My original plan was to name this chapter Fairfax High. Since fellow Fairfax alumni, Anthony Kiedis (of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers) beat me to the punch, I find it fitting to set this segment off by paraphrasing a quote from Anthony`s book "Scar Tissue" as a scene-setting backdrop.

"Fairfax high, a sprawling school, on the corner of  Fairfax and Melrose. Fairfax was a true melting pot. There were Chinese immigrants, Korean immigrants, Russian immigrants, Jewish kids, and tons of black kids along with the…

Today my former boss (Dr. Dre) makes another trip around the sun, which gott me to thinking about my time spent with him and the staff at "The Math". I remember once "2001" was in its finishing touches phase, we were already beginning to come up with ideas for my album. Since I didn`t produce but had a keen sense of what I like to rhyme over, I would bring "pause tapes" to demonstrate to Dre, Mel, Battlecat, or whoever what I wanted to make. A few times I recall playing the ideas for Mel when Dre would walk…

IF THE NAME FITS

In 1987 the only other "Hit Man" I knew of in Hip-Hop was Hit Man Howie Tee, who was a dope D.J. and Producer (who came to prominence during the "Roxanne" craze of the mid-80s). Since I knew that he spelled his name the usual way, I chose to add another T to mine. I loved the way it looked on paper too with an extra T and all. Then, I thought it needed another name to go along with the HITTMAN part of it. I ended up calling myself HITTMAN Delancey for a spell. I got the name Delancey…

3 Kings (RUN-D.M.C.)

Back in 83, when I was about ten years of age, my usual Friday routine once I came home from school would be to bum a blank cassette tape off of whoever in my household had one to spare. If nobody had an extra, I would then try to find an old factory cassette with content already on it, then I`d place scotch tape over these two square holes at the top of the cartridge. This enabled me to record over what existed initially, an early form of overwriting if you will. After that, I would…