said, “No, it’s just really weird. I was reading that exact

article right before you got here.”

I said, “Okay, so let me get this straight so I won’t have a mental

breakdown later. You’re hiring me as the music director of Power 106?”

She said, “Yes!”

I looked at her and said, “When do I start?”

She said, “Can you start two weeks from Monday?”

I said, “Umm … hell yeah!”

She said, “Call me this week, I’ll send you all the research.”

I was stunned. I walked out of her house, got in my car and drove

to the nearest gas station. I got out of my car and I started dancing.

“Holy shit! I’m the new music director … my dream just came true

… I’m the new music director of Power 106! I’m the music director

… I’m the mu-sic-direc-tor.” I started singing that shit.

I called up Granny.

“Granny, guess what! You’re talking to the new music director of

Power 106!”

She said, “What?”

I said, “I’m the music director of Power 106!”

She said, “No way. That was your dream!”

I said, “Yes!”

She said, “Well, what are you gonna do about Santa Barbara?”

I said, “I don’t know! But I’m the new music director at Power 106!”

So I walked into my general manager’s office in Santa Barbara

the next week. I said, “Steve, I’ve accepted …” and he said, “Whoa,


whoa, whoa. Accepted?”

There were rumors floating around that I had interviewed for the

job. But he knew what this was about.

He said, “Well, at least let me make a counteroffer. And you can’t

start for at least a month or two until you find a replacement.”

I said, “No. I’m leaving in two weeks.” He was not happy, to say

the least.

I started at Power 106 on Monday, February 3, 1997. I was

really, really sick that day. I had this terrible cold. But I came in the

Friday before so I could get acclimated to the office. The staff wasn’t

necessarily friendly to me, but they weren’t rude either. They always

thought that Pete Manriquz, the current AMD, was gonna become

the music director.

Even Big Boy tells the story: “The first day they said Damion

Young was gonna be the music director, everyone said, ‘the white

boy from Santa Barbara that does alternative? Are you crazy? We’re

screwed!’ ”

So I knew that I had my work cut out for me, on a lot of levels. I

had to prove myself to the staff, I had to prove myself to the industry,

and I had to prove myself to the artists. And somehow, before I got

fired, I thought, I had to meet Dr. Dre and DJ Quik, and get some

more of my favorite artists involved with the radio station.

Ten minutes after I got there my first day, someone, who will

remain nameless but became one of my best friends at the radio

station, came in with a briefcase. He was an older guy in his 50s, and

he said, “Are you the new music director?”

I said, “Yeah.”

He said, “Well, there’s only one thing you need to know to make

it here.”

He opened up his briefcase, and there was a bottle of vodka

sitting in there. He said, “The bar is under your desk. Make sure you

don’t open the bar until Friday at 6 o’clock. But everyone will come


to this office.”

I said, “Huh? I’m not even old enough to drink.” He opened the

cupboard under my desk and there was a full bar in there.

Power 106, back in the day, was one big family. We had an

awesome team. Everyone was friends, everyone went out to eat

together. It was great. I also realized that our success hinged on

getting everyone together. I would start my day by walking around

the office and saying hi to everyone. I would ask them what songs

they liked, which ones they didn’t like, because a lot of the staff were

really young. They were all in the demo. One office down from mine

was Fernando Luhan, who is the promotions assistant. He knows

everything that’s going on in L.A., and has tickets and connections

to everything in town. He’s basically the eyes and ears to the radio

ARNOLD TURNER PHOTO: The Dream Team — The staff of Power 106 soon after the station became No. 1.


station, in and out.

I would spend about a half hour every day talking to Fernando

about what the word on the street was. Fernando really schooled me

a lot. He’s an incredible guy. He’s one of the most well-grounded,

nicest people you could hope to meet, and he’s brutally honest.

Later down the road, he would pull me aside and say, “You’re

fucking up here. This is what people are saying in management.”

I don’t know how he does it, but he’s just one of those people

who knows everybody. He proved the point that relationships are

everything. If I was going to Hawaii for the weekend, I would say,

“Hey Fernando, I’m going to Hawaii.”

He’d say, “Let me hook you up with so-and-so at this hotel, take

him a couple CDs when you go, and he’ll give you a better room.”

We also had the promotions interns, called the Flava Unit. It

was a bunch of kids who liked music, and were typically from our

target demo of 15-to 21-year-old Hispanics. Anytime we had new

records coming in, I would play them for the Flava Unit first. There

were always five to seven males and females in there, so it was an

immediate source of market research. We found a lot of our on-air

talent from the Flava Unit. That was the biggest success we pulled

out of Power 106. Before I even knew a record was big, these kids

would talk about it, so we could get an early jump on the hot new

records. DJ Vice, DJ Echo, and Syphe and D-Lux all came from the

Flava Unit. This is where we found all of this amazing talent.

As the station started to grow I started to learn about research

too. I always used the research as a compass, not a road map. That’s

a motto I lived by, and it proved true later down the road. But as we

really started having success I used the same cookie cutter format

that I did in Santa Barbara to make it happen.

But the key was creating relationships with the artists. I always

said that the more street and the more West Coast we were, the better

off we would be, which to this day they still argue about. That’s also


the reason why Power 106 is no longer No. 1 … or even in the Top

10. They got away from what was hot in the street and went for the

national outlook, which is the way corporate systems operate with

anything.

A radio station can’t be corporate. You have to tailor it to your

market. A lot of these radio stations that were regionally programmed

have gone corporate. The cycle of anything in business starts off as a

mom-and-pop, it turns into a franchise, and then from there it turns

into a corporation. Now that radio became a huge commodity in

business a few years ago, it went corporate.

But back to when I first started, I would reach out to all of the

artists and become friends with everyone. I would also invest in

artists early. For instance, if Dre had a new act, I would support that

act, which would only make his company grow, and make him love

us more. I also noticed that with labels, if they had something new

coming out, and you supported the new artist, it gave you leverage

with the bigger acts. Just like I did in Santa Barbara, I started meeting

the managers, the artists, and we put everything together.

I knew that everything started on the street level, so I started to

become good friends with street promoters first. Bigga B was one

of the biggest street promoters in Los Angeles. He was known as

the first guy any artist would go see after landing in Los Angeles.

Bigga, rest in peace, worked for Loud Records. He took me under

his wing immediately and showed me around all the studios. The

very first artists I met were the RZA and DJ Muggs and B-Real from

Cypress Hill. Then I met Mack 10 and I met WC. With Mack 10

being a Blood, and WC bring a Crip, they started teaching me about

the streets of Los Angeles.

Then I met Michael Conception, who was big in the streets. He

took me around to every neighborhood and started teaching me

about the culture of the ghetto. He showed me where all the hot spots

were, which dudes were the hood bosses, and all that kind of stuff.


A lot of the street research came out of our Knowledge is Power

Foundation, which is Power 106’s charity. The program funded

the Puente Learning Center, which taught former or current gang

members job skills and gave them employment opportunities. It

would fund Homeboy Silk Screen or Homeboy Bakery, and Power

would buy all of the T-Shirts or doughnuts, respectively, from these

businesses.

That’s where I started getting involved with charity, and it led to

my work with the Amer-I-Can Foundation with Jim Brown and Bo

Taylor, rest in peace.

But, from my interaction with the streets, I would cross reference

the information with the Flava Unit, the jocks and mixers, or the people

I would meet at the Knowledge is Power Foundation. Compiling all

of this together made us a hit radio station, because we always knew

what was happening on the street level, which put us at least two weeks

ahead of everyone else in the market. We always knew about the hot

records first, so we got the credit for making them pop.

Then came Big Boy. Big Boy was friends with Tha Baka Boyz,

and Rick Cummings happened to be at their barbecue one day when

he was there. Big Boy had him rolling, because he’s hilarious!

Rick said, “You really need to be on the radio.” He brought him

in to do overnights, and he rose very, very fast. Tha Baka Boyz started

to have some real problems around this time too. Every day started to

become, “How are we gonna deal with The Boyz.”

They had great ideas and a great brand, and they were hilarious.

I had done my best to funnel a lot of the artists I knew through Tha

Baka Boyz, and I invested a lot of my time into their brand. But they

were causing a lot of inner friction at the station by running wild on

the air, which left me doing damage control every day.

When we brought Fuzzy in to do his show Curb Servin, everything

changed. Fuzzy is the most well-connected street liaison that you

could have. I really fought for this Curb Servin show he wanted to do.


It was straight West Coast music. You know, Dr. Dre, Daz, Kurupt.

It was all about getting unreleased music from these artists. He had a

relationship with Snoop, so he brought him in a few times. And when

Snoop dissed The Beat on his show, it was a major turning point. If

it weren’t for Fuzzy, none of that would have happened. Big Boy and

Fuzzy also happened to be great friends. Fuzzy was another person I

would ask for advice on a daily basis. Just by Fuzzy’s affiliation with

Power 106, he brought the street to the station.

My whole deal was, I didn’t need to have the relationship with

the artist, just as long as somebody else on the staff did. Fuzzy had

that relationship with a lot of the artists. Another thing I wanted to

do was bring back the Wake Up Show with Sway and King Tech. It

was a travesty to me that The Wake Up Show didn’t have a home in

L.A., and that Julio G didn’t have a show in L.A. Sway and Tech

broke Craig Mack, Eminem, and Biggie. They were playing all these

artists before anyone heard them, so why wouldn’t we embrace them?

It would put us ahead of the curve immediately.

Next were the mix shows. Steve Smith had a great idea of having

more mixing on the radio station, because it came back well in testing.

I thought to myself about having a mixer on staff. E-Man was, bar

none, the best DJ ever. Both technically and programming wise, the

guy is just fucking incredible! So bringing him in as an assistant music

director seemed logical to me. We took such a hazing at first from the

industry for doing that.

“How the fuck are you gonna put a DJ in a programming position.

That’s like giving a gun to a two year old!”

Putting a mixer in the programming department was totally

taboo. But it worked. And now, it gave us another person in the music

department, so I could focus on the relationships and the ideas for

some of these big promotions.

With everything in place — Fuzzy handling the streets, E-Man,

Big Boy, the Wake Up Show back — the added bonus was that Sway


just made it onto MTV

News too! Anything

that happened in hip-

hop now was coming

to Power 106 first.

Then Michelle Mer-

cer left and Steve Smith

came in. It was like, “Oh

shit, my old boss from San-

ta Barbara? And he’s got

30 stations he consults in

the middle? And he owns

Radio Events Group with a couple of partners. This is great!”

Radio Events Group was doing most of the major concert

promotions at the time, so now it wasn’t even a question as far as

events were concerned. We had it all connected. We were hitting on

all cylinders. Then we started the Powerhouses and all of these huge

shows. We really became everything for everybody.

Naturally, the next phase was that Power took off, and over,

everybody else. I woke up one morning, and we were officially the

No. 1 station in Los Angeles! As a company, Emmis Broadcasting

was also No. 1 in New York with Hot 97, and with Steve Smith’s

consultancy of all those other stations throughout the rest of the

country, we could get anything done. That’s when we started doing

these crazy promotions like the Dr. Dre Hawaii show.

But then, Steve decided to leave. He went to our competitor, The

Beat. When he was packing up, he said, “Do you want to come to

The Beat with me?”

I said, “Well, I really like Power, and we’ve spent all of this time

developing this station. Why do you even want to leave?”

He said, “They’re offering me a shitload of money.”

I needed to weigh my options. So I went to Rick Cummings and

Jay Brown, Ja Rule and me backstage at the filming of the Hard Knock Life

tour in Miami.


told him about Steve’s offer.

He said, “Well, you’re producing records now. Do you want to

get into the record business more directly?”

I said, “Huh?”

He said, “Because you’re the Assistant Program Director/Music

Director, we can’t offer you much more money. If we did that, you’d

be paid more than the program director and the general manager. But

you’re the key to Power 106. So what do we do here? Can we fund a

record label for you?”

I was intrigued. He said, “We don’t want you to leave, so we’ll

give you $250,000 a year, with 75 grand of it being your salary at

Power 106, and the rest going to fund your company.”

Without much hesitation, I said, “Sure!” I wasn’t yet 21 and I’d

made the biggest mistake of my career. When I’d begun DJing as a

teenager I created a company called Baby Ree, in honor of Granny’s

childhood nickname. With Emmis behind me, I hired a staff: Sujit

Kundu and Pablo Chapparo to run the business side of things, and a

dude we call Triple to do A&R. It lasted only a few years and ended

badly with me facing bankruptcy. I joke that at least I had a good time

but the truth is it was the worst chapter of my life and I’m grateful

it’s over.

When you mix radio and the record business, it’s just a

clusterfuck. Our attorneys went through the FCC to do all of

the deals and stuff like that, to ensure there was no question of

payola. I wasn’t the final say on any of the music going over the

air, technically but the industry saw it as me having my hands in

both pots. Plus, I was producing records, and not just that, but hit

records! Needless to say, the hate started to brew.

Power kept doing well though. I had co-produced a number one

rap single (with the help of Kay-Gee of Naughty By Nature fame)

with Where I Wanna Be from my Damizza Presents album. Then, our

parent label, London, went bankrupt. But MCA Records came


forward and offered us a million-dollar deal to do the Shade Sheist

album. For a new artist, a million dollars? We had a huge back end,

too. Clive Davis’s son, Fred Davis, is the greatest entertainment

lawyer in history, and he negotiated the deal for us.

Two weeks into the deal, Rick got promoted to president of the

Radio Division of Emmis Broadcasting. That was the kiss of death

for Power 106, and me for that matter. When Rick Cummings was

taken out of the day-to-day operations of Power 106 and Hot 97, it

took his eyes off of our stations. Also, the only person who ever really

understood me at Emmis was Rick. He was the one I orchestrated

this whole deal with. And now he said, “You’ve got to deal with your

new general manager, Sal Lackie.”

Sal Lackie is a super nice lady who came from Q101 in Chicago.

The second that she walked in, she said, “What does Damion do?

Why is he being paid so much? How come he never has to be here? I

have to be here every day! What the hell is this!”

So, we immediately clashed.

Then, she hired a guy named Mike Tierney as the new program

director, who was a great programmer. The problem was, Power was

really my station. He was there to manage the on-air staff because

I wanted nothing to do with that. When he came, he said, “Look

Damion, I know this is your station. I’m just gonna stay out of your

way, but tell me how the system works around here.”

The problem was, with me being there, he didn’t have much

power with the record community or the artists, so he couldn’t really

be my “boss.” I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I was the go-to guy.

When someone said Power 106, they would say my name. And even

with the listeners, they all knew who Damion Young was.

These new people who came in didn’t get what Power 106 was.

They tried to run it like a regular radio station. Mike said to Sal,

“What do I do? I can’t manage Damion, because he does his own

thing. And Big Boy is already a set brand.”


Everything was already on autopilot. We had five straight

books at No. 1. So this guy just stopped showing up to work and

got another job.

Sal came into my office one day and said, “Have you heard from

Mike Tierny?”

I said, “No. Why?”

She said, “Well, no one can get a hold of him.”

Then we read in the paper that he took a job at Sony. He called

me up and said, “Dude, I just can’t work for Sal. She’s crazy. She’s

gonna ruin that station.”

I said, “Well, I don’t really have any dealings with her, so I

don’t care.”

But I did start to clash with upper management, because Rick

wasn’t there to hold everything together.

This was the beginning of the end. I started focusing on producing.

When I was in the studio, I would always run into the artists, so it

was easy to be in contact with them. But it got to a point where upper

management (Sal mostly) really started to resent the fact that I didn’t

Me with Shade Sheist, Irv Gotti and Ja Rule at the now-defunct Soundcastle Studios in Silverlake the night we recorded If You

Were My Bitch for the Murderers album.


have to be there. But the way I did business, I couldn’t do it sitting in

my office eight hours a day. When the artists were at the station, we

were playing craps in my office! That’s pretty ridiculous. It always

looked like I was having a party. I understand why the upper brass

didn’t like it.

Then they brought Jimmy Steal in from a Top-40/Adult

Contemporary station in Dallas to be the new program director.

I said, “What are you guys doing? This is a rap station. You need

to get somebody that understands what we do.”

I had been there since we’d been a techno station, and I was the

one who really grandfathered this whole format. But because I was

so young, people really had an issue with my age.

“What, he doesn’t have to be here, and I do? I have to be here, and

I don’t have any power? He makes more money than me too?”

So when Jimmy came in, he walked up to me and said, “So, I

hear you’re the most valuable person at the radio station.”

I said, “Well, I’m only as important as anyone else on the team.”

He said, “I’ll just stay out of your way. But please teach me what

you can because I want to learn.”

So I spent time teaching Jimmy the hip-hop format. No disrespect

to Jimmy, but I had actually been in the business longer than him. It

was just that I was half his age.

As time went on, it created problems. He wanted certain things for

the radio station, and I would disagree. He wanted to evolve a bit too.

He wanted to sign his own artist on his new label, named King Arthur

Clark. He asked me to help him set up his company, and I did that.

I was going through hell with Shade Sheist at that time, and the

business was crumbling. Arthur was good, but he needed about four

or five years to be developed and put in the system. I put him on

Shade’s album, and I was really trying to develop him slowly. The

problem was, I wasn’t able to devote a lot of time to him. And that

made Jimmy a little mad, because here’s this artist on his payroll, and


he hadn’t seen anything in return as far as singles.

But I didn’t have the time, and Jimmy was doing some stuff that

I felt wasn’t in the best interest of the radio station. The Radio Music

Awards and all of those kinds of things were really just crazy.

Jimmy called me in and said, “I want you to do some songs with

Arthur.

I agreed, and when I showed up to the studio, he wasn’t ready. I

took a pass.

The Baby Ree deal was also ready to fall apart. I had the option,

after I did Lights Out, where we could have signed Ice Cube. Michael

Papale from The Firm called me up and said, “We’re on board. We

want to be in the Damion Young business. If you want to sign Ice

Cube, we’re ready to go!”

At the time, the budgets weren’t quite right, and we had failed

with Shade Sheist. I went to Val and Rick Cummings to ask if we

could do this, and they said no. I said, “Well, my deal was for five

years and to fund a certain amount of artists.”

They said, “Well, after the Emmis stock prices fell and the

economy changed, we want out of the deal.”

I said, “Wait a minute. Contractually, you guys have to do the

deal.”

And, Val being Val, she slid out of the deal, right when I could

have signed Ice Cube. They still owe me a lot of money for that deal.

But because of the way the accounting was done, and Val was a

genius at accounting, she found a way to shift the books to show a

loss, and that was it.

Everything was falling apart on a national level at the same time.

Radio was going through its worst time in history. September 11 just

happened, George W. Bush went into office, and New York State

Attorney General Elliot Spitzer was trying to prosecute radio DJs.

With all these factors swarming around, Power 106 slowly became

a conservative radio station. And we couldn’t do that. We were a


gangsta rap station!

Then, Jimmy’s programming philosophy changed. He said, “We

want to be a top-40 station and go after KIIS-FM’s audience.”

I said, “Dude, we’re number one. Why would you want to change

anything at all?”

He said, “Well, you just don’t know because you’re never here.”

Emmis as a whole started losing money. They had to arranging

something with the staff so part of their pay was in stock. For instance,

half of my check was to be in cash, and half would be in stock. The

company started to get hokey.

So I said, “Wait a minute. I’m not even getting along with the

staff here anymore. Now they pull the record deal out from under my

feet, and they want me to stay on board, with my only bonus being

a new title? Senior director of programming and artist relations? Oh

wow.”

That one also pissed off Jimmy, because he was “program

director.” He complained and wanted the title to be “senior director

of artist relations.”

He said I shouldn’t even have a title in programming because we

were catching heat from the press. Even though I’m putting $5 million

Pamela Anderson promotions on the air. Even though I cleaned up

their Powerhouse mess with Ludacris (you’ll read about that later)

and brought in another $7 million in bonuses from that. And they’re

complaining about what I do?

It came down to the fact that Power 106 was supporting the

whole Emmis Broadcasting chain. We were the only ones who were

still No. 1. They’d tried to get me to run Hot 97 in New York and I’d

bailed on that gig after a short time, so they were mad at me over that.

One day, Jimmy said, “Hey, by the way, we found a way to

generate some more revenue!”

They owned the tower that Power 106 broadcasted from. He said,

“We’re gonna rent a place on our stick to another station.”


I said, “Well, what other station?”

He said, “It’s a new station.”

I said, “Jimmy, I would advise against this. Any new station,

unless it’s country or something polar opposite from our station,

is gonna be competition for us. And this is a 42 percent Hispanic

market. Anyone starting a radio station in Los Angeles that isn’t

aimed at Hispanics is stupid.”

He said, “No. It’s a great way for us to earn money, and we have

a contract with them so we’ll sue them if they do anything Hispanic.”

I said, “Jimmy, come on man. Don’t fall for this.”

He said, “You’re not even here. What do you care?”

So they rented the spot to this other station, which turned out to

be Latino 96.3, a direct competitor to Power 106. It immediately took

between two and four points off our book.

When they signed on the air, I looked over at Jimmy and said, “I

asked you to hire Julio G, and you said no. He’s their night jock now.

I told you not to rent the spot on the stick, and you did that. You sued

them and you lost. You did a five-year deal with them. What are you

doing?”

He said, “Well, it’s water under the bridge. We’ve just got to do

better programming.”

And then Sal looked over at me and said, “Well it’s all about the

music anyway, and if any change needs to happen, it needs to happen

in the music department.”

I looked over at her and said, “Ever since I’ve been here, we’ve

been number one. The only difference between then and now is that

everybody listened to me. And now, all of a sudden, you guys are

making these decisions just to say that you made a decision.”

To add more confusion to the mix, E-Man also got promoted to

music director. Jimmy pulled me into the office and said, “You know,

E-Man can’t operate in your shadow. No one from the record side

wants to deal with us unless you’re around. How can we re-work this


situation to our advantage?”

Snoop Dogg told Michael Papale and Nino at Interscope that he

needed them to have a meeting at Power 106, saying “and if Damion’s

not there, there’s no use in having the meeting.”

Jimmy took extreme offense to that.

He said, “I’m the boss. What does Damion have to do with this?”

He called me up and said, “You need to come in Monday

morning.”

I’ll admit, at this point, I was pissed off. So, I was like, “Fuck it.”

I said, “My deal says that I don’t need to be there. I don’t want to

come in.”

I also thought, “These people don’t even want me here. They’re

making these decisions on their own, and they won’t listen to anything

that I say. They offer me more money and a better title ...” but it

was obvious, by their actions, that they didn’t want me. And E-Man

was getting more pissed off because he wanted that spot. He was the

music director, but he couldn’t get anything done on his own with the

artists because everybody wanted to talk to me.

Then it all flashed into my mind. I remember one of the first

times I met Dr. Dre, he told me, “The reason why I left Death Row

was because I came to work at the studio, and it was like a party at

my house, where everyone was spilling beer on the carpet and putting

cigarettes out on my floor. It just didn’t feel like home anymore.”

That’s how it felt at Power now.

I showed up Monday morning and sat down in the meeting room

with Jimmy, E-Man, Michael, and Nino.

I said, “So what’s going on?”

Jimmy said, “Oh, well, we don’t get to know until you get here.”

I was, like, five minutes late, so he was mad and being a sarcastic

asshole. Michael looked over at me, and said, “Damion. I’m gonna

deliver you this message from Snoop.”

He read off a piece of paper, “Snoop Dogg would like to ask you,


Damion, if he can have a hall pass.”

Jimmy looked over and said, “What’s a fucking hall pass?”

I said, “Hold on, let’s just hear the whole thing.”

Jimmy looked over at me like, “Don’t talk down to me.”

Michael continued, “He wants a hall pass to do a KIIS FM show

at Dodger Stadium.”

I looked over at Michael and said, “Hold on a second, let me

explain to Jimmy what’s going on.”

So, like a translator, I looked over at Jimmy and said, “Jimmy,

basically what Snoop is saying is, ‘I helped you guys build this radio

station. I’ve done a ton of free shows and never charged you. I’m

asking you to turn your head and let me go do this show with KIIS.’ ”

Jimmy said, “No way. Over my dead body.”

I said, “Hold on. Michael, is he getting paid for this show?”

Michael said, “Yes, he’s getting 250 thousand dollars.”

I said, “Tell him it’s okay.”

Jimmy said, “Wait! Whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn’t say it was okay.”

I said, “Jimmy, we’ll talk about it.”

He said, “No, we won’t talk about it. He can’t do it.”

I said, “Michael, tell him it’s okay.” And Jimmy turned bright red.

Michael said, “Thank you. I’ll tell Snoop, and I’m sure he’ll call

you and thank you himself.”

I said, “Thanks, tell him that’s not necessary.”

They walked out quickly.

Jimmy looked over at me and said, “What the fuck are you doing?

You just gave our core artist a pass to become a traitor!”

I said, “He’s not a traitor! He’s just somebody that needs to have

his opportunity to make money for his family. And especially in this

economy, the way record sales are going, you can’t take 250 grand out

of somebody’s pocket and claim it on loyalty. Unless we can come up

with 250 grand to offer him for one of our shows, there’s nothing to

talk about here. The last four shows he’s done for us have all been for


free. Let’s also remember that if Snoop Dogg didn’t diss The Beat, we

wouldn’t have been number one. But you weren’t here for that, so you

didn’t know. There’s a lot of history that you don’t know about with

Snoop Dogg. He’s been more than loyal to Power 106, and he made

us number one by co-signing the radio station.”

Jimmy said, “But we did the reunion with Dre and we put him

back on.”

I said, “Dude, it doesn’t matter. It was an equal relationship.

Jimmy, we have to let this go. Let him do the show at KIIS FM and

make some money for his family. They don’t even play his records

over at KIIS.”

He said, “But they’re gonna get credit and they’re gonna beat us.”

I said, “Jimmy, the way things are going, KIIS is gonna beat us

anyway. And these decisions like letting Snoop go do a show with

another station would get him back on board with us. “

I typed up a memo and said: “These are our problems with Power

106. We’re not playing as many local artists, we’re catering too much

to mass appeal. When we were more rap, we were more successful.

This is not good. We’re not gonna win if we keep this way.”

Jimmy answered, “I beg to differ. We’re number one and we’ll

always be number one.”

I said, “Jimmy, what happened to the guy that came in and said,

‘We’re gonna be number one, but there’s always gonna be some wars

because that’s the way radio works.’”

He said, “Well, we’ve got Big Boy, we’ve got Marconi Awards,

and 10 books at number one. This is the way we need to run things.

We’re not gonna win by letting Snoop Dogg do something for our

competition.”

Then it just got crazy. 50 Cent got offered a shitload of money by

The Beat to do a show, and Jimmy wanted to take on all of Interscope

to say that he couldn’t do it.

I said, “Dude, that’s not good business.”


The way that we always kept a great relationship with the artists

was that we never tried to own artists. Artists aren’t commodities. Just

because you play a couple of records doesn’t mean you’re entitled to

anything. We got lucky when Dr. Dre said that the two Up in Smoke

Tour shows would be Power 106 shows. He did that out of loyalty.

As long as artists did Power 106 first or showed us favoritism, we’d

be happy. But at this point with Jimmy’s new attitude, he wanted to

own everything.

It came to a head around Thanksgiving of 2002. I came in and I

said, “Jimmy, we’re really making some big mistakes. If we don’t fix

this, we’re seriously gonna go down.”

He said, “No, I don’t think so.”

I said, “Jimmy, I’m gonna have to leave, bro. This isn’t gonna

work.”

He said, “Ahh, you’d never leave!”

I said, “Jimmy, you don’t understand. You’re not making the

right decisions with the radio station, and I’m not gonna go down

with the Titanic. We’re not gonna win if we keep this up.”

I had just put Syphe and D-Lux on the radio, and we were having

great success in the afternoons. Things were going great.

I said, “Please, Jimmy, just let me do my job.”

He said, “Damion, it’s just not the same anymore. You’ve got to

let us do these things.”

I said, “Okay, Jimmy. I’m not gonna re-sign this year.”

He said, “What?”

I said, “I’m not gonna re-sign this year.”

He said, “Well, as long as I’m here, you’ll always have a job here.”

I said, “Jimmy, you don’t get it. You really don’t get it. It’s not

gonna work anymore. Power 106 is done if we keep going like this.

We’re playing techno and records like Intergalactic by the Beastie

Boys again. With Latino 96.3 and KDAY coming back on the air,

we’re not gonna be able to compete anymore.”


Any time you’re in a war in radio, you strip down and do what

made you successful in the first place. For Power 106, that was West

Coast rap. So instead of sticking to our brand of playing rap records,

we were trying to be more mass appeal and go after KIIS-FM, who

wasn’t even as successful as us.

I walked out of the station that day.

I went home to Santa Barbara and told my Granny about the

situation.

She said, “Why do you want to leave?”

I said, “They’re making bad decisions.”

They also started doing crazy things like West Coast Wednesdays.

We were the biggest West Coast hip-hop radio station. We were

supposed to be West Coast, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“Do East Coast Wednesdays if you want,” I said, “but it gives the

wrong signal to do that for the West Coast. It points out the fact that

we’re not playing a lot of West Coast music. We’re number one right

now, but I project within the next six months, based on the trends I’ve

seen, we’re gonna fall out.” I spent from Thanksgiving to Christmas

thinking about what I was going to do.

Should I stay or should I go?

I tried to reach out to Rick Cummings, but he was on the road.

Val was talking about budget cuts with the on-air staff and making

stupid comments like, “Why do we need to pay DJs? They should be

paying us!”

I asked, “Why?”

She said, “We’re gonna cut the mixers’ salary altogether.”

I said, “You can’t do that. I’ll take the pay cut, but leave the

mixers’ pay.”

She said, “Why? They do clubs every weekend and make 300

dollars a night just because they’re associated to Power 106.”

I was sitting there going, “Oh God, you guys just don’t get it.”

After Christmas, everything took a downward spiral. Granny


was putting some stuff away above a cupboard, standing on a stool.

I heard a loud crashing noise, and I ran into the kitchen. Granny

was holding her head, sitting on the floor. I said, “Mom, are you all

right?”

She said, “Take me to the hospital.”

Two days before that, my stepmom announced she was divorcing

my father. My little brother Jason looked at me and said, “You’re not

here as much as you used to be.”

I took a hard look at what was going on and made a decision. I

called the office and I said, “I need you to write a press release. I’m

resigning from Power. I can’t do it anymore. The station will fail.

Granny hurt herself over the holidays, and my little brother is gonna

be in a custody battle. So I’m ready to let it go. It’s over.”

The press release thanked all the artists that made it possible. We

had a great run. Power 106 was an amazing radio station. My friend,

my collaborator and one of my favorite artists, Butch Cassidy, was

prophetic. He said that for whatever project we were to do next, he

wanted to call it Back Before You’re Lonely. So at the end of the press

release, I said, “I’m retiring from radio, but don’t worry, I’ll be back

before you’re lonely.”

Jimmy called me up. “So I just saw this. What’s going on?”

I said, “Did you read it?”

He said, “Yeah.”

I said, “Well, that’s what’s going on.”

He said, “You’re really leaving?”

I said, “Yeah.”

He said, “Can we talk about this?”

I said, “No. The station’s going to lose. There’s nothing that can

stop it now.”

He said, “I beg to differ.”

I said, “Well, you’ll beg to differ as you fall down the ratings chart.”

He goes, “You’re really arrogant. That’s a very arrogant thing


to say.”

I said, “Jimmy, it’s reality. Power 106 cannot win. Not with the

way it’s set up now.”

Then Rick Cummings called me up and wanted to have a meeting

with me. I said, “Okay.” We sat down, and that’s when I really

realized what was going on.

Rick said, “What do you do at Power now? I know now, you’re

kind of the guy who can set things up through his connections with

artists.”

I said, “Is that really what people have been telling you?”

He said, “Well, that’s all I know. I guess I’m just out of the loop

because I’m the president of the company now.”

I said, “Rick, this is how your radio station is going to fall.” And

I told him exactly what was gonna happen. I said that company that

rented a spot on the stick was gonna bite him in the ass. This new

company, a country station he just bought was gonna cause problems

too. He switched it to a Top 40 station that played rhythmic music, so

it was gonna eat some of Power’s market share.

He said, “They’re not gonna interfere with each other.”

I said, “That’s what you said about the Latino 96.3 station. But

they’re gonna be neck and neck with us within six months.”

He said, “I don’t agree with you.”

I said, “Well, congratulations. You, Jimmy and Sal are all on the

same page.”

He goes, “Well, we’ll offer you more money if you come back. I

don’t want to lose you.”

I said, “Rick, I’m gone.”

The next summer I had a single out, Power started playing the

record late, after everyone else added it. Jimmy called me up and

invited me out to the station. I showed up, and it was my first time

there in a couple years. I walked in and it looked like everyone had

seen a ghost. I went into Jimmy’s office and he asked me what was


wrong with the station immediately. I said, “Jimmy, I already told

you what was wrong with the station, and I put it out there during

my last memo to you. Six months after I left, you went from number

one to number 12.”

What my team and I were fostering at that time was the growth of

rap music. We were forcing these records out. If I weren’t constantly

bugging Dre to play his latest songs, maybe some of them wouldn’t

have come out. We were an outlet that the artist could go to actually

push these records.

I don’t blame Sal, or Jimmy, or any of these people. The current

Power 106 position is flawed. Not only has it not evolved, but it’s

regressed to worse than it was before I was there. It’s ironic because

if you look at these guys, Jimmy Steel and E-Man, they’re some of

the best programmers in the country; but they’re not hip-hop urban

E. SANCHEZ PHOTO: Butch Cassidy and me recording our hit Cruzin’ at Area 51 in Burbank.


program directors.

Hip-hop is very aggressive and ahead of the curve. If you’re not

ahead of the curve as a station, you’re not treating your listeners with

respect. The famous line around Power 106 was, “Everything shows

six months later.”

This is absolutely true when it comes to ratings. If you’re ahead

of the curve at six months, you’ll be on schedule at the end of six

months. But Power isn’t being proactive any more. Power 106 was

the biggest progressive, proactive radio station in the world. I’m not

kidding. It really was. And that was because we were, for a time, a

team with focus and it was so organic. I’m not trying to take credit, it

was all of us, and it gelled. If any one of the people in that building

weren’t there, at that time, it might not have worked. Sadly, now, it

has flittered into the ether. Instead of being aggressive, they’re playing

clean up, and losing. Everyone’s too afraid to make a move, because

it’ll be someone’s ass on the line.

I was always comfortable with taking calculated risks. Syphe said

it the best, about six months after I left: “When you were here at

Power 106, I never understood what you did. And 95 percent of the

people at Power 106, I bet you to this day, never understood what you

did. Even when you hired us, I had no clue what you did.”

But that’s a gift I’ve been given. I’ve been doing this for two

decades. I know hip-hop. I might be arrogant, but when it comes to

radio, I know what I’m doing. And all the personalities aside, the

numbers don’t lie: Every year I was at Power it was No. 1. Every year

since I’ve been gone, it has been shrinking toward the No. 20 spot.

I visited Power some time later. Butch Cassidy and I recorded a

duet, inspired by what he’d said earlier and we called it Back Before

You’re Lonely and had a single, Cruzin’.

It is my biggest personal hit so far and was the song of that summer

in California.

I went up to see Big Boy and do the morning show to promote


the song. Big Boy said to me, on the air, “I’m still eating off of you.”

It stopped me dead in my tracks. I said, “Wait a minute.

Everybody’s eating off of me, but I’m not eating off me?”

It was a mind fuck.

He said, “Well, you built Power 106.”

A kid from Santa Barbara that I’d been mentoring named Los

produced the record Cruzin’. Working with him gave me the realization

that I could go back and work with artists, especially up-and-coming

kids, who really appreciate what I’m doing. They could be the future

of eating off me. I could eat off of it myself too, not from a monetary

standpoint, but from a happiness standpoint. Recently, I was listening

to some of Los’ new music, and it was so flattering because it had

that signature, tense, Damizza push and pull. A happy track with an

undercurrent of sadness, in the key of C minor. It’s so flattering that

a protégé has really caught on to all of that.

Too bad Power hasn’t had the same lasting legacy. Breaks my

heart.

D R . D R E 5 9

D R . D R E

“How Do I Break the White Boy?”

You know, I really tried to think of the best way to start this, but it’s

hard to know where to begin when it comes to Dr. Dre.

Dre was the first rap producer that I ever heard. The song Gangsta

Gangsta by N.W.A. changed my life. That was the first rap record I

heard, and it was like water to me. When I heard that song, I knew

in my mind that hip-hop was what I wanted to do with the rest of

my life.

I was at my friend Jacob Pike’s house in high school and his little

brother came in. He had a homemade cassette in his hand and he

said, “Oh my god, they’re cussing on the record! They’re talking all

kinds of shit!”

He put it on, and I heard Gangsta Gangsta. The tape also had some

Too Short on it, but it was mostly Eazy-E and N.W.A. stuff. After I

heard it, I stole the tape! I went home, put it in my boombox and

literally, like the Biggie song, “Played the tape until the tape popped!”

It was just so well put together. It was reality to me. People were

talking, and it was rap, but it was in West Coast street terms. It was

how I heard people speak about the things they knew, they saw, or

they knew about: unrestrained, honest. Often brutally honest. For

me, Dr. Dre was the one who started the wave. Listening to him,

I got turned on to all other sorts of music. For instance, when he

mentioned Compton, I went to the record store and I saw Born and

Raised in Compton. That started me on DJ Quik and put my feet firmly

on the path I’ve chosen and couldn’t help but lead me to become a

producer myself.


When I started at Power as the music director, I thought I was

gonna get fired the first couple of months. I was making radical

changes! I wanted all the techno and R&B off, and replacing it with

Dr. Dre’s Ain’t No Fun and other cuts off The Chronic album that the

streets loved. It was being a fan of that music that really gave me an

edge at radio. But it was like I was taking radio penitentiary chances!

So before my eventual termination, there were two people I wanted

to meet. Those two people were DJ Quik and Dr. Dre.

I met Quik and we had a couple of really cool conversations,

but I hadn’t met Dre yet. Luckily, my friend Nino from Interscope

Records called me up one day and said, “Hey, what are you doin’?

You wanna meet me over at this soundstage in Van Nuys? Dr. Dre is

doing the video for Zoom with LL Cool J. I know you always wanted

to meet him.”

I was like, “Yeah, sure!” I was trying to be all cool about it, but

let’s be real here. If someone calls you up and says, “Do you wanna

meet your idol?” what are you gonna say? So I was on my way to

the soundstage with Cherry Martinez, who was our night jock at the

time. If that weren’t surreal enough, on the car ride over to meet Dre,

Mariah Carey called me for the first time just to say “Hi.” I’d only

met her once before. It doesn’t get crazier than that.

I was sitting there thinking, “there’s no way to mask being a fan.”

As soon as we got to the set, I saw Dre, who immediately turned

around to meet me. It was like meeting Henry Ford if you’re in the

car business.

He said, “So you’re the new music director at Power, huh? Thanks

for playing The Firm’s song Phone Tap.”

I said, “The record’s great! But what you really need to do is put

out that record with Foxy Brown (Fuck Somebody Else).

He said, “I’d love to, but how would we make a radio version?”

I said, “There’s gonna have to be some edits!”

D R . D R E 6 1

He’s a perfectionist, so for his radio edits, he’d have the artist

come in and re-do the vocals.

But he said, “You think that record’s a hit?”

I said, “Well, we could at least give it a shot!”

He goes, “Damn dude!” and looked at me like I was crazy.

I said, “Well, since we’re on the subject, can I get a copy of the

original version of Zoom with Snoop Dogg?”

He said, “Wait a minute. How did you even know about that?”

I said, “Well, it was leaked a long time ago, and I’ve always loved

that record too.”

It was a cool moment and I wasn’t about to let it go. I told Dre

that Power had just hired Snoop to do weekends.

“Why don’t you come on and DJ one day?” I asked.

Dre said, “DJ? I haven’t DJ’d in years!”

I said, “Well, you started the whole mixtape thing, right?”

He was a little stunned that I knew so much about him. I said,

“Dude, didn’t you start making mixtapes so the guy could play the

new stuff in the Rodeum Swap Meet?”

Dre just kind of looked at me like, what the fuck … who is this kid?

He said, “Well, I don’t know about the DJ thing, I haven’t talked

to Snoop in a long time. But when the time is right, maybe I’ll come

out there and do something.”

So we shot the shit for a minute, then he said, “Just call me and

we’ll hook it up.”

I said, “Call you? Really?” I pulled out my cell phone. He gave

me his number, and then I said, “What assistant is this?”

Dre said, “This is my head phone. It rings next to my head, so

don’t call too early in the morning.”

I thanked him, and then took advantage of the opportunity to ask

him about some of his music.

“Who wrote the verse for Natural Born Killaz?”

He said, “I wrote the verse for that!”


Then he started rapping it like, “Doomed to be a killer since I

came out the nut sack!”

I was in heaven. “Damn, I’m having a conversation with Dre

about records!”

I had so many questions I wanted to ask. But I had to remember

that I was there on business. And my main objective was to attempt

to reunite him and Snoop, somehow.

Before I was hired at Power, I had my first conversation with

Michelle Mercer, who at the time was the station’s program director.

“What is one of the things you would like to do to make Power

better?” she asked.

My response was, “I want to align with the artists, and I want to

do an N.W.A. show or a Snoop and Dre show in L.A. It would just

be the biggest thing in the world!” I knew it would be huge for the

station and the artists — but I also got the idea because I’m a fan and

honestly just wanted to see the fuckin’ show!

A couple of days after meeting Dre at the video shoot, I called the

house. It takes a bit of nerve to call your idol and it’s always in the

back of your head if he was just being polite or if he was serious that

it was cool to call. I mean, what do you say?

His wife Nicole answered the phone.

I said, “Hi, this is Damion from Power 106. I’m calling for Dre.”

Nicole is a total sweetheart. She sounded a little shocked that

a radio guy would be calling the house, and that I had the home

number. Honestly, even though Dre told me it was a direct line, I

thought I was gonna get put through to some assistant. You get the

image of Dr. Dre in your head, and you think you’ve gotta go through

12 people to get to the guy. But Nicole simply handed him the phone.

“Yo!” he said.

I told him, “I was just sitting in the office and wondering if you’re

ever gonna do that Foxy Brown track, and if you’re ever gonna come

up and do the radio appearance.”

D R . D R E 6 3

He said, “Well, Foxy’s in New York and she’s hard to get a hold

of. And the album isn’t doing as well as we’d hoped.”

I said, “That’s fucked up. Let me see if I can do an edit of it.”

He said, “You’re crazy.”

“What?”

He said, “You’re just nuts!”

I asked him about coming to do the radio show with Snoop and

he said, “Well I haven’t seen Snoop in a while, and I don’t have any

new records that I can DJ with.”

I said, “Well I can put you on a mailing list to get the records, that

ain’t nothin’!”

“Come on, man … but let’s keep in touch. Come by the studio

some time and hear some of the new shit I’m working on.”

I was ecstatic, but kind of skeptical at the same time.

“Sure! I’ll call you next week. Any unreleased shit you wanna

play me or anything else, I’d be happy to hear it!”

I couldn’t actually be getting invited to hear some new Dre shit,

could I? He started laughing. Then I realized, “Wow. This dude is

really just a regular guy. He’s not Superman, he’s just cool.”

A week or two went by and I call him back and he picked up.

“So what’s up,” I said.

“Who’s this?” he asked.

I said, “It’s Damion from Power 106.”

“Damn!” he said.

I thought, “Oh shit. Did I call him one too many times?”

Dre said, “I’ll be over at the studio on Monday and Tuesday. I’ll

be at Larrabee West, do you know where that is?”

I said, “Yeah, I was working with Kurupt over there.”

He sounded surprised and said, “What?”

“That’s a long story!” I said. “But I’ll stop by.”

He said, “Call me first so I can let everyone know you’re coming.”


When the day rolled around I called and Nicole answered the

phone. She said he was still asleep.

“But it’s all right, Damion, just call back later.”

I was shocked. “So his wife knows who I am now?” I learned,

much later, that not a lot of people could call Dr. Dre directly at

home. Jimmy Iovine, the chairman of Interscope Records, once

asked me, “How did you get in touch with Dre? I don’t even have his

home number.”

Dre called me back later, and said, “I’m running a little late, but

meet me at Larrabee and I’ll play you some of the shit I’m working

on.”

I jumped at the chance. So I went over there, and it was him, Mel-

Man, and The DOC. I was like, “Yo, DOC! Wow!” I had grown up

on these artists’ music. Whirlwind Pyramid and all those records from

The DOC’s The Formula album were all records that, in high school,

I was bumping in my car in hot rotation.

This was right after the Death Row era, right after the Aftermath

Presents album and The Firm project. Dre was working on beats, and

that was it. But they had just made the transition from the early

sound of the Aftermath Presents album, that early Mel-Man/Glove

drum sound, to something new. All this stuff that he was starting to

play me was what 2001 would ultimately become.

One of the first beats he played for me would later become FUCK

YOU. He was just playing random beats/songs like that. He said,

“It’s just some early stuff. I’m gonna call the album Chronic 2000.”

Dre and I really hit it off, talking non-stop when he wasn’t playing

me beats. And what was really cool was that he didn’t mind me asking

a whole raft of classic fan questions: “What was up with Death Row?

Why did you leave?”

I’ll never forget what he said. “You know what it’s like when

you’re having a party at your house, but you look around and you

realize you don’t know anyone there? Everybody’s partying, they’re

D R . D R E 6 5

spilling beer on your carpet, they’re putting their cigarettes out on

your floor? It just didn’t feel like my house anymore. I couldn’t work.

There were always so many people in the studio that I couldn’t focus.

It just got to the point where I couldn’t do it.”

I was like, “Wow, that’s crazy.”

You have to remember, I was like 20 or 21 years old at the time.

This was some awesome stuff to be hearing firsthand at that age.

After that session at his place, I’d call him about once a week,

and we’d just shoot the shit. To me, it was cool because I’d ask him

history questions, or radio questions.

“What do you think of this record, what do you think of that

record?”

He said at one point, “Dame, you know why I fuck with you?”

I was wondering the same thing myself.

“Because you gave me a shot with Phone Tap. After the Aftermath

Presents album didn’t do what it was supposed to, and after Firm Biz

didn’t work out, you still gave it a shot. A lot of radio stations didn’t.”

I told him straight up, “I can’t take the credit for that. That was

already in play before I got here.”

He said, “Yeah, but you still kept playing it even when you had

the option to take it out.”

I said, “Look dude. Your records speak for themselves. When are

you gonna put a solo record out?”

He said, “Well I don’t know, I still haven’t figured it out.”

I said, “Well, what’s up with Snoop?”

He said, “I just haven’t talked to him in a long time. I don’t know

where he is.”

I said, “He works here at Power doing weekends. Why don’t you

come down, do an interview, and play some records.”

He said, “I don’t know if it’s the right time.”

I wasn’t about to let that one go, so I started thinking, “How can

I get these two in a room so they can perform together?”


I just want to see the show. I just want to hear some new music

from these guys. At the end of the day, I’m the biggest rap fan you

can find. For the radio station, it worked. For the record company, it

worked. For me and the other fans, it worked. For Dre and Snoop, it

worked.

I could tell from the beginning that it wasn’t a beef thing between

them. They’d been out of contact for long enough they simply didn’t

know where they stood with each other. So I said, “All right.”

I waited a couple days, and I walked in on a Saturday during

Snoop’s show. I kept it real casual.

“Well, I ran into Dr. Dre the other day.”

He goes, “Ahh! Well, what did he say?”

I said, “I asked him if you guys were gonna make records again,

and he was like, ‘I wanna make some more records with Snoop!’ ”

Snoop said, “Yeah, man, I’ll put him back on!”

I started laughing and I was like, “Okay, cool. Maybe I can hook

y’all back up.” I was thinking to myself, “I’ve got half of it down.

Now what am I gonna tell Dre? Fuck!”

ARNOLD TURNER PHOTO: Me in Hawaii just before Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg took the stage for the

beginning of their reunion.

D R . D R E 6 7

So I called up Dre, still trying to be as low-key as possible.

“It’s funny, I was in there talking to Snoop this Saturday…”

Dre said, “Oh really, what did he say?”

I said, “He was talking about wanting to make records with you

again.”

Dre said, “Really? Man, I’ll put him back on!”

They said the exact same thing! It was hilarious.

Except that now, I had to figure out how I was gonna get these

guys together, and how I was gonna get this together under the Power

106 umbrella. I needed to figure out a way to orchestrate that initial

conversation. So I called up Nino, and he said, “Dude, you’re crazy.

I don’t know how you’re gonna do this.” Big help!

I never bullshit to make stuff happen, even when I’ve had to

stroke egos to smooth the road, so I knew there was no other way

than just being totally up front: I called Dre back and said, “What

about a show? Let’s do a show in L.A. Let’s do a Dr. Dre and Snoop

Dogg reunion.”

I didn’t know what to expect — an uncomfortable silence, a

“fuck that” or simply a “well … no.” Instead, Dre hit back with an

immediate “Shit! If you can pull it off !”

I checked in with Snoop — same reaction. He was down. I had

the label’s support, I had Dre and I had Snoop. Now I just needed

to get Michelle and Power behind it without making them think

I was turning the place into a gangsta rap station. I used my own

enthusiasm as a fan and ran on pure hype.

“Hey, Michelle, real quick, I got Dr. Dre and Snoop back together.

They said they’d do a show for us in L.A.”

She said “No way!” Right out of the gate, not even thinking

about it.

“Whoa,” I said. “You don’t understand. Nuthin’ But A G Thang is

our biggest testing record. This is L.A. Dre and Snoop back together.

They never really performed together here!”


“Someone will get shot,” she said. “Tell them no. Besides, Dr.

Dre is over.

Christ. Not that line again.

The next thing through my head was “Now I’ve gotta go back to

Dre and Snoop and tell them we can’t do it after all. I just put my foot

in my mouth! Fuck! I’m gonna look like an idiot!” It just killed me,

both as a fan and as an employee of the radio station, since I knew

this would be the biggest thing in the world. Michelle was so afraid

that someone would get shot that she just said no. Rick Cummings,

who is the smartest man in the world as far as radio programmers go,

was my biggest ally and supporter.

I went to him about it, and he said, “I don’t think we can do

it right now. I see her point and I see yours. But some things are

happening …” That was a little cryptic at first but then I caught

on: He was alluding to the fact that Michelle and Marie Kordis, the

station’s general manager, were on their way out.

“Give me a couple months,” Rick said. “Tell them to kick back.

We’ll revisit this once some changes happen.”

So I called up Dre and I said, “Look, I’m working on it, but it’s

gonna take a couple months to get it together on this end.” He was

cool with that and didn’t need to know any more.

A few days later he called me back and said, “Yo, I need you to

come to the house. I need to ask you something.”

I said, “Oh, okay, I’ll just head on over … ah, Dre, do you think

I know where you live?!” I always joked around with Dre, because

he’s just like everybody else. He’s funny and he’s a good guy. He gave

me his address.

“When you pull up to the gate, ask for Miles Long.”

I said, “Miles Long?”

He said, “Yeah, that’s great, huh?”

I’m like, “Yeah whatever, like that’s really gonna be funny.”

So I pull up to this huge gated house, and it looked like the

D R . D R E 6 9

Playboy Mansion. There was a huge lawn in front of it, and a long-

ass winding driveway up to the house. One of his security guards was

at the top, waiting for me. He said, “Hey, Damion? Dre’s waiting for

you inside.”

We walked in together through a side door in the garage, inside

through another door and into this mindfuck of a studio. I was like,

“Holy shit!” There was a mini 32-channel SSL G-Plus board and just

about more gear than I’d ever seen in my life. It was like a Larrabee

West in this dude’s house. As I got further into the studio, I heard the

beat for what would later become Eminem’s My Name Is.

Man, they really had it going when I came in. I saw Dre and

looked inside the recording booth. There was this little white guy in

there and he was goin’ “Slim Shady you a bass head. Why’re face red

man, you’re wasted.”

He was saying it like Dre! This was before the bleach-blonde

Eminem image. He looked a lot different. I kinda had a “What the

fuck?” sort of reaction.

Dre saw me and said “Dame, what up! Hey, Marshall, come out

here for a second. Hey, this is Eminem.”

I was like, “Nice to meet you, man.”

Dre said, “Sit down, I want to play you some stuff.”

“Cool.” I then asked him why the beat was only coming back on

two channels. He told me that he only had one tape machine at the

house and that he mixes as he goes. Let the lessons begin!

“Anyways, this is Eminem, he’s from Detroit, and I just signed

him.”

I looked at Dre a little wide-eyed. “You just signed a white boy?

From Detroit?”

Dre laughed.

They played me a few records, like Brain Damage and My Name

Is. And I said, “Okay, Dre, so those are the parts he just recorded?”

Dre nodded his head.


I said, “Wow, that’s crazy! That’s gonna work.”

“Why?”

I said, “Come on. Dr. Dre signing a white kid? That’s the

ultimate co-sign, plus he’s talking so much crazy shit that this might

just work. Big.”

Dre smiled. “Come out here with me for a second.”

We went into the hallway of the studio.

“How do I break the white boy?”

I look at him. “That’s a good question. How’s this: You tell me

the story of N.W.A. from the beginning to end, and I’ll break the

white boy for you.”

Dre thought I was nuts. “I wanna hear where Ice Cube wrote

Boyz In The Hood, I want to hear how you met Eazy-E, I wanna hear

about the shows, I wanna hear it all!”

He said, “Seriously? Do you have about a year?” I said, “I have

as long as it takes!”

So I sat on his washing machine, he sat on his stairs, and he

told me the whole story,

from beginning to end. It’s

amazing, but it’s Dre’s to tell,

so I’m not gonna get into it

here. Let’s just say, it was

light when I got there, and it

was dark when I left.

As luck would have it, the

following night happened to

be the 10-year anniversary of

“Friday Night Flavors with

Tha Baka Boyz,” and we were

doing a show with Gangstarr

at The Florentine Gardens to

celebrate.

SUJIT KUNDU PHOTO: Dr. Dre and me backstage at the

Powerhouse show just before he walked out on stage with

Eminem for the first time.

D R . D R E 7 1

Right in the middle of Dre’s stories, I said to him, “Wait, here’s

what we’ll do with your white boy. Let’s have him perform at the

show tomorrow. He’s underground, his lyrics are really edgy. I think

it will go over really well. Do you want to show up?”

Dre said, “No, man, it’s late … we just had a baby … I need to

finish the album.”

“That’s cool,” I said. “In the morning, send him over to Power

and we’ll put him on with Tha Baka Boyz. We’ll announce that he’s

performing at the show, and then after that we’ll start playing My

Name Is, and we’ll start branding him.”

After Dre had filled my head with the most amazing stories I’d

ever heard I said goodnight and left. I called up E-Man as soon as

I got in the car. We’d recently promoted him from a mixer position

to be my assistant music director. I said, “Yo, check this out: Dr.

Dre just signed a white boy, and we’re gonna put him on the ‘Friday

Night Flavors’ show.”

