The kid that stood between them was an obvious hanger on. One of those who believed coolness could be passed through osmosis. He wore a greasy do-rag beneath which his naps were baking in an S-curl pomade. His fake Gucci sweatshirt was stained with the stuff. His name was Devin but he preferred to be called “Divinity”. When I walked up they had just started to battle.
“Well, who’s gonna judge this thing? It can’t be you. You’re his brother. Of course you’re gonna say he won.”
Warlock looked around and spotted me kicking a rock across the street looking bored and pretending not to be listening to their conversation.
“Yo! Kid! Come here for a sec!”
I walked over, fighting to keep the grin off my face.
“What’s up, dog?”
“What’s your name, kid?”
“Malik.”
“Well, my name is Warlock. This is my brother Nikky, and this fool here is Devin.”
“Divinity,” he interrupted offering his hand, which I shook without taking my eyes off Warlock.
“Whatever. Anyway, we’re about to have a little battle right here and we want you to be our unbiased judge.”
“I really don’t know that much about rap.”
“You know what you like and what you don’t. That’s good enough.”
“Alright, Devin, you go first.”
“Ay little homie. Can you do a beat box?”
“A what?”
“Nigga stop stallin’ and start flowin’!” Warlock growled.
Warlock started off with some old school tongue twister shit that sounded like a rip-off of Kangol from U.T.F.O. mixed with 2 Live Crew.
“Well, I’m Divinity—In the place to be—I put the girls in ecstasy—every time they see me—rip the microphone like a pair of lace panties—make the girlies scream like I’m all up in their pussy…”
His rap went on and on with that typical B-boy macho misogynistic bravado. Some of it was pretty funny, but none of it was very good. Then Nikky began to flow and what was coming out of his mouth was like nothing I’d ever heard. He was kicking straight poetry.
“Look long and hard—see the heavens scarred—by the impotent tears of a race torn apart— by a prejudice world and our misguided rage—attacking the puppets on a cardboard stage—Now we’re stuck in the gloom of our ghetto tomb—and even love to us is just the herald of doom—Who can I trust in this world of fear? What is beauty to the eyes that shed no tears?”
“Yeah, muthafucka! That’s what I’m talkin’ about, nigga!”
This was the type of genius black folks never got credit for. This kid was probably failing English class yet he could write rhymes with themes, imagery, and rhythms more complex and profound than 99% of the garbage they were teaching us in school. Walt Whitman could kiss my black ass! This was true poetry!
“Man, that wasn’t no rap! I-I don’t know what the fuck that was!” Devin thought for a second and then shook Nikky’s hand, “Yo, but that shit was dope, bro. You gots mad skills!”
“Yo, homes that was the freshest shit I ever heard!”
Yeah, I said fresh. That was like ’93. You could still say fresh in ’93. Couldn’t you?
“Fresh?”
“Aaaaaahahahaha! That fool said the shit was fresh! Naw, bro. It’s dope! It’s butta! It’s ill! It’s sick! But fresh went out with the eighties, son!” Warlock draped an arm around my shoulder still laughing so hard that tears were squeezing out of the corners of his bloodshot eyes.
“Alright, then that shit was sick as fuck!”
“That’s my nigga!” Warlock whooped.
Nikky smiled awkwardly at my unselfconscious admiration and seemed to grow even more uncomfortable if that was even possible.
“Yeah, Nikky’s got a mind like my nine. Mutherfuckin’ cocked and loaded, baby boy. You know he’s in that mentally gifted program at school. They got him reading all kinds of ill shit. Philosphy, literature, poetry. That’s were he gets most of the material for his rhymes.”
“I knew he didn’t make that shit up himself.” Devin declared triumphantly.
“He does make it up himself, fool. The words are his. He just gets the ideas from the books and shit. Fuck am I talkin’ to your bitch ass for anyway? You lost, nigga. Now get the fuck up off my car. We outta here, son. Got some business to take care of. You wanna ride along little homie?” Warlock asked, grinning at me with his braces shining in the afternoon sun.
“Sure.”
Warlock slid behind the wheel of the big Lincoln and Nikky and I bounced into the backseat. He pulled out some top paper and a sack of weed the size of a handbag and began rolling a joint. His bony effeminate fingers caressed the rolling papers almost lovingly as he sprinkled the marijuana down into it like a French chef seasoning a soufflé, holding it between thumbs and middle fingers with his index fingers sticking out and up in the air. He whipped his long narrow tongue along the edge of the paper, gave it several twists to close it, fired it up with a gold zippo lighter, took a long hit, and then passed it to me as he started to cough.
“This is some good shit.” He wheezed between coughs.
All of this happened in what seemed like seconds. I held the joint in my hands and looked over at Nikky who smiled at me and waved me on impatiently. I took a huge hit and immediately began coughing convulsively.
Fifteen minutes later we were all cruising around the hood passing the joint around. It was the first time I had ever gotten high and my head felt like it was filled with helium. My thoughts sloshed around my head in an inarticulate jumble and came out of my mouth the same way.
“Yo, my niggas, we need to get us some of those cheeseburgers from Mickey D’s or some Tasty Kakes or some shit. I’m hungry as a muthafucka! You know they don’t put enough chips in them potato chip bags. They all full of air now. Damn pretzels supposed to be soft, but they hard as a mutherfucka. I don’t want none of them big Jewish pickles neither! They look like Frankenstein’s dick. Pass me that joint, nigga!”
Warlock and Nikky laughed every time I spoke, which made me laugh as well. I was tore up from the floor up, rolling around in the backseat of the Continental, giggling and dropping marijuana ashes all over the brand new blue suede upholstery.
“Fool, don’t you set my seats on fire back there! Pass me that shit before you waste it all!”
Warlock, Nikky, and I started hanging out everyday after that; getting high and composing rap lyrics. Sometimes I would go bombing with them. We would fill our backpacks with Krylon or Rustoleum spray paint stolen from the hardware store. Warlock insisted that we steal it even though he had enough money to buy the store out. That was part of the tradition he said.
“Only toy muthafuckas buy the shit. Real bombers steal it! Guerilla warfare, my nigga! Artistic terrorism!”
We would hit the school yards at both of the neighborhood elementary schools and both Martin Luther King and Germantown High, then we would hop on the back of the SEPTA rail trains, ride them, to the end of the line, and tag trains down in the yard.