There are a lot of really crazy scenarios that I have found myself in over the course of my career, but very few where I have felt like I was in a physically dangerous space. A big chunk of my early freelancer story was spent in the indie hip hop scene in Chicago, which has some incredible oddball characters and takes place in some less than stellar situations. But nver more of both than when I was working with the villain, Tony Varga aka Vengeance*.

Many of the personalities in that world paint themselves as criminals in order to sell a sound and an image, but some are genuine, honest-to-scripture law breakers. This does not also necessarily make them bad people, in my estimation, it is possible to be a morally sound criminal who does only that which is needed to survive. That world is full of honorable goons.

Then there are the actual, true-and-living demons who do terrible things and enjoy it.

Meeting a Local Legend

2004: Vengeance was an Evanston rapper who had made a name for himself in the mixtape scene, he’d been dropping consistently every 3-4 months. Everything on every one of his songs was trap shit, or gangster music that is specifically about selling drugs and the spoils of profiteering. Again, a lot of this world is about the illusion of street life, and coming from working class and middle class neighborhoods around Chicago you learn to scan that which is real from that which is not.

The mistake that I made in meeting Tony V was in failing to see that Vengeance was not a persona he adopted for the stage, Tony was the persona he adopted to deal with the civilized world.

Our introduction was less than eventful, and he did not strike me as a crazy dude. I had heard mad shit about him, but there are a lot of primadonna feathers to ruffle in the scene along with villainous masks to be shared. He was sitting in on a mobile rig session I was running with one of my regular clients, Q. We’d done a couple of tracks that Tony had heard and liked, our shared homey thought we should connect. Despite the reputation, I was interested in meeting the man.

“Vengeance” had gotten kicked out of several studios for various shades of villainous conduct — receiving oral sex from a groupie, torching up blunts in the vocal booth (nono at 60/hr yo), believing that firearms have any place in a working studio environment, aggressive tendencies towards engineers and staff, and on one occasion having to be removed from the space in police custody. That is what I had heard about Vengeance.

Tony was a quiet dude who didn’t draw attention to himself. He knew his buddy was there to get some stuff done with me and he respected that. We were in the back of his Q’s place of employment, my mobile studio set up in a store room, and we got a couple of tracks laid in after hours. I was packing up my rig at the end and Tony asked if I would bring it by his house and help him get a couple of tracks together for another mixtape.

“So, a six hour block for Saturday?”
“Yeah, what’s that lookin like?”
“We can call that 200 for the 6.”
“Bet.” and we shook on it (well, dapped and clapped, but it’s a handshake).

He was very cool and very chill, did not strike me to be anything like the rumor. The owner of one of the studios he’d been banned at had explained that there were two sides to him, depending on whether he was “on” or not. If it was just him, he could be very reasonable and normal. But when he was in his mode, all of that was out the window. He was a master liar and would make commitments as easily as he forgot them, so I had that to look forward to. Again, you take all of this for chatter until you get some real mileage working with someone, how bad can someone be?

The day that I recorded Vengeance at his house, he was most definitely in his mode, and the Tony mask was off.

Session I

There were about a dozen people in a one bedroom apartment, everyone milling around continuously. Loud TV in the corner blaring action movies – clack clack bang bang. Endless clouds of dirty mersh weed that they were swearing was sour d. Endless malt liquor, and the volume levels that go with it. Very much the party atmosphere. Tony explained to me that he liked a “genuine” environment to work in, his tapes were so popular because they reflected this authenticity. He sounded like the blocks he came from, it was “all real”.

Okay, haven’t quite dealt with live sound in a studio workflow, but what the hell. This could be regular Saturday money if I can make it work.

It was a six hour block with a courtesy stretch to burn discs at the end. It was grueling. Vengeance believed that he was the next Tupac-level talent (they all do) and thought he had to bring the work ethic to match. Every word out of his mouth was bagging and selling and packing and yelling, no variation. With his genuine atmosphere getting increasingly rowdy and tore up.

The only time Tony handled his people was when he was recording and they would try to add backup vocals or otherwise dick around with the microphone, but that had less to do with getting a good take than the whole “boss’s space” thing. I was trying not to be too much of a gear nerd while protecting a delicate condenser from a bunch of idiots who thought it was a dynamic. “Please don’t grab the shockmount like that. No, it’s called a shockmount.”