He goes, “Did you tell Michelle this?”

I said, “No, not yet.”

He said, “Good luck on that one buddy! You know she’s gonna

say no. You’re gonna put a white boy on this show, who’s signed with

Dr. Dre? You know how she feels about Dr. Dre.”

Eminem showed at the station as planned the next morning,

but I didn’t tell Michelle that he was going to be performing at that

night’s show. Tha Baka Boyz were in on the plan and they thought

it was a totally cool idea and announced it on the air.

Bang! I’m called into Michelle’s office with E-Man, who was

givin’ me that “Oh, fuck, thanks a lot” kinda look.

“If you put that white boy on stage you’re both fired,” she said.

“Michelle,” I tried to reason with her, “Dr. Dre is our core artist.

A lot of the songs on our entire playlist are done by Dr. Dre. This is

a great thing!”

She wasn’t listening. E-Man and I left her office and I turned to


him. “E, this is where we put our balls on the line. You’re either with

me or you’re not. I’ll take the full blame.”

He said, “Nah man. I love Dr. Dre, I feel what you’re doing, and

I’m down 100 percent.”

I was goin’ into it fully figuring it was my neck but, unbeknownst

to me, my star was on the rise at Power and throughout Emmis. I

think E-Man saw this, and that Rick Cummings had my back, and that

neither one of us was getting fired. There was just too much going on,

and it was all good. It was so cool to have E-Man behind me.

The show at the Florentine was my first in L.A., my first as the new

music director of Power, and Tha Baka Boyz’s 10-year anniversary.

And, as far as I knew at the time, my last day at Power because I was

about to launch a show with Gangstarr, Primo, WC, and walk out a

white kid from Detroit to kick it all off. They were all lookin’ at me

like I was nuts, but they were intrigued. “This is Dr. Dre’s new artist?

Gotta hear this one …”

The kid gets on stage and just kills it.

The first 10 seconds, everybody’s like, “What’s this?” And then

all of a sudden the whole crowd goes wild. I watched Primo and

Guru lookin’ at this kid, with a total “Wow” look on their faces.

But I got my N.W.A. history lesson from Dre.

And we broke the white boy.

After that, Dre trusted me and we stayed in close contact. Power

started playing My Name Is in heavy rotation and Eminem blew up,

becoming one of music’s top stars nearly overnight.

Over the course of the next year, I was virtually living at Larrabee

West Studios doing tracks for Shade Sheist and Nate Dogg. It was

cool because I was seeing Dre constantly — he was in one of the other

rooms working on 2001. It was a crazy time. He’d finish something

and pop in and say “Yo! You gotta come check this out!” and I’d

wander over with him to listen to what he was working on. Or he’d

ask me over and show me the mockups for the cover art, which he

D R . D R E 7 3

had to change after Suge Knight, co-founder of Death Row Records

with Dre, used the title Chronic for a compilation. “Damn,” Dre said,

“Now I’m gonna call it Chronic 2001.”

One day, I walked past his lounge and Dre said, “Yo, Dame, can I

talk to you for a minute?” He pulled me in and told me that he’d just

signed Rakim to his label. “What do you think of that?” I was like,

“That’s crazy! Great move!” I’ve always been such a fan of Dre that

it’s still a mind fuck to me to think that he was asking my opinion of

whether signing Rakim was a good idea.

Even when I was out on the road with Shade touring in support

of our Where I Wanna Be hit, Dre and I would talk on the phone fairly

regularly about what each of us was doing, offering constant support

and advice. It has always been so cool, and continues to be, to count

him as a friend.

The next time we got together, he was getting ready to launch

2001. First of all, it was a highly anticipated Dre record — hey, they

all are! — but with the bonus attention that he’d attracted by breaking

Em so huge, the timing just couldn’t have been better.

I’d signed Eminem to play that year’s Powerhouse, and

immediately saw my chance to finally get that Dre and Snoop

reunion off the ground. Since helping put Eminem on the map, I had

complete freedom at the station, an all-access pass to do whatever the

fuck I wanted. So I said to Dre, “Em’s on the show … Snoop’s on the

show. Hey, why don’t you come perform with Em?”

He said, “Well, I only have a couple bars on “My Name Is.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but if you do that and Guilty Conscience (which

we were just starting in rotation on Power) it’ll be the shit!”

“Okay,” he said, “maybe I’ll show up.”

So I thought to myself, “If I get Dr. Dre in the building, and I’ve

already got Snoop in the building, all I need is to find a way to get

Dre to come out during Snoop’s set.”

No problem. Except I had no idea how I was gonna pull that off.


On show day, I was wandering around the Arrowhead Pond

during set up and soundchecks and got a call on my walkie-talkie.

“Yo, Dre’s at the top of the ramp.”

Apparently, he’d parked somewhere in the general public area

and was walking backstage with his wife, Nicole, Mel-Man, and a

few other people, bottle of gin in tow, ready to hang out and party. I

walked up and met them and I said to Dre, “What the fuck are you

doing?”

Guess I’d better explain … as Dre and I became closer friends, it

kinda turned into a big brother/little brother kind of relationship and

ever since we talk a lot of shit to each other, which is fun in itself, but

also a blast because it really freaks out people around us. “Hey, what’s

up, motherfucker!” “Hey, asshole!” It’s just the way we talk. It was

hilarious at the opening of the Farm Club, with Jimmy Iovine and all

the suits hangin’ out and Dre saw me and said, “Fuck you, Damion,

you don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.” And I responded, “Fuck

you, man, you’re too old to know what the fuck you’re talkin’ about!”

Hey, I don’t know anybody who talks to Dre that way.

Em and I are the same way, and he fuels it further because he’s

got such a great sense of humor. I loved to fuck with Dre’s security,

too, because it always freaks everybody else out. The guys themselves

were always, “Ahh, that’s just little Damion … whatever.” I remember

there was a tense moment at a show with Dre and Snoop, and the

Boo-Yaa Tribe showed up unexpectedly. I said to Giant (the biggest

and coolest one), “Hey man, you better calm down. I’d hate to have

to fight you right here.” What a great ice breaker … this little white

boy from Santa Barbara calling out a 400-plus pound Samoan dude.

The guys get it and are always so cool. I think they dig that it freaks

out everybody around them, too.

So Dre came up with everyone at the Pond and said, “Hey, you

little bastard, I’m here.” I said, “Fuck you, you’re late!” I told him

that I’d arranged a private dressing room for him “Just in case your

D R . D R E 7 5

Hollywood ass wanted to show up.” We had a great laugh.

My adrenaline was pumpin’ a little while later when I noticed

that he and Snoop had hooked up and were talking. I had my fingers

crossed.

Eminem went out on stage and began to absolutely tear up the

place. It was wicked. Dre went out in the middle of the set and the

crowd went absolutely nuts. Couldn’t have been better. I caught Dre

a few minutes later backstage and asked him what he and Snoop

had talked about before the show had begun. “Well,” he said, “The

conversation started.”

I went out to DJ Jam, Snoop’s DJ, and said “Yo, get the records

ready! Dre’s gonna go out there.”

Jam said, “I don’t know, Dame, they were talking a little bit, but

I don’t know for sure.”

I’m like, “Jam, come on!”

He said, “Yeah, I feel you! We’ll get this done.”

Maybe Dre and Snoop had it all worked out and Dre was just

trying to blow my mind, but I don’t think so; I think he made the

decision at the last possible moment. He was sitting in the wings

watching Snoop when I went up to him and said, “Yo, so it would

be really great if I told Jam to throw Deep Cover on and you go out

there!”

Dre said, “I don’t know, man.”

I said, “Look at all these people, dude. Everybody wants to see

Dr. Dre and Snoop back together again. We’ve got 17,000 people

here, dogg. It’s a perfect setup for a reunion. You can work together,

do the album, everything will be great!”

Dre sighed, gave me a look and said, “Gimme a mic.”

The first one didn’t work, so I got him a second one and as he was

checking it out, I walked over to Jam and said, “Dude, he’s got mics

in his hands … you gotta play Deep Cover now.”

Jam threw the record on, and Dre walked out with both mics


in his hands and, like that, Dre and Snoop were together again

— performing in front of an L.A. crowd for the first time ever. I

almost passed out!

It’s still hard to believe. My dream had just come true. They went

into Nuthin’ But A G Thang and then What’s My Name and Dre said

goodnight to the crowd and came off stage. I must have looked like

an idiot standing there grinning from ear to ear.

“Is that what you wanted?” he said. “All right, fool, I’m outta

here.” And he left.

I don’t think I’ll ever have a night like that. Mariah came out with

Da Brat and Krazie Bone to do a surprise performance of the I Still

Believe remix that I produced, and we put her on one of those rising

scaffolds. The girls in the audience absolutely lost it when they saw

her. The show was magic and Power was the biggest shit in the world

at this point.

The next day, I called Dre at home and he asked me what I’d

thought of the show. I’m sure he could tell from the excitement in

my voice, but I told him I was absolutely amped. “Yeah, dude, Snoop

and I talked. We’re gonna do some records.”

Dre called me at Power a few days later and said he’d hooked up

with Jay-Z and had decided to do some writing for him. He asked if

I’d drop into Larrabee to hear a track they’d done called Malibu Dre.

After he’d spun it, he said, “I don’t really like it.” I told him it was

hot, but he was like, “Nah, that’s not what I want to come with first.

It just didn’t come off right, so maybe I’ll have him do something else

for me.”

He then started playing me The Watcher, which Eminem had

written. It was so sick hearing Knoc’s voice blend with Em’s on that

hook. Dre is fucking genius.

Soon, I was back at Larrabee myself, working again next door to

Dre, this time with Jennifer Love-Hewitt. On my birthday, Jennifer

D R . D R E 7 7

filled the performance room with a huge teddy bear and all these

toys. What a great girl!

Dre came in and was like, “It’s your birthday? Happy birthday,

motherfucker!”

He looked at all these toys, looked at me standing there with a

shit-eating grin on my face standing next to Jennifer, and laughed.

“Man, you’re crazy.”

I said, “Hey, by the way, Mariah’s comin’ down. Would you do

a record with her?

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll give you some beats and let me know if she

like ’em.”

I tried testing the waters a little further. “Well, what about doing

something with Michael Jackson?”

“Nah, I’d never do that.”

But Dre laid some beats on me and I played them for Mariah.

She was into it and asked me to set something up. Unfortunately, I

couldn’t make it to the meeting. Not being there was a big mistake.

The beat they decided on, I think, was what would eventually end up

as Mary J. Blige’s smash Family Affair.

Mariah had told Dre that she’d take the tape, head to Capri, Italy,

and record her parts while on vacation. Dre doesn’t work like that,

and told her that if she was gonna work with him, she’d have to

actually work with him. Mariah told him she didn’t work that way.

After she told me what had gone down, I tried to talk to her. “Just

do me this favor,” I said. “Go back, do a rough cut of it with him in

there, and we’ll get a working relationship happening.

“No,” she said, “I’m not gonna do it that way!”

Dre was done with her attitude after just one meeting and there

was nothing I could do to salvage the project.

After that, Dre called me up one day and said, “Yo, come to

A&M.” I went down to the studio and he introduced me to a new

producer he was working with, a dude named Scott Storch. They


were working on beats, and Dre pulled up a track and said, “Tell me

what you think of this. You’re cool with Jay-Z, right?”

I said, “Yeah, we’re real cool.”

He goes, “Well I didn’t like that Malibu Dre shit, but I’m gonna

give him another shot.” Then he played me a beat and I said, “Yo,

that is straight up Jay-Z’s alley.”

All it had on it at the time was the drumbeat and a “bling-bling-

bling” piano lick. Dre said, “Well, I’m gonna send it to him tonight.

I’ll call you when it’s done.”

A week or two later, he called me up and goes, “I’ve got it! I think

I’ve got the single now. Jay-Z wrote it.”

Ecstatic, I said, “What’s it called?”

He said, “It’s called Still Dre, and Snoop is on it.”

I was like, “What? Where do you want me to be, and when?”

He said, “Come to Record One.”

After I dashed over there, he played the record, and when it was

over I said, “Give it to me now!”

He said, “No, not yet, I’ve got to master it first.”

I said, “Well I’m stealing it then.”

I looked over at the engineer and said, “Make me a copy.”

Dre said, “Look. I’ll give you a copy. But you can’t play it yet.” I

bowed my head down and said, “All right.”

I think that was the test of all tests. He wanted to see if I would go

against him and play the record at Power anyway. I didn’t, of course,

but I played the shit out of the record at home. A couple of days later,

he called. “What do you think?”

I said, “Can I play it?”

He said, “I’m mastering the album this weekend. Meet me

at Bernie Grundman’s mastering on Saturday. Big Bass Brian is

mastering it. Come by and you can hear the whole thing.”

So I showed up that weekend, and he was putting the finishing

touches on everything. He said, “Tell me what you think. Listen to

D R . D R E 7 9

the whole thing, come up with some feedback, and we’ll talk in a

few days.”

I said, “You’re really giving me a copy of this?”

He said, “Yeah, just don’t play it on the radio!” So I went into

my room at Larrabee West, turned the speakers all the way up, and

continued to damage my hearing! I played the album, and everybody

was trippin’ because I had a copy before anyone else. 98 Degrees was

working next door. Nick Lachey came over and was like, “Dude, that

shit is crazy! I’m a huge Dre fan. Let me get a copy of that.”

Nope. Sorry.

Dre called me a little later and said, “I don’t like that copy of the

master. Come check out this new one.”

So I went to his new house (he had moved from one crazy mansion

to a new one) and I brought DJ Vice with me, who I was trying to

brand as the next big DJ. I wanted to introduce him to the big names

and start getting drops from them. That’s what they were doing on

the East Coast and it was working so well. I knew we needed to get

the West Coast started in the DJ/mixtape game again.

Dre told me to give Vice my old copy of the album and he went

to his car, pulled his CD out of the CD changer, and handed it to me.

He said, “Tell me what you think. I just wasn’t happy with the EQ on

a couple things.”

I was standing there thinking to myself, “I’ve got Dre’s personal

copy of 2001 in my hands, right out of his car!”

Vice was floored. “I don’t know how you do this, Damion, but

god damn!”

I couldn’t tell the difference between the two copies myself. It must

have just been some minor perfectionist stuff that Dre’s famous for.

He called me up the next morning, and he said, “What do you

think?”

I said, “Dude, can I just play a record on the radio?”

He said, “Fine. You can play Still Dre. Nothin’ else yet.”


So the next morning, I put on Still Dre.

Then I went over and saw him at Encore Studios, where he’d

moved from Larrabee. Encore just happened to be right around the

corner from Power. Tha Baka Boyz had come up with this great idea,

and I presented it to him.

“Let’s do the Snoop and Dre reunion in Hawaii! We can have

Eminem, Kurupt, Daz, Nate, and Warren G. We could do a huge

‘Chronic’ show, with all the people on the album!”

He said, “Wow. How much would it cost?”

Off the top of my head I said it would probably cost Interscope

and Power 250 grand each. We would fly out 400 listeners and their

guests for this show. Dre agreed to do it, but under one condition:

he wanted to ship a low rider out to Hawaii, and then drive it out on

stage during the performance.

I said, “Dude, if we do this in the ballroom in the Hilton Hawaiian

Village, there’s no way you can get a lo-lo up on the stage.”

He said, “I’m not doing the show then!”

I was like, “Fuck. Now what do I do?”

I remembered he had mentioned something about wanting tickets

to a De La Hoya fight in Vegas. So I went to Diana Overmeyer,

Power’s promotions director, and said, “I don’t know if you know

any ticket scalpers, but somehow we’ve gotta get tickets to this De La

Hoya fight.”

She was like, “How are we gonna do that? It’s gonna cost like 10

grand!”

I said, “I don’t care! Get it done!”

She found the tickets! (Love that woman).

I walked into Dre’s studio and said, “Hey, so are we doin’ this

show in Hawaii or what?”

He said, “I told you, not unless I can get a lo-lo on stage.”

I said, “What about that De La Hoya fight?”

He said, “I couldn’t get tickets.”

D R . D R E 8 1

I pulled the tickets out of my pocket and put them on the table

beside him.

“Well, you know what, whether you do the show or not, you’re

goin’ to the fight.”

He was pretty blown away. “Really?”

“Yeah,” I said, “really.”

I next talked to Larry Chapman, who was Dre’s assistant/

manager at the time and I was like, “Dude, help me with this!” He

wanted to know what was in it for him, so I offered him five grand.

“Make it happen, man.”

Finally, Dre called me and said he’d do the Hawaii show. He

drew up the contract by hand on a sheet of paper. It said: “Damion,

I’m gonna do the fuckin’ Hawaii show, but when we get there, the

Chronic’s on you. Dre.”

Once we were a go, I had Dre record radio drops to play during

on-air promotions. We caught a lot of outlandish shit for outtakes.

We brought in Don Ho to do Hawaiian theme versions of songs like

Nuthin’ But A G Thang and Gin and Juice but they didn’t come off

right, so we had to hire another guy to do it.

I started the promotion right away: The 106th caller in after we’d

start spinning a Dre track with ukulele on it won two tickets and all

expenses to the show in Hawaii. The drops were crazy. Eminem came

in and recorded one in which he said, “Hey, what about me? Can I

come?” and Dre said, “Yeah, motherfucker, you can come too.”

Of course, we bleeped out the bad words, but we took it to the

edge and everybody, listeners included, had blast. This was before

that dipshit Elliot Spitzer from New York stuck his nose into the

radio business as the state’s attorney general and started fucking with

everybody with a sense of humor. (And, yes, we all got a collective

laugh when, in 2008, his career was destroyed in a karma-perfect

prostitution scandal. What an asshole. Beautiful!)


We weren’t too far into the Hawaii promotion when I got my first

panic call from Interscope’s Jimmy Iovine.

“What the fuck is going on? You’re playing a record I don’t even

have yet … you’ve got Dr. Dre doing a concert in Hawaii and I just

got a bill for $250,000 in promotions?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” is what I told him.

It was magical and like a dream right up until about five minutes

before the show when one of the headliners came up to me and said

“I’m not goin’ on.”

I said, “What! Why?”

He said, “We can’t smoke weed in here … I need some x or I can’t

go on. Everybody wants to get their mind right.”

I thought, “Shit! I got no connections on the island. How the fuck

am I gonna get some ecstasy in five minutes?”

I went up to one of the guys working for us and said, “Yo, I don’t

care what you have to do. You need to get out there and find me some

ecstasy NOW!”

He did! I rushed to the artist and he was like, “Give me about 15

minutes.”

He emerged from his dressing room and said, “I’m ready.”

I felt like I was gonna have a stroke, but we pulled it off and it was

probably the coolest promotion and show I was ever involved with.

The next morning I woke up to my phone ringing. It was Dre,

who was in a great mood. “Yo, what’s goin’ on?”

I said, “Great show, huh?”

He said, “Yeah, great show. I’m gonna stay a couple of days. We

want to party.”

After 2001 blew up, Dre told me he wanted to go on tour and do

it through Magic Johnson’s concert promotion company.

“Well, that’s great,” I said, “But you really need to hook up with

the Radio Events Group (which was co-owned by Power’s Steve

Smith).”

D R . D R E 8 3

I explained that all the stations under Power’s parent company

were the ones breaking 2001 across the country, and we needed to

stay loyal to do a tour right.

“That’s cool,” Dre said, “but I already approached Magic to

do this.”

I said, “No problem. They can work together. Magic can take

care of promotion, and Radio Events can take care of the equipment,

buses, all that kinda stuff.”

Then I had a great idea: I was working with TQ and had just

produced his single Daily, which had hit No. 5 on the charts. “Why

not put him on the tour with you,” I said. Dre hesitated at first, but

I told him that we could get a half million in tour support by putting

TQ on the bill.

“Done!”

It was a great idea, though it caused some friction once the tour

was under way. The Eastsidaz were the opening act, but they didn’t

like being followed by TQ. It was such a problem that at one point, I

had to fly out and join the tour to smooth things out. But it was cool.

There’s a great video clip of Snoop out on the road talking into the

camera, saying, “Damizza really put all of this together. If it wasn’t

for you, Dre and I wouldn’t even think about doin’ all this.” Very

cool.

And Dre, well, what can I say? The tour itself posed a bit of a

twist for Power, since the show was scheduled to come through L.A.

right around the same time as our annual Powerhouse charity gig, and

would have drowned anything else we could have mounted. So I asked

Dre if he’d mind calling the L.A. concert a “Powerhouse” show.

“Well, it’s the Chronic 2001 tour,” he said.

I said, “Yeah, but we’re not gonna be able to do a Powerhouse

this year if you have Chronic coming through at the same time.”

Dre got it, and was so amazing about it. “Oh, well, okay, you can

call it that.”


At the time, The Beat was Power’s direct radio competitor, and

they were totally crossed out of the tour now. It was the ultimate

move, though I didn’t even think about it at the time — I was just

thinking about how big it was that Dre would extend us that courtesy.

Here’s another example of how much he supported us. When he

was walking Eminem down the red carpet at the MTV Video Music

Awards earlier that year, a reporter said, “So I heard you and Snoop

were getting back together.”

He said, “Yeah, shout out to Power 106. We’re doing a show in

Hawaii, it’s gonna be off the chain! Look out for it. Chronic 2001 is

coming.”

Things like this really made our station — and me — a big deal!

When the tickets for the L.A. show went on sale, Dre called me

up and said, “Yo, dude, they’re thinking of adding a second show.”

I said, “Well, there’s a lot of tickets still available. I’d hold off

until this one sells out.”

Throughout the morning we stayed in touch. A few hours later I

called him. “We’re here now … we’re sold out.”

He said, “Should we add the second show?” I said “Yep!”

“By the way,” Dre said, “that will be a Powerhouse, too.”

I was blown away. “You’re gonna give us both nights? All bullshit

and my position aside, dude, you don’t have to do this.”

Dre said, “Damion, you didn’t have to do everything you did

for me.”

He gave us both shows. It was an absolutely amazing time.

Then September 11 happened.

Dre called me and said “I’m gonna give a million dollars to

charity. Who should I give it to?”

I’m like, “Well, we have the Knowledge is Power Foundation that

gets the Powerhouse money … we can get it to people in New York.”

He said, “I really want it to be anonymous.”

I said, “What are you talking about? You’re giving a million

D R . D R E 8 5

dollars to support New York and you’re a West Coast rapper. With

all the shit that’s gone on about East vs. West and all that, giving a

million dollars to help people in New York is something you should

really take credit for.”

He said, “No, I don’t want that. This is bigger than that.”

I said, “I won’t say anything.”

Dre said, “Who do I make the check out to?”

I said, “The Knowledge is Power Foundation.” An hour later, a

messenger came to the office with an envelope. Inside was a check

for a million bucks.

I walked into Sal Lackie office at Power and handed it to her and

said, “This is from Dr. Dre for the Knowledge is Power Foundation,

to help people in New York. But he wants it to remain anonymous.”

Sal said, “No problem. Thank you.”

Like everyone else, I spent the next few days glued to the TV

watching the fallout of the horrific attacks. Then an announcer on

CNN came on and said “Dr. Dre has given a $1 million to New York

radio station Hot 97.” Power’s East Coast sister station played it up

for all the publicity it could. I was fuckin’ livid! I immediately called

Dre. “Dude, I apologize. I fucked up. I thought I could trust my team

at Power to be cool about this and keep it anonymous but they didn’t.

“What the fuck?” he said.

“Dre, I’m sorry, I thought I could trust my people. We fucked

you.” He said, “Dude, I know it’s not your fault. I know how greedy

people work. Don’t worry about it, I’m not mad.” I told Dre I felt like

shit about it, but he tried to reassure me that all was cool.

Thankfully, it was. Dre called me up and invited me down to the

video shoot for Knoc-Turn’al’s Bad Intentions. We were hangin’ out

and I mentioned to Dre that I’d just started the Shade Sheist project.

“I really like the song Where I Wanna Be,” he said.

I said, “Thanks, man.” It was the first record I really produced,

along with Kay Gee of Naughty By Nature. And what a great


experience that turned out to be. Nate Dogg was so cool to put in an

appearance on that session. In fact, he and Fred Wreck and Kurupt

came into the studio for that on the only day they had off during the

Up In Smoke Tour. Always grateful to them.

I asked Dre what he thought of the overall Shade project, and if

he’d be down to do a track for it. “Yeah! I’ll do a track for you.”

I immediately regretted asking, since he’d already done so much

for me. “Dre, listen, you don’t have to do this if you’re really not

into it.”

He said, “Nah, it’s something I’d like to do for you. I’m a little

busy right now, but when the first of the year rolls around, I’m down.”

I never mentioned it again, hoping he’d forget. I just thought the

guy had done so much for me that it was a favor I shouldn’t have

asked for. I never mentioned it to Shade and Dre, thankfully, forgot

that I’d asked.

Timbaland came in and did the first single, which was called

Money Owners, which immediately started doing well on radio.

I was hangin’ with Dre pretty regularly as he was working in his

own studio on a record with Shaq, and kept asking me over to listen

to their progress. It was a lot of fun, as Shaq and I got into a habit of

playing craps every time we got together. One time, I broke the cat for

300 bucks! But the records they were working on were dope. Xzibit,

Dre and Shaq were all rapping on one track and I loved it the first

time Dre played it for me.

“That’s a hit,” I told him. “Give it to me and I’ll play it today!”

Dre said, “Dame, you know I’ll give you whatever you want, but

it’s not done yet. Chill, man!”

He then asked how things were going with Shade, and I said we

were about to shoot the video for Money Owners that coming weekend.

“Do you wanna stop by?”

He said “Yeah, I’ll come. I’ll do a cameo. I don’t usually do ’em,

but I like that record.” The day of the shoot and everybody was

D R . D R E 8 7

coming in. Dre called my cell, laughing, “I just got off the phone

with Jimmy Iovine. He told me I can’t do the cameo.”

I said, “Damn, well that sucks. As much as I’ve done for that

guy, he told you not to do the video? Well it’s cool, I don’t want to

get you in trouble.”

He said, “Me? In trouble? Fuuuccckkk hiiimmm! I’m on my way.”

I said, “You don’t have to do this, dogg. You’ve been way too cool

to me. I don’t want to overstep my boundaries.”

He said, “Nah man, just make sure there’s two bottles of gin

there. I wanna walk out like the Gin and Juice video.”

I thought, “Fuck, this is the ultimate co-sign right there!”

The video theme was based on the movie Being John Malkovich,

with undersized rooms and all that. Dre did a thing where the girls

walk past him, he looks at them and then walks in with his two bottles

of gin. It was awesome.

With everything else going on in my life, I was spending

considerable time with Mariah trying to patch up her image, which

had taken a pretty bad bruising. Then she and Eminem had a dust up.

Dre called me and said, “Look, man, I’ve gotta play you

something. Em dissed Mariah.”

I was like, “Damn, just what I needed. It’s okay, it’s between

them, has nothing to do with me.”

But Dre said, “Well, man, out of respect, I wanna play this stuff

for you because I know that’s your girl and everything.”

We got together and he played the records and said, “What do

you think?”

I said, “Dogg, it’s not even an issue. It’s between them. It’s her

fault for getting involved with him. I’m over it.”

I had been pretty pissed off at her at the time and we were having

periods of not being on speaking terms, even though I was doing

everything I could behind the scenes to help her. I had warned her

to keep away from Eminem because I knew at some point there


would be a backlash. I mean,

that’s part of his shtick and I’ve

always accepted that. Dre and I

didn’t see each other for a while

as I immersed myself in my very

complicated relationship with

Mariah.

The next time I saw him was

long after I’d left Power. I was

sitting in Morton’s in Burbank

with my new manager, Aaron,

and he said, “Hey, Dre’s sittin’

over there.” Aaron had just met me and was still sizing me up and

said, “If you’re such good friends with him, why don’t you go over

and say ‘Hi?’”

I said, “Dogg, just chill out. You don’t know the history.”

A few minutes later, Dre noticed me and came over. “Hey Dame!”

“Hey, what’s going on, buddy?”

Dre said, “So, how you been?”

I said, “Good, man, you? Oh listen, let me come over and say ‘hi’

to Nicole.”

Dre and I went back to his table so I could say hello to his

wife. We were chatting for a few minutes and Dre said he’d just signed

Bishop Lamont, who has become one of my good friends.

“He’s a really good kid,” Dre said.

I said, “Yeah, he’s a great guy, and he’s gonna make a lotta good

records with you. He’s gonna be a star.”

Dre said, “You think so?”

I said, “Dude, he reminds me of Eminem.”

“Why?”

I said, “The guy makes me nervous!”

Dre laughed. “Wow, that’s crazy!”

My first visit back to Power 106 after leaving, with Pitbull

and Bishop Lamont.

D R . D R E 8 9

We said our goodbyes and I went back to finish dinner with Aaron.

Some time later, Dre invited me over to the studio to hang with

Bishop. It was like old times and we picked up where we’d been

before the whole Eminem/Mariah period.

“Hey, what’s goin’ on, fucker?” Old times again.

He asked me what I was working on and I mentioned that I’d

been brought in on the Miami Vice movie with Mike Mann and might

be working on some of the score. I asked Dre if he was down for that

and he said he’d love to be involved.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said.

I said, “You motherfucker, you know you ain’t gonna call shit.”

Dre said, “Nah, dude, I really will.”

I wasn’t surprised I didn’t hear from him the next day. Dre had

his plate full workin’ with Bishop and doing his own Detox project.

And, like I predicted, the dude really did have his hands full with

Bishop. He called me and said, “We need to go over to Dre’s.”

I said, “For what?”

Bishop said, “I’ve gotta get the promotion started for my record.

Capps/E had just done the cover for his mixtape N*gger Noise

and he wanted to show this picture he’d come up with — of him in a

Klansman outfit.

When we arrived, Dre looked at me and I said, “What, you too

rich to pick up a phone?”

He laughed and said, “Nah, I ain’t done spending N.W.A.

money.”

Bishop pulled out the artwork and I immediately said, “THIS is

why Bishop Lamont makes me nervous!”

Dre kinda shook his head. “A Klansman outfit? Okay, Dame,

now I see why you said that. Wow, that’s gonna be crazy.”

I asked Dre if he’d hooked up with a MySpace account. “Yeah,

somebody got me one,” he said, “But I’ve never looked at it or know

what it does.”


I said, “Dude, it’s the biggest promotional thing you can be on!

You need to do something with it. You’re still workin’ on Detox, right?”

Dre goes, “Yeah.”

“Well, that would be a great way to keep up the promo on that.”

He said, “What do you mean?”

I said, “Do you know what YouTube is?” He shook his head.

“Well, I’ll tell you what. Here’s what we’re gonna do. Stand right

there … Bishop, stand there. We’ll get you guys on video. Say you’re

doin’ Detox and that Bishop’s album The Reformation is comin’. We’ll

take a couple of pictures and whatever and get it posted.”

I had one of the people from my Baby Ree label with me and told

him to film it and get some shots.

“You ready? Bishop, go ahead.”

The result was the YouTube video where Dre was seen for the

first time in God knows how long. When we were leaving, I had a

hilarious moment with Dre’s head of security, Mark. He came up to

me and said, “Damizza … what are you up to?”

I looked at him and said, as innocently as I could, “What do you

mean?”

He crossed his arms and said, “Every time you show up, something

happens, he gets in trouble and we’ve gotta clean up the mess.”

I smiled, “What are you talking about?”

We put the video up that night, and the next morning it had

already gotten 100,000 hits. And just the story of Dre making a rare

video appearance was picked up as a news item by the New York

Times, the L.A. Times, MTV, VH1 … man, that alone went around

the world.

I next ran into Dre again with Bishop and, like so many times

before, we ended up playing ping pong for money. I swear, the dude

won’t go anywhere there ain’t a ping pong table close at hand! For

years, that was the standing deal at Larrabee West studios … $20 a

game.

D R . D R E 9 1

After, he started to tell me all about what he was doin’ with Detox

— sorry, I’m not about to lay any spoilers on you, you’re gonna have

to wait for the record like everybody else, but he said he’d call me

when it was done and play it for me, which was cool. I was in a pretty

dark space at the time, not working, and drinking really heavily and

broke as shit.

“So whatcha doin’, Damion?” he asked.

“Nothin’” I said. “Just helpin’ you and Bishop out, fucker.”

Dre said, “This motherfucker is the only person I know that will

come to my house and talk shit to me!”

It was pretty funny. As I was walking out of the room, he suddenly

grabbed me and put me in a chokehold. Now, that motherfucker’s

big! And he is strong! “Say uncle!” Fuck — I couldn’t say anything!

Dre let me go. “Hey, you okay? Did I grab you too tight?” I shook

my head and laughed.

“But there’s something I’ve wanted to ask you,” I said, for some

reason getting’ serious.

“What’s that?”

“So what really happened between you and The Game?”

Dre got a little more serious himself and shrugged his shoulders.

“Dogg, like I’ve always told you, there’s only two things about me:

Treat me with respect, don’t lie to me, and we’ll be cool.”

L U D A C R i S 9 3

L U D A C R i S

Radio Guy Turns Superstar

I can honestly say I always knew Chris Lova Lova was gonna hit big.

Who? In the late ’90s he was strictly a radio host on Hot 97.5 in

Atlanta, doing a morning show with Poon Daddy. And man, did he

have drive … success written all over him.

Constantly, he’d two-way me. I don’t even know how he got my

pager number but he’d hit me up nearly every morning, asking if I

had any openings at Power in L.A. I liked the energy, his relentless

ambition, and I was genuine when I told him to keep in touch, even

though there was nothing for him at Power, where roughly at this time

Tha Baka Boyz had just moved out and we were set to put Big Boy on

mornings. In an industry of fakers and mediocre talents, I had a great

feeling about Chris and we maintained a distant communication.

My prediction about his drive and talent was dead on. He went

on the mixtape circuit and put out an independent album, selling it,

literally, out of the trunk of his car. Timbaland had caught his radio

show and the two connected.

It wasn’t long before Chris Lova Lova morphed into Ludacris.

What’s funny is that I never put it together until one night when I was

with Shade at a venue in Seattle and Ludacris walked by a couple of

times.

“Hey,” I told Shade, “there’s Ludacris.”

He came over, super friendly and energetic, and said “Hey,

Damion Young!”

“What’s up,” I said.

He said, “Thanks for always taking my pages.”


At first I thought he was being sarcastic but he jumped in “No!

It’s me, Chris Lova Lova, from Atlanta, Georgia.”

I was like “Jesus! What the hell happened!”

I was so excited for the guy, said congrats, and that I always knew

was gonna be great. But it was a bit of a mind blower. Chaka Zulu,

who I had known as a promotions guy, became his manager, and that

was cool as well. Seeing him develop from being a radio dude who I

always had an affinity for to this successful rap artist that made full

use of his extraverted personality was really crazy — just the kind of

cool story that can happen in the music business.

As times quickly were getting better for each of us, we began

running into each other more often and ended up doing a couple

of shows together. Then he really hit with his Back for the First Time

album, which was his major-label debut with Def Jam. He’d been

dropping into the studio fairly regularly and one night asked “Will

you do a record for me?”

I was happy — eager — to work with him. Especially when

he told me he wanted to do something completely new, something

from scratch. I jumped on it. I brought my guitar player Anthony

Mazza in, I brought Howie Hersh in, and my percussion player Carl

“Butch” Small, one of my first mentors, who played on everything

from Parliament records to Dre’s stuff. My good friend and engineer

Mike Sleshinger was hanging around at the time as well. We took the

crew over to the famed Larrabee West studios, which at the time was

like a second home to me.

There was definitely a buzz in the air — Dr. Dre was still working

next door in studio B on some of the early beats that would end up as

classics on his 2001 album.

Luda came in and was like “Yo, listen to this song I just did with

Nate Dogg.” It ended up being Area Codes for his Grammy-nominated

third album, Word of Mouf.

I told him, “Yo, this record is gonna be huge! Congratulations!

L U D A C R i S 9 5

As soon as you get it mixed, let me know and I will be happy to blast

off on it for you on Power.”

He was already a step ahead of me, and said, “Now, I want

you to make the weed song for my new record.”

“Well,” I started to tell him, “we’ve gotta go for a reggae type of

sound I …”

“Yeah,” he interrupted. “But first thing’s first.”

And then the guy whipped out a monster bag of weed and

proceeded to roll nine blunts. There was a big glass in the middle of

the studio control room and he put each blunt in as he finished it,

one after another. It was a big session and there was a huge gang of

people with him … the lights were dim and the mood amazing. He

didn’t want anybody to do anything until the zone was right.

“No, just sit and relax.”

I’d always wondered what the vibe at a Jimi Hendrix session

must have been like … I think I can imagine it now! We were sitting

and standing around and I’ll never forget what Luda said next. After

he finished rolling the ninth blunt he said, “Nine on deck, my niggas!

Let’s have some fun. Everybody, grab your own.”

I was like … “Okay.”

Every blunt got sparked at the same time and the room filled with

a massive dark blue cloud of inspiration. Thank fuck there weren’t

any smoke detectors and sprinklers.

Now look: I’ve seen Nate Dogg smoke. I’ve seen Snoop smoke.

I’ve seen all of these guys go off the deep end with the chiba and have

always enjoyed a cool buzz myself. But I soon had to step outside

before I my brains were going to drip out my ears. It was that bad.

Howie Hersh is a clean-cut guy who I’ve always admired, and I

looked up to him for the beat he did for Bell Biv Devoe’s Poison. He

also played most of the instruments on If We, which I produced for

Mariah Carey’s Glitter album. A veteran cat I can always count on. I

mean, he’d toured with Joe Cocker, so I assumed he’d seen just about


everything on the whole studio/road dope scene.

But I looked over at him soon into that session with Ludacris and

he was laying at the top of the staircase, staring up at the ceiling.

“Howie, what are you doin’, man?”

He said, “I’m trying to stay low because smoke rises.” The guy

was blitzed out of his mind on a contact high.

“Howie,” I said, “the door keeps hitting you in the head!”

“Wait … I thought I was laying on the ground,” he said.

“You gotta move, buddy!”

He was so wasted. Every time the door slammed into his head,

he just figured it was the drums blasting through the studio monitors.

Don’t get me wrong, it was an amazing session. In the back of

the room, Luda and I made the beat for the track. It was amazing

because up until that point, I had never made the drum beat with

someone I was working with. Finally, Howie got up and just started

playing, sparking off a great jam session of this reggae groove where

everyone was just mixing it up brilliantly. Ludacris then got up and

started pacing back and forth in front of the soundboard and the

massive monitors, which were puttin’ out like they were jet engines,

singing “Please excuse this interruption while I tell you that I’m

highhhhhhh!”

I love talking about capturing moments when I make records.

That was one. And we literally pulled it off: The tune ended up being

the track I’m High.

Sometime later, he called me up and said, “Yo, Damizza, I heard

through the Def Jam grapevine that you get like 30 grand a record. I

wanna use this for my next album but that’s a little expensive for my

budget.”

At the time, I was just coming off Cry Baby with Mariah and

Snoop Dogg and Where I Wanna Be with Shade Sheist, Nate Dogg

and Kurupt — and Ludacris was right, I was pulling in between 20

and 50 grand a record. But I told him, “We’ll work it out. Let me

L U D A C R i S 9 7

think about it and I’ll call you back.”

Before I even had a chance to hit him back with a compromise,

E-Man (the music director of Power) came to me about the station’s

annual Powerhouse show for the station’s Knowledge Is Power

charity foundation, which, for some odd reason that year, they hadn’t

asked me to organize. That was a first.

“We need to get Ludacris,” he said. “He hasn’t confirmed yet …

we offered him $30,000 but he won’t do it.”

Well, at that time, Luda was landing about 100 grand a show, so

I simply told E-Man that they were lowballing him way too much.

E-Man and Jimmy Steel went into panic mode.

“It’s for charity,” Jimmy pleaded.

I gave in and called Luda to see what I could do.

“Come on, Dame,” he said. “I’m not doing that. They’re taking

advantage of us. They’re charging 35-60 dollars a ticket for 17,000

people. We’re both from radio — do the math. How much do you

think they’re gonna make from sponsorships alone? Between five and

seven million? They’re not gonna give away that or anywhere near

that from the 10 to 13 million they make from this. Come on. Hip-

hop is big business now.”

I tried to assure him that the whole idea for the Powerhouse

shows was charity, but he brushed it off. He then asked me about my

beat again and I was like, “I don’t care about the beat. You can have

that for free. Just do the show.” Ludacris told me he’d think about it

and call me back.

By this time, just about everyone on the Power staff was in Hawaii

for a Pamela Anderson promotion I set up. I hadn’t been invited,

despite orchestrating the whole thing, and was sitting in my office in

Burbank when I got a basic do-or-die call from Jimmy.

“Dude, you don’t understand. We need to get this Luda thing or

we don’t have a Powerhouse.”

I was kinda pissed off because I’d offered to set up the gig and had


Snoop, Nate Dogg, Warren G, D.J. Quik and Westside Connection

on tap and Jimmy had said no. Now, he was calling me from Hawaii

with the threat that if I didn’t get Ludacris signed within the next 30

minutes he was going to cancel the benefit. What’s more, he told me,

the station counted on Powerhouse as the biggest billing month of

the year, generating millions in revenue and that we’d all be fucked if

it didn’t come down.

“You have a relationship with Luda and Chaka,” Jimmy

said. “And Kevin Lyles (then the president of Def Jam) is out of

communication on a plane right now and can’t block it. Get this done

or we’re all done.”

Christ. So I called back Luda, and offered him 30 grand, and the

beat for free. I asked him what else he needed.

He said, “I need you to break my artist I-20 for me. If you can get

all this done, I’ll fax you a confirmation letter within 15 minutes.”

I called up E-Man and asked him to get station boss Sal Lackie

on the line. We had a conference call with Jimmy and I told them the

deal: Ludacris was in, but E-Man had to play I-20. And he couldn’t

pull his usual shit of saying he’d play something and then not deliver.

“He has to play this record.”

E-Man agreed, and Val and Jimmy weighed in saying all was

cool.

I called Luda back and said “It’s done.”

Fifteen minutes later I faxed his letter of confirmation to the

people in Hawaii and got the usual round of thanks and praise and

“Damion, you saved the day” kinda handjob.

Ludacris did the show as promised and it was a monster success.

Fast forward one week after the gig and I was sitting in the staff

meeting when Val stood up and said “I want to congratulate the

sales department for a job well done — our best month in Power 106

history. Seven million dollars in non-spot revenue from Powerhouse!”

Non-spot revenue means that there were no expenses attached to

L U D A C R i S 9 9

it: Straight profit, just banners and on-air plugs, no commercials. I

just about blew a head gasket. “Fuck,” I thought to myself, “we just

screwed Ludacris.” After the meeting I went up to Sal and asked how

much of the seven million went to the charity.

None of it, she said, “Actually, we may have to dissolve the

Knowledge is Power Foundation.”

In other words, all the artists were shammed and misled. I don’t

think Power gave a dime of the money to charity and they’d fired the

head of the foundation. Ultimately I don’t know what came down,

but it wasn’t cool.

After that, I can’t say I was surprised when E-Man also reneged

on his promise to play the I-20 record. Every week, for several weeks,

I told him to play it.

“That record sucks,” he kept saying.

“E-Man, we need to play that record. We made a deal with

Ludacris … and the Powerhouse money didn’t even go to charity.”

His answer: “So?”

I snuck the record in the call-out research, and it came back at

No. 15 out of 30. At that point the station didn’t have a choice but

to play it, because it was proven. Problem was that we were already

three or four months behind on it dropping and the record stiffed.

This threw me under the bus to Ludacris. I had to call him and

apologize. Whether this was by chance or whether he was just smarting

from being so badly burned, he didn’t end up using my record on his

album, which could have made me 15-30 grand in advance money.

Plus, his album sold four million units, so I would have gotten three

percent of the royalties, which means I could have ended up with

hundreds of thousands of dollars from that song alone.

Ludacris got fucked.

I got fucked.

The charity and all the kids it was set up to help got fucked.

But Val’s bottom line must have looked pretty good.

1 0 0 G U i L T Y B Y A S S O C i A T i O N

At first, I was in denial about the gravity of this one shitty

situation. All along I’d been under the spell that Power was a good

company. In fact, when I’d started there, Emmis was rated as one of

the best companies in the country to work for and, in the beginning,

I was seduced. When Jeff Sumolin started it, it was about music, and

people; it was about helping the community as much as it was about

helping itself. And we were making a lot of money, so there’s no

way they had to close or think about closing the charity. Finally, Sal

admitted to me that Power alone was supporting the entire Emmis

chain of stations.

Sal is not a creative person with an imagination for anything but

sales and business, which in itself is fine — you need people like that

handling all the mind-fuck finances and number crunching. I get it,

can’t knock the hustle, so long as it’s not hurting others. But in my

opinion she sees any means as an end to hitting her year-end bonuses.

The means-to-an-end meant burning me badly though: The

bottom line was I unknowingly lied to Ludacris, exploited him, and

went against everything that I ever believed in. I spent my entire

career developing, cultivating, and helping artists and helping the

community. And in one fell swoop, we, the people at Power ruined it

all. It was absolutely the end for me and Power 106.

Ludacris is such a standup guy and I will always have nothing

but huge respect for him. I was honest and told him what had

happened and naturally expected that would have been the end of

any relationship with him. Hey, it was totally in his right to tell me to

go fuck myself and I would have understood. But with all sincerity

and humility he was like, “It’s not your fault. Thank you so much for

all your help with everything else you’ve done for me.”

Count this cat as large.

After I’d bailed on Power, Luda asked me why I’d left. I told him

honestly that one of the reasons I quit was because of how badly

they’d fucked him over. Luda was kinda shocked.

L U D A C R i S 1 0 1

“Why did you do that?”

No choice whatsoever, I told him. I will not work for a company,

or for people, who aren’t doing business in an honest manner and

for the right reasons. I need to be able to sleep at night, especially

when it comes to music and the artists who create it. I don’t care how

much money somebody’s willing to throw at me, I’m not going to

do something that’s dishonest for a company or people who are not

only raping artists, but run their show in a way that’s not beneficial to

the entire community. I believe that, in the radio business, if you’re

not serving the format and fostering and encouraging talent (which,

if you have at least a two-digit IQ you should realize is also good for

you and your continued success down the road) then you shouldn’t

be in that format to begin with. It ain’t nothing but negative energy

and actions.

Sal Lackie has absolutely no business being in hip-hop radio. To

me, it’s about passion, respect, and a love for the music. Val doesn’t

respect it; she doesn’t like it; she doesn’t care about it and walks

through the door every day simply to extort it.

There was no way I was going draw a paycheck from her raping

artists — especially when she was doing so based on my personal

relationships with them. I don’t apologize for my pride in what we

accomplished in my time at Power but, then again, I don’t have to:

The station was the top hip-hop station on the West Coast every book

in the years I was there. First ratings period after I left it tanked and

by the autumn of 2008 had fallen to No. 14 in Los Angeles. It lost its

respect from the artists and community that put it on the map in the

first place.

It ain’t science: Poison the well and every sip will make you sick.

E M i N E M 1 0 3

E M i N E M

“Fuck Damion Young”

Marshall Mathers and I got along from the beginning. We are about

the same age and first saw each other ensconced at Dr. Dre’s —

basically the two white boys in the camp and both loving rap. No

kidding, we hit it off like brothers.

One day, he showed up at Power and I met him in the reception

area. He said, “Yo, I was just down the street mastering my album.”

I said, “Cool, have you had lunch yet?”

We ordered in some Chinese food and while we were waiting he

asked if he could see me in my office.

“I gotta ask you a question.” We went in and I closed the door

and asked him what was up.

He said, “I was at Interscope today, and someone came in and

told me that ‘Yo, you’ve got a Buzz Clip.’ Then everybody got all

excited but I just nodded my head. Dame, what the fuck is a Buzz

Clip?”

I laughed and put my hand on his shoulder. “A Buzz Clip is a

power rotation record at MTV. You’re gonna be a really big star. So

anything that you want to do right now, go do it; because as soon

as they start playing that on MTV, you’ve surrendered all of your

anonymity. Marshall the regular guy is about to be gone forever,

killed off by a dude named Eminem.”

He looked at me with disbelief and said, “Damn. Really? Fuck!”

Of course, this happened fast. It always does under these

situations. I ran into Em all over the place the next few years. And we

maintained that brotherly “fuck you, buddy … how you been?” kinda

sarcastic relationship Dre and I have always had.


I’d be walking down a random hallway somewhere and hear

some guy boom out, “Fuck Damion Young!” I’d turn around …

(frankly not knowing who it could be at any given moment …

maybe even a big chick with a deep voice; hey, we all get around)

and see Eminem. We’d run into each other at the oddest places and

have the craziest conversations.

He was interested in radio, so he’d quiz me nonstop about details

about placement, programming, promotion … I mean, the dude

wanted to learn everything he could and actually went on to buy a

station on Sirius. I was always impressed because a lot of artists don’t

really give a shit and just see radio as an audio 7-Eleven, there to

serve them when they get the new-CD munchies. Of course, I literally

met this dude when he was in the studio with Dre back before he

stopped being this Mathers cat and became Eminem so I was always

interested in what he was doing in the studio, on the road or on video

or whatever. It was a great relationship, but also, roughly the same

age, there was always an underlying tension and hint of a feud. It

worsened as fame began to really take hold of him.

One of the times we were at his house in Detroit, he said, “Yo, I

want to play you some shit.”

Cool, I thought. He played me a bunch of his new records, and I

started telling him about the songs I was working on myself.

He said, “Wait a minute. You rap?”

I said, “Not really. kind of, just for fun.”

He said, “Let me hear it!”

I played him a couple of my records, and then the beat for a song

I later recorded with NUNE called I’ll Do Anything.

Em said, “Wow, whoever gets that beat … damn! It’s too pop for

me, but I’d do that in a heartbeat. Do you have any harder beats?”

Hell yeah! I played him another harder beat and he loved it. But

the timing was just never right and I ending up giving it to Knoc-

Turn’al for what would later become his Change This Game record.

E M i N E M 1 0 5

We kept running into each other, like at the video shoot for

Mariah’s Loverboy single, which she wanted him to appear in. And

I remember being shocked to see him at a Backstreet Boys and

*NSYNC after-party for Jive Records at the Grammys. It was funny

because this was right after he dissed the two groups. I was coming

out of the party while he was coming in.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Em?”

He said, “Well, it’s a party.”

I said, “It’s a Backstreet Boys party.”

He goes, “Oh, they ain’t gonna do nothing. Yo, but on some real

shit, do you know where Encore Studios is?”

I said, “Yeah, it’s about a block away from Power.”

He said, “I’m gonna call you tomorrow. I’m pretty much done

with the album, but I don’t think I have the single yet. I want to play

it for you and see what you think.”

As I was leaving the party, I turned around and saw that Kid

Rock, Eminem and Dr. Dre had commandeered the DJ booth and

had started performing for the ecstatic crowd. This was at the peak

of 2001 and right before The Real Slim Shady dropped and Kid Rock

was coming off 10

million records.

One problem,

though, the DJ

didn’t have a mic, so

Dre unplugged the

headphones, plugged

them into the mic

input and Kid Rock

and Eminem were

rapping their verses

into the headphones. ARNOLD TURNER PHOTO: Eminem and me joking around in Hawaii.


DJ pointer No. 1: if you can’t find your microphone or your mic

breaks during a gig, your headphone speaker works just the same.

The next day, I got a call from him at around 10 in the morning,

and I headed over to the studio. When I got there, he started playing

the records. He started off with Kill You.

I said, “That record’s crazy. We’ll start playing it tomorrow.”

He said, “No, that’s not it. I’ve got to go national with this. It’s

got to be a Hi, My Name Is.”

Then he played me Stan.

I said, “Bro, there’s your single. Let’s go.”

He said, “No, it’s not the one.”

I said, “Are you nuts?”

He said, “That’s a great second single, it’s on some crossover, top-

40 type of shit. But that’s not the one. I just don’t have that single.”

I asked him where he got that idea for the song. He said, “Oh, it’s

this singer Dido, and I heard her in a movie.”

A couple weeks later, I got a call from Dre.

He said, “Yo, you need to come to the studio. Come to Record

One right now.”

I said, “For what?”

He said, “Em’s got it.”

So I showed up to Record One and they played me The Real Slim

Shady. Em was dancing around the studio screaming, “I’ve got it!”

I said, “All right, give me a cassette.”

Dre said, “No Dame, you ain’t playin’ shit right now.”

I said, “I’m not gonna play it. But I need it for the car.”

He said, “No way.”

I said, “Dude, part of this system is, you give me a cassette, I play

it for a bunch of people, it starts to buzz within the industry, and then

when the record comes, they’re fired up. So stop playin’ with me and

give me the record!”

E M i N E M 1 0 7

Dre and Em just stopped for a second and looked at each other.

“All right Damion. Here’s your cassette.”

On my drive home, I popped it in and the tape was fucked up in

the middle. So I turned around and went back to the studio. I said,

“Stop playin’ with me. Give me a good copy of this record!”

They were like, “What are you talking about?”

I said, “Em was playing with the drum machine while you were

recording it, and it recorded on the cassette. Give me that shit the

right way!”

Em said, “Huh?”

I looked him right in the eyes and said, “Yeah, you thought you

were slick, you little punk.” Bastard!

After that, a couple days went by, and Dre said, “We’ll have the

single for you in a couple days.”

I said, “Look dude. I’m not just gonna play The Real Slim Shady.

I’m gonna play all those other records I love too.”

He said, “Well, we’re not even done with the album yet. We

have one more song to do. Come by the studio tonight. It’s called

Remember Me.”

So, I got there and Warren G was standing outside. I said, “What’s

going on?” He said, “Em and Dre are in there, and they’re going

crazy!” I walked in, and I hear Em doing the chorus. “REMEMBER

me!”

Dre said, “Nah, you’ve gotta do it with a little more intensity.

You’ve got to be more angry.”

Em said, “Dude, my voice is giving out.”

Dre said, “I don’t give a fuck. It’s making your voice sound more

intense.” “REMEMBER ME!!!! REMEMBER ME???”

At the end of the night, I got a copy of The Marshall Mathers LP.

Dre said, “Go ahead and play the other records too, but please

don’t play Stan too much because we really want to save that for the

second single.”


Unfortunately, my relationship with Em ended shortly after this.

He decided to do a concert for a local rock station KROQ instead of

Power, and considering that we were the station that not only broke

him as an artist, but also were his biggest supporter, I would have

thought that we could have at least had a conversation about this

deal. This also happened right after the whole public romance fiasco

between Em and Mariah. I was already done with the Mariah stuff.

I told myself, “It was her fault for getting involved, and I told them

both I didn’t want to be involved, so I’ll move on.”

Em was in town, and he came to Power to do the morning show.

When he arrived, I confronted him about crossing the street and

snubbing Power. I said, “Yo, I need to talk to you before you leave.”

He went upstairs and did the interview. He said a couple things

on the air that were a little disconcerting. In fact, they were little jabs

at me.

