It’s not supposed to be like this, you know. As I’m watching the Al Jazeera clips this weekend with Amir Junaid Muhadith wax poetic, beard, kufi and robes in place, I’m thinking how much of an actual superstar he really is, is supposed to be. Chauncey Hawkins that is, the man I know as Loon. Out of almost everyone I represented in the music industry, Loon was probably the most natural, the most likely to succeed, as they say. The only thing making sense is that he is actually on national television. Not that converting to Islam is anything out of the ordinary for rap artists. Just the whole thing playing out like a scene from a bad movie. Then I start playing the movie back from the beginning.

I met Loon back in 1995. I was representing Lindsey Williams. Lindsay worked at the now defunct EMI Records. Was responsible for signing the new agey, quasi political, folksy feel-good rap group Arrested Development. Before then, he worked in the trenches at Rush Management, side by side with Lyor Cohen. Spent a lot of time on the road with the likes of Big Daddy Kane and Slick Rick. Lindsey had some great stories, especially how Rick and Kane were like best friends that always stayed in beef, how Kane had to snuff Rick in the jaw once, just to put him in his place. So Lindsey, whose grandmother is also the Sylvia of Harlem’s famed tourist food spot Sylvia’s, calls me one day. Says he’s managing a two man group named Crime Family, and how they just got small offer from Tommy Boy Records. He needed someone to close the deal quick and cheap. He brought the group to my office so we could meet before any bread-breaking. Loon and Nitti. Just two younger cats from Uptown. Didn’t get to really hear how they sounded, what they were about, I was just trying to do Lindsey a solid, that and pay my bills. Since I had just done a deal with Penalty Records for CNN (Capone & Noriega) and Penalty was a label run under Tommy Boy, me and the lawyers sealed the Crime Fam deal quickly. Contracts signed, hands shook, checks cashed, we kept it moving, and that was the last time I heard from Crime Fam.

A year later or so, Tommy Boy started changing their roster, experimenting with the direction they were taking, had even done a deal with self help guru Deepak Chopra. They were scaling back from their involvement with rap music, with Hip Hop. Timing was off and Crime Fam never had a chance. They were dropped before the ink on the contract had a chance to dry. Then, if I remember correctly, Nitti got popped and was doing a short stint in jail for something. Loon called me. Said he needed my representation. I took a meeting with him. At the time, he was putting his demo tape together and was getting mad beats from a famed Harlem DJ whose very name I can’t remember as I’m writing this. I wanna say it was DJ Doo Wop. Some street cats were investing money into Loon, and they wanted me to shop for a new deal. No lie, Loon’s demo was dope. The word play, how he crafted songs that were delivered like it was effortless, but flowed, almost in a conversational style. Beat selection was on point too. Should have been easy getting that deal except for one big problem, Loon’s voice, nasal, lazy sounding, sounded too much like Ma$e’s, the new rapper who started to pop behind a single “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down” featuring none other than Sean “Puffy” Combs. It didn’t matter that he could rap way better than Ma$e, everyone was going the compare the two, and Ma$e had the upper hand, being that he came out first. Still, something told me to stick with him. Loon started stopping by my office, more frequently, almost on the daily. Had one disgusting habit though. Whenever we met, he’d pull my waste paper basket from the side of my desk and would casually spit in it. The longer our meetings, the more he would spit. Used to piss me off, especially since I used to warn him not to do that shit and how he would ignore me and continue spitting, like he had a problem with his spituitary glands and what not. Him leaving me with a basket filled with his saliva close to my desk. Still, Loon was extremely talented. The more he stopped by, the more he shared about his history, his background. The more I learned, the more fascinated I became. Chauncey Hawkins was most definitely a one of a kind kind of dude.

Being a Brooklyn cat, it never ceased to amaze me how Harlem cats were so damned proud about being from Harlem. Like that shit meant they was royalty. Especially the closer they could claim to hailing from actual individuals who ran the upper Manhattan streets. They respected the crime/ street game like most others respected what college you graduated from, what profession you claimed. From Dame Dash to my attorney friend and office mate Matt Middleton, them Harlem kniccas made sure you respected their Harlem pedigree. Maybe that’s why there was always a subtle rivalry between BK and Uptown dudes. Two extremely proud ass boroughs. Loon was no different, other than the fact that he WAS, by blood, a product of Harlem’s true royalty. Loon’s parents were Carol Hawkins and William “Hamburger” Hughley. They were a couple that were known as Harlem’s true Bonnie and Clyde, running all types of street hustle on 116th Street during the pivotal 1970’s and also the 1980s. Chauncey Hawkins was bred to be a true blooded street hustler, especially since his true god-father was famed kingpin Nickey Barnes. I could only imagine the birthday parties, his first communion with Harlem’s finest all in attendance.

