My Voice: A Memoir (18 page)

It had been about a month since I’d been back on the air, but I still wasn’t feeling completely like myself. But the moment when I first took my seat at the Garden that Friday night for the first of three nights that were part of the Best of Both Worlds Tour with Jay Z and R. Kelly, I became a fan all over again and got swept up in the anticipation of an amazing performance from both of them. And when they came out together to open the show, both of them dressed in all white, the Garden went bananas. They then started taking turns doing solo sets, first Jay,
then R. Kelly, and then Jay. I was on my feet, singing or rapping along, rockin’ out with everybody in the audience.

Then, all of a sudden, when it was time for R. Kelly to take his next turn, instead of performing, he stood there onstage and talked to everyone about something that had just happened backstage and why he couldn’t continue with the concert. He had said that two people had come at him, waving guns. He was genuinely freaked out and was holding back tears. “I can’t do no show like that . . .” and then he told everyone it was over as he dropped the mic and left the stage.

Everyone in the house was saying and thinking the same thing:

What the fuck? What guns? What people?

We all sat there in shock and rising anger until Jay decided to take over and do the show “old-school” on his own, improvising with planned and surprise guests and whoever was in the house. Mary was there and was a showstopper. Pecas—who was working at Arista at the time—was sitting with Usher, who was signed to the label then, and suddenly heard from Jay that they wanted Usher to come up and do some songs. Pecas wound up DJing for Usher. No, Pecas is not a DJ, but somehow he pulled it off. All of these moments were improvised and spontaneous. It was amazing to see everyone do their best to have Jay’s back. T.I. was there and performed. There was Memphis Bleek, Foxy Brown, Freeway and the Young Gunz. Ja Rule came out and did “Can I Get A . . .” with Jay, and it just blew the roof off.

I couldn’t begin to say what my favorite song was, but when Jay asked, “New York, y’all got me?” and then did “Where I’m From” and “Heart of the City,” I felt that shit! In that moment, I started to feel connected again. I was a hip-hop fan, on my feet along with everyone in that building.

Whatever had really happened to R. Kelly backstage was clearly a
story yet to be told, but I’d never seen anything like this. For all the love that New York showed to Hov that night and he gave back, there were some die-hard R. Kelly fans who were
pisssed!
People were threatening to sue for their money back and burn all their R. Kelly CDs.

As I was about to hear, in addition to the two people with guns, R. Kelly would claim that Ty Ty (Jay’s longtime friend) had pepper-sprayed him and members of his entourage backstage. He couldn’t perform at that point because he had to be taken to the hospital.

But none of this was known when I went to get my car at the parking garage and got the call from Mike Kyser. Before I could say anything, Kyser explained, “Jay Z wants to come see you. Tonight. He wants to go on the radio now.”

“This isn’t even my time slot.”

“Ang, he doesn’t want to talk to anybody but you.”

“Okay. Let me call my Tracy.”

Walking along, I’ve got the station on the phone as I begin to spread the word to some of my fellow concertgoers who are ahead of me in line, explaining why I have to get my car fast and drive to the station. When the people ahead of me flash dirty looks as I jump ahead of them, I say, “I’m really sorry to cut in line, but Jay Z wants to come up to the radio.”

Everyone is instantly caught up in the excitement and drama: “Whaaaat?? Oh shit!! Go! Let her go to the front of the line!” “Yo, let Angie go! She’s about to interview Jay!!”

As the crowd parted, I got the car and rushed to the station, bumping the on-air host, and am in position when Jay comes up. He’s telling me the whole story of the tour and about how frustrated he is. Jay’s not somebody who just talks to talk. He’s not going to overexplain anything or overshare unnecessarily. But that late night/early morning, whoa, he has some shit to say.

JAY Z:
First of all, Angie, you know, I’m not a catty dude. I’m not here to be catty.

ANGIE:
Right.

JAY Z:
You know what I’m saying? But—you know, you can’t put me out there like that. You know what I’m saying? Like, there’s people that had their tickets a month, two months. And—you know what I’m saying? And they—they’re ready to see a show. They don’t see a show. You know what I’m saying? So. We having problems on tour. I’m holding this kid down. Like—you know, he’s (saying he’s) having problems with life. He’s not having problems with life. He’s having a problem with—with the reaction that people give me. The love that people give me is really—it’s hurting this guy’s heart. He’s insecure with himself.

