by Rick James
“Afraid so.”
“You know you’re crazy, don’t you?”
“I’ve been told.”
“And I’m telling you again—bringing dope into the country when the country is on this antidope campaign is plain foolish. You get caught, you burn.”
“I realize that, Mom, but I ain’t getting caught.”
“That’s what they all said, including John Dillinger and Al Capone.”
“I ain’t working on that scale.”
“The scale don’t matter. What matters are smarts. You gotta be smart enough to know when to walk away from that stuff. I know, James. I work in that world. It’s easy to get to feeling no one can touch you.”
“I don’t feel that way,” I said.
“You sure as hell talk that way, boy.”
“Mom, I’m paying you back your five thousand dollars. I’m even throwing in an extra five hundred dollars for interest.”
“I don’t charge my children interest.”
“Well, I’m paying it. So take the money and be glad.”
“Just stay outta that damn dope business, James. Soon you’ll be sampling all your wares.”
I already was.
It was good being back home with that stereo system set up in the living room. Miles had an album out that year—Big Fun—where he used Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea, not to mention Lonnie Liston Smith on piano and Michael Henderson on bass. Miles played electric trumpet with a wah-wah pedal. Fuckin’ Miles was out there. So was Marvin Gaye. He’d gone from What’s Going On to Trouble Man to his current thing, Let’s Get It On. In Buffalo they were playing Marvin’s shit night and day.
Two songs hit me especially hard—“Funky Stuff” by Kool and the Gang and “Ecstasy” by the Ohio Players. Both groups were funkier than White Cane, but I thought White Cane was on a higher musical level. White Cane, though, was a memory, and these groups were making a mint. The thought of making a mint led me to an idea.
With the bread I made from selling the hash, why not promote an Ohio Players/Kool and the Gang concert? Those groups had just started out, and although they each had a hit, I didn’t see them getting top dollar. I was right. I got them both for three thousand dollars through the Queen Booking Agency. That was cheap. If I ever have a smash hit like them, I thought, you can bet your ass I won’t be bought that cheap. Anyway, my event was a smash. I made out like a bandit, took my profit, and bought me a Mercedes that I drove out to the coast with Kelly at my side.
With my pockets full of cash, I moved into the party mode. The party went on for six months in L.A. Living in high-class hotels, we stayed high and lived large. I wasn’t thinking about going back into making my own music ’cause the music scene had burned me so bad. Just wanted to party. One night I partied so hard that I totaled the Benz by driving into a car. Suddenly I was broke again.
Everyone’s funny when it comes to money, but my thing is that I don’t start hustling till I have to. At the start of 1974, I had to. Kelly had left to hang out with her parents and I was alone in another crummy studio apartment. The only thing that kept me from going completely bonkers was an old Fender bass that I’d taught myself to play—that and my afternoons shooting hoops at a playground at Santa Monica and Vine. It was there where I met a guitarist who said he could cop us some studio time. I figured I had nothing to else to do, so I might as well cut some tracks.
It was the first time I played bass on a session. I did two songs—“My Mama” and “Funkin’ Around.” I dug ’em well enough to start shopping ’em. Lo and behold, A&M Records was impressed. With Supertramp and Peter Frampton on their roster, A&M was hot. They put out my single, but when I wouldn’t agree to sign an exclusive deal with them as an artist/producer until they guaranteed me an ad budget for “My Mama,” they stopped all promotion and the single died. That would be the end of another fucked-up record biz story if the record hadn’t sold in Europe.
When I learned that “My Mama” was going great guns in England, Germany, and France, I got my ass in gear, put together a four-piece band, and flew over. My hustle kicked in. I found a promoter who booked us on a nice tour in good-sized clubs. I was making bread. I was turning out the crowds. I was convinced all over again that, like Jimi Hendrix, I’d make it overseas and return home a conquering hero.