I was doing all of the work in headphones, having trouble combing the background chatter on the vocals in the recording down under the beat while ignoring all of the chatter happening in the room. Getting mocked by some lieutenant when I asked the room to quiet down during final mix. “Sorry Professor, didn’t know you couldn’t work your magic around some real street shit WE’LL TRY TO BE QUIET FOR YOU.” And repeated clack clack bang bang from the TV in the corner.

Handing over the discs, time to pay the Piper. Tony tells me he needs to talk to me in private. It looks like the rumors about forgetting commitments were true, I could see the 200 evaporating. More snickering from Team Vengeance as we went to the kitchen to talk it through.

“I only got 50.”
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier? I wouldn’t have done it for just 50.”
“Yeah, figured. That’s why I didn’t say anything.”
“Not cool. I can’t record you again until we’re square.”
“What about next Saturday, another block?”
“Not until we’re square, you gotta understand that.”
“My dude got popped and I needed the grip for bail.”
“Sorry about your mans but we can’t record again till we’re square.”

Tony apologized for all of it and for his team being dicks, he understood my perspective. He helped me schlep gear out to the car and reassured me he’d make it right, he wasn’t just going to screw me for that 150.

Two days later he called me up asking for another block booking the following Saturday. “I’ll pay you 500. Get you right for both weeks and stack a little more on top for the trouble.”
“Dude I’m gonna need to see that at the top of the session, no bullshit.”
“I hear you, roll through. We’ll be straight.”

(Almost) Session II

The following Saturday, I’m back over by Tony’s building, not too far from Howard and Damen — the part of the neighborhood that stays jank. Odd drifting ghosts and half-dead zombies, almost noon and they blink away the sun. I park around the corner and walk up, ring the buzzer. He comes downstairs.

“Where’s the equipment mang?” I had come empty handed, the gear was in my trunk.
“Let’s get square on that money, then I can set up.”
“Stop bullshitting man, let’s go grab your gear.”
“I said no bullshit yo, top of the session, you said we’d be straight.”

His reaction was like that scene in Nightmare on Elm St 2 when Freddy peels that kid off like a skin suit, Vengeance jumped out of the Tony shell and starts barking loud about trust and respect and What His Name Means In the Streets, etc etc etc. Then, like the eyes going back into a squeeze toy being released, Vengeance settled back under the surface and calm cool Tony was back. He motions me to follow him to his car, parked by his front door. “Get in, let’s talk.”

I’m sitting in his candy purple PT Cruiser with him, windows rolled down, he cranks up some music. He asks me if I know who he is, what he does. Not the bullshit on the records, but how he lives. He pulls something out of his pocket, sets it on his knee, his hand moves away. It’s a lump of crack in cling wrap, about the size of a walnut.

“The money I pay you is off this here. You still want to be a bitch about it or you wanna help me build something?”
“We had a deal. We agreed to terms for last week and this week, you can’t meet the terms. I’m not being a bitch, I’m sticking to the deal.”
“Well sometimes the rock moves the way I need it to and sometimes it doesn’t. Past week it hasn’t.”

I look around the car, seems he wouldn’t have any difficulty selling the whole walnut in under sixty seconds. I guess the look on my face gave it away, and I could see Vengeance starting to bubble back to the surface.

“I guess you don’t want to know about all of this then either,” and he pulls a gun from his waist and sets it on the other knee. Chrome finish automatic, guessing it was a 9mm. “We gotta do a lotta ugly shit out here to get money to pay nerds like you to use your fancy mic and get that bass banging. You wanna know about it?”
“No.” My eyes were stuck on the shiny metallic finish. His hand wasn’t on the grip but was only a couple of finger widths off of it. “I honestly don’t care how you make your money, and I don’t need to know about it.”
“What’s it gonna be then? We recording today or what?”
“Tony, I don’t want any problems. I told you, I can’t record you until we’re square. You said you could cover last week and this week, and that you could do it at the start of the session. That didn’t happen, so I’m going to go. Whenever you want to square up, we can do more work, but not till then. Okay?”
“Get the fuck out of my car then.”

Have you ever had the sensation of walking away from something that you think might put a bullet in you? It’s not pleasant. Even in my car and driving out of the neighborhood, I had my head on a pivot. I knew I had ducked a fairly close shave with a genuine sociopath and didn’t put it past him to stay mad and come find me.

Rumor Mills and Reputations

A week or two later Q gives me a call.

