2 ½ years Later
Smoke
Smoke still relished the feeling he got every time he walked into the company he owned. Even after they’d come as far as they had, everyday seemed surreal and unbelievable when he thought about where they started and where they were now. The building still smelled the way he remembered from the very first time he walked in and he couldn’t help but to feel proud as he headed to his office. He stopped by his secretary, Felicia’s, desk as he usually did.
“Any messages?” he asked after greeting her.
“Aaron’s new manager called and wants to set up a meeting. Jag and Calico were just arrested for assaulting some man who tried to grab Jag’s chain at a show last night,” Felicia replied in her carefree tone.
“Again?” Smoke asked exasperated. “Niggas still think cause them niggas sixteen they can run over ‘em. This the third time this shit done happened. Look, have Marik go bail ‘em out, and next time they do a show make sho’ our security, and not just theirs is there.”
“Okay and I already sent Marik out. Your mother called and she wanted to have lunch with you today.”
Smoke could only shake his head. “Why she always call when I done ate lunch already? Send any important calls through, anything else, take a message. Thank you Felicia.”
Smoke went into his office where he checked his e-mails, and gathered everything up he needed for a meeting with some of the executive staff, and then a one on one with C-Note. After twenty minutes had passed he grabbed everything and headed back out his office and to the meeting room a floor below.
“Sean,” Felicia called out to him as she approached him with what looked like a bundle of mail. “This just came in a sec ago.” She handed him several articles.
Smoke glanced over a few letters addressed to him, stopping to examine the one package he’d been anticipating for a while. He eyed the package with interest before he looked back up to his secretary.
“Wait about twenty minutes and then start sending everyone in for the meeting.”
“You da boss,” Felicia replied then made her way down to C-Note’s secretary’s desk, handed her some mail, and began to chat.
Smoke made his way to the meeting room and reclined in one of the large comfortable chairs that encircled the oval table. Smoke sat the letters and everything else to the side and then sat the long awaited delivery in front of him studying it once more with even more thoroughness than he had in the hall. He looked up and around the meeting room at all of the plaques and awards hanging on the walls, which acknowledged all their accomplishments. He then looked back down at the simple package on the table before him. The XXL cover read: The M’Famous Issue, in bright, bold type with a picture of the two CEOs and the labels two premiere artists, Triggamane and C-Lo Chainz, and it showed the page numbers that held the interviews and an article on their label. Smoke sat back with the magazine in his hand and looked over it once more, and couldn’t help but to reminisce over how everything fell into place as if it were all meant to be.
In only two years and nine months the cousins had come from the ground up and now had a label worth over one hundred fifty million, not including the tens of millions in Smoke, C-Note, and several others at the label’s bank accounts. Triggamane and C-Lo Chainz were the biggest money makers, with Triggamane building a loyal following with his first mixtape. They released his debut album five months later and it ended up selling over one and a half million copies with several club bangers and what turned out to be the street anthem of the year. His next two albums both stalled around eight hundred thousand copies, but that was more than enough in Smoke’s eyes considering how little they had invested financially in each album. The latest album was slowing down at just over six hundred thousand records, but Smoke planned to push it for another two months, even though it had already been out for eight. The streets had love for Triggamane’s gangster persona, so he could book shows to keep attention with no problem and they exploited that in every way they could.
Their other premiere artist, C-Lo Chainz, had actually been a chance happening, and his meteoric rise to fame had stunned everyone and started rumors of the label’s new dynasty. C-Lo had recorded one song, “Chain Hang” that went on to become a commercial hit, and when he actually put an album out six months later it sold five hundred thousand the first week off the one single. C-Lo’s first album went on to sell over two million records and his follow up had also gone certified platinum. He was one of the industry’s favorite artists for collaborations, which helped M’Famous Ent. establish a lot of relationships and contacts. C-Lo’s larger than life image and boisterous swagger kept the spotlight on him, especially the women’s.
Even though C-Lo had the bigger albums, sales wise, Triggamane had sold more records overall, and could easily sell one hundred fifty thousand mixtapes every quarter. This all led to a friendly competition, which kept both on their toes and Smoke liked to use it to motivate them and the other twelve artists and six producers at their label. Triggamane had the streets on lock, but C-Lo had crossover appeal that had even led to an international tour for the entire label. Hell, even Smoke and C-Note had put out an album that went gold easily leading C-Note to want to have a part-time rap career. They’d been in the studio high as a kite from smoking weed one day during one of their artist’s recording sessions, when Smoke started bullshitting and rapping to the instrumental that was playing. He kept going as C-Note and the producer gassed him up. C-Note jump in with his own off beat freestyle, and once he finished he said, “Fuck it, we doin’ a album.” And that’s just what happened.