The only thing that stopped my momentum was Stockholm. I arrived in the dead of winter when it was colder than hell. I knew Sweden was a jazz-loving, blues-loving land. I knew the great saxist Stan Getz had lived there and was revered as a god. And I knew the hip song “Dear Old Stockholm” that Miles had recorded with Coltrane. I was ready for Stockholm to be hip, but man, it was hipper than hip. The ladies loved brothas. Musicians were especially admired, just as I admired the beautiful taste that went into their artful way of life. I’d never seen such elegant furniture, lamps, and clothing. I wandered through the museums, where I felt I was in the presence of a people who understood how to make their surroundings beautiful.
Then I met this beautiful nineteen-year-old Swedish chick. With her blond hair and blues eyes, her tall stature and her easy smile, she was freedom itself. Free sex seemed to be the thing in Sweden—they didn’t have puritanical hang-ups like Americans—and so we were exploring the outer limits of physical pleasure. Much to my surprise and delight, those limits were extended when her mother walked in her room and joined us in bed. This was my real introduction to fully realized freakery.
At first I wasn’t sure. Was it too crazy? Well, they didn’t think so and ultimately neither did I. Mom was only in her midthirties and just as fine as her daughter. They liked sharing me and I liked sharing them. You’d think jealousy would rear its ugly head, but it never did. Their pad became my home base in Europe. I’d jump over to other countries for a gig now and then, but I was mainly with these lovely women.
Cool as Stockholm was, after nearly a year of living abroad, I was missing Kelly. We’d been writing back and forth. (Naturally I didn’t say a word to her about my mother-daughter setup.) I was also eager to get home and see Mom. And besides, after a while even the freakiest scene can lose its heat.
When I told my two lovers that it was time to split, they weren’t happy. They thought our little scene would go on forever. I assured them that I’d be back someday, but that wasn’t good for them. So one of them—I still don’t know which—hid my passport. The hassle to get a new one took nearly a month. When I finally left Sweden I saw that their free attitude about sex wasn’t as simple as I first thought.
Kelly and I hooked up in Toronto, where I found work in a blues band called Mainline that worked all over Canada. They had a big album at the time and paid well. I felt that I was marking time until I made another solo move. I knew that would happen because I was writing more original material than ever before. Living in Europe had given me a worldlier outlook.
Kelly and I decided to get married. We went to Buffalo and had the preacher come to Mom’s house. The ceremony was small but pretty. Mom was crying. A few months later, I was crying. Seemed like marriage killed the happiness between me and Kelly. Back in Toronto, we were sniping at each so often that I moved out of her apartment and moved in with a coke dealer.
Turned out the dealer’s best client was George Clinton. I was eager to meet the man. The dealer said I could bring Clinton his coke on his next stopover in Toronto.
George was cool. Seven years older than me, Clinton was one of the heaviest cats in the history of R & B. He had the balls to wear diapers onstage and dye his hair every color in the rainbow.
After I delivered his blow, he invited me to do a line with him. We started chatting and I ran down my history. He was impressed and wanted to hear some of my new songs. He had a piano in his suite and invited me to play. I did some of my newer stuff. It was all funky and George was all smiles.
“You shouldn’t be running no toot,” George said. “You need a major label behind your music.”
“I’ve tried before,” I said, “but it’s never
worked out.”
“I can help you.”
“Man, that’d be great. I’d really be grateful.”
“No problem—just keep the good blow coming while I make some calls.”
Before George left Toronto, I showed up two more times with special deliveries of high-octane cocaine. Both times he repeated his offer to hook me up with industry bigwigs. When he left town, though, he still hadn’t done anything for me. Over the next several months, when I called the numbers he’d given me, no one answered. In fact, George Clinton never did one fuckin’ thing to help me. I swore that one day I’d pay him back.
I found a little deal on a Canadian label called Quality that wasn’t quality at all. They didn’t know shit about distribution or promotion. Used two different band names (Rick James, and Hot Lips and Gorilla) and put out a couple of singles (“Hollywood Stars” and “Sweet Surrender”) but they both tanked.