Then there was high school. Things had gotten hectic in the Uptown streets. Drug related fights turned to shootings, turned to murder turned to kidnappings. Chauncey’s mom wanted her son away from the meaner streets and sent him as far way from Harlem as possible, to Los Angeles. Chauncey had a 2nd god-father who lived in Los Angeles, George Jackson. Born and raised in Harlem, Jackson was a film maker who used his skills to escape the streets of Harlem. Having produced movies “Krush Groove”, “Jason’s Lyric” and incidentally, “New Jack City”, Jackson was in a better position to take care of Chancey than his actual parents were. Once in Los Angeles, Loon made it a point to reconnect with the streets, hanging with gang members. Being completely unaware of the L.A.’s gang culture, but eager to claim his spot, Loon ended up getting into fights with people he shouldn’t have, thus earning the nickname “Loon”, like in crazy as one. The name stuck. During the day, Loon was enrolled in the famed Beverly Hills High School. His classmates were Monica Lewinsky and Angelina Jolie. Hailing from the streets, but not unaccustomed to wealth, Loon fit right in.  Comparing the differences between both worlds, Loon once remarked “poor people in Harlem are miserable because they’re poor and rich people in Beverly Hills are miserable because they have too much money, life’s crazy like that.”

Back in New York, and taking all of his influences to forge the image of the smooth, ice cold criminal rapper, Loon set out full time in building a successful music career. It didn’t hurt that he was handsome. [||]. Women loved him. I once even heard wifey talking to her girlfriends about how dude was all the right types of chocolate. On top of sounding like Ma$e, Loon went so far as to record a diss song aimed at Puff and Ma$e, him spitting subtle threats over the same “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down” beat. As good as he was though, I advised him there there was no way he was going to win in a battle against Bad Boy. Puff was too big and Ma$e was climbing way too fast for Loon to catch up. I figured the best option for us was that old “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” approach. Bad Boy always kept their doors open for me, plus at the time I was working with top Hitmen producer Deric “D-Dot” Angelettie. Angelettie had even recently shared how Puff and Ma$e recorded “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down” as a joke, released the single without much thought, and were more than surprised at how well that record did on radio and in retail. I called Deric up, told him I had something hot for him to hear, asked him to keep an open mind.  We met at Daddy’s House Recording studio in midday, midtown. I didn’t want Loon and Ma$e to be in the same room being how Loon dissed him. I wasn’t looking for no types of studio drama, didn’t want to ruin any chances Loon had at getting that much coveted deal. Instantly, Deric realized how dope Loon was, with the wordplay, the writing, how Loon’s persona fit the Bad Boy image to a t. He was sold, and I could tell he was trying to think of how to spin this one to Puff, how to make it work.  Funny thing is right in the middle of our meeting, Ma$e calls Deric up as he was working on Ma$e’s album. As they’re talking on speaker phone, Deric asks Ma$e if he ever heard of Loon, what he thought of him. Ma$e’s responded like he was unimpressed, like he “maybe, kinda heard” of this “small cat”, had even heard a “weak” diss song. Loon, pissed at how he felt Ma$e was being disrespectful to him, let out some slick threat’s about how their “beef” was now “official”. Like Ma$e and half them Harlem kniccas didn’t steal their Harlem World style from Loon himself. As the meeting broke down, Loon ready for war, I suggested we leave the studio a.s.a.p. as I wasn’t willing to wait around for Ma$e and his “peoples” to show up.

Going back to the drawing board, Loon stayed focus on recording more songs, on honing his skills, on staying out of trouble. I felt that since we struck out with Puff and Bad Boy, our best shot would be to go over Puff’s head. Clive Davis was running Arista Records, the label that was home to Bad Boy. If you don’t know, Clive is the legendary record exec known for his knack in discovering and developing great talent. He’s known for discovering everyone from Janis Joplin to Aretha Franklin to Whitney Houston (pre- Bobby) to even Puff himself. Word on the street was that Bad Boy and Puff had gotten too big under Clive’s house and he was looking to keep his main negro in check by showing to the world that he could break his own rap artist under Arista proper. Time began to work in our favor. It took a full year to lock in a meeting with Clive, but our efforts paid off. Plus, by then, Ma$e debut record “Harlem World” sold millions of units. Ma$e’s success landed him a small label situation at Arista as well, and he was looking to put together a Harlem World group. Knowing full well that it wouldn’t make sense to have a Harlem World act without Loon, they squashed their beef. Ma$e soon offered Loon a deal as part of the group. Loon was eager to sign anything at that point, and the Ma$e affiliation looked real promising to him. Still I insisted that he remain patient. I felt Loon deserved a solo career. At the time, Loon had become very good friends with Clive’s newest pet project, a talented and beautiful singer/ songwriter named Alicia Keys. Loon even claimed that because of the closeness of their relationship, he himself gave Alicia the “Keys” name. Unsubstantiated, I believed him. Things began moving quickly now. Ma$e was putting soft pressure on Loon to sign to Harlem World. Loon was ready to sign anything. It was hard, but I managed to hold him off from signing anything, not until we met with Clive.  Our meeting was set and it was only a matter of time before my dude Loon would become the house hold name he deserved to be.