Ironically, in the same interview, he also said, “Yo, I need to

find 50 Cent.” That ended up being the catalyst for 50 being signed

later down the road. Hey, cool. Glad something good came out of

that day.

Before he left, I told him I needed to talk to him. I wanted to

clear the air. It was all about that KROQ show, but I think he thought

it was about the Mariah stuff. When I walked in the room, I said,

“Look bro, everything’s cool, but you’re getting dangerously close to

becoming an asshole.”

He said, “Hey man, leave me alone. I just want to go home.”

I said, “Dude, what are you talking about? Let’s have a

conversation here.”

Next thing I know, Eminem’s manager, Paul Rosenberg, came in

the room and pulled him out by the hand like a little kid. They took

off, and bodyguards showed up in my face. It really disappointed me

because it was like, “Yo dude, I don’t know these other people. I

didn’t even meet Paul until years later when he became your manager

E M i N E M 1 0 9

after you blew up. I met you the day you did My Name Is and I put a

lot of work into making you a star.”

The guy is one of the most creative people in the world, but I

think that at the end of the day, he’s ended up being a corporate

puppet. It’s fine that he did that show. I get it. Everybody’s got to get

his or her maximum exposure. But if you spend a long time working

with someone, you expect a certain amount of loyalty, or at least a

heads-up.

After that run-in, I never saw Eminem again, and I never talked

to him again. No big resentment on my part, I am just disappointed

about the lack of loyalty — or at least him calling me ahead of time

and talkin’ over and explaining why his team of people thought it was

necessary to fuck Power over. I know it wasn’t personal. But I took

it that way at the time, from then on in I couldn’t trust him, because

of the suits around him. And I don’t want to be around elements I

can’t trust.

All the best to him personally and creatively. However, one-on-

one, I still consider the dude a friend. It’s just the suits around him I

hope get rabies.

On a nice note, however, I’ve got an amazing story to tell you

about my experiences with Em.

One time, his management called me saying that they were looking

for singer Dina Rea. They said, “Can you put an announcement out

on Power 106 that we’re looking for Dina Rea?”

This was a little funny to me, given how I’d met her in the first

place. She was scheduled to come in to Power to work her solo single.

One afternoon, I got into the elevator at the station and there was

a hot girl in there.

I said, “Hey, how are you doing?”

She said, “Hi! What floor is Power on?”

I said, “Eighth floor.”

She said, “I’m a singer. Do you work at Power?


I said, “Yeah.”

She said, “What do you do?”

I said, “Oh, just a little bit of everything.”

She said, “Well, you know I wanted to ask somebody this

question. My name is Dina Rea, I sing on Eminem’s songs. I was

having some problems in my life, and I wanted to know who made

the decision to play the records with me on it.”

I said, “What do you mean?”

She said, “Well, I was living on the street, and I was sitting on the

curb one night, contemplating ending my life. Then, a car drove by

and it was playing Em’s song I’m on, Cum On Everybody. It was then

that I realized I had something to live for.” In tears now, she said,

“Whoever decided to play that song, I want to know who it was so I

can say ‘Thank you.’”

I was speechless.

The elevator stopped at the eighth floor. I said, “Well, the door to

Power’s around the corner to the left.”

She said, “Do you know how I can find this person?” I turned to

her and said, “You just did.”

I’ll never forget how she looked at me as I left. I marveled at

another wonderfully weird moment in my life.

J A Y - Z 1 1 1

J A Y - Z

“Fuck Damion Young”

One of the first people I met when I moved to L.A. and started

working at Power 106 was Jay Brown. He lived about two blocks

away from me in North Hollywood and we really clicked. At the time,

he was working for Quincy Jones at his Qwest label as A&R director,

helping artists such as Tamia and Tevin Campbell. Among his friends

was Jay-Z, who had been making a big push in the industry. Having

been ignored by the majors, he had started his own label, Roc-A-

Fella, with Dame Dash and Kareem Biggs. They had some success

with Ain’t No Nigga off his debut Reasonable Doubt album (a personal

favorite of mine) after inking a distribution deal through Priority,

which I found unusual since he was a New York-based artist sold

through a label that was otherwise focused strictly on the West Coast.

But stranger things happen. In fact, a really strange thing had

already happened: Remember those singing and dancing R&B

California Raisins? That was where Priority got its start and made all

its early money. It was a concept dreamed up for a 1987 commercial

for the California Raisin Advisory Board, trying to hype up some

business for the state’s raisin farmers.

Four Claymation raisins doing I Heard It Through the Grapevine,

with actual vocals provided by Buddy Miles. It was a huge hit!

Beyond commercials, it turned, however unlikely, into a massive

franchise of TV specials, four studio albums and even a Saturday

morning cartoon series. I don’t know if it actually did anything for

selling raisins, but it launched a record company.

Priority set out to build its serious music cred with a young dope


dealer/rapper from Compton named Easy-E who had parlayed his

drug money into his own label, Ruthless Records, with veteran music

industry manager Jerry Heller. The rest is hip-hop history: N.W.A.,

Ice Cube, Master P, Dr. Dre and the birth of gangsta rap itself.

After Ain’t No Nigga, however, Jay-Z hit a serious dry spell and the

deal with Priority ended.

That’s when Jay Brown came to me and said he wanted me to

meet Dame Dash and Jay-Z … they needed their track Who You Wit

to get some airplay. They were chasing a new deal with Def Jam and

things were looking pretty positive. Only trouble for me was that I

honestly didn’t like the record. But I put it on the air at Power because

it’s always been my credo to try and help artists when I can. And Jay

Brown was really showing me the ropes around L.A., so I was glad to

do anything I could to help him and his friends as well.

I’ll never forget the first night they came into Power to meet with

me, running really late because Dame had stopped to get a tattoo. I

could tell right away that Dame was the business side of the operation

and Jay-Z was the artist. I mean, he was acting about as “artist” as

he could — totally arrogant. I can’t say that I thought very much of

him, but he was a friend of Jay Brown’s, so I was cool with him. We

talked about music in general for a while, Jay-Z wandering around

my office checking out CDs, and Dame explaining his plan for how

Power could get behind them.

Hey, when it came down to it, it was about the music. I got behind

Who You Wit and then the In My Lifetime: Volume 1 album it came out

on. The first single was The City is Mine, with Backstreet. I had told

them it wasn’t the single and I was right: it tanked.

“Look, I love you guys, but this just isn’t a record.”

I know this was a particularly hard time for Jay-Z, as it was just

after Biggie — one of Jay-Z’s best friends — had been killed in L.A.

But like I say, I was behind him; I pulled the I Know What Girls Like

track with Puffy and Lil’ Kim, which to me was the logical single,

J A Y - Z 1 1 3

and started blasting it 40 spins a week (which is serious rotation

backed up by big promo). In no time, the record was a hit in L.A. and

I think, I hope, it helped them really solidify things with Def Jam.

Either way, I know they got a more generous budget to do the Vol.

2 Hard Knock Life album, which was Jay-Z’s “bridge record” — the

album that turns an artist into a star and, in his case, earned him his

first Grammy. The single Can I Get A … with Ja Rule made it onto the

Rush Hour soundtrack and really started the ball rolling.

What’s funny is, Jay-Z wasn’t even on that record in the beginning.

Irv Gotti, who was working as an A&R for Def Jam and had just

signed DMX, had originally produced that track just for Ja Rule. But

Jay-Z came into Irv’s office, heard that record, and wanted it as his

single.

It ended up working out for everyone, as the association with

Jay-Z and all the movie money behind it helped launch Ja.

We were seriously pushing the single at Power, and it was getting

some love from our sister station in New York, Hot 97.

The next single would be the biggest of Jay-Z’s career to that

point: Hard Knock Life.

But it didn’t come without a fight.

I’ll never forget the day I was in the office with E-Man on a call

with Steve Smith, the VP of programming for Emmis broadcasting.

He came down with an order for all 30 stations to not put Hard Knock

Life in rotation — or to drop it immediately if it was already on the

playlist, calling it “a novelty record.” And he wanted us to all pull

Can I Get A … as well, which had been out but still was working great

with the audience.

Steve said Jay-Z was over (I wish I had a dollar for every time

someone told me that Jay-Z was over … or Mariah was over … Snoop

was done ...). E-Man and I looked at each other in shock. We got off

the phone and met up with Steve and Sal Lackie in Sal’s office.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Can I Get A … is working. It’s still strong.


And E-Man and I both think Hard Knock Life is a hit. Give this thing

a chance. We can really run with it.”

Steve relented. He sent word out to all the stations to not drop the

record, and for those that hadn’t played it yet to add it. E-Man and

I got it on all 30 stations. As a collective, Emmis got Hard Knock Life

across the boards and seriously got behind Jay-Z as an artist, pushing

the single to more than 300 spins in one week.

That’s serious play.

We then got Jay-Z on a conference call with all the stations doing

promos. We pushed really hard and it worked. I’m glad. I loved the

record and it just made total sense to do everything we could to get

behind Jay-Z. I’m so happy it worked and sent him over the top.

As it was skyrocketing, I booked Jay-Z for a show at The Palace

in L.A. His record was doing great but he was really wary about

performing in L.A. in the

wake of Biggie being shot.

He told me he was seriously

nervous about being killed

himself because of the same

associations and asked to

go on first so he could get

out of the venue early. I

convinced him that doing

the show was the right thing

to do in terms of exposure.

“This way I can really

get behind you and support

you as an artist and promote

your brand. It’s all about

branding, brother.”

I also knew that if he

did the show it would give

ARNOLD TURNER PHOTO: Me and Jay-Z after dinner at Morton’s in

L.A. during which we put together the master plan for his reinvention.

J A Y - Z 1 1 5

me additional leverage with Val and Steve in terms of continued

support of Jay-Z, since even they’d see the logic in keeping behind an

artist who had come out and done a show for us.

Jay-Z was about security, but I assured him that I always made

sure artists were taken care of. I hired two off-duty cops to shadow

him the whole night, and I made sure he had a bulletproof vest if he

wanted to wear it. Before the show, he was eating at a restaurant on

La Cienega and got pretty tripped out and made a call for me to come

and get him. I walked into the restaurant and he was visibly upset.

“What’s up,” I asked. “Is everything good?”

“Where’s the security you promised me?” he asked.

I looked over to a guy sitting a couple of tables away and nodded.

He nodded back.

“See,” I told him. There’s one of your guys. The other

one’s waiting in the car behind your limo. This is how it works.

Everything’s good.”

From there on in everything was cool.

Or so I thought.

That night I learned that when it comes to Jay-Z, everything he

does is with a bit of a backhand. He did the show — an amazing

show — but he didn’t perform any of his hits. I don’t know whether

he was secretly pissed off at me for something or what, but it was

a real disappointment and while the crowd certainly got into the

show, I could tell they were let down as well. The next day I called

Jay Brown and asked him what had happened. He assured me that

Jay-Z didn’t mean any disrespect, but Brown didn’t actually have an

answer. I started to just think that — as great a talent as he might be,

Jay-Z’s basically a dick.

In the weeks and months to come he didn’t do much to make me

change my mind. He came in and did some more stuff for the radio

station, but every time I saw him he was so arrogant, always acting

like he was doing me this huge favor and getting nothing in return.


One day I called him up and said, “Power 92 in Phoenix is going

to do a citywide billboard campaign … let’s get you on it. You can be

on billboards all over Phoenix. Great exposure.”

He said, “How much they payin’ me?”

“Dude,” I said, “I’m going to get you on billboards all over

Phoenix. Get it? You’ve never been on a billboard. This is fuckin’ free

publicity.”

Well, he got it, thankfully, and did the campaign.

With Vol. 2 … Hard Knock Life taking off, Jay-Z was hitting

stardom, which was great. I was happy for him and thrilled about

whatever role we played in getting another artist and his music on

the map.

One of the coolest things I did at the time was with Power 106’s

promotions director, Diana Jason, who had come up with this great

idea of doing an awesome concert at Universal Studios, in which

acts performed at different locations all over the theme park. To me,

it was a dream come true, because I’ve always had a fascination with

Universal and love going there anytime I can.

We had Mack 10 perform at the Wild West Stunt Show (too bad

he had hay fever … sorry Mack!).

I booked Cypress Hill at the Nickelodeon stage, which maybe

wasn’t such a good idea, I realized, after a Universal security guard

got tossed down a set of stairs after trying to get B-Real to “put the

weed out.”

Oops.

Money Ain’t A Thang had just come out and I thought it would be

awesome to have Jermaine Dupri and Jay-Z perform it at the Conan

the Barbarian Experience.

Jermaine and I were always cool and I’d always been solidly

behind him, pushed him hard to get a solo record out and was a

major supporter of Life in 1472.

It was a great show and when Jay-Z came out, he brought along

J A Y - Z 1 1 7

Ja Rule to do Can I Get A … .

After the show was done, I walked over to the side of the stage to

thank him (there really was no backstage at the Conan the Barbarian

Experience).

Jay Brown came over to me and said, “Hey, I want you to meet a

friend of mine. This is Irv Gotti.”

I was excited to meet him because I knew how he was involved

with the signing of DMX and I was a fan of his production work and

knew it inside out.

I said, “You produced Hot Spot by Foxy Brown!”

He said, “How did you know that?”

I told him I studied producers and that I was starting to produce

myself. Irv and I struck up a nice acquaintanceship and I always

enjoyed talking to him when we’d run into each other.

By this time, I think Jay-Z finally realized, on a personal level,

that I wasn’t just some white boy trying to exploit hip-hop. For the

first time, he started being a little more open and a little less arrogant

and more trusting of me. We actually became friends for a while and

when we were in New York at the same time would very often dine

at Mr. Chow’s. Most nights it would be me, Funk Master Flex, Kevin

Lyles (president of Def Jam at the time), Irv Gotti, Jay-Z, Biggs (the

silent partner in Roc-A-Fella) and Dame Dash. They were great nights

of socializing and plotting our next moves, which only made sense,

since as companies — Def Jam, Roc-A-Fella, the consultancies and

Emmis’ Hot 97 in New York, Power 106 in L.A. and all the stations

in between — we were each other’s bread and butter.

But, man, it was tough at first with Jay-Z, like pulling teeth trying

to get anything positive accomplished. I mean, if somebody comes to

me for help, and I see some innate talent — someone who clearly has

whatever “it” is to become a star, I’m there, man. I’ll do anything to

help. Getting the music out and fostering the talent is what I love. So

many people have always helped and mentored me and done what


they could to boost me and I’ll always be grateful for any chance to

give back. I mean, count me in.

I recognized amazing lyrics in Jay-Z and while I admit that I

didn’t much like his early singles, his Reasonable Doubt remains one

of my favorite albums of all time.

Funny thing about some artists is that even the most natural

pairings don’t come easy, and it takes a lot of hoop-jumping to make

a little magic. Hell, to even get to the point of trying to make a little

magic. And once you’re there it’s still as unpredictable as lightning.

Like my pairing Jay-Z with Mariah.

I gotta tell you this about Mariah Carey: She is, and has always

been, a huge fan of radio. I mean, she has just got it: She could program

a station in her sleep and it would be one of the best things you’d

ever hear on the air. She knows that much about it and I’ve always

believed we can hear that on her albums. Truth is it’s probably one of

the reasons she and I connected on a personal level: We could talk for

hours on end about radio and music … where things had been and

where they might be going. The girl thinks ahead. It’s something she

doesn’t get enough credit for. She was doing mixtapes for my Baby

Ree label on the West Coast and started doing Clue/flex mixtapes on

the East Coast at the same time.

DJ Clue was one of the monsters at New York’s Hot 97 and he

ended up giving her the beat for Heartbreaker.

Mariah loved the loop but told me, “Yo, I need a rapper to get

on this.”

To me, it was a no-brainer: Clue was signed to Jay-Z’s Roc-A-

Fella, the Hard Knock Life tour had just started … it simply made

sense.

Jay was rising from the street, and Mariah was famous for

crossing underground artists and producers into the mainstream —

me included. I saw a full-circle chain reaction: Mariah (pop), Jay-Z

(street), Clue (underground), me, (radio and A&R), Steve Smith and

J A Y - Z 1 1 9

Mike Newman (the strength of Emmis’ 30 top stations) sending out a

worldwide tidal wave. It’s like throwing out a baseball the size of the

moon for everybody to enjoy.

Only one problem.

Mariah said, “I can’t call Jay-Z!”

Sorry, two problems.

Jay-Z said, “I’d love to … but I can’t call Mariah!”

So Damizza’s back on the ever-fun cross-country flight to NYC

to play creative matchmaker again.

I called up Jay and said, “Yo, let’s have dinner tonight. Meet me

at 7:30.”

He said, “I’ll be there.”

I called Mariah and told her the same thing … “Hey, let’s have

dinner at Chow’s … how about 7:30?”

I got there around 7 and Jay-Z and his dudes were already seated.

“Look,” I told him, “I invited a friend of mine.”

Even before I could explain what was going on, he excitedly told

me that he was planning to perform the single from the Ruff Ryders

album at the Hot 97 Summer Jam in New York — and since it had the

Snoop influence he wanted Snoop to jump out on stage and surprise

the crowd and perform it with him. Cool, I thought. Great idea. So I

pulled out my phone and called Snoop.

I got his machine and said, “Hey, what’s up, it’s Damion. I’m

here with Jay-Z and he wants to meet you.” I handed the phone to

Jay and he just looked at it and hung up.

I’m like, “What are you doin?”

Jay-Z said “I just can’t be leaving a message for Snoop Dogg,

what that look like?”

I said, “Dude, lose the ego! Come on!”

About five minutes later, Snoop hit me back and I handed the

phone over to Jay-Z. They kinda introduced each other and started

talking when Mariah walked in. She saw us, but sat down a few


tables away.

Fuck. More of this ego game!

So I walked over to her and said, “Come sit with us!”

She said, “You’re really doing this?” And I said, “Duhhhh!”

Artists can be like this. I mean, stars can be like this. Unless there’s

a big set up or someone personally does something elaborate and well

orchestrated as a go-between, stuff just not gonna happen. It always

has to be forced and, for some reason, I guess I’ve been blessed with

the ability to be a facilitator and make things happen. I think it’s

Granny’s influence, frankly … one of her favorite sayings is “The

impossible just takes a little longer.” God love her!

Anyway, I got Mariah to sit with us and started playing

kindergarten teacher … “Mariah, have you met Jay-Z?” It was

frustrating but it’s an easy role I learned to play. I moved to the other

side of the table and made them sit next to each other so they would

be forced to start talking.

“Oh, by the way, Clue just produced a single for Mariah’s next

album. It’s called Heartbreaker.”

I said. “Jay, Clue’s on your label … wouldn’t it be a good thing

to jump on it? And not just that, but I guarantee it’s gonna be an

international record, and you haven’t gone No. 1 pop overseas yet.

Don’t you think this would be a good idea?”

I didn’t even give him a chance to answer. “Plus, it will get you

into markets you never even dreamed of. Singapore, Asia … India …

the markets average artists can’t touch. And Mariah, shit, she even

slams Guam!”

It was a pretty good setup and they started talking. After dinner,

we decided to keep it on and hit a club. As chance would have it, we

all walked in and Puffy and Nas were there. Hate Me Now was just

coming out and it was a total party atmosphere. We all got faded,

arm in arm, dancing on the tables and wipin’ out Cristal like it was

J A Y - Z 1 2 1

water.

“What are you doin?” Puff asked me.

“I’m trying to get these two to do a fucking record together!” I

told him.

He laughed and said, “You always hustling, Dame.”

They didn’t end up in a studio that night, as I’d wanted, but they

did connect. Soon after we all met up again in Miami at a series of

Super Bowl parties … the same gang, and I kept up the push.

I wasn’t back in L.A. for very long before Mariah called me from

a studio in New York and said that Jay-Z was on his way down to do

the track. He loved it, and jumped on it right away. Mariah played me

Jay-Z’s part and I loved it. I told her, “Hurry up and finish it so I can

get this thing on the air!”

I had a copy of the finished record shortly after and was waiting

for the go-ahead from her label to hit the air with it. A few days later

a couple of Mariah’s reps from Sony came into Power.

“Hey, Damion, do you have a copy of Heartbreaker?”

I was like, “Yeah!”

“We got the green light. You can play it.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah, it’s good to go. We got the clearances … everything’s

done.”

Well, believe me, just about the next sound to come over the

Power airwaves was Heartbreaker.

Should have known the whole scenario was too good to be true.

The record hadn’t finished playing — literally — before one of the

reps rushed back up to me.

“I just got a call. Sony’s all pissed off that you’re playing the

record.”

Then my own phone rang. It was “Weezy,” Mariah’s manager at

the time.

“What are you doing? I just got a call from Tommy (Mottola)


freaking out.”

What a fucking setup. Tommy had sent the reps in giving me

the clearance but had the bus waiting around the corner to throw us

under it as soon as the track hit the air. Yeah, right, Damion, back off

a bit on the paranoia? Hey, I’ve seen it all. As soon as the shit came

down I knew what had happened. It didn’t surprise me and I’m fully

convinced it was Tommy’s game.

Tommy and Mariah had split but she was still signed to Sony,

though not for long, and he was doing everything he could to

sabotage her and anybody who dared go around her or, especially,

try to help her.

Despite his head-fuck games, the record got a good response and

we lined up to do the video. We got Brett Ratner to direct, which was

great. Everything else turned into the same old tooth-pulling game:

Jay-Z was being a pain in the ass about showing up and Mariah was

just generally freaking out as well because, I believe, of all the crap

Tommy was pulling trying to destroy her.

With Jay Brown’s help I got Jay-Z to the set. He was really

hesitant because in his mind he was still a street artist and his records

were hardcore and here he was with the pop queen Mariah Carey —

despite everybody, including himself, liking the record.

Damizza babysits again. But we got the video done and I remain

proud of it all.

For some reason it made Jay-Z even more wary, though. It was

harder and harder to get him to do anything. Part of it was the attitude

shift of him becoming a “Big Star.” Not that he was outwardly hostile

or returning to the arrogant personality that I’d first met. Whenever

we ran into each other he was like, “I have your back, Mizz. No

matter what you need me to do, I’ll be there for you.”

Great. I hit him up to do the next Powerhouse. “Jay, will you do

our Knowledge is Power charity?”

“Sure. I want 50 grand.”

J A Y - Z 1 2 3

And the story continued. I had been doing everything I could to

help out his career and get his music heard and when I ask him to do

a charity show he wanted 50 grand. And nearly in the same breath

he was asking me to get Snoop on the phone to do the Summer Jam

surprise cameo they’d first talked about when I’d first hooked them

up on the phone.

I totally get it: if it were a for-profit gig, but … every other artist

was doing the show for free. Not one even asked for money. I got pissed

off and called Jay Brown and said, “What is this guy doin’? I made

Steve Smith play Hard Knock Life all over the country … things have

come a long way and I got all this talk of havin’ my back and what’s

goin’ on? And he wants me to set this thing up with Snoop for him?

Well, according to Jay Brown, Jay-Z felt that I wasn’t being

supportive enough of a new act he had called Rell. Well, I guess I

wasn’t. I didn’t like the record but, I tried to explain to Jay Brown, it

didn’t mean I wasn’t supportive of Jay-Z. Again, if it hadn’t been for

the charity I would have said fuck it. But I played along with Jay-Z.

We gave him some money to do the show — I don’t remember how

much, actually, though I know it was a lot less than the 50 large he’d

asked for. I set him up in the presidential suite at the Four Seasons,

had the Cristal on ice for when he walked in, armed security, vests …

all that nonsense attention to detail to feed the ego.

And I did hook him up with Snoop. Snoop said, “Hell, yeah, I’ll

do it. Just send a private jet.”

I laughed my ass off. I expected Jay-Z to bail on that immediately,

especially since it was for Snoop to do a cameo on just one song. But

Jay-Z was down for it and sent the jet, which kinda blew my mind.

They did a great show for Hot 97.

When it came, a few months later, for the Powerhouse gig in

L.A., I gotta say Jay-Z came through, at least for the fans. He did a

really terrific job.

It’s not that there was anything really hostile going on between


me and Jay-Z but we didn’t have a lot to do with each other after that

charity show until about a year later.

I was out in New York right around the time the H-the-Izzo track

came out. I did not like that song, either. When I saw him, I told him

so. “It just doesn’t sound like Jay-Z to me,” I said.

He said, “I want you to write down on a piece of paper that you

don’t think this song is hit.”

I was more than happy to oblige. Jay took it and said “I’m gonna

hang that up on my wall! Sign that piece of paper and I’m gonna put

that shit up on my wall.”

Even though I didn’t like the song, I told him I’d play it and

support it. I’m the first to admit that nobody’s on point 100% of the

time and I’ve been way off the mark before with records I thought

would be huge but tanked and the other way around. I don’t know

anybody who’s never been wrong. And I was wrong with H-the-Izzo,

which went on to be huge and propelled the career of Kanye West as

a producer.

I was also wrong with a song called I’ll Do Anything that I

discovered he’d released as a bonus track on a CD in Europe, which

I’d picked up while on vacation in England. I loved that one!

“That’s the song you need to go with,” I told him.

He said he didn’t like it and that it was recorded only for foreign

release. Fuck that, I thought. I went back to L.A. with it and spun

it every hour, blasting it off big time. The feedback came back like a

pissed-off rattlesnake. Nobody at Power liked it and, more important,

the audience didn’t like it. Hey, when I’m wrong, I’m wrong! Go big

or go home, you know?

Funny thing is that I’d given it so much airplay it did take on a bit

of a life of its own and they ended up shooting a video for it — even

though Jay-Z never liked it himself. It tanked.

He was right. I was wrong.

When he was first letting me hear the tracks around the H-the-Izzo

J A Y - Z 1 2 5

release, he asked me about my own production work. He wanted me

to play him some beats. I was happy to, and played him a song I’d just

recorded with Bone Thugs-N-Harmony.

“Yo! I need one of those,” he said.

I kept going through some of the tracks I had with me and hit one

that set him on fire.

“I want that,” he said.

I told him that I already had Nate Dogg on the hook.

He said, “Oh, that’s cool. I’ve always wanted to do something

with Nate Dogg. Can you send it to me?”

When I was back in L.A., I sent him the track with Nate’s vocal

on it. A few days Jay-Z called and said “Yo, I wanna use this song,

but I don’t like what Nate Dogg did on it. Can you take him off ?”

I told him no way, I’d given the beat to Nate first.

“If you want to do it, I’m sure I could get Nate to sign off on it,

but I’m not gonna take Nate off just to give you the beat.”

The track was called Wet Your Lips. Jay-Z never did anything on

it and it’s never been released. Just another gem that to this day sits

in my vault.

That night in New York when I was playing tracks for Jay I asked

him if he was interested in hearing what Dre was working on with

Rakim, whom he’d just signed.

“Hell, yeah, Rakim is one of my favorites of all time!”

I said, “Listen to this one, The Watcher Part 2.”

I played it for him and he was all over it. “I have to get that

record,” Jay-Z said.

He asked me to call Dre and hook it up for him to use on his

next album. Gotta hand it to the guy, when he goes after something

creative, it usually happens. The Watcher 2 with Rakim and Jay-Z

ended up on his The Blueprint 2: The Gift and The Curse album.

But when it comes to business, I think Jay-Z can (like us all) be

his own worst enemy. He’s a great rapper, did a great job designing


clothes for Roc-A-Wear and is clearly a smart guy. But his partner

Dame Dash was, in my opinion, the true brains behind the biz of

Jay-Z. Whenever Jay and I clashed, I went to Dash or Jay Brown

(who really took Jay-Z into superstardom) and it would get worked

out.

But when they separated and Jay-Z took over as president of Def

Jam, the magic, as far as I’m concerned, went off into the ether. And

that’s when all the bitterness and in-fighting started.

One day I was sitting in my office and I got a call from Rick

Cummings, the president of Emmis. He said, “Look, Tracy (the PD

of Hot 97) is freaking out because Jay-Z jumped ship.”

He had begun doing drops for a new Manhattan hip-hop station,

Power 105, which had begun competing with Hot 97. Exactly what

happened I’m not sure, but for some reason Tracy got pissed at Jay-Z

and pulled his records, so Jay-Z got pissed off right back at her and

after years of supporting the station, Jay-Z went across the street.

Rick ordered me to go to New York to clean the mess up. My first

call when I got into town was directly to Jay-Z.

I said, “Look, dude, they’re pulling me into Hot 97 because

Power 105 is now a threat. I can’t do this without you! You are New

York right now. So what are we doing?”

Jay-Z went into a rant against Tracy. I said, “Look, you’ve known

Tracy for years. You guys have a problem and I will fix that. Trust

me. I’ll get the records back on the air. You just have to stop and get

off 105. Please, stop cutting drops.”

“Mizz,” he said, “I’ll do that for you. I won’t make any more

drops. But fuck Hot 97.”

I was like, “But Jay, I am Hot 97 right now.”

He said that didn’t change things — the station did not have his

support because of Tracy and what had gone down. To this day, I

don’t know what happened. Neither one of them ever told me. But

at that point, our relationship came to a standstill and we stopped

J A Y - Z 1 2 7

talking. Well, I should say we just didn’t have any reason to talk any

longer. He stopped the love for Power 105 as he’d promised but as far

as Hot 97 and I went, it was all dead air in his mind.

I kept up my end of the bargain because it just made sense. It

was stupid to drop the records and I immediately got them back

in rotation. I mean, like I always say, it’s about the music, not the

personalities. We played the shit out of Girls, Girls, Girls, the stuff he

did with Pharrell, and the whole cascade of hits he had right up until

he became president of Def Jam and I bailed from radio.

But Jay-Z seemed to be keeping things personal, and not just with

me.

Mariah called when she was doing Shake It Off for The Emancipation

of Mimi, which was on Def Jam. She said, “I can’t believe it. He’s the

president of the label but he won’t get on the remix because I did a

remix to It’s Like That with Fat Joe.”

At the time, Jay-Z had a beef with Joe so he turned Mariah down

flat.

After I left the radio business, Jay-Z sent me a platinum plaque in

the mail. Out of the blue. Weird. Never, in any of his album credits,

did he ever give me a shout out or thanks. But I got this plaque and

thought, “Shit, well, that was nice. I’d better call him.”

I rang up Def Jam and asked for Shawn Carter (Jay-Z’s real

name). Whoever answered the phone asked who I was.

“Damion Young,” I said, and got an earful of attitude. So I said,

“Listen, can I talk to Carlene, please.”

Carlene was Jay-Z’s assistant for years, and she took the call.

“Damion, what’s up?”

I said, “I’m just calling to thank Jay for the plaque.”

Jay came on the line and was really nice, as friendly as I’ve ever

heard him.

“How you been?”

I told him I was fine, and that I really appreciated the plaque.


“Yeah, man, thanks for everything. So what do you think of your

girl Mimi (Mariah)? She’s doing pretty good, huh?”

I’m like, “Yeah!”

“We did really good numbers, and I always knew she had it.”

My bullshit alarm went off because I thought he was staying

arms-length away from her for no good reason, and that it just didn’t

make sense not to get on the remix. But I didn’t say anything.

It was “Thanks for the plaque, see you sometime.”

Jay-Z brought up the inevitable question: “So, you’re not at Power

anymore?”

I said, “No, I’m working with DJ Quik, consulting on his album

Trauma.

“Yeah,” he said. “I just did a song with Quik called Justify My

Thug for The Black Album.

I said, “Oh, well, he’s doing this mixtape for Trauma and maybe

you could do a drop for it.”

He told me that he didn’t do that anymore.

“Come on, Jay,” I said, “This is DJ Quik. He just did something

for you.”

Jay-Z said, “Well, for you and Quik I’ll go ahead and do it. Just

email what you want me to say and I’ll knock it out.”

I emailed the things, but never heard back from him.

The next time I was talking with Jay Brown, I asked him, “What’s

up with Jay-Z? It’s weird. One day we’re cool, one day we’re not. Is

it me that’s doing something wrong, or is it him?”

Jay Brown assured me that there were no problems, and that

Jay-Z had always appreciated what I did for him. Well, okay, I

thought.

When the Jay-Z and Friends Tour with Pharrell rolled around,

I decided to go. Backstage, Jay-Z saw me and said, “Damion, how

you doin’?”

I said, “Yo, Jay, what’s up!”

J A Y - Z 1 2 9

He said he was about to go on, but told me he was wanting to get

back in the saddle and do some stuff.

“Get my numbers from Jay (Brown),” he said. I thought that was

a little cheesy, pulled out my cell phone and said, “I’ll just punch it in

now, man,” but he turned and said, “Yeah, get it from Jay.”

After all those years of us helping each other, and admittedly,

some tense times, he’d totally gone Hollywood, I thought. Dame

Dash was no longer around after an unfortunate public spat with

Jay-Z, and Jay had become one of the hottest stars in the world and

our relationship had suddenly become “call my people.”

I saw him at a Clive Davis dinner a few months later and we

slapped hands. “Gone Hollywood, huh?” I said.

“No,” he said, “You’re Hollywood.” I kept on walking by him

into the party.

I wondered what the fuck I’d ever done and basically settled on

the idea that he was an asshole and that’s all there was to it. But that’s

not all there was to it. I remembered back to 2000, when Jimmy Steel

pulled me in his office and said, “Look, we’re doing this Radio Music

Awards thing. It’s ABC, Arbitron … it’s all to give awards to people

who’ve had huge success in radio. There’s SoundScan, Billboard, you

know …. We need to get Jay-Z to come on the show.”

“No way,” I told him. “Jay-Z doesn’t really do award shows.”

Remember, I had trouble getting him to do billboards in Phoenix!

Jimmy said, “Well, let me get you on the phone with Vaughan

Freeman. He’s the guy producing the show. Whole thing’s his idea.”

I was shocked. Vaughan was the promotions director of KIIS-FM

and Clear Channel — the direct competitor for Emmis and Power in

Los Angeles.

“Isn’t that a conflict of interest?” I asked him.

“Well,” Jimmy said, “I’m consulting on it. Vaughan used to be

my promotions director in Dallas. Big Boy’s gonna host it, and we’ll

get Shade Sheist (who was Emmis’ artist at the time) on it.”


It put me in a bad place ’cause I didn’t have a whole lotta choice.

Jimmy got Vaughan on the phone.

“What’s it gonna take to get Jay-Z on the show?” he asked me.

“There’s this whole thing with the Internet where we can have

someone in a studio someplace else accept awards. He can be the first

one to do it.”

Well, that was true; it was the first time the ’Net was used on an

awards show. Vaughan also upped the ante and said they’d give Jay-Z

the Rap Song of the Year Award if he’d participate in the show and

accept it via Internet. If you haven’t noticed by now, a lot of those

award shows are bullshit. They’ll make up awards to give to people

so they’ll show up. Higher star factor can mean higher ratings which

means higher profit. Ain’t rocket science.

I called Jay-Z and explained the situation.

“They guarantee you’ll win the award … you’ll be the first to

do this kinda Internet thing, and it will be on national TV. On top

of that, all of radio’s gonna be there. You’ll get Clear Channel’s

support, Emmis’ support … and the new program director of Power

is a consultant on the show.”

Jay-Z came on board and said he’d do it.

Night of the show, he was sitting in a studio in New York. I

was at the show, which was at the MGM Grand in Vegas. I ran into

Vaughan and he said everything was gonna be great. I went up to

the sound booth to watch. All of a sudden someone says, “Now the

nominees for The Song Bumped Most in Your Car are …” and then

all of a sudden, “Jay-Z!”

I was horrified.

I looked up at the screen and saw Jay’s face. He was horrified.

Vaughan told me he was gonna win Rap Song of the Year. I told

Jay-Z he was gonna win Rap Song of the Year. Instead, they made up

a bullshit award that sounded corny as hell. You could tell as he was

giving his acceptance speech that Jay-Z was really uncomfortable. He

J A Y - Z 1 3 1

had a look on his face that said, “I can’t believe I just got punked on

live national television.”

I don’t think it was 30 seconds before I got a call from Dame

Dash. “What the fuck! What the hell is this!”

I said, “Look, dude, I don’t know what’s going on. That’s not

what was planned. I got screwed.”

“You got screwed!” Dame yelled. “Jay looks like an asshole!”

Fuck, do I hate that feeling like your guts are going to sink down

and settle in your Nikes.

I said, “Let me call you back.”

I walked up to Jimmy and said, “Yo, what the fuck just happened?

You said it was gonna be Rap Song of the Year.”

Jimmy said, “I don’t know, talk to Vaughan,” and just walked

away. I couldn’t believe it. No way was he gonna own up to any

responsibility for the show, despite raking in some huge coin as a

consultant. The second somethin’ wasn’t right, he had nothing to do

with it.

I found Vaughan and confronted him. “Well,” he said, “you won

Music Director of the Year … we’ll send you your plaque.”

I was like, “Fuck, dude, what do you mean I won? I don’t give a

shit about what I won — you just seriously screwed one of my artists!

How do you think that makes me look? I look like the asshole!”

Vaughan didn’t care. He got his show and got Jay-Z to do a guest

spot and that’s all he cared about. I explained it all to Jay Brown, to

Dame Dash and to Jay-Z, and they seemed to accept that it wasn’t

me that fucked them over, and we never talked about it again. I still

feel like the asshole in that one, even though they’d forced the lie out

through me.

That was the beginning of the end for me and Jimmy.

People in hip-hop don’t really look at it from a business point of

view a lot of times. I mean, if it don’t make dollars, it don’t make

sense, that’s one thing; but if your boy tells you something and you


guys are homies and some shit goes down, you’re responsible. So

when it came to Jay-Z, I was the one with bullshit on my sleeve and

I’m the one who shoveled it.

But looking back, I realize that it was right after this that things

had started to get a little weird with Jay-Z and me. This is when I

thought he started acting like a dick, when he started asking for 50

grand to do the charity show and I thought he was being incredibly

difficult, when I thought his ego was getting in the way of doing some

great music and that getting anything done was like pulling teeth with

him. Maybe I was the dick. As I look back, I realize that maybe it was

my ego that was the problem. Look, he discovered Rihanna & yeah, I

was trying to do everything I could for this guy to become a star. Yet

at the same time I was telling him I thought his singles sucked even as

they were selling millions of copies and he was winning Grammys;

maybe it was me subconsciously fighting him all the way rather than

the other way around because I was 21 years old, a powerful radio

exec who’d had almost nothing but huge success in the business and

thought I knew better.

Yeah, I was able to help the guy out a lot. But it’s pretty humbling

all these years later to realize that when it came to Jay-Z, for the most

part, I didn’t know better.

Maybe that’s why I didn’t get invited to his wedding!

M A R i A H C A R E Y 1 3 3

M A R i A H C A R E Y

“Don’t Forget About Us”

There is only one woman I have ever been in love with. And my

love for her is exactly the reason I had to leave.

Like most of us, Mariah Carey is a complex person. There’s the

icon, the incredible performer and artist. And there’s the Mariah

most people don’t get to

see. She’s really down to

earth. She’s brilliant. She’s

extremely funny. She’s

generous, outgoing, fun

loving and so sweet. And

she’s so beautiful. She

truly worships music and

knows more about radio

than I do. Before the hair

and make up people get

to her … first thing in the

morning, before she puts

on the superstar mask,

she’s at her most beautiful,

I think. Here’s something

you don’t know: Mariah’s

got the prettiest freckles!

Who would think, from all

ARNOLD TURNER PHOTO: Mariah and me on the set of the I Still

Believe video in Los Angeles ... the photo she kept beside her bed for

the few years we had together.


those videos and publicity photos, that those gorgeous high-boned

cheeks are peppered with freckles.

But throughout her life, people have not been honorable and

not treated Mariah the way she deserves to be treated. The only

thing she’s ever been able to depend on is her talent. And make no

mistake: Talent can rise above whether someone is commercially

successful or happens to be fashionable at the moment.

But since it’s been the one thing Mariah can always count on,

rather than the people in her life, her personal relationships have

always been tenuous. I think she runs — hey, who doesn’t, in his or

her own way — into a persona when she feels scared. As a result,

anything that gets between her and her ability to retreat to what she

thinks is her only safe place can quickly become casualty. Especially

intimate relationships.

Since she’s a superstar, she’s surrounded by people scurrying for

her attention 24/7. Managers, lawyers, businessmen, assistants and,

frankly, flunkies trying to catch some of the wave each compete

to get, and stay, close to her. That’s the power of association,

especially with such celebrity.

Whether it’s in her best interest or not doesn’t seem to matter to

many of these people. To be fair, there have been people in Mariah’s

life who are genuine, but separating the wheat from the chaff ain’t

easy. Especially when you’re shoulder high in such a vast field.

That’s where I found myself with her: Deeply protective of

the wonderful woman I knew while clashing with the suits who I

thought were most interested in protecting their own stake in her

career. I tried so hard to protect her. It’s one reason I refused credit

on a lot of the stuff we did together: I knew if the industry knew

how much I had to do with Mariah it would be nothing but bad.

Radio would hate on stuff she did purely by virtue of my position at

Power 106, and the music business would become highly suspicious

of her ties as well. So we had a lot of fun coming up with aliases


for me. Mariah’s a big movie fan, just one of many reasons we

clicked, and our patter always included random quotes from some

of our favorite flicks, like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Weird Science.

If you look in the booklet for the Glitter soundtrack, there’s a credit

on the track “Loverboy to Wyatt of No Fear of Chet Productions.”

Well, there’s no such person or production company. Wyatt’s the

character from Weird Science and Chet was his older brother in the

film. To us, I was Wyatt, and Chet represented the music industry.

One of our many cool inside jokes.

It started when I was at Power 106. I was walking down the hall

and Michelle Mercer said, “Hey, by the way, Mariah Carey is gonna

call in 30 minutes to say thank you for playing Allure.”

Allure was the first act Mariah signed to her Crave

Entertainment label, and the track Head over Heals featuring Nas

was, quite by chance, the first record I’d officially added to the

station’s playlist after being named music director.

“If you wanna be on the call, come into my office,” Michelle

continued. I said, “OK, sure.”

A couple minutes later, the front desk called me and said there

was a package for me. I walked in, grabbed it, and I opened it up.

It was an advance copy of Mariah’s “Butterfly” album, along with

a note from Liz Pakora at Columbia Records. I had known Liz for

a long time, since her Priority Records day. Her husband, Frank

Lazano, got me on the air for the first time at Power 106 during his

guest DJ night feature.

There was also a note attached which said “Just in case some of

these records leak, here’s a copy of the Butterfly album. Please don’t

play anything yet!”

I was thinking, “Mariah Carey? On a rap station?” I loved her

music, and remembered thinking back when I bought the “Fantasy”

single that it was hard to believe somebody could be so beautiful

and so talented. But as music director, I couldn’t really see a logical


fit.

I went into my office and popped the CD in the player, and hit it

to play random tracks. The first one was song called The Roof, which

had a sample of Mobb Deep’s Shook Ones Part 2 on it. I thought,

“Wow, what a crazy record! How are you gonna get a Mobb Deep

sample on a record with Mariah Carey? I wonder who did that?”

So I looked at the credits and The Trackmasters produced it. I

said, “Those guys are incredible producers. They come up with the

craziest shit!” Mobb Deep’s Shook Ones Part 2 is one of my favorite

records of all time.

I’d kinda spaced out listening, but snapped to when Michelle

buzzed and said, “Mariah’s on the phone.”

I got into Michelle’s office and heard Mariah on the speaker

phone. “… I just want to thank you guys for playing this record. It’s

the first release on my label.”

Michelle started schmoozing right away. “Oh, you’re welcome,

Power is …” I interrupted: “That’s all cool, Mariah, but where did

you come up with a ‘Shook Ones’ sample?” She laughed and said,

“Oh, you like that, huh?” I said, “You’re Mariah Carey! How do

you know about Mobb Deep?”

She laughed again and told me she was from New York — she

had always been a huge hip-hop fan and knew all the music. “That

was my idea. I love Mobb Deep and love that record.”

I said, “Well, then you know Survival of the Fittest? ” She said,

“Hell yeah! I love that shit. I grew up listening to WBLS, (a black

music station in New York.) Who is this?” I said, “I’m Damion

Young, I’m the new music director here. She said, “OK, well it’s

nice talking to you,” and that was it.

Next, I went to an industry dinner for the Butterfly album. A

bunch of label brass was there, and they were trying to get all the

radio stations to play “Honey.” I said, “Look, I like the song, but

Power’s a hip-hop station and I don’t think it would fit.” They said,


“Well there’s a remix coming with Puffy, Ma$e, and The LOX.” I

said, “OK, well get that to me and we’ll talk about it!”

We started playing the remix in light rotation, and then we went

to the release party of the album. I thought it would be funny if I

had water shots while I got E-Man drunk off real vodka shots. I

slipped the bartender a $50 bill and we were good to go. Even after

two or three shots, E-Man was wasted. But my joke backfired. The

place was filled with industry players like Donny Ionner, Charlie

Walk, the senior VP of promotions, all kinds of people like that.

E-Man, drunk out of his mind, goes, “Yo, I love the record. But

Damion is gonna drop it next week because he thinks its whack!”

Everyone looked at me like I was a jerk for the rest of the night.

In the office the next day, I got a call from Jerry Blair, who is the

senior VP of pop promotions for Sony Records. He said, “So you

don’t like the record?” I said, “No, it’s not that, it’s just not testing.

You’ve gotta understand, we’re a rap station!” He said, “Well here’s

the deal. Mariah’s gonna go to the Sony Studios in Los Angeles.

She’s gonna do some interviews. If you want, we can have your DJs

come down, interview her, and use it for whatever show you want.

I said, “You know what, we’ll pass.”

He said, “What do you mean? This is Mariah Carey we’re

talking about!” I said, “If she’s not gonna sit down and talk to the

listeners one on one, then we don’t want any part in it. Why would

we want to go and tap on the glass and said, ‘Hi, how are you?’” He

said, “You know what, let me call you back.”

Five minutes later, the phone rang. “Hello, Damion. Mariah’s

on the phone. Tell her what you just told me.” In my mind I was

like, “Shit!” But I told her what was up. “Here’s the deal, Mariah.

We’re a rap station. If you don’t come and at least answer calls and

interact with the listeners, then there’s no reason for us to do this.”

Jerry says, “How are we supposed to do that with KIIS-FM, The

Beat, and you, all in Los Angeles?” I said, “Well I’ll tell you what.


Do it on a Friday, and go to everyone else first. Come here last, for

our night show.” He said, “What?” I said, “Go to KIIS-FM and do

Rick Dees in the morning. Then in the afternoon, do Theo at The

Beat, because he’s the highest rated, and then come here at night

In the back of my mind, I’m thinking, “Rick Dees is on his way

out and he’s boring. So he’ll ask generic questions. Theo is arrogant,

and he’s just gonna ask questions about himself. Then at the end of

the night, she’s gonna end up at Hot 97’s sister station with Cherry

Martinez, a female DJ, with our Ladies Night Show. Missy Elliot,

Aaliyah, and all those types would always stop by that program.

Jerry said, “What do you think Mariah.” Mariah asked me, “Do

you think that would be a good idea?” I said, “Yeah, it really

would.” She says, “So I’d actually go into the radio station?”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

“Because people are sick of seeing that little girl in a glass box.

You need to actually touch people.”

She goes, “Hmm. All right.” And they set up the date.

When the night of Mariah’s interview came, I was sitting in my

office listening to Cherry. She set her show off with a bomb, telling

listeners “You know what question I want to ask Mariah Carey? I

wanna know if she smokes weed!”

We’d been promoting Mariah’s visit heavily, and I had the top

Sony suits sitting in my office and we were all waiting for Mariah

to arrive. I wanted to jump out the window. My phone rang. I really

wanted to jump out the window.

It was Jerry Blair. “I don’t know what happened, but what the

fuck did Cherry Martinez just say? I just gotta call from Mariah …

she stopped the limo.”

Screwed. Maybe they’ll just be nice and throw my ass out the

window, I thought.

I ran to the studio to find out if Cherry had lost her mind and


pleaded with her to cool it with the questions that would doom us

all.

Back in my office, I waited. About five minutes later, Blair

called again. “She’s back on the road. She’ll be there in 15 minutes.”

About 20 minutes later, the phone rang again. “Yo, she’s

downstairs. But she’s not coming up until you, personally, come

down and talk to her.” I was thinking the worst: I am gonna get my

ass chewed by Mariah and then she’s going to slam the car door

in my face and drive off. I walked downstairs to the back entrance

to the Power building and there was a big black limo. Before I

got close, Mariah stepped out and pegged me. “Are you Damion

Young?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Ha! Let’s go.”

We started walking together into the building not knowing what

to say or do.

“How are you doin?”

She said, “Wow, you’re pretty young to be music director.”

I joked, “I started when I was five.”

I was standing a little bit behind her, and all I could notice was

how hot she was. I was like, “Christ, she is incredible!”

I don’t get star struck and simply like people if they’re nice and

don’t if they’re not … I assume everyone deserves respect until they

prove me wrong. But this woman was so beautiful I know I was

blushing. I was probably radiating heat like blacktop in August. I

was so embarrassed!

Mariah, on the other hand, was so cool. “So, do I smoke weed?”

Gawd. “I’m sorry about that,” I said. “Cherry didn’t understand

why that would be something outrageous to say. Please don’t worry

about it …”

“No,” Mariah said. “It’s cool. No problem.”

When we got to the studio door, Mariah said, “I’m not walking


in until the light’s on and she’s on the air.”

Power employees and Sony execs were buzzing around and

everyone had an “oh shit” sort of expression they were trying very

unconvincingly to hide. Michelle Mercer looked at me like, “If this

doesn’t go right, I’m going to kill you. Slowly.” I longed for my

office window!

Mariah had a huge purse with her, which she picked up when

the on-air light came on. She walked into the studio.

“So, Mariah Carey, how you doin?” Cherry said into the mic.

“So, you asked a question on my way up here,” Mariah said.

Cherry was the one now on the spot. “I’m really sorry about

that.”

Mariah said, “No … valid question. Do I smoke weed? No. It

messes with my voice. But I’ll tell you what I can do.”

Cherry says, “What?”

Mariah says, “I sure as hell can drink Dom Perignon!”

She pulled two glasses out of her huge purse, along with a bottle

and quickly popped the cork. “Have a drink with me. It’s ladies’

night!”

I thought, “Oh my god! That bitch is cool!”

After the interview was done, Mariah came out of the studio

and said to me, “Were there some drops you needed me to cut?” I

definitely wanted some, so we went to the recording booth. She told

me she usually didn’t like the way her voice turned out on drops, but

I assured her it would be fun and that she’d be happy with what we

came up with.

I went into the board op room and said over the intercom, “All

right, we’re the sister station of Hot 97. Just feel at home and say

whatever you want.”

Mariah got into it and was soon laughing and having a good

time. When we’d recorded a few drops she said, “Hey, thank you,

Damion. You know what, you’re really funny.” I said, “What do


you mean, funny!” She said, “It’s cool — it’s good to meet someone

young. Hopefully, the next time I’m in L.A. we’ll hang out or

something.”

In my mind, I thought, “Yeah right. Mariah Carey is gonna

call me up to go hang out.” Right before she walked out the door,

she turned around and said, “The Roof?” I said, “‘The Roof ’” is a

great record.”

“I just did a remix version,” she said, “and Mobb Deep actually

raps on the record now.” I said “Really? I wanna hear it!” She said,

“Well it’s not mastered yet, and tomorrow is Saturday. Monday

or Tuesday, I’ll get you the record. Tell me what you think.” I

was excited, but honestly, I thought this was the last I’d hear from

Mariah Carey.

It was around my birthday, so I headed home to Santa Barbara

for the weekend. When I got back into the office on Monday,

there was a FedEx package on my desk from something Maroon

Entertainment. I opened it up and there was a CD and handwritten

note from Mariah. “Here’s the version of The Roof with Mobb Deep

on it. Sorry there’s no artwork. I had a great time, thank you so

much. Hope you like the record, Mariah.”

Power had been playing her track Breakdown with Bone Thugs-

N-Harmony but it wasn’t really working with our audience, so and

I started pulling it out of rotation. Somebody at Sony told Mariah

that I’d abandoned her project, and it wasn’t long before I got a call.

One night, Jerry Blair rang me up and said, “Yo, someone wants to

talk to you.” Mariah came on the phone and said, “So, you don’t

like Breakdown?” I said, “Look, it’s just not working for us. I am

playing The Roof, though, and there’s only so much I can do.” She

said, “Well, at least you’re being honest with me.” I said, “Yeah,

that’s just what it is.”

Things got really relaxed and we started chatting. “So, what’s it

like to be Mariah Carey,” I asked. She said, “Well, I’m on the beach


in Australia right now, walking around.” I said, “But it’s gotta kind

of suck sometimes, with everyone comin’ at you with all the bullshit

all the time.”

“Nah,” she said. She commented that there were occasionally

uncomfortable times having her ex-husband the head of the label

she was on, but she didn’t elaborate.

We ended up talking for about an hour and a half, about music,

the station WBLS and her huge love for radio. She said, “Keith

Naftley broke my career. My first show was at KMEL and I was

so nervous. Hot 97’s my favorite station.” I asked her how she

knew so much about radio and she said, “I just love radio. I totally

grew up on it.” At the end of what turned out to be an amazing

conversation, she said, “I’ll call you the next time I’m in L.A.”

A few days later, Jerry Blair called me again and said, “Mariah

would like you to go to Hawaii to see the show.” Sony offered to

fly me out and put me up, but I didn’t want to get mixed up in any

politics, so I told him that I’d love to go, but that I’d pay my own

way. He said they were all staying at the Kahala Mandarin. Man!

That hurt the pocketbook, but I sucked it up and booked myself a

room.

I got in and settled into my room, had a shower and headed to

the show, which was great — one of those things you can count on

in life: Mariah Carey gives it her all for her audiences. Afterward,

Jerry said, “Let’s go backstage and see Mariah.” As soon as she saw

me, Mariah came over and gave me a hug and said she was happy

I’d come, and wondered what I thought of the performance. I told

her the truth — it was amazing! She said she had to do a meet-and-

greet and then film a thing for MTV at a nearby water park.

“I’ll see you over there?”

I said she would.

The shoot was being hosted by Bill Bellamy, with Lord Tariq

and Peter Gunz and others performing. Mariah was doing a little


spot and when they cut for commercial, she noticed me standing

watching from a little footbridge. She nudged Bellamy and gestured

for me to come over. I walked over to the set and she said, “I’m

almost done. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

I was kinda bored and tired and was thinking of heading back

to the hotel. I ran into Jerry who told me Mariah had asked that I

meet her in her trailer. I walked over and saw all this security and

thought it would be a huge hassle, so I turned around. One of the

security people called out to me, “Hey, Damion, Mariah’s expecting

you, where you goin?” I thanked the guys and walked up to the

trailer.

Mariah was inside, chillin’ with Tracy Wapels and her assistant.

I sat down on the couch and Mariah put her legs up on my lap. I

thought I was gonna have a stroke! There has never been a woman

with more perfect legs!

She invited me to join the entourage for drinks at the hotel to

meet with a group she’d just signed to her label.