With music still looking like a dead end, I concentrated on drugs. I was making good money dealing coke but saw that if I could reach Canada’s main connection, I’d make more. Years later when I saw Al Pacino in Scarface, I completely related. Just like he climbed up the ladder from dealer to dealer until he decided to meet the source himself in Latin America, I did the same. If I was going to deal, I was going to deal big-time.
Next thing I knew I was flying first class to Cartagena, Colombia.
PART THREE
BREAKING BAD
BLOW BY BLOW
I looked in her eyes and said, “Baby, I wish you could understand my words when I tell you that you’ve got the body of life.”
She said something to me in Spanish that I didn’t understand. But I sure got the message when she opened her beautiful brown legs and let me in.
Bathed in moonlight, we made love on a soft blanket on the beach. Waves rolled in off the gentle Caribbean. Trade winds cooled the night. We were coked to the gills. She was the wettest, wildest lover I’d ever known. I couldn’t stop balling and she couldn’t stop coming. In the land of sweet pussy and prime blow, I was in heaven.
It didn’t start out that way. When I arrived with my dealer pal—I’ll call him Myron—we went looking for our connection, a Colombian cat we’d met in Buffalo. He was off on vacation on some island. We didn’t know what the fuck to do so we checked into a hotel and cased the city. It was a big beautiful resort town, kicked back and sunny, on the country’s northern coast. We were careful with our money because we wanted to use the lion’s share to buy drugs. Meanwhile, there was nothing to do but wait for the return of our connection.
Weeks passed. Our main hang was a hip little bar across the street from our hotel. The owner was a friendly cat I’ll call José. The clientele was affluent, dudes with expensive rides and bitches with sleek jewelry and chic clothes. One night I noticed a guitar in the corner. I picked it up and started to play and sing. José smiled. He liked what I was doing and bought me a drink. I kept singing and before long I’d captured the attention of every motherfucker in the place. Within a few days I was one of the featured attractions among the smart set of Cartagena.
José kept feeding me drinks and the fans kept feeding me tips. They dug American soul. I gave them a taste of everything from Ray Charles to Al Green. I also knew the latest Bill Withers songs, which went over great on acoustic guitar. Chicks came on to me and one of them—Maria—was the one who loved fucking on the beach. Her dad was rich and she never let me pay for anything.
All this was fine, even exciting, but after five or six weeks it seemed clear that our connection wasn’t coming back to Cartagena any time soon. Me and Myron were eager to make our big score. We needed merchandise to bring home.
“I ask you something and you answer honestly,” said José one night after I packed ’em into his place.
“Ask,” I said.
“You are a musician, but you come to Colombia for another reason. Am I right?”
“Sure, you’re right.”
“I can help you with that other reason.”
“You can?”
“We fly to Bogotá tomorrow. That okay?”
“That’s okay, José. You lead the way.”
By then I’d been in Cartagena for nearly two months and trusted this man. He paid me good money to sing. Who would have guessed that he was a major dealer himself?
Bogotá was a blast. There was political nervousness in that city, where the military guarded every corner, but José knew all the cool spots. He took me to a fence where I bought a handful of hot emeralds for a song. He took me to the best restaurants in the city. He also took me to meet the Man, where I bought five keys for twenty-five Gs. Myron and I packed it up and shipped it to Montreal, keeping two ounces for the trip. I was warned not to carry coke across the borders, but I was too bold to be told anything. I kept the toot in the body of an expensive hairbrush. Me and Myron flew into Montreal, blasted on the world’s best blow.
Myron went off to sell our shit while I decided to catch up with Mom in Buffalo. She looked good and had lots of questions about Colombia. I told her all about my music gig at José’s, but that didn’t fool her. If she had any doubts about the real reason I went down, those doubts went away when I said I’d soon be sending her fifteen thousand dollars.
“What’s this for?” she asked.
“Money you’ve loaned me over the years.”
“So it was a good business trip,” she said with a smile.
“The best,” I said. “I won’t have to work for a year.”
“But you always have to work on your music, James. You can’t neglect your music. Your music is your gift.”