Smoke could only shake his head as he thought of his crazy ass cousin and his antics over the years. Smoke and C-Note knew that the real strength of their label was their team of ingenious producers though they weren’t on the cover of the XXL, and rarely got a lot of media attention. Their star was DJ Eternal, who had also been a chance happening. Shortly after they signed Triggamane he began to bring them demos from people he knew, and one day the cousins sat around and listened to a few. The rapper they were listening to had a mediocre flow that was mostly inconsistent and they were on the third track when Smoke paused the c.d. and went back to the first song.
“Listen to this. I just really paid attention on the last track,” Smoke said.
“Mane ain’t shit he said so far worth hearing again,” C-Note quipped.
“I know, I ain’t talking 'bout that though, listen to the beats.”
They ended up going through the six songs on the demo again. They tuned the words out and listened to the instrumentals, noting that they were all original and really good, thought the sound quality was off, likely due to the equipment. They called the young rapper up and told him to bring whoever did his beats with him. When the two showed up later that day, the cousins had tried to ditch the rapper and sign the young and talented producer, but he refused, saying he’d only sign if his friend got signed too. To their chagrin, they gave in and signed the rapper for two albums to snag the phenom, and weren’t surprised when the half-ass rapper couldn’t sell a hundred thousand copies with two albums combined. They figured they had given him a chance, so it was what it was.
The very next day after they signed the duo, Eternal showed up with two more producers and informed C-Note that they were a team, whom called themselves Dope Trax. One was a girl who called herself Mizz Robyn, and C-Note immediately renamed her Robyn Hood Hitz, was a good producer in her own right though not the same caliber as Eternal. She could hold her own though, and be trusted to put out a solid effort on any project, but her trump care was her ability to put together the best mixtapes in the entire industry. Her ear for just the right sound for any particular artist made her a label favorite, especially with the new artists. They all usually wanted to build a buzz with mixtapes, but the veterans loved to work with her just as much. The other producer was a little older that Robyn and Eternal, and called himself DJ Flame, and talent wise he fell in between the other two. Flame was as good as Robyn with the beats, but not with the mixtapes though he hung his hat on the fact that he helped Robyn and Eternal, and most of the other producers fine tune their sound. The other producers all heeded his advice and loved that he never asked them to share the credit for a production.
The talent of the producers along with some of the better artists had led to M’Famous Entertainment selling over twenty million records in the short time they’d been in business. They were now one of the premiere hip hop labels in the industry and everyone knew that everyone aligned with their label was on their way somewhere. The parking lot looked like an exclusive, top line car lot and any employee emerging from the building looked photoshoot ready.
There had been plenty of hit records, plenty of cash blown, plenty of partying, and a good share of bullshit that had come along with the wild ride called M’Famous Ent. And Smoke wouldn’t trade any of it for anything else. He loved the power and financial freedom the label gave him and didn’t plan on giving any of it up anytime soon. Smoke considered some of the other successes of their label, like their new male R&B group, Fell. They were making big splashes in the industry and were being considered something like a new Boys II Men, whom they were currently touring with, along with the surprise sensation Reign. The frail ass white boy had run up on Smoke at a gas station as he got out his truck and Smoke had been a second away from blowing his head off, when Reign just started singing and then rapping like the white version of Drake. Smoke could only nod as he eyed the scrawny seventeen year old kid in front of him as he chimed with a catchy flow and lyrics that made sense. Smoke took him back to the studio that day and after Reign had worked with Flame, who was the only producer he worked with now, he and C-Note listened to the three tracks they’d done and signed him that same day. Though he didn’t have an album out yet, he was on tour because the three songs he recorded went on to become popular, especially with young girls. All this happened in less than four months. M’Famous Ent. also had other up and coming stars, like Jag and Calico, and had several endorsement deals on the table, from sneakers down to the proposed clothing deals they had just begun to receive lately. Smoke finally began to flip through the magazine, checking out a few pictures and headlines as he made his way to the section dedicated to their label. A large double paged picture showed Smoke and C-Note in the center, with C-Lo Chainz to Smoke’s right and Triggamane to C-Note’s left. Most people believed that each rapper reflected either of the CEOs with C-Lo being the calm and confident one, while Triggamne was the wilder of the two. All of the men were dressed in all black, with t-shirts that read M’Famous Ent. and large iced out chains with the company’s logo hanging from their necks. Though they’d done the photo shoot indoors, the background was set up with a black Porsche Cayenne slanted toward Smoke and C-Lo, and a black Porsche 911 Turbo behind C-Note and Triggamane, against a white backdrop. It had been Triggamane’s idea to add the cars, which were both his.
