With the release of his smoldering Ruff Ryders debut,
The Opposite of H20, Drag-On proves himself
to be more then just a baby DMX.
The line to get into the club stretches far down the block. Walk through the metal detectors and you're instantly transported to a world where conventional rules and wisdom do not apply. It's a world where roaches openly chase one another atop a broken ATM machine, and guys freely grab women's asses. In the world, half-naked women saunter around in cowboy hats and spill out of ill-fitting spandex. The DJ exhorts the crowd to "get the fuck up," and, simultaneously, hopes the room doesn't erupt into a fight (which usually happens at least once before the night is over). In short, Sunday nights at the Tunnel in Manhattan are wild. Hardcore hip hop heads from all over flock to release a week's worth of pent-up tension. Moet runneth over, cigars and digits are exchanged, and couples engage in consensual acts in the unisex bathroom upstairs. Tucked away from all this chaos in a private VIP room sits Drag-On, Ruff Ryders' 19-year-old protégé, contemplative and cool. Tonight will be his first performance at the Tunnel, and everyone in his camp understands the significance of this evening. Notoriously unforgiving, the club's crowd is a thugged-out version of the Apollo's. More than record sales, magazine covers, or heavy radio rotation, the Tunnel is the industry's ultimate litmus test. If MCs make it here, they can make it anywhere. If MCs come wack, you can trust that they will be unceremoniously dismissed. By night's end, Drag-On will rise to this challenge, but right now, as he sits amid a phalanx of friends and well-wishers, he looks a tad bit shook. "New York is funny," he says with a hint of exasperation. "All my best shows are in the South. New York be frontin' on a nigga." After a few puffs on an ever-present blunt, however, Drag-On's tune totally changes. His eyes are red, and he's ready to burn this crowd. "they're going to feel me," he says. "And if they don't feel me now, they'll feel me later. That's my word." they feel him. Big time. They feel the rollicking bounce of "Spit These Bars," and the battle-of-the-sexes duet with Eve, "Let's Talk About." But they especially feel Drag's stop-drop-and-roll flow on "Down Bottom." The room erupts into pandemonium. Sweat-drenched girls in halter tops grab at his legs. Guys stripped down to their wife beater passionately recite every word. And when Drag asks that all-important question, "Do y'all niggas bust your guns?" the fans answer from the heart, "Damn right, we bust our guns!" Obviously, he's passed the test.
Spanish Harlem is where you'll find Mel "Drag-On" Smalls melting into the background. He lives on a low-key block in the largely Puerto Rican neighborhood, a street that realtors refer to as the "good part of town." He's intentionally unassuming, says it's easier to make moves that way. His slight build is made larger by a baggy Avirex bomber. With the exception of a scar that runs like a railroad track between his left temple and cheekbone, his dark skin is flawless. There's nothing particularly distinct about him. He's as unrecognizable as a dot in a Seurat painting. "Sometimes you don't even know he's there," says Darrin "Dee" Dean, CEO of Ruff Ryders Entertainment. "When he's onstage, there's a reason for him to be talking, but when he's offstage, it's like, 'speak when spoken to.' He'll grow out of it 'cause in this business, you gotta speak up." No point in telling that to Drag-On, Mel Small's grown-ass doppelganger. He craves attention and is energized be the spotlight. This side of Mel Smalls is confrontational. Forget speaking up: He shouts. "Drag will battle anyone," says Swizz Beatz, the Ruff Ryders' in-house producer. "I like showing off in front of the cameras," Drag says. "I like the crowds. I love doing shows and having everybody looking at me doing my thing."
Doing his thing has meant performances, guest appearances, and studio sessions that last from sunset to sunrise. He's lent his raspy, chameleon-like voice to two multi-platinum-selling albums, including DMX's It's Dark and Hell is Hot, and his follow-up, Flesh of my Flesh, Blood of my Blood, and the Ruff Ryders compilation, Ryde or Die Vol. 1. Drag ripped shop with veterans like Jay-Z and Method Man on the high grossing 1999 Hard Knock Life tour. And now, he's gearing up for another countrywide tour starting February 16, when Ruff Ryders teams up with Cash Money. He's done all this while writing and recording more than 30 songs for Opposite of H20, his debut album scheduled for release this month.