I freshened up in my room and then joined them in a hospitality

suite they’d had set up in the hotel. I was glad I’d dropped the coin

to stay at the same place as Mariah and the tour staff, despite the

cost. It was a nice, low-key get-together. Which made it all the more

shocking when the room went silent except for a really weird sound,

and everyone looked over at one of the dudes in the entourage who

was passed out on the bed, pissing himself. Immediately, Mariah,

Tracy and I headed for the door. Tracy headed off for her room and

Mariah held my arm and walked me to my room.

She said, “I’m so glad you came, it was so nice to see you.” I’m

like, “Oh my god, she’s the queen of smooshing! This is great.”

We said good night and she went to her room.

The next morning, I walked downstairs and I saw Jerry Blair.

I said, “Yo, I’m about to leave,” and then all of a sudden I was

embraced by two arms reaching around from my back. It was


Mariah. She said, “Thank you so much for coming,” and she gave

me a kiss on the cheek. I thanked her for having me, and then she

said she’d call me the next time she was in L.A.

In all, it was a pretty surreal weekend.

Three or four weeks later, Mariah called me again. “Hey, how

are you doing? I’ll be in L.A. next week. I’ll call you. What’s your

cell number?”

Things were absolutely nuts for me both at Power and the

outside world. I was driving into Hollywood from Burbank to meet

Dr. Dre for the first time and was pretty spaced out at the prospect

of hanging out with one of my biggest heroes. I didn’t even notice

that my cell phone had a message on it. I picked it up and saw that

I’d missed a call from a 917 number. I didn’t know anyone with a

917 number. I tripped the message and heard, “Hey Damion, this

is Mariah, call me back at …” and left me her cell number. I called

and she picked up on the first ring. “Hey!” she said, excitedly.

“What’s goin’ on? I’m coming into L.A. for a photo shoot. Why

don’t you stop by?”

She gave me the details and I agreed to meet her there a few

days later.

When I arrived at the shoot, the first person I was introduced

to was Mariah’s brother, Morgan. “So, you’re Damion,” he said,

shaking my hand. I knew right away he was a great guy. “My sister’s

in there” and pointed the way.

I hung out and watched the shoot for a little while, and

exchanged waves with Mariah. I then sat down in an area off the

set for a little while as the circus was going on. Mariah came in, sat

down next to me and put her legs up in my lap again. “Where you

been!” I said I was trying to keep out of the way. It was great to

see her again and we chatted for a while and then she said, “Hey, I

gotta go — ride with me back to the airport.”

I said, “Sure.”


A few weeks later, I was in New York and Mariah called and

invited me to dinner with Tracy. We were talking about all the

various projects we were each in the middle of when my cell phone

rang. I wasn’t going to answer it, but looked down to see who it was

and was a bit puzzled to see another 917 number I didn’t recognize.

I picked up. “Hey, this is Steve Stoute.”

I said, “Steve Stoute? What’s up?” (He was the president of

Black Music for Sony.) As soon as I said his name, Mariah looked

at me in horror and gave me the “cut-off-at-the-neck” signal. I told

him I’d call him right back.

Mariah was upset. Before I got a chance to say anything, Steve

called again. “Where are you?” I said, “What do you mean, where

am I?” I started to get a little pissed off at how pushy he was being.

I mean, who the fuck did this guy think he was? “Are you at dinner

with Mariah?” I said, “That’s a little weird, man.”

“Where are you right now?”

Well, there was no way I was telling this guy where I was or

what I was doing or who I was with. “This is a little weird, bro. Are

you watching me? What the fuck?”

He said, “No, I just need to talk to you.”

He obviously knew where I was. He told me he was in a

restaurant just a few blocks away, and asked if I’d get a cab and

come and see him. I told him I’d be there in a little while. Mariah

was freaked. “What are you doing?” I told her I’d deal with it and

that I’d be right back. I said, “Don’t worry.”

I flagged down a cab in the rain and got to the restaurant. The

maitre ’d walked me to a private dining area downstairs and I

walked through, seeing Steve and Tommy Mottola seated. “Damn,”

I thought. “Here we go.”

Tommy looked at me and said, “Hey, your jacket’s a little wet.”

I took it off and handed it to the maitre ’d.

“So, you know my ex-wife?”


“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve met her.”

“Are you fuckin’ her?”

“What? What did you say?!”

He slowed his speech and repeated himself. “Are you fuckin’

her?”

I said, “Look — there’s no way I’m gonna talk about her with

you, understand? This ain’t cool.”

Tommy then said, “You know, we have a lot of use for people

like you. All you’ve gottta do is just move to New York.” I said,

“Why would I want to move to New York?” He said, “Well, I could

make you a lot of money.” I said, “For what?” He said, “All you’ve

gotta do is tell me what she does.”

I said, “Yo dude. That’s crazy. Come on. You can’t buy me.” He

sharpened his stare and then wrote his cell number on the back of

his card and slid it across the table. I said, “You know what? I’m not

interested.”

I got up, and Steve Stoute grabbed me, saying, “Look dude, you

don’t understand. You could make a lot of money, and you need to

choose your friends wisely.”

I said, “I’ve already chosen, and this is some shit I don’t want

to be a part of.” Then Steve says, “Yo man, why don’t you roll with

me.” I look at the dude like he’s out of his mind. “Roll with you?” I

turned back to Tommy and he said, “Yeah. Spend the evening with

Steve. We have a few things that you might want to see. There’s

some records we want to play you.” Reluctantly, I got into the car

with him.

He took me to The Hit Factory, we went upstairs, and Jennifer

Lopez was standing there. After introductions, Jennifer goes, “I just

want to get played on Tha Baka Boyz show.” I said, “Oh really?”

They started playing me her songs. I said, “Those are techno

records. We don’t play techno records any more.”

Jennifer glared at me with a total “You son of a bitch!” look.


I glanced at Steve and laid it out for him: “None of those records

is hot. What do you want me to do with that shit?” Steve said, “All

right, let’s go somewhere else.”

We got back into the car and he took me to another studio. I

walked in to see Nas sitting there. Nas got up and said, “Nice to

meet you.” Steve told us we should hang out for a while and he

walked off. Nas said, “So, what’s up with you?” I said, “Ah, shit,

you know,” and gestured in the direction Steve had gone. “Yeah.

Tommy Mottola!” Nas started laughing. I said, “Yo man, this Sony

shit is crazy.” He goes, “I know.”

I had a nice time with Nas and Steve came back in and offered

me a ride back to my hotel. Kinda creeped me out that he already

knew where I was staying.

In the car on the way back, he said, “You need to pick who

your friends are.”

From the time I left Mariah and Tracy in the restaurant, my

phone started ringing and I’d turned it off. When I got back into

my room, I turned it back on and there were several messages from

Jerry Blair and Mariah. Hers seemed kinda panicked, “Please don’t

not be my friend because of this. I need to talk to you, please call

me back.”

I called Jerry first. “Ah, dude,” he said, “you threw me under

the bus!”

I said, “What are you talking about?”

“Tommy Mottola asked me why we didn’t pay for your stay in

Hawaii.”

I told Jerry again that “I’m not doin’ that. This is the kinda shit

is exactly the reason I paid my own way. I’m not gonna be hostage

to anybody over some shit like an airline ticket or hotel rooms.”

Jerry said he understood, but explained that his Sony boss was

mad at him for introducing me to Mariah. “Well, Jerry, I’m sorry,

dude, but I don’t give a shit about Tommy Mottola.”


I then called Mariah back. She seemed pretty freaked out. I tried

to calm her down immediately, figuring this was a situation she’d

been through many times already and had lost several friends over.

“Yo,” I told her, “don’t worry. I’m on your side. I basically told

them to fuck off.”

She was relieved but said, again, “Please don’t not be my friend

because of this shit.”

Mariah didn’t mention the situation again until one night we

were out for dinner in L.A. “Did Tommy scare you?” she asked.

“Nah, it’s cool. It’s all good.”

About two years later Mariah and I were having dinner in Mr.

Chow’s in L.A. when she looked over and rolled her eyes at me.

“What?” She gestured to another table, “It’s Tommy.”

He and Steve Stoute were there. Tommy came over and was all

friendly, standing behind Mariah, rubbing her shoulder. It was super

creepy, and Mariah was clearly uncomfortable.

“Do you know my friend Damion?” she asked. Tommy said,

“No, we’ve never met,” and extended his hand. I wasn’t playing

along. “Yeah, right,” I said.

As time went on Mariah and I became closer friends. I really

enjoyed talking to her because it was almost always about music —

what we’d just heard that was great, or something we’d heard about

that we were really excited about getting to listen to: We’re both

enormous music fans and it showed.

One day, I was in my car listening to some beats I’d made

when she called. We started talking like always when she asked

me, “What’s that in the background?” I said, “Oh, it’s a beat I just

made. I just did it for Ja Rule and Irv Gotti. It’s called If You Were

My Bitch. ”

Mariah started humming to it and said, “I could sing over that!

Send me some beats!”

I’m like, “Really?” She said, “Yeah, I really want to hear some


beats.”

I put a few beats down on a blank cassette and, by the last one,

got a little impatient, figuring she was just being really nice to me

and that she wasn’t going to listen to the whole tape anyway, so I hit

the stop button.

The day she got my FedEx package, she called again. “Yo, I

listened to those beats and they’re cool … but there’s this one track

at the end that got cut off. I really like it. I want it for the remix for

‘I Still Believe.’”

I was floored. It was something based on the Willy Wonka beat

— and she hadn’t even heard very much of it!

“You know Krayzie Bone, right?” she asked. “Yeah, sure.”

“We’re talking about doin’ this Thugline deal,” she said. “I

know Da Brat, and you know Krayzie. Why don’t we get them on

board and meet at Westlake Studios sometime next week and cut

the record?”

“Hey,” I said, “I’m down.”

The next week, I was in the studio with her engineer, Dana Jon

Chappelle. Mariah called and said she was delayed doing a video

shoot for the original version of I Still Believe, but that she knew

where she wanted to go with the remix, and that she’d be there in a

few hours.

“Cool,” I said. It was a bit unnerving, but I was glad that I had

some time with Dana before Mariah arrived, because I didn’t have

a lot of experience in this kind of setting. “I don’t know anything

about this shit,” I told him. He was really cool, and started showing

me the ropes of what he did.

This was the first time I got to experience Mariah’s energy and

amazing work ethic. The girl had spent all day and the evening

on some Air Force base shooting the video, and she showed up at

the studio at 1 a.m. to begin recording. And she was pumped and

totally prepared. We spent all night recording and when she left, she


was on her way back to the base to finish the video.

Late that following night, Mariah had had a bit of a break but

was back in the studio with us working on the I Still Believe remix.

It was really funny … she turned and looked at me and said, “You

need a name!”

“What?” I asked.

“As a producer, you need a producer name.”

“What are you talking about?”

Mariah is one smart girl — I hadn’t thought about the big

picture. “You don’t want anybody knowing you’re doin’ this!”

A bit of an uncomfortable situation, what with being Power’s

music director and all. And, as she very astutely pointed out, “If

Sony knows about his, they’re gonna hate on it immediately.” Oops.

She was so right.

“So … what do we call you? Mmm. Dame … Dame …”

Tracy was there and said “Hey, I’m gonna go over next door

and say hi to RZA.”

Mariah lit up, “RZA … Damizza! That’s your new name!”

That was cool!

“Damizza,” I said. “OK, that’s it!”

Thank you for that, Mariah and Tracy.

I was havin’ a blast, but I had never produced a record before

and wondered what I was doing here in the deep end. I called Carl

“Butch” Small for advice. He said, “Hey, chill out man, you’re doin’

all the right things. You know the shit. This is what happens ….”

A couple of days later I told some people at Power that I

was going to New York for the weekend and that I’d be back on

Monday. Of course, I didn’t tell anyone I was going to mix my first

record.

Mariah loved it — and so did Sony.

Back in L.A., I was getting worried about where this was going

to go. Adam Favors, who had move over to Interscope, came into


my office. I said, “Hey man, listen to this record.” He said, “Dude

that’s gonna be crazy! Oh my god!” I did this same thing with

E-Man and he goes, “Yo, that’s crazy! As soon as you get that, we

need to play it.”

Yeah, great, I thought. But can Power really be playing my own

remix?

Then I heard the track on The Beat.

There was no more hiding from this one. Sony had released it.

I called a meeting with Steve Smith and E-Man and said, “Look,

I apologize, but this is a remix I did, and it was on The Beat first.”

Steve said, “Fuck it! Put it in rotation.”

I did, and it immediately placed No. 13 with listeners. I don’t

remember how many days later it was No. 1 at Power and began

popping internationally, while the original version was stalling.

Mariah herself was really pushing The Damizza Remix.

Aside from telling a select few at Power the story, I was trying

to keep it under wraps. Then I got a call I won’t forget. I was driving

down Barnham Boulevard in Burbank and answered my phone. On

the other end was Sony’s Lisa Ellis, and said, “Yo, you’ve gotta be

feelin’ pretty good, Damizza!”

I didn’t know what to say, except, “What?”

“We were wondering who ‘Damizza’ was. I traced it back to the

studio. Damion Young produced this record.”

“Oh shit.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t say anything.”

Of course, there was no way this was going to stay a secret for

too long. I’m surprised I kept it quiet for as long as I did. Tommy

and the whole Sony system ended up finding out that “Damizza” is

Damion Young but it never came back to bite me in the ass. At least

by them. No matter how pissed Tommy was at me, and as much

as he was trying to torpedo Mariah’s career, there wasn’t much he

could do about her having a record produced by me when it was


screaming up the charts.

A few weeks went by and Mariah called me to say that she

wanted to do a video for the remix as well. She said she’d pay for

it herself if Sony wasn’t on board. She just needed a low-rider, she

said. And Power 106 had one! During shooting, I was in the back of

the car with Krayzie, drinking Hennessy and having a blast. It was

crazy. At one point, we were walking through the set and Mariah

said, “Hey, where’s Damion?” I was just behind her, and she turned

and said, “Walk up here with me.”

She said, “I love you! This song is great! Thank you so much.”

Very cool moment. I felt so happy and proud. This was even

better than radio.

I was hangin’ at Power’s Christmas party and got a call from

Mariah. “What have you heard of Luis Miguel?” she asked. I had

no idea.

“Who is Luis Miguel?”

She said, “No, really, what have you heard about him?” I said,

“I don’t know anything about Luis Miguel.” Mariah started making

fun of me, “Well, Damizza, you’re at a Latino radio station, figure

it out!”

I asked one of the girls who worked in the office, and she said,

“Oh my god! He’s the biggest Latin singer!” She also told me some

rumors that didn’t sound too hot. I called Mariah back up and I

told her what I heard. She goes, “Well he’s asking me out to dinner

tomorrow night.” I said, “Well have fun and let me know what

happens!”

She called me the next day and said, “Luis is kind of nice. He

spent all this money to get a private room. What do you think?”

I said, “Well, shit, I don’t know. Enjoy yourself !”

Mariah had taken a bit of a beating in the press after her

divorce and then her high-profile relationship with Derek Jeter. “I

don’t know,” she told me. “After that I really haven’t been out with


anybody.”

I said, “Mariah, come on! You gotta enjoy life. Fuck all the

bullshit.”

Not long after she called me again to ask about him, saying that

he’d invited her to go on vacation with him.

“That’s awesome,” I said. Mariah wasn’t so sure. “I don’t

know that much about him,” she said, obviously still smarting

from the way the press treated her while she was dating Jeter. “I’m

not going to sleep with him,” she said. “Why are you telling me

this,” I answered. “Well, you’re my friend. Tell me what you think.

Honestly.”

I said, “You were cooped up in Sing Sing (her slang for the

massive Bedford, N.Y. mansion she felt imprisoned in when she was

married to Tommy) for so long … go out and have some fun!” She

agreed.

About three days later, her assistant called and said, “It’s

Mariah’s birthday comin’ up, and Luis is taking her to Jamaica. Will

you go with them? I said, “Why would I go with them?” She said,

“She really doesn’t feel comfortable with Luis yet, and she wants

to have a couple friends there.” I said, “OK, I’ll go.” So we meet at

LAX at this hangar — the first time I’d ever been on a private jet.

Luis was cool as shit, and we turned into drinking buddies.

One day I told Mariah I was working on a Damizza Presents

record. She said, “What am I gonna do on it?” I said, “Are you

kidding? There’s no way that we’ll get the clearance from Sony for

you to appear on it.”

She said, “Well, play me some of the beats at least.” We drove

to a convenience store by the beach, and Luis fell asleep in the car.

We listened to the beat for what would later become If You Were

Mine with Shade Sheist. We were going back and forth with it, and

then she sang, “Chickens will try” and I went, “To get at you.” We

ended up writing the whole hook for that song together. She said,


“Marilyn Monroe used to call herself Sugar Cane, so just say that

Sugar Cane wrote it. And you keep the publishing.”

After this, she started calling me every time she was in L.A., and

we became good friends. I went on vacation with Luis and her again

later that week. This time we boarded the Gulfstream and went to

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Mariah said, “Well it’s one degree hotter

in Acapulco, and that’s where Luis lives, so let’s go to Acapulco.”

I was like “whatever,” and we all got back in the G5. We were

about 12,000 feet up, and a white mist started to fill the cabin. The

oxygen masks fell out of the ceiling, and I looked at Mariah like,

“Oh shit!” Then Luis and I look at each … “Wow, we’re really

gonna die!” The plane was going down fast, and I thought for sure

we weren’t gonna make it. The flight attendant hit the deck, Mariah

and her acting coach were crying, and it was total chaos. Luis and I

shrugged our shoulders. I got up amidst the chaos and picked up a

bottle of vodka. I handed him a glass, I took a glass, and we poured

each other drinks as the stewardess yelled at me. We put the oxygen

masks on our head like hats. As the plane was losing altitude, we

were hitting the vodka. Hey, if we’re gonna die, at least we’re gonna

die having fun, I thought. Thankfully, the pilot regained control,

and we set down for an emergency landing. We went straight to a

club and got really crazy.

The next day, someone decided we could have even more fun at

Disney World, so we got back in the plane and headed for Florida.

Hey, what were the chances of two emergency landings in one

week?

The madness didn’t stop. We were on someone’s yacht and

Mariah decided she was going to cook dinner for everyone. That

left Luis and me with nothing to do, or so we thought. The yacht

was in its slip and I looked down and noticed a golf cart on the

dock. Drunk as hell, Luis and I took off when we thought no

one was watching which, when you’ve got security all around


you and you’re faded out of your skull, is basically never. I was

driving. Well, sort of. “Damizza, turn right!” I turned left and Luis

went flying out of the golf cart. His security was in another cart

right behind us and they stopped and picked him up and started

screaming at me.

“Damizza,” he said in his thick Latin accent, “From now on I

will drive!”

I returned to L.A. and was back to comparable sanity for a few

weeks when Mariah rang me up. “Yo, I’ve got to go to Korea! Luis

really wants to go and I don’t want to go by myself. It’s a Michael

Jackson show. He’s sending a private jet for me. Will you please

come?”

“Hell, yeah!”

“OK, I’ll call Michael back and tell him we’re coming.”

I was certainly looking forward to meeting Michal Jackson, but

all this flying around the world with Mariah — and getting my ass

back to Power in L.A. — was taking its toll. I was exhausted, and I

went straight to bed when we got to the hotel in Seoul, slept through

the night and didn’t hear my wakeup call the next morning. The

call that woke me up was from one of her assistants, who said “Yo,

where are you? We need to leave in five minutes. Mariah’s already

in the car. She won’t leave until you’re down here.”

I threw my clothes on and rushed downstairs. I walked out

of the hotel into Mariahmania. There were thousands of fans

swarming, screaming her name. Mariah had never played Korea

before, and it was nuts. I’d never seen anything like it and, actually,

it was kind of scary. We had a huge military escort to the venue.

Someone backstage let me in on what had gone down and the real

reason we were there — Michael was booked into this huge 100,000

seat stadium, but ticket sales had been soft, and had plateaued at

only a third of the venue. He’d called Mariah. Hey, smart business

and PR decision. The place sold out right after her appearance was


announced.

We were all hanging out in Mariah’s dressing room, talking,

when she came up to me and asked if I wanted to meet Michael

before the show. “Yeah,” I said, “I’d love to.”

We walked down the hall through a mass of security guards

and we went into another dressing room. The only lights on where

those around an old-fashioned vanity makeup mirror. Michael was

standing in front of it, doing his shoulder-dance thing, practicing

moves. I looked to my left, and there was this kid who looked

exactly like Enrique Iglesias, dressed in an outfit that matched

Michael’s. He saw us and smiled.

Mariah said, “Michael, this is my best friend Damion. This is

Luis Miguel, and this is Trey Lorenz. I was struck with how slight

the superstar was. But he was so nice I can’t begin to describe the

feeling of finally meeting his majesty, the King of Pop.

During his performance, Luis, Mariah and I stood at the side

LOUISE MCNALLY PHOTO: Mariah and me on the ill-fated G5 flight shortly before something went wrong with the plane and the oxygen masks dropped and we ended up

making an emergency landing in Mexico.


of the stage to watch. It was stunning. And one of the strangest

experiences of my life — after each song he came over to us and

had an ongoing conversation with Mariah as if the performance

itself was just this thing he had to get out of the way. Don’t get me

wrong, his performance was incredible and when he was in front

of the audience he wasn’t cheating them out of anything; he was

giving it his all. But what was so bizarre was that he’d come over

when the lights went down. Billie Jean ended and he came over and

went into a conversation that he’d been having with Mariah. He

walked back out and went into another song and spectacular dance

routine, flinging his hat into the crowd. When that tune was over,

he was back at the side of the stage. “So, what I’m saying is …”

It was amazing. The only thing I can compare it to is a Broadway

performer who knows his or her lines and routines so well it’s

ingrained. It’s like when he was performing, he didn’t have to think

about what he was doing.

After the show, we were at the side of the stage, where he had

a costume-change area, hanging out. I was getting kinda bored

and excused myself to wander around and see what was going

on. I’ve always liked seeing what the machine is like on such huge

productions. I mean, it takes hundreds of people to put on such

extravagant tours, and sometimes it’s hard to believe such amazing

experiences come out of such apparent chaos. I know the drill and

was keeping out of the way, just enjoying the moment, when a guy

on crutches came up to me and laid into me. “Hey! Who the fuck

are you!”

“I’m Damion. I’m here with Mariah,” I said, a little taken

aback. “Well, get the fuck outta here!” I got pissed off and said,

“Fuck you. Who are you?”

“I’m Michael Jackson’s head of security.”

“So?”

He asked me again who I was.


“I told you who I was.”

He went nuts, and started really talking shit. Mariah’s road

manager saw what was going on and came over to tell the dude to

lay off because I had access. But the douche bag kept up. I thought,

“Fuck this noise,” and went to Mariah’s dressing room to wait for

the ride back to our hotel.

Looking back, I started to laugh. I remembered that I’d recently

done an interview with the L.A. Times and they’d asked me about

Michael. I said I was a big Michael Jackson fan, but that I thought

his new album was whack. Then it dawned on me that somebody in

his camp read that!

Every two days after that trip, like clockwork, Mariah and I

would talk on the phone. One time, we went outside to my car when

we were at Luis’ house, and she heard the beat for Crybaby. She

said, “I’m gonna do that! I’ve got an idea.” She recorded the song

and she called me up. “I’ve got it done, but I want Snoop Dogg on it

… and we have to get it done by tomorrow because I have to turn in

the album to Sony.”

In panic mode, I called up Snoop and said, “Hey! Wanna do a

record with Mariah?” He said, “Hell yeah. I’m in New York but I’ll

be home tomorrow. Come over to the house.”

My trusty engineer Mike Schlesinger and I drove over to

Tha Dogghouse the next afternoon. It was another one of those

spontaneous experiences that I’ve almost learned to expect.

We walked in and there was legendary producer Battlecat. And

Kurrupt, whom I’d never met before. Battlecat said, “Hey, man,

what are you up to?”

I said, “I did this record with Mariah Carey, and Snoop’s gonna

get on it.”

Kurrupt said, “You’ve worked with Mariah?”

I said, “Well, yeah, I did the I Still Believe remix and now we’ve

got this —” Kurrupt broke in, “The one with Da Brat and Krayzie


Bone? That’s one of my favorite records ever, cuzz!”

I was kinda blown away, not expecting Kurrupt wanting to be

in on a Mariah Carey track. “You know that record?” He said, “Yo,

dude, I’ve always wanted to do something like that. We have to get

down, man!”

Whew! This is Kurrupt — the greatest battle rapper, freestyler,

gangsta rapper of all time in my book. He’ll tear up anybody’s

ass. And he was sittin’ there telling me he wants to do an “I Still

Believe?” Damn!

We were on a tight deadline with the Mariah record, so we got

down to work right away. I got her on the phone for Snoop, and

I could hear them going back and forth on how they wanted the

record to sound. Snoop was like, “Yeah, yeah. ‘Baby don’t cry.”

Yeah, I get that. Cool. You fly, Mariah! I love you. When I was in

jail, I used to listen to ‘Vision of Love.’ That was my shit. It’s an

honor to work with you. All right baby, I gotchu!”

We started the session. Snoop was listening to the beat, over

and over, writing verse. Battlecat came over to me and said there

was a problem. “The mic’s not working. We couldn’t get it to work

earlier.”

Shit! We had about an hour to get this down and mixed.

“Good luck, bro,” he said. The room was full of chronic smoke

and everybody was starting in on at least a contact high. Snoop

was riffin’ “Baby hear me when I say, a playa feelin’ good today.” It

was tight — except for the fuckin’ mic! Mike was playing with the

fader, Battlecat had a flashlight under the board trying to trace the

chord and I was in the booth with the mic, all trying to figure out

what was wrong. Battlecat finally found the problem and we got it

working. Then Snoop nailed it in one take and Mike and I headed

back to The Record Plant studio to mix it.

When our brains had cleared from the smoke and our feet were

back on the ground, we discovered that there was a lot of bleed on


the track — a low buzz in the background, dogs barking and homies

yelling. Mike’s a genius, though. He sorted it out and we took some

of Snoop’s adlibs from the verse, sampled them and I flew them

all over the track. By the end, the record was thumpin’. It sounded

like a Dr. Dre or DJ Quik song. It had a true West Coast mix on it.

It wasn’t compressed, it was big, bright, thick and sounded like a

movie. Just what we wanted.

These were the days before we had broadband Internet and were

able to e-mail tracks back and forth. And nobody trusted the mail

or even FedEx, so we’d send somebody on a plane to hand-deliver

CDs. I remember a few occasions where I’d send somebody on a

plane to Italy, where Mariah loves to kick back. The messenger

would land, catch a boat over to the island of Capri, go up to the

studio, give an engineer the package and then return to the U.S.

It took off on radio & retail all over the world and got lots of

critical acclaim and remains one of her fan favorites.

Mariah called me and said, “We gotta do a video for it.” Snoop

said he wasn’t going to come to the set, but that we could send a

crew to his house. That’s what I did, and they filmed him in front of

a green screen to insert his scenes in the final cut.

It was with Crybaby that I think there was a shift in my

relationship with Mariah, though. I was still trying to do my gig at

Power but she was increasingly relying on me more on the business

side of her life.

Every time she was in L.A., we were together around the clock.

Whenever something happened with Sony, I would get a call asking

how she should handle it.

Mariah’s assistant was great and God bless her. But she’s no

manager. Not many people can handle managing the swirling circus

of that kind of star machine. But a strong manager is vital. At this

time, Mariah didn’t have one. When something came up, she’d talk

with members of her camp, talk with her head of security and then


she’d talk with me and mull over what she’d been told. Normally,

she did what I suggested.

Things were looking a lot better after she got out of her deal

with Sony and away from the politics of Tommy Mottola and

his friends. Virgin offered her a record-breaking deal — reported

in the media as $100 million — to sign with them, which was

groundbreaking and everything, but I advised her to turn it down.

“That’s awesome,” I said, “but the company’s fucked up and

they don’t know what they’re doing. I know, they’re offering a lot

of money and have a good marketing plan, but they need to have a

better infrastructure. You gotta look at the label as a whole.” There

were rumors of management instability near the top, and I was very

uneasy about it.

I said, “Listen, Clive Davis just started his own label. I think

Clive is where you need to go.”

She said, “I’m not gonna go sign with Clive. He’ll want creative

input on my music, and no one is gonna have creative input on my

music, ever.” I said, “You don’t understand. If you sign with Clive,

it’s a wrap. Screw the advance, it’ll be the right hands to be in.” She

said no.

I knew what Mariah was up to: She always wanted to be in

movies, and she had at this point been chasing the idea of doing

Glitter. And it was being handed to her, along with Virgin Records’

golden carrot and plans to go wild with the film’s soundtrack as

their first Mariah release.

I did everything I could to talk her out of it. “Whoa, wait a

minute,” I said. “This ain’t the way to go. You’re gonna do the

biggest deal of all time, then you’re gonna put out a soundtrack

as your first release? That’s creating a new brand. It’s a major

soundtrack of an indie movie …. You expect Virgin is gonna

know how to work this instead of a regular album? It’s gonna get

destroyed. There’s no way this will work. Please, Mariah, wait on


the movie. Take this slow. Do a solo album first, at least. They’ve

never worked a Mariah Carey record before.”

It’s not what she wanted.

I was frustrated that I just went back to L.A. It was the first time

I walked away from her. I stopped taking her calls. She signed with

Virgin. And that’s when the shit storm started.

Mariah flew to Canada to begin filming Glitter and started

working on the album at the same time. Almost immediately,

financing fell through on the film. She was working around the

clock and I think she knew she was in way over her head. She was

managing herself, A&Ring her record, and trying to deal with

everything else at the same time. When she was with Sony, there

was a team in place. But with Virgin, the record company was

looking to Mariah and asking, “So, how do we go about breaking

this record?”

Shit. This time I hated being right. The next time she called I

answered. “I haven’t slept for two days,” she said.

“I haven’t eaten. I have to shoot this video for ‘Loverboy’ and

finish the record and I’m only three songs deep. I have to be done

with the whole thing in a month, and I’m still filming the movie.”

I just listened. She sounded desperately tired. Exhausted. Then she

kinda surrendered. “The label doesn’t know what they’re doing.”

I said, “I know the label doesn’t know what they’re doing. Nancy

Barry (then the head of Virgin) called me and asked me how they

should release Glitter.

On one hand, I thought, “Why is everyone calling me?” But

Mariah was my best friend, and though I’d been angry that she

hadn’t listened to me begging her not to sign with Virgin or do the

film, I had to help her. In my book, everything else comes second

when friends need my help. That being said, getting my ass to

Canada wasn’t so easy. Power was without a program director at

the time and I was basically running the station. I was also at the


time negotiating a new contract with Emmis, straddling Hot 97,

working with Dre, Eminem, Bone, and all the other stuff I’d gotten

myself into. Thankfully, I struck a deal in which I wasn’t required to

physically be in the station eight hours a day five days a week. On

the one hand, this was good. On the other hand, it wasn’t because it

let me kinda run wild. It’s when my drinking started to escalate. I,

too, was working myself way too hard, and sometimes when people

do that, a surprising and nonsensical side effect is insomnia. Despite

exhaustion. I needed to drink myself into a stupor at night just to

fall asleep.

When I finally saw Mariah, I was worried for her. She was

spent. Yet, like me, wound up so tight she couldn’t see the forest

for the trees. I sat down with her and joked with her a little bit and

she calmed down. But it got to the point where she could only fall

asleep if I was in the room. So many different things were coming

at her that I don’t think she ever felt like she could let her guard

down. An assistant, a lawyer, anyone, could walk in at any moment,

MARK SUDAK PHOTO. The only time I shared the stage with Mariah, here at the Universal Amphitheatre, performing What

Would You Do with Nate Dogg.


24 hours a day, and it would startle her. So I would be there. I

became that guard dog.

I knew going in that it was a relationship rife with danger. There

were times I thought I could drop my radio career and give up

producing records and just be with her forever. But those feelings

never lasted long. We talked about it. One time, Mariah said to me

that “This business ruins relationships for me. Don’t let it ruin this

for us.” But I just knew it would. I had a gut feeling that at some

point she wouldn’t need me anymore. Besides, such a one-sided

relationship wasn’t healthy for either of us.

But in the moment, I was willing to do anything for my friend.

Mariah was scattered, understandably. “I’m having a lot of trouble

putting this record together,” she said. “’Loverboy’ isn’t done. I’ve

gotta get Busta Rhymes to do a track … and … and, I just can’t get

it all done. I need your help.”

I said, “Tell me what you want me to do. I’ll do it.”

She said, “I’ll just cut you a check to oversee the project. Will

you be the executive producer of the Glitter soundtrack?”

“Whatever you need, Mariah. I’m here for you, you know that.”

I tried to get a handle on what was going on in terms of the

record. I went to see Ludacris at Westlake Studios a few days later.

He was overjoyed to be appearing on the record. “Dogg, you know

you’ve made it when you’re on a Mariah Carey record.” I asked

him to let me hear what he’d come up with and he played me a

sample from Cameo, which later did indeed turn into Loverboy.

But the record, as far as I was concerned, was a mess. There

was Ludacris appearing on it, and an artist he was trying to break,

Shawnna. And Da Brat had a track, along with an artist she was

trying to break, named 22. It was too much.

I called Mariah and told her what I thought. “OK. You’re going

out on a new label. You’re doing a soundtrack for an independent

movie, which no one is expecting. And you have two big artists and


two unproven artists on the record.”

She said she wanted to help break new talent. I appreciated

that, but told her she was on fresh ground herself and that it was

too much, too soon. Just like doing the movie and everything else

at once. But it’s what Mariah wanted and I decided to just hunker

down and do what I could.

I went to New York to get Busta Rhymes on the Last Night a DJ

Saved My Life track. It was no easy task, in terms of both time and

money. But I took care of it. We were going back and forth like

crazy. I’d be in New York one day and then have to fly right back

to L.A. the next. It was hideous. And, keep in mind, I was still

working at Power and Hot 97. Chronic 2001 was blowing up, I’m

doing Powerhouses, plus I was working on Nate Dogg’s album. It

was mind-bending the amount of things that were happening. A lot

of shit was going on, and Mariah was exhausted. So was I!

By the time we got to the Loverboy video shoot, something was

clearly going to have to give. Mariah’s stress level was redlining.

She was getting one or two hours of sleep every 24 hours — usually

between takes. She wasn’t eating or drinking. She couldn’t, so she

thought, take a five-minute break or the whole world she’d created

would come crashing down.

At one point she said to me, “ I haven’t eaten since I don’t

know when.” I sent an assistant to get her a sandwich, but Mariah

was so stressed that she just couldn’t eat. I was worried about her.

She’d be all perky and come alive when she needed to in front of

the cameras, but then collapse in a chair and continue on with

something else. “I’ve got to get back to New York,” she said at one

point. “I’ve got to mix one last record.”

By the July 4 holiday weekend, she was back in New York and

getting a little rest and nourishment and I was visiting my family

back in Santa Barbara. I was out near the ocean flying kites with

my little brothers and getting some much-needed downtime myself


when my cell phone rang. It was Tommy Mottola’s former right-

hand man Steve Stoute, who by then had moved over to Interscope.

He said, “Hey Damion, Eminem wants to meet Mariah Carey. Give

me her number.”

“No,” I said. Immediately, I thought, “This is not good.” As

soon as I see or hear from Stoute, it’s a red flag because of the

whole history with Mariah and Sony and Tommy.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Eminem wants Mariah to read for a part in his new movie

(which would later be 8 Mile),” he said. Shit. I knew that if I called

Mariah and told her Eminem wanted her to read for a part in a

movie it was going to be a nightmare. “Steve, I’ll call you right

back.”

I called Mariah and told her that Eminem wanted to meet her.

She, too, was cautious. “For what? I don’t want to end up as one of

that guy’s diss songs, so if I talk to him, you’re on the phone with

me.” I had to tell her the truth, knowing full well where it would go.

I said, “Listen: Up front, I don’t think this is a good idea. I

know him and he’s a cool guy. But I can’t control this situation. This

is not gonna end up in a good place. I’m telling you right now this

is bad. And if you get into a relationship with him and it blows up

it will be ugly and there won’t be anything I can do for you. I don’t

want that responsibility.”

She told me to relax, and that it would be all right so long as I

was on the phone with them.

I called Steve back and told him how it was going to come

down — that I’d call Em and hook him up with Mariah and that I

wasn’t letting him in on the call. “Why,” he asked. “Dogg, get real.

All those years at Sony … you’re one of Tommy’s best friends. No

way.”

I called Eminem and told him that I was going to get Mariah

on the phone. “She’s one of my best friends,” I warned him. “She’s


been through hell and back and I don’t want to see this end up

fucked up and I won’t be in the middle of it if it does.”

Em said, “No, dude, it’s nothing like that. It’s nothing

personal here, I just want her to read for a part in the film.”

My little brother Jason was about 10 at the time and he asked

me what was going on with this flurry of phone calls. I told him

that I was hooking Mariah and Eminem up. He started laughing

and said, “Good luck with that one.”

The kid’s got it. He’s a little version of me. Only smarter … he

wouldn’t have made the call.

I got Mariah on the phone and introduced them. Eminem said

he wanted her to go to Detroit. She said, “Well Damion, when we

do the album release party in New York, let’s just stop in Detroit.”

I said, “No, you can stop in Detroit. You guys should do a song

together if you’re gonna work together.” I noticed the conversation

was going OK, so I put the phone down and came back every five

minutes or so. About 20 or 25 minutes later, they were off the line.

Mariah called me back and said, “You’re going with me to

Detroit. You’re not leaving me alone with this dude.” I said,

“What?” She said, “Well first things first, he said he wants me to

play his mom in this movie.”

That immediately kicked into her insecurity. She was like, “I

want to play the love interest!” The truth was that, once we saw the

script, she wasn’t young enough to play the love interest and wasn’t

old enough to play the mom either. It didn’t take much imagination

to know that he didn’t actually want her for the film, but I couldn’t

convince her of that.

Before anything else happened, we were gearing up for the

release of Glitter and the big bash in New York. I was going through

my mail and found a package from Virgin. It contained a 30-second

clip of the rap version of “Loverboy.” I was furious. They truly were

fucking this up, I thought. Here’s how records work: Momentum.


Don’t let anybody hear shit. Drop the record to radio and push it to

No. 1 by virtue of promo and massive spins. Get as many stations

behind it as fast as possible even before the possibility of a negative

radio programmer reaction, taking advantage of the sheer fact that

nobody wants to be late to a party, and if a record’s truly going to

soar, everybody wants to get in on it early. That’s what works.

I called Virgin and said, “What are you thinking sending out a

snippet of “Loverboy?” The dude was all proud of himself. “Yeah,

it’s great, isn’t it! That was my idea!”

Exasperated, I said, “Why would you do that?”

He said, “Oh, radio stations are going to loop it and play it.

That’ll be great, won’t it!”

Well, no, I told him. “I am your radio station and I sure as hell

won’t play a 30-second loop of ANYTHING!”

I called Mariah. I really didn’t want to upset her but she needed

to know ahead of time that this thing wasn’t going to work the

way she’d hoped. “Keep in mind that your pop fans and radio

are already mad at you because you’ve done so many rap records

… and here Virgin’s sending out a snippet of the rap version of

“Loverboy.”

Her head was in the clouds, however, and she figured it would

all be as beautiful as roses filled with summer rain.

We met up at the New York album release party and I told her

that I was exhausted and really didn’t want to go to Detroit with

her. “I’ll meet you in L.A. I’ve got to get back to Power.”

Next thing I knew I was on the plane with one of my business

partners in my Baby Ree label, Sujit.

To Detroit ....

It was about 2 in the morning when we landed. Eminem picked

us up at the airport himself and we headed toward his place.

Everything seemed to be going great at first, at least between them.

They were talking and laughing and had all sorts of ideas about


collaborating on music and, of course, the film. I told him to drop

me and Sujit at the hotel because I was tired and needed to get some

sleep, and he was just as wiped out.

When I woke up the next day I called the security head and

asked him what time Mariah got to the hotel from Em’s. He said

they were still at his house. I showered and tried to get my act

together and Mariah called. “Yo, I’m still here. Everybody was tired

so we all just crashed here. Why don’t you come over?”

Eminem then got on the line and said, “Hey dude, I’ll send

the limo for you. I’ve got a studio here and I’d like you to see the

house.”

“OK,” I said.

The car came and picked Sujit and me up.

When we got to Eminem’s there were so many people around.

In a way, it reminded me of our place in Santa Barbara sometimes

— all kinds of family and friends hangin’ out. I met his aunt and

his uncle who live there, his nephew, and some other people. They

were all terrific. Proof of Em’s group D12 then came up the stairs

from the basement with two girls. “Hey, Proof!” “Hey Mizz, how’s

it goin’?”

This did not look good to me. I thought to myself, “Mariah’s

here. Eminem’s here. And Proof just came out of the basement with

two girls. What does this look like? Bad.”

Even Mariah was getting the picture that Glitter wasn’t going to

be all golden and while I knew the lure of another movie role was

welcome distraction for her, I’m certain that she also figured she

could get some good publicity mileage out of being associated with

Eminem.

We hung out in Detroit for a day or two and then headed for

L.A. On the plane, I asked Mariah again, “Are you sure about this

one? I’ve got a bad feeling. You’re gonna end up on the ugly end of

this however it turns out. If I were you, I’d get out of this situation


now. Listen, look at it this way — Em already tried to pull one on

you by saying you could play his mother in the film. There’s not

much respect there.”

She said, “Oh, no, we had a really good talk. We went for a long

walk and I can identify with him and what he’s been through.”

There wasn’t much else I could say. I warned her about Glitter

and I’d now warned her about getting in with Eminem. The record

was in the can. It was time for me to back off again.

A few weeks passed and I got a panic call from Eminem’s

manager, Paul Rosenberg. “Damion, what the fuck!”

“Uh, what’s up, Paul?”

“Eminem’s in New York,” he said. “He’s there with Mariah —

he’s on probation. He can’t be in New York! I need to get him back

to Detroit or there’s gonna be huge shit.”

I called one of Mariah’s people and asked what was going on.

At first her assistant played dumb but then said “OK, I know, I’m

trying to fix it. I’ll figure it out and call you back.”

Paul called me again. “For fuck’s sake! (It must have) leaked

it to the press that he’s there with her! We’re gonna release a

statement and we’re gonna fuckin’ demolish this bitch!”

I said, “Paul, do me a favor, please. I’ve done a lot of favors for

you guys. Don’t let him diss her … please don’t release anything.”

He calmed down a little and told me, “OK, man, but tell her to

shut up. As long as I don’t see anything else, we’re good.”

I called Mariah. “I’m on my way to New York. We have a

problem.”

When I got to her apartment, she was walking around with a

smug smile. “Oh,” she said, “Eminem left his CD case here. He’s on

probation and had to go home fast.”

I said, “Mariah, what are you doin?”

She said, “Oh he’s a great guy.”

I got a bottle of wine, opened it, and drank about half of it in


one gulp.

I knew this was going to happen. I really wanted to help Mariah

but she was lighting fuses all around her and I couldn’t put them all

out. I tried again to explain where this Eminem thing was going,

that it had nothing to do with his movie, that she wouldn’t be in it,

and that the whole thing was going to be a train wreck. She acted

like I wasn’t even there.

I had to get back to L.A. and spend some time at Power because

I was scheduled to head to England for publicity with Shade Sheist

on my Damizza Presents project. I continued to juggle the radio gig,

my own album and Shade’s album, the single from which had hit

the charts at No. 14 in England and was gaining momentum.

But I started to realize that I’d been neglecting a lot of my own

responsibilities in favor of damage control for Mariah, which pissed

me off because she wasn’t appreciating what I was trying to do and

wasn’t even taking the advice I was giving her.

I needed a break of heading overseas without Mariah for a

change, so I headed to London with Shade to do some shows and

some media for his album — the

full weight of which was resting

on the shoulders of me and my

Baby Ree company.

Shade and I were in a BBC

studio doing a live interview

and I was pretty pumped; things

were lookin’ good for us and the

reception was very positive for

the album. “Hello, everyone,”

the host said. “We have

Damizza here with Shade Sheist

talking about their single ‘Where

I Wanna Be.’ Hi, how are you

So beautiful and she can cook, too! Mariah in the

kitchen of a yacht we were vacationing on in Florida.


guys doing?”

We thanked the host, and then he said, “Before we start, we’ve

just got news that Mariah Carey is acting erratically. Let’s see that

clip ….”

I watched, with horror, a video of Mariah freaking out and

swinging a pink Hello Kitty boombox at one of Howard Stern’s

people.

“So, Damion” the host says, “We know you’re one of Mariah’s

best friends. What do you think of this?”

Ambushed on live TV, National British TV, when I’m supposed

to be promoting my own single with Shade.

“Well, I know she’s been under a tremendous amount of

pressure … and that’s really fucked up to do what you just did.”

Needless to say, that was the end of the interview. I was pissed.

Shade and I stormed out of the studio. When I got outside, I called

New York and asked Mariah’s road manager what was going on.

“Damion,” he said, “you gotta get back here. Like NOW. There

is some crazy shit going on. She’s not sleeping. She’s not eating.”

The next morning as I was packing and getting ready to check

out of the hotel, the TV news had a report of Mariah stripping in

front of the camera on Carson Daly’s MTV program.

I watched, and my heart sank.

One of the first things to go through my head was deep guilt.

I should never have left, I thought. But I couldn’t just abandon my

careers in radio and music to look after her. It was a mind scramble.

I later found out that she’d been with Eminem in Detroit, they’d

had some sort of fight. I landed in New York and went to her

apartment, but was told she had flown to L.A. looking for me, not

knowing that I was in England.

At this point, I was supposed to be in New York helping get

Hot 97 back on track. It looked like that was going to be my next

permanent move, running the station. After Power 106 in L.A.,


running Hot 97 was my next big personal dream. At first, I thought

I just couldn’t chase her to California this time and throw away that

dream. But I weighed the importance of friendship and made my

decision. I walked into program director Tracy Chlority’s office and

told her that I was going to have to go to L.A. for a while.

“But you’re working here now, Damion. You’ve been away in

England … you’re finally back and we need you. You can’t go to

L.A.”

I told her I had to. “Mariah’s sick and she has no support.”

“Damion … Listen, Funkmaster Flex hasn’t signed his new

contract yet, and we’re screwed if he doesn’t.”

I asked her for his contract and said I’d do what I could.

I walked down the hall to the on-air studio and put the envelope

on the desk. “Flex, are gonna stay here or not?”

He said, “Man, I don’t know.”

I pushed the envelope toward him. “Time’s up. Are you gonna

stay here or not?” He shrugged his shoulders, said “Fuck it,” and he

signed the contract. I walked back to Tracy’s office and put it on her

desk. I said, “Funkmaster Flex just re-signed his contract. I’m going

to LA.”

I got a cab and called Rick Cummings and told him what was

going on.

He sounded worried. “Damion, this is your big thing. You’re

in New York, where you wanted to be. This is a very big career

decision you’re making right now. You realize that?” I said, “Yeah,

Rick. I’m already in a taxi on the way to the airport.”

Rick was right, this was a huge decision. But it was the only

way I was capable of going. Staying in New York for a job wasn’t

the option when my best friend needed my help. And for years

I’d pushed it as far as I could with Emmis. I was doing my job,

but I was hardly ever at either station because I was on the road

with Mariah or in some studio with Dre, Snoop Dogg, Shade or


whomever.

I got to L.A. and went looking for Mariah and one of her

people said she’d driven up to Santa Barbara. This was bad if she

went all the way to my hometown in search of me. I finally found

her at a hotel downtown. She looked so tired. “Damion, it’s all

fucked up,” she said. “The album’s comin’ out but nothin’s right.”

It was a flurry of hypothetical disasters. It was clear she

hadn’t slept and hadn’t eaten and was worrying herself sick. She

was exhausted, plain and simple. I told her she needed to get

checked out by a doctor and get some rest and nutrition. She agreed

and we went to a prominent west side hospital. The doctors told

me she was dehydrated and needed to be admitted for observation.

I called her assistant, reached her security guys and assured them

Mariah was safe but that she needed to be left alone for a few days.

That meant absolutely NO ENTOURAGE of any kind. I also didn’t

want the media finding out she was being treated for exhaustion

after the less-than-flattering stuff that had gone on over the previous

few weeks.

A few days later it was September 11, 2001.

The phone woke me up. It was Sujit and DJ Vice on a

conference call. “Yo, Damion, turn on the TV right now. Some

plane just crashed into the World Trade Center.”

I turned on the TV and watched the world change. I flipped

around from CNN to Fox and L.A.-based newscasts. As the news

escalated and all air traffic was being suspended and West Coast

targets began to be speculated, Mariah called me. “Come get me

now! They say the hospital might be attacked. Come get me now!”

I whipped over to the hospital as fast as I could with her brother

Morgan, and we checked her out. She was rested and had been

given food, vitamins and fluids. The staff told us to take a back

exit to avoid any attention, since there was paparazzi camped out

at the hospital already. Great idea, I thought. Well — no! It was a


BAD idea, as the “back entrance” the staff directed us to turned

out to be the main psych ward entrance — and of course there was

a National Enquirer photographer camped out and got a bunch of

photos of us and it looked SO BAD. Mariah’s brother Morgan was

with me and we decided to head to my Grandma’s place in Santa

Barbara, since in the days after 9/11 there was no way she was

going to get back home to New York for at least a week. In all the

panic, it nearly escaped us that the “Glitter” soundtrack was hitting

stores that morning. And no wonder. Interesting how sometimes

your priorities are so twisted it takes such massive tragedy to slap

your ass smart again.

I called my Dad, and we talked a bit about the terrorist attacks.

Then I told him he should bring by brothers Nick and Jason over,

because I wanted them to meet Mariah. She sat with my little

brothers on the floor in front of the TV, watching the day’s events

unfold and eating Rusty’s pizza.

After a few days, we headed back to L.A. I tried to get myself

back on track with Power. Eminem came out and dissed Mariah. If

that wasn’t enough of a shit storm, the next issue of the National

Enquirer hit newsstands. One of my engineers came by and said,

“So, you’re in the Enquirer!” I said, “What do you mean?” and he

put a copy on the table. “My girlfriend picked up a copy. Mariah

Carey had a nervous breakdown, and you went to pick her up from

the hospital!” There I was in a photo helping her into the car under

the psych ward sign at the hospital. Fuckin’ paparazzi chasing

Mariah on 9/11. That was messed up. I told everyone the truth —

that it was all bullshit, that Mariah did not have a breakdown, but

that she was exhausted — just like I was.

Truth be told, I was the one who was starting to unravel. By the

first of the year, I started to come undone. My drinking had gotten

completely out of control and I freely admit that I was losing it. I

wasn’t showing up for work, I wasn’t finishing my records, and had


even blown $150,000 of my own money doing a rap-themed short

film at the Bates Motel on the Universal lot — which was sort of

my own “Glitter” in a way: A really bad idea I wish someone had

have talked me out of.

At this point, I was the one who was lost, not Mariah. She

was healthy and in a good headspace. There were plans for her to

perform at the Super Bowl, so I stayed pretty close to her. She was

my best friend and I wanted to keep her spirits up, and, I admit, I

was leaning on her for support. She rehearsed in the stadium the

night before the game, and she sounded awesome. I knew she was

going to do great and that it would be just the thing she and all her

fans needed.

The next morning, she came in absolutely beaming. “The

golden goose has landed,” she said. I said, “Huh?” “The settlement

check. Virgin paid me today.”

They bought out her contract after just one album. Critics

and some fans obviously panned Glitter, both the film and the

soundtrack album we produced — but in hindsight, neither was the

disaster many had predicted nor even hoped for in some evil way.

The film made money, opening at No. 11, which is pretty good for

an indie film. Roger Ebert gave Mariah a positive review for her

performance. And the album was certified Platinum. That ain’t no

bomb, no matter how you slice it.

And now, she was officially a free agent.

“Mariah,” said … “Look, sweetheart, get your own label this

time. Get a hefty back end … please don’t take the front money. You

don’t need it. You need to own your shit.”

She told me she wanted to sign with Def Jam.

Here we go again, I thought.

I didn’t want to risk upsetting her before the Super Bowl

performance, which was seen by many people as her “comeback.”

Since this was so soon after 9/11, there was rumor that all the


living presidents were going to attend the game in a show of unity.

The Secret Service was everywhere, and we all had to submit our

information for background checks about three weeks before the

game. All the presidents didn’t show, but Bill Clinton did an intro

via satellite, and former President George Bush Sr., and former Vice

President Al Gore were in attendance, as was Rudy Giuliani.

Jerry Blair and I were walking around backstage talking about

what the plans were for Mariah now that she was out from under

Virgin.

And already we had the idea that he’d take over as president of

her label, Monarch Records. It was so cool, since he’d been with

her since the Sony days and had had a falling out with Tommy. He

knew how to work Mariah records.

As we were walking, I saw Al Gore. Now, Mariah and I had this

great inside joke going on between us because we were such huge

fans of Gore and, like the millions of people who had voted him

into the presidency, were so angry that he — America — had been

swindled out of it. Since the sham election, Mariah and I had called

each other “Al.” It was our nickname for each other and eventually,

Mariah’s security and the whole staff was in on the joke.

When I saw the real dude, Jerry turned to me and said,

“Damion, don’t do it! He was the vice president of the United

States! Don’t do it!”

Without hesitation, I walked up and tapped Gore on the

shoulder and said, “Hey, Al, how’s it goin’! I’m Damion Young,

Mariah Carey’s best friend.”

He said, “Hi, Damion, how are you?”

I told him that Mariah and I were huge fans. He said he was a

fan of Mariah’s — and that he liked “Glitter.”

“You saw ‘Glitter?’ I asked.

“Yeah, Tipper and I really enjoyed it.”

My mission became introducing them! After all Mariah had


been through that year, I thought it would be great for her. “Do you

think you could come back and say hi to her really quick before she

goes on stage?”

He explained that he had his family with him and a lot of Secret

Service protection. I said “Bring ’em!”

“Well, hold on a second.”

He said something to one of the detail. The dude looked at me

from behind his Men In Black style sunglasses and spoke into his

sleeve. He then said something to Al. Al came over and said, “OK,

Damion, I’m cleared, let’s go”

On our way to the dressing room, he asked me about Mariah

being bought out of the Virgin

contract. I was stunned. “How do

you know about that?”

He told me that he read a lot

of papers every morning.

“If I don’t know what’s going

on, reporters start saying things

like I invented the Internet or

something and I get caught off

guard!”

The way he said it was

so funny. I said, “I know,

dealing with press is kind of an

interesting endeavor.”

He went on to offer his

opinion that Virgin had really

messed up the whole Glitter

project by promoting it as a

soundtrack and not an album!

