My Voice: A Memoir (16 page)

Finally, Tracy Cloherty, holding the reins as program director, and
Steve Stoute, who was managing Nas then, came to an agreement that, “Okay, we’re going to get him on the radio. Nas is going to come to Hot 97 so that we can squash this publicly.” Stoute told Tracy, “Nas is going to come up and apologize.”

So Tracy calls me into her office and says, “Listen, we’re going to have Nas come up to be on your show.”

“Fuck Nas.”

“No, he’s going to apologize.”

“Well, he better apologize,” I say.

Well, when Nas got there, I could tell he wasn’t informed about the “apologize” memo. So now we’re on the radio, and we’re like two little mad kids with their arms crossed. I’m cocky with my arms folded like, “Well?” And he’s like, “Well?” Because in his mind, he clearly felt something along the lines of,
Shit, I don’t got nothin’ to apologize for
.

Somehow we got through that interview. Nas admitted he had read one of my statements and thought, “Yeah, you were right. I could have just come to you.” I asked that moving forward he would. He agreed.

Toward the end, we both lightened up. I think we were both aware that since we had agreed to be there, that neither one of us wanted to be in a bad place with each other. He was like, “All right already, Ang.” And we just laughed it off and the topic slid off the table.

The following time I saw him, I mentioned it again.

“Are you ever going to let it go?” Nas asked.

“All right, fine, I’ll let it go.”

We’ve had amazing conversations since then. On and off the air. I don’t think he’s ever officially apologized. And I sure as fuck haven’t. But just the fact that we were able to laugh at it after is enough for me. I probably did things, in his eyes, that I should have apologized for, too. But we both had enough respect for each other to just keep it pushing. And yes, it’s true, my relationship with Nas was not my relationship with
Jay. But it doesn’t take away from the fact that I adore Nas and, more important, I respect Nas.

And the good news was that we all pushed past it.

•   •   •

T
he P.S. part of the story is that just as the smoke was clearing, Power 105.1 was getting legs. Nas’s rant gave them a credibility they’d never had before, and now Hot became what Jay was in that battle we just ended. Now we’re the ones to dethrone. And the hate begins. Now we have to work harder.

That was the beginning. Much as I hate to say it as a current radio personality, it really hurt New York radio for good. Before we had this hip-hop radio station that was free to do what we wanted to do, and that was the beauty of it. But as we had feared, the other station made it such that the goals changed. We now operated in a different way. It was the only way to survive.

I remember the reality hitting me and wondering,
Don’t people see it? Don’t they realize that station is going to kill everything?
The new rules would have to become,
Oh, my interview has to be two minutes long, because if we go too long, they’re going to change the dial and we’re going to lose the ratings
. So the interviews were shortened.

This is what happens. It changes everything. It becomes about business.

I mourned. But this was the world we lived in. And to have longevity I had to relearn radio.
Oh, you want my breaks to be thirty seconds long? What? I used to talk for eight minutes. How do I do that?
At the same time, other changes required getting aggressive with social media because now people had other ways to get their info and music.

My way of making it work was to see this as an opportunity to engage my listeners in a different way, trying to focus my energy into forward
motion as opposed to being stuck in what was gone. Yes, you can mourn things when they’re gone, but also, you ultimately have to embrace change. Keep trying to use the things that you learned and implement them in new ways.

Maybe the bottom line is that you have to be honest about the times. In moments when I was nervous or insecure or uncertain, Flex was always confident, always reassuring me, “We got this. Don’t worry, Ang. We’re going to figure this out.” Flex always wanted to win, even before I knew it was important. He always had that thing. So as things changed, he was ready for it.

“We’re going to win,” he’d assure me.

“Okay,” I said, and tried my best to believe
him.

FAMILY AFFAIR

B
esides everything that had happened on radio in 2002, I had been pushing hard as an artist while promoting my second album,
Animal House
. The first single “If I Could Go” (featuring Sacario and Lil’ Mo) was a legitimate hit! Not only was it top ten on urban radio, but it flew up the pop charts, too. The album debuted at #11 on the Billboard Chart. After that I scored a more modest hit with “Take You Home” (featuring Kelis).