Drag's a busy man, but on this unusually warm November afternoon, he's taking time off to go visit the neighborhood he calls home. As his car zooms up the Bruckner Expressway toward the Bronx, he deftly rolls what will be the first of many blunts to come. He's been a chronic smoker since the age of 15 and doesn't see himself giving up his hobby anytime soon. "When I was going through mad problems, I used to smoke cigarettes a lot," says Drag-On, as he passes a billboard claiming 3,000 kids will start smoking today. "Now, no more Newports, just purple haze." When he reaches his old stomping grounds, the blunt is pinch-length and he and his cousin/personal assistant, Primo, are sufficiently altered. Hardly a creature is stirring in the sprawling Bronxdale projects on this gorgeous day. Two little kids dribble up and down a cracked asphalt basketball court. The rims are bent and net-less; the only sound is of birds chirping and shots going blang instead of swoosh. Drag says this scene is normal. "All niggas do around here is sell drugs, so they stay out to like four in this morning. Right now, they're probably still in bed watching TV. Around six, that's when niggas start coming out."
Looking more like a penitentiary than a place of residence, Bronxdale wasn't always so quiet. "Back in the day, you couldn't even walk through here," says Drag, pointing out to a police van looming in the parking lot. "You'd get chased out, beat down, or robbed. It was real real wild." Drag's grandmother still lives here alone in a two-bedroom apartment. It's clear from her reaction when he knocks at the door that his visit is unexpected. "boy, I'm here in my work clothes," she begins only half-jokingly, "and now you come up in here with company? I should go upside your head." Although she's lived in the Bronx for 15 years, her words are coated in a thick Georgia drawl. Like any good old-fashioned southern woman, Ms. Daisy Smith keeps a clean home. There's a freshly baked pie cooling on the oven and framed pictures mask the chipped walls. The photo by the bookcase filled with encyclopedias is of Drag's mother, Terry, a young woman smiling in a Sergio Tecchini sweatsuit. Mel came to live with his Grandma when he was 8 because Terry could not adequately take care of him. Life hasn't gotten any easier for Terry, who recently became seriously ill and now lives in another Bronx housing project. It's hard for Drag to talk about their relationship, but it's obvious that he loves his mother. "It wasn't her fault," he'll later say. "She was just weak to the streets. A southern girl who came up here and met all the wrong people."
Both win beds in Drag's old room are neatly made, and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle doll still rests on his dresser. A Sorry board game is set up on cousin Primo's bed old bed. It all began here in this quaint room. "I got him a radio one Christmas," Ms. Daisy remembers fondly. "And he'd just sit in here fast forwarding and rewinding those songs. I was hoping he'd make it." Curled up at the foot of his bed, Drag settles back into his childhood. "I wrote my first rhyme when I was 9, back in 1989," he says. "The first rapper I ever fell in love with was Rakim. That nigga was hot! He was killin' 'em." But too much "Let the Rhythm Hit 'Em," Slick Rick, and Kool G Rap, often landed a young Drag on restriction. "I couldn't play my music Tuesday or Thursday," he says, clearly still bothered by the limitations once placed upon his craft. "And I couldn't play it on Sundays 'cause that was the rest day. Now, I stay in the studio all day and all night on Sunday to make up for all those days I missed."
Drag's comfortable here, so his stutter (which he claims is severe) doesn't surface. Unlike most stutterers who grow up embarrassed by their inability to complete a sentence with sssssstopping, Drag is comfortable enough with his problem to rhyme about it on "ride with Me": "Drag-On speaks with a stutter/ But I flow well/ So, I like a dead snitch/ It's hard to tell." He says he'll be thinking about mad shit, and the mouth is not rapid with the brain. I gotta habit of talking fast, and my niggas are like, 'Drag, slow down.'" Swizz Beatz can attest to that. "When he first came to us, he used to flow real fast," says the producer. "He was going a hundred miles an hour, doing a lot of that tonguetwisting shit. We had to tell him to chill."
According to his Grandma, Drag's problem is hereditary. "Your mother's father, oh, he really was a stutterer. He stuttered so bad you wanted to help him get it out," she reminds Drag, laughing about her former beau. "But he used to sing spirituals with a group, and you couldn't tell he was a stutterer or anything." Drag chimes in, "But as soon as he stopped singing and started talking, you'd wait 30 minutes for a sentence." Grandma and grandson erupt into boisterous laughter like old buddies. Hanging above this Hallmark scene is a picture of preadolescent Mel Smalls, cheesin' Olan Mills-style. In a crisp white shirt and black tie, he looks happy and totally unaware of the hard times that await him.
