MobbDeep – ‘Peer Pressure (produced by DJ Premier)’

ThunderCracker and I having the chance to work together was a godsend. We both kept each other out of trouble except for the times we were causing trouble, but at least we were together then too. Everyone had their little grinds back then. Soundwave had the Oppenheimer joint and Polo was working for the Lintas ad agency. We all knew our next stop was millionaire status. A little offer came to me from some buddies who I went to Tech with. They always saw me in the clubs and parties downtown. They wanted to know if I felt like stepping up to the superstar spot in the club scene. These dudes wanted me to push that yayze for them.

I was several years removed from standing on Northern Blvd. with Bar-Kim and those dudes and cocaine was way more glam than crack was. Crack was for poor people. Cocaine was like caviar I thought to myself. Only rich people could even fathom the taste. I told them dudes I was down to go in and see what was what. The popular parties at the time were a few spots in the East Village that played house music and the earliest form of techno(which sounds good comparatively today). Save The Robots was the after-after hours spot to get it in at and this is where the hardbody partygoers touched down to get high.

I asked TC to fux with me one night/morning I was going to Save The Robots to put in work. I had to promise him there would be broads to fux with at this spot. TC didn’t immediately trust me on this maneuver because the house music downtown scene was hell’a ghey(just like it is today) but I convinced him that we would have fun plus I was gonna break him off from the money I was making that night. The math was real simple too. Grams were going for forty but 8-balls were a hundred. Smart money would have copped the 8-ball because that shit was 3.5g so you basically got yourself a free gram for your committment to getting high.

I could hardly ever move the 8-balls though and sometimes I would sell five grams to the same cokehead. Don’t bother with trying to explain fiscal values to someone trying to blow their brains out. That same head will be begging for a discount when his paper gets short. I gave breaks to the best custies anyhoo. So ThunderCracker rolled with me to the club on the promise of ho’s, cokeheads and adventure. As usual we find what we are looking for. Save The Robots was forever that spot.

You walk into the basement of Robots and you can barely see your outstretched hand through the smoky darkness. The air is rich with the smell of burning tobacco x cocaine. Its a funny smell to me because its acrid yet amazingly sweet tasting in my nostrils. You will never confuse this scent with anything else in your life. Hopefully you won’t ever become as familiar as I once did.

I showed TC the corner where I usually posted up. Back in these days you could smoke in NYC clubs so TC knew to pull out the White Owls and to start rolling up. I was busy looking for custies in and around the bathroom area. When I got back to TC he already had a spanish shorty sitting with him. Very Lisa Lisa-ish. For all I know it could have been Lisa Lisa except she wasn’t that busty. She wanted to smoke our weed and I didn’t give a fux as long as TC didn’t either. If you knew him like I did then trust that he was going to try to fingerbang this chick in the corner.

Shorty had a plan though and that was to put her crew down with the blunt. A couple of Puerto Rock chicks on the ‘L’ is what’s up, but a whole calvacade of LES mofos plus some random crackhead is not happening. TC told dude not to touch the dutch but I guess that regal Puerto Rock attitude couldn’t comply and when dude was about to put his lips to the blunt you heard the electric sound of teeth clicking one another. Hard. What was that for? TC was one of the best knockout artists of all time and dude was prA’li unconscious before his head hit the floor.

Now these chicks and some other skinny crackheadish character are flailing away at TC. Like a surgeon he steps back to get some space from them and then extends a jab into the jaw of the skinny dude immobilizing him instantly. It started looking like Michael Jackson’s Thriller zombie sequence as all of these crackheads, cokehead and clubheads started converging on TC and I. We were fighting our way up the stairs and out of the club. When we got outside onto the sidewalk I started to bust out laughing. TC was still super-hype and angry and he yelled at me what the fux I thought was so funny. I opened my fist to show him the blunt I had picked up as soon as the fracas broke out. We lit that shit up and smoked on our way to the F train Second Avenue station.

I didn’t ask ThunderCracker to come with me to the clubs downtown after that. He wasn’t mad neither.

MobbDeep – ‘Peer Pressure (Large Pro Remix)’