diamonds on my neck, di-diamonds on my neck

At this point, it's safe to say seeing asians in the hiphop game is about as rare as seeing courtney love pass a sobriety test (add your own metaphor in the comments section). Although they do exist, it's usually been relegated to some behind-the-scenes capacity. asians have certainly carved out a niche for themselves by dominating the scratch dj/turntablist scene. Probably thanks in no small part to q-bert, a flip who is one of the few asian-american roles models in the entertainment industry. Nevertheless, even q-bert, the crowned prince of turntablism, is a relative unknown to your average g-unit buying consumer. It's also worth noting that despite the large numbers of asian dj's, of all the commercial dj's with mainstream exposure, none of them are actually asian (think funkmaster flex, dj envy, dj clue, green lantern, whoo-kid etc…). chad hugo is another flip who's one half of the wildly successful production team, the neptunes, but if you ask most people, they think the neptunes is just pharrell, and it certainly does seem that way considering pharrell's overexposure. Asian bboys/dancers have also done well, but they usually come in crews and dancers don't have much commercial popularity to begin with. Probably the best they've done is in hiphop journalism and fashions. for some reason there seem to be a ton of rap journalists/academics, mostly coming out of berkley. miss info is one of them, she was one of the first writers for the source, and gave illmatic a 5 mic review. in terms of fashion, all the major hiphop labels, sean john, phat farm, enyce etc, have an asian lead designer.

  

In 2001, a chinese mc named jin absolutely annihilated other mc's on bet's 106 & park freestyle Fridays. Despite having to deal with constant racial barbs, jin was able to take everything in stride, often using his opponents remarks against them, "you wanna say I'm chinese son, here's a reminda/check your timbs, they probably say 'made in china' ". Jin won seven consecutive weeks and became the second contestant to be inducted into the freestyle hall of fame. He also became the first asian mc to sign with a major rap label after he announced his signing with ruff ryders (there had been some underground asian mc's such as mountain brothers and the visionaries). Then everything went downhill. His album was a flop and his lyrics were terrible. In a bizarro-world twist, his freestyles were actually better than his writtens. He proved this once again when he won the prestigious fight klub tournament but couldn't even get his videos to air on mtv2. He also appeared in the film 2 fast 2 furious to less than stellar reviews. So basically that's been the extent of asians in hiphop. In fact, pretty much up until now, the most shine we've gotten is from the wu-tang clan's obsession with kung fu flicks or when jay-z said "I'm the franchise like a Houston Rocket, Yao Ming!" in the excuse me miss remix.

That is…up until now. What you know about johnny dang aka tv johnny aka johnny diamonds? I was watching paul wall's performance at the vma's when something caught my eye. In his entourage, I could've sworn I saw a fobby looking asian guy decked out in jesus pieces and an ice grill. I thought I was hallucinating, but then the camera panned again and there he was! This guy looked like a complete refugee right off the raft, no immigration papers. In fact, I thought he looked strikingly similar to one of my uncles. Anyways, I found out he's partners with the people's champ in the jewlery game. I wonder if he sits crooked in his slab? Or probably 'srab' as he would pronounce it…

i got the internet goin' nuts

we had a virus on our network so i was working until 6 am then i had to wake up at 9 am. anyways, now i'm deliriously tired and i was listening to some music to keep myself awake when i heard the most ridiculous line of the year and i started laughing at my desk. people were looking at me and i had to get up and pretend to go to the bathroom. so now they probably think i'm a crazy guy who laughs when he has diahrrea.

by the way, the line is from paul wall on "drive slow"

you seen dem 4's crawlin',
you seen dem screens foldin',
the disco ball in my mouth insinuates i'm ballin'

the people's champ is the modern day keats. except with diamond fronts.

caribananas 2k5

I used to think it was way too cold,
Until I went to Canada and saw some beautiful hoes,
Now I hit the Caribana every year in Toronto

                   - Ludacris, "Pimpin All Over the World"

So before I knew it, it was time to get my ludacris on again this year. Caribana time, it's a celebration bitches! This year I was determined to go all out, which meant taking Thursday, Friday and Monday off work to create an unprecedented monstrous 5 day long weekend to spend in debauchery. The theme of the weekend? Me constantly getting screwed over like Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm. Here's a recap:

We started off on a positive note by booking two connecting rooms at the sheraton centre on queen st. this hotel is one of the best in city and is so centralized that it's walking distance to everywhere we needed to go.