On the subject of music, I saw that George Clinton was playing Buffalo. Parliament had signed with Casablanca out in L.A. and had a smash album, Up for the Down Stroke. I can’t lie and say I wasn’t jealous. Clinton was funky, but his verbal shit between tunes was lame. I hated it when he talked instead of played. After the show, I had something to talk to him about.
“You were gonna hook me up with a label,” I mentioned to him. “Then you fuckin’ disappeared.”
“I’m a working musician, man. I been traveling. I’ll get to it. In the meantime, you holding any interesting merchandise?”
“I’m holding the bomb.”
“Cool. As they say on TV, let’s make a deal.”
I sold George a few ounces at triple my normal price.
It had been a few weeks since Myron had gone to Montreal to turn our Colombian supply into cash. I got word he was back in Toronto, but when I called he never answered. I decided to catch up with his ass in person. I flew to Toronto, where I ran into Kelly. Enough time had passed to let us forget all our fights. The vibe between us was good again. The sex was even better and I was feeling great—except for fuckin’ Myron, who was nowhere to be found.
The shit was getting serious. Word around town was that he’d bought a new pad and a Rolls. That was my goddamn money he was using! The more he evaded me, the more enraged I became. Who did this lame motherfucker think he was! I was not about to get ripped off.
Though he kept his address a secret, I slipped a friend of his a hundred for the information. I knew better than to knock on the front door. Instead I hid out in the garbage alley. I wore a hoodie over my head and had a butcher knife in my hand. When he came out to dump his garbage, I jumped him. He was a pussy. He started crying like a baby, begging me not to hurt him.
“Where’s my fuckin’ money?” I asked, nicking his Adam’s apple with my knife. “And why the fuck haven’t you called me back? Why you been hiding?”
“The coke got confiscated by customs.”
“Lying motherfucker.”
“I swear.”
I pressed the knife a little harder against his throat. As I drew blood, I said, “Give me what’s mine or I’ll kill you.”
He knew I wasn’t kidding, so he led me into the house, where he opened his safe and gave me fifteen Gs in cash and a pound of blow.
“Ain’t enough,” I
said.
“All I got,” said Myron.
“Sell your Rolls. Sell your crib. I don’t care how you get it. Just get it. If I don’t get another sixty thousand dollars, I’m coming for your ass.”
A week later I had the money and me and Kelly had a badass town house in an exclusive section of Toronto. We were living high. I wanted to show her the beautiful beaches of Colombia so we flew over to Cartagena, where I hooked up with José, who kept us high and happy for a sunny two-week second honeymoon. I couldn’t leave without scoring some of that serious toot. I bought several ounces. All the blow didn’t fit in the body of my brush. Not wanting to leave any behind, I wrapped the remainder tightly and hid it inside the big Windsor knot of my tie. I dressed like a college-kid nerd—at twenty-seven, I looked seventeen—and with my blue blazer, khaki pants, button-down shirt, and repp tie, who would ever think to search me?
The customs cats—that’s who. Happened at the Miami airport. They went through our shit and fortunately didn’t open the brush. But that wasn’t enough for them. They put me in a room and told me to strip. I was scared like a motherfucker. Took off my jacket, my shoes, my socks, and my pants, and carefully slid off my tie, making sure that the knot held tight. I placed my tie on the floor, took off my pants and underwear, and stood there shivering. The officials—mean-looking bastards—went through the pockets of my pants, my blazer, and my shirt. They ripped open the lining of the blazer and looked in the cuffs of the pants. They kept stepping around my tie. If they decided to open it, my ass was grass.
“Okay,” said one of the customs cats, “you can get dressed.”
I tried not to sigh too deeply ’cause I didn’t wanna show my relief. But I dressed quickly and was about to leave when the guy said, “Wait a second. Let me take a look at that tie.”
Oh fuck! It was all over. As I waited for him to tell me to take it off, I wondered about the length of my prison sentence. But instead of having me take it off, he just came over and felt the lining. He ran his hand all the way to the knot, and then—miracle of fuckin’ miracles—he stopped.