My mind was blown. I could

totally picture him kicking back

Paparazzi has always chased Mariah, and here they caught

us going into a club in Los Angeles. She was used to it by this point — I wasn’t,

clearly.


in the vice president’s office, listening to Tupac or something. Al

Gore is officially the coolest dude on the planet, and that was the

icing on the cake. We were going down the hallway toward Mariah’s

dressing room and her head of security, saw us and ordered her

door opened. Mariah’s assistant then stepped in the way and said,

“Damion, you’re not doing this! She has to sing in front of 150

million people in 15 minutes.”

I said, “Louise, I understand you’re a die-hard Republican, but

do you really want to embarrass yourself, me, and her in front of the

former vice president?

I asked Al to wait for a second and I walked past Louise to prep

Mariah. She turned when I came in and said “Hi.”

“Al’s here,” I said. “What? Yeah, I know. I’m pretty nervous.”

I laughed and said, “No, Al’s here. Hold on.”

I stepped back outside and returned with the former VP. He

walked up and put his hand on her shoulder and said, “So, I hear

you’re Al, too!” Mariah started laughing her ass off. It was great.

We had a quick picture taken and then left Mariah to psych herself

up for her performance.

Man, did she nail it! I believe that meeting the real Al just before

took her mind off it and she was so relaxed and in such a good

mood that it was magic.

In the months to come our relationship deepened but also

became far more complicated. We’ve both have huge abandonment

issues and are very needy when it comes to that sort of thing. But

for roughly the next two years, we were inseparable. And I quite

happily let everything become about her.

Well, her and vodka.

She would rely on me, and I would rely on the bottle. I had all

of her problems to take care of, on top of Power 106 and all that. I

had almost completely abandoned the stations, but it they were on

auto-pilot anyway and for the time being I was still under the radar.


It was No. 1 so things were all right. Sort of.

I was slowly losing my grip on reality, though. Things between

us became difficult and I became more demanding of her attention

and resentful when I didn’t get it, or what I believed to be enough of

it.

The L.A. Times did a hatchet job on me one morning, accusing

me of having an conflict of interest by being a radio guy and a

record producer at the same time. One of her security guards had

a copy and told me that the paper was calling me “one of the most

powerful radio executives” in the country. I started reading the piece

and was devastated. I’d almost always been out of the spotlight.

And the only time Mariah

and I had been linked at

all in any context other

than my being a producer

of her material was the

National Enquirer. We’d

managed to keep it pretty

quiet.

But I didn’t know

how to handle this and

was really upset. Mariah

brushed it off, sort of like,

“I’m glad they’re talking

about somebody else

for a change.” She said,

“Welcome to the club.”

But it was a big deal

for me, and perception

can be everything. I

hadn’t done anything

wrong, and, in fact, my

DAVID ESTERSON PHOTO: Smoking a joint on the steps of

the Psycho house on the Universal Studios lot during the production

of my aborted short film.


arrangement of being a working producer and a radio executive

was explicitly approved by the FCC. There was no way Emmis

or I would have risked that. Bottom line, I was never in on any

programming decisions that involved any records I was involved

with. Simple. But the Times seemed to make it their mission to try

to destroy me.

My drinking only got worse. And then it began affecting my

personality, like it does with just about everybody who has a

drinking problem. I became irritable and extremely unhappy and I

was absolutely no fun to be around. I didn’t give her enough credit,

but Mariah was more stable than I was at this time. And then her

Dad died, which was heartbreaking. I did nothing for a month but

comfort her as she grieved and wondered what was going on with

her life.

My career was sinking fast, and I didn’t care.

She was rebounding, though it was pretty stressful trying to

get Monarch organized and establish a solid management backing

for her. Part of that process was easing out some of her staff at the

time who, as I’ve said, are amazing people but not up to the task of

managing a superstar like Mariah.

A lot of the time with Mariah was a blast. I mean, we had a lot

of fun all over the world. But I was becoming resentful of the fact

that everything was about Mariah. Even when it was something

like my birthday party, our plans revolved around her and what

she wanted to do. I understand now that this is the way it is in that

crazy world of high celebrity and is really not that much a reflection

on her, but the situation. Still, it didn’t make it easier for me to

handle. I had gone from being the nicest guy in the world to being a

complete prick. I wasn’t helping her as much as I’d been previously,

and we were clashing about everything. I tried to give her good

advice and told her what she should and shouldn’t be doing, but

everything was becoming a wedge between us. I had started to hide


my drinking and I isolated as much as I could. I began to make

excuses why I couldn’t go places with her. Mariah didn’t know what

was going on and the depths to where I was sinking. That wasn’t

her fault.

As time went on, things with Jerry Blair didn’t work out the

way I’d hoped and he faded out of the picture. Then Mariah came

to me and said she was interested in talking with Benny Medina

about management. I was taken aback and asked her why she was

thinking of Jennifer Lopez’s manager, but I was so faded most of

the time and disinterested I didn’t know that she was no longer with

Blair. I was out of it, frankly.

But I did start to think about where things were: What I needed

to do, and what was best for Mariah. That alcoholic “moment of

clarity,” as they say.

Well, of sorts.

I knew in my heart that things could not go on the way they

had been. It was bad for Mariah’s career, because she needed stable

management, and my career was in a holding pattern that was

about to crash and burn, due to the double whammy of my drinking

and decisions Emmis was making at its radio stations without my

knowledge. Benny, I thought, was a good solution. I decided that

I’d do what I could to get him on board, finish the work on her

Charmbracelet record and then step out of the picture. Benny would

be my ticket out and her ticket to stable management.

As much as I love her, it was the last smart thing I could do for

her as her friend. I started courting Benny, talking to him every day.

I went to his office in L.A. and he asked me about exactly where

I fit into the picture: We both knew the answer — I didn’t fit into

Mariah’s future. Because of me and my relationship with her, on

all levels — being one of the producers of her music as well as my

position at Power and Hot 97, other stations such as L.A.’s KISS

and The Beat were beginning to boycott her records.


When that happened, it broke my heart but it was clear — I had

to NOT be in her life anymore. I was endangering her very career.

And I was hitting the bottle hard, so I was losing my effectiveness as

it was.

I kept working with her on records already in production and

we still had a performance at the Universal Amphitheater with

Shade Sheist and Nate Dogg. After the show she told me she had an

appointment that night with Benny (who pulled me aside and said

he didn’t even know I was performing with Mariah that night — his

point quite correctly being that I still had too much influence over

her decisions. He basically told me that it was him or me. Mariah

begged me to go to the meeting that night. I said I’d be there.

It’s the only time I lied to her. I went straight home to my condo,

turned my phone off and drank myself into unconsciousness.

The last time I saw her was in her game room at her place in

Manhattan. She was peacefully

asleep. I looked around and knew

in my heart it was the last time

I’d see her in that kind of setting.

I actually said out loud, quietly,

“Goodbye. You’re gonna be fine.

I love you.” I went to the living

room and looked around at the

pictures of everyone. I looked

in her bedroom for the last time

and saw that photograph beside

her bed of the two of us … her

bunching up my cheeks … and

felt sad.

I retreated to Granny’s for

the holidays and didn’t talk

to anyone else. I didn’t talk to

It’s Al! Mariah and I finally get a chance to meet Al

Gore, just moments before she did her “comeback” performance to open the

Superbowl right after 9/11, in New Orleans.


Mariah. I stopped returning calls from my bosses at Power. I faxed a

letter of resignation and issued a press release saying I was retiring.

I next found out that just about everyone involved with my Baby

Ree Records label had been embezzling my money and had stolen

everything I had while I was off with Mariah and drinking myself

into a stupor. I quite consciously made the decision to lock myself

in my room and keep myself in

an alcoholic haze for the next

year and ignore the world.

For a while, Mariah tried

often to contact me. She sent

me a package with a bunch

of the old movies we used to

always watch together, such

as Weird Science and Sixteen

Candles. She called Granny and

talked to her and asked her why

I had gone MIA.

Hey, that says everything about what a great person Mariah

really is … and why she’ll always be the best friend I’ll ever have

and I’ll always miss that friend.

But at least I knew that Mariah was doing great. She won a

Grammy for Album of the Year and was, as far as I knew, happy

and healthy. That gave me the greatest feeling.

She was back.

I was gone.

LIZ POKORA PHOTO: The first time Mariah and I met, in the on-air studio at Power 106.

S N O O P D O G G 1 8 7

S N O O P D O G G

“Disney Can Smell the Weed!”

You know there’s always stuff you do that your boss just isn’t gonna

be all that happy about. Like, well, coming in on a Monday morning

and explaining that you’ve hired Snoop Dogg.

It’s not something I’d been planning. But the night I first met

Snoop was at a show at The Palace in L.A. I was putting a show on

with Daz and Kurupt from Tha Dogg Pound and when I saw him

standing there I knew something was up.

“Damn!” I said, “Snoop Dogg!”

He said, “Yeah, what’s up?” but there was no hiding the fact he

wasn’t doing great.

Still, I asked how he was.

“No, not too good right now, actually,” he said.

The dude was wearing a blue Georgetown Bulldogs jumpsuit

that was all wrinkled and dirty. He said, “I just left Death Row

(Records). They had me on salary, so I’m doin’ bad now. Ain’t got

no money.”

It hit me instantly.

“Really? Well, what are you doin’ on the weekends?”

He said, “What do you mean?”

I explained I’d hire him on the spot to work as a DJ at Power.

“It’s 50 bucks an hour. Four hours a weekend, and four weekends a

month.”

After thinking about it for a minute, he said, “Yeah, I’d like that.”

I told him to drop by the station and we’d do the paperwork and

get it done.


Management wasn’t thrilled with me … not that this was an

entirely new situation. Snoop having his own radio show? Out of

the gate everyone knew that he’d be playing whatever the fuck he

wanted. Especially his own new music, which was unfamiliar with

the listeners — and unfamiliar music is a major no-no in anyone’s

radio playbook.

The next week, he showed up, ready to start. I walked him

through every office at Power, and introduced him to everyone as our

new employee, Snoop Doggy Dogg. It had been a couple years since

Tha Doggfather had come out, and Snoop didn’t really have a whole

lot of other stuff going on at the time. Even though a lot of other

people weren’t believing in Snoop at the time, I knew this was going

to be a great move in the long run.

A Power DJ named Fuzzy Fantabulous had started a show called

Curb Servin’ around the same time. He invited Snoop to come on

the program, and once he and Fuzzy hit it off, everything flowed

perfectly. Fuzzy would go to Snoop’s house and get some songs that

Snoop had recorded in his home studio over the weekend. He was

even making the beats himself ! Then Fuzzy would get on the air and

do a segment playing what Snoop was cooking up.

One time, Fuzzy brought in the song Midnight Love, featuring

Raphael Saadiq and Daz Dillinger. I said, “Wow! What is this? Get

Snoop on the phone.”

We started playing the record, and we had Snoop start to play

more of his records on his own show during the weekend. He said,

“By the way, I’m pissed off at The Beat. I recorded a diss record

going at ’em.”

Tha Baka Boyz played it, and that record just killed The Beat.

It was bad! And I look at that day as a turning point for Power 106.

When Snoop Dogg got on the air and said, not only “This is my

station,” but “That other station can eat a bowl of salty nuts,” we

won over the streets. It was the ultimate artist co-sign.

S N O O P D O G G 1 8 9

Then it was time for Snoop to launch his own show. The first

night he showed up, he asked me, “Where do I smoke at?”

I said, “You can’t smoke here. It’s federally regulated property, so

it would be a felony.”

He said, “Dame, I can’t do the radio show if I can’t smoke.”

I called up Rick Cummings and told him my dilemma.

He said, “I totally get how big it is to have Snoop doing a radio

show.”

We looked all over the building for a spot for Snoop to blaze

up, and we even went up on the roof. Finally, I said, “All right, how

about the stairwell?”

Rick looked at me with a grin on his face and said, “No smok-

ing in the stairwell. There. I’ve said everything I need to say. I’m

leaving now.”

ARNOLD TURNER PHOTO: Snoop Dogg performing at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.


From there, Snoop was off and running high, if you’ll forgive the

pun. One time, he came and performed Lodi Dodi with Doug E Fresh

during an old-school showcase, and I recorded the performance. We

started playing that live version on the radio, and it was a hit! An old

trick I picked up doing alternative radio had sure paid off.

One day, I came in, and Snoop had a new Rolex on and some

serious gold around his neck. He looked richer than shit. I said,

“What’s goin’ on with you Snoop?”

He said, “Yo, man. Master P gave me some love. I was playing

these records on the show and Master P heard ’em and called me up.

I’m signed to No Limit now and I’m rich again!”

Snoop was with Power for a couple of years and it was great.

Outside of the station, we did the Chronic 2001 reunion concert with

Dre together, and all sorts of big moves. But one day when I dropped

in during his show he came to me during a break and said, “Yo, man,

I can’t do this radio show anymore.”

I said, “Why?”

He said, “Well, I got a memo in my box, and it says that I can’t

smoke weed no more. They said that Disney can smell the weed.

Where the fuck is Disney?”

I said, “Damn. They have an office right above us.”

So, after Disney snitched on us that day, Snoop said, “XM radio

is talking to me about the show. And I’ve talked to some other people

about how we can make it pop.”

I said, “Well, let me help you.”

He said, “Nah man, this is over your head.”

I thought to myself, “Over my head? Didn’t I start you in radio?”

Then Snoop said that he wasn’t been valued at Power — he was

bringing in great ratings and that Val Maki (the general manager)

didn’t want to pay him anymore, let alone give him the raise he

figured he deserved.

Well, truth is that ratings for Snoop’s show were good at first, for

S N O O P D O G G 1 9 1

all kinds of reasons — the novelty factor, the fact that he was doin’

some pretty cool stuff that no radio listeners could get anywhere else,

and the undeniable truth that his star was back on the rise. But the

ratings had slowly been declining because there was a lot of talking

when there should have been music and, like that golden rule: no

matter who you’ve got behind the mic, listeners will only stick around

for so much unfamiliar music.

Another truth is that artists on the radio wear out fast, which is

not great for the station and, honestly, not an entirely good thing for

the artists either, because it makes them too accessible.

If you hear them every week on the radio, they become familiar. In

terms of entertainment that may not necessarily breed contempt but

it’s almost certain to breed something far more dangerous: Boredom.

Let’s say, for example, that your favorite artist is Jay-Z. If you see

him at the coffee shop every weekend, instead of “Oh my God, it’s

Jay-Z,” it becomes, “Oh yeah, I saw Jay this weekend.” The mystery

drifts away. And that’s what was happening with the Snoop Dogg

brand. So when he wanted to take the show somewhere else, I said,

“Cool. See you later. Good luck, man.”

And he left. I didn’t harbor any negativity toward Snoop and, like

I’ve said all along, I’m ultimately a huge fan and supporter of music

and when I can help ’em out like I did him, I sleep soundly at night.

Since his departure seemed cool with both of us at the time, I was

a little surprised when I heard he’d taken a turn against me. After

the Shade Sheist Informal Introduction album came out, my Baby Ree

partner Sujit was over at the House of Blues and ran into Snoop.

Snoop told him, “Hey, you still fuck with Damion?”

Sujit said, “Yeah.”

Snoop said, “Well fuck Damion Young.”

Sujit said, “Why?”

He said, “Because he put Shade Sheist on, and Shade Sheist is

whack.”


A couple of weeks later I ran into Snoop in Vegas at a 213

concert. When I walked in with Warren G and Nate Dogg, he acted

all buddy-buddy and said, “Hey Damion, what’s going on! Are you

gonna smoke with me?”

I was a little confused, given what Sujit had told me had gone

down at the House of Blues, and had more expected to get a face full

of shit about Shade.

“Sure, Snoop, why not,” I said.

Things kinda go back and forth with us like that, an experience

I’ve had with a lot of artists. Maybe it has something to do with the

insecurities of some creative people … in some weird way it makes

them feel better if they know you one day, don’t know you the next

and then it’s like you’re best friends again on the weekend. Or, fuck,

maybe I just have that effect on people!

Or maybe it’s the smoke.

Nah!

At a Shade show in Fresno one night, Warren G walked backstage,

much to my surprise. “What the hell are you doin’ here, Warren?”

Turned out he and Snoop were performing as well. We all got

together before the show. Snoop took two blunts and attached them

in the middle. The thing was huge, as thick as a Sharpie and I don’t

know how long. Talk about medical marijuana, this fucking thing

was its own clinic!

Snoop lit the thing up and after only one puff, the promoter

walked up to us and said, “Hey, Snoop, will you take a picture with

a couple of people?”

Exhaling a big blue cloud, he said, “Sure, who do you want it

with?” and took another hit.

The promoter replied, “The chief of police and the fire chief.”

Snoop let that billow of smoke out with one giant cough and

said, “Here, Damizza, hold this.”

For some reason, my dumb ass took the blunt, but then Snoop

S N O O P D O G G 1 9 3

must have seen the look on my face.

“You’re the only white boy in here,” he said. “They ain’t gonna

bust you!”

I stood there kinda freaking out, wondering if I should find a

way to ditch the blunt, when the promoter said, “No, it’s okay. They

wanted to know if you could hold a joint while they have their picture

taken. They think it would be funny.”

Snoop said, “Oh, Damion, give me that shit back.”

I’m sure those dudes didn’t hang that photo in their offices!

And, damn, I didn’t even get a hit off that monster. And I’m sure

it was fine, because Snoop is the weed guru.

One time, I was in New York mixing the Money Owners record

with Timbaland and I ran out of kush. Snoop was in town, so I called

him up and said, “Yo, I’m dry out here.”

He said, “Cool, stop by the studio.”

I went in and he pulled out a duffle bag. He said, “I flew in

private,” and pulled out big freezer bags full of weed. There must

have been at least five ounces in there. I said, “I just need a nug and

I’ll be cool.”

He said, “Oh yeah, all right Damizza.”

He started taking handfuls of the assorted weed flavors and

throwing them into an empty bag.

I said, “Dude, I’m only here for two days!”

He didn’t even look at me as he kept shoveling the weed. “Do you

need papers too?”

I went back to my hotel that night, paranoid out of my mind,

because I had God knows how much weed on me.

Aside from my incredible bond with Bishop Lamont, who I think

could be an absolutely huge star and is one of the most solid dudes on

the planet, another great dude in the West Coast camp that I’ve come

to absolutely love is Warren G. He’s one of my closest friends in the

music business. Sometimes I talk to Warren maybe twice or three


times a week, and it’s been that way since about 1998. Warren is the

coolest motherfucker on the planet. For someone to be as legendary

as he is, I would strive to be one-tenth of this guy. I compare him to

Bishop in that he’s among the most humble, most creative, and the

most responsible people on the West Coast today. If there were no

Warren G, you would not have Snoop Dogg. If there were no Warren

G, you would not have Nate Dogg. If there were no Warren G, you

wouldn’t have any of the G-Funk phase, period. And I’ll tell you why.

Warren G is the half-brother of Andre Romell Young, who

happens to be Dr. Dre the Great. Dre was working with The DOC,

Eazy-E, and all these things, and he didn’t know where he was gonna

go after all that stuff. Warren was at a pool party and handed Dre a

cassette, and Dre was like, “I’m not trying to hear that shit.”

So Warren went over and put the cassette on.

This cassette happened to be the group 213, which consisted of

Snoop, Nate, and Warren G. Dre all of a sudden goes, “What the

fuck was that?”

Warren G said, “That was the tape I wanted to play you.”

“Who is that rapping?”

“That’s Snoop Doggy Dogg.

“Snoop Doggy Dogg? I need to fuck with him! Who’s that

singing?”

“That’s Nate Dogg.”

“I need to fuck with him!”

So the next thing you know, Tha Dogg Pound, Kurupt, Daz, all

these people become Dr. Dre’s team, and it’s from Warren G. Warren

did a lot of stuff behind the scenes on The Chronic album. Nobody

knows that.

Warren G is an enabler and a consistent finder of talent on the

West Coast. People don’t realize how much he had to do with Bishop

Lamont in the beginning.

If you look at Def Jam and read Russell Simmons book, do you

S N O O P D O G G 1 9 5

know what saved Def Jam? Warren G. They were gonna go bankrupt!

They put out Regulate … A G-Funk Era and sold four million records,

saving the company. And that’s a New York label. Warren wasn’t

intimidated by the Death Row situation, he just didn’t want to be like

everybody else and be on the same place. He needed to be a priority.

Warren doesn’t care who you are or what status you have. He’s my

OG, and all he cares about is the music.

The other reason I love Warren so much is because he’s just the

most regular guy you would ever meet. He doesn’t act like a star.

You’ll never see Warren say, “I’m running 20 minutes late to get my

hair done.”

You give Warren a 12-pack of Heineken and a pizza, and he’s

straight. And when I say that, I mean it, literally. This is how we got

down the first time:

I met Warren through Tha Baka Boyz. The first time I really

sat down with Warren, he signed up to do an All-Star Morning Show

for us at Power 106. Tha Baka Boyz were on vacation, so we found

celebrity guest hosts to fill in for them for the week.

So Warren showed up and said, “I can’t go on.”

I said, “What’s wrong?”

He said, “I need a six pack of Heineken and a Domino’s pizza.”

Keep in mind, it’s six o’clock in the morning. Where the fuck am

I gonna find a Domino’s pizza at six in the morning? So we went on

the air, and I got him his Heineken. I walked in the studio a couple

minutes later and he’s already drinking it on air. He announced to

the listeners, “I need to find a Domino’s pizza.” One of the managers

from the Domino’s down the street called up and goes, “I’m here

early getting everything together and I’ll bring it.”

As he’s eating the pizza, I said, “How do you do this for breakfast?”

“I have no concept of time. I just got out of the studio. I haven’t

been to sleep yet,” he said.

And from that moment forward, I said, “Warren’s the man!”


After he got off the air, we sat down and talked. I asked him

about all the crazy records he put out like Regulate, and I realized

there was just no star ego with this guy. He’s the most regular legend

you’ll find. He’s not a celebrity. He’s a real person, who just happens

to be a celebrity.

Time goes on, and I’m so honored to say that Warren became

my very close friend. And talk about everything — life, kids, music,

beats, anything you can imagine.

And I can’t even tell some of the stories of being in the studio

with Warren, because he’s crazy! (And Granny would strangle me!) I

started to notice that just about every time I was in the studio, Warren

would just show up and hang out. So everything I was doing, I would

just attach Warren to it. Any place we went, it was a party. Warren was

so cool about it.

For instance, when we were in Hawaii for the Dr. Dre and Snoop

reunion show, Warren came up to me and said, “Let’s go get some of

them motorized scooters and go cruising around on them.”

So we’re cruising around on

the scooters, everyone takes off

and I guess I was moving slow,

because I got lost. I got back to

the hotel, and I’m like, “Warren,

where he hell did you guys go?”

He said, “Oh cuzz, you

missed it! Look at Knoc-

Turn’al, he just got back from

the hospital.”

I said, “What?”

He said, “Oh man, Knoc

drank a bunch of Hennessy, and

he hit a pothole. He went flying

off the scooter.”

SUJIT KUNDU PHOTO: Warren G. and me just

getting the party started at Puffy’s restaurant Justin’s

in Manhattan at a bash Puff threw for my 25th birthday.

S N O O P D O G G 1 9 7

I looked over and see Knoc on crutches with a scraped up face.

Later on the trip, we walked into a restaurant and people were

freaking out. “Oh, Warren G, can I get an autograph? Can I get a

picture with you?” Warren was just like, “It’s all good. Just sit down

and have a beer with me.”

Warren is a person where, if all else fails, he’ll always be the same.

There are mornings when I wake up and the first call is from Warren.

“What’s up, fool.”

Bishop is the same.

The very first Up In Smoke tour stop was in San Diego. During

the performances, Warren was nowhere to be found. I went looking

for him after the show in the parking lot. I see Warren drive by, alone,

in his van.

I said, “What the hell is going on? Why is Warren driving in the

parking lot by himself ?”

I jumped in front of the van and I said, “Yo!”

He rolled down the window and said, “What’s up, cuzz?”

I said, ‘What the hell are you doing?”

After fumbling around for a while, he said, “I’m trying to find the

fucking exit.”

I said, “Homie, you are faded and you’re out here by yourself !

Do you realize how many of these gangbangers are out here?”

He said, “Fuck that, cuzz,” and pulls out the biggest gun I’d ever

seen in my life. I said, “Oh God. Warren, get in the back.”

Sujit and I got into the car and drove him to the exit.

He said, “It was time for me to go home, and I couldn’t find

nobody, so I said, fuck it, I’m going home!”

Return Of the Regulator pops up in 2002, and he said, “Damion, I

need some help with this.”

I was at Hot 97 at the time, so I just put the record into rotation

immediately. Universal screwed up that project big time. It was his

chance to come back but they didn’t understand how to promote a


West Coast act. We were doing all this promotion, and Warren said,

“So are you going on the road with me?”

The next thing I know, I’m on a tour bus, going up and down and

through California. I hooked him up with Sujit, who started working

his record, and before I knew it, we were on the same team.

Bishop was a youngster in a group of cats before the New West

wave. Sixx John, Bishop Lamont, and Ne-Yo were the dudes that I

would always hear about in the streets while I was doing research for

Power. All of those cats were in the up-and-coming circuit.

Warren was working at the studio one night, and this young guy

was walking around, handing out CDs out during the session. The

guy handed me a CD, and I looked at it.

I said, “What’s your name?”

He said, “My name is Titus.”

I said, “Hey Titus, nice to meet you. Is this is your stuff ?”

He said, “Yeah!

“I said, “You know what you should do?”

I handed him a Sharpie and said, “You need to go back to all the

CDs that you just passed out to all these people and write your name

and number on it.”

He said, “Oh, that’s a good idea!”

I said, “Yeah, because you never know who you’re handing a

CD to.”

He said, “Well, who are you?”

I said, “My name is Damion Young, I’m the senior director of

programming at Power 106.”

He said, “Oh shit! Warren’s my big homie, and he’s told me about

you!”

Here’s how the circle works around Warren. If somebody is

talented, he doesn’t care about claiming that he discovered them. It

doesn’t matter if it’s Snoop Dogg or Bishop or Titus, he’s always

trying to cultivate talent. So Titus handed me his CD that night.

S N O O P D O G G 1 9 9

I left the CD on the seat in my car and forgot about it. When

I went to bed that night, I remembered, “Shit, some kid gave me a

CD.”

I don’t know why, but I went back out into my car and got the

CD. I took the CD out of the car, walked back upstairs, put it in my

boombox and said, “Okay.” The third song on the CD I loved. It was

past midnight, but I called and left a message for Big Boy anyway.

I ran into him in the hallway the next morning and told him

about the record. We had it all set up to premiere it the next morning

on his show. I called Mariah and I said, “Yo, you’ve got to hear this

new song.”

She said, “He’s not signed, and if you’re gonna play the song on

the radio, you should tell him to at least send it to himself certified

mail, so at least it some form of copyright and no one can steal the

song.”

Right then, Titus called my cell phone.

I said, “Yo, I’m gonna play your song tomorrow on Power 106!”

He said, “Really?”

I said, “Hold on a second.”

I clicked back over to Mariah and said, “Hold up, I’ve got Titus

on the phone now, I’m gonna try to explain what you just told me so

I’ll call you right back.”

She said, “Well, let’s just call him back together on three-way!”

There was no Hollywood shit here! So we called up Titus together.

Titus was like, “Uhh …”

Mariah said, “Hey by the way, you should mail this to yourself …”

This is the kind of shit that happens around Warren! I went up

the next morning and played this demo — which wasn’t mastered

and was recorded in Titus’s room — live on the radio.

Titus and I would start talking on the phone from time to time

and spit some game. One time he said, “Yo, have you ever met Bishop

Lamont?


I said, “No, but I’ve heard of him.”

He said, “Oh, well I’ll bring him by your office sometime.”

Titus walked in a few days later with this youngster named Bishop

Lamont. Bishop said, “Yo! I heard what you did for Titus. That was

awesome. I’ve heard a lot about you from Warren too. It’s nice to

meet you!”

After we got to talking for a few minutes, Bishop said, “Do you

think I can come by sometime if I need some advice or if I have

something to do?”

I said, “Sure, feel free! You can come by and record in my

studio, too.”

Later on down the line, Titus started writing for me. He wrote my

verses on Top Billin and Back Before You’re Lonely on my last album.

The school of Dre, Warren, and a lot of these cats is, if someone

writes something hot, then let ’em do it! He wrote the records for me,

and I felt honored to see how someone would see the world through

my eyes.

One day, Bishop came in and said, “Yo, I’m gonna meet Dr. Dre

tomorrow.”

I said, “Oh, that’s great!”

He said, “But I don’t have a studio to record in and I’ve gotta give

him some new shit.”

I said, “Well come in and record the shit here. I’ll take care of the

engineer. Don’t worry about it.” So he came in and recorded his demo.

Two days later, Dr. Dre was on Power 106. The DJ asked, “What

new artists are you feeling right now?

He said, “This new kid Bishop Lamont.”

I laughed when I heard the backstory as to how Bishop met Dre.

Bishop stole a golf cart with Glasses Malone at The Game’s Dreams

video shoot and chased Dre down. Dre took his demo, and actually

listened to it.

One of the first questions Bishop asked me was, “What should I

do now?”

S N O O P D O G G 2 0 1

I said, “Dude, there’s nothing I can tell you to do. You’re doing

it right. You’re going to make it, just keep doing what you’re doing.”

The next thing you know, he’s signed to Dr. Dre on Aftermath! I

saw him getting to know everybody, I saw him at the radio stations,

and he was really doing it.

When I got more heavily involved with Bishop, I also started

working with Dae One, Pr1me, Taje, and the New West. Those

dudes were already making a name for themselves on the websites

like Dubcnn.com and Westcoastrydaz.com. I started getting behind

them and talking about them a lot.

A lot of the OGs in the game were like, “Yo, what does this New

West shit mean?”

They thought it was disrespectful. So I would step in and say that

they were my homies. I wanted to empower them and give them a

place to record. They’d come and record at Mike Post’s spot, and I’d

give them advice and start helping them out. I did some behind the

scenes work on Taje’s mixtape Hot Box 2.

I really enjoyed working with these younger guys. On my Back

Before You’re Lonely CD with Butch Cassidy, I featured Dae One, Taje,

Roccett, and Bishop. We all started working together, and I became

closer and closer to everyone involved. Bishop and I became really

good friends. Before I knew it, Bishop and I were partners in crime.

JASON YOUNG PHOTO: Xzibit drops into Area 51 to smoke one during a session I was doing with Butch Cassidy, Young De, Adub

and Los. Next to him is my good friend Jeremy, who was the ceremonial blunt-lighter.


Then Bishop ran into the Aftermath system. He had been signed

there for two or three years, and they’d only recorded a handful of

songs. There wasn’t much going on. Dre was kind of continuing his

talk about Detox, but nothing was coming to fruition yet. They hadn’t

done any record for it. It was still a phantom project. Bishop showed

up to the studio and told me, “I need your help with something.

We’re gonna go over to the studio and see Dre.”

That night, we ended up taping the MySpace video announcing

Detox and Bishop’s album The Reformation.

Bishop called me up about a year later and said, “So when are

you coming back to L.A.?”

I said, “What are you talking about? I’m retired.”

He said, “Dude, you’re not retired. I’m not gonna let you do this.

You’ve been involved since the beginning, and I need you here. Plus,

look around. All of this stuff is stuff you set up. This is all your

infrastructure, I need you here.”

I said, “Bishop, you don’t give yourself enough credit. This is all

you now.”

He said, “Nah. This is not how this is going down.”

I said, “Well, we’ll figure something out buddy.”

He said, “No, we’re really gonna figure this out.”

I said, “You’ve got Warren, Dre, Busta Rhymes, Focus, all those

guys on your side. It’s not like I need to give you that much advice.”

He said, “I need you to come back to L.A.”

I said, “Dude, I’ve been down there 100 times. I’m going through

family health issues. If you want to talk, I need you to come up here

to Santa Barbara.”

He said, “I’m on my way.”

So he came up and he had the song Grow Up with him. He said,

“Do you think it’s a hit?”

I said, “Definitely.”

He said, “Well, what do you think? I’m sitting on Aftermath.

What do I do?”

S N O O P D O G G 2 0 3

I said, “Well, it’s a Dre thing, so you’ve got to kind of wait it out.”

He said, “Dude, I can’t. I’ve been on the label for three years and

I don’t know where I’ll stand after that.”

So I asked him how much of Detox was done. He said, “I’ve got

one vocal performance done.”

I said, “You’re screwed.”

Then, he gave me a plan he had. I said, “Well, I don’t necessarily

agree with it, but if you do it, here’s how you do it.”

The next thing I knew, Grow Up was all over the radio. Grow Up

went on Power 106 first. The record immediately reacted. It was

the No. 4 requested record the first week. It was No. 1 requested a

week and a half later. The call out on it after two or three weeks was

between No. 10 and 15.

The problem was, Dre didn’t like the mix on it. I told Bishop from

the get-go, “If we put this record out, it’ll be a cease-and-desist notice

right away. And Interscope wants that Detox album out or an Eminem

album. They spent almost 50 million dollars investing in Aftermath.

If Dre doesn’t turn that album in, there is no Aftermath. 50’s last two

projects tanked.”

For those reasons, Interscope wanted Grow Up to die. It was the

first time in the history

of radio, at least that I’ve

heard, where a record

company has a No. 1 testing

record and they sent cease-

and-desist notices holding

it from being played. It

got really messed up, and

Bishop was very frustrated.

The Dre machine isn’t

the easiest one to deal with.

Look at it like this: Game

E. SANCHEZ PHOTO: Taking a break at Area 51 with my good friend DJ Couz from Japan and Bishop

Lamont.


wasn’t going to even come out. Game was gonna get shelved, and

then 50 came around and said, “I’ll put that shit out.”

Dre isn’t famous for putting out artists.

Out of all the artists, he put out Snoop Dogg’s album and Tha

Dogg Pound back in the day. Even going back to What’s My Name by

Snoop, Dre wasn’t happy with that record and didn’t want it out. It

leaked to the swap meets and was forced out that way.

So after this whole fiasco, Bishop called me and said, “Look, you

need to come by the studio and talk to Dre. The records out and he’s

stopping it.”

I didn’t think it was going to work. But I went anyway.

“Dre!”

“Dame!”

Hugs. I see The DOC. Bishop and Focus were there. But I looked

around and heard no music. I went into the studio, and a new version

of Grow Up was playing. Dre said, “This is the how I envisioned

hearing this record.”

It had Marsha from Floe try on the hook instead of Bishop, doing

a Chicago two-step thing.

I looked over at Dre and said, “Are you serious?”

He said, “Yeah, it’s the remix. It’ll come out after the record’s

already peaked.”

I said, that’s great and everything but what are we doing with the

original version of Grow Up here?

He said, “I just don’t like the way it sounds.”

I said, “All you need to do is put your stamp on it, and it’ll be

fine.”

He kept going on about little things he didn’t like about the record.

It was the most indecisive I’d ever heard him in my life.

I finally said, “Do you know what the problem is with Dr. Dre

records?”

He looked stunned and said, “What?”

S N O O P D O G G 2 0 5

I looked at him and said, “You’re too much of a fucking

perfectionist.”

He said, “Well, it works for me.”

I said, “Let’s go outside and talk for a second.”

We went into the lounge area and he said, “Dude, it’s not In

Da Club.”

I said, “Did you know In Da Club was In Da Club when you heard

it? You gave it to D12 and they said they didn’t like it. But Dre,

seriously, where do you see Bishop fitting into all of this?”

He said, “I don’t know. That’s the problem.”

I said, “Well dude, how far are you on Detox?”

He said, “50 percent.”

I said, “It took you eight years to get to 50 percent?”

He said, “Yeah, but I’m kind of on a roll right now!”

I said, “Oh really? Cool! When’s it coming out?”

This was the fall of 2008 and he said, “November. I’m gonna turn

it in this October, and it’s definitely coming out before Christmas.”

I said, “You’re sure about that. Do you have a single?”

I got a blank stare from him. As of the summer of 2010, Detox is

still nowhere to be seen, aside from a leak or two.

I said, “Well, what’s Bishop’s role on Detox?”

He said, “Well, he’s on one record definitely, and he wrote about

four or five of them. I just don’t know where he fits in because I’m

gonna do Detox and then put out an Em record.”

I said, “Yeah, and you know a 50 cent album is gonna come right

after that.”

I looked at him like, “Dude, you don’t even know what you’re

doing right now.”

It was weird meeting, and it was the first time during any of our

conversations where Dre was on the defensive. But I didn’t realize

that all the way through 2001, this was what I did. This was my job.

But the tone had changed.

I think he felt Bishop crossed the line with him by putting out


Grow Up before he was ready. At the same time, this is what I’d

always done. Forced records out. I can’t lie, I was stuck in the middle

on what to do about it. Half of me was thinking about my loyalty to

Dre, and half of me was thinking of Bishop. But my conscious told

me the right thing to do was put that record out. It’s a hit! If Bishop

was gonna do it, I wasn’t gonna let him do it alone.

I said, “I don’t even think it’s him. Dude, it’s Jimmy Iovine. They

don’t care. All they want is the Detox album or Eminem because it

means immediate billing for them.”

Interscope is in such a state of turmoil. They hadn’t had a hit

in a couple years. The Pussycat Dolls did great, but Nicole’s solo

album was shelved. William’s solo album tanked. Pharrells’ album

tanked. 50 Cent tanked. G-Unit tanked. All the records Dre has done

recently, like the Snoop record and Jay-Z stuff, aren’t on Interscope.

None of this was benefiting Jimmy Iovine.

I went to see Jimmy a few months before this. I took Taje’s

mixtape, I took a few songs from a very talented singer named Mike

Anthony, I took Bishop records, all of it in there. I said, “Yo, do you

know what Bishop Lamont is doing?”

He said, “Bishop Lamont? He’s signed to Interscope right?”

I said, “Yeah. Did you hear his mixtape? Have you heard the

song City Lights?”

He said, “No.”

I said, “Yo dude, the people around Bishop Lamont right now, it

could be 97 again. Mike Ant, Taje, Pr1me, Dae One, Indef. It’s like

Tha Dogg Pound.”

He said, “Oh, really? Well I’ll check it out. Give me those CDs.

By the way, are you still at Power?”

I’d been gone for three years at that point. He was either fucking

with me or he was really lost and out of touch.

The key to the music business is following momentum. And

when Interscope had momentum, like they did with Bishop Lamont’s

Grow Up, they torpedoed it because they didn’t want to have to spend

S N O O P D O G G 2 0 7

money bumping up Bishop and promoting him when all their hopes

and attention were focused on Dre, Eminem and 50.

That’s when it hit me that nobody in the music industry — Dr.

Dre, Jimmy Iovine, anybody, knows what they’re doing at this point.

In any event, this won’t be the last you hear from Bishop,

because he makes hot records, and he’ll continue to make hot

records. He got himself away from Dre and out of his Aftermath

deal and he’s got his own label, Diocese. He’s recording like crazy,

making videos and working his ass off. He’s been my primary focus

for about a year now.

In 2008 I met a young Santa Barbara man named Elijah Allan-

Blitz, who had dropped out of school to dedicate himself to writing

music and establishing himself as a performer. I was so captivated

by his passion — which, of course I recognized from my own youth

— that he became my focus for about a year. It was a remarkable

time in which I saw him grow from insecurity and waywardness

about his craft to an astounding and deserved self-assuredness and

meteoric leaps in the maturity of his talents.

Elijah landed a spot on the soundtrack for the feature film

Remembering Nigel with a song he wrote called Don’t Let Me Die In

Hollywood, inspired by Eric Burdon and the Animals’ hit Don’t Let

Me Be Misunderstood — though certainly resembling it in no way.

We got a budget to shoot a video for the song to go along with the

film and had a blast for two days with a crew and cast of dozens of

famous faces making cameos, including porn legend Ron Jeremy,

who, I have to say, is one of the most down-to-earth and most

pleasant dudes I’ve ever met.

Remembering Nigel writer/director Frank Howson was so

impressed with Elijah he came on board, along with J. Marshall

Craig, to direct the video, and Eric Burdon himself was so impressed

with the song he made a cameo appearance and has declared he

intends to record his own version of Don’t Let Me Die In Hollywood!

That’s how good Elijah got — and how quickly he got there.


Above: Chatting with Elijah Allan-Blitz on the sert of his Don’t Let Me Die In Hollywood video across from Capital Records. Below:

One of the things I love about Elijah — his passion for performing, in this case at the Soho Club in Santa Barbara.

S N O O P D O G G 2 0 9

I am proud to say

that he doesn’t need

my help or advice any

longer, though of course

I’m there for him if he

seeks my advice or help

— he and his entire

family have become dear

friends and among the

most giving and kind

people I’ve ever met.

In the short time I’ve

known him he has earned his diploma and is now booking shows

with the band he has assembled and handling all his own publicity.

He has truly stretched his wings and is finding his own way and it’s

become my honor to now make the occasional guest appearance on

stage with him.

He has since made more music videos and appears on other

artists’ records — Elijah is a part of the New West and I predict will

be enormously successful if the stars line up for him. Anyone will tell

you that stardom can have more to do with luck than talent. So far

Elijah has enjoyed both and I pray he continues to.

Everyone’s on their own island again. It’s kind what it was like

before 2001 happened.

In February of 2009, Dre and Eminem and 50 Cent leaked a

track called Crack a Bottle which was for Eminem’s Relapse record.

Most of the people know thought it was completely whack and

a very, very bad sign of where things were going for all three artists.

Eminem’s Relapse tanked, but his mid-2010 record Recovery is a hit

and he seems to have salvaged his career.

As of this writing there is still no Detox on the horizon. As a fan,

I sure miss Dre’s music. That’s always been the point with me. I’ve

On the set of Elijah Allan-Blitz’s video for Don’t Let Me Die In Hollywood with

Ron Jeremy.


had such a gift of intuition and long-distance vision, and I’m still

surprised when I see someone take a left turn and either leave their

gift behind or drive off a cliff with their career.

A P R O D U C E R ’ S T A L E 2 1 1

A P R O D U C E R ’ S T A L E

“Though I Have Walked Through The Shadow of Death …”

My work as a music producer started in my Granny’s den on a

W-30 keyboard. Because I was working at radio, doing the 6 p.m. to

midnight shift at such a young age, I didn’t have anything to do until

school started in the morning when I got home.

Here’s what my schedule was like back in high school: I went to

bed at 3 o’clock in the afternoon when I got home from school, and

then slept until 5 when I would go to work.

Damon Sharp lurks in the shadows at Larrabee West as I discuss direction with Krayzie Bone.


I was a little workhorse at the station, and they took full advantage

of my ambition. I would do commercials and dub work after I got off

the air, because they knew I didn’t have anything else to do. A lot of

times, I’d be at the radio station until 4 a.m. I was a good commercial

producer, and was up for awards several times locally. One time, they

wanted me to do a commercial in which an elf started rapping (bear

with me ... you do just about anything when you’re starting out and

running on pure passion!). But I had to write a rap and perform it

myself, and then speed it up to sound like a chipmunk.

As I started going with that, I got into writing and other creative

outlets to occupy my time late at night while everyone else was asleep.

I didn’t have a lot of normal friends, because they would all be asleep

when I was awake. In fact, I didn’t really even see a lot of people.

As far as I can remember, I’ve always been nocturnal. Granny and I

share a lot of things, and one of those traits is insomnia. So I needed

something to occupy my time by myself late at night.

When DJ Wicked brought in that ASR keyboard one day to

KHTY and showed me how sampling was done, I was hooked.

I did some research, and the W30 seemed best for what I wanted

to do. You could play keyboard and bass sounds on it too. I could

sample whole loops and lay a loop on top of another loop just by

touching a key. That’s where I learned how to make my own tracks

out of beats and songs that were already out. A lot of it came from

being a DJ, too. I would go and get these Cameron Paul break-beat

tracks and filter out all the low ends, making my own little hooks for

the records.

That’s where it started, though I realized I didn’t have anybody to

get on these records. Early on, I started a group called Fresh Image,

which was a group of guys I went to high school with. I used a drum

machine, and because I only had a four-track recorder at the radio

station, I ended up overdubbing. I didn’t realize it at the time, but

later when I went to Dre’s house for the recording of Eminem’s My


Name Is, they were recording using the same sort of technique that

I was doing back then. Without knowing it, I was teaching myself

production from the inside out. I was always a loner, so these were

the things I did to keep myself occupied. It turned out to sorta be my

time in a personal college.

As I learned keyboards and built my equipment arsenal up, I

slowly but surely moved my way into some local recording studios.

There was a new studio that opened up in town called Orange Whip.

Mark, the technical partner, and Brian, who was my first production

partner, and with whom I did I Still Believe, took me under their wing

and showed me how the recording process worked. There was a two-

inch machine in there and a 24-track. Because I was in radio, some

of the big wigs would want to come meet with me sometimes, and

I’d have them drop by the studio. When they were there, they would

give me pointers as well.

I met manager David Esterson at the station, and he said, “I want

to introduce you to an artist named Biggie Smalls. He’s a white kid

from Whittier.”

I said, “Biggie Smalls? Okay.”

He had a pop record called Hey Mr. Perkins, but it never really

went anywhere. David said, “Would you like to go on tour with this

guy as his DJ?”

Before I knew it, we were at Disneyland opening up for Stevie

B. I’d go to studio sessions as well so I could learn more about the

production of beats. It also helped me as a DJ because I knew where

these samples they were using came from.

Another DJ, named Bobby B, came into KHTY and taught me

a shitload of stuff. When I got to Power 106 years later, some of the

things I said, he took wrong, and I lost touch with him. I’ve always

regretted that and I feel bad about it, because he was like a father

figure to me. But he taught me a lot about production. He had this

studio named Milagro Sounds that he worked out of when he left


KHTY. He started a mastering business and a survey business.

There was something called Air back in the day that would let

people test records and win prizes. They would ask programmers

what they thought of records, and if they predicted hits, they would

win a prize.

Bobby started a company that rivaled that, and that’s when I first

saw how cutthroat the music business was. Basically, what the Air

guy said was, “If you support Bobby, we’re gonna cut all of your

kickbacks.”

These record reps would hire Air to survey these songs and pay

them an exorbitant amount of money, like 30 grand. Then Air would

go to the programmers and give away a Ferrari to one of them, after

getting all their opinions. But it was really a way for promotion guys

to filter money through record companies to the programmers. Being

around Bobby I saw all this stuff.

But at the studio, I started doing demos of rap songs. I did the

rap artist thing, and I thought that it was something I wanted to

do at an early stage. I’ve never had that extra drive to push it as

my main focus, though. It is fun to do, and even to this day, there

are so many times where I could put myself in a position to be a

serious rapper. When What Would You Do with Mariah and Nate

Dogg came out, even Mariah pulled me aside and said, “Now’s the

time to strike. You’re up to 1,700 spins nationally, now would be the

time to get a deal.”

But it was always a situation where my Damizza brand as a

producer and a writer was stronger than it was as a performer. I

admit it’s still a kick to get up on stage and do a tune or two and I

enjoy doing short tours of Japan every year, where I seem to have

a dedicated fan base for Damizza tracks. Truth is it is fun to get on

stage every so often when you’ve got passion for music. I’ve even

managed to get my writer buddy J. Marshall Craig to pick up his

guitar to back me at a couple of shows, which he says he hasn’t done


since his college days back in Canada.

I was, back in the day, though, so torn. Once I’d entered the

producing arena, launched Baby Ree and signed Shade and he had

the No. 2 hip-hop single in the country with Where I Wanna Be, the

record companies wanted to be in business with me because I had

the power at radio, not because of my potential as a hook writer or

producer or performer.

I never had any illusions. I knew these guys put on a façade

regarding their interests in me and my music. The rap thing and

the production thing was always secondary in people’s minds to

my position in radio. People would hire me to get a relationship

going so they could work their record. For a while, it desensitized

me to doing records, period, and I dropped out of making them for

a couple of years.

For example, I did a remix for Nappy Roots called Hoedown. After

I submitted it, the label was pissed off because they had paid me to

do this remix, and I wasn’t playing it on Power 106.

They called me up and said, “We wanted you to do this remix as

something that may fit on Power.”

But to me, as a producer, I wanted to accentuate that live element

of the Nappy Roots that made them such an interesting group in

the first place. It needed to be my vision of what that artist was, not

necessarily what would fit on Power.

Nappy Roots just wouldn’t fit on Power. We were a West Coast

gangsta rap station!

So they said after the fact, “Well, we just paid you all this money

to get the record on Power.”

I said, “I’ll send the money back then.”

So I bit the cost of the studio time and lost money on that

record.

I had to do that a couple of times. One, I was not someone who

could be bought, and two, I wouldn’t go against my heart creatively.


I’d spell this out for these guys at the beginning, and for legal reasons

they would say, “Oh yeah. Sure.”

But I started realizing that that’s all people wanted me to do.

They wanted to buy their way onto Power 106, or put some money in

my pocket to create a relationship and get their other records played.

I literally had people bring backpacks with 30 grand, 50 grand, into

my office and just say they’d leave it there. I was offered cars, drugs,

sex, you name it. All I can say is that I cannot be bought and it took

a long time for these corrupt fuckers to get it. And it pissed them off

that I couldn’t be bought.

I’m not trying to be self-righteous here or boast, but in all honesty,

all I can say is that my soul isn’t worth any amount of money, and I

don’t care what other people do or have done. That kind of corruption

is always the hound barking at the door of my passion for music

because of what the music business can, and does, do to the music

and how it can, and does, compromise artists.

Thankfully, I’ve almost always been surrounded by amazing

people with the same ethics who were all about mentoring and who

have the same passion for the music as I.

For instance, through working with Biggie Smalls, I met a

producer named Bronik who taught me how to work an SP-1200.

He was really my mentor as far as production. We would get in the

studio with Tricky Stewart, who years later did Rihanna’s Umbrella,

and Sep.

Another person who came out of the studio was Robin Thicke.

I’ve known him since he was 15. I did rap and he did singing, so we

were the two white boys who everybody fucked with. But, if you look

at those people now, they’re all stars. So I got to learn how to write

songs from watching these types of people.

Then, something strange happened. The Notorious B.I.G. had

just come out, but his initial name was Biggie Smalls. The name was

already owned by a teenage white kid. Big Biggie was on the air one


day with Julio G at The Beat, and he said, “Yeah, supposedly there’s

some dude out here who has the name Biggie Smalls, who’s being a

bitch about letting go of the name. I had it first.”

So 15-year-old Little Biggie says to David, “Take me to The Beat

right now!”

And they went.

He walked into the on-air studio and looked straight at Julio G.

Julio announced to the listeners, “Oh! Little Biggie’s here.”

Biggie points at The Notorious B.I.G. and said, “You! I need to

talk to you in the hallway.”

Big Biggie went into the hallway with him and said, “What’s up

little man?”

Little Biggie said, “Why are you on the air talking shit about me

in my own town?”

Big Biggie said, “Well, who are you?”

Little Biggie said, “I’m Biggie Smalls.”

Big Biggie laughed and said, “Don’t worry. I’m gonna call Puff

and tell him we have to change my name. I’m not gonna take the

name of some little kid.”

He actually apologized to this kid! Talk about a standup dude

who was all about respect, right out of the gate.

But the next day, David Esterson got a call from Puffy, screaming

at him, saying, “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

There was nothing Puff ’s Bad Boy company could have done

though, because Little Biggie had the name trademarked and had

been operating under it professionally for years. And that was why

The Notorious B.I.G. had to change his name.

But learning stuff like that, and watching people stand up to

these icons, were the seeds of right and wrong that were instilled in

me when it came to production. I can say that’s the one thing that I

learned from Little Biggie. Never back down. Walk quietly, but carry

a big stick, even if you’re the small 12-year-old kid. I related to that.


I said to myself, “Wait a minute. That took heart to walk up to

The Notorious B.I.G. and say, ‘Fuck you, dogg. Biggie Smalls is my

name.’ ”

I looked at it and said, “If he can do that shit, that’s what I need

to be doing, too.” So I took a page out of his book, and that’s how I

got the reputation of being a little pit bull.

A few years before I was at Power, Brian and I knocked out the

beat for what would become the I Still Believe remix in my Granny’s

den. We were watching Willy Wonka at the time, and I said, “That

line is so cool.”

He said, “You’ll never get it cleared.”

So we filed it away, and then when Mariah wanted to do the

record, she wanted it done so bad that she called Leslie Bricusse and

Anthony Newley, who did the original song Pure Imagination for

Willy Wonka.

She said, “Look, we’ll split the publishing with you.” It helped

that Mariah Carey was the one who wanted it, and that the music

director at Power 106 wanted it. Radio is a publishing business, and

let’s be real: Everyone wants to get his or her song played to make

money. So with Mariah behind it, and the prospect of me airing it,

they knew they would be getting paid.

But from that experience, I learned that if you can find a carrot

somewhere, you can use that to leverage a deal getting done. At the

same time, it’s what got me away from production, because I realized

people always wanted something from me.

I guess I can say that about Shade Sheist, who was really the first

artist I took on full time. We were about the same age, and when we

started, we would get together on Friday nights. I had just moved

to L.A. and didn’t know anybody. We were both big Bone Thugs

fans, so there really wasn’t much else to say. I started writing for him

and making beats. The very first beat I ever did with Shade that was

commercially released was If You Were My Bitch, which we wrote


together. Irv Gotti heard it and

said, “I need one of those for

the Murderers album. That’s

like my Ain’t No Fun for this

record.”

Shade Sheist’s records fit

Power 106. That’s what people

don’t realize. I didn’t just make

a bunch of records and put

them on my radio station. I

went to the people who were

hot at the time and paid them

to make records. I didn’t use

my position to get Nate Dogg

or DJ Quik. I paid them above-

market rates for their work,

specifically so I couldn’t be

worked over later for a favor.

And Nate’s hook for Where

I Wanna Be really started the

snowball effect of his becoming the undisputed hook king. Then they

put him on You Can’t Deny It with Fabolous, Oh No with Pharaoh

Monch, and so on.

But after our deal was bought out from London Records for

$250,000, we got an additional $750,000 to make the Shade Sheist

Informal Introduction album. We ended up spending $600,000 of that

to make the record. What’s funny is, there are only about two or three

songs that don’t have a feature on it.

When we went to a studio to do a record, everyone would want

to get on it. They knew it was coming out for sure, so that was a plus.

But it almost got to the point where people were mad if I didn’t call

them to get on a record. Everyone thought Shade was gonna blow

E. SANCHEZ PHOTO: Learning what a comp sheet is from the

legendary James Ingram at CanAm Studios in L.A.


up because I was behind him. And they thought that with me behind

him, Power 106 was automatically behind him. Wrong!

Timbaland gave us a record for free, and I agreed to that. The

reason I did is because we were playing all his records anyway. It

would be like if Dre came down and offered to do a record for free.

There’s no money you can pay a Timbaland or a Dre that would

make a difference in the quality of the record. So it was him doing me

the favor, not the other way around. I think a lot of the other artists

in the Shade Sheist project were thinking, “I’m gonna go work with

Damizza so I can get my records played.” Anybody that gave off that

vibe, I wouldn’t work with, unless I paid them.

