The next day I got back up with Boomtown to kick off another run of music video shoots.
Back in March, while I was still locked up, my team released a mixtape called Burrrprint (2) for sale on iTunes, made up mostly of songs I’d made with Drumma Boy prior to getting locked up. That project sold like twenty thousand copies in its first week with little promotion, and a few of the joints off it had taken off. So I’d made sure Boomtown was ready to shoot videos as soon as I got home. We had five on deck. I already had the perfect video vixen lined up.
Keyshia Dior. I’d first seen her in Timbaland and Drake’s “Say Something” video not long after I went back to Fulton County. Then I came across her again in XXL’s Eye Candy. She was the new chick in the industry and I had to meet her. I had my assistant Amina book her as soon as we locked in the dates with Boomtown.
The first video we shot was for “Everybody Lookin.” The next day I had a photo shoot for Rolling Stone and then another video for “Boy from the Block.” Keyshia wasn’t scheduled to show up until the next day. We were going to shoot a video for “911 Emergency” at Club Life, but I caught word that she had gotten into town a day early. So I told Amina to bring her out to the set of “Boy from the Block.”
The magazine photos didn’t do her justice.
“You’re gorgeous,” I told her. There was no playing it cool.
“Thanks.” She laughed. I must not have been the first one to tell her that.
I told Keyshia to stick around after we finished shooting “Boy from the Block” but she turned me down, telling me she’d see me the next day for our scheduled shoot. That only made me want her more.
We had such a good time on the set of “911 Emergency” the next day. Amina had hired a whole gang of models for that video but I made sure Keyshia knew she was my leading lady, that she had everything she needed in her dressing room, that she felt comfortable and taken care of. I wanted her to feel good about coming out here.
After we wrapped up I practically begged her to stay an extra night in Atlanta so I could take her to dinner. I’d done nothing but work since I got out of jail and this seemed like a break worth taking. She agreed.
Keyshia and I went to dinner at the InterContinental Hotel in Buckhead. We were still wearing our all-white matching outfits from the shoot. We ordered the same thing, salmon with mashed potatoes. I took her hand as we left the restaurant. The whole situation was out of character for me. I knew she was special.
Keyshia was stunning but it was more than that. I’d been with a lot of pretty girls. There was more to her. I may have first fell for her beauty, ogling her pictures while I was sitting in the clink, but I quickly began to appreciate her as a person.
Keyshia was from Jamaica. When she was ten her father was killed, and after that her mother moved her and her brothers out of the country. They spent a year in Canada before settling down in Miami.
After high school she enrolled in nursing college, following in the footsteps of her mother, a nurse practitioner. But Keyshia wasn’t meant to be wearing scrubs. This was a girl who’d been voted best dressed in her class every year in high school. Her passion in life was clothes, makeup, and hair. Fashion and beauty. So she dropped out and enrolled in cosmetology school with a dream of becoming a stylist to the stars.
On a chance encounter Keyshia had gotten cast in that “Say Something” video and became something of a star herself. The girl was a fox with a look all her own. The chick with the Mohawk and blue lipstick.
She hadn’t let the sudden success get the better of her. From the modeling jobs and paid appearances at nightclubs Keyshia had made herself some money in a few short months, but she’d saved it, she told me. She wanted to launch a line of cosmetics—lipstick, lip gloss, eye shadow, shit like that. As I watched her talk about her vision I could tell this wasn’t somebody flapping her gums. This was someone who when she set out to do something, she did it.
We’d both been through a lot. A few years after the death of her father, one of her brothers got killed in an incident where a gun misfired. But Keyshia was like me. She was resilient. She was a survivor. I was so drawn to that.
We had our differences. Keyshia was not much of a partier and definitely didn’t do drugs. She said she hardly even went out unless she was getting paid for an appearance. So I downplayed my vices. I’d already thought about what she may have heard about me or read online, so I didn’t need to add any concerns. Plus I’d just gotten out of jail, so besides smoking weed I really hadn’t done much partying or drugging of late.
We fell hard and fast for each other. Keyshia went home to Miami the next day but soon I asked her to join me on the road as I did my best to keep up with a grueling schedule of shows, media, and studio sessions. I was really into Keyshia but I was also very preoccupied with my career. I’d never been busier.
?
The State vs. Radric Davis had sold just short of a half million copies and Todd and Lyor had their sights set on my next album being an even bigger success. So did I. Georgia’s Most Wanted: The Appeal would dwarf The State vs. Radric Davis. It was a foregone conclusion. My first night out I’d told the world that I was on a mission to become the biggest rapper in the world and I’d meant it.
I had to go even bigger with this album. I wanted to work with Swizz Beatz. Done. I wanted to work with Wyclef Jean. Not a problem. I wanted to work with Pharrell. Let’s fly to California. Everything I wanted, Warner Bros. would accommodate. I was the priority.
And I was enjoying it. There’s a line on that album—I spent my winter in a jail so I’m ballin’ all summer—and that’s what it was. I was making up for lost time. I’d always been a spender, but I took it up a notch that summer for real. I might walk into Magic City on a weekday, throw twenty thousand dollars in the air, and leave thinking nothing of it.
I was about to appear on VH1’s 2010 Hip Hop Honors show, where I was going to perform a cover of Master P’s classic “I Miss My Homies.” I was excited for that. P had been one of my biggest influences. I figured what better way to pay tribute to the original Ice Cream Man himself than to show up onstage with a three-hundred-thousand-dollar ice cream cone chain around my neck. Excessive? Not to me. Compared to all my chains with the crazy fruity colors, this was toning it down.