“Heard about what happened with you and Tone.”
“Yeah, pretty messed up. Don’t ask someone to work if you can’t pay them.”
“He’ll get you right eventually, he’s not a bad guy.”
“Dude he has no intention of paying me anything. He wants me to just be down for Team Vengeance and put in work on love for a local boss. No.”
“So you wouldn’t work with him again?”
“I’ll work with him if he pays me, but I don’t think he will.”

This exchange then makes its way through the mill, and a week or two later, I’m on the floor at my digital print gig and a call comes in on the business line. Vengeance, not Tony.

“What’s up nerd? I heard you been talking some shit about me?”
“?”
“Q said you didn’t think I was gonna pay you what I owe you.”
“I don’t. I haven’t heard from you since that last Saturday at your house.”
“But I told you I was gonna get you right man, now you’re out here shitting on me.”
“I wasn’t volunteering anything to anyone. Q asked me how it went and I was honest about it.”
“Keep my name out your mouth man, don’t talk about Tony and don’t talk about Vengeance.”
“Okay mang, you keep your word and pay what you owe and I won’t have a reason to talk.”
“What I OWE? You gonna try and act like I owe you something? You wanna try and take something off of me? Dude your mom works at Korpi Store and we can grab her. Take something off of you.”

Again, the feeling that you might just get shot in the head. Any second, a bullet will rip through and that will be that.

“Tony, if you go near my family, we’ll call police. Don’t call me again.”

He hangs up. I didn’t hear from him again. In that last conversation, I let him know what I’m about: a law abiding citizen. If something goes sideways, I’m not going to be out in the streets with a weapon handling things myself, I’m calling the damn cops. So no surprise that I never saw that other 150, I wasn’t going to try and G it off of him and that was the only kind of business he understood.

Vengeance definitely had things to say about me after that, the same rumor mill would have it trickle back that he said I was soft, bitch made, couldn’t be around some street shit, yadda yadda ya. The only thing I said about him publicly after that was that he is an intense, genuine guy (where is the lie?)

Most of the Time…

The truth of it was, I was very comfortable being around “some street shit” and wasn’t bothered by it. To contrast to Vengeance, I remember two brothers who also lived in that area around Howard (otherwise known as The North Pole). One of them was a rapper named G-MO, and I had the rig at their crib recording him and another Evanston rapper named Baglz who put the whole thing together.

G-MO and his brother had a bedroom with an empty closet primed to set up a recording space. I ran a session with GMO and Baglz with quiet in the house. G-MO rapped a little of that tough guy shit, but he had other things to say and was definitely concerned with a better tomorrow. Baglz, as usual, was keeping it convoluted for the cafe girls. Polar opposite of the Vengeance session. Meanwhile, in the next room, G-MO’s brother was slicing and bagging crack, that was how their family supported themselves. They were both armed, but both were very cool and cordial. G-MO was very respectful and professional in the session, most importantly he treated it like a work session, not a scene from a movie.

As I said, the world is full of honorable goons. I know this because wherever I go, I meet more of them. Most of the street level cats I did business with were like G-MO and his brother: straight shooting dudes who have to do bad things to make it happen. Just because you do bad things, does not necessarily make you The Villain.

Epilogue

About five years later, after I’m out here in Portland, I get an email from a homey from the scene, it seems there’s an infamous Vengeance music video that is “finally” on YouTube. Okay, I may have trouble believing there’s a demand for that dude, but I’m game. I click and check it out. No surprise, it’s more clack clack bang bang, but the video itself has security camera footage of a liquor store robbery. There are a bunch of links in the description, one is to the online Evanston police blotter.

Holy shit! Tony V is on that tape — shooting someone?!? Now he’s locked up?!? And Team Vengeance is working it for promo?!?! Well, I guess he’s keeping it real. Hopefully Cook County keeps him comfy for however long he has left in his stretch.

The real irony is that there is another rapper, using the same name (Vengeance, again, not the real name), who is now blowing up out of Atlanta. So if you do a Google search for {real name}+rapper, you get a ton of results on a really successful cat who is NOT Vengeance.

Does it burn, Tony?

The moral of the story, if one could be said to exist, is to beware the ones who are in love with the dark side. There are true villains in this world, and they honestly don’t care. As independent business people, we are nothing without our word. If you make a deal, keep it.

And always remember, ALWAYS: Never take your mask off on camera. NEVER. #chicagorules