When it came time to take stock of how far I could go or wanted to go as an artist beyond the radio mic, I had to face some complicated feelings. I’d worked really hard to create these two albums, which gave me a whole new respect for the artists who are great at what they do. And not just because they work hard to master their art but because they have to put themselves out there to be judged by everybody and anybody. The criticism I got was to be expected on the one hand, but still people were
really
critical. If a song didn’t do well, then it was “keep your day
job.” When some of the releases did really well, I got hammered for being too commercial. The truth is, as hard as people were on me, I was even harder on myself. I wasn’t confident enough to know if I’d ever deliver to my own standards.

In hindsight I wish I’d done a better job of not letting the outside negativity affect my goals as a recording artist. I wish I could have given myself the same encouragement I’d offer to anyone else in my shoes. Even if I wasn’t that great yet, maybe I could have grown and gotten better if I had kept at it. But at that particular crossroads, I didn’t believe I could ever rise to the level of what I could accomplish on-air.

So while I was considering my future as an artist, I didn’t want to miss any opportunities to build my career. That’s what I’d been saying to Pecas, pressuring him to step it up on my behalf. I thought he should be doing more, so I kept on him—
What are you bringing in? What’s next?

So I’m sure he was happy when
American Idol
called to meet with me. The show had debuted the year before and it was a huge ratings hit. After that I had a couple of meetings with FOX, and eventually they offered me the job as the fourth judge—joining the panel with Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson. The craziest part of this was that I had never seen the show. Promoting the album that year, I’d been traveling so much, who had time to watch TV? It happened so fast. It was all in about two meetings, and then they waved me on in—
Okay, come on!

We began with the first rounds of auditions on the road. I believe the first cities were Detroit and Chicago. I was excited that our next stop was going to be New York! The production spared no expense flying us out and putting us up, so I was feeling pretty good about everything as I arrived at the convention space where auditions were held. I saw the other judges, Paula, Simon, and Randy, with their big entourages of hair
stylists, makeup artists, and assistants. Then I go into hair and makeup to find that they have no one assigned to me.
Excuse me?
This is a network television show and there’s a hair person who doesn’t even have a blow dryer or a flat iron. It’s a girl with a comb!

So clearly I’m the stepchild.

Nobody ever sat me down and told me what the audition or even filming process would be, or how I could contribute. They just threw me in. All of a sudden I’m taking on this coveted role and not feeling the love and definitely not feeling cute. From the beginning, the energy was weird. Later it became apparent that the network had wanted to hire me but the production company did not want another judge. So I somehow got tossed in the middle of all of that.

There was another reason I felt not up to par that had nothing to do with not having a hair and makeup person. The truth was that I had just figured out I was pregnant and hadn’t told anyone about it yet. Like nobody.

I had just started dating someone new and literally found myself pregnant three months into the relationship. Nauseous and emotional, I was starting to put on weight and couldn’t do much but put on a velour Juicy sweat suit and try to cover it up.

I called Dame Dash, who had a clothing line with his then girlfriend Rachel Roy—and of course Rocawear, the clothing line he started with partner Jay Z—and he sent four big boxes of clothes right away.

Since the days of him and Jay pushing records out of the back of their Benz, Dame had always been supportive of me in my career. He’s a polarizing guy; either you love him or hate him. But there’s no question that he’s a visionary who had great ideas and took on the execution of projects in his own unique way. He did all these Roc-A-Fella movies that would later become classics, and he put me in a bunch, like
Paper Soldiers
,
Paid in Full
, and
State Property 2.
The experience opened my eyes to the
possibility of acting and trying things beyond radio. So at this point I valued his opinion. He was always somebody I felt was looking out for me.

And now, in this moment of utter uncertainty on the set of
American Idol
, I soaked up his advice about how to handle the situation. Dame reminded me how to stay sane and not get lost in the big Hollywood setting.

