Drama Is Her Middle Name (12 page)

16

Tracee hired a limo to take her to the Orlando International
Airport for her four o'clock flight. She filled up her iPod with
sermons by Pastor Edwin Lakes, Creflo Dollar, Joel Osteen,
and a bunch of gospel music.

She decided to take a sauna and then get ready for the trip.
Tracee sat in her sauna and opened her Bible to the book of
James. It was her favorite book, and she began her day reading the short but powerful five chapters. She was one of the
few people in Florida with a sauna. Hot tubs were big. Everyone seemed to have a swimming pool. But saunas in Florida
seemed almost redundant when temperatures were in the
eighties in the winter and over a hundred degrees in the
summer.

Tracee, who was from New Jersey, discovered the healing
power of saunas and became addicted. She had a portable one
in her Manhattan loft and decided to build one in her huge
bathroom in her Winter Garden home. Her sauna could seat
three but no one had shared that space with Tracee—not
yet. She liked to sprinkle a little eucalyptus, peppermint, or
grapefruit oil on the hot rocks before pouring distilled water
over them, releasing a fragrant steam that seemed to pierce
her bones. She couldn't take more than twenty minutes at a
time. But that's all Tracee needed to get her head straight for
the day. With each breath of steam she inhaled, she was
building up her immune system and her defenses.

“This is like spiritual vitamin C,” she thought with a
chuckle. “I better stay in here an extra ten minutes just to be
sure.”

Tracee didn't need a lot of time to get ready. She could
pack light because she still had her Manhattan loft where she
kept some clothes. Whatever she didn't have, she would buy.
She had more money than she could ever imagine spending.

She would have to buy something to go with Ritz to the
Grammys. This was a big time in Ritz's life, and Tracee wanted
to be there for her. The last conversation they had, Ritz
sounded funny. She needed to talk—not on the phone. The
phone was phony conversation. There was a study done that
showed that people could be easily deceived over the phone.
Relationships between people that started on the phone
rarely lasted, and if they did, they were rarely real. There's
nothing like looking into a person's eyes and seeing where
they are really coming from, what is really on their mind.

Tracee looked forward to looking into Ritz's eyes. Over the
last several months Tracee had been dropping kernels of
truth on her friend. But she really wanted to get in there and
talk to her about her spirit, about her life. Tracee had
changed so much. And as much as Ritz had to share, Tracee
had just as much to share, too. She was compelled to, before
it was too late. There were things Ritz had to come to grips
with, had to deal with, had to know.

For nearly five years, Tracee Remington rode the wave of success as artist after artist on her label sold millions and millions of records and won Grammys and MTV Music Awards
and People's Choice Awards. Her label became almost a
conveyor belt of platinum CDs. But her artists didn't have
longevity. As soon as they hit, it seemed like they dropped off
just as quickly.

Christopher “Hardcore” Harris seemed to be on a different
path—one leading toward longevity. His first CD sold more
than three million copies. His second one sold that many in
just the first month.

Tracee liked Hardcore. She got to know him during a
month-long promotional tour through the Midwest and West
Coast. She discovered that his thug act was just an act. He
rose to fame as so many did on a harsh street life that included being a former drug dealer—which wasn't new. He
claimed to be a protégé of Tom Mickens aka Tony Montana
from the Merrick Boulevard area in Queens. That was big
time. But it was a big time or image play. Unlike rappers like
50 Cent, who bragged about being shot, Hardcore talked about
the “niggas he shot.” He even alluded to actually killing
someone. That set him apart. He had a persona that people
didn't cross. He didn't wear a bulletproof vest, didn't travel
with an entourage; he had a steely glare and a deep voice that
he didn't use often, and he rarely smiled. His image worked
like a charm. Inside, however, he was quite the opposite.

That image was completely manufactured. He practiced
the icy stare and didn't talk much because he was constantly
talking to himself inside his head trying not to be overwhelmed by everything that was happening.

Tracee got to see the vulnerable side of Hardcore, and she
even let down her guard a bit—which she never did with her
artists.

Around the fourth stop on their West Coast tour, Tracee
and Hardcore had a heart-to-heart while on an hour-and-half
drive to an appearance at a radio station in Las Vegas.

“Tracee, I'm glad you're on the road with me,” Hardcore
said.

Tracee wished that she could say the same. She couldn't.
It wasn't him. She just hated being on the road. But she
didn't want to insult him. He was making an attempt to be
deep. Hardcore was thirty-two, playing tough and pretending
to be in his twenties.

“I'm tired, Core,” she said. “I hate being on the road. But
I must say, the company isn't half bad.”

Hardcore smiled. He had beautiful teeth that few rarely
got to see. “I hear you. I never expected there to be this much
attention on me. I mean, I wanted to be a big hit, but this is
ridiculous.”

“It's only the beginning, so you better get used to it,”
Tracee said.

Hardcore stared out of the window and didn't respond.

They arrived at the radio station, a rundown studio in the
middle of the desert. Hardcore gave his interview, which
amounted to four or five words. He dropped a promo that the
station would be using ad nauseum, then he and Tracee hit
the road back to Los Angeles.

“What comes next?”

“Well, we have five more radio stations to hit and then
you have a couple of club dates, an appearance on Jimmy
Kimmel, and then back home to cut your next CD.”

“No, I mean what happens next—after the fame and
money?”

It was a question Tracee had never been asked, and she
had no answers.