The first record I recorded with Shade was called Glam Lyfe. The

other record we did was I Know She Wants Me with Krayzie Bone. I

got the Krayzie collaboration to happen by saying, “If you want I

Still Believe for your album, I won’t charge you a producer fee if you

get on this for Shade.”

That first record ultimately got us signed to Red Ant. Shade

actually had three deals before he even got to MCA. And I made

Shade a shitload of money. He made probably a half a million dollars

before a record even came out. He was on salary for 50 grand a year

too, on top of all the advance money he got, which was easily over

100 grand. That’s what was so ironic about when our relationship fell

apart and Shade wrote a public letter about me, trying to defame me.

What the fuck was there to complain about?

He was a star when he wasn’t ready to be. And I can’t blame

him for anything. Because if you take somebody from Adams and

Crenshaw or the suburbs and throw him into the music business

where people like Jay-Z are walking up to you, saying “You’re the

next one,” of course your head’s gonna swell.

You have to remember, I started at 12, so all this stuff was given

to me in increments. I had time to think about every move. Shade

didn’t. He went from the ghetto to being on stage with Mariah Carey


in about a year and a half. So if that doesn’t fry your brain, I don’t

know what would. I know mine would be downright crispy.

I learned a lot about production from the Shade project. Shade

was an artist, but he wasn’t the only artist on the project. It really

came down to the feature or what I’d write. When Shade came

into the studio, everything was usually already done for him. Mike

Schlesinger, my engineer, taught me so much about the studio

etiquette because he was a veteran. He did So Many Tears for 2Pac. He

is another person without whom I really wouldn’t know shit about

production.

While recording that album, I became friends with everybody,

and I had money. People would come in, smoke a bunch of weed,

have endless alcohol, and turn it into a party. I had Larrabee West,

at $2,000 a day, rented out for a year. (I have to say, studio manager

Jamie Way was my guardian angel throughout that whole time ...

and still is!) So, for instance, we had Nate come by while we were

recording the song Walk A Mile, and he just wanted to do a verse. He

said, “I like that hook, and I don’t want to touch that. I just want to

do a verse for it.”

Irv Gotti would show up and say, “I love this song. What else do

you have?”

We ended up getting the song Cali Diseaz with Shade and Nate

Dogg on the Fast and The Furious soundtrack just because I played him

the record one day. He also wanted another record for the soundtrack

for Ja to get on. So I said, “No problem.”

That’s really how it all happened. It wasn’t a lot of money

changing hands. It was all horse trading. If we actually used the

records, I would make sure everyone got paid for it, regardless of

whether we traded or not, because I didn’t want anyone to have me

over a barrel. I really didn’t want to hear, “I did this for you! Why

don’t you play my record?”

So through Mike and all these legends, then going in to see Quik


and see Dre, I picked up a lot of core knowledge about production.

At the same time, I started making the records in a systematic,

cookie cutter, not-really-about-the-music format. But by the time I

had my first hit. I was like, “This really isn’t the music I want to

make.”

I realized, two weeks into the recording of the Shade album, that

he wasn’t ready. I was putting a great compilation album together

with all these artists, and if you go back and listen to the album, it’ll

bump from beginning to end. It’s an amazing record. But if I called

it Damizza and Friends, it probably would have been a much bigger

record.

Shade had a lot of concepts. If you look at BMF, that’s a complete

Shade record. But if you look at Somebody Steals the Show, I wrote the

hook, and I sang the reference for the hook and spent two days with

Shade cutting three verses. That’s one that I began and ended the way

I wanted.

I remember when Dre came in when I was making that record,

his head started to turn. He gave me some props for that one. But it

took almost two weeks to do that record. Even back then, to spend

$14,000 on the studio time alone was too much. I wasn’t Dre! I

couldn’t afford to spend that type of money. But I also believe that

I’ve never produced a record completely the way that I wanted to.

I’m a perfectionist, but I kind of gave up.

I said, “I can’t do it the way I want to do it, but I love making

music and I don’t want a pity party, so I’ll just put out whatever I’ve

got. And hopefully, one day, I’ll earn the spot to be able to do it the

way I want to do it.”

But I found out that I didn’t have the power as a producer to get

these records to turn out the way I wanted them to. I was too far in

on the business and radio end, but not far enough as a brand-name

producer to even the two out. It really started to frustrate me.

I kick myself now, because there were days that I would just sit in


the studio. I had this $2,000-dollar-a-day room and I’d just be hanging

out. Mike would give me a bunch of shit, like, “Dude, do you know

what it’s like to have this studio? Do you know how blessed you are?

Just do something!”

But I lost the vibe. I think a lot of that came after working with

Mariah. People work so hard to get to that point of working with a

superstar like that, but that’s where I started. The first record I ever

produced was a Mariah Carey record. So production to me was a

hobby. From a year and a half, I went from making music in my den

to producing records that sold in excess of 30 million copies, and I

hadn’t really learned anything. I didn’t know how to act and I didn’t

know what to do. Over the past three years, I spent so much time

going back to learn some of the basics as I’ve been tutoring kids here

in Santa Barbara.

One of the main reasons why I wanted to do (local Santa Barbara

group) Guilty’s project — which ultimately collapsed, for a variety

of reasons that I don’t really blame anyone for — was because it was

something that I’d started from scratch. I look back on it now as more

of a summer camp experience of helping these kids find an outlet for

their creativity. I am happy with a track I did with Dopey Loco from

Guilty, however, called Crackin’ which has been quite popular and the

video of which is a YouTube hit.

I knew it would take four years to try to develop. By Year Three it

had all fallen apart, for many, many reasons, but I tried. And for the

most part the kids involved have done well in the direction they’ve

decided to take with their lives. Some of them have abandoned music.

One of them became a Marine. Another got into retail and and has

moved on to a different life entirely. Most significant in music terms

is a kid named Los, whom I regard clearly as my production protégé.

In fact, working with him, and some of the newer kids who’ve come

into my life since and I’m tutoring, has helped shake some of the rust

off me.


When my little brother came to me and said, “My friends want

to be rappers,” I met them and saw their hunger and passion to begin

exploring music. I saw how it could be mutually benefitical to become

a tutor and scrape away some of the cynicism that had infected me.

It’s funny when you think of it like this, sort of like the residency

portion of a doctor’s training. That’s the way I’ve kind of looked at

it working with people like Mariah, Ice Cube, Nate Dogg, Warren G,

and so on. These people wouldn’t let me make a huge mistake. It goes

back to my theory on consistency and repetition and momentum. I’ve

consistently produced records, and I’ve consistently learned from the

veterans, whether it be Terry Reid, Warren G, Mariah, Dre, or Quik.

I’ve learned what makes a good record from these amazing people.

And of course after my years in radio I have, quite simply, a built-in

radar about what is a good record and what, no matter who might be

featured or who may have done the beat, just ain’t gonna work.

Now, from mentoring the kids, I’m developing the repetition part

for myself. Watching them fall, watching their mistakes, and helping

them correct them. They’re even teaching people around them. This

has in some ways helped me more than it’s helped them.

Granny taught me: “You can’t see things when it’s you. Always

be very aware of that in a public life, because everybody’s seeing it

but you’re not.”

During my last couple years at Power 106, I was self-destructing.

But I didn’t realize it. I just thought I was having a good time. I was

drinking, smoking, off on boats and G5s, on beaches, and not really

caring about anything. I didn’t have time to appreciate it. It was given

to me so fast, and at such a young age, I just thought I deserved it. I

totally fell into that terrible trap of believing in such an over-inflated

sense of entitlement. I don’t think I fully realized it until very recently,

years after my detoxing and beginning the journey down the long

road of self-realization with my rehab stint at the Betty Ford Center.

All of these experiences were gifts that were given to me, and I


didn’t necessarily grasp that concept at the time. I thought, “I worked

hard. I earned this position. Fuck everybody else.” Consummed by

such selfishness is a decidedly dangerous place to be.

I think it really came hand in hand with my alcohol issues. I was

never like that at first. I was very appreciative. But after a while, I

realized that I didn’t care about the music I was putting out. I asked

myself, “What happened to that puritan? What happened to the

guy who said, ‘Fuck you, I’m not doing your record unless it’s done

right?’ You don’t care? Who have you become?”

That’s when I said to myself, “Go home.”

The thing that ultimately drove me away from producing was

that I didn’t have complete control over my own records. The song

I produced for Westside Connection (Ice Cube, Mack 10, and WC)

called Lights Out was the final nail in the coffin.

The way that I looked at it as a producer, I had the best of the best

on this record. Mike and I tracked the beat. I had Ice Cube on my

record for the first time, Knoc-Turn’al doing the hook, I had E-Man

scratching on the beginning going, “Wa-Wa-West…siiiide!” It was

recorded at Soundcastle, the best studio, in my opinion. I had DJ

Quik mix it. I had Ice Cube, Mack 10, and WC on the fuckin’ thing!

It was a flawless record as it appeared on Mack 10’s Ghetto, Gutter,

and Gangsta compilation. It flew off the chart too. It was a single,

and it got Westside Connection together again. Then I got a copy of

the Westside Connection Terrorist Threats CD in the mail, and they

used the wrong mix! They used the mix of the demo version without

telling me. I was heartbroken. Truly. That record meant more to me

personally than I can ever express on paper and having the wrong mix

appear was like a death to me. I wish it had have made me angry, but

it didn’t — it just simply stomped me emotionally and I still haven’t

gotten over it. And why should I? I had EVERYTHING right with

this record. I had Ice Cube and DJ Quik on the same track. As a

West Coast fan, and as a West Coast producer, it just didn’t get any


better than that. I’ll never forget how that record came about. Mack

10 called me up and said, “I need a single for Westside Connection.”

I said, “Holy shit! A single for Westsi…wait. Ice Cube is gonna get

on one of my beats? I have a chance to get Ice Cube!”

So I played him the beat and Mack 10 said, “That’s it! That’s it!

That’s exactly what I need, Damizza. I’m gonna get Cube on it.” I

already had Knoc on the hook before he heard it, and Mack 10 went

to Can-Am and got Cube to record his verse. Then WC got on the

record.

I went back to Soundcastle and started editing the record. E-Man

put the scratching on it. Conceptually, it was my dream come true.

Those little samples in the beginning was my way of saying, “This is

why you love WC. This is why you love Ice Cube. This is why you

love Mack 10. That is what makes this music legendary.”

This was my best foot forward. This was my shit right here —

my favorite record I ever produced. I grew up on Ice Cube. Next

to getting Dr. Dre to spit a verse on your record, this is the fucking

ultimate of where you go as a hip-hop artist.

Then, I went to see DJ Quik, because I thought, “If I’m gonna

put out a record with Ice Cube, I need to know what Quik thinks. Let

me go ask the person who is the reason why I got into making beats.”

The reason I rap and do beats together is because I’m a DJ Quik

fan. Quik is the model on which I based my whole production style,

the funk with the heavy hitting snares, with a little bit of rock and

R&B. So I went to see him.

First, I played him a song I did called Chip The Curb, which was

a cover of his classic Dollaz + Sense. I wanted to make sure he was

okay with it. After about 15 seconds of it, he said, “You’re gonna be

all right, Damizza!”

Then I said, “Well, I’ve got another one, and this is the one I

really need an opinion on.”

He heard the kick and the snare, and he said, “I love this record.


Who’s on it?”

I said, “Westside Connection.”

“Bring me the Pro Tools and I’ll mix it. Where the fuck did you

get that snare?”

I said, “It’s a cross between two things. Mary J. Blige’s Family

Affair and Low Profile’s Pay Ya Dues.”

He goes, “You’re doing it right. Bring me the Pro Tools. I’m

going to mix this record tonight.”

I said, “Quik. It’s two in the morning. My Pro Tools engineer is

asleep. Can he do it tomorrow?”

Quik said, “Go wake that motherfucker up and bring me the

ProTools.”

Quik went and took a nap

for a minute. My team went

and knocked on Florian’s

window to wake his ass up

to get the files. God bless the

guy. He made a copy, we took

it over to the studio and had

it there by 3:30 a.m. Quik

worked on it and had it done

by 5 a.m.

He said, “You got one,

Mizz,” and handed it to

me. Quik didn’t even add

anything to the record. He

just refined it and mixed it. I

couldn’t even be in the room.

I was pacing outside like an

expectant father.

It was the perfect record,

and it was released as a single.

E. SANCHEZ PHOTO: One of my favorite places to be: Behind an SSL board, in this

case listening to the final mix of Cruzin’ at Area 51.


They shot a video for it to get the most out of the momentum that had

been building. When I got the Westside Connection album though, I

was devastated. Apparently, Cube didn’t like the mix. He said it had

too many samples in it. At least the original version is still out.

But it felt that every hope and dream I had went down with that

record. Right afterward, I had a chance to sign Ice Cube to my Baby

Ree record label, and that fell through. Emmis didn’t think it was the

right move, and they shut it down.

I also had a chance to do my solo rap career, after my record with

Mack 10 and Fat Joe called Dirt caught on. Ironically, it was featured

on the Ghetto, Gutter, and Gangsta compilation too. I followed it up

with What Would You Do, with Mariah and Nate Dogg. Lights Out

was the template of what I wanted my music to sound like in the

gangsta world, and What Would You Do was what I wanted it to be

like in the R&B, Mariah realm.

I really hit my zenith of where I wanted to be as a producer. But I

was like, “I don’t wanna be in this anymore, because I can’t do what

I want to do. There are too many people involved.”

That was the problem. I went from doing records in my bedroom

the way I wanted to, to having to deal with these inputs that just got

in my way. You may think I’m being arrogant, but I want to capture

what I hear in my head — I’m not gonna tell you it’s great, good, shit

or anywhere in between; but I want to capture what I hear between

my ears, right or wrong.

If I could give any advice on what I’ve dealt with during my

career as a producer, I’d say to let the music be what it is and the rest

will come. If you hire a producer to do a record, let him produce it.

For every artist I work with, I tell him or her that the beats make

a story. They’re a snapshot ... a photograph of what’s happening at

that moment. When it stopped being like that, when they took my

musical camera away, if you will, I just stopped.

G i v i N ’ B A C K 2 2 9

G i v i N ’ B A C K

Jim Brown and Amer-I-Can Unity Foundation

I got a call from Stan Sheppard one day, who was managing DJ Quik

at the time. Stan’s father, Bunky Sheppard, was one of the forefathers

of urban music.

He said, “Damion, I want to have a meeting with you. I’m

involved with this charity, and there’s a bunch of things going on that

I want to get you involved with.”

Anything Stan did I was always down for.

He said, “I want you to meet me on Havenhurst Street.”

I said, “Havenhurst … where have I heard that? That’s the street

the Jacksons used to live on, right?”

I learned that from watching the Jackson mini-series that was

just on TV at the time. Stan said, “Yeah, we’re meeting at the Jackson

estate.”

I said, “Hold on. What?”

He said, “Yeah the Jackson parents live there; my office is located

there now because I’m co-president of Jackson Communications.”

So I pulled up to the gate at the Jackson estate a couple days

later. A butler answered the door, we walked in and to the left was

Stan’s office. He said, “I’m involved in a charity called the Amer-I-

Can Unity One Foundation. Bo Taylor and Jim Brown run it. You

know who Jim Brown is, right?”

I said, “Refresh my memory.”

He said, “Jim Brown! He’s a Hall of Fame football player.”

I said, “Stan, forgive me. I’m not into sports.”

He said, “Well, we have a meeting at Jim’s house in a couple

days. Can you come?”


Why not!

A couple days later, I drove up Sunset Boulevard and met Stan at

Jim Brown’s house. When I walked in, it seemed like the general vibe

was, “Okay, here’s another white music executive who thinks he’s

down. How is he gonna help the community?” Jim Brown started

speaking, and about half way through the speech, I thought, “Wait a

minute, this is the guy who went to visit OJ in prison! That dude was

in Mars Attacks!”

Jim explained all of the things that the charity did. They went

to prisons and gang-infested neighborhoods and worked with

community leaders to get jobs and teach inner-city kids how to lead

a normal, productive life.

At the end of the meeting, I said to Jim, “I really think this is a

good cause. You can’t have gang intervention without gangs.”

Jim said, “I’ve been waiting for someone like you. I didn’t know

when you would come, but I’ve been waiting for someone like you

my whole life.”

I said, “Wow. Okay.”

Darren “Bo” Taylor had been a Crip since the age of 15 but

had become a peacekeeper and founder of Unity One, grass-roots

organization that attacked gang violence through life-skills training

as well as through conflict resolution on the front lines. Bo was a

consummate mediator, whose years as a Crip gave him credibility and

insight into what had divided the community and law enforcement

into warring camps during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. He bridged

the gap and was respected by the cops and the streets. He asked me,

“Would you go through some of the neighborhoods with us and see

what the community’s like? We need some help with the radio stuff,

and any other way we can get you involved with the system would

be great.”

The next thing I know, I was cruising around with Bo and he

introduced me to everyone in the Amer-I-Can Foundation and Unity

G i v i N ’ B A C K 2 3 1

One. I started getting involved with the cause and supporting it any

way I was able. Bo and I became friends. He would bring some of the

kids from the program into the studio. I was always around, and we’d

introduce them to Knoc-Turn’al or Butch Cassidy or whomever I was

working with at the time. He showed the kids, “This is what a studio

is. You can make something of yourself and just have a dream and

pursue it. There are other ways than violence.”

A lot of these guys in the program had never before left their own

neighborhoods. Doing little things like this were great, and I loved it.

Every time we’d go, somebody new would pop up. The first time,

when we went to Wayside Prison, it was James Ingram. When we

were in the parking lot, I said, “Hey, there’s James Ingram!”

Bo said, “Yeah, he’s part of the foundation.”

I said, “Wait a minute. Now you’re getting into people I know.

That dude wrote PYT for Michael Jackson! He’s fucking incredible.”

Bo said, “Oh, well I’ll introduce you.”

I went up to James “Oh, you’re involved with the foundation?”

I said, “Yeah, I’m here to do whatever I can. As long as you can

tell me some stories about working with Quincy Jones on the biggest

selling album of all time!”

I was joking around, but that musta have been a little awkward.

He said, “Sure, young fella.”

That’s what they all eventually started calling me – young fella.

Amer-I-Can is a charity that has a relationship with all of the hood

bosses in the different neighborhoods in LA. It goes through different

neighborhoods and employs a lot of the people in the neighborhood.

So when there’s a conflict between neighborhoods, they can come in

and mediate from a hood-boss level before it gets to the little homies

hurting themselves.

The Amer-I-Can Foundation was brought into Wayside Prison

because there were a lot of gang-related fights there at the time. It

was really bad there for a while. They brought in the foundation to sit


down and negotiate in the prison system.

On this day, we got a tour of the prison. We were walking through,

and one of the guards, a Spanish lady, said to James, “Oh, I love your

music!”

James belted out, singing something in Spanish. Because

the prison was just a bunch of cement and metal, you could hear

everything throughout the whole prison. It was such a gift, because

you saw how selfless it was. It was just about the music and making

everyone feel good. He’s the real deal.

From his era, you had to be real dope to make it in the industry.

Seeing all of these figures donate their time to such a selfless cause, I

thought to myself, “This is what I want to do. Whatever Bo and Jim

want, I’m there.”

They took us into one of the holding cells and we all, one by

one, introduced ourselves to the crowd. When it came to me, I didn’t

know what to say. I just made a total fool out of myself.

I said, “I’m Damion Young, I’m the senior director of

programming and artist relations at Power 106. I’m a white kid

from Santa Barbara. I don’t know much about gang culture or

anything like that. I’m out here to meet real people and help. I’m

also a record producer. If anyone has any questions about music or

if you’re trying to get started, I’m here.”

But I was standing next to James Ingram, Jim Brown, and Bo

Taylor, who dedicated his life to saving lives.

Sheriff Lee Baca was also the one giving us the tour, so that was

even crazier. He got up and said, “We’re gonna give the graduation

certificates today, and I want to say that since the inception of the

Amer-I-Can foundation at Wayside, there is almost a 100 percent

success rate for this program.”

The curriculum, which was developed by Jim, teaches life skills

and positive decision-making. A lot of mistakes people make are

from having never been taught life skills. You don’t learn any of these

things gangbanging.

G i v i N ’ B A C K 2 3 3

I started going to the meetings about once a month.

When we did Powerhouses, I told Bo, “Why don’t you grab a few

of the dudes in the program and we’ll have a good time.”

I’ll never forget one time Bo was walking down the ramp to come

to Powerhouse. Mariah and I were talking in the back of her car,

going over what was gonna happen in the show.

Bo walked by and I said, “Hey Bo.”

He walked up and said, “Oh my God” when he saw Mariah.

Mariah said, “Hey, I’ve heard about all of the stuff you do in the

streets. At some point, I’d love to get involved.”

Bo was like, “You told Mariah Carey about the program? Wow.”

One of my biggest frustrations with Power 106 came from their

struggle with my getting Jim Brown involved with the station. We

were dealing with an urban radio station, and Brown is an icon in the

urban community.

I told them, “We should be involved in gang intervention, and we

have the Knowledge is Power Foundation for the Latino community.

Why can’t we embrace some of the other areas?”

I typed up a memo about my involvement in the program and

how it helps people. Station management above me just didn’t want

to do it.

One day, I got a call from Stan saying, “Will you please come to

Cedars-Sinai. Jim’s in the hospital.”

I asked, “Is he okay?”

He said, “Yeah he’s fine, he just had back surgery. But he’d love

to see you.”

I said, “Oh, wow.”

He said, “Yeah, you make him laugh.”

We sat around talking with his wife for a while. He said, “You’re

a big history buff right?”

I said, “Yeah.”

He said, “I have someone I want you to meet — Harry Belafonte.”


I said, “Whoa. He’s an icon in black music. He did Dayo! People

don’t just get to meet Harry Belafonte.”

I mean, I’ve met some interesting people, but this guy just paved

the way for urban music.

Jim said, “Well, I want you to meet him some time.”

A couple weeks later, before a holiday weekend, Lee Baca was

honoring Jim at a luncheon downtown. I was invited to come with

a few guests. Connie Rice, one of the biggest civil rights attorneys in

the world, was a host.

My little brother Nick was in town and I said I needed to take him

back to Santa Barbara. Bo Taylor said, “Look, if you can stop by for

10 or 15 minutes, just on your way out, it would mean a lot to Jim.”

At this point, I was still thinking, “Yeah right. It’s Jim Brown.

Like he gives a shit if I show up.”

But I went.

Triple, Nick, and a couple other people and I went to this

thing. On an easel outside, there was a list of who was coming

to the party, Harry Belafonte’s name was on the list. My jaw just

dropped when I saw that. Nick looked over me and said, “Dude!

Ricky Watters is here!”

I said, “Who the fuck is Ricky Watters?”

He said, “He’s only one of the most famous running backs of all

time. He won a championship with the San Francisco 49ers and he’ll

be in the Hall of Fame.”

I was like, “Okay, whatever. Harry Belafonte is gonna be here.

Fuck what ya heard!”

So during the middle of Jim’s speech while he was accepting his

award, he saw me and my friends in the back. He just stopped and

pointed at me. I kind of waved a little and smiled, but I’m sure it

looked weird. Harry got up and said a few words, and he had to

catch a plane so I didn’t get to meet him. Jim was talking to a bunch

of people afterward, and he looked over at me again and nodded his

G i v i N ’ B A C K 2 3 5

head. He started walking toward us. I got up and started walking

toward him, and he gave me a signal to just stop and sit down.

He sat down next to me and said, “What’s up, young fella?”

I said, “Hey, Mr. Brown, how you been?”

He said, “My name is Jim.”

I said, “Yes sir. Hey, this is my little brother Nick.”

Jim said, “Nice to meet you.”

I said, “Well, Nick said there’s some guy here named Ricky

Watters. Who’s Ricky Watters?”

Jim started laughing. He said, “That would be the young fella

over there,” and pointed to someone who was surrounded by 15 or

20 people.

I said, “My brother is a huge fan. Is there any way we can get an

autograph before we leave?”

He said, “Oh yeah. Nick, walk over here with me.”

I said, “Jim, you don’t have to do that.”

He said, “No, it’s cool.”

Jim took my brother over there to Ricky and said, “Rick, this is

the brother of one of the most valuable people in the foundation,

Damion Young.”

My brother was just standing there like, “Huh?”

After the three of them talked for a few minutes, Ricky said,

“What does his brother do?”

Jim said, “He’s a producer.”

Ricky said, “Oh, I want to do a rap album.”

So Jim came back and asked me if I wanted to meet him. I

said sure.

So before you know it, every once in a while, Ricky would show

up at the studio. Ricky was getting more involved in the foundation

so we’d end up seeing each other pretty often. Ricky and Stan were

gonna do a project, and we set up a time where we went in and did a

few songs together for it.


One day, Ricky was sitting on the back couch. He had one of

his Super Bowl rings on, and I looked over and said, “Damn dogg,

you’re blinding me with that ring! Put it down. Are you trying to kill

somebody? You gotta floss on everybody?”

He showed me the ring and I put it on myself. I started walking

around the room saying to everybody, “Yeah motherfucker! I’m

wearing a Super Bowl ring!”

Butch Cassidy showed up and I said, “Yeah man, you can’t see

me. I played in the Super Bowl with the 49ers.”

Everything was pretty surreal at that point. One time, I tried to

set up a charity event with a senator, Ozo Motley and DJ Quik. The

police shut us down because Quik was a “Gangsta Rapper” and they

were concerned about gang activity afterward. A California senator

called and apologized to us. When we got out of the thing, Quik

looked at me and said, “Damizza, you’ve really outdone yourself

this time.”

I said, “Why?”

“You just got a senator to apologize to me.”

It was such a gift that I was involved with these things. Jim and

everyone would never ask me to do anything but show up and talk to

people and be myself. I had a ball.

One time, Jim called me up and said, “Hey, young fella. What are

you doing tonight?”

I said, “Nothing. What are you doing?”

He said, “I’m going to a party. You’re goin’ with me.”

I said, “What do you mean we’re going to a party?”

He said, “Just come and pick me up.”

We went to this party in South Central. It was Mongo’s place,

and I had the best food I’ve ever had in my life. There was Haitian

food, Jamaican food, fried bananas, dirty rice, and all kinds of crazy

food. I was in heaven. They had a studio in the back too! It was a

regular house, but if you walked into the backyard it was like being

G i v i N ’ B A C K 2 3 7

at a club in Jamaica. It had

the lights and everything back

there. It was great.

At three or four in the

morning Jim said, “All right

young fella. I’m a 70-year-old

man, it’s time for me to go

home. Are you giving me a

ride?”

I said, “No problem.”

We got in the car and started to take off. Then I started to notice

I didn’t know how we got here. I said, “Jim, how do we get back to

the freeway?”

He said, “I don’t know. You drove. Just go that way.”

So here we were in the middle on the night, driving through all

of these hoods in a blue car, and I start noticing that everybody’s

wearing red. I’m sitting there just thinking, “Oh, this is great.”

We both had no idea where we were going.

We ended up driving around for an hour while we were lost, and

we just started talking. He started telling me about the foundation.

He said, “You’re really important to the movement. Thank you

so much for all that you do.”

I said, “Jim, I really don’t do anything. I wish there was more I

could do.”

He said, “You’re one of the most important people to the

movement.”

I said, “How is that?”

He said, “Just by being there. You give your time and you’re a

good guy.”

I said, “Thanks. I really appreciate that.”

Then we talked about his surgery. I said, “What happened to

your back?”

Basking in being with with the legendary Jim Brown at his

house high atop Los Angeles.


He said, “Well you have to remember, they have pads now. All

we had was leather straps. At least I got out before it really caused

serious damage.”

A couple weeks later, there was another graduation at his house.

The coach for USC was there, and Gary Dourdan from CSI was there.

I asked Jim if I could bring some of the younger artists from the

New West that I was working with such as Bishop Lamont, Taje,

Roccett, Scipio, and Dae One.

I said, “This is the best way to get involved with new kids is to get

the up and comers involved.”

Jim got up to make his speech and he said, “There are so many

people involved with this program who just donate their time. I can

always count on them. If you look back there, there’s Damion Young

from Power 106. He’s always there no matter when I call him, or

what we need. He’s always there.”

It was one of the few times I felt like I was a part of something

real. With Jim and Bo Taylor, I felt a part of something.

As we were leaving, I told Jim, “My Granny just did a speech for

the Santa Barbara Women’s Club, and I’m so proud of her.”

I had the speech in my pocket because I wanted to show it to

him. Basically, she came from the deep South where everything

was very segregated. She moved her family to California so her kids

wouldn’t be subjected to racism. She was an independent woman

whose husband passed away, and she kept moving and ran her dead

husband’s auto repair shop.

Jim said, “Do you have another copy of this?”

I said, “Yeah.”

As we were walking out, he pinned the speech up on his wall.

And he kept it there. Ages later I saw he still had the speech on

his wall. I said, “Wow, you still have my Granny’s speech up there.”

He said, “Yeah, it’s inspiring. Now I know who you are. By the

way, Harry Belafonte is gonna be in town next week. His daughter

G i v i N ’ B A C K 2 3 9

is filming this documentary, and he’s basically gonna tell the entire

story of the civil rights movement on camera at the Amer-I-Can

offices. Do you wanna go and take a couple of youngsters with you?”

I went back to my office at Power and found a couple of the unpaid

interns who were working. I said, “I know you guys aren’t making

any money, but the least that I could give you is some knowledge.”

So they went with me to hear Harry Belafonte speak about the

civil rights movement.

At the end of it, Bo introduced me to Harry. With that really

raspy voice of his he said, “Hello, it’s very nice to meet you.”

I said, “It’s such an honor to meet you. I only have one question.

I saw a picture of you in the Oval Office, standing in between JFK

and Martin Luther King Jr. What was it like sitting in the office,

working out civil rights issues and all of that? What were they like?”

He said, “John Kennedy was a cool dude. But Martin? He was

just cool.”

I was speechless.

Harry said to Bo at the end of the meeting, “Next time I’m in

L.A., make sure he’s here. I’ll sit down with him.” He turned to me

and said, “Thank you for everything you’ve done. I’ve heard good

things about you.”

Shortly after that, Bishop Lamont called me and invited me to go

to Miami with him to work with Scott Storch. I told Jim before I left,

“I’m going to Miami!”

He said, “Do you wanna use my place? I have a condo that

overlooks the beach. You’re more than welcome to stay there. I’ll call

ahead and make sure that they open it up for you. Have fun!”

So my manager Aaron, Bishop and I went to Miami.

The last time I saw Jim was at his birthday party. James Ingram

had worked with Santa Barbara singer-songwriter Becca Solodon on

her stuff (more on her later) and he had always asked me, “Will you

please bring me a copy of the song you did that day that I helped


produce the vocals on? I really want to hear how it turned out.”

I walked into the party with a manila envelope with James’ stuff

in it, just in case I saw him. He was there and said, “You know what

I like about you Damion? You keep your word. You came all the way

out here to this party, and you brought the envelope just in case I

would show up. You kept your word.”

I saw Jim and he said, “You came all the way down here for my

birthday party?”

I said, “Come on man, we’re homies, right?”

He said, “I want to introduce you to somebody. This is Mike

Tyson.”

That was a mind-blower!

Jim gave me a hug when I left, and that was the last time that

I’ve seen him, as my life soon took a turn and I’d move back to Santa

Barbara, away from being able to participate so closely with the

foundation.

I cherish the experience of meeting Bo, Jim, Harry, and being

accepted by those guys. They are the keys to that history. Jim sat

me down one time and said, “The movement is in your hands now.

It’s up to you. You have a lot of good work to do, and you have no

idea what you’re gonna do in your lifetime that’s gonna help a lot of

people. You have the heart to do it and it’s in your hands to do it.”

I said, “Jim, what do you want me to do?”

It was like he was telling me what my future was, and I wanted to

know what I could do.

He said, “You’ll know when the time is right.”

I feel so blessed that I have those guys as friends. I was so depressed

after Bo Taylor died of cancer at the age of 42 in 2008. I think a part

of the movement died with him. I know he and Jim weren’t on the

best of terms in the end. One of my last conversations with Bo was,

“It’s not about personal relationships.”

Bo really embraced me and introduced me to the streets of Los

G i v i N ’ B A C K 2 4 1

Angeles and taught me what the ghetto was. Not what you read

about or see on TV. Let’s be real, I’m from Santa Barbara. I live in the

Truman Show. I moved to L.A., around rappers, singers, and million-

dollar deals. It really grounded me, and I feel so blessed that I had the

opportunity to, learn of the struggles of the civil rights movement,

and also to learn about what life was really like on the other side of

the coin.

The foundation is going as strong as ever (www.amer-i-can.org)

and doing incredible work. I am not directly involved anymore. But

what I’ve done is take what I learned and what I saw working with

everyone there and I’m letting it play out in my quieter life here in

Santa Barbara. I’m going to schools and meeting with parents of

troubled kids, sometimes having them stay at the house for a while

with me and Granny and, — as much as I love music and am

“officially” out of my self-imposed retirement or exile from the music

business and have thrown myself back into it as deeply as ever, even

producing rock legends such as Terry Reid and Eric Burdon and P.F.

Sloan — I still spend as much time helping troubled kids as I do in

the studio. That’s a legacy that Jim Brown has given me that will last

the rest of my life.

D J Q U i K 2 4 3

D J Q U i K

“Stick To the Wine Coolers”

I’ve always loved all the secret-agent shit that sometimes surrounds

the music industry. Like meeting DJ Quik.

I’ve been a fan of his from the moment I first heard Quik is the

Name back in 1991.

The tracks Tonite and Born and Raised in Compton are pure

genius. But from the very first track, Sweet Black Pussy, I was hooked.

Especially when he stops and says he’s on the wrong page … the

music stops and you hear him rustling papers and then he picks up

again. Fuckin’ brilliant!

Actually, of all the artists I love, Quik is one I’ll never forget

discovering for myself. I’d gone to a local record store to buy

everything I could of N.W.A. and happened to see the poster for Born

and Raised in Compton. It was like I was on autopilot and I just had to

buy the record.

So when I was making my first moves at Power, working to really

establish the station on a street level, I knew I had to meet DJ Quik.

He was the streets. And Power needed his help. But the dude has

always been very elusive. He doesn’t meet a lot of people and at the

time gang activity in L.A. was especially high, so he was even more

isolated.

So I was thrilled when his manager at the time, Stan Sheppard,

who, as I say, I met through the Amer-I-Can Unity One Foundation

with the late Bo Taylor and Jim Brown, called me up and asked if I’d

like to meet Quik.

When I said, “Yeah, of course!” he gave me all these instructions


about first going to a shopping mall where I’d be picked up and then

taken to another location — he wouldn’t tell me where — after which

I’d meet Quik.

All the mystery just added to the experience.

When I was in his car he told me how reclusive, and quiet, Quik is.

He wasn’t kidding. We arrived at a house in Woodland Hills and went

in. There wasn’t a stick of furniture … just plastic sheets on the floor.

“This is some GoodFellas shit,” I laughed.

Stan took me up to the master bedroom and there everyone was:

Quik, AMG, Suga Free, El Debarge … and a few other people. Quik

was working on a track that would later become So Many Wayz.

“So, you’re the new music director at Power, huh?”

“So, you’re DJ Quik!”

He said, “Nice to meet you” and shook my hand.

“I’m doin’ some songs for a new album. It’s called Rhythm-al-ism.”

He grabbed his headphones.

“Hold on a second.”

He started cutting vocals for the track No Doubt, singing, “MGD

is the brew for me.”

After he was done, he turned to me and said, “What are you

drinking?” Jokingly, I said, “Oh, I’ll have some Booze Farm!”

But when he actually sent out for some Booze Farm, I felt like

an ass.

Later on, in the credits for Rhythm-al-ism, he says, “Damion

Young @ Power 106: You can’t sip with the big boyz. Stick to wine

coolers (ha ha.) Much love.”

When I got the album, I was like, “Wow, I got a thank you on a

DJ Quik album!”

But during that first visit, we kicked it for a while, and at the end

of the night Quik said, “We’ll be in touch.”

I said, “When are you coming up to the station?” Keep in mind,

he was best friends with Theo, an on-air personality for our rival

D J Q U i K 2 4 5

station The Beat, so I didn’t think he was actually gonna stop by.

But Quik came in with Suga Free and did the morning gig — it

was a dream for me. After it was over, he said he’d be willing do

some drops. I was blown away. He and Suga had been in the studio

all night and hadn’t slept and were hilarious from being way over

tired. When we got into the recording booth, they started doing Yo

Mamma jokes back and forth.

When I kicked one back to him, he said loudly, “Oh, the white

boy’s got jokes, does he?”

After that morning, we’d run into each other once in a while.

When Kurupt was gearing up to record his Space Boogie: Smoke Odyssey

album, I was in early talks to executive produce the project. One of

my first thoughts was to hook him up with Quik, who happened to

be working in one of the other studios beside me at Larrabee at the

time. I had Quik do a record with Mariah and we also did John Doe

for Shade Sheist’s Informal Introduction album.

Our relationship grew to the point where we truly became friends.

When Quik was working on his Under Tha Influence album, I was

honored that he bounced ideas off me. I never was so arrogant to

think of myself as an adviser to someone as amazing as Quik, but

I valued the friendship to be always honest with him when he asked

for my opinion.

One day I was in the studio and asked him what the snare was

from one of his old records. He said, “Ahh! Well, do you want it on

a disc or do you want it from a DAT?”

I was like, “Uh, I’ll take it on a DAT!”

Another time I asked him if I could get the Bitch sample from

Bitch Betta Have My Money for my voicemail. He thought that was

funny, and pulled out his road case and loaded the sample for me.

Quik was always teaching me things. I was recording a song

called Hood Patrol with Tri-Star one day and he came into the studio.

He said, “Damizza, the one thing you’ve gotta rely on is your ears.


You’re a great producer, but you’ve got to use your ears. Engineering

is the next way you need to go with this.”

As Quik and I became closer, I became more friendly with

his inner circle, too. One of the amazing dudes I met was the late

Mausberg. He was a genuine, great guy. So funny. He recorded the

song Ring King when I was there at Larrabee West. I remember when

he was finished with the track he came over and said, “Damizza,

check this out!” About a week before he died, he came into the studio

just to say hello to me. When he died, I think a piece of Quik died,

too. Maus was such a positive influence on everyone who knew him

and he had a sense of humor like no one I’ve ever met.

Over the next few years, Quik and I ran into each other frequently

in the studio. He then asked me to get involved in his album Trauma.

Stan was no longer his manager by then and his new guy Benny

approached me. “Quik doesn’t have a deal right now,” he said. “We

need to get enough spins up so Quik can find another deal.”

That’s the kind of thing I was happy to use my influence at Power

to achieve.

We hired the people to do his radio promotion and took care of

that wing of the project. The single Fandango featuring B-Real from

Cypress Hill was the first track to hit. After that, I got involved with

the artwork for the project.

My pal Triple, who at the time worked for my Baby Ree company,

contacted tattoo artist Mister Cartoon, and he and the terrific L.A.

photographer Estevan Oriol did the artwork. I then got the vinyl

pressed for Fandango.

I thought it would be really cool to do a red see-through record,

with a hand-written label by Quik. It was great.

After that, management came to me again and asked for my

advice on where I thought they should go for a deal. The timing was

amazing. I had just struck a deal for my Baby Ree with RBC, which

was the sales and marketing infrastructure for Priority Records.

D J Q U i K 2 4 7

RBC took me to Fontana, the independent arm of Universal

Records. They offered me a deal there, which encompassed my

second Damizza Presents … project, the Butch Cassidy project and

some other stuff I had in the pipeline.

I took Quik’s manager Benny over to Fontana to meet with Steve

Prichard, who was the head of the company at the time. I said, “Quik

has this Soundscan history with platinum and gold records.” They

said, “His last album didn’t do that well.” But, they did the deal.

We were already at 1,700 spins with Fandango, so the low number

they projected for Quik was between 25,000 and 50,000 records

shipped. This would mean that, at eight bucks a record, Quik would

be making a lot of money.

Fontana was geared up and decided to go with the deal with

Quik’s new label, Mad Science.

Baby Ree was promised to make anywhere from 50 cents to a

dollar for every record for being the administrator, and I was told I

personally was going to get five grand a month to oversee the project.

It was great timing, as I had left Power by this time and was

selling my condo in L.A. and retreating to Santa Barbara.

From the letterhead of Mad Science all the way down to the logo,

business cards, and everything, my company was doing everything.

We negotiated the 80/20 deal with Fontana.

Quik got 80 percent of the royalties, and got to own his masters for

the very first time in his career. In my eyes, it was awesome because I

could finally give something back to DJ Quik after all the times he’d

given his advice to me and inspired my life through his music.

Robert and Brian from RBC know the independent game in and

out. They started with Master P and all of those projects on No Limit.

We linked them up with Quik, and our goal was to take this Trauma

album to a new plateau.

We were getting paid five grand a month to oversee this project,

which actually wasn’t that much, considering we had six people


working on it. We were on the road with him. We did radio with

him. I even had to coordinate getting Nate Dogg on board for live

performances and work everything from security to transportation

for him. I had to do some of the clearances for the record, too. This

was all I did for several months.

Benny was managing B-Real from Cypress Hill as well. B-Real

and Quik were working on B’s solo album, and the music was turning

out great. That was the project we were gonna do next.

There was this one sampled record they did that was amazing.

I’m telling you, it was a No. 1 record. And after that, we were in

negotiations to have Quik, B-Real, and Nate Dogg become a super

group. For a brief time, everyone was on board, but then B-Real left

Benny and the records never saw the light of day and the whole plan

fizzled.

Trauma came out, and it was the No. 1 independent record on the

Billboard charts.

Unfortunately, I never saw my royalties of 50 cents to a dollar a

record. I was still working on the promotions for the project though

and it got to the point where I told Benny, “Look, until we get the

final paperwork, we’re not going to do anything else with this. You’re

dragging your heels.”

He called me back and said “We’ll give 25 cents a record after our

break-even point at 70,000 records.”

I said, “We broke even at 25,000 records. What are you talking

about?”

I ran the business end of the project, so I knew what was up.

One of my Baby Ree people agreed with Benny to sell some

autographed stuff on eBay to underwrite the costs of pressing the

vinyl. Every step of the way, we were finding ways to underwrite

costs. So saying that the break-even was 70,000 records was bullshit,

because along the way we would book shows for him that would pay

for the promotion costs.

D J Q U i K 2 4 9

But Benny said, “No, this is how we’re gonna do it. Quik needs

to make money on this project.”

I said, “Dude, he’s making eight bucks a record, and we shipped

130,000 records. This 50 cents to a dollar a record was originally

only for the radio side of things. But we set up his MySpace, we got

him an article in The Source, we handled press, and did pretty much

everything except the music.”

Around this time, I was also doing my new Damizza Presents

project. I wanted to have Quik do a record for it, and they wanted 15

grand in cash. We got together to do the record, and Quik was there

for maybe 15 minutes and left. When he came back, the record didn’t

get done.

I said to Benny, “Well, it’s all good. We agreed I would get my

choice of like two or three beats, and he only really did one record

that never got finished. I’ll just pass on the record now, since we can’t

work out our other deal anyway. I just want to be done with all of

this.”

Once again, I did business with someone I held in high regard,

and it had gotten messed up. When this whole thing started, I told

Benny, “This business has a way of fucking up relationships. I don’t

know if I want to do this with Quik because I know somewhere, it’ll

get messed up.”

Benny went back to Quik and told him that I was holding up his

project because I was trying to get more money than I was contracted

for. Then he sent me an e-mail saying I was cut off and wouldn’t get

any more money.

I was livid. I called Quik and I said, “Look bro, I don’t know

what’s going on, but this is what was initially agreed upon.”

Quik said, “Well, what do I owe you?”

I said, “It’s not a question of what you owe me, because I couldn’t

really care less about the money. But this is fucked up how it went

down.”


He said, “Well, tell me what happened.”

I listed off all the things my company and I did for the project.

He said, “Wait a minute. You did the vinyl? You did the listening

party? That’s why you were working with Estevan and came up with

the ideas at the photo shoot?”

I said, “Yeah! We got your deal at Fontana, too.”

He said, “Okay. Let me call you back.”

I never had a thought that there was bad blood between us. In

fact, Quik had given me the chance to be the opening performer for

his entire tour, which I appreciated more than I can ever express.

During a show in Calabasas, he even walked out on stage while I

was performing. It was a dream come true having my idol out there

clowning around with me while I was rapping in my home turf, with

all my friends in the crowd.

But Benny had Quik totally brainwashed and convinced him that

I had nothing to do with his deal or anything. My heart sank when I

was told that Quik had put something up on his MySpace that I was

sabotaging him.

I text messaged him saying that if he had a problem to call me,

not put it on his MySpace. He got back to me right away and said he

had no idea what I was talking about. It was Benny, or someone else

in the camp, fucking with me.

Shade saw Quik’s MySpace and he got on the same bullshit

wagon, penning a four-page letter about all the negative stuff I

supposedly did to sink his career.

Both public smears happened at the same time — and then I

discovered that people were embezzling money from my company

and I was missing more than a million bucks.

Overnight, I was broke.

I did what any good alcoholic would do, and shut out the world

for two years and the only reason I left my bedroom was to go buy

more Absolut. I didn’t really wake up until I found myself at the

D J Q U i K 2 5 1

Betty Ford Center.

A few months later, I ventured out for the first time in more than

a year, to go a party with Bishop for EA Games, which had featured

one of our tracks in a Madden game soundtrack. One of the first

people I saw at the gathering was DJ Quik.

“Yo!” I said. “What the fuck happened?”

“I don’t know, Damizza. Just don’t go Hollywood on me.”

I said, “Hollywood on you? What the fuck?”

He walked away. I haven’t talked to him since.

I later found out that Quik had fired Benny. He told Bishop

Lamont that he didn’t have any problem with me, but that he just

didn’t understand what had gone wrong.

I think I was a bystander caught up in whatever shit Benny had

going on and now I’m clean, I’m choosing better friends and staying

away from the sleazeballs for whom I’ve become a convenient fall

guy in the past.

Guilty by association. As always.

P U F F Y A N D B i G G i E 2 5 3

P U F F Y A N D B i G G i E

Life After Death

There’s one thing you simply cannot tell Sean “Puffy” (or “Diddy”)

Combs.

And that’s “No.”

I have never met anyone with the drive that he’s got. It’s

amazing. It’s funny when I saw his TV show I Want To Work For

Diddy because it was a perfect window into the drive and demand

for success that made him the mogul he is. Sean started working for

Andre Harrell as an intern for Uptown Records in the early ’90s and

shot up through the ranks from the mailroom to the executive suite

within just a few years.

Some people mistake Diddy’s passion for what he does as an

overblown ego and attitude problem. That’s a mistake. It’s one thing

that makes me really identify with him. Well, that and his great,

twisted sense of humor. He’s left some hilarious messages on my

voicemail, and one of them I just couldn’t resist using on one of my

Baby Ree mixtapes.

I think of him as a preacher of hip-hop. His personality is just so

infectious. I find it impossible not to get caught up in it and if you’ve

got any passion yourself, you’ll end up wanting to put your wallet

on the offering plate to get involved with him. And that’s the coolest

thing. What better thing can you say about someone than he makes

you want to get in the game and explore every aspect of your own

passions?

While he’s got all this drive, Diddy’s also a very down-to-earth

guy and extremely appreciative of the people around him. He sort


of plays a character of himself on TV. It’s the character that tells

people to go get cheesecake for him … unlike the real guy, who is

very thoughtful. When my Granny was in the hospital after knee

surgery, Puff kept calling and leaving messages. When he finally got

me on the phone, he said, “Yo, put Granny on the phone.”

The first time we met I was still working at 97.5 in Santa Barbara

and was attending the Gavin Convention in San Francisco. I was a fan

of the remixes he did with Total and groups like that, so I introduced

myself to him and had a picture taken with him. We ran into each

other over the next year or so, but really clicked after I made it to

Power. It was our shared passion for the music that made us closer.

It wasn’t always smooth sailing, however, given that very passion.

We clashed a few times over some 112 records that I didn’t like

and didn’t put on the air. We had our testy moments but that was

inevitable and our working relationship wouldn’t have been honest if

it had have been any other way.

I’d put together a show with E-40, Daz and Kurupt from Tha

Dogg Pound, Mobb Deep, and WC and asked Diddy if he could

come and do his single Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down with Ma$e. He

agreed.

The day of the gig, a van pulled up and Diddy got out first. He

was followed by Ma$e and then a pair of crutches — attached to

Biggie. “Yo! Biggie,” I said. “Hey, what’s up, little man,” he said.

We’d never met, so I introduced myself. “I’m Damion Young … the

music director of Power 106.”

He goes, “Very nice to meet you. Where do you want me?”

As we were walking toward the stage, I asked Puff, “Why’s

Biggie on crutches?” He said, “Oh, Lil’ Cease and him got in a car

accident.”

My head was spinning. It was such an honor to meet Biggie. But

the scene was tense. It was just after Tupac had been killed and the

whole East-West rivalry was at an all-time high. I grabbed E-Man


and we went up to the DJ booth. I said, “Yo, we gotta think fast.

Biggie’s coming on stage. Right after Ma$e and Puffy are done, throw

on (Lil’ Kim’s) Crush on You.”

It was amazing. He walked out on crutches and performed the

hook. Then Snoop took the stage with Daz and Kurupt — another

huge surprise. I think this was the only time fans got to see Puffy,

Biggie, Snoop, Lil’ Cease, Ma$e, Daz and Kurupt on stage the same

night. “This,” I thought, “is the formula.”

After the show, Puffy told me he was going to bring Biggie by the

station in a few days. “He’s almost done with his album and wants to

play you some music.”

That night, I was kicking back listening to Power’s rival station,

The Beat. My heart sank when they premiered a Biggie/Bone Thugs

song, Notorious Thugs. I went through the roof and called Puffy.

“What the hell?” He said, “What are you talking about?”

I told him that “We’ve always been a bigger supporter of your

stuff, so what the fuck?”

Puffy stopped me in my tracks and said, “Whoa, whoa. We

haven’t made any alliances and we play fair. Dude, we did a show

for you, then we went over there and played some shit. Now we’ll

come to you for the morning show. It’s all love, but don’t get crazy

with me.”

I said, “I’m just letting you know, if we’re gonna form an alliance

and we’re gonna play this game, let’s play it. But no bullshit.”

It took a little time for Puffy and me to find our groove, but once

we figured out each other’s styles, we were unstoppable.

A few days later Biggie showed up and was so friendly. “What’s

up, Lil’ D?”

“All good,” I said, “How you doin’?”

“Everything’s cool. Me and (his wife) Faith got everything worked

out, my kids are good. I just really want to get back to New York to

see my daughter … but I love it out here, man!” After all that L.A.


had put him through with this coastal rivalry it was hard to swallow

that he actually enjoyed being here.

“Y’all got the best weed! I’m really happy about this album, too.”

I said, “Cool, did you bring some of it?”

He said, “Yeah, I brought the whole record.”

Biggie handed me a DAT, which had “Hypnotize” handwritten

on it. “I haven’t played this anywhere yet,” he said. “You guys are the

first to hear it.”

I said, “Well, thanks, man.”

We walked toward the on-air room, Biggie fumbling with his

crutches. I told him that I’d gone to a show he did for The Beat and

he was surprised. “You went to a Beat show?”

“Of course … it’s all love outside of the stations. We fight on

the field but kick it and have beers afterward. I always like to see

what the competition is like anyway, so I always buy a ticket and go

to the shows.”

I told him how much I liked it when he did Big Poppa and Me and

My Bitch. The crowd went nuts.

“You killed with that,” I said. “And that Roger and Zapp sample

in Los Angeles really didn’t hurt!”

He laughed and said, “Yeah, man, I love that shit.”

That day, Power premiered Hypnotize. It was incredible. The

first time where Biggie’s flow had changed from the shouting-type

style to something more conversational. He went from the Party

and Bullshit, high-pitched rapper to a laid-back, bossy flow. That’s

what I’ve always told rappers when they ask me why Big was such a

great rapper. When you get to that point where it’s conversational,

you’ve won.

Biggie did the morning show that day and signed a bunch of

8x10s for the Power staff and seemed to enjoy hanging out. Near the

end of his visit, he came back into my office and said, “Yo, you got

some drops for me to do, D?”


I was trippin’ — here’s Biggie doing his own promo work. None

of the record company suits pulling their bullshit. This dude’s a star,

I thought. “Yeah, man, I got some drops for ya.”

Nick from Tha Baka Boyz came in and said, “Yo, we want Big to

do a freestyle for the Friday Night Flavors show.”

I said, “Okay — do you have a beat?”

He said, “Yeah, we’ll just do it over the All About the Benjamins

record.”

Biggie was happy to do it. He said, “Hey, I just wrote this verse

for Puffy’s album. It’s gonna be sick!”

Turns out he spit his verse from Victory on it. Biggie just went in

and killed it. I was looking at him and he was leaning on his crutches

over the microphone, just fuckin’ bustin’ his verse.

I said, “Yo, we gotta do more of these!”

I knew that this was exactly what was going to make our station

look different.

We walked out of the studio and slapped hands. He looked at

me and said, “All right, little man. I’ll talk to you later.” He patted

me on the back and said, “Thanks for everything. I appreciate you

having me.”

I said, “Any time, dude!”

The next night was a Saturday, March 8, 1997. I went to an

Outkast platinum party at the Roxbury. My plan was to hit the Vibe

party at the Peterson Auto Museum after, but I was stopped at the

door because I was wearing tennis shoes. It had been a long week and

I was tired, so I bailed on the evening and went home to sleep. At

about 2 in the morning, my phone woke me up. It was E-One, who’s

one of the best street promoters out there. He said, “Yo, dude, they

just shot Biggie.”

I said, “What? Who did? What the fuck?”

He said, “I don’t know. I was standing outside and I heard shots and

saw his car take off. They took him to Cedar’s. I’m goin’ there now.”


I said, “Is he okay?”

E-One said he didn’t know, but that there had been a lot of shots

fired. I then rang up Joe Reichling from Arista. He hadn’t heard yet,

so he didn’t know anything.

It felt like it was only 10 minutes later E called me back from the

hospital. “Biggie’s dead.”

It knocked the wind out of me. I’d just met him. He’d been

hanging out in my office, playing his music and talking about how

he really liked the West Coast but was eager to get back to see his

wife and daughter and how life was good. Now the dude was just

dead? I really didn’t get it. I’d come to Power shortly after Pac had

been killed and didn’t grasp the street life going on in Los Angeles. I

was new. Gangbanging was a different world and I didn’t understand

how someone could get shot in the middle of an intersection on La

Cienega after coming out of a Quincy Jones party. It didn’t make any

sense.

The next morning I called Michelle at Power to brainstorm on

what we were going to do in terms of programming and how we were

going to handle Biggie’s murder.

Tha Baka Boyz did a special on violence and how this is not what

hip-hop is supposed to be. It was a terrible time. The atmosphere was

very grim.

