Handbook for an Unpredictable Life: How I Survived Sister Renata and My Crazy Mother, and Still Came Out Smiling (with Great Hair) (32 page)

My choreography was beginning to repeat itself. Everyone wanted and insisted on the “Bobby Brown” feel. It bored and bothered me. I told Rolando Hudson, the video director, that I wanted to find real New York house dancers from the clubs that I frequented and use them as extras instead of ones from hip-hop central casting. I wanted to bring a new authentic vibe and style of dance that was absent in the music video world. And I wanted to have Ms. Ross’s hair blowing during the video, like it was in her Central Park concert. He gave me carte blanche—holla!

I flew Arthur and Willie in to do the job with me. Willie and I had made up. He had gotten arrested for some stupid shit right
before he was scheduled to leave on tour with Bobby. Willie called Arthur in a panic, asking him to ask me to bail him out after Bobby refused. What can I say? Under the tough act, I was still a softy. I paid the bond. Willie got released too late and cried like a bitch when I had to tell him that Bobby called me (can you believe that?), asking me if I’d ask Kaylan to take Willie’s place, which he did. So Arthur and I took him along.

I knew exactly which dancers I was going to hire, a group of kids popular in the clubs for developing a new style that combined house, hip-hop, jazz, soul, and African dance—Stretch, Henry (aka Link), Jamal (aka Loose Joint), Trini (who danced for Salt-N-Pepa), Peter Paul, Frankie, Tron, Casper, Rubberband, Peekaboo, Asia, Marjorie, Voodoo Ray, Caleaf, and Caleaf’s younger brother, Ramier, to name a few. Not only were they among the most popular in the club scene, but I especially took notice of them because I had fallen in love, at first sight, with Ramier a couple of years earlier, but was too shy to act on it.

Ramier was from East New York—a nice kid from the projects with strong, hardworking parents, a tough loving mother and a sweet stepfather who did their best with four kids. He was sweet, sexy, loving, patient, hood, and could dance his ass off. Once he found out that I was in love with him, he became my man.

I couldn’t handle being so in love. I’d had only two real boyfriends before Ramier: Louis Padilla’s brother, Freddie, who quit me after a week because he said I couldn’t kiss (it was really because I wouldn’t put out, but who’s counting) and Alan Stewart, who I dated in college. I turned every minor incident into a dramatic novela scene, subconsciously trying to make Ramier prove his love for me. But he was wonderful. He offered me true love and security, which empowered me to share my childhood with him, especially stories about my mother. He was the only person since my friend Eileen and her mom, Gene, that I told. For some ungodly reason, Ramier wanted to meet her. I refused. I told him
that I hardly visit and since she wasn’t of sound mind it wasn’t a good idea. He insisted. I gave in.

We walked into Lydia’s apartment. Ramier was surprised to see how cluttered and messy it was since I had become such a neat freak.

“Ma, this is my boyfriend, Ramier.”

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Perez.”

Ramier held out his hand. Lydia offered a limp handshake without saying anything in return. Oh jeez.

We sat down in the living room where a couple of my half-brothers were. Ramier introduced himself to them. They were polite but were letting him know, without saying it, that they didn’t like the fact that he was black.

Then one of them excuses himself and goes into the kitchen where my mother was. They both started whispering and giggling, thinking that we couldn’t hear their conversation, but we could hear it clear as a bell.

“Oh my God. He’s so black! Their babies are going to come out with nappy hair!” said Lydia, chuckling.

Oh, why did she have to say that?! That was enough for Ramier. He got up, grabbed me, and said, “Let’s go.”

We left without saying good-bye. Outside, Ramier turned to me and started laughing.

“Yo, no wonder you’re so weird. Your family’s fucking crazy. And I’m sorry, but your mother is fucking nuts!”

Oh my goodness! That was music to my ears! I wasn’t the complete asshole I’d judged myself to be for feeling the same way! I burst out laughing.

Roland Rolando loved the dancers, and the video was a hit. Diana was a hoot too. She never came to the three weeks of rehearsal, showed up late to set, learned a few steps, and still killed it. And that hair was blowing, honey! That video, because of the dancers, changed the game, and most of the guys went on to their
own successful dance careers, dancing and choreographing various artists from Mariah Carey to Michael Jackson.

Andre Harrell of Uptown Records came over to the Mayflower Hotel on Central Park West to see me about choreographing one of his groups, Heavy D & the Boyz, for their new video,
We Got Our Own Thang
. He wanted that club feel from the Diana Ross video. Andre had put me up at the hotel—just for an interview, mind you. He wasn’t trying to see me in Brooklyn, and more important, I had developed a reputation for being late. It was pure PTSD. I would get so freaked out about being late, like back in the Home with Sister Renata, that I would end up being late.

