There are things I left out of the book. Things that did not fit into the story I was telling. But because I couldn't squeeze a lifetime of hip-hop into 75,000 words, I chose to tell the story of my time at The Source and things that led up to the much-publicized trial and how it went down here in this Confessions blog for the next two weeks. I mean, let's be real, I know what everyone really wanted to know. But now that I have your attention, let me start with a little story in the beginning.

I could give you details and a lot of random info here, but you might not be interested because it¹s void of any celebrity, and only the celebrity stuff seems to make its way around the internet. I mostly grew up in the Castle Hill section of the Bronx (spent my earlier years on Grand Concourse and 165th Street). Anyway, some time between holding down jobs at Kiddie City and the Children's Aid Society at Milbank on 118th st in Harlem, I found time to build up an incredible collection of hip-hop vinyl.

So I did what any true hip-hop fan would do, I bought some turntables. Cost me 400 bucks a pop. I bought a pair of Technic 1200s, a Numark mixer, and a specific set of needles that Silver Surfer told me that I needed to get. It took me about a month to figure out how to catch the beat and blend one record into the next. When I think about it now, I was not that good, but back then, because I knew how to mix records, scratch and flash, I was better than your average. It was the early 90s.

I can't remember how I came to meet Buckwild, a Diggin' In The Crates producer, but we became cool. (Sidebar: Now, try to grasp the idea of two professionals in the hip-hop industry forming a platonic relationship to help one another on the come up. I know it's too hard for some of you to comprehend, but is it a conflict of interest to have friends in the industry too? Or is it only a conflict when you have sex? Hmmmm. That's going to be another blog I write for you in a few days, but I digress). In any event, one day I picked Buckwild up from Parkchester and we rode in my Toyota Camry to the studio where the Artifacts were recording. I sat in the studio and waited for him while they laid down vocals to a song called "Wrong Side Of Da Tracks." Funny, I almost forgot I was there when that song was recorded. Seems like so long ago.

On our way back, Buck was listening to some beats he had been working on. He popped in a cassette (yes, a cassette) and there was this beat that I thought was hot. Or maybe I thought it was "fresh" back then, or I think "dope" may have been the right term. I don't remember. A week or two later, I heard that same beat, with vocals though, on the radio. It was a rapper I hadn't heard of before, but the song was hot. Sorry, I mean, dope. I blasted the sh*t out of the song in my wack car stereo (that was later stolen from my Camry while parked on Sedgwick Avenue). Anyway, I bought the 12-inch of that record. Actually, I bought two. I practiced scratching that record on my turntables. It was O.C.'s "Time's Up." I still love that song. If you listen to the lyrics, it even applies today. He was saying to other rappers that their time was up. That they weren't good enough to stay in the game. That rappers were in danger.

When I sat down and started writing the book, I thought back to my beginning and how, at some point, everyone's time is up. Each chapter thereafter was named after a hip-hop song title, which somehow seemed to reflect what was going on at the time. But that is how the title of the first chapter came to be. That song was the beginning.

There are so many different chapters of my life that people aren't familiar with. My story doesn't start and end with the Source, and it damn sure doesn't start and end with a rapper. There are 31 chapters in the book, but tomorrow, I'll let you in on some of the things and people I came across on my journey to becoming a hip-hop journalist that didn't make it into those chapters.