Did anything like that ever happen? If so what really went down?

Kane: I remember something like that happening with Melle Mel. Biz and Mel got into it at Latin Quarters one night and Biz was telling him I’m not no battle rapper and if you want to battle, battle my man. Mel was like I’m not talking to your man I’m talking to you. I was like I’ll take his spot and Mel said something like nah money go get a record first. As far as KRS, I think the first time we met was a battle in Canada. Everybody went over there thinking they were gonna do shows and when they arrived they found out it was set up for the U.S to battle Canada. Cut Master DC battled a DJ over there and ate him up. There was a female rapper over there named Michie Mee, she ended up coming here to sign with First Priority, she ate up the rapper from here, a chick from Harlem named Sugar. Biz handled the beat box cat from over there, I battled the solo rapper and KRS battled a crew of like three rappers. They had it as Boogie Down Productions as a group against they group but really it was just Kris, D-Nice and Scott La Rock when Scott was still alive. That’s when we met. We sat and kicked it and he was like I thought you only did the funny rap stuff that you be doing on the stage with Biz, I didn’t know you could rhyme like that. That was the first time he really heard me rhyme rhyme because when I was onstage with Biz, before I made records, I used to say funny rhymes about chicks. So he was impressed I could do stuff like that and we just kicked it. Afterwards we got cool and it got to the point when I moved out from my moms him and Ms. Melody came and helped me move. It was like me and KRS carrying couches and MS. Melody got one end of the TV stuff like that.

Haha

Kane: This is like during the time him and Shan is going at it. He came to help me move cuz we kicked it like that. He even knew that I wrote the “Have a Nice Day” joint for Shante dissing him. We sat and cracked jokes about it at a bar. He’d be sitting there saying I knew you were gonna say something about the nose, that type of shit.

You brought up the ghostwriting. I know you wrote a lot of Biz’s stuff, how did all of that really get started?

Kane: It honestly got started by Biz just asking me to write something for him. It was the type of situation where when me and Biz met he thought I was a one dimensional rapper and all I could do was battle rhymes. So Biz started trying to switch it and flip it on some funny stuff and I switched it to that too. Then he tried to switch on some story stuff about broads and I started doing that. Then afterwards he was like man you nice you got a lot of styles. So when Biz started doing his thing he wanted me to write things pertaining to certain topics like “Pickin’ Boogers,” “The Vapors,” even with “Nobody Beats the Biz.” Biz would be standing over you acting all crazy like ‘Yo, I want a rhyme but I want it to be in a style where I’m rhyming like aziga ziga ziga ziga zee.’ So I’d sit down and put it in the style that he wanted. Then when Marley found out I was writing for dude I guess he passed the word to [Fly] Ty and that’s when they started really fucking with me hard and wanting to do stuff with me. Then Ty asked me to do something for Shante and when that “Have A Nice Day” joint came off he was like we need to get you to do some more stuff with Shante, are you gonna finish Biz’s album dada da it was that type of thing.

In your mind, was it just cool to write rhymes for them or somewhere in the back of your head were you ever like these cats is getting mad props off of my shit?

Kane: Biz was my man and it ain’t like I’m gonna say that shit. I’m not gonna make no song called “Pickin’ Boogers.” That’s Biz doing him so it wasn’t nothing that clashed and Shante was a woman so what she was saying also wasn’t going to clash.

Was Biz always there when you were writing for him or did you have a certain style in your head that you knew he’d be feeling?

Kane: Nah, Biz always created his own style, like the way he wanted to flow on something.

One of the deepest songs you did was “Who am I” with Malcolm X’s daughter. How did you get up with her and find out that she was a rapper?

Kane: Damn that was so long ago. I can’t say for certain but I think I met her husband first and he introduced me to her. She came by and spit something. I saw the direction all her verses was going plus knowing who she was I was like we need to do it that way.

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Posted by Halftime on Thursday, April 8th, 2004 and is filed under HIP HOP ICON SERIES.