ANGIE:
Wow.

JAY Z:
You know what I’m saying? So.

ANGIE:
This is not the first time this happened, right?

JAY Z:
No, this is the fifth time.

Maybe because I have a relationship with him, I believed everything he told me about what happened that night. But there’s always two sides to the story, though, right?

In the middle of talking with Jay, my program director, Tracy, called. “Is everything okay up there? Is he on?”

“Yeah, everything’s good. Don’t worry.”

“Well, I just got word from R. Kelly’s people that he wants to come up, too.”
Unbelievable!

On-air, I told Jay, “Just so you know, R. Kelly wants to come by.”

“All right, cool. Well, we almost done, anyway,” he said.

We continued:

ANGIE:
Obviously you don’t want to talk to R. Kelly right now.

JAY Z:
You could talk to him and I’ll leave the building. Y’all could have a great conversation.

ANGIE:
Okay.

JAY Z:
You know, when he wants to talk to me, tell him, man, look me in my face and talk to me.

ANGIE:
Okay . . . The likeliness of the tour continuing is very—[LAUGHTER]. It’s—I’m sure, not good.

JAY Z:
I’m going. You can do whatever you want to do. It’s your radio station again. Thanks a lot, New York. I love you, I swear.

Jay left, and twenty minutes later R. Kelly came walking in. It must have been about two thirty a.m., and I was on the radio with R. Kelly, whose eyes were still red from pepper spray. He had glasses on, but you could tell something had happened.

R. Kelly, I’d only met him a couple times and I didn’t know him well. But, as always, everybody that comes in the door, it’s clean. I’m going to give you your side now. I pride myself on trying to be fair, always.

When I asked if he had a problem with jealousy or ego when it came to Jay, R. Kelly shrugged it off, saying, “I love performing. I’m very secure with who I am. I have no motive, no reason to be jealous of Jay Z. I’m a fan of Jay. I’m gonna always be a fan of Jay. Tonight had nothing to do with Jay getting the better response. I’m fifteen years deep in this game. I know what Jay is at home. I expected Jay to rip down the Garden.”

So the deal with the guns, he said, was that he had received a threatening phone call prior to arriving at the Garden, and he said that during his first joint set with Jay, a man a few rows from the stage gave him a threatening gesture.

“Dude opened up his coat—I can’t say dude had a gun; I don’t know
what I saw.” But a little later he saw somebody else making a gesture like he was holding a gun. And because his family was backstage, R. Kelly said he became so upset that he panicked. At that point he was not going to continue because, “I wasn’t going to take any chances when I saw what I saw. I’m not crazy.”

Well, then, he went on to say, one of the promoters sent out more security and convinced him to get back out onstage, and that was when he and members of his entourage were pepper-sprayed. Then he went to the hospital to be treated.

I asked him to talk about the claims that he was having delays and cancellations on the tour and what the problem was with the lighting, and he said, “When you are a perfectionist and like to put one hundred percent in the show and you put a million and a half on the stage, you want your million and a half worth.”

R. Kelly was adamant that he would be back at the Garden the next night and wanted to finish the tour. With that I thanked him for coming in and he left.

After the interviews, my phone was on fire! Everybody was listening. I had such a high from being the person to deliver this moment in the middle of the night on the radio. I felt like I asked all the right questions. And for the first time in a long time, I felt like myself again.
This is my shit! This is what I’m supposed to be doing
.
This is what I do!
I was excited. I was relieved. I was happy.

When I got home my son’s father was sitting in the living room.

“Were you listening?! Did you hear?!” I asked him, super-excited. “It was crazy! Jay came to the station, and then R. Kelly came. And he had the pepper spray in his eye!”

“Yeah. You know what’s crazy?” he said.

“What?” I asked as I noticed the sour expression on his face.

“I’ve never seen you so happy. You seem like you like being there
more than you like being here,” he said. “I see you moping around and then I hear you on the radio and you sound so happy.”