Over the years, his passion for hip hop deepened and Drag, who decided he wanted to be a rapper when he grew up, started entering and winning local talent shows. Grandma's no-music-on-Sundays policy and 7 p.m. curfew, however, were not conductive to Drag-On's budding career. Things came to a head one New Year's Even when Drag came home late from opening for KRS-One. "She tried to put me on punishment, so I packed my bags and left," he says. "You can't punish me for doing something I love." He was 14. The next three years were both traumatic and nomadic. He never slept in the same place for too long. Some nights, he found himself on a relative's couch, and other nights he'd wake up on trains or curls up in Bronxdale's pungent stairwells. While other kids were studying algebra and contemplating what to wear to school, Drag was lying on rooftops wondering what he possibly did wrong. "I'm thinking, What the hell did I do in my past life. I was apologizing for shit. It was rough" Croak, one of the close friends who took Drag in, remembers that period as being hard for everyone. "There'd be times my mom didn't have a job, and she'd give us what little she had," he says. "We used to eat egg and mayonnaise sandwiches all the time." DMX, 29, who says Drag-on reminds him of himself when he was younger ("we look alike, act alike, talk alike"), can relate to the young rapper's struggles. "It breaks you down to nothing and forces you to survive," DMX says. "But if you make it, you can live through anything."
Seventeen-year old Drag-On ate by helping his uncle push genuine and fake Karl Kani boots and Bear coats on 125th Street in Harlem. "We had the biggest table out there," Drag boasts. "A lot of ladies would buy from me 'cause I was young. At first, they were like, 'Awww,' then they saw this lil' nigga was talking them out of there money." After a mutual association brought Dee Dean to meet Drag one fateful afternoon, that lil' nigga was able to talk himself into an audition with the Ruff Ryders exec. "Dee told me to call him later at 8 p.m.," Drag says. "I called him at 7:59. That same night, I went up to the studio and got into a cipher with DMX. They all felt me."
Inside the shady, shark-infested music industry, notorious for making mincemeat out of its young, Drag finally found stability and a family who understood his artistic needs. "I love him like a little brother," says Eve, 21, sounding every bit like the proud big sister. "I always tease him about getting hair on his face and his voice getting deeper. When we first met, I was taller than him, and now, he's taller than me with my heels on. He's grown up so much."
According to both Eastern and Western philosophical traditions, fire denotes annihilation and destruction, as well as combustion and purification. Those influenced by the fourth element can see straight to the heart of an issue. They refuse to be swayed from a cause they believe to be important. Fire is Drag-On's choice metaphor. His flow is fire, he is fire, and everything he produces is flammable. "Point-blank, I can't be touched," the dragon announces before sparking a lighter to illustrate his claim. "You will not put your finger here because you skin will burn off. All the rhymes that come out of my mouth are mad hot. And you can't blow out my flame."
Arrogant/ Yes, but to his credit, Opposite of H20 will have heads calling on Fire Marshall Bill. Drag's style is versatile, and like a combo platter, he serves up different options. Once minute, he sounds as if he's from the Magnolia projects in New Orleans; the next, he's straight from the Boogie Down. Drag even pulls a Whitey Ford and croons the chorus to "Life Goes On," an anti-Father's Day anthem wrought with searing poignancy and rich with raw emotion: "You know what you did was wrong/ But still life must go on/ You wasn't my daddy...."
They're the words of a young man who never got to be a mama's boy, a kid who never got to be someone's son. "I basically raised myself, and I'm mad at him for that," Drag says quietly. "There were times when I really needed him, times when I needed him to hold me down and show me the way. When he did come around, I would always avoid expressing my real feelings, but Pop, on the real, you be doing me mad greasy." He pauses, "I always wanted to say that, but I held it back. I'm older now and feel like I'm a man just as much as he is, so I spoke from the heart." Maybe, Mel Smalls can thank Drag-On for giving him the strength to face his own pain. "The best way I express myself is through music," he says. And we're left hanging on every word.
