RSO cats would continue to visit Dave after hours, but now there was a new twist. Every time these niggas came into the office something would invariably come up missing. I might have a stack of t-shirts in my office on Friday, but when I came in on Monday my shit would be gone. I’d also notice when things on my desk had been tampered with and every once in a while I’d reach for a record only to find that it had magically grown legs and walked out of my office. And this was starting to happen to other people as well. Matty C, who was now doing A&R for Loud Records, still maintained a desk at The Source where he would do the "Unsigned Hype" column. An avid record collector, he would always have a lot of good shit in his stash. Well, one evening I saw RSO members E Devious and Deff Jeff walking around the office. Jeff was holding a big garbage bag, but I didn’t take much notice of it and after a while they left. The next afternoon, Matt came in and screamed bloody murder. His records were gone. I put two and two together and came up with a pair of likely suspects (one of these clowns actually stole a prototype of one of the early Source Awards. I guess even back then they knew that was the only way they would ever get one). (Ed’s note: Zzzzzing!)

When I told Dave about the ongoing problem, he said that he would talk to Ray and straighten things out. He also went out of his way to make excuses for the thieving. Because they were poor and from the streets, Dave reasoned, they simply couldn’t help themselves after seeing the overwhelming abundance of goodies that we’d selfishly hoarded. I’m like, huh – you can’t be serious? But Dave was totally serious.

I really didn’t want to make a big deal about it, but the way it was done, it seemed to be some kind of challenge. Y’know, to see how we would react. And Ray, when I would run into him in the halls, would often lob darts at the new staffers. He once told me that The Source was being replaced by “suit and tie wearing buppies who don’t know anything about Hip Hop.” I brought it up to Dave, and he sneered at me and said that Ray was correct in his assessment.

But again, Ray never had any kind of slick talk for me when we would meet face to face. In fact he was a huge fan of my writing and would often ask me questions about what I was working on. He was very interested in my column, "The Dennis Files," and once after some dude shot him (just a flesh wound, unfortunately) he called me up about maybe putting that bit of news in the magazine. I might have, but I can’t remember. Continued on page 10 »