“So you’re upset that I had a good work night? How could you not be happy along with me, or even for me?” I wondered aloud as a sinking feeling set in. “Like how could you be on the other side of this moment?”

I went to bed. Numb again.

•   •   •

M
y turning point began over dinner with Mary at Nobu. It wasn’t a hit-you-over-the-head turning point revelation, but it was like she came up with the key to the locked place that had me so stuck. The last time I’d seen her was at the Garden about a month earlier, and I was so happy to catch up with her over spicy lobster salad, yellowtail sashimi with jalapeño, and a good bottle of wine.

There was nothing profound in our conversation at first.

“So, how are things?” Mary asked.

“Cool,” I said. It was all I could muster.

“Cool?”

“Yeah.”

I was tired, exhausted actually. Both Tamir’s father and sister were staying with us at the time and his son, Jordan, now six, was often there as well. Of course I had taken on the responsibility that comes with caring for people in your home: working, driving back and forth to Westwood every day, cooking, shopping, cleaning. By the time I did all of this and checked in with everyone in the house, it was late, nearly midnight. And the next day would be the same thing all over again. Part of me liked it because I had never had a family structure like this, but a big part of me was still numb and just going through the motions.

“How’s your relationship?” How did she know? She knew me, that’s how.

“I don’t really feel anything about it,” I admitted.

“That’s not good,” she said. Mary calls it as she sees it. “You can’t be in a relationship and feeling nothing. You’re either going to be angry, you’re going to be sad, or you’re going to be happy. But you have to feel something.”

“I know. In theory I know that, but I’m fine.” I was just like dead. Flat.

“Yo, you know that’s not okay. Right?” Mary was the first person to say that out loud to me.

It’s not okay.

Whenever you’re making a dramatic change in your life, when it’s a big deal, it happens in stages. First you have to acknowledge that whatever is happening is not working. I was in that stage.
This is not it
. And then you have to acknowledge that you’re going to do something about it. Well, I wasn’t there yet. There were too many people that counted on me.

But I was at least starting to articulate what I was feeling or not feeling.

When I mentioned the conversation to Liane a few days later, she offered, “I know somebody that you should go see,” suggesting a life coach in Manhattan. That’s the thing about having good friends. They can help you get there. I knew I had to do something. I just didn’t know what or how.

Well, what did I have to lose?

“I feel indifferent about everything,” I told the life coach during our first session. “I don’t feel bad. I don’t feel good. I don’t feel anything about anything—except my son, of course.” She listened, and when I came back the second time she shared her insight.

“I was thinking about what you were saying last time we met,” she said. “I’m thinking, ‘Wow, I’ve never met someone so indifferent about
their life.’ Then I realized that you’re not indifferent. You are so worried about how you making a change will affect other people that you are not being honest with yourself. Let me ask you this: Who is worried about you and your well-being? Why do you feel like it’s not as important to worry about yourself as it is everybody else? Where do you put yourself in that equation?”

Holy shit
. Sparks were going off in my head as I was taking in what she was saying. I know it sounds cliché. It sounds like something the Almighty Mother Oprah would say. But that was the first time it resonated with me. And not only did it resonate, but it made me angry.
Holy shit
.

“Okay, so this person might fall apart if you leave them,” she continued. “You’re worried about this one. You’re worried about that one. Well, where are you on that list? Why do you not value yourself as much as you value everyone else? Is one of those other people valuing you on a level where you or your happiness is coming first?”

When she said that, it was like a fucking lightbulb went off.
None of them are
, I realized.
None of them give a shit that I’m not happy here. They’re just trying to hold on to me for dear life.

Holy shit!
Why do I not value myself enough to take care of myself the same way I did everyone else? The same care I give my child, the same care I give my man, the same care I give my career—I need to give myself that same amount of care. Everybody says, “You’ve got to put yourself first.” I’m happy enough if I can just put myself on the same level. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen that before. But it’s like, God, once I got that, I saw how I was living. If you don’t know that, you set yourself up for failure. You set yourself up to be less than happy, less than worthy, less than anything. And you’re teaching everybody else how to treat you.