I had invited Kathy to stay with me. We began to get close. She would hang with me a lot—clubbing, eating, and sleeping were our favorite things to do. I feared being alone in a space that wasn’t familiar, a result of staying in Titi’s abandoned apartment by myself with the constant threat of someone breaking in. Kathy had fallen on hard times financially, so it worked out to both of our benefit. Also, I was tired of getting hit on by music company executives and managers, and I wasn’t trying to be alone in a hotel with Mr. Harrell.

Our appointment was for 4:00 PM. By 9:00 PM, I had given up on Mr. Harrell, so I took a shower and got into my granny nightgown and satin cap. (Yes, a granny nightgown and satin hair cap, just like Sister Renata! Can you believe it? Not for nothing, a satin cap does wonders for the hair.) Ten o’clock, the front desk called, said that Mr. Harrell was on his way up! Kathy just sat there finishing her Mississippi Mud Pie, laughing at me scrambling about trying to find my bra. Too late, Andre was knocking. Kathy opened the door and flopped back down on one of the twin beds. I quickly ripped off the satin hair cap, trying to smooth out my hair.

“Hi, Mr. Harrell. Please come in. Sorry about my attire. I didn’t think you were still coming.”

“It’s all good, Money. Call me Andre. Let me see what you got.”

“Oh! Now? Okay.”

I turned on my boom box and started dancing, barefoot, in my freaking granny nightgown. Kathy was quietly cracking up behind Andre’s back. I was so nervous that I did a jump too high and fast and my freaking tit fell out! I kid you not! Mortified!

“Oh my goodness! I’m so sorry, Mr. Harrell!”

Andre was smiling, trying not to laugh.

“It’s all good, Money. It’s just a tittie. Ain’t like I never saw one. I mean, I never saw your shit, but it’s all good, Money. I like it. Let’s do this! Make some money! I’ll send my boy Puffy around to pick you up and take you to Hev’s in Mt. Vernon. He’ll be your driver to take you back and forth. We start tomorrow with rehearsals.”

“Wait, Puffy? You mean Sean Combs, the club dancer?”

“Yeah. He works for me at Uptown. Him and Hev are tight. He’ll pick you up in the morning. Don’t be late. And watch them titties, Money!”

He left. I turned to Kathy and jumped up and down screaming with excitement.

“Yo, Puffy’s a dick,” my sister interjected.

“That’s all you can say?”

“Uh, okay—happy for you—did a great job. And Puffy’s still a dick. You better watch your back with him.”

Puffy was well known in the club scenes, and not everyone liked him. The dislike came from him always being on different kinds of hustles, sometimes at the expense of others, and because most of the dancers in the clubs felt he didn’t have an original style of his own and “bit” off of everyone. It may have been true to an extent—about his various hustles—but Puffy did have something of his own vibe. Okay, so he did bite off a lot of dancers. But, every dancer bit off of someone—half of the original hip-hop moves were taken directly from James Brown. I was cool with him and didn’t know him well enough to make that sort of judgment based mostly on gossip. I had hated when the “outside” kids and their parents made judgments about me, so I tried not to go there.

Puffy was on time, serious, and all business—I respected that. Almost every day for a straight month, as we drove up the West Side Highway to do
Money Earnin’ Mt. Vernon
, I listened to him spin his tales of how large he was going to be. He kept talking about how grateful he was to Andre and in the same breath how he was going to become a millionaire, take over shit, and one day become Andre’s boss. Most would have written it off as bullshit talking, but there was a bit of me that believed he was going to do it—he was too committed and always on time. “Yo, you should do this shit with me, Rosie. When I take over, shit’s gonna blow the fuck up!”

I loved Heavy D & the Boyz from the first hello, especially Hev—God rest his soul. They were so funny and fun, and never once did any of them try to hit on me. We worked well together—two videos and a tour. And being on a hip-hop tour was no joke. Touring with The Boys—four little brothers accompanied by their mother—was one thing. Being the only girl with a rap group on a hip-hop tour was a whole other bag of tricks.

