The Rappers

“Oh my, which church is this?” an old lady was asking me at the opening of the community show for MOP.

Meet Car, Butter and Darow. The boys approached me to take a picture for their CD cover. Car and Butter are rappers while Darow is a singer. I met them purely by chance. I was hanging around their neighbourhood trying to figure out why the grass on the loaner D200 did not look green enough. The boys thought I was a cop. Ya, a Chinese Female Cop in a black neighbourhood. Anyway, when I returned to the same neighbourhood in the afternoon, they approached me and I guessed under the pretext of asking me to take their picture.

Me being naive = toot wanted to do a story about the 3 rappers. The first thought that came to me was “Wow these boys have ambition!” That was until I found out that every African American boy in the neighbourhood wanted to be a rapper. But hear me out before you give me the “Why did you want to do a story on 3 rappers?” expression? I got it over wanton mee on Monday. Sigh. No offence taken. It’s just the same old rejection i got in the workshop too.

Butter, 20 year old, the vocal one in the group is a high school drop out. He moved with his mother from California to Jefferson City. Why is he in Moberly you ask? He didn’t give me a straight answer but the workshop mates told me that most kids are sent out to the small towns to keep them out of trouble. True enough, later, Butter admits he did time the month before because he jumped a 30 year old guy who tried to beat up his cousin over a girl. Ironically, this happened in Moberly. He refers to Car’s family as his family but I found out they are not related by blood. He calls them his “heart family.” Car’s Mum, Ms Terry is a childhood friend of Butter’s Mum and she was taking care of him.

The strange thing was, the house seems to be the energy centre of the neighbourhood. Most of the kids in the neighbourhood would hang around the porch. That’s how I met Necy too. Ms Terry, a cook at the rehab centre was hardly around as she was hard at work. The token adult figure seem to be Uncle Al or otherwise known as Big Al or “Loverman” but let’s not go there. It was fun just hanging out with the kids. Stories about how a bunch of kids tried to “jump” Butter last nite was the topic of the day. Although the gang were predominantly African- American, there were some white kids. Mad Matt, who is white on the outside but black on the inside. “He just has a a white birthmark that covers his whole body.” Louis, this skinny, pimply,white boy who was hilarious, with a huge sliver bling bling chain around his neck. Obviously trying to fit in and the boys, i think, did accept him ‘coz he tries so hard. Brianna, Car’s sister and the Applebottom girls (another story) whispering secrets about which boy they had a crush on or who is this weird chinese photographer. Anton, a cousin or friend who was sitting a few feet away from me and with his hands down his pants. I was getting freaked out about why is he jerking off in public. The boys walking around with their baseball bat trying to look intimitating. Any money that they could scrap together or get from Grandma goes into gas for the van so that they could drive around the neighbourhood. Boys, that van was a MESS!! Please clean it up.

Some of the white kids avoid them. It was pretty obvious. As Butter was hassling a white girl that was walking by, I asked him “Why do you do that?”

“Because of the way they look at us.”

It was candid, unrehearsed and straight from the heart. The answer he gave made me decide that their story ( a bunch of seemingly good for nothing kids hanging out on the porch) was worth pursuing. Butter’s story was just one in the group. He has been thrown out of school ‘coz he started fights on most of his first days. He claims that the kids pick on him. The reaction from the community at the opening speaks for itself too. Maybe this was a boy who was trying to do good but the society doesn’t give him a chance. I might be wrong but I thought with the camera could tell the truth about it. He calls his adopted family his “heart family”, closer than his real family. Even though, I’ve met him for a short period of time but on 2 counts, he was helping to clean the house or helping Grandma move (and i did not tell him that I was coming down so it couldn’t be pre-arranged. This is purely for skeptics like me). There are pictures of Butter that I can’t publish ‘coz I could get him in trouble. A bad boy story with fights, drugs and rap(?) is probably sexier but maybe sometimes, just sometimes a story about a person behind that image they conjure for themselves could tell the truth too? I can only wonder and i kick myself for not selling that story better!