Come Monday, I walked into the office and found a package on

my desk from Puffy’s Bad Boy office. I opened it up and there was

another DAT file. No note, just Going Back To Cali handwritten on

the label.

As I was looking at it, the phone rang and it was Joe Reichling.

He said, “Did you get what Puffy sent?”

I said, “I just got a DAT from Bad Boy.”

He said, “That’s a song called Going Back To Cali that Biggie did

about California. This is how he felt about L.A. Puffy wanted you to

have it, so the people of Los Angeles could know how Biggie really


felt about their city. This senseless violence in hip-hop has nothing to

do with Biggie and L.A. It has to do with individuals.”

I put the tape in my DAT player, listened to it once and then took

it straight into the morning show.

“Yo, play this.”

“What is it?”

“One of Biggie’s last songs. Here.”

The room was silent. The record was done so respectfully, from

a California perspective, nonetheless. It had the Roger and Zapp

sample, it had the sound of the West Coast, and the dude really

nailed it. You could tell that not only did Biggie spend a lot of time

here, but he really loved West Coast hip-hop and the whole West

Coast vibe. I thought of his attention to detail, his love for music and

doing what he did. I felt really fucked up about the whole thing. The

whole industry was, too. It was a dark time in hip hop.

Personally, it set me back. True, I’d met Biggie only once but at

this point I’d truly invested

my life in music and I was

shattered, wondering what

kind of fucking scene

I’d gotten — no, thrown

— myself into.

The vibe was very

ugly for some time after

Biggie’s murder. The

media started their crap,

suggesting that Puffy was

trying to capitalize on

Biggie’s death by putting

out the I’ll Be Missing You

record. What bullshit.

They were confusing

Notorious B.I.G.’s publicity photo, which he signed for me less than 24 before he was gunned down in the

streets of L.A.


Puffy’s marketing genius with his huge heart. Puffy introduced me to

Biggie, and I can tell you that these dudes were brothers. As close as

friends could be. They were always together, always laughing, always

smiling. Puffy lost his best friend that night, and I’ve always believed

he put Biggie’s music out there to celebrate his life and make sure the

world can learn something from such tragedy.

And all those cold-hearted fucks of critics sitting back need to

recognize that Puffy was there: He saw his friend gunned down

in the street; he was at the hospital when Biggie died; and he was

the one who had to phone Biggie’s mother to tell her that her son

was dead.

When Biggie’s album dropped, we played five or six cuts off it

immediately and Power and Hot 97 completely got behind the record.

I ran into Puffy a little while later when I was dining at Justin’s, his

restaurant in New York. He was surprised to see me and came over.

“Hey, Dame, what you doin’ here?”

I told him I was just chillin’.

“I’m sorry to hear about everything, man,” I said.

He said, “Well, thank you for supporting the records.”

We became really tight, me, Power, the whole Bad Boy

organization.

When I’d come up with the idea for the Dre/Snoop reunion in

Hawaii and Michelle told me I couldn’t do it, I went to Puff and

his manager at the time, Benny Medina (whom I later orchestrated

coming into the scene to manage Mariah). I said, “I want to do a

show called Puffy in Paradise. Let’s get L’il Kim, The LOX, 112,

Ma$e, all of these people, and do a show in Hawaii.”

Puffy said, “Hell, yeah!” He was in the middle of editing the

video for his I’ll Be Missing You single and asked me to come down to

talk about the show.

When I got there, I explained the whole set up of the show, and

Benny was like, “How much is this thing gonna cost?”


I said, “250 grand to you, and 250 grand to us.”

They agreed to that, and next I said, “Well, how we’ll announce

this is, Puffy will come on the air and do the Bad Boy takeover. He

can even do it from Hot 97 if he doesn’t want to come to L.A.”

Everything ready to go, but I had a problem. I had to get it

approved by Michelle, who was notorious for shooting down my

plans.

Of course, Michelle said no, just like she did with the Dre

promotion. So I went to Rick Cummings. I said, “Look Rick, it’s

either me or her.”

He said, “Why, Damion?”

I said, “Because I’ve got this Puffy thing wrapped up already!

All I’ve got to do is go to New York, cut the drops, and we’re

golden. You see the news. Biggie’s on the news every five minutes.

Puffy’s gonna ship a lot of records. Ma$e is gonna ship a lot of

records. These guys are going to be huge stars, and if we want to

own the brand of rap in Los Angeles, we have to attach ourselves

to these artists like no one else. Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre was a no-

brainer, and we already said no to that. Now we’re talking about

a mainstream artist. We can add Shaq (who had just signed with

the Lakers), WC, and Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz. It’ll take over

the town! A lot of our listeners are from East Los Angeles and

low-income areas. They’ve never left the city. Let’s give them the

opportunity to go on vacation in Hawaii. Think about this!”

He said, “All right. I’ll pay for your ticket to New York. Get the

drops done.”

The next night, I was sitting in Diddy’s house studio in New

York, cutting the drops. I said, “Yo Puff, say it like this.”

From the booth, he laughed and said, “Oh, so you want to be a

producer now?” The whole Damizza thing hadn’t really kicked in

yet, and I thought that was hilarious!


The promotion started, and next thing you know, it took over L.A.

What’s funny is, later down the line, when these albums dropped,

they sold as many if not more records in Los Angeles then they did

in New York! We, as Power 106, were more supportive of rap than

any other station in America. It was for two reasons. If we were

gonna be a rap station — the rap station, I figured, we needed to play

more album cuts rather than just singles. There just weren’t enough

old records that were still relevant. That’s why we adapted a rock

format called Album Orientated Rock to something called Album

Orientated Rap. Bad Boy had a deep pool of records we could choose

from that would fit into this format, so that’s why it worked so well.

On the downside, we got a lot of flak from the streets of Los Angeles

for playing so much East Coast music.

We went to Hawaii and everything went off without a hitch. It

was blockbuster: Puffy, Ma$e, Lil’ Kim, The LOX, and even Shaquille

O’Neal, who was at his peak in Los Angeles and performed the DJ

Quik-produced Straight Playin. Everyone went nuts. It was in the

ballroom at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, so it was a really intimate

setting. The audience of Power listeners, about 800 people, got the

full stadium-level sound and lighting, yet with Puffy about five feet

from the front row.

On stage in Hawaii for Puffy in Paradise: Shaq, The Lox, 112, Puffy, me, Clark Kent, Ma$e, Lil’ Kim, Lil’ Cease and others.


I was standing on a chair watching the show. All of a sudden, I

was hoisted up to about eight feet off the ground. I looked down and

saw the top of Shaq’s head. Just like fathers take their kids and put

them on their shoulders, there I was on top of Shaq. He walked me

up to the front of the stage. This fucker’s so tall all he had to do was

lean forward and I was planted right there beside Puffy. Puff put his

arm around me and said to the crowd, “Yo, I want to thank Damion

Young here for putting this whole thing together.”

His big-ass platinum Rolex was dangling to the side of my head

as he started performing Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down. I couldn’t resist

the prank and slipped the watch off his wrist and put it on … he

didn’t even notice!

When I look back at a picture I had taken of the whole crew on

stage — every kind of rap represented and all sorts of people from

the industry and radio — I think of a time when there was true unity

in the game.

As I walked down the stairs from the stage, Puffy was at the

bottom, arms folded.

“All right, motherfucker, give me my watch back!”

With my best-possible shit-eating grin, I said, “Oh, this?”

Puff said, “Listen, Dame, thank you so much for everything” and

gave me a hug.

He would pop into

my office time to time

to say hello and just kick

it. One day he came in

after he’d started getting

into the clothing biz and

brought me a jacket.

That’s the way Power

was at that time: Artists

would just come and

ARNOLD TURNER PHOTO: Puffy calls me onstage for the grand finale of

Puffy in Paradise.


hang out. That comfortable us-against-them vibe is what made us so

successful at the time.

The most touching encounter I had with Puffy was right after

9/11. Mariah and I were in D.C. for a big benefit and I ran into him

backstage.

“Dame, where you been? What you up to?”

Before I could answer, Mariah came out of her dressing room

and said, “Hey, Puff. Come on Al, let’s go, we’re leaving.”

Puffy smiled and looked at me. Everyone knew Mariah had been

going through a rough time.

“Oh,” he said. “You’re here to help out a friend, huh?”

I said, “Yeah.”

He said, “That’s some really cool shit. If you ever need me for

anything, I’ll be there for you.”

B E C C A S O L O D O N 2 6 5

B E C C A S O L O D O N

A Dying Girl’s Last Wish

It’s autumn in 2002 and a sweet, shy and pretty 16-year-old girl in

Santa Barbara is thinking about boys, learning to drive, getting good

grades and enchanted by the magic she hears from music … when

her foot starts to hurt.

Her mom takes her to the doctor. Then more doctors. For a year,

they can’t find anything wrong. Finally, a scan reveals a marble-sized

tumor hidden deep in her foot tissue. Cancerous. Soft-tissue sarcoma.

Deadly.

Becca Solodon is told that even with a partial leg amputation,

metastases are likely. Her family is told to prepare for the worst.

The Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation is an amazing local charity in

Santa Barbara that helps families with young cancer patients. One of

the founders, Nikki, called a friend of hers in the music business and

told him Becca’s story. That friend was Sam Franko, who happened

to be music legend Jerry Heller’s attorney.

Sam called me. “Hey, there’s this little girl from Santa Barbara

involved in the Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation. Her chances aren’t

good. But her dream is to record for an hour in a big studio.”

No problem, I thought.

“Has she ever sung before?”

Sam said, “No, maybe in the shower or around the house, but

apparently she’s really shy.”

“When’s this happening,” I asked.

Sam told me that Becca was at Westlake studios as we spoke.

It’s funny because Jerry is looked upon as one of the antichrists


of the music biz for being such a ruthless businessmen (hey, Ruthless

Records … think about it!) but I don’t think people give him enough

credit. He was one of the godfathers of West Coast rap, no matter

how you look at it. And if you’re handed a really bad (or … ruthless)

contract and you don’t read it and you sign it, well, you’re the dumbass

who signed a shitty contract.

Jerry just happened to be the savvy motherfucker among hundreds

who sat there and watched you sign it. Granted, Jerry and I have had

our words in the past and not gotten along, but I’ll always respect

what he’s done for the art form. Any excess negativity I felt toward

him was cleared up on this day.

When someone does something to help someone like Becca, that

person can’t be 100 percent evil. That’s one of the problems with the

perception of a lot of people in the music industry: Business is never

personal. Jerry’s a businessman.

Now, when he offered Becca a contract later down the road, it

was crazy. And more angels were looking out for Becca when that

happened and she stepped away, knowing it was too early for her to

dive that deep into the business.

Of course, I was excited to get involved with this project, so I

headed over to the studio immediately.

One of the bonuses was that Ronnie King was also invited in on

the session and was there by the time I arrived. He’s one of my idols

when it comes to music and percussion.

He played keys on like 80 percent of the classic 2Pac album

All Eyez On Me. I had a chance to work with Ronnie on my record

Crybaby with Mariah and Snoop, so it was an honor and a pleasure to

work with him again. Especially for this amazing cause.

As soon as walked in the studio, I heard this little sheepish, angelic

voice singing real quietly. I said, “Hey Ronnie. What’s crackin’ dogg?”

He said, “Damion! What’s up?”

I turned to the little girl and said, “And you must be Becca. Hi,


how are you doing?”

She was just the most

adorable, angel-looking

sweetheart. She was bald

from the chemotherapy.

Her family was there to

support her.

The second you meet

Becca, she will grab

you by the heart. And

from that point forward,

whatever Becca says,

you’ll reply with a, “Yes, ma’am.” That’s just what happens. Just as

it should.

I said, “So, what’s the plan for the day?”

Ronnie said, “Well, we don’t have a producer. I’m just here

playing keys, but I don’t really produce like that. Will you produce

the session?”

I said, “Sure. So, Becca, let me hear your song!”

She said, “I’m not really a singer.”

I said, “Don’t talk like that. That’s the first step. Sing for me!”

She said, “But …”

I said, “Becks! Sing for me.”

She said, “Okay.”

She started to sing Simon by Lifehouse, real quietly.

I said, “Ahh … you’re bullshittin’!”

She said, “Excuse me?”

I said, “You’re bullshittin’. You can sing! You’ve got the tone, and

you’ve got the vibe. Kick that shit, let’s go!”

She just stopped.

I said, “Becks, let’s do this.”

So I walked in and we started to arrange the music. I decided

MARY ANN SOLODON PHOTO: Ronnie King, Becca Solodon and me going over the plans for her

song Take My Hand.


we needed live drums, and then Nikki from the Teddy Bear Cancer

Foundation informed me they only had a few more minutes at the

studio. I said, “Okay. Ronnie, how do you expect to do this half-

assed?”

He said, “I don’t know, but work your magic.”

I looked over at Becca and I said, “So Becks, you’re from Santa

Barbara?”

Politely, she said, “Yes.”

I said, “What school do you go to?”

She said, “Dos Pueblos.”

I said, “My little brother goes to Dos Pueblos.

She said, “Who’s your little brother?”

I said, “Nick Young.”

She looked over and said, “Does he run track?”

I said, “Yeah.”

She said, “I know him!”

I looked over at my staff and said, “Find me another studio.

We’re gonna finish this record.”

They said, “How many days do we need?”

I said, “As many as it takes. Get Anthony Mazza for guitar, get

Bruce for percussion, get Mike Schlesinger, let’s get everybody up

here!”

Brian, the engineer, who I first met while working with Ashanti,

volunteered to stay on to finish the record as well.

This one-hour session ended up turning into four days. We moved

over to Soundcastle, and I showed Becca and her family how records

were mixed. I knew that in a couple of weeks, Becca was going to go

through her surgery to have half her leg amputated.

My friend Triple and I came up with ways to keep her busy

and get her mind off this surgery. We did a fundraiser and got her a

keyboard. We got her a DVD player to watch movies in the hospital.

We taught her how to cut vocals.


Later on down the line, we brought in James Ingram to teach her

some licks. Even Warren G. and Krayzie Bone came in and taught

her a few things.

Becca was the focus of the West Coast hip-hop world in those

few days. Everyone put their personal bullshit aside and gave her

their best.

Working with Becca changed my life.

I had decided that I was over producing records entirely after the

fiasco that happened with my Westside Connection Lights Out song.

But this little girl just wanted to record a song.

She was facing death, and she just wanted to sing for an hour in

a studio.

I’ve spent hours just looking at the ceiling of studios at $2,000

a day. Becca reminded me that this is why we do what we do in

the music business. So I said to myself, “Finally! I’ve got something

that’s redeeming to my soul to work on.”

As the weeks passed after the session and she was back in hospital,

it wasn’t a very positive time. We always had this joke though: It was

right when the rapper Chingy had just come out. We were always

fascinated by that name — Chingy. It just had a ring to it. We would

always say, “Oh, so you know Chingy?”

I even had Pam Anderson say it when I recorded the drops for the

Baby Ree mixtape.

So I went into the hospital and played Becca the drops. Becca

started laughing her ass off while Triple and I sat there like a couple

of court jesters.

There was one really bad day when were leaving, and Becca was

crying. As we left her room and headed toward the elevator, Triple

said, “Damn, what can we do to make little Becca laugh?”

After a couple of moments, he said, “I know. Should I do it?”

I said, “Do what?”

He said, “Should I yell, ‘Oh, so you know Chingy?’ ”


I thought he was just screwing around.

Triple is a big, 6’4” Mexican guy from East Los Angeles, and

he’s real mild mannered. I’d never heard him yell before. We got in

the elevator, and Triple screamed at the top of his lungs, “Oh, so you

know Chingy???!!!”

Now keep in mind, we were in a hospital. As the doors to the

elevator shut, I looked over at him and said, “What the fuck was

that?”

He said, “You said to do it!”

I said, “Becca’s family is never gonna talk to us again!”

He said, “Oh, my bad. You said it was cool.”

Right then, the elevator stopped on the next floor down, and this

older lady with an IV bag attached walked in.

I said, “Damn, did you hear that?”

She said, “Yeah, it sounds like someone’s up there losing their

mind!”

I said, “Yeah, I wonder who’s doing all that.”

Triple looked away and started whistling.

So the next day, I called up Becca’s mom and said, “Look, I just

want to apologize. We

didn’t mean to do that,

and it was completely

my fault.”

She said, “No, you

don’t understand. The

timing was perfect.

Becca didn’t want to

cry when you guys

were in the room, but

when you walked out

she started balling.

When Triple yelled

E. SANCHEZ PHOTO: At CanAm Studios in L.A. with Becca Solodon (and her Mom Mary Ann) fine-tuning

Take My Hand.


‘Oh, so you know Chingy,’ she started laughing hysterically. So it’s

fine.”

I said, “Wow, I thought you’d never talk to us again!”

I mean, this was a very straight-laced, church-goin’ family from

Santa Barbara. And here we are, Damizza and Triple, yelling “Oh,

so you know Chingy” in the UCLA Medical Center at the top of our

lungs.

But, somehow, it worked.

A few days before her surgery, which was on Halloween 2003, I

was outside of the hospital, plotting.

“What can I do after the surgery to make sure that she gets better

right away?” The phone rang, and it was Mariah. She asked, “Hey,

what are you doing?”

I said, “I’m working with this girl Becca.”

I gave her the background and what basically the whole West

Coast hip-hop community had come out and done for this dying girl.

Mariah said, “Well what can I do? I want to help.”

I said, “Well, I don’t know. She’s going in for surgery in a few days.”

Mariah said, “Well when does she get out? I just added a show in

Santa Barbara. Is she gonna be better by (December) the 15th?”

I said, “I don’t know. That’s cutting it real close.”

She said, “Well why don’t you ask her, and tell her that she needs

to get better fast, because I need an opening act!”

I said, “This is good. Very good. It may be a little overwhelming,

but I’ll ask.”

I went up to her parents and pulled them aside. We sat down, and

I said, “Look. I don’t know if this would be a little overwhelming,

but I just got off the phone with Mariah Carey. Do you think your

daughter would be interested in opening up for her in Santa Barbara?”

Becca’s mom said, “Oh my god, that would be perfect! It would

give her a reason to get better quickly.”

I said, “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. But here’s the catch. It’s


several weeks after her surgery.”

I walked up to Becca and said, “Hey Becks, you gotta get better.”

She said, “Why?”

I said, “Just weeks after your surgery, you’re opening up for

Mariah Carey, and that’s your shot!”

She said, “Could I really do this?”

At that point, the gravity of the situation hit her Mom and Dad.

They pulled me aside and said, “Look. Don’t mess with our daughter.

She’s very fragile.”

I said, “Please believe me. Your daughter has what it takes to

make it as a singer.”

Becca’s mom said, “Yeah, well, we get it. She’s a cancer patient

and she’s here with these foundations. But don’t play with her

emotions. If she can’t really do this …”

I said, “Mom. Dad. There’s gonna come a time when I walk up

to you and I say, ‘Do you see what I was talking about?’ And you’re

gonna get it. But until then, just let me do my job.”

They said, “We’re gonna trust you, but we don’t understand what

you want from us.”

I said, “I don’t want anything. I just want to see her succeed and

see her live.”

They said, “Well, we’ve heard about the music industry, and it’s

not like this.”

I said, “That’s why people in the business don’t like me. Because

I am not that guy. I’m this guy that’s right here in front of you. And

you don’t understand how much you guys are helping me remember

that I’m this guy.”

She had the surgery, and everything went according to plan. I was

there every day, though I think I blacked out a lot of them.

To this day, her Dad will walk up to me every once and a while

with tears in his eyes and say, “There was this one moment. Someday,

I’ll tell you what happened. But my daughter was in so much pain


and said, ‘I don’t know if I’m gonna make it.’ As a father, I didn’t

know what to say, and you were there and said something funny that

diffused the situation.”

I said, “You know, we all love her.”

She made it to the show to open up for Mariah.

Mariah had a terrible cold that day, so at first we were told that it

would be best if they didn’t meet each other because Becca was very

susceptible to infection. Two minutes before the show, Mariah called

me and said, “So, are you gonna go out there and introduce her?”

I said, “No, she’s just gonna go out there and do it.”

She said, “No! You’re gonna go out there and introduce her.”

So I grabbed the mic and I went out there.

I had never been on the stage at the Arlington Theater before,

and this was my hometown. The lights were so bright that I couldn’t

even see the stage, no less the monitors in front of the stage. I started

walking toward the front of the stage and almost ended up in the

front row. I tripped over a monitor, and it was bad. After I regained

my composure, I said, “Ladies and gentlemen. Everybody knows the

story, everybody’s seen it in the local press. Ladies and gentlemen, a

very special young girl. Becca Solodon.”

She walked out on stage, on crutches … and she tore the house

down! It was a standing ovation. When she walked off the stage, I

gave her a hug. Rolling Stone was there, National Enquirer was there.

It was big.

After the show, Becca and Mariah met and spent about 10 minutes

talking, which was so sweet.

One of the best phone calls I’ve ever received came from Becca

about three months later.

I answered the phone and she said, “Guess what!”

I said, “What? Did you go to the hospital today?”

She said, “Yep.”

I said, “Did you get your checkup today?”


She said, “Yes.”

I said, “Well…?”

She said, “Do you know what it’s like being told you don’t have

to go to a hospital again after you’ve lived in one for six months in

your life? I’m clean. No cancer. No more chemotherapy, and no more

hospitals.”

I was shocked. “What?!”

She said, “It’s a miracle. The doctors don’t even believe it. So

what are we doing now? I’m clean. Let’s do this.”

I thought this was gonna be a much slower process. But now I

took it as a challenge to get her moving. I said, “Okay, now you have

to learn ProTools.”


She came back and knew how to use ProTools.

I said, “Now you’ve gotta learn how to play the piano.”

A couple months later, she called and said, “I can play. What do

you think?”

She took a songwriting class, and one day she came and was a

little upset, telling me, “The teacher didn’t like my song.”

I said, “Don’t worry about it,” and made a joke.

She laughed and wrote another song. I said, “Hey, do this rap

hook real quick.” She killed it. I said, “Yo, try rapping on this.”

She rapped better than Krayzie Bone, and we were all just blown

away.

Then I met Guilty, a group of rap hopefuls hanging around our

native Santa Barbara, friends of my brother’s, and I threw her in the

studio with them. She taught Guilty how to write raps.

She threw herself into it and I’d get calls saying, “I’m performing

with The Commodores today.” Or, “I’m performing at Disneyland

today.”

I woke up and looked at the paper one morning. On the front

page, it said something like “Local singer Becca Solodon to sing

national anthem for Fourth of July ….”


I was just like, “What the hell?”

There was nothing that this girl wasn’t doing. So we started

looking for a place for her to do a show. I said, “You need to put

together a press release saying that you’re gonna put out an EP and

do a show.”

She said, “I’m not ready.”

I said, “Becks. You’re ready.”


My little brother Jason and I were walking through the Paseo

Nuevo mall in downtown Santa Barbara one day, and I asked him,

looking at a sign, “Center Stage Theater ... Jason, what is that?”

He said, looking at me like I were an idiot, “Umm. A theater.”

I said, “Thanks, smartass.”

He said, “Let’s go check it out.”

I said, “You know what I’m thinking,

right?”

He said, “Yeah. Becca.”

Jason and I walked in to find an intimate

130-seat theater.

I called Becca and said, “Guess what.

You’re doing a show at Center Stage

Theatre.”

She said, “Like a selling-tickets show,

show?”

I said, “Yeah.”

She said, “How do we do this?”

I said, “Stop by my house. I’ll show you how

to do the press releases, and we’ll send it out.”

The press release made it onto the front

page of the local newspaper. “Becca Solodon

to Release EP.”

It was huge!

A star is born: Becca Solodon performing at a Relay For Life

benefit.


She knew how to street

team, so she had posters all up

and down State Street. She had

Sjoko master her EP down at

Tantrum Studios. She and her

Mom did a lot of the press.

Then she put the band together

with a bunch of kids from Santa

Barbara City College, and with

her professor Dom, who is also

a great engineer. She put the

whole show together herself,

and it sold out!

The night of the show, she

walked out there and, as I like

to describe it, graduated. Now she does shows all over town. We got

a four-camera DVD shoot out of the show at the theater, directed by

my co-author J. Marshall Craig — who also landed Becca a couple

of tracks, one of them an unreleased P.F. Sloan song called Ginger

Street she recorded — on the feature film Remembering Nigel that he

produced for director Frank Howson.

Becca’s now working on her first full-length record and she

continues to perform at events all over SoCal, particularly in the

Santa Barbara area.

She’s awesome. She’s become my little sister, and I love her.

She is now more than six years cancer free.

A dying girl’s last wish has become has become a remarkably

talented young woman’s dreams coming true.

Becca Solodon doing what she does best, here at a Disney

Make-A-Wish Foundation benefit.

B O N U S C U T S 2 7 7

B O N U S C U T S

IRV GOTTI

After meeting Irv Gotti during Jay-Z’s performance at Universal

Studios, we became really close friends. He called me his “Yoda,”

because every time he was going to do something, he’d call me first

to bounce ideas around. “Hold on. I need to call Yoda really quick!”

It was hilarious!

Irv always gave me the credit of being the bridge that married

the two coasts. He said my gift to hip-hop was that I opened up the

door for East Coast artists to get played on the West Coast. Even with

his artists Ashanti and Lloyd, Irv would joke around with them and

say, “When you meet Damizza, that means you’re about to make it!

Damizza, tell them.”

When Vibe did its big article on the launching of Ashanti, my

quote is the first thing you read. In fact, Irv asked me how to break

Ashanti. I brought her to the R&R Convention and introduced her to

all the urban panelists and the tastemakers of the format. Anything

that happened with Murder Inc., I was in the loop.

When the Murder Inc. camp was in L.A., Irv, Ja, Ashanti, and I

would all get together and go to dinner at Mr. Chow’s. Or if I was at

Soundcastle Studios, I’d have the front room and he’d have the back

room. I loved talking about strategies with Irv. I had a lot to do with

Murder Inc. in the beginning, and a lot of it was in the building process

of Ja and Ashanti as artists. If you read the credits of Ashanti’s first

album, all of the instrument players were people from my camp, like

Carl “Butch” Small and Anthony Mazza. I remember when Mike

Schlesinger and I taught 7, the Inc.’s in-house producer, how to work

his MPC better when he was first getting started.


I was doing a record with Mariah for Glitter called If We, and we

wanted to get Ja on it. Ja had just released the hit single Put It On Me

with Lil’ Mo, and Mariah said, “I want a record like that, but I want

to do it a little differently. I want to go back and forth, like Big Daddy

Kane’s Very Special. I like all the records he’s done, and you’re friends

with Irv, so why don’t you call him and do this thing?”

I facilitated the recording of the record, and everything went

real smoothly.

The next week, I was in New York, and Puffy had thrown me

my 25th birthday party for me at his restaurant, Justin’s. Everybody

came. Warren G and TQ were in town, Fat Joe was there, Big Pun

was there, which was the last time I talked to Pun before he passed

away. L’il Kim, Pras, and Jeff Burrows were there, and Janice Combs,

Puffy’s mother, was playing maître d’, greeting everybody as they

walked in. It was a great birthday party! Puffy got us all faded.

After the dinner, Ja, Irv, Fat Joe, Cherry Martinez and I all got

together. We decided to go across the street to a club called Cheetah’s.

Ja was drinking Hennessy that night, Joe was drinking vodka. And

I split the bottles with both of them! In the club I was dancing with

Cherry, Ja was dancing with a whole fleet of girls because his record

had just come out, and we had a blast. I don’t remember anything

else for the rest of the night. I don’t even remember how I got back to

the hotel, but apparently Fat Joe dropped me off.

I woke up the next morning, and my head was pounding. I

was throwing up, and I couldn’t even see! I have never had a worse

hangover in my life. I was sure paying for the amount of fun I’d had

the night before. I looked at my cell phone, and there were 10 missed

calls. They were all from Irv Gotti.

I thought, “Wait a minute … Irv was at the club too with his

brother Chris, right?” I walked into the other room of the hotel room

to ask my friend Sujit what the hell happened. He was throwing up

in the trash can.

B O N U S C U T S 2 7 9

I said, “What the hell happened last night?”

He said, “Dude, Shade and I had to carry you up the stairs.

You fell in the elevator and the door was hitting you in the head,

trying to close. At one point, Shade just started writing on your

arm, trying to wake you up for like 15 minutes. Then I got sick and

started throwing up.”

I looked around the room and there was vomit all over the place.

It was one of those kind of scenes. It was bad.

Then the hotel phone rang. I picked it up and I said in this half-

groan voice, “Hello.”

It was Irv.

“Damizza! You can never come to New York again! What did

you do to Ja?”

I said, “What do you mean? Ja?”

He said, “Ja’s in jail! Ja got arrested on a DUI. His brand new

Range Rover got impounded. And my brother Chris ran from the

police on the freeway. I’ll call you back in five minutes, but answer

the phone.”

I was trying to remember what had happened, but I just couldn’t

think. I looked at Sujit and he said, “I don’t know exactly what

happened either, but it was wild! You passed out in the club. Me,

Ja Rule and Fat Joe had to carry you out. And then Ja…” Then the

phone rang again before he could finish.

It was Ja, calling from jail. “I’m in jail, nigga, and I love it!”

I said, “Ja? What?”

He said, “Dude, we had a great time last night! But you ain’t never

coming back to New York. I got a DUI last night, they impounded

my car, and they can’t even bail me out until I sober up. But I’m here

with all my homies!”

Then everyone from jail started screaming in the background.

Irv, on the three-way, said, “Yeah man, great fucking birthday party,

Damizza. They had to carry you out of Cheetah’s and Ja and my

brother decided to drive themselves home.”


Oops.

One time, there was an issue where Ja had dissed Snoop. I found

out and was like, “No way.”

I went into Irv’s office, and I said, “This isn’t happening.”

I picked up the phone and I dialed Snoop. Irv said, “What are

you doing?” and hung up the phone.

I said, “This is stupid, we’re gonna dead this right now.”

He said, “You don’t understand, there’s more to it.”

I said, “Well let’s work it out.” I got them on the phone together

and they talked it out.

Then I told Snoop, “All right, now I’ll get Ja on the phone and we

can go through that.”

He said, “Are you sure? Why are you doing this?”

I said, “We’ve gone too far in hip-hop to have this type of

problem.”

So I got them on the phone together.

“Ja, this is Snoop. Snoop, this is Ja. Whatever issues you have,

work it out now.”

Snoop said, “So what’s up man?”

Ja said, “I heard this and this.”

Snoop said, “You can’t pay attention to what you hear. I’ve been

in this game a long time, and you’re gonna be in this game a long

time, too. You can’t fall for what people tell you.”

They sat on the phone and worked out the whole problem. I

called Snoop back and he said, “That’s really good that you did that.

I’m really glad you did that, because there’s no reason for us to be

beefing.”

I said, “Well that’s why I did it.”

He said, “I’m glad we have you Dame.”

For Ja’s single with Christina Milian Between Me and You, Brandy

was originally supposed to sing the hook. I had a Power 106 shirt

on during my cameo appearance in the video, and I got a call from

B O N U S C U T S 2 8 1

Kevin Liles, President of Def Jam and Irv Gotti one night.

They said, “We have a really big problem.”

I said, “What?”

They said, “You’re in the video and you have a Power 106 shirt

on. The Beat and Radio One took that as disrespect. You popped

your collar in the video and they thought it was rude.”

It sure didn’t go unnoticed! E-40 called me and said, “Hey pimpin!

I just want to tell you, I saw you in that Ja Rule video, and I’ve never

seen a more beautiful and precise collar pop! I was sitting here at the

coffee table, having a conversation, and it was quite incredible. That

goes down in the top five collar pops of all time. Your pimpin was

strong that day. And what a statement was that? Collar poppin’ your

Power 106 T-shirt? I love it!”

That was a pretty big compliment coming from E-40, who

invented the collar pop. They have this effect in videos where they

do everything in double time. When they slow it down in the editing,

it’s in slow motion. When I popped my collar, it just gave the perfect

ripple to the Power 106 logo. Just one of the reasons the other stations

were so pissed off.

“So,” Irv said, “they’re going to drop our record across the board,

which is gonna cost us 1,000 spins because you’re in the video, collar

poppin’. What do we do?”

I said, “Well, just cut me out of it.”

Irv said, “Dude, I’m not gonna cut you out of the video. I’m just

not gonna do it.”

Honestly, I never liked being in videos. I had a chance to be in

pretty much every video with both East and West Coast artists. I got

invited to all of them. But on the day of the shoot, I was on my way

home to Santa Barbara, and Irv really wanted me to stop by and be in

this video. I had on shorts and a Power 106 T-shirt, just because that’s

what I was wearing that day. Later on, we auctioned off that T-shirt

for charity. Irv, Ja and I signed it, and Irv wrote on it, “This shirt got


me in a lot of trouble.”

That was cool because Dr. Dre gave me the suit from his VMA

performance, and Mariah gave me one of her bras. We had a lot of

things for that charity auction!

As for the video, Irv said, “I won’t take you out of the video.

You’ve meant too much to this project. You’re the reason this single

has made it. You’re one of the reasons Ja still has a deal. I’m not just

gonna bow down to people that want to hate.”

I said, “Why don’t you just blur my shirt out? All you’ve gotta do

is tell BET and MTV.”

This video was in heavy rotation at the time. I was even at

McDonald’s and some dude came up to me and said, “Hey, you’re

the guy in the Ja Rule video!” Puffy called me and was like, “Did you

produce that new Ja Rule song? That collar pop was big, buddy! You

were stuntin’ on that thing.”

My idea worked though — the next time I saw the video on MTV,

my shirt was blurred out.

Years later, I can see why it did seem boisterous to be in a Ja Rule

video with a Power 106 shirt on, but I didn’t understand it at the time.

Everyone thought I was being arrogant for doing it, but that’s not the

way I am. I just showed up to support my friends and unfortunately

had a Power shirt on.

Around the time when Glitter was gonna drop, I got a call from

Irv. He said he needed to meet with me face to face, and that it was

urgent. He came over to my hotel, and I was kind of nervous. What

could be so important?

I said, “What’s the big deal, dude?”

He said, “Look Mizz. You know there’s a lot of politics with

Mariah.”

I said, “Yeah. What’s the problem?”

He said, “Tommy Mottola called me. And this is where it gets

weird. He said, ‘I heard you just did a song with my ex-wife.’ He knew

B O N U S C U T S 2 8 3

exactly how the record sounded and everything, and he basically

wants us to do the same record all over again.”

He said, “I want you to do the same type of song with Jennifer

Lopez, and I’ll give you 250,000 dollars to do it. If you do two

records, I’ll give you half a million.”

I was really taken aback. I said, “You don’t feel like that’s kind

of shady?”

He said, “Dude, we’ve never gotten 250,000 dollars to do

anything. I can’t just turn down 250 grand. And it’ll be a single for

Ja with Jennifer Lopez. That’s guaranteed to be three-to-four million

records. I don’t want to say nothing against Mariah, but you know

that this album doesn’t look good. This If We record isn’t even a

single. If you can guarantee me that it can be the single, I’ll tell Ja

we’ll slide on the 250 grand.”

I told him I needed to consult with Mariah. I called her, and she

was pissed! I said, “Don’t worry, Irv’s a good friend. I had a lot to do

with Murder Inc. I feel safe.”

We weren’t sure on making If We the single though, because the

Glitter project was supposed to be a retro-sounding record, and If We

had a modern vibe to it.

I went back to Irv, and he said, “Dame, half a million dollars is a

lot of money. I feel like a total scumbag, and I don’t know what to do.”

But I could tell from the tone of his voice exactly what he was

going to do. It was done. Mariah was mad as shit at me, Irv and Ja.

I’d never heard her that mad at me. Once again, I got caught up in

other people’s bullshit. About a week before Glitter came out, they

rushed Ja into the studio with Channel 7 and J-Lo. They recorded I’m

Real and Ain’t That Funny back to back, in two nights.

I wasn’t mad at him for it. Get your money. I completely respect

that. I was just mad at the situation. Plus, in the very beginning, I told

Irv that we may run into this problem.

“If it does, I need to know you won’t switch sides on me.”


After that, we never really talked much. Our relationship turned

into courtesy Sunday calls, like, “Hey, this is what I’m doing. How

you been?”

Irv went through his issues and problems around the same time I

did, so it wasn’t like we weren’t messing with each other or anything.

We just drifted apart.

• WILLSMITHOne of my favorite Hollywood people has always been Will

Smith — another one of those few stars who is among the sweetest

and most genuine people you could hope to meet. So I didn’t think

too much of it one day when I got what otherwise would have been

a bizarre call from his assistant.

Will was in the middle of shooting Wild Wild West on the Warner

Bros. lot, not far from the Power 106 office in Burbank. “Will wants

to know if you’ll come by,” the assistant said.

“Sure, what’s up?”

“He wants to have a discussion.”

“About what?” I asked.

“Well, I’ll leave that up to him,” the assistant said.

That seemed a little weird, but, whatever. I headed over to the

studio and was directed to Will’s trailer. The assistant thanked me

for coming and went to tell Will I was there. It was kinda hilarious

as Will walked up, decked out in his western costume. I think those

make everybody sorta act like John Wayne!

“Hey, Damion!”

“Hey, man, how you doin? What’s up?”

“Doin’ great! Hey, there’s something I wanted to talk to you

about.”

Will kinda hesitated.

He said, “My kids can’t listen to Power 106 anymore.”

“What? Why?”

B O N U S C U T S 2 8 5

“It’s gotten too vulgar,” Will said. “My kids are at the age where

they listen to Power all the time, and you guys are playing a lot of

records like Ain’t No Fun and Dre records and Snoop Dogg … the

content has gotten to the point where I don’t feel comfortable letting

them listen.”

“Whoa,” I said. “So let me get this straight … you’re a concerned

parent asking me to censor Power 106?”

“I’m not asking you to censor it,” he said, “I’m just asking you to

be responsible and keep in mind that a lot of young people listen to

your radio station.”

I really didn’t know what to say to Will. I mean, one hand I get

the protective parent thing. I get that he was the Fresh Prince and

usually pushed a really clean, positive rap image himself — aside

from tracks like You Saw My Blinker, Bitch, which is about an old

lady driving her car too slow. But part of the whole plight of every

rapper in the world is freedom of speech, and one of Will’s first hits,

Summertime, is what made pop radio look at rap in the first place,

and helped make rap radio accessible … and now he was asking me

not to play other rapper’s music? All I could do was try to explain

that I was trying to get good music out there and that I wasn’t in a

position to judge, otherwise I wasn’t doing my job serving our target

audience. I thanked him for having me down and said I’d see him

around. He thanked me back. It was weird, man. As I was leaving the

set, his assistant handed me a copy of Will’s new single, which was

the theme song for the film, also called Wild Wild West.

Every time we’ve run into each other since the subject’s never

come up. To show how much respect I have for the dude, I gotta

share this, however: Power’s morning host Big Boy decided to do

something about his health and made a public appeal, saying he was

going to lose a lot of his 500-pound weight. Will came in and pledged

to give a thousand bucks per pound to charity if Big Boy lost 50

pounds. Big Boy did a great job and out of the gate lost about 100


pounds. He’d eventually shed about 250 pounds, which was so cool.

I may not have agreed with Will’s take on rap lyrics, but I sure

have enormous respect for him.

• BILLYBOBTHORTONOne of the other radio stations Emmis owned was the country-

format KZLA, which was just down the hall from Power in the

Burbank office. The morning host was a good friend of actor Billy

Bob Thorton, and hit me up one day for a favor.

“Billy’s going to make an album,” he said. “He’d like you to

produce it … he liked what you did with Korn and Mariah Carey.”

Well, I thought, cool. Billy Bob had just bought Slash’s house,

which had an amazing studio in it, and he was having a whole host

of friends like Eddie Van Halen and Slash come down and play on his

tracks, I was told. I was looking forward to dropping in but the only

night that was going to work for either of us at the time happened

to be the same night Snoop was having a bash at his place in Beverly

Hills to celebrate the release of Drop It like It’s Hot.

Famed jeweler Alan Friedman and Alfred from deLaCour

watches was with me, and we were meeting up with a bunch of

people at Snoop’s, but dropped in to see Billy Bob first. He greeted

us and took us down into the studio, which was awesome — the best

and latest equipment and guitars and drums everywhere. Very cool.

He played us some tracks, which I thought were kinda like a cross

between Johnny Cash and Van Halen. I’m pretty open-minded, but

constantly shake my head when I hear another actor who wants to be

a rock star. And the other way around.

“So,” I said to him, “where do you want to go with this?”

“I thought you could throw some beats under this,” Billy Bob said.

There really wasn’t much I could really do with the tracks, to be

honest. They were all on hard disc, no Pro Tools files that I could take

with me and play with even if I had some idea what to attempt. That

B O N U S C U T S 2 8 7

meant I would have had to work in his studio. But I’m always game

for anything musically creative and don’t usually dismiss anything

out of hand. But Billy Bob, Slash and a hip-hop beat? My gut feeling

was this shit wasn’t goin’ anywhere.

But I said I could see what I could come up with … “Maybe

you’d like to come and do a mixtape at Power, sort of like Pam

Anderson did.”

Billy Bob wasn’t familiar with the mixtapes at all and said he’d

look into it. I asked if he wanted to come with us to Snoop’s party

and he said thanks, but that he had a new baby and had to lay low.

A few days later his business manager called me at Power and

asked how we were going to pull something together. I told him that

they could either pay me to produce some beats, or we could do a

swap, my services for Billy Bob getting on a mixtape for me. Instead,

I got the idea that they wanted me to get in on their project just to

work with Billy Bob the Movie Star. It was all polite and cool but that

was kinda the end of the conversation and I never heard back from

them. Nice guy, though. Another night in the ‘hood.

• AXLROSEI was working on the Baby Ree mixtape session with Pamela

Anderson in the front room of Can-Am Studios out in Tarzana — the

place probably made most famous by Death Row and Tupac. Usually

buzzing with people and engineers and assistants and various artists,

the place was like a ghost town. I asked one of the engineers why it

was so quiet. “Who’s workin’ in the back room?” I asked.

“Oh, Axl Rose is here working on Chinese Democracy.”

Well, he wasn’t actually there. The engineer told me that Axl had

booked the place for a month, and his staff had been in for over a

week decorating and getting it set up for the former Guns N’ Roses

frontman, who by that point had already supposedly been working

on the then-mysterious album since 1994 and was otherwise in


some sort of self-imposed exile.

I was pretty curious and wandered back to have a look at the set

up. Fuck! I’ve never seen anything like it. The whole place was done

up like a big Grateful Dead tie-dye explosion, and there were action

figures and toys all over the producer’s desk and on the console

was a Master P doll with a G-Unit spinner chain. The walls were

lined with amps and drums and guitars all this kinda shit. I thought,

“This is crazy! When Axl does it, he does it big!” I’d never seen

anybody decorate a studio like this.

A couple of nights went by and I kept on working and the place

remained quiet. Then, all of a sudden, the place went nuts. There

were engineers and assistants flying around looking busy, getting

drinks and snacks and tuning guitars, lookin’ like they’d been

working really hard. Word came: Axl was on his way to the studio.

I wandered outside for a smoke and it wasn’t long before I

heard a high-pitched whine and saw this green Lamborghini scream

around the corner and into the parking lot of the studio, which is in

an industrial park and quite inconspicuous. The car turned in and

immediately scraped along a speed bump and came to a stop.

Axl got out and freaked out, screaming at the car and kicking

the tires, calling it a “piece of shit,” and just goin’ off.

He got back in the car, backed it up and tried to make it over

the speed bump by driving diagonally. When it again scraped along

the speed bump he exploded out of the car again and began to walk

around it, screaming and yelling. He then got back in, backed up,

and tore out of there the way he came.

The next day, his staff came in and cleared out the studio

because, I was told, he refused to work there because he couldn’t

get his Lamborghini in the parking lot.

B O N U S C U T S 2 8 9

• MACYGRAYWhen Macy Gray’s second single Why Don’t You Call Me? hit, the

record company asked if I’d produce a remix. I told them that it was

kinda an urban pop record and that I really didn’t understand what

they’d want me to do with it. They said simply that they were after a

remix that would get airplay on rap mix shows.

I was told that it would be cool if I put a rapper on it and that

Macy herself would come into the studio and re-sing her parts.

I was game. I worked out a beat and sampled Digital Underground’s

Humpty Dumpty. I called Warren G. and he came into Larrabee West

and put a verse on it. Then I decided that the remix really needed live

horns. The record company told me that Macy had a live band with

horns, which had done the original record, and that the players were

available. A few days later they came in and we all got ready for Macy.

Off the top, they told me to relax, because we were in for a long wait.

They were right. We sat for about five hours, and the players almost

immediately began trashing her. In fact, I think they came through

the door talkin’ shit about having to work for her, saying they weren’t

getting’ enough money to put up with her.

Finally, Macy showed up. I played the track for her and she said

she liked it. But she wasn’t in the mood to work. She told me that she

was angry at the label and had been opposed to doing a remix in the

first place, that she didn’t want to be there and had other things to do.

I’m used to dealing with temperamental artists and took her

aside for a talk. We sat on the stairs beside each other. Macy said,

“Nothing against you, Damion. The remix is cool but I just don’t

want to be here.”

After everybody left, the record company called and said that

Macy would be in the next day. Again, we all waited but she never

showed up. On the third day, I got a call from an assistant who said

she was in a better mood and that she’d soon be at the studio. Again,

she was a no-show and I pulled the plug on the sessions.


About a year later, Luis Miguel was working at the Record Plant

and Mariah and I went over to hang out with him. Randy Jackson

showed up as well. He and I were outside talking about American

Idol, which had just premiered its first season. Then, out of nowhere,

Macy Gray stepped up.

“Hi Randy, how’s it going? Oh, Damizza, how are you. When

are we gonna do a record together?”

There was a distinctly uncomfortable silence before she realized

what she’d said.

She said, “Oops. I guess I fucked that one up, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” I answered.

• DAVIDLEEROTHA buddy of mine, Craig, had been working as a bodyguard for

Jennifer Love-Hewitt and then went to work for David Lee Roth.

One day he called up and said “Dave wants you to produce some

records for him.”

Cool, I thought.

A the time, Dave was in the middle of his summer 2002 Sam and

Dave Tour, which had become music industry myth even before the

two former Van Halen frontmen got together for what seemed like

more arguing than singing.

Craig said the show was playing Atlantic City and Dave wanted

to fly me to New York for three days. It was first class all the way.

Dave put me and my Baby Ree partner Sujit up at the W hotel, then

called and told me to meet him a strip club that night.

When we got there, one of the club bouncers said, “Mr. Roth is

expecting you” and escorted us into a big VIP section in the back

where there were about 20 naked women all over Dave. Sugit and I

sat down and Dave laughed and said, “Girls, attack!”

Strippers seemed to be comin’ out of the walls! Hey, for a strip

club experience, it was the best ever … when you show up with David

B O N U S C U T S 2 9 1

Lee Roth to a strip club you know it ain’t gonna be anything but the

best!

Dave came over to me and sat down and said, “I really want to

do some records with you, Damion. Let’s have a meeting tomorrow

morning and then head down to the show in Atlantic City. Tonight,

you guys have a great night and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Dave got up and handed the manager a wad of cash and said

“Anything they want.”

He turned to the group of us and said, “Everything’s on me, have

a great time!” and left.

The next morning I got called to Dave’s suite. He’s one of the

coolest, nicest guys you could imagine and a blast to hang out with

— whether it’s in a room full of strippers or just chattin’ over coffee.

I asked him what he had in mind for his next record … “some classic

David Lee Roth shit?”

He said, “No, no man, I want to do something new. I want to do

a song with Snoop Dogg … that’s the kinda stuff I want to do.”

I said, “Well, that can be arranged.”

I told him that I’d mentioned him to Mariah and that she was down

to do something with him as well, but Dave wasn’t too excited by that

prospect; he was definitely thinking a little more street than pop.

“Send me some beats,” Dave said.

I told him I would. We were then all off for Atlantic City and the

show. On alternate nights on the tour, Sammy and Dave would swap

headliner positions. That night, Dave was top of the bill. We were

backstage amongst all the craziness when Sugit and I started to hear

all this screaming. Craig walked by and said, “Oh, they must have

seen each other in the hallway. They do not get along.”

When Dave got out on stage he was amazing. Talk about energy

and giving the crowd everything he had! Jumping, doing the splits,

kicks like Elvis never imagined … man, the guy’s in great shape. At

one point, some fat chick got past security and ran onto the stage


and planted a big kiss on Dave, screaming, “I love you!” before

bodyguards managed to pry her loose and drag her off.

“Thanks, baby!” Dave told the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen,

give it up for Sammy’s wife!”

The guy’s nuts! After the show we returned backstage and Dave

said, “So, how’d you like the show?”

I said “How’d you like Sammy’s wife?”

He laughed and told us that the same crazy bitch showed up at

every show and pulled the same stunt.

“It’ll be great to making some amazing records,” he said to me,

and went off into the night.

By the time I got back to L.A. I’d given it a lot of thought, and

realized that getting’ down with Dave just wasn’t realistic. Anytime

there’s an artist with that much circus going on around him, I’ve

learned that it takes monumental effort to get a session off the

ground. I thought of what it would take to get him and Snoop in the

same room, at the same time, and actually get some positive work

done and knew it just wasn’t gonna happen.

He never called me back and I never called him back. Great dude,

however. I’d hit a strip club with him anytime!

• 50CENTSee, I have a really twisted sense of humor, and sometimes I don’t

know if people understand when I’m kidding and when I’m not.

Here’s a great example. 50 Cent and a whole crew of famous

Hollywood faces were at this bash in Beverly Hills. When we got to

the party, I recognized some of the security — they were all off-duty

L.A. cops that I’d hired in the past, moonlighters for rap security.

One of them said, “Oh shit, Damizza’s here. The party’s over!”

We all laughed and they let us through and Alfred from the

deLaCour watch corporation was with us and he said, “All I want to

do is meet 50 Cent.”

B O N U S C U T S 2 9 3

We made our way through the party, running into the likes of

Leonardo DiCaprio and Justin Timberlake, and I immediately

realized that this was one of those classic Hollywood parties that just

so happens was at the rented house that was previously known as

the Wu-Tang mansion, where they were hanging when they were in

town recording their album Triumph.

Now extreme Hollywood situations make my sense of humor

overtly over the top. The mansion had a sprawling view of the Los

Angeles skyline, high atop Sunset. I made my way to the corner by

way of the bar, where I ran into Warren G. We proceeded to spark

up a joint. My friend Nino from Interscope came up and said, “50

Cent would like an audience with His Excellency the Rap Radio

Czar.” (joking)

I said, “Come hither, my friend.”

50 Cent walked up and immediately I noticed this Kevlar fashion

accessory that he had attached to his torso, which I politely took my

index finger, pressed it and said, “Nice vest.”

50 followed my observation and comment with, “This is L.A.,

it’s hot out here!”

I replied, “This is my friend Alfred from Milan, and my friend

Alan of the Hills of Beverly.”

He said, “Nice to meet you both,” and a photograph was taken.

Fiddy then turned to me and said, “I have some records I would like

you to play.”

I responded with a jokingly misunderstood comment of, “Why,

our ratings would go down.”

We all shared a chuckle and several days later 50 came to the

radio station and I played Poppin’ them thangs.

I love a good joke.


• TUPACWANTSTOKNOWEvery year the Grammys party that MCA Record threw was the

shit. It was always at the Four Seasons and was the party to see and

be seen at: ice sculptures, tie and jacket to get in, sort of like an Oscar

party, back in the good old days when the industry had a lotta loot to

throw around.

One year, a bunch of us were hanging with Dave Grohl, Queen

Latifa, and a who’s who of record company and radio brass. We were

in the very back room and a flood of people came in and said, “Oh,

shit, Death Row is here!” as if they were scared. The first person to

come through the door was Suge Knight, followed by Nate, followed

by Snoop, followed by Tupac, followed by Kurupt, and then oddly

placed, MC Hammer with a Death Row chain on, which we were all

kind of puzzled by.

The crowd just parted like the Red Sea and we thought, cool, let’s

go meet Tupac.

I went up to Suge and introduced myself and said it was very

nice to meet him. He was really cool, turned and said, “Have you

met Tupac?”

And I said to Tupac, “Hey, I love your new album.”

He looked pissed, “Whoa, hold the fuck up, how did you get my

album – it don’t come out ’til Tuesday.”

He turned to Suge and said, “Hey, man, this motherfucker says

he’s got a copy of my album.”

I said, “I’m in alternative radio and fuckers know I can’t play

that shit.”

He said, “Right, then what’s your favorite song?”

I said, “First song, disc two, You Can’t See Me, and I started with

the lyric, “A million pair of eyes looking hard but they will never

realize that they will never see the P.”

I said, “George Clinton killed that shit.”

Tupac started laughing his ass off, and said, “My nigga,” we

B O N U S C U T S 2 9 5

slapped hands and he gave me hug.

From the second Tupac walked in that room, you just knew there

was something different about that guy. By the way, much respect

to Alfini Shakur and Moprene Shakur. Alfini was very nice to me

following Tupac’s death on an anniversary special we did at Power,

which she did an interview for. Johnny J., his longtime producer,

introduced us and I’m forever grateful to Johnny and his wife for their

early support at Power 106. We never coulda done it without them.

And Moprene is simply the best; we need more people like them who

are heavily involved in mentoring these kids to escape the perils of

street violence. He’s been a great mentor of many kids, including

Taje, whom I’ve worked extensively with and who is a great talent in

his own right.

• AKNIGHTWITHSUGESuge Knight had just gotten out of the Mule Creek Detention

Center in California and I was hosting that year’s Powerhouse concert

at the Arrowhead Pond, featuring Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg, Kurupt

and others.

In our planning meeting for the security, our wonderful promotions

director Diana raised a red flag, no pun intended. Rumor was that

Suge was coming to the party. The Anaheim police department

stepped forward and said, “If Suge Knight steps onto the property,

your show will be canceled.”

So I said, “Why don’t we just invite him, then we’ll know where

he’s at and at least we showed him the respect, and he won’t cause

any problems.”

Everybody but the cops said, “Great, good idea.”

I said, “Well, call whoever you heard the rumor from and invite

him to the show.”

I felt the cold stare from everybody in the room, and Diana said,

“No way, you call him.”


I called the Death Row offices and asked for Suge. They put me

through to Reggie White, who was then the head of Death Row security.

“Hey, Reggie, it’s Damion over at Power, can I talk to Suge?”

“Yeah, right,” he said and hung up. You see, nobody ever just

picks up the phone and calls Suge Knight. I called right back and said,

“Reggie, this is Damion from Power 106. Call the front switchboard

at Power and ask for me,” and I hung up on him. He then returned

my call and I said, “Thank you. Now I’d like to talk to Suge.”

He started laughing and said, “About what?”

And I said, “Reggie, please, just put Suge on the phone.”

He said, “He’s at home. Hold on a second and I’ll conference

him in.”

Suge got on the phone. “Whatsup?”

“I said, ‘Hi this is Damion from Power – congratulations on your

recent release.’”