“Keep your real friends around,” he said, “’cause your life is gonna change fast, and if you are surrounded by a bunch of new people . . . corny people . . . Hollywood types . . . that’s how people lose themselves. Stay sane. Keep your crew around. Find jobs for them if you need to.”

I kept that in mind as I sat there surrounded by new people, trying to be fair in my role as a fourth judge—the weirdness of what I was doing there, Dame’s advice, my raging prenatal emotions, my empathy for the artists putting their dreams on the chopping block. It was a lot to process. I tried to focus on the talent. I gave enthusiastic feedback, but that was not at all what was demanded. In fact, the show’s producer, Nigel Lythgoe, kept running over to me at the judges’ table and scolding me. “You can’t like everybody!” He kept pushing me to be harder, be harsher. I felt the pressure.

As I was assessing the process, it bothered me to watch the production people send in mediocre or bad singers on purpose. Outside the doors, the team would fill them up with hope about how great they were, only to send them in for us to crush them. And being crushed seemed funny on TV, but when you watched it right in front of you from twelve feet away, not so much.

I’ll especially never forget this Dominican girl from New York who sang Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” She did miss a couple of notes, but for the most part she was great. It could have been nerves that made her miss those notes, but after being told that I couldn’t always like everybody, when it came time for me to give her a yea or a nay, I said
no to sending her to Hollywood. That was hard enough, but before she left the room, as she stood there looking so crushed, she looked right at me and said, “You know, Angie, out of everybody, I thought you would have been the one to support me.”

It broke my heart.

That was the moment when I had to face what had just happened. Wow, I did something that was against who I was. I let the powers that be make me treat someone in a way I didn’t want to treat her. I wanted to support her. I wanted to help her. I wanted to encourage her. She was good! And I let this TV exec make me go there. I hated it. Maybe I was more emotional than usual because of the pregnancy, but the notion did occur to me—
What if one of these kids gives up their dream?
Or even worse, even darker, I thought,
What if one of these kids kills themselves?
When you’re being asked to shit on people over and over, humiliating them for entertainment, this moment of paranoia doesn’t seem that far-fetched.

On my fourth day of being on the road with the show, I’m in my dressing room, and Nigel comes in and very carefully, in his proper British accent, says, well, he doesn’t know if this—me—is working.

“It’s not,” I say. “It’s not working.” I don’t know if he’s about to fire me or not, but I am honest enough to say, “It’s not working.”

“You hate it,” he says.

“Yes, I hate it.”

In the moment I knew I had to leave and the best thing for everybody concerned was to just bow out. Nigel looked relieved. Obviously he could now go to the network and say, “Well, she doesn’t want to do it anymore.” And then they would win.

Without any reservation I quit. The next couple of weeks were a publicity frenzy. After all, we had
just
made the big announcement that I was on the show and now it was over and time to explain. The thing
was, I wasn’t sure what had happened. I hadn’t had a chance to process it, let alone put it into words. Besides being swollen and nauseous, I was also sort of foggy about everything. But this was a big deal and the news did what the news does, like the MTV News piece on October 31, 2002, that said,
A week after signing on to be a judge on the second season of
American Idol
, New York DJ/hip-hop artist Angie Martinez has bailed on the show, citing her discomfort with squashing the hopes of would-be Kelly Clarksons.

After that Diane Sawyer interviewed me on
Good Morning America,
and just before we went on-air she told me that Charlie Gibson thought I was a hero. Evidently, he wasn’t a fan of how some of the kids were being treated either.

Diane added, “I think it shows great character.”

In that moment of vulnerability, her gesture of support and understanding made me feel so much more comfortable and confident in my decision. Sitting across from her, I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

After that interview, I really put the episode to bed.