Smoke began to read the article, which basically summed up the accomplishments of their label and touched on some of the darker stories that emanated from it
It went into depth on some of the stormier days early in the label’s rise, particularly, on an artist named Mecca, who began to get popular for drug raps. But Mecca had begun to lose control due to partying too much and his insatiable addiction to coke. He’d been caught once with an ounce of powder in his car and got off with probation. It seemed to calm him down for a while, but then he just spiraled downwards, partying hard and then adding alcohol on top of his coke problem.
One day the police attempted to pull him over because he was swerving from lane to lane in traffic and he leaned out of the window of the Corvette he was in and opened fire on the officers. In a matter of minutes cop cars swarmed from everywhere and Mecca jumped on the expressway, leading a high speed chase that was being shown on TV across the city. The chase led across three counties, with twenty-six police cars in pursuit, and reached speeds of over one hundred-fifty mile per hour. Two good Samaritan driving semi-trailers decided to ride side by side to block both lanes in hopes that they could slow Mecca down, but he simply darted around to the outside shoulder and went around them. By the time he made it to the front of the trucks there was a police cruiser right in front of it and the driver was trying to slow down enough to keep Mecca on the shoulder. Mecca tried to quickly maneuver back to the inside lane, but jerked the wheel too hard and spun out of control, crashing into a rail barrier several times before coming to a stop. Mecca emerged from the car bloodied and dazed with his gun in hand. Furious with the particular car that had made him crash, he upped the extended clip nine millimeter and let off a barrage of shots at the cops, who cowered away. He turned around at the sound of screeching tires behind him and opened fire on the first door he saw swing open, striking a state trooper in the neck.
The news helicopter got all of this on camera and used their sophisticated equipment that recorded even the sounds of shouts and gunfire be exchanged below, over the rotors wail. Back in Memphis everyone watched as several shots struck Mecca, but he stayed on his feet. “I’m M’Famous bitch!” Mecca screamed then emptied his clip.
After Mecca stopped his shooting all the cops raised up and finished him off, sending him falling face first to the pavement, dead before he ever hit it.
Days later, after Mecca’s chant before death became media fodder, and a kilo of cocaine was found in the Corvette and another at his apartment, the police had swarmed the label and questioned everyone. It went from questioning on to borderline harassment over the next few weeks, all because of the three words Mecca had spoken.
Smoke clearly remembered those days and was relieved once the investigation was closed and they got back to running their budding empire. The article then went on to a more positive line, noting how the label had emerged from that ordeal stronger than ever and truly began to take off. They recalled the dual emergence of the two stars in Triggamane and C-Lo Chainz, and the perseverance and determination to succeed no matter what of the two CEOs, also noting each one’s particular management style. They touched on Smoke’s more executive lean, in his controlling the things that happened in the office and things of that nature, then of C-Note’s handling of the artists and other things that required more hands on sometimes.
After thumbing through the rest of the article Smoke got to what he really wanted to read, which was the interview. It was the first one he’d had that was in major syndication, and he wanted to see how his words, all theirs in reality, would be viewed by the rest of the world. Smoke checked his watch and saw that he had just over thirteen minutes to read the interview he and C-Note had done together. With intrigue, as though he hadn’t been the one interviewed, and thereby knowing what to expect, he began to read.
XXL: “Smoke and C-Note, What’s up guys? Congrats on make the cover. How does it feel?”
Smoke: “What’s up mane, it feel good, cause you know this one of them magazines anyone in the industry would love to be in let alone be able to see they self on the front.”
C-Note: "Yeah, he right, it feel good ‘cause , you know , this one of the mags I read for years and would have never thought I’d be anywhere near associated with it , so to make the cover, it just seem crazy.”
XXL: “Speaking of crazy, how does it feel to have come to the forefront of the industry so fast, and when did you feel as though ya’ll had really made it?”
