If you read my previous post “I Wonder If Heaven Got A Fat Beats?”, I was trying to make it to New York at some point during the final week it’s retail store in Manhattan was still in existence. I didn’t succeed. I then vowed to make it to New York for any of the Dilla events or the Beat* Society showcase in February. That didn’t happen, either. Folks probably thought I had a burn notice on me when I didn’t make it to NYC in March, either.

All things considered, when it got to be April and I saw that Fat Beats would be having an all day event in Brooklyn on Record Store Day near the one year anniversary of the passing of Guru I knew I had to go. I couldn’t make any excuses for not going. I bought my Bolt Bus ticket and I was adamant that I was going to go early. Even though none of my people in NYC had confirmed that they’d even be around to scoop me or even meet me once I arrived in Manhattan @ 2 AM that Saturday morning.

It goes back to when Guru and Mike Dee left Boston for New York back in the days with the hopes of becoming the first crew from here to get on. They ended up in Brooklyn and after years of grinding they got a deal with Wild Pitch. I’d heard Keithy E, Mike Dee & Damo D-Ski on the radio back in Boston then all of a sudden they had made a record. If he didn’t go to New York who knows when Boston would’ve ever gotten on? I had to go. Nothing was gonna stop me. It didn’t stop Guru (Mike Dee eventually came back to Boston).

I left @ 10 PM Friday night on the 15th and I didn’t sleep on the bus in hopes I could use the WiFi to my full advantage and hail someone who was around Manhattan at the time I’d be arriving. No dice. Everyone was either out of town or in for the night. I had nowhere to crash when I got in at 2 AM Saturday morning so I just headed for Penn Station. I could try to figure out what to do next from there. I don’t sleep and neither does New York. Thank God.

I located Penn Station and I began trying to figure out exactly where Bridge St. was in Brooklyn. After spending 30 minutes looking at a New York Transit map I’d figured out that I’d needed to go to Downtown Brooklyn. I asked someone what stop Downtown Brooklyn began at and I was told Hoyt St. I decided to wait until about 6 AM and take the 2 train into Brooklyn. I went to explore Manhattan & the ins & outs of Penn Station. There’s a movie script in there somewhere, I promise you.

I estimated that the ride from either 33rd & 7th or 34th & 8th would take between 30-45 minutes since it was somewhere between 15 and 16 stops to Hoyt St. I’d be in Downtown Brooklyn by 7 AM and that would give me plenty of time to find the spot on Bridge St. before anything started up.

I took the 2 train to Hoyt St. and realized that Bridge St. more than likely was somewhere near Brooklyn Bridge so I just walked towards it for about an hour until I eventually found the Bridge Parks and Farragut Homes. I’d essentially walked by faith and not by sight like in the movie “The Book Of Eli”. Well, except for the fact that I could see and all I did was walk towards a huge bridge at 8 AM.

Ten minutes later, I found a sign that said “Bridge St.” on it in Farragut Houses. The Fat Beats warehouse was less than a block away. All I had to do was kill about 4 hours before anything started. Problem was it was getting progressively colder and it was starting to snow. Rather than try to wait for the Chinese spot to open I decided to find the closest train station & maybe take a nap. I walked down the street until I found the F line station at York & Jay St.

I went down into the station that seemed to go on forever (and only had one exit), took a seat and attempted to sleep. Given that I hadn’t slept since the 14th, I was cold as fuck and both my phone and iPod Touch were about to die this was a good time as any to try to rest. The constant trains and fair amount of sub crazies coming in and out of said station cut my total estimated good sleep time down to about 45 minutes.

When I noticed that it was finally past noon, I checked myself to make sure I still had all my belongings (why take chances?) and got my ass out of the station. It took about 10 minutes just to get streetside. I walked back through the Bridge Parks and Farragut Homes to get to the warehouse just to see this sign on the front door. I went around back & opened the door.

I walked up the stairs to the third floor. The hallways & stairs smelled of metal & fresh paint. It reminded me of the time I spent working in the warehouse of CD Spins (RIP) on Congress St. near the harbor in South Boston. I began to hear music after the first landing and once I hit the 3rd floor I saw this door and knew I was finally here. I’d saw some of the guys that work here around 10 AM so technically I was the first one here.

Everyone was still setting up and there were a few folks milling around inside. Turntables and records were being brought out. I talked to Bert, whose Fat Beats web guy about the redesigned site. He’s the dude I saw when I was out front @ 10 AM. Joe Abajian was there as well. His kids were helping him bring out records and playing in the corner as the set up a performance area.