This is when the larry david adventures began. Tina, Ajay, Alicia and myself were supposed to leave at noon, but we didn't hit the road until 3pm. I borrowed the mdx, so we could watch dvd's on the car ride over. We started driving and after like an hour, I was already tired and decided we should stop for a picnic. Ajay's mom packed us some sandwiches so we pulled over to a picnic area next and ate on the picnic tables.

Eventually we hit the road again, and that's when we started watching the season 1 dvd of curb your enthusiasm, that definitely set the tone for the rest of the weekend, especially that stupid, yet brilliant theme song (are those tubas, trombones? What?).

So we pull into the tdot at around 9:30 pm. The only reason we even left on Thursday is cause jr flo was playing at the steve nash party at inside. We check into the hotel and I yelled at everyone to get ready as fast as possible because even though we were on the guest list, flo told us to get there before 11 PM cause it was gonna get crazy. Everyone actually did get ready pretty fast, but then they insisted on pre-drinking in the room before the club. At this point I was getting really ansy, because it was already around 10:45 pm, but at the same time I didn't want to ruin everyone else's fun and seem like the party pooper. Then shom came over and told me to stop pressuring everyone and suggested we go get pizza. Then we took our sweet ass time and went to amato's, shom even called our friend kevin, who already in line at the club and told him to get out of line and come get a slice. At this point I was really stressing while everyone was laughing and having a good time and stuffing their faces with pizza (cue larry david theme song).

Finally we get to the club at around 11:45 and the line up is ridiculous. In fact, it's not so much a line-up than just a mob of people standing around the entrance. People were clawing their way trying to get to the bouncers. Finally we got to "earl" the bouncer who was supposed to have our bracelets for us, but he told us to go wait in the guest list line. So we waited…and waited…and waited but the line wasn't moving and the mob kept getting bigger. We should have known things weren't looking good when we saw nba ballers arrive and even they had to wait in line. Michael Finley waited like 20 minutes. We saw finley, chris bosh, shawn marion, charlie villenueva, mo pete and some raptor scrubs like roger mason jr, chris jeffries and loren woods. Marion was with the same girl that we saw him with at the club in athens so at least it's good to know he's always blasting the same chick when he's out of town. Even the unofficial king of tdot kardinal offishall was kept waiting for almost an hour. He's weird cause he hasn't had an album in like 5 years but appears in every single music video from sean paul to clipse to rihanna. Our chances weren't looking so good. Stupid pizza!

Then a strech explorer pulled up right next to us and doors opened and one by one out came the wayans brothers. First damon, then shawn, then marlon. We all started laughing because they came out of the limo in the same order they came out the womb. The wayans brothers didn't have to wait in line at all. I wonder what would've happened if a limo pulled up with jackie chan, michael chang and long duc dong...

So finally we make some progress and we get to the front of the line. Then someone yelled to shut the doors and just like that they closed the club. Yup, we were at the very front of the line and we got shut out. Soooooo wack (cue larry david theme song).

We all kinda just *sighed and went back to the hotel. As somewhat of a consolation, we later found out that the cops raided the club and shut down the party because they were over capacity. Afterwards we met up with flo and we went to get some jerk chicken roti. Went to sleep around 6 am.

Daily Larry David screwed over factor: 5/5

Woke up and walked around looking for a place to eat. Alicia craved pickle barrel so we walked up and down yonge street looking for it. Eventually we realized that the reason we couldn't find it is because it was being renovated and wasn’t open (cue larry david theme song). We were starving so we settled on the food court in eaton centre. After food I was so tired I took a little nap while ajay drank by himself in the room and the girls went shopping. Ian, alex and michael arrived at the room next door so we opened up the connecting doors creating what would come to be known as simply "the zoo".

At night, uma came to pick us up to go to the steve nash charity game. The girls were standing outside of flow 93.5 radio station and saw jay-z come out. then we drove there to see if we could run into kanye and maybe give him a beat tape. I was standing in front of their van and a cop asked me if I was with "the roc", but I said no so he asked me to step to the side. I should've just said yes and waited in front of the van so I could've punched kanye in his reconstructed jaw. So anyways kanye came out but I didn't have shom's cd to give him then he got into the van and sped away with lots of weed smoke coming out the windows. smoke the la-la-la, it's the Roc bitch!