Ultimately the opportunity of
American Idol
just wasn’t for me. And it’s funny, because later I would watch Jennifer Lopez do it, and she’s so good at it. Plus, she was able to be kind yet also real. But Jennifer is somebody who has walked that walk. She has done those auditions; she knows. That wasn’t my background at all. So I felt like a fraud sitting there looking at those kids and thinking,
How can I tell you what note you should be hitting when I haven’t hit a note in my damn life?

Actually, the highlight of the entire experience came at the very end, right after deciding that I wasn’t going to continue with the show. Instead of going back to my apartment, I went back to my suite at the Four Seasons in Manhattan. That was one thing about
American Idol
that I would miss. They fly you first class, and they put you in suites at the Four
Seasons, with VIP perks everywhere you go. What now? I didn’t know who to call or what to do with myself, so I just called the girls—Nikki, Liane, and Tracey—and they came over. They’re always there for me when I need them most. We ordered room service on
American Idol
. Tracey was like, “Screw it, they paying right? We need to order some shit.” We did—they ordered mimosas, mad drinks and so much food. We analyzed what the next few days would be like and together put some strategies in place and toasted to true friendship.

•   •   •

L
ike a blip that dissolved in time, the four days on
Idol
were soon behind me. My new job was trying to get used to being pregnant—which I never quite figured out. My whole pregnancy was horrible. Oh, it was horrible. People say they have morning sickness? I had all-day sickness for six months. I would be on the radio, do a talk break, and run to the bathroom to throw up. I had to go to the doctor because I started coughing up blood; I was throwing up so much that I started getting tears in the lining of my throat. Yeah, it was bad. Around month six the nausea tapered off a little bit. You would think with all the nausea, I would have lost weight—but all I craved and all I ate were carbs, so it was biscuits for breakfast and mashed potatoes for lunch—by the end of my pregnancy I’d gained nearly seventy pounds. My ankles looked like my thighs. Literally. Like two tree trunks. For the last three months, I could barely walk!

On the last day of work before my maternity leave, Mariah Carey surprised me with a baby shower on the radio. Mariah is a New Yorker and hip-hop fan, so over the years she’d become friendly with a bunch of us the station. And no one is more festive than Mariah! Oh my God, it was so sweet! The whole staff was there; there was cake, balloons, champagne, a huge poster of a baby that everyone signed, all sorts of gifts
like a rosary from Jacob the Jeweler, a car seat from Mister Cee, Burberry baby robes! To this day, people I meet in the streets always say, “I remember you had your baby shower on the radio!” It was so personal, which I don’t usually do. My mom called in to the show and put into words exactly what I was feeling when she said, “My heart is getting ready to explode.”

Shortly after finding out that I was pregnant, I’d moved in with Tamir, the father of the baby I was about to have, in his house in New Jersey, which I’d decided to spend my album money fixing up. The nesting had begun. A lot of complicated issues came up the closer I got to my due date. Of course, I wanted my child to grow up with the benefit of two parents being there, something I’d never had. But this guy and I barely knew each other before conceiving a baby. Plus, I hadn’t grown up with an example of what a good father or husband was. I honestly didn’t know if this was the man I was meant to be with forever. But when I saw what a committed father he was to Jordan, his three-year-old son from a former relationship, I had faith that he would be a good dad to our child. That was the one thing I wanted to get right. The only thing I did know, because I just knew this was a blessing from God, was that I would try to do all I could to create that family setting.

June came around, and this was the first Summer Jam that I was ever going to miss. The station sent a camera crew to my house so I could welcome the crowd on the big screen. In the video, I look like four of me! When you’re pregnant, you’re supposed to have a belly. I was like a full house. You know I wasn’t in my right mind if I agreed to let them film me like that. But I hated not being there and kept getting everyone to give me reports. Paddy Duke told me DJ Mister Cee was overwhelmed by the enormity of the show and said, “I wish Ang was here to see how far we have come.” Mister Cee had been in hip-hop for a long time, DJing
for Big Daddy Kane in the eighties, discovering B.I.G. in the nineties, and was now like our own personal mayor at Hot 97. He cared about the culture and the station as much as any of us and was moved by the massive number of people in attendance.