Tommy read the article and got pissed—at me! Somehow he found a way to blame me for someone else’s fantasy of casting me in a movie (which didn’t even have a love scene, for God’s sake!). As if he were an overbearing father or warden, his anger would permeate the house and rattle my whole being. I got in trouble (yes, “trouble,” because I felt so infantilized by him) for the mere suggestion, made by someone else, of me doing something beyond his control.
The gap between our tastes and instincts in music and pop culture was more divisive than the gap between our ages. In the late eighties and through the midnineties, Uptown Records, led by the late and legendary Andre Harrell, was the label for R & B, hip-hop, and the hybrid that would become known as New Jack Swing. Uptown had Heavy D & the Boyz, Guy (featuring Teddy Riley), Jodeci, Mary J. Blige, and Father MC. Father MC’s album was one of my favorites. Mary J. Blige was doing background vocals and hooks for him and he would also feature Jodeci-love. I would listen to them all the time. Tommy would watch me listening. He knew to pay attention to what I was interested in because he knew my ear and instincts were sharp. But I knew he couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t fully grasp its cutting edge. He never really believed in the enduring cultural power of hip-hop because he couldn’t fully understand it. He thought it was a passing fad or trend.
One night, Tommy and I were out with a group of friends and major music executives, in a beautifully lit dining room in an Italian restaurant that served unforgettable warm focaccia and was frequented by music industry illuminati. We were all seated around a big table. My friend Josefin was in from Sweden, and she and her new husband were among the guests, so it wasn’t completely a work dinner, but at this point my work, social, and personal lives were pretty much one and the same. Even our home had been largely designed for conducting business and impressing partners (though my contemporaries’ main concern was where they could chill and smoke a spliff—of all the lavish rooms available, no surprise, we preferred the studio). We would sometimes host big, festive dinners there, some of which were both fun and fabulous, but they never felt like family. Nothing feels like family when you are under surveillance, which I always was.
The midnineties were an exciting era in music, and I was part of a pioneering generation of innovative young artists, songwriters, producers, and executives. We were intent on making a new kind of sound, based in R & B and rap but unrestricted by old formats and formulas. We were playing with new technologies and irreverently blending fluid melodies with gritty hip-hop aesthetics and energy. The music we were making was raw and smooth at the same time, and we were the only ones who knew how to make it work. It was our sound, a reflection of our time and our sensibilities.
My former manager was also with us at the restaurant. The conversation drifted to Puffy aka Sean aka P. Diddy, who had recently left Uptown Records, where he’d started as an intern, eventually becoming head of A&R. Now he already had his own record label, Bad Boy, and his star artist, the Notorious B.I.G., was all over the radio and beginning to spread all over a generation. The then head of Epic Records turned to me and asked, “So what do you think of this guy, Puffy? What do you think is going on with him? Do you like his music?”
He directed the question to me because I was the youngest person at the table. I also loved and understood hip-hop, and I was the only artist there. Besides, I’d recently worked with Puff as a producer. The table got quiet as I leaned in and gave my honest assessment: that Puff and Bad Boy were definitely where modern music was headed.
Not too long before, at our kitchen table, Tommy had shared his own opinion with me and my nephew Shawn: “Puffy will be shining my shoes in two years.” I was stunned. Wait. What did he say? It was one of the very few times I stood up to Tommy, telling him that what he had said was blatantly racist. I was pissed. Shawn had never seen me talk back to him; he was shocked that I showed my anger and became genuinely concerned for my safety. So many people were then.
But that night at the restaurant, what could have been a robust discussion between industry leader and artist about global culture and the future of American pop music became an epic Tommy tantrum instead. As I was finishing my answer, I saw his eyes flash with familiar rage. He jumped up from the table and began pacing, huffing and puffing around the restaurant. He was so livid he couldn’t contain himself. The entire table sat in silence as we looked at one another, not knowing what the actual fuck was wrong with him (this time) or what we should do. The whole restaurant witnessed Tommy trying to walk himself back down off a ledge only he could see. Finally, he stormed back. Still vibrating with rage, he slammed his fist on the table and announced, “I just want everybody to know that THANKSGIVING IS CANCELLED!” Um, okay.
We were planning to have