We headed down to the acc and met up with flo and suzanne and went to the game. The game was aight, there was some sick moves by jenero pargo, iguodala killed it with some nice dunks/dunk attempts, but as usual, not everyone that was scheduled showed up, including iverson, who was supposed to be the main attraction. He's like jesus at caribana. I just assumed that he was arrested or something. During the whole game ajay and shom were steadily getting wasted so surely that was a sign of things to come.

appropriate giveaway for caribana

After the game we went back to the hotel to get ready to go out. We ended up going to Lot 332, where flo was playing on his birthday. The bouncer wouldn't accept alicia's mcgill id. dejected, we walked all the way back to the hotel to get her driver's license (cue larry david theme song), i hate toronto. Once we got inside, it was definitely less of a caribana crowd and more of a 240 crowd but fun nevertheless. We chilled with saukrates who was dancing real gay-like to house music. This is canada's best mc, and he regularly hangs out with redman and method man but he was dancing so homo, it was kinda funny. yagga yagga indeed.

This is when shom began his spiral. After the jam, Kev and I went to go get the cars so we could all go eat. We quickly realized ajay was missing so I called him. He said he left the club because he wasn't feeling well and said he was having heart palpitations (most likely he was just really drunk). He went to his friend's house who's a doctor and asked for a full check-up involving a stethascope. I told him to meet me back at the hotel. As he was walking down yonge st by himself, he called me practically in tears saying he was scared to death. Apparently he had tried to "befriend" some new york brothas and they yelled at him for walking too slow. Then he was too scared to walk on the sidewalk so he started walking on the street but then the cops yelled at him and told him to get back on the sidewalk. He begged to the cops that he was too scared and asked for their help but his pleas were ignored. I told him that if he was scared he should just walk down one of the less hectic side streets, but when I offered my suggestion he kept yelling 'fuck you, fuck you!' at me (cue larry david theme song).

After we got the cars and picked up ajay, we went back to the club to pick up the others. At this point, shom was already passed out on some stairs outside. We had to carry him into the car and after a few minutes of driving he said he had to throw up, so I pulled over and the girls opened the door for him. But instead of just sticking his head out of the door, he completely fell out of the car and landed face first in a puddle on the street. I had to lift him and carry him to the sidewalk where it looked like he just got clapped. At this point, mad people had witnessed this and were in a state of shock. So many people came up to us to offer help cause they thought he was really in serious trouble, especially after seeing his body fall out of the car. One gay guy even gave us his half drunken bottle of water.

Shom didn't throw up on the sidewalk, so I tossed him back into the car and gave him a plastic bag to vomit in. We decided that before we went to eat, we should probably drop him off at the hotel. When we got back, we had to figure out a way to get shom up to the room without having to carry him like a dead body. Our first thought was using the luggage trolley, but we asked the front desk manager and he said that was unacceptable. Then we asked for a wheelchair and they eventually obliged. a god damn wheelchair, now that's caribana level! We dragged him out of the car and put him in the wheelchair and shom barfed all over himself and his crotch was covered in vomit. Then we wheeled him around and started taking ridiculous pictures of him in the wheelchair and posing and stuff. When we got to the lobby, everyone was wildin out, laughing and stuff. People were making calls on their phones, jumping up and down. One guy even hung up his phone and begged tina and kev to tell him the whole story. Tina filmed the whole thing and it looks like a full interview.

Ajay and I brought him back to the room and dumped him in the bathtub where he passed out immediately and started snoring. Then we went to 7west to eat and didn't sleep until 7am.

Daily Larry David screwed over factor (for me): 2/5
Daily Larry David screwed over factor (for Shom): 5/5

Shom emerged from the bathroom Saturday morning not remembering the previous night's events. He opened the blinds and that's when we coined the phrase "seal the crack!" in reference to closing the crack in the blinds.

Saturday morning was all about damage control. Shom had parked his car in a lot but was afraid it had been towed. He didn't have any clothes to wear because everything was covered in barf and he had broken his cell phone when he fell onto the street. It was potentially a very costly night for him. I lent shom some clothes and we walked to the parking lot and we were relieved to see that the car was still there, the only damage was a $30 ticket, which at that point was a welcomed relief. I also told him to take the phone charger from the car because I suspected that his batteries had died. We got back to the room and plugged in the phone and it worked. So 2 for 2. then we asked the lobby if they had a dry cleaning service, they said no, but there were some  coin-operated laundry machines in the hotel that we could use. 3 for 3. Unbelievably everything worked out for us. To celebrate we, skipped the parade and went to hang out by the pool because it was a gorgeous day.