He had just done an interview in one of the industry magazines

where he was flirting with the ever-so-beautiful interviewer and I said

to him, “I would have tried to nail that chick, too,” and complimented

his interview.

He laughed.

I said, “There’s a rumor you’ll be attending Powerhouse this

weekend.”

He said, “What’s Powerhouse?”

I said, “Come on, Suge, this is L.A.”

He laughed, and said, “Okay.”

I said, “If you do come, I’d like you to be my guest. I have a suite

where my family will be watching the show and I would be happy to

accommodate you and your entourage as my personal guests.”

He said, “Wow, no one’s ever invited me to something like this

before. I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know if I’m coming. What’s

your home number, or where can I reach you?”

The next morning I got a call from Reggie saying it would be

B O N U S C U T S 2 9 7

Suge plus 10 attending. I said that was fine, to call me when they

got there, gave them my cell number, and said I’d escort them all

personally to their seats.

When I got there, I told the cops that I had a special guest coming

and that it was one Marion Suge Knight. They said they were going

to shut me down if he stepped up. I told them he was my guest and

that he’d be there at seven and they were not shutting shit down.

Treat people with respect and they respond in kind.

Suge arrived, I got a call from Reggie saying he had two extra

people with him and was that all right. I said, “cool, no problem.”

I walked Suge into the private suite, introduced him to my friends

and various members of the staff. He and his friends sat and watched

the show. At one point he was talking with another rapper who had

asked to meet him, and I momentarily saw the other side of Suge,

though no violence.

After, I said, “Hey, buddy, what’s goin’ on.”

He said, “You showed me respect and I’ll show you respect. This

is your house and I’m not going to say anything. But he sampled

Tupac without permission and we had some business to take care of.

But I appreciate you inviting me,” and he sat down.

The next morning on my doorstep – keep in mind that I never

gave him my address – there was a bottle of Cristal and several Cuban

cigars and a note, “I had a great time, thanks, with my compliments,

Suge Knight.”

• BUSTARHYMESMy second day at Power 106 happened to be around the time of

the MTV Music Video Awards. Busta Rhymes was performing.

Tha Baker Boyz were interviewing him and I was listening in

my office. They said, “What you got comin’ out?” and Busta said,

“Rampage … but fuck Damion Young.”

One of the many times I was to hear that from someone!


They quickly moved on. I walked down to the studio, pressed the

talk back button and said “Nick, is Busta still around there?”

He said, “Yeah, let me get him.”

Busta came on the line and said, “Yo.”

“Hi Busta, this is Damion Young. Why don’t you come in

tomorrow morning at 10 o’clock and we’ll talk.”

And then I walked out of the room. I don’t know what he said

after that, but could hear him yelling in the background.

The next morning, I had forgotten that Busta was coming in.

The receptionist called me and said, “Damion, Busta Rhyme’s in the

lobby.”

I said, “Oh, shit, let him in.”

He walked into my office, shut the door, and started with “Why

the fuck aren’t you supporting my record?”

I said, “Hi, I’m Damion Young, nice to meet you,” and extended

my hand. He said, “Yo, my record rep from Elektra says that you

were shitting on the new Rampage record.”

I said, “One, I haven’t had any record meetings yet, and two, they

probably lied to you, because I haven’t been in contact with anyone in

the record community about any records yet because I’ve only been

here for three days. Do you have a copy on you?”

He said he did, stuck his head out the door and asked his assistant

for a copy and handed to me. I looked at it and said to him, “Oh,

yeah, I have heard this. I actually like this record.”

Five minutes later it was on the air. The record worked for us. We

had a great talk afterwards. He explained his passion for breaking the

Flip Mode Squad and introduced me to Spliff Starr.

Busta is a genius of a businessman. He also is one of the most

humble legends in this industry and one of the very few straight

shooters who tells you exactly how he feels, when he feels it, and I’m

very proud to now be a friend of his. Rough start, but he definitely is

a leader of the New School.

B O N U S C U T S 2 9 9

• JANETJACKSONOne of the great behind-the-scenes promo dudes in L.A. when I

was at Power was Ricky Lee Mench, who worked for Hits Magazine.

One of his keys to success was befriending every mix show DJ

and getting in on the ground floor of what was coming down the

pipe. He’d have weekly conference calls with all the radio players

and also encourage burgeoning talent to join in — a great first way

to break them.

Ricky doesn’t get enough credit for being the person who married

mix show DJs to the mainstream. He influenced me to get a mixer

(E-Man) in the programming department at Power. Mixers are on the

streets and see firsthand what is hot and can give programmers and

music directors a huge advantage over competing stations.

One Friday afternoon, Ricky called me and asked what I was

doing the next day. We got together often, so I didn’t think much of

it until he got all cryptic on me and told me to be at a certain address

at a precise time.

“What’s up,” I asked.

He said, “There’s a superstar artist that wants to meet you.

They’re concerned about their record, which hasn’t done that well.

They need to be told the truth about why.”

I said, “They? You’re not even gonna tell me if it’s a male or a

female? Come on, Ricky!”

He said, “It’s a long story. Why don’t you just come over tomorrow

and talk?”

Hey, I was always up for an adventure. Ricky had done this to me

before — he arranged a meeting and it turned out to be with Laker

forward John Salley, who was trying to start a rap career. Well, that

was interesting.

I didn’t know what I was walking into when the next day I drove

to the address Ricky had given me. This secret location turned out to

be a regular residential neighborhood, although in a state of uproar:


There was some sort of video shoot going on — trailers, crew running

around, and equipment everywhere.

I rang up Ricky to let him know I was there, and he said, “Come

to the middle trailer, and just knock on the door when you get there.”

I walked up to the trailer and it said “Janet Jackson” on it. I

called him up again and said, “Dude, come get me! I’m not gonna

just knock on Janet Jackson’s door.”

Ricky himself came out of the trailer. “Hey! Damion!”

Since Power wasn’t playing Janet’s record at all, I thought to myself,

“Oh, fuck, this is an ambush. I’m gonna get thrown in the tank.”

I walked in with Ricky and Janet was sitting there with her

manager and her then-husband, Rene.

After we were all introduced, I said, “So, what’s going on, Janet?”

She said, “Why isn’t radio playing my records?”

I said, “Uhh …” and kinda blanked out.

Ricky jumped in and said, “Damion, you can be honest. I already

warned them you can be quite blunt.”

So I went for it.

“Well, Janet, you said ‘fuck you’ to radio, and we heard you.”

She was like, “What do you mean? I’ve never said anything

like that.”

I said, “When was the last time you walked into a radio station?”

She said, “Well, when I was working Control back in 1986.”

I said, “There you go. You want us to play your records, but

you’re too good to hang out with us?”

She looked at me with this, “you asshole!” type stare.

“But no one’s asked me to do radio!” she said.

I told her I’d asked one of the heads of Virgin to get her to do

some radio promo a few times and that he’d shot me down, basically

telling me that I was “gonna play the records and like it.”

Janet was a little nonplussed.

I continued. “You don’t cut drops for radio, and you never visit

B O N U S C U T S 3 0 1

radio, you never include our listeners in anything or do anything to

support the DJs.”

She said, “So what can I do?”

I told her, “You’ve just gotta get out there and touch the flesh.”

She said, “How do I deal with these radio politics? I have a really

specific problem with Hot 97. Tracy Chlority over there hates me!”

I said, “Well, what can I help you with?”

She said, “I need to figure out how to get my record on the radio.

How do I do it?”

I said, “It’s real simple. Call radio.”

She said, “Like myself ? Just dial the number and call in?”

I said, “What? You don’t know how to use a phone? I mean, I

know you’re a Jackson and everything, but jeez.”

Then she started laughing.

I said, “Don’t worry about it. Get on Ricky’s conference call and

talk to the mix show DJs. Then you can get on my conference call and

talk to everyone in programming. Then, do radio. Cut some drops.

Get a drop list, record them wherever you want in the world, and

then send them to the DJs. At least make them feel that they’re a part

of your project, and not just somebody who’s playing your record.”

She said, “Okay, but, what do I do about Tracy?”

I said, “With the Tracy thing, all you’ve got to do is call her up

directly and mend whatever bridge you guys have a problem with.”

She said, “I’m pretty concerned about doing that. Can’t that be

handled through the record company?”

I said, “Janet. It’s an issue with you. It’s not an issue with your

record, or your company.”

So after this, she actually got on the conference call with the mix

show DJs, which showed me she was serious about getting the ball

rolling. She called me directly after, which tripped me out, and said,

“I did the mix show DJ thing. What do I do now?”

I said, “We’ve got a conference call tomorrow with all the


programmers. Even Tracy from Hot 97 will be on the call, so it’ll set

things up and show that you’re being proactive. Let’s do it.”

She agreed.

And sure enough, the next morning, she was on the line. This is

where some of the resentment started to come back to me from the

other programmers. Here I am saying, “I’m gonna put Janet on the

phone now.”

They would think, “Oh, Damion’s gonna put Janet on the phone.

First Mariah, now this. He must think he’s hot shit!”

But when she was on the call, everyone was just floored by how

nice she was and how open she was to answering any questions. I

thought to myself, “Wow. She’s really getting involved.”

In between all of this, we had a few different conversations about

music. We were talking about Timbaland’s productions, and her

early work with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, which I was a big fan

of. She was a total, down-to-earth, sweet person. She was glowing

with coolness and she was really nice.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, she was also going through a

divorce with Rene. I didn’t know the dynamics of her circle, so I was

walking on eggshells. I was wondering if it was her husband who

was calling the shots, if it was her manager, or if it was Ricky. But

we slowly started to make headway with her record, and it started to

get played.

It finally came down to the time where she was gonna do a radio

tour. She came to Power, and when she showed up, I got a call from

her manager.

“We’re downstairs, but she’s not gonna come up until you come

down and get her.”

She hadn’t done radio yet, so she was still a little bit nervous.

In general, when a major artist who’s had a lot of shit going on in

the press, they never know what the DJ is going to ask on the air, and

they immediately think the worst. But if I, the music director, come

B O N U S C U T S 3 0 3

down and walk that person in, then they feel safer, because I’d have

to be a complete asshole to walk them straight into hellfire.

After Janet was done, she came into my office and was like, “That

wasn’t too bad!”

Someone had just given me a pair of boxing gloves, and she said,

“Hey, those are neat!” She put them on and started play-hitting me!

“You can keep those,” I joked. “You obviously have some pent-

up frustration.”

A couple days later, she was ready to make the call to Tracy. She

called me first and asked what to do.

I said, “Here’s exactly what you say. Call her up and go, ‘I don’t

know what’s happened in the past. I don’t know how we got off on

the wrong foot. It doesn’t matter whether or not you start playing my

record, but I just want to reinstate our relationship and let you know

that there’s no hard feelings.”

Everything went very well with Tracy, and she called me up after.

“Thank you so much for your help. I really appreciate it.”

I didn’t hear from Janet for a while after that, but her manager

called me up one day and said, “Hey, Janet’s playing in Washington

D.C. tonight, and it’s the first day of her tour. Would you like to come

out and see her show?”

I said, “You know what? Yeah, I’d love to!”

She said, “Janet will pay for you to fly out,” and I immediately

told them I’d pay for myself. So I flew out for the show, but I only

had the night to stay there, because I had to be back in the office the

next day.

Before the show, we were backstage talking. When she was ready

to go on, she said, “Okay, I’ll see you after the show!”

I thought to myself, “Sure. Yeah, right.”

But after the last song, her manager said, “Hey, come back to the

dressing room.”

Janet was like, “What did you think of the show?” I told her it


was awesome.

She said, “Do you want to walk with me back to the tour bus?”

She looked fiery! She was wearing a wife beater with no bra. You

could see that her nipples were pieced, and there were diamond studs

in them that were glistening through the shirt. I’m sitting there like,

“Oh my god! She’s so hot!”

I walked her back to the bus, and Rene was there. Janet said,

“Hey, do you want to ride with me in the bus to the next city? I’ve got

to go by myself and it’d be nice if you could come along.”

I said, “Well, I’ve got all my stuff in the hotel room and I’ve gotta

go back to L.A. tomorrow morning.”

She said, “Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll send my security to

pick it up and it’ll be there for you in the next city.”

When she said that, Rene glanced at me with a “What the fuck

are you doing here” look on his face. It was a total weird vibe, and I

didn’t get it. But I still didn’t know that they were getting divorced at

the time, and now it makes more sense. In retrospect, it was probably

a big mistake turning down that offer!

A couple months later, I was cleaning out my desk and I found a

letter that had been sent to me a while back. It was from Janet.

“Damion,

Thank you so much for your support over the years.

Happy holidays. I miss you.

— Janet”

I was like, “Damn, I can’t believe I missed this!”

So I called up her manager and I said, “I’m sorry I missed this

letter. Tell her I said ‘thank you so much.’”

The last time I saw Janet, she was with Jermaine Dupri. They

were standing around at the Power office. I said, “Yo, my two favorite

people!”

We exchanged warm welcomes and I joked to Janet that the way

the music business was going, I might need to borrow those boxing

B O N U S C U T S 3 0 5

gloves I gave her!

She’s a great lady and incredible talent. I’ll always be proud that

I was able to help her out.

• PARISINTHESPRINGTIMEI got a call from Jimmy Steel, who is the vice president of

programming for Emmis Broadcasting, one day. He said, “Hey, we’re

going to Clive Davis’ party. Get ready.”

Every year, Clive throws this pre-Grammy Awards bash at the

Beverly Hilton where everyone who wants to be seen shows up —

and if you’re in the industry, it’s not something you want to miss. I

had forgotten about it, being jetlagged from a trip. And I didn’t have

any clothes. In fact, I remember that all I had with me was a white

Gap T-shirt I’d been wearing for two days, a dirty pair of jeans and

a black jacket. I knew I’d stick out like a sore thumb at the party and

decided to spark a blunt on the way to distract myself.

When Jimmy and I got to the hotel, we saw Steve Rifkind at the

desk. He brushed past me with three great lookin’ girls with a snotty,

“Hey, Damion.”

Then the girl at the desk told him he wasn’t on the list. “Better

luck next time, Steve,” I said, patting him on the shoulder as Jimmy

and I walked in past him.

Clive’s party is great for not only the social and business aspect,

but also for the performances. That night, Whitney Houston and

Usher were amazing. I ran into Sharon Osbourne, who said, “Oh, my

god, nice to meet you! I listen to Big Boy … my daughter’s working

on her album. You guys need to hang out.”

When I was leaving the party, I ran into my friend Craig, who

was with Warren G. and Jennifer Love Hewitt’s bodyguard. We’ve

known each other for years and have a great rapport, so I went up

behind him and said, “Hey motherfucker!”

It shocked the people he was with — among them Nick Carter


and Paris Hilton, which is one of the reasons I love doing that! Paris

turned around and Craig introduced me. She said, “Hey, nice to …

hmm. Wait a minute. You smell like kush!”

Busted, I thought. “You don’t know shit about no kush!” I said.

Paris gave me a “No, buddy, you don’t know shit about kush”

kinda look.

Craig said, “You know, Mizz, she’s working on a record, and I

told her what you did with Jennifer.”

Paris said, “Yeah, I’d love to listen to some beats.”

“Cool, when do you want to meet up?”

She said, “I leave for New York tomorrow afternoon. Why don’t

you stop by the house tomorrow morning? We’ll smoke one and talk.”

So the next morning, I went to her house in the Hollywood Hills,

and I brought a friend of mine named Chief, who is a connoisseur

of all things medicinal. We went in there, and she had this big huge

mound of weed on the table. I asked her, “Where the fuck did you

get that?”

She said, “Oh, I stopped over in Amsterdam and stocked up on

the G5. It’s a breeze through customs.”

I laughed quietly as she rolled the most perfect baseball bat of a

joint. It was a surreal moment. She listened to a couple beats, and she

said, “I love that song you did with Kurupt. What is it, The Curb?”

She looked over at Craig and he said, “Yeah, Chip The Curb. I

played her some of your stuff.”

She said, “Do you know Puff ?”

I said, “Yeah, I know Puff. He’s crazy.”

“When I come back to L.A., we’ll hook up.”

“Okay,” I said. “Great.”

To be honest, I was so busy with Power and all the artists I was

working with and all the people I was meeting and then getting wrapped

up with Mariah for those years I completely forgot about Paris — no

disrespect to her — until a while later when she became much more

B O N U S C U T S 3 0 7

of a paparazzi target and was in the news and I remembered we were

supposed to hook up and maybe knock out some tracks. But I never

called her and she never called me.

• BIGGABBigga B, rest in peace, was one of my early mentors. He was a

street promotion guy who really embraced me and helped me shape

my character at Power 106. He taught me a lot about the streets

and how L.A. worked as a whole. He and his cousin Chace Infinite

taught me so much about radio, too. Chace actually was the first

street promoter I met when I got to Power.

One Friday night before leaving the office, Chace came at me

with some promotion ideas. I said, “It’s Friday night, dogg. I really

don’t wanna talk about promotions. Let’s get together some other

time when you’ve got a blunt and some Booze Farm, and we’ll shoot

the shit.”

He said, “I’ll be back in 10 minutes.”

Sure enough, he came back, with a brown paper bag that he put

on the table. He said, “Here’s the Booze Farm. Do you want me to

roll the blunt here, or should we go someplace else?”

I said, “You know what? You’re a cool motherfucker!”

Aside from Chace, Bigga B introduced me to a lot of amazing

people. For instance, one day I walked into my office and I saw Xzibit.

I said, “Hey, what’s up man! I love your song Paparazzi. That

video was crazy!”

He said, “Yeah, well now I’m not doing that good. No songs of

mine are playing on the radio. I’m in the studio, but I don’t know

what’s going on with me at Loud Records.”

I said, “Well you know what? I’ll put Paparazzi back into nighttime

rotation, and at least you can hear your song on the radio and say

you’re in rotation.”

He said, “Well, thank you very much.”


Years later, I saw Xzibit at the release party for his album Weapons

Of Mass Destruction. He invited everybody — all the artists he worked

with, his friends, fans. But only a couple of the reps from Sony and

a few of the street reps and I were the only people who showed up.

He walked up to me and said, “Dame, I really appreciate you.”

He got a little choked up and said, “I invited all my friends, but

nobody showed up. But it means a lot to me that you’re here. You’ve

always supported me, and you’ve showed up. Thank you so much.”

I said, “Hey man, it’s all good. That’s what we’re here for. We’re

the West Coast. We’ve got to stick together.”

There were few people better connected than Bigga B. He worked

for Loud Records, but he also had a lot of independent accounts.

One of the people who was signed to Loud was Big Punisher.

Kim Hughes and Bigga B came to my office at Power one day with a

videotape. It was the music video for a record that would become a

smash hit: Still Not A Playa.

Big Pun was this really huge guy, but he was cha-cha dancing

in the video and he seemed like such an infectious personality. I

absolutely loved the record. I said, “This is incredible. When do we

get the record?”

Kim said, “Well, we’re not gonna service it for another month.”

I said, “Service it for another month? I’m playing this record

today!”

She said, “Well how are you gonna do that?”

I said, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

I popped the tape out of the VCR, and I walked into the production

room. We had it hooked up in there so we could rent movies and

take sound bytes from them to play on the air. I took the video and

recorded the audio directly onto a CD. I walked into the on-air studio

DJ and said, “Play this next.”

He said, “What is this?”

I said, “It’s an artist by the name of Big Punisher, and the song is

B O N U S C U T S 3 0 9

called Still Not A Playa.”

The record went immediately to air, and I walked back in my office.

By the time I got there Kim was already fielding a call from Steve

Rifkind, owner of Loud Records.

She told Steve, “I don’t know what he did, he just took the tape,

and now they’re playing the record.”

Bigga B then immediately got a call from Fat Joe and Big Pun,

and they were like, “What the hell is going on? This record doesn’t

come out for another month. What are you doing? Stop! We’re not

ready for this.”

I said, “Look. You’ve already got the video done. Just put it out.

It’s already on the radio. What are you gonna do?”

I picked up the phone and I told Steve, “Stop whining. The

record’s a hit. You could have worse problems.”

I also said, “We’re doing our first Powerhouse concert, and we’ve

got one slot available for an opening act. Let’s have Big Pun do it.

Just come to the station and do the morning show, and then later that

night we’ll just throw him on stage without telling anyone. I’m that

big of a supporter of this record. The guy is a star.”

About a week later, they sent Big Pun to Los Angeles to be on the

Big Boy afternoon show. I walked past Pun in the station and I said,

“What’s up.”

He just walked right past me without acknowledging me. Kim

said, “Oh, don’t worry, he’s just tired.”

I shrugged it off, but when I went into the on-air studio, I said

something stupid about the physical size of these guys.

“Damn, you and Big Boy are huge! Were you guys separated at

birth?” Pun turned around and looked at me.

He said, “Oh really? Well, you’re white, and you don’t know shit

about hip-hop!”

I looked at him and said, “Oh yeah?”

Big Boy jumped in and said, “Whoa, whoa. Wait a minute.”


I just turned around and walked out. I said to Kim on my way

back into my office, “Hey! I’m white and I don’t know shit about hip-

hop! Did you tell him who just broke his record?”

About three minutes later, Pun stuck his head in my office door

and said, “Damion?”

I said, “Yeah?”

He said, “I’m sorry. I just had a long flight, and they woke me

up early. I didn’t know you broke my record. I’m from the street, and

when a cat comes in and makes a comment like that, I react. I didn’t

know who you were.”

I said, “It really shouldn’t matter who I am. But I love your record.

And I know enough about hip-hop to know to play your record.”

He said, “Dude, I just got up on the wrong side of the bed.”

I said, “Pun, it’s all good. Lord knows I’ve said shit I’ve regretted

before, too.”

He said, “Dude, thank you so much. I heard about how you

took the song off the VHS tape just to play it. I’m still new to this

promotion thing.”

I said, “It’s cool. It’s water under the bridge, forget about it. How

are you doing?”

He said, “I’m just getting used to this stuff. I’m meeting all these

people, I’m signing autographs, and I don’t understand any of this

shit.”

I said, “Well, let’s talk about it. People are gonna start coming

at you. You’re about to blow up. Tonight, you’re gonna come to

Powerhouse and we’re gonna put you on stage.”

He said, “Wait, I’m doing a show tonight?”

I said, “Yeah. I’m crazy like that.”

He said, “You’re friends with Joey, right?”

I said, “Yeah!”

He said, “Oh shit. Damn, I really fucked up then. It’s great to

meet you man.”

B O N U S C U T S 3 1 1

Then Kim came in and said, “We need to take a picture for Hits

Magazine.”

I said, “No problem.”

So we went outside and took a picture. As we were getting ready

for the shot, Pun took his chain off and put it around my neck. Now,

Pun was one big dude. And he had to have a chain that would fit him.

He had a big Jesus piece on this long chain, and on him it looked

small. But I put this thing on my neck and the Jesus piece hung all

the way down to my knees! This thing was huge, and heavy. It was so

big, when I put it on, I leaned forward. I was like, “Holy shit, this is

a big chain!”

As time went on, Pun did so many great things. What he did in

Latin hip-hop was just incredible. To me, he’s still one of the greatest

rappers of all time. He broke down a lot of the stereotypes for Latin

rappers. He also helped to launch Fat Joe’s career to a national

audience.

I had met Fat Joe a couple times before, through Steve Lobell,

who is another great guy. We always just hit it off. Fat Joe is just

an incredible dude. In fact, the day that Shade’s album came out,

he called me up and said, “Congratulations on the release of your

record. I bought three copies.”

That’s what kind of guy he is. Fat Joe is a real dude.

Every time I was in New York, Joe would offer to pick me up at

the airport. We’d go to dinner all the time. One time I was there with

Warren G. and Sujit. I heard Funkmaster Flex was spinning at a club

called The Tunnel, so we rolled over there. There was no security

with us or anything. I walked up to the DJ booth when we got there

and said, “What’s up Flex?”

He said, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

I said, “Me and Warren just showed up.”

He said, “Who are you here with?”

I said, “Just me and Warren.”


He said, “You guys are here by yourself ? You better be careful.

This place is gully!”

I said, “Yeah right, we’re having a good time.”

I called Fat Joe up and I said, “Hey, I’m in town!”

He said, “Where are you?”

I said, “The Tunnel.”

He said, “Wait. Who are you with?”

I said again, “It’s just me, Warren, and Sujit.”

He said, “You’re there by yourself ? Stay right where you are.

Don’t move. You don’t understand. There’s stabbings that go down

at The Tunnel. I’ll be there in 10 minutes.”

So 10 minutes later, Joe walks in with his entourage, and surrounds

us. I said, “What’s the big deal with all this?”

He said, “Damion. What did I tell you about New York? It’s not

like L.A. You’ll get cut up in a club. You’re a little white boy showing

up with Warren G., an 80-pound Injun, and no security. Do you

know what will happen at a place like this?”

We ended up hanging out and partying that night, and Joe gave

me a ride back to the hotel. That was the type of awesome relationship

we had.

Here’s another example. When an artist is late for a show,

normally I’m like, “Fuck ’em.” But I had so much respect for Fat

Joe that I held Tha Baka Boyz over for an extra hour so he could

come on.

They said, “You wouldn’t do this for anyone else. Why now?”

I said, “It’s Joey!” Joey is one of those guys that you meet the

first time and you just love him. He’s so personable, and he’s all about

working! He showed up that day in a wife-beater. “Sorry I’m late

dogg, I got caught up in traffic. This L.A. traffic is no joke!”

Big Pun became a huge star, and Capital Punishment was the first

solo album by a Latin rapper to go platinum. Steve Lobell invited me

to come by his house one day.

B O N U S C U T S 3 1 3

At this point, Pun was at his most obese. He was only about a

month from when he passed away. They rented this big mansion for

him in Beverly Hills, because he was nominated for a Grammy. This

was serious for Loud Records. Up until then, they had the Wu-Tang

Clan and all that. But to have Big Pun nominated for a Grammy was

a big success.

On the way to his place, Steve said, “Dude, I’m really worried

about Pun. He’s getting really big. So big that he can’t really move. He

wanted to come to the station, but they just can’t move him like that.

He gets tired really easily, and the doctor told him that his weight is

so major, he might break his leg if he puts too much pressure on it.”

I went over to the house they’d rented for him and the first thing

I saw was a huge platter of crab legs and vat of butter. I’ve never seen

so much melted butter in one place. Pun was just dipping the crab

in the butter and eating it all. I looked at him and I thought, “Dude.

This guy is not healthy.”

He was kneeling on the floor in front of a recliner chair with his

elbows on the seat. He was wheezing really badly too.

I said, “Pun, are you all right?”

He said, “Well, I’m having trouble breathing. And I’m just way

too heavy.”

I said, “Yeah dude, but look at what you’re eating. What are you

doing?”

He said, “I don’t know Dame. I’m nominated for a Grammy. I’m

living the good life.”

His kids and his wife were there, and they were all really genuinely

nice people. You could tell he was uncomfortable and embarrassed to

be in this condition in front of guests. So I started putting his chains

on, trying to cheer him up. I said, “We traded in the gold. We’ve got

platinum now!”

He started laughing, and I could see that he was full of life.

When we left, I looked at Steve.


I said, “Dude, he’s not gonna last if he keeps this up.”

We all knew this, because we had just lost Bigga B. His heart just

stopped, and he was only 32 years old. We could see it happening to

Pun, too.

Steve said, “Everybody’s just really worried about him. You

should see Joey. Pun can’t even travel like this. He’s taking up two

seats in first class.”

It was really sad.

Two weeks later, we were in New York at my 25th birthday party.

Joey showed up, put his phone in my hand and said, “It’s Pun!”

“I really wanted to make it, but I’m the studio working on my

album.”

I said, “Oh, it’s all good! How are you doing?”

He said, “I miss you buddy. I love you. Thank you for everything.

Happy birthday.”

He started singing happy birthday to me over the phone.

Two weeks later, he was gone.

I’ll never forget the morning I heard that he died. I had that

common reaction, “But I just talked to him.”

It was just a dark time in hip-hop. It was surreal, and I couldn’t

believe it.

• OPRAHOprah is an amazing woman. Not only is she beautiful, talented,

rich, with her own incredibly successful production company — and

now her own network — obviously smart and a true visionary, she’s,

well, incredibly cool! She’s really an American success story, and I

admire her tremendously. And when I met her, it brought her to a

whole new level in my eyes.

Right after Glitter, I went to Chicago with Mariah for her

performance on Oprah’s show. I was surprised that Mariah was doing

it, because she had a terrible flu. I mean, really, you never realize how

B O N U S C U T S 3 1 5

human someone is until they’re yacking right in front of you. But she

made a commitment, and Mariah always pulls through. She can be

sick as a dog, but she’s still gonna do the show and not let her fans

down. We went into the studio and everybody on set was so nice.

“Is there anything I can get you? Would you like anything?” they

asked.

I said, “No, everything’s cool!”

But I accepted a tour of the set and all the technical stuff of how

they pulled off her show every day. When you walk in Oprah’s realm,

it’s just nice. You’re looking in the hallway, and there are pictures of

her with everybody on her show. I walked back into Mariah’s dressing

room, and about two minutes later, Oprah came in.

She said, “Hey, what’s going on everybody!”

I looked over, and I was star struck. “Holy shit, that’s Oprah!”

She was just being so nice.

She came up to me and asked, “Hi, what’s your name?”

I said, “I’m Damion.”

She said, “Very nice to meet you, Damion.”

I thought to myself, “I’ve hit a milestone in my life. Granny will

be proud of me now. It’s one thing to meet Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre,

but here’s Oprah!”

She said, “I’ve got to change, I’ll be right back.”

Less than two minutes later, one of the crew members came in

and said, “She’s ready, we’ve got to go.”

Oprah moves fast! We started walking to the side of the stage. I

watched her film the show from the side entrance. Oprah was so calm

and collected. Nothing was phasing her and she was very at peace,

very comfortable and very much in her element. I don’t know why

that surprised me, I mean, really, look at all those years of amazing

shows and interviews and specials: That’s her gig.

On the way out, she walked with us back to the dressing room.

She turned to me and asked, “So what do you do, Damion?”


I said, “Oh, I do radio. I’m at Power 106 in Los Angeles.”

She said, “Great station!”

I tripped out. Oprah listens to Power 106?

I met her again the next time Mariah had an appearance on her

show, and she greeted me very warmly, “Oh Damion, nice to see you

again. How are you?”

I thought, “There’s no way this woman can remember me. This

is crazy.”

“Hey Oprah, how you been!”

She’s among the nicest people you could ever hope to meet.

• EASTL.AEast Los Angeles has the most condensed Hispanic population in

the SoCal area, and that’s where our core market was at Power 106.

I’d never been there, though — it’s not exactly the safest place for

a white kid from Santa Barbara, let’s be honest. Then, one night, my

buddy Triple had a birthday party there.

Some of my friends were a bit leery of me attending, but I said,

“Let’s go!”

Gary, who had been Shade’s head of security, went with me, and

he said, “If we go to East Los, I’m bringing my gun.”

I said, “Huh?”

He said, “Dude, that’s a hot spot right now for gang activity.”

The most gangsters I’ve ever met were rappers, and most rappers

aren’t really gangsters. I said, “Whatever, let’s go to the party. I wanna

party with my friend.”

So we went to the bash and had a great time. We were singing

along to all the songs being played — of course, we were listening to

Power! Always paying attention, I was also taking mental notes of

people’s reactions to the records. As well as it being Triple’s birthday,

I looked at it as a great way to interact with core listeners and see

B O N U S C U T S 3 1 7

what they reacted to on my station. I was a pig in shit, having a good

old time. Then, all of a sudden, I saw a flurry of activity to my left.

There were three or four people shouting and pointing at another

group of three or four guys.

Hey, I may be from Santa Barbara and was a little cavalier about

being in a hood where I really shouldn’t have been, but I’ve got some

pretty decent street sense.

I looked over at Gary and I said, “Yo, now would be a good time

to leave. It looks like the party’s heating up.”

Gary was tuned in ahead of me, “Yeah, I see that too.”

One of the dudes then lifted up his shirt to show he had a gun.

I thought, “All right, the party’s gonna get shot up now. I need to

get the fuck out of here.”

Gary and I went out front on the sidewalk to quickly say goodbye

to everybody and as we did so, a group of guys were gathering in

the street, looking very pissed off.

Gary said, “Look dude. We need to go now.”

Seconds later the kid with the gun was waving it around, saying,

“Should I do it? Should I do it?” and pointing toward the group in

the street. By this point we were standing between this guy and the

group he was getting down with. Then he started pulling the trigger,

shooting into the air but in our direction.

With the first shots Gary pushed me to the side, got behind the

wheel well of a parked car, cocked his gun, and sat behind, watching

the kid. Then, everyone just started running. I figured that was

probably a damn good idea and ran, trying to jump a fence into

another backyard. When I hit the fence, it had barbed wire on the top.

When I tried to hop over, my pant leg got caught on it and I fell over,

landing in the backyard to find a chained-up Rottweiler barking at

me. I ran back toward Gary and we headed for our car but only made

it about halfway there by the time the cops swept in. They pulled


all of us together. Gary had a burner on him. This was not good. I

looked at my clothes and I saw blood all over me.

I’m thought for a second, “Holy shit. I must have gotten shot!”

When I threw up my hand to say, “What the fuck?” blood started

shooting across the sidewalk. I looked at my hand, and there was a

hole in it. One of the female cops came up to me and asked, “Who

are you?”

I said, “I’m a radio programmer that just came for the party.”

She said, “You’re bleeding.”

I said, “Yeah, I just can’t figure out what happened.”

She said, “Oh, it’s your hand.”

I said, “Umm…” and Gary interrupted, telling the cop, “I have a

gun in my waistband.”

She asked, “What are you doing carrying a gun?”

He said, “I’m security. That’s Damion Young, he’s the music

director for Power 106. He’s also a rapper and a producer. I brought

it just in case, but it was purely for self defense.”

She said, “Well we’re gonna detain you two guys for a second.

And you need to go to the hospital, sir,” she said to me.

Of course, I hadn’t been shot — I cut my hand on the barbed

wire, and it went deep. Another a cop walked us to our car and said,

“You guys shouldn’t be down here. What are you doing?”

I said, “I just came for a friend’s birthday party.”

The cop said, “East Los, for a white boy, is not a smart move.”

He gave Gary his gun back. He then gave me his card. “Get to

the hospital. Next time you decide to do something stupid like this,

take one of us as security. You can hire off-duty police officers for this

kind of thing.”

From then on, that’s exactly what I did.

B O N U S C U T S 3 1 9

• ELTONJOHN I was in Vegas with Mariah one year when she was doing the

Radio Music Awards. I was just hanging with her and having a good

time, since at this point I was with her nearly 24/7.

I walked out of her trailer and spotted Jay Boberg from MCA,

who had just signed my former artist Shade Sheist. I said, “Hey Jay,

what’s going on?”

He said, “Hey, what are you doing here?”

I said, “Oh I’m here with Mariah.”

He said, “Oh, well I’m here with Elton John.”

I said, “Hey, we should get those two in a room together!”

Jay immediately went to get Elton and bring him back to our

trailer. I had met Elton once before briefly at one of Jermaine Dupri’s

parties in Atlanta. I went back in the trailer and said to Mariah, “Hey,

Elton John’s here! Do you want to say hi real quick?”

She said, “Elton John? How do you know Elton John?”

I said, “Oh, my friend from MCA was there and he’s with him.”

Jay walked up and said, “Elton, do you know Damion?” Elton

looked at me kind of funny like he didn’t recognize me.

I said, “Of course, we met at Jermaine Dupri’s party in Atlanta.”

Elton smiled and said, “Oh … of course. How’s it going?”

We went into the trailer and after saying hello, Elton said, “I

heard that you just bought Marilyn Monroe’s piano.”

Mariah said, “Yeah! It’s awesome.”

Elton said, “That’s so good that it’s kept with someone who

respected her. It’s just such a travesty that it was in limbo for that

many years.”

I chimed in and said, “Hey! You guys should write a song on

that thing.”

They both looked at me like I was the corniest person on the face

of the earth. Yeah, it was goofy ... but — hey, wouldn’t you like to

hear that duet on that piano?!


• NEVERLANDMichael Jackson’s death made me extremely sad.

So did much of his life.

I had the privilege of visiting Neverland several times in its heyday

and it was spectacular, like no other private world I’d seen or have

seen since. Yet despite everything about it, the enormous expense

and effort to make it a happy place, I never found it to be so. In fact,

it made me feel sad for Michael.

He stopped growing up at the age of five. When you talk about

somebody in a superstar bubble, your reality is warped. You stop

learning people skills and what the real world has to offer. He’d had

a team of people around him at all times who told him what they

thought he wanted to hear.

Negative energy, to a superstar, is the antichrist. Stars are not

used to hearing anything negative at all. They’re used to hearing how

great their record sales are, and how much everyone loves them. They

don’t know, most of them, in any really tangible way, that poverty

exists. There is no reality.

You have to remember, these are people who (generally) do

not watch television. They live in a bubble, living in a straight line.

They don’t walk anywhere, order their own dinner, or do anything.

They only see the straight line to their house, to a car, or to a hotel

room. The only time they meet someone new is if someone comes

up and asks them for an autograph. So they only see people who are

enthralled with them.

When they create their own homes, it’s usually a representation

of their mindset. You’ve got to think of the psychology behind

Neverland Ranch. Michael Jackson had always been treated like

a kid. What else would you picture a 40-year-old child having?

An amusement park. It’s all the things he never had as a kid that

he equated to happiness. An arcade, an amusement park, a movie

theater, candy everywhere. He made his own little town. That’s why

B O N U S C U T S 3 2 1

it’s so funny to me when people look at these artists and ask how

they got like that.

Dude, it’s a reality — well, the reality of most superstars.

A friend of mine, Wade Robson, who is a dancer from Australia,

was one of Michael Jackson’s best friends. I met him early on through

Michael Jackson’s label, MJJ Records. Wade was signed to the label

at the time in a rap group called Quo. He’s an incredible dancer,

choreographer, and musician. He went on to choreograph the Britney

Spears Super Bowl performance, and produce Pop for *NSYNC. He’s

a multi-talented, great guy.

I met him when he was 15, and I was about 19. I had just gone to

Power, and we were introduced by someone who thought, “These are

two young people from interesting backgrounds that both have a love

for rap music. Maybe they can do some music together!”

After that first meeting, we kept in contact. A few years later, we

found that we could really relate to each other. He was Michael’s

friend and I was Mariah Carey’s best friend. So we’d get together

and tell funny superstar stories. Here we both were hanging out

all the time, but Michael and Mariah didn’t know that we were

friends. What’s even funnier is that Mariah’s brother Morgan used

to manage Quo. Wade also had all of the sounds and vocals from all

of Michael’s records. So he had the hookup whenever we needed to

sample anything from a certain record.

With both of our backgrounds, we found a lot of similarities

relating to each other. We were both child prodigies behind the stars.

For instance, the first time I met Justin Timberlake was at Wade’s

house, when they were writing records together. I met Britney Spears

while he was choreographing with her.

Michael Jackson would give Wade the “keys” to Neverland

Ranch for his birthday every year. Every year, Michael would be away

somewhere else anyway, so why not? The first year he went, I couldn’t

go, and I was pissed off. The first time I got to go to Neverland was


for a record party thrown by MJJ. It wasn’t the private weekend tour;

that would come later. I’d wanted to get past those gates for a long

time. It was such an alluring place full of wonder — an island in and

of itself.

Back then when you got past the gates, it was like, “Whoo hoo!”

From a small country road in the arid hills north of Santa Barbara all

of a sudden you see a long log fence. From the start of the fence, you

began to see green grass. It was an oasis.

The first time I was there, we pulled up and the security guard

pulled open the biggest residence gate I’ve ever seen. The guard came

up and said, “Can I have your name please, and a photo ID.”

The guards searched the car. They searched for cameras, recording

devices, and everything like that. Finally, we went inside the ranch.

We drove by a pasture with horses inside huge stables. Along this

dirt road there was a movie theater, which looked like a really big

guesthouse, and right past that is where we parked. On the left hand

side of the parking lot, there was a basketball court, and on the right

an amusement park. We’re talking the Zipper, the merry-go-round, a

carousel ... everything.

We went on the rides, and then we went down to the zoo. He

had elephants! I forgot the name of the orangutan he had there, but

I remember it liked Reese’s Pieces. I would feed him candy and he

would come up to me and slap my hand like he was my friend and

give me a hug. It was really cool! All of the animals there, whether

it was a tiger or a giraffe, seemed to have adopted Michael’s sense of

kindness. I know that sounds silly but it’s true. Even the damn tiger

had a “it’s nice to meet you” kind of attitude.

It makes the whole thing about Michael’s final years and death

even sadder to know that after his highly publicized trial in Santa

Barbara he abandoned the property and all the rides were taken away

and the animals shipped off to various zoos or wherever.

The year after my first visit, Wade came again for a weekend at

B O N U S C U T S 3 2 3

Neverland and I was again invited. The first night, Wade stayed at

Granny’s house and the next morning we went on to Neverland. The

guard immediately opened up the door for us when he saw Wade.

We pulled up to the main house. Then, the chef, the gardener, the

entire staff came out and introduced themselves to us. It was like a

movie! We ran through the kitchen and saw a crazy supply of food

and alcohol. Then, we hit the golf carts.

Since Wade was there often, he knew everyone on staff.

“Hey! That’s the guy who runs all of the rides,” he’d say.

All of the staff had a part to play. It was almost like they were 50

percent actors and 50 percent employees at Neverland. Wade said,

“So what do you want to do first?”

I said, “Show me the movie theater!”

Then we went to the dance room. What a trip. You know when

Michael Jackson leans forward in the Smooth Criminal video? Wade

showed me how that was done. You needed a special pair of shoes,

and there were these little things in the floor that would hold your

feet down.

The only rooms we were not allowed to go into in the house were

Michael’s office and bedroom. They were locked.

But there was a room upstairs above his office where I swear there

was every single movie and TV show ever made. This was before TV

series seasons came out on DVD, too. So if I said I wanted to see ER

Season 2, Episode 3, a librarian would go down to the end of the hall

and come back with the copy, and you’d check it out like a book.

We all stayed in the guesthouse, and it reminded me of a hotel

lodge. There was Neverland soap, Neverland toothbrushes, Neverland

towels, everything! I had a king-size bed and my own bathroom. It

was a high-end resort.

One night there we had a bit to drink and went on a golf cart

cruise in the dark with some girls we brought over. In the morning,

a little hung over, I awoke to the thought, “Fuck. I’m in Neverland!”


Then a giraffe walked by my window.

I thought, “What the fuck was that?”

I went outside, and the giraffe was just grazing on a tree, right

outside of the window. One of the caretakers was with him.

He said, “Good morning Mr. Young, how are you doing?” Then

he introduced me to the giraffe. The giraffe leaned his head down,

which kind of freaked me out.

“Go ahead, you can pet him.”

So I pet the giraffe!

The handler said, “Later on, we’re gonna be taking the tiger for a

walk, so make sure you stop by and say hi.”

I said, “I’ll do that. Thank you so much.”

I thought to myself, “This is a mind fuck!”

I walked back into the main house as if it were my own home

— that was the entire vibe the staff and the place itself had and

encouraged. Right at the front door was a plastic, life-size butler

mannequin, and in the tray were hot cookies, straight out of the

oven. I thought, “I’m in heaven here.”

When I went back outside they were walking the tiger in the

middle of the field. The handler said, “Hey, do you want to pet the

tiger?”

Why not! I asked, “If he just takes off running, what do you do?”

He said, “You hold onto the leash, or else you’ll never see him

again.”

A little while later, they took a chimp out. It was crazy. I was

there multiple times and the same chimp would always come up and

greet me. It was almost as if he remembered me.

When the L.A. Times asked me what I thought of the Michael

Jackson comeback record Invincible, I said I was disappointed,

because I was. I’m not gonna lie about it. I feel bad because I’m a

Michael Jackson fan, and I genuinely appreciated him opening up his

home and letting us kick it. I would have been more than happy to do

B O N U S C U T S 3 2 5

anything I could for him at radio, but I just couldn’t. He was the most

generous, kind guy that I have probably ever met. Yeah, our personal

encounters were a little weird but it’s because he was so shy when he

wasn’t on stage; however, his kind of niceness cannot be gauged.

Professionally, his career was a clusterfuck for the last decade. I

wish I could have called him up. I would have said, “Hey Michael.

I appreciate you opening your home up to me. I got to kick it, I got

to meet your tiger, your giraffe, even the llamas were friendly. Thank

you so much. I have had some of the best weekends of my life at your

home. Now, the only thing I can tell you ... is that you’re fucking up

when it comes to your music. Get back with Quincy and cut some live

tracks. Have James Ingram sing backgrounds for you, and write you

another PYT. Go find the Picarro Brothers. You had the best team in

the world working on your records! Go get what made you famous,

and don’t try to re-invent the wheel. Do what you did, because that’s

what your fans want — they want you back.”

I wanted to have the conversation I had with him that I had with

his sister Janet. It could have been such an easy fix.

Who knows, there may be hundreds of songs in his vault — some

of them gems that return Michael to the top of the charts; his This Is

It shows in London would have been spectacular, as we can clearly

see from the DVD made of the rehearsals in the days before Michael

died.

But, now, it will always just be sad.

E P i L O G U E 3 2 7

E P i L O G U E

I’m the luckiest guy I know.

I’ve had the most astounding opportunities and experiences and

having done this book has made me much more appreciative of

what blessings I’ve had in my personal and professional lives. More

significantly, it’s made me more appreciative of the incredible people

who have been, and who are, in my life.

A lot has changed. Radio isn’t the same. The entire music business

isn’t the same. Mike Post closed down Studio 9/Area 51, which, through

the enormous generosity and simple love of music, Mike and his son

Aaron made my own, essentially, for more than a decade.

To you, Mike, I bow. You told me you’d built Studio 9 so that

people would have a place to create music — a passion you and I

share so intensely. But you went the

extra 100 miles, staffing the studio

with engineers and keeping the fridge

stocked with sodas. I remember you

telling me that you didn’t understand

what I was doing with rap and that

you didn’t like hip-hop, personally,

but that this didn’t matter: kids were

staying up half the night and sleeping

on the studio floor out of the sheer

excitement of being able to lay down

their tracks in a world-class facility,

and that’s what it was all about. Hat’s

off to you, sir.

That chapter of my life is

concluded, while others are

blooming. In my “retirement” I have

MARK SUDAK PHOTO I am the luckiest guy I know: On stage at the

Universal Amphitheater in my only performance with Mariah Carey and

Nate Dogg.


found myself again. I’ve made incredible friendships and worked

with new up-and-coming artists such as Elijah Allan-Blitz, Dopey

Loco (from the Guilty project), Rokks, Fresh, Young De, Lil’ Skips

and Lil’ Bams — and of course my young protégé Los — and now

have a newer generation of kids that hopefully I’m inspiring as much

as they inspire me. I have had some of the most incredible musical

experiences of my life with engineer DJ Overtone and the multi-

talented “Jedi” Jared Moore.

Just as profound was my experience with Santa Barbara Eastside

rapper Wino Loks, whom I will always, always remember so fondly

and cherish having had in my life for the short time before darkness

overtook him, and he committed suicide at my home in November

of 2009. If only ...

I’ve spent time focusing my hip-hop efforts on Bishop Lamont

and Indef — and briefly took on the co-management of Bishop. As

I’ve said, Bishop has been the single defining artist who is also my

best friend. When I left radio and left the music business, he was the

On tour in Japan, where, thanks to DJ Couz and Big Boy I have a significant following as a performer.

E P i L O G U E 3 2 9

one man who called me at

least once every week. He

was the one man who called

not because he wanted

anything — other than to

ask how Granny and I were

doing.

“Just checking on you,”

he’d say.

I have always been there

for Bishop when he has

graciously asked for my

opinion, advice or help and

I have the deepest faith that

he and Indef are the heroes of the revolution to get our music back.

I’m also doing records with rock and roll royalty like Terry Reid

and Eric Burdon, P.F. Sloan and Jack Tempchin, who wrote some of

my favorite Eagles tunes. I’ve also done some demos with Texas guitar-

slinger Widgeon Holland, who was discovered by the late old-school

rock manager Chesley Millikin — who not only discovered Stevie

Ray Vaughan

but also helped

discover Terry

Reid back in

the day! Who

would have

thought —

Damizza in

rock ‘n’ roll! I

guess I can ei-

ther thank (or My good friend Rokks works on a verse in my

Granny’s House of Hitz studio in Santa Barbara.

In my Granny’s House of Hitz recording studio in Santa Barbara

producing some demos with legendary Seekers co-founder

Keith Potger.


blame!) my co-writer J. Marshall Craig for introducing me to “his”

world of rock and roll as I’ve introduced him to “my” world of hip-

hop. And words alone don’t describe the friendship and profound

mutual respect that Jeff and I share as a result of fate having brought

us together to tell my story. You really have to watch those Canadi-

ans, don’t you!

Heartfelt thanks to Terry for

his incredibly kind preface, and

for being my “rock and roll fa-

ther.” You know there’s a whole

new musical experience coming

from that, just as Animals and

War frontman Eric Burdon and

I are rewriting a few chapters of

rock and hip-hop history. I’m

scheming with the incredible

Jack Tempchin and recently

started working with the legend-

Two dreams come true: Working with multi-Grammy Award-winning engineer, writer and producer Dave Way at his studio Way Station in L.A. — producing the legendary

P.F. Sloan recording his song Secret Agent Man. The production team: Rick “The Bass Player” Rosas, P.F. Sloan,

Dave Way, J. Marshall Craig, me, and Phil Jones.

Remembering Nigel writer/director Frank Howson and me in my Granny’s House of Hitz

studio in Santa Barbara.

E P i L O G U E 3 3 1

ary Nigel Grainge and Sir Bob Geldof on what I suspect will turn out

to be more than one project.

I’m chasing other dreams as well, and am enormously proud to

not only be the music supervisor of an international motion picture

called Remembering Nigel but appear in the movie in a cameo as ...

myself ! I have enormous gratitude and profound respect for the film’s

writer/director, the Australian genius Frank Howson. I hope it’s the

first of many movie projects we work on together.

I hope to do a lot more speaking at high schools and colleges. I’m

about to launch the first of what I hope is a series of Internet radio

stations — yeah! — back to radio, new radio. And I have a dream

of putting out a sort of manual on how to get into, and succeed in,

the music business as I see it these days. A Damizza college course

in a book, if you will. I

don’t know everything

and maybe I don’t even

know a lot, but what I

do know I truly want to

share if there’s even the

slightest chance it helps

even one artist reach his

or her dreams to be able

to share music with fans.

Because, as I’ve said all

along, I am a fan —

that’s what started this

whole journey of mine. I

want to hear every piece

of new music I can!

I’m going to keep

on making my own

music, performing live

E. SANCHEZ PHOTO: Truly Guilty By Association: My first time on stage at the House of Blues in Hollywood,

opening for DJ Quik.


occasionally, especially in Japan, where DJ Couz has somehow

created a big fan base for me. I have a young staff member by the

name of Wilmer Barraza who is sorting through my vault of hundreds

of unreleased songs — featuring everyone from Mariah to Snoop to

Nate ... just about everyone I’ve ever worked with — and determine

if there’s some sensible way to package it up and release it all. Maybe

sorta like the Bob Dylan Basement Tapes.

I want to, and believe me, I’m trying my hardest, be a catalyst of

the return of West Coast music, not just rap, but rock and roll and

R&B.

The record companies are never coming back, just as I have my

doubts that traditional radio is going to come back. And maybe that’s

a good thing. We’re finding new ways to get the music out there and,

with luck, reach a wider audience than we ever did before.

So much has changed during the writing of this book, and among

the most tragic events were Nate Dogg’s near-fatal strokes and then,

in March of 2011, his passing.

He had always been a true friend and of all the stars I know and

have worked with, my strongest mentor and supporter.

God knows, in my darkest times, HE was the one who pulled ME

out. I want to thank Snoop, Kurupt, Warren, Butch and all of his real

friends and family who had visited him and supported him since his

stroke; I KNOW what that meant to Nate because, as I mentioned

their names the last time I saw him, with his wonderful mother, Miss

Ruth, his face lit up. I will miss him always.

I want to thank Snoop, Kurupt, Warren, Butch and all of his real

friends and family who have visited him since his strokes; I know

what it’s meant to Nate because, as I mentioned their names, his face

lit up.

So, what’s next?

The courage, I pray, to cheerfully face life with dignity, honor,

loyalty and honesty.

E P i L O G U E 3 3 3

In happiness is to be found success, and I love what I do — and

as Granny has taught me, the greatest success is to be a man of value

— something not to be confused with wealth.

As the saying goes, if you think you can ... you can.

And if you think you can’t, you’re right.

B O N U S C U T S 3 3 5

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R S

Damion “Damizza” Young has been called one of the most powerful

people in hip-hop music for both his previous careeer as music director

of L.A.’s Power 106 and New York’s Hot 97 and as the producer of

hit records that have sold in excess of 30 million copies and spent

hundreds of weeks on the Billboard charts. Damizza broke artists

such as Eminem, Fat Joe and Jermaine Dupri and helped troubled

stars such as Janet Jackson and DJ Quik out of career slumps – all

the while befriending everyone from NFL Hall of Fame Legend Jim

Brown (and getting involved in his world-renowned Amer-I-Can/

Unity One foundations) to West Coast icons Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg,

Warren G. and literally dozens of others, most of whom he’s ended up

producing in his post-radio career. As a solo artist himself Damizza

has a large following in Japan as well as Southern California.

J. Marshall Craig is the award-winning author of Eric Burdon’s

Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood; Chuck Leavell’s Between Rock and a

Home Place, Growing A Better America:, Strong and Sustainable, also

with Chuck Leavell; the highly anticipated memoirs Rocker: Scars &

Strikes, of controversial former Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker;

the novel Eh Mail and World War I history You’re Lucky If You’re

Killed. His work appears in various literary collections with Tom

Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, Jack Kerouac and others (The Outlaw

Bible of American Literature); Hells Angels founder Sonny Barger,

Che Guevara and others (She’s A Bad Motorcycle) and CNN talk

show host Larry King (Remember Me When I’m Gone). Following a

long career as a writer and Entertainment Editor in the Canadian-

based Sun newspaper chain, he has been a contributor to newspapers

and magazines all over the world, including the New York Times,

Globe and Mail, The National Post (Canada), The London Independent,


People, Entertainment Weekly, and, for some odd reason, enjoys a large

following in Singapore. Craig is also an award-winning feature film

(Fabulous Shiksa In Distress) and music video director and produced

Australian director Frank Howson’s feature film Remembering Nigel.

His next novel, The Excellent Victim, is expected in 2012.

Eddie Gurrola is a highly regarded California-based hip-hop journalist

known for his time as the host of the West Coast Grind Internet

radio show, contributor to dubbcnn.com, as well as the editor and

webmaster of the now-defunct hip-hop news site chronicvacation.

com.

Guilty by Association

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