The Plot Against Hip Hop Read Online Free Page B

together without someone shooting someone backstage. In fact, niggas are, by definition, antiorganization. That’s why I do what I do now. I can’t be around fools who shoot each other over diamonds. Anyway, when Dwayne came up with all this mess I thought he was joking, but he meant it. Over time that made things a little tense between us. Instead of a normal conversation, every time I saw Dwayne things got a little crazy.”
    “I don’t remember him acting that way.”
    “Well, D, you didn’t know him as well or for as long as I did. No disrespect. It’s just the truth.”
    “Okay,” D said after a long beat. He suddenly felt like it was time for him to go.
    “Believe me,” Gibbs continued with some softness, “I know you feel obligated to look into Dwayne’s murder. I’m glad someone aside from NYPD is. You know that KRS-One song ‘Kill a Rapper’? He put it out there with Marley Marl. He says the best method to get away with murder is to kill a rapper. Damned if Dwayne didn’t die an MC’s death.”
    “Yeah.” D stood up. “I guess you’re right.” He didn’t know what else to ask. He was sure there was more to find out, but he felt a little intimidated and outclassed by Gibbs and now just wanted to leave as bad as he had wanted in. “Thanks for your time, man. And I’m very happy to be working with your company on this event.”
    Gibbs stood up behind his desk. “Shit,” he said, “talking about Dwayne, well, it was good for me. I know you know I didn’t go to the funeral. I know that was fucked up. I don’t have an excuse. He came to my first parties, back before I was even in the hip hop game and was promoting R&B singers. We went through a lot together.” For the first time in their conversation Gibbs looked emotional. He picked up one of the marketing reports from his desk. “This is funny. The first time I dipped my toe in the corporate game, it was because of him. I helped do research for a survey of the hip hop market that he was writing for some marketing company. Shit, that’s what I do now 24/7/365. Things do change.”
    “You remember the name of the survey?”
    “It was probably something like ‘Understanding the Hip Hop Market: Its Aspirations, Its Potential.’” Gibbs laughed. “I don’t know the name. I do remember I got paid by this company called Sawyer. Dwayne worked hard on that thing; I guess it was my first sellout move, huh? But you can’t really sell out in hip hop. It was all about buying in, in the first place.”
    At that moment the lovely Latina popped her head in. Time for Gibbs to go. Next meeting.
    D asked, “You think you have a copy of it?”
    “Oh no. That was what, twenty or so years ago. Besides, that report would be as outdated as an MC Shan twelve-inch.”
    D gave the luscious Latina a lingering glance as he left Gibbs’s office, hoping he’d get a chance to see her again at the Macy’s event. Absorbing her thick hair and light brown skin—she was probably Dominican, he thought—briefly distracted him from the uncomfortable conversation he’d just had with her boss. He hadn’t really learned much. Dwayne was probably the least “crazy” man he’d known. Maybe he’d become overzealous when talking about his books, but “crazy” seemed the word of a man who wasn’t used to having his worldview questioned.
    Was the Sawyer marketing survey a clue? Probably not. But in a world where almost anything could be found somewhere on the net, D was sure he could run down a copy. It might be fun to read prognostications about hip hop written back in the ’80s. How close could they have come to predicting this future?

CHAPTER 8
    T HE M ESSAGE
    D stood at the corner of 116th Street and St. Nicholas, an intersection once notorious for drug trafficking. Back in the ’70s, Nicky Barnes’s self-described “council” of heroin dealers made daily deliveries of smack that had junkies lined up for “the package” like they were waiting for