As part of the sheraton spa services, there was a guy offering poolside massages for a dollar a minute. His name was adam. I've never had a real massage before, I've only ever had a chair massage a few times through work and they were pretty good so I thought, what the hell, I'll just get a 10 minute chair massage from this guy and it'll be ok. I tried to convince the girls to get one too but they were skeptical so I figured if I went first I could break the ice. As I walking towards this man-masseuse, I started having a lot of reservations, so I asked tina to come with me. When I finally went up to him, the conversation went something like this:

Me: umm…can I get a massage?

Man: ya I'll give you a massage, where do you want it?

Me: umm…neck and shoulders I guess?

Man: you want to lie down on the table?

Me*shrugs*: ok

Man: take off your shirt

Me*shrugs*: ok

It was so homo-erotic. Remember, my original goal was a 10 min chair massage with my shirt on, instead I'm lying down on a table with my shirt off getting rubbed down by an aussie (cue larry david theme song). Then the dude starts tugging my shorts down and exposing my ass-crack in front of everyone. This is caribana so there's like full new york thugs staying at this hotel, and everyone could see me with my ass exposed. I kept thinking to myself, I wish he would just seal the crack (cue larry david theme song). At this point tina started laughing and had to leave me. The worst part? The massage wasn't pleasant at all, it hurt like shit! This guy was using his elbows and stuff, I bet he was trying to prove that he wasn't gay and wanted to torture me to prove his masculinity. For most of the massage I was cringing in pain. Then the guy was like "we're coming up on 10 mins, what do you want to do?" and for some inexplicable reason I was like "ok, let's go for 10 more minutes". What the hell?! I was being tortured and humiliated and yet I asked for 10 more minutes? (cue larry david theme song). After the 'MANssage' I had to leave the pool area because i was getting too uncomfortable.

At this point it was around 5 pm and we were supposed to go to dinner at 7:30 pm for greg's birthday, but everyone was starving and couldn’t wait that long, so we went to milestone's to have some appetizers. After we ate we went to check out the show jay-z was hosting outdoors. I don't know why anyone would pay $80 for the show when you could see and hear everything just by standing on the street. Then we went to indian kitchen for dinner for some of the best chicken this side of the 401.

At night we went to the club money, where greg and dj jazzy jeff were playing. The party was crazy packed and apparently jay-z was chilling in vip with mick jagger. The jam was dope and afterwards we walked around richmond st and then went to eat at golden griddle. The griddle was good, but there was a weird cast of characters including a tranny-surprise that looked like golddust from wwf, and some brothas that were dressed like elves. Went to bed at 7 am.

Daily Larry David screwed over factor: 6/5 (because of the 'MANssage')

This was our last full day at caribana. We had lunch at this restaurant called peter pan which was delicious (but gay name), then walked around. Muchmusic was having a dukes of hazzard special, so when we walked by there were a ton of teeny boppers and we were just in time to see jessica simpson, stifler and johnny knoxville get on to the red carpet. Shom was pissed that I was sticking around to look at them and kept calling me gay.

We got back to the hotel and went swimming again. Alicia and I had some aquatic competitions which included swimming race, race with flutter boards and a sychronized swimming competition. Then we hung out in the jacuzzi and watched two guys try to pick up these two girls. They were unsuccesful.

At night flo was playing at essence alongside the soca prince dr jay. This party was off the chain! The venue is 3 floors including a rooftop patio and it was pure mayhem. The lineup was around the block. Our friend rob, KB and his girlfriend all came out. KB's goal was to de-shirt by the end of the night. He was well on his way, at one point he had his shirt completely unbuttoned, except his girlfriend kept forcing him to close it.

After the party we went to fran's to eat another late night snack. Went to bed at 6 am.

We packed up the car, got some popeye's biscuits and we headed back to la belle province. So that was it for caribana 2005. debauchery and wheelchair, see you next year.

Key phrases of Caribana weekend

- getting rev'ved up
- get the wheelchair
- seal the crack
- full train orgy
- the zoo
- trinity chris
- brrruuuup brrruup
- up in de streets dey call it muuuuuurrr-derrrr
- getting ruined
- yooooo guuuuyyy

for more pics and a similar version of this post go here and here

caribana update coming...stay tuned...