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William ShawHalf way through making the children's packed lunches this morning I stopped by the laptop and saw I'd got an email from Kimeyo.It's a real joy to hear from him. The email gives no clue to what he's doing now; it's just a short note. It gives a phone number, but I'm guessing he'll be asleep by now. Kimeyo was a young man I first met on a street corner in Southcentral Los Angeles when I was writing a book called Westsiders. Over months he became the real star of the book, which was about young Southcentral men trying to make it in the hip hop industry. There were rappers who had greater rhyme skills, and one or two who were better connected, but none had the obvious charisma that Kimeyo had back then. He had good looks, a casual, husky flow, and always an aura of mischief about him. As I spent time in his company I discovered he was also a genius at ducking and diving, searching out the next connection, getting the next day's studio time for free, hooking up with the neighbourhood's hip hop stars, hustling a few dollars just to keep on the move, always on the verge of greatness. He never got the deal he deserved, but that, of course, was the theme of the book. He was also his own worst enemy back then. You'd have to read the book to find out the sort of craziness he got up to in those days. He's an older man now. I don't think he'd thank me for dragging everything he did back then into the public eye yet another time.  But what I also learned was he carried a lot of baggage. Like a lot of the young men I met there, he had had a shitty start in life. A lot of his material was about the father he'd barely known. His father had been murdered on 7 July 1992. I remember the exact date because it featured in one of Kimeyo's rhymes, one called Dear Dad. There's a part of West Coast hip hop that is all about making you remember things. I still have the CD. Like so much of Southcentral's music of the time, the track was about bearing witness, making a connection to that catastrophic sense of loss that floated everywhere, making what was invisible to most Americans visible. It was about telling stories, most of them true.When the book came out he took everything I'd written on the chin, which was generous. I put in a lot about his personal life. Some of it cannot have been easy to read. A couple of years later, when he almost had an album out, he flew me out to LA to write some more about him. That was fun. He was getting married. He had a deal on a new label. It was nice to imagine that he might finally get somewhere. He didn't. Things fell apart again, disastrously, typically. Every few years he calls me, or sends an email. I promise I'll keep in touch. I let things slide. I'm always grateful to hear he's well. Every time there's another story. I'm sure there will be this time. I emailed him back. "I'll call you tonight."  8:46 AM - 15/3/2007 - post comment
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