C-Note: “Mane you look back and it seem like just last week we was pushing a mixtape from the one artist we had. You look up and we are where we are. I knew we’d finally made it over the top when C-LO did five hundred thousand the first week.”
Smoke: “You know what, for real, after Triggamane’s first batch of mixtapes sold out, I knew it wasn’t no going back from there, and I still can’t believe how far we’ve come from that. It’s crazy for real.”
XXL: “I understand neither of you had any prior experience in the industry, so what led you to start a label from the ground up?”
Smoke: “It kinda just happened for real. We was at a point financially that wasn’t what either of us wanted and we was having a conversation 'bout it. We just happened to be in a record store and the idea just came up.”
C-Note: “I looked at it like it was just another type of hustle, so once we came up wit' the idea, we just figured out how to do what needed to be done and did it our way.”
XXL: “Rumor has it you guys definitely got it your way. The word is there may have been some form of coercion or intimidation for your seed money from the bank.”
Smoke: (Laughing) “You really believe that two black men could just walk into a bank and demand money?”
XXL: “Uh, yeah. It happens all the time.”
Smoke: “I don’t mean like that. (Laughs) We went in armed with a good business plan and refused to leave without what we went for.”
C-Note: (Still smiling) “Why is it that every time young black men find a way to become successful they gotta be don’ did something illegal to get there? Plus, Tommy G (the banker) is a good friend of ours.”
XXL “That’s a good point about the black men thing, and both of ya’ll went around the question, but I’m gon’ let that go for now. I want to ask a serious question. I’m sure you both recall the ordeal with Mecca. Tell me what you guys thought of him and how that entire episode played out.”
Smoke: “Rest in peace, Mecca. Mane, I had a lot of respect for dude, especially as an artist. I think he fell right between Triggamane and C-Lo with his style and content and really believe he could have been alone on top of the game right now. I think the fame consumed him before he really had it.”
C-note: “Yeah, the fame and money. Even though he never released an official album, they went to his head, and it was too much for him. On top of that, the people around him was pulling him down from the jump.”
XXL: “I hear everyone signed to M’Famous Entertainment gets the star treatment, with a new expensive car, purchased by the company, at least one chain, and large amounts of cash. Do you think that overwhelmed Mecca, and how do you think that affects your new artists, especially the younger ones:
C-Note: “You know what, we do give everybody the star treatment at M’Famous, 'cause that’s what we look to sign. We believe it sets the up to want more of the stardom, and we think that gets the best from them, as artists. What happened wit’ Mecca was sad, but we use it to show the youngins how not to go out.”
Smoke: “Wit’ Mecca it was more of the fame and surroundings more than the money. He was twenty-six, so he wasn’t young, and the Corvette he was in when he crashed was his before he got signed, so he tasted money before. True we gave him more, but money didn’t make him do what he did. He was high, so if anything, that’s what’s to be blamed. So the young artists should check they self on that tip and who they keep around them. Those are the most dangerous pitfalls they can face, not having cash.”
XXL: “Point well made. On a brighter note, how’d you two end up putting out an album, let alone selling over half a million, or did you plan on doing a record all along?”
Smoke: “I still can’t believe it sold that many records. Mane we was hanging out during a session and was just fucking around rapping. I wasn’t halfway trying for real, then this spontaneous ass nigga here blurt out let’s do a record and we said fuck it and made it happen. I still can’t believe people liked that shit that much. It was ai’ight, but five hundred thousand?”
C-Note: “I’on know 'bout this nigga, but I know I can rap, so five hundred sound bout right. (Laughs) For real though, we been able to do whatever we set out to, so I felt like fuck it, if it can be done we can do it. Plus, you know we got that Midas touch at M’Famous baby. That secret sauce!”
XXL: “Yeah, ya’ll definitely got the recipe for success. So what’s next for the infamous M’Famous E.N.T.?”
Smoke: “Right now we working on a clothing line and we got a big surprise coming for ya’ll.”
C-Note: "We gone’ make some mo hits, get some mo’ cars, and mo’ money.”
Smoke: “And mo’ problems.”
XXL: “Problems? Like C-Note wilding out in the clubs? I’ve heard plenty of stories.”
C-Note: “I plead the fifth.”
XXL: (laughs) “I can’t knock that. So, any final words?”
Smoke: “Shout out to M’Famous E.N.T, the whole M-Town, and everybody that got love for M’Famous.”
C-Note: “I’m M’Famous bitch!”