Allen S. Gordon, the former editor of Rap Pages magazine, was once a former intern at The Source. He worked his way up into an editorship and when the Rap Pages job opened up, he packed his bags and headed out to LA. Now Allen and I are tight, and since he never had any great love for Dave and Ray, he was quite intrigued with my suggestion to shine the spotlight on them. The wheels were soon set in motion. A writer went up to Boston and did the story and sometime after that, the Made Men flew out to LA for their cover shoot. I had to take one for the team, as portions of their interview painted me in the worst light imaginable. Man they talked all kinds of shit about me, and I was definitely a little heated when I read the story, but I had to suck it up because I knew that the eventual punchline would be sweeter than anything I’d ever experienced.

The issue hit the racks and The Made Men looked like complete buffoons. No star power at all. Zero. And what do you think happened when Ray marched triumphantly into The Source offices with his coveted magazine cover? Well, for starters he told the editor of the moment that a rap magazine out here had finally shown some guts. A real editor had finally stepped up and recognized the greatness that is Benzino! Ray had taken the bait. We left a bottle of piss on the table and he came by and gulped down every drop! He actually thought that someone would actually believe it was a good idea to put his wack-ass group on the cover of a magazine. Not only that, but he felt that he should have more. In fact, he felt he deserved more. And thus a seed was planted. A seed that would one day grow into Ray crossing the final line and demanding that he be put on the cover of The Source.

But Ray, as usual, could not perceive the bigger picture. He did not understand that by popping up on the cover of Rap Pages, a national magazine, that industry tongues would begin to wag. “What the fuck?!” is what label people muttered all across the globe. “How did Mays pull this off?” they wondered. Up until now dealing with Dave and Ray was seen as the cost of doing business. But now things were different. This was public, out in the open. They were flaunting it. It was too much and many label executives – especially the ones with artists still awaiting magazine covers of their own — began to seethe.

Magazine people began to voice their displeasure as well. Such open corruption? How? Why? And they began to point fingers and spread great falsehoods about those they claimed were responsible. Continued on page 7 »