More and more people came by as time passed and I began to notice that some of the folks looked pretty damn familiar. After I’d talked to Joe and told him how much I appreciated all the hard work he’s put in for the past almost two decades DJ Eclipse stopped by for a minute. Also, I noticed the dude in the corner on his phone was AG. Diggin’ In The Crates AG. The dude from “Party Groove” & “Soul Clap”. Just sittin’ in a chair, chillin’. That just doesn’t happen back in Boston.

I decided to quit with the journalist bullshit and do what I came there to do. Dig through the crates. It really hit me how my role had changed within the world of underground Hip Hop as I dug through the records and realized that I’d actually built relationships with a lot of the artists whose records and CD’s I was physically touching. I saw the vinyl edition of Danny Brown’s “The Hybrid” and it bugged me out. Then right beneath it I saw the t shirts FWMJ designed for Fat Beats last year. Coincidence?

I saw Sav One and he pointed out all of the promotional items and special vinyl that they had stocked in the back where the offices were. What’s crazy is you could find stickers and evidence from a bygone era of underground Hip Hop all over the place. Tables and desktops all around me featured tags & autographs from names that filled my crates, hard drives and my iTunes music libraries. I looked and saw people whose album I’d been promoting on the internet for the past 5 years.

I was a record store guy that took to the internet when the independent record stores around New England I was so accustomed to frequenting began to disappear. The irony of becoming the guy that was pushing music events online but rarely going to said events began to hit me at that moment.

I was meeting people left and right that I’d known and had known he for years but I just met or had only met recently. I instantly remembered my mixed feelings after so many of our talented Bostonians left for New York for that very reason. Donna Summer. Arthur Baker. Guru. The Vinyl Reanimators. Armand Van Helden. Madsol-Desar. Cherry Martinez. Statik Selektah. Termanology. J The S. Maya The B. TeLisa D. Omega Red. The list goes on…

It makes perfect sense to move to New York for work and networking purposes alone. I’d only been in Brooklyn for 12 hours and I’d already met a gang of my favorite emcees, DJ’s, producers and journalists in that warehouse. I saw Maticulous, Eternia, Kev Brown, Kaimbr, Sadat X, Sacha Jenkins, Dan Love, Masta Ace, Marco Polo, !llmind, Mista Sinista, Homeboy Sandman, Craig G, Grandaddy I.U., DJ Neil Armstrong, Large Professor, Neek The Exotic & Damu The Fudgemunk all in a stretch of two hours. That would never happen back home in Boston.

I was even asked by Sav One to introduce Eternia & Mista Sinista. I was just gonna intro E all quick & get my ass in the crowd but Eternia gave me license to do it my way. I decided to tell an abbreviated version of my trip from Boston to Brooklyn for the people them. I think it went over well. Also take notice of how crappy my own 2 megapixel camera pics are in comparison to these professional ones.

I ran into my girl Amanda Bassa and we finally took some time & caught up with each other. See, Amanda & I both have a gang of things in common as we both started writing around the same time and were adamant that we stay as anonymous as possible early on so people focused on our words rather than other superficial things. After a while, she decided it was more beneficial to get her face out there and be recognized. I eventually followed suit after my three year run on Poisonous Paragraphs ended.

 After an epic day at Fat Beats I decided to take the Megabus back home to sleep, write and catch the beginning of the Celtics/Knicks series at home. Amanda gave me a ride into Manhattan to Penn Station but the weather had gotten exponentially worse (the opposite of exponentially fresh). I ended up having to wait close for 90 minutes in a torrential downpour for the Boston bus to show up due to weather related delays. Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun! © Rebecca Black

I was wet and tired and groggy and sore but at least I got about 4 hours of dreamless sleep in. The bus got into South Station in Boston at just after 4 AM. I limped my waterlogged ass streetside (the escalators were off) and got into a cab. Less than 10 minutes later I was in front of my building on Columbus Ave. in what seemed like monsoon season.

I took myself inside to my apartment, changed into dry clothes and went to sleep. For those of you that know me this is not something I do very often. To summarize, I left Boston for New York at 10 PM Friday night with no place to stay and made it back home Sunday morning at 4:30 AM.

Even though I hadn’t fully planned out the trip and had no clue what I was doing I made it there, then to Brooklyn and back home successfully. Sure I was tired, and sore from walking and wet from nonstop precipitation but I finally did something I should’ve done a long time ago. More than 25 years ago, Keith “Guru” Elam took a trip to Brooklyn to make his dreams come true and now he’s gone. Had he not taken that trip then, who even knows what I’D be doing right now?

Rest In Eternal Peace, Guru. We’ll be celebrating your life, music and your legacy @ Boston Hip Hop Unity Fest on May 21st. Maybe some of y’all will take a trip from wherever you are to Boston to be there? We’ll see…

One.