“I've been reading a lot of financial books—David Bach,
Suze Orman, even Napoleon Hill—and they talk about exit
strategies and plans,” Hardcore said. “I don't have an exit
strategy or a plan. After I sell all of these CDs and collect all
these checks, then what?”

“I don't know, Core. That's a damn good question.”

“Could I just walk away?”

“Why would you want to? I mean, the sky's the limit for
you. You can be the biggest rapper ever—the biggest performer ever. You can break records.”

“And then what? I already don't have privacy. I can't go
anywhere or do anything without being mobbed. People spying on me, even wanting to kill me.”

Tracee spent so much time crafting and maintaining images and playing traffic cop for artists that she never stopped
to consider the consequences of their success or the images
she helped to foster. There was a reason why so many artists
from Billie Holiday to Elvis, Janis Joplin to Jimi Hendrix, got
strung out on drugs and ended up basically killing themselves. Tupac's and Biggie's murders didn't happen in a vacuum, nor were they coincidences. Groundwork was laid that
led up to them. Was Hardcore on the same path?

As they pulled in front of the Doubletree Hotel in Los Angeles, Core got out and extended his hand like a perfect gentleman and led Tracee out of the limo. Tracee smiled and
walked toward the entrance of the hotel where a beautiful
waterfall splashed into an exotic koi pond.

“That's what I'm talking about,” Hardcore said, looking at
the pond. “I want to have shit like this in my home.”

“In another two weeks you will be getting your first real
royalty check and you can buy all the fish you want!”

In the music world, the illusion of money supersedes the
reality. Most artists get little more than a per diem—enough
for daily meals, car service—and an advance that many blow
in the first few days on perishables like cars and jewelry. The
real money doesn't come until
after
the first hit CD.

“Yo, I'm real excited about that,” he said. “I'll be able to
buy my first home. And you don't have to worry about seeing
my ass on
Cribs
, either. Hell no! I don't want no niggas knowing how I'm really living.”

“Core, I have got to say, you have come a long way! I'm
proud of you.”

“Thanks, Tracee, for just being real with me all the time.”

“No problem!” Tracee said. “You know how I do.” They
both laughed, and Hardcore gave Tracee a big hug and
thanked her again.

Tracee and Hardcore walked to the elevator laughing at
the condition of the radio station they just left. As the elevator door opened, Hardcore grabbed Tracee's hand.

“Not so fast,” he said. “I have a gift for you.”

He reached into his bag and pulled out a box. Tracee was
a little surprised. Most of these artists spent their money on
dumb stuff like weed or liquor or on impressing their entourage. And when it came to women, if they weren't stripping or giving head, they wouldn't be getting a dime. But
here he was giving her a box.

“Open it!” he said like an excited kid. “It's not much. I just
want you to know how much I appreciate everything you've
done for me.”

Tracee opened the card first. It simply read: “Thank you!
Christopher Harris.” Then Tracee opened the box to find a
state-of-the-art Nike heart monitor and MP3 player all in
one. It was something she would have never thought to get
herself, and she was impressed at how well Christopher had
listened to her. She couldn't remember them ever really talking about her love of working out but she must have.

“Thank you, Core,” Tracee said. “Thank you so much! I
really do need this.”

“Cool!” he said. “Glad you like it. I'll talk to you tomorrow. Have a great night's sleep.”

“You, too!” Tracee said as she got into the elevator.

“He's a good guy,” Tracee thought. “Finally, one of these
artists might actually make it. I think Hardcore's going places.”

But thanks to Ritz Harper, the only place Hardcore was
going was down in flames.

A rapper can be a criminal, a crackhead, a drug dealer,
even a murderer, but the one thing that can absolutely kill a
rap career is being outed as gay. That was hard to overcome.

ON THE AIR

“From what I hear . . . Hardcore likes it hard in the core,”
Ritz said during the final hour of the show. She sometimes
saved some of her juiciest tidbits until the end, forcing her
audience through the entire five hours to get to the real dirt.

“Okay? To put it more plainly—the only thing hard about
Hardcore is the men he enjoys. Shut
up
!”

Aaron played the sound effect of a gay man howling
“Ooooooh, how you doin'?!” on cue, and everyone in the studio let out a collective
Ooooooh!

“No, Ritz, nooooooo!” Tracee screamed her head off in her
office, where she was listening to the interview. “Oh, shit!
Oh, shit! Shit! Shit!”

This was rap. Much of Hardcore's success came because he
had, until this point, lived up to his name. He was tough.
And he carried himself that way. He dared someone to test
him and no one did. No one except Ritz Harper.

“Word on the street has it that Hardcore only gets really
hardcore when around some buff beefcake in a special club,”
Ritz continued like a pit bull clamped down on a piece of
meat. “And word has it he's not the pitcher, but the
catcher
. . .
if you know what I mean.”

Tracee had never once asked Ritz not to go there with one
of her artists. She would never get in the way of her girl doing her thing. Ritz never even connected the dots she was
drawing back to her friend—never put two and two together
that ruining Hardcore might somehow affect Tracee, too.
Ritz was in a trance when she was on the air. She was another
person in another place. Tracee didn't like the on-air Ritz
very much. But she understood her and even respected her
gangster—her desire to expose the liars, the cheats, the crooks,
the bullshitters.

Tracee loved her off-air friend to pieces. But as she sat in
her big chair, behind her big desk in her big corner office, she
began to contemplate her career. Her role in the music business was solely to cover up and appease. She was not just
babysitting, she was enabling, and she wasn't making a difference. At least Ritz thought she was providing a public service. And in many ways she was—uncovering the truth (albeit in a sordid way).