There was another man on the marketing team, a person who started back when we were there. It was his second day on the job and he witnessed something that shook him to the core of his being. Ray locked the two of them in Dave’s office and lovingly placed a pistol to the side of Dave’s head. “Homeboy was crying,” is what this marketing man told anyone who would listen.

We know someone who lives right next door to Dave’s parents in DC. When the situation went down between us and Dave the fallout was far reaching. The two neighbors stopped talking to one another. It was a sad situation, but one day Dave’s mother sought out her former friend, apologized for the despicable actions of her son and explained, “David is afraid, he is in way over his head and can’t figure a way out of this.”

I could go on, but once you’ve heard one story you’ve heard them all. Dave is Dave. His heart pumps pink Kool-Aid. For all of his love of the ghetto he never learned lesson one of surviving in the hood: Under no circumstances are you to you ever give your lunch money to a bully. It is far better to take the ass whoppin’ than to be some nigga's personal ATM. But Dave never seemed to figure that out and that is why he is in the dire straits that he currently finds himself. I once met a man who introduced himself to me as “Dave Mays’ future extorter.” Really, now, is that what you want to be known for? It’s worse than pathetic.

But now shit is getting a little difficult for Dave and his merry band. Life is tearing hot strips off his back right about now. The word from high up in his company is that The Source has less than a year. The last time it got this bad Earl Graves, the wealthy publisher of Black Enterprise, stepped in with a much needed cash infusion. I’m sure Mr. Graves had no idea at the time that the suddenly revealed “co-owner” of The Source was Raymond Scott: career criminal. I wonder what Mr. Graves has to say every time some negative press reaches the media. Do you think he is happy having to explain the actions of a person named Benzino to his influential friends? Do you think he regrets taking the advice of his son and getting mixed up in this sad enterprise in the first place? Streets is talking. And we mean Wall St.

And since I am opening up the crypt of secrets, I’ll give you one that I’ve been keeping for a few years. While I don’t have a lot of time to devote to what is going on at The Source these days — and really, Dave and Ray would be highly upset if they actually knew how little I think about them — I have, from time to time, helped to set a few things in motion that have come back to haunt them. I can’t get into everything I’ve done, but there is one particular scheme that I am most proud of, and I figure that now is as good a time as any to come clean with something that many of my peers have long suspected. In 1999 I arranged for Ray Benzino & The Made Men to receive the cover of Rap Pages magazine. Continued on page 6 »