But it got worse. As the buzz surrounding the awards began to build, so did talk of a possible boycott by artists and organizations who felt that The Source had no legitimate right to select and judge who or what embodied Hip Hop. KRS-1 caused a huge problem during the home stretch. Not only was he not going to appear at the awards, but he was also going to badmouth it and do his best to derail it. Dave got really scared and begged Jon, myself and a few other brown faces to have lunch with Kris and get him back on board. Thing is, KRS is no fool and every problem he had with the award show was valid. We weren’t looking at the entirety of the Hip Hop spectrum; we were only focusing on rap. We had no category for best graffiti or best b-boy. And Kris took great pains to let us know that he felt the magazine was losing its focus and if we were not careful we would wake up one day to find ourselves working at an urbanized Rolling Stone. He was correct on everything he said, but the way he said it to us –whew! Believe me, you don’t want to be across the table from KRS-1 when he is belligerent, surly and has an axe to grind. It was the worst lunch ever and was typical of what we had to deal with while Dave was back in the office fucking up the comp list, stepping on toes and making our lives miserable with an award show that none of us wanted to be a part of.

Then came the last straw. Dave told us that due to a ticket shortage, staffers would only be allowed two guests apiece. This was a problem because we all had people coming out of the woodwork looking to get hooked up. I’m talking friends, family – people who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Many of our loyal freelancers couldn’t get tickets. It was a bad situation to be in. Dave made sure that all of his people had as many tickets as they needed, including 75 RSO members and scores of assorted industry parasites, but the people who actually made the magazine each month – many of them were left out in the cold. It got so tense that I didn’t even want to answer my phone.

The awards themselves were an absolute catastrophe. Bernie Mac was the host – why, I have no idea. He was a disaster. Either he couldn’t see his cue cards or he couldn’t read at all. The show moved along in fits and starts and the natives – the thousands of fans who bought tickets for the event — began to get restless. We thought there would be a riot during one of the show’s many lulls. The highlight of the night was when A Tribe Called Quest came out on stage. They were either going to perform or present an award, I can’t remember which, but as soon as Q-Tip opened his mouth to do what they were going to do – a music cue blasted through the speakers and Tupac and his crew rushed on stage and began performing. Everyone was stunned, was it a mistake or was it on purpose? And as soon as ‘Pac finished his song, he screamed, “Fuck y’all!” to the audience, slammed the mic to the ground and vanished backstage just as quickly as he appeared. Everyone had the same thought: did Tupac just dis Quest? Next thing you know all these Zulu Nation cats are on stage and one dude is threatening ‘Pac, for disrespecting their Zulu comrades. I started looking for the emergency exit. I was like, yeah — now this is The Source Awards! Continued on page 3 »