First day loading up the bus, Heavy told me that I couldn’t be down with the tour unless I rubbed clean the golden eagle’s wings that were molded into the wood-side panel of the bus. I refused. I thought they were trying to pull a fast one. “I’m dead up. Everyone’s done it already. Rosie, if you don’t do it, then you’re gonna jinx the whole tour. Come on, dammit, rub!” I still refused. Heavy got off the bus, saying that he couldn’t get back on until I did it. All the guys, the dancers—G-Whiz and Trouble-T-Roy—God rest his soul too—Black, Black Damien, Deejay Eddie-F, Jeff, came down on me too. I gave in and rubbed the eagle’s wings. “Nah, harder,” said G-Whiz. “Harder. You gotta mean that shit.” I rubbed harder. “Hev! Rosie’s jerking off the eagle!”

That night they put water in my bunk. I had to sleep on the narrow, tiny sofa up front. The next night, wondering why my bed stunk so badly, I found half-eaten chicken bones under my pillow that they had hid. Another night they locked me in my hotel room
by jamming the lock, making me late for roll-out, laughing at my ass running after the tour bus. They’d ask me to watch a comedy with them, and it would turn out to be a porno. They were constantly making fun of my accent and my obsession with my hair, and had spontaneous play-fights where it would be me against five to seven guys—all this young boys’ club shit was never ending, and I loved every minute of it. Fun. Fun. Fun.

Although I had a great time with Hev and the guys, I hated being on a rap tour. The high level of misogyny resulted in a lot of frustration, and the loneliness got to me. There was, and probably still is, an unspoken rule in hip-hop: a guy can be the biggest ho on the planet, but a girl is a slut, a dumb bitch—degraded and scorned in a hot second—if she bats an eyelash at a guy. And every woman in hip-hop was fair game, especially when we toured with groups like 2 Live Crew, who had dates on the tour as well. (Not for nothing, they would rock their set every freaking night.) Almost every guy on all the tours I worked on hooked up and had a little black book of groupies sorted by the various area codes. The guys were never frowned upon, but the groupies were. Groupies ran high, and the disrespect for them on the road ran higher. They would have girls give blow jobs for free tickets, bang them out on the empty tour bus before rolling to the next gig, make them show their tits just for a laugh, all that shit went down. Good thing was, Heavy D & the Boyz never stooped that low, and if they did, they never did it in front of me like other groups did.

This type of juvenile behavior made women who were serious about their careers very cautious, secretive, and bitchy. You had to be. Heavy had sat me down one night after I innocently waved back hello to MC Hammer.

“You can’t be like that. You can’t be waving at niggas like that!”

“I was just waving hello. And please stop using the N-word. Besides, Hammer is a nice guy but not my cup of tea, and I have a boyfriend.”

“And? I’m telling you. No one will take you seriously—your career will be done. It’s fucked up, but that’s the way niggas are, and that’s the way shit is. I love you, Rose. You need to stop acting all naive and shit and wise up. I’m just looking out, ’cause you’re my little sis.”

Digital Underground had joined the tour for a few dates. That’s when I first met Tupac. He was a dancer/roadie/guest rapper for the group. He had this wide-toothed, shiny bright smile that was infectious and inviting. “Hey! What’s up, Rose? I’m Tupac.” He was sweet, shy, funny, very intelligent, extremely charismatic, and another dented can.

God bless America two times that he showed up, it was fun to have another sensitive goofball around. We hung out a lot, cracking corny jokes, discussing literature and film, hearing his poetry, hearing his dreams of success. He would also share his tales of neglect during his childhood, share his pain in an honest way. His ability to be so open was impressive yet haunting. I didn’t have his courage at the time to share mine with him. That took a while. Weird thing was, Heavy and the rest of the guys never said anything about our budding connection. Tupac had that effect on people. Everyone just respected him. Yeah, he hooked up with females, smoked weed, and got drunk too much, but he also had this integrity that few questioned. Gosh, I really miss that guy. God rest his soul.

Russell Simmons and Lyor Cohen hired me to choreograph and stage Slick Rick’s show. He was booked on the July 1989 LL Cool J Nitro tour, along with Eazy-E, N.W.A, Too $hort, and my favorite, De La Soul. (Now, De La Soul probably had their hook-ups, but I never saw them act disrespectfully toward women, ever. Plus, most of the time we would hang out, all four of us, and do stupid fun shit. I loved hanging with this bunch of nerds.)

I liked Ricky, he was very sweet with me, but back then I knew not to cross him or his crew. They had a volatile rep. His dancers hated me too. They were insulted that I was hired to “fix” their
show that they had put together. I got it. Plus, I was making more money than they were—that pissed them off too. Most people understand that the choreographers naturally make more money than the dancers, but they didn’t get it. The attitudes, the sucking of the teeth and rolling of the eyes at every suggestion, just slowed shit. And when things would escalate, Rick’s mother would step in on their behalf and nothing would get done. It was exhausting.