Over the next year, my interest in being with G had gone from little to none. I became enamored with my little boy. My days and nights were devoted to him. Being a mother came naturally to me after so much practice with my sisters. I was no longer cooking and cleaning constantly at G’s command. After the baby was born, I no longer cared that much about G’s needs, wants, and demands. We were, however, a family, and to strangers, we must have looked picture-perfect.
On our first night home from the hospital, the baby found it hard to get to sleep. He was about three days old. As he lay in his bassinette next to our bed, he screamed for almost an hour. When I tried to console my son, G forbade it, saying he would be spoiled. I fought my maternal instinct for a while, but eventually grabbed my son and brought him to bed with me. From that night on, I slept with my back turned to G and with the baby nestled tightly in my arms, against my heart, and the sound of its beating would soothe the baby all night long.
It became evident that G had no paternal instinct. He once said he wanted a baby just to see what he could make. Once he saw him, his interest quickly faded. One night I placed the baby in bed between us for a few moments as I sat up to drink a glass of water I’d left on my nightstand. G rolled over onto the baby and had begun to smother him with his arm. I aggressively pushed G off my son. As time went on, I began to feel as if I had to choose between my son and his father. G had a way of pouting angrily. He sucked his teeth and blinked his eyes excessively. It was a silent intimidation, and one day he even admitted to me that he had become jealous of our son and the attention I showered on him. The baby took all of my time and energy. From the moment he was born, his needs superseded everyone’s, especially G’s. In general, I knew it was normal for fathers to feel this way, but when it came to G and his pattern of behavior, there was no telling what shape his jealousy would take and how much further it would erode our relationship. On February 8, 1998, my son was twenty days old. I was holding him while going about my business around the house. I had been expressing my milk and making bottles, which would usually take hours out of my day. G asked me to make his lunch, and I tried to reason with him that there just wasn’t enough time and that maybe he should make his own food for a change.
With that angry pout and look of disgust on his face, he said, “Well, I’m going to get somebody in here to do all the shit you can’t do.”
“Who…who are you gonna get?!” I shot back angrily.
Back and forth we went. He was taunting me about finding a replacement for me, since our son was taking up so much of my time. Then, without warning, as I stood holding Naiim, G spat in my face. I, surprisingly, spat back in his. Over and over we exchanged spit until finally he placed his huge hands over my entire face, gripping tightly, and pushed me down to the ground, then finished me off with a slap to the face. My nose began to bleed. I looked down at my son. He cried while I continued to hold him, and his face was covered with my blood. This would be the first and only time I had G arrested for domestic violence.
We lived in a suburb of Phoenix called Glendale, and the police department had become very familiar with our house on Morning Dove Drive. They were called out at least twice a month, and once I was arrested for defacing property when I broke a glass in the kitchen during a fight. G had done this out of spite and malice. I stood alone in the kitchen as he stood in the living room. As soon as the glass was broken, he called the police. The rule was that if the police had been called to a residence twice in one night, someone had to be arrested. G knew this, and on that night he made the second call.
The impact of seeing my newborn son with a blood-covered face let me know the time to go was near. All I needed was money. Although G and I had enjoyed the financial benefits of his music career at the start of our relationship, the money quickly dried up. Hip hop was growing by leaps and bounds, and consequently, the competition was steep. G, like most, constantly strove to find his place as an artist, but that also meant we often did not have enough money to cover our basic living expenses, let alone spend freely.
For the next six months, I waited for the right time. G continued to have serious money issues, but there was new money on its way since he had recently signed an independent record contract. In the meantime, G and I continued to fight. One night we were at it as usual. I don’t remember exactly when this occurred, but my son had just begun to learn how to stand. He had been asleep in his playpen in our bedroom when the argument G and I were having got loud. I could feel myself getting stronger as time went on. When he spit, I would spit back. When he screamed, so would I. I was nearing my breaking point, and on this night, as I saw his hands ball up in preparation to strike me, I leaped at him with the intention to strike first. I knew I could never hurt him physically, but it was the principle. As I lunged, I proved to be too slow as he raised his fist and punched me in the mouth.
I fell to the floor, face-first, and automatically checked for all of my teeth. They were all in place, but my lip was split and bleeding. I was wearing one of G’s white T-shirts, which I instantly used as a makeshift bandage. I got up from the floor, grabbed the phone, and raced to the hall bathroom, locking myself in. He stood at the door, whimpering and begging for me not to call the police again. He was scared, almost in tears, and I was in shock. It was the first time he had scarred my face, and I cried as I looked at the hideous results. I did not call the police that night. I called his mother in New York. After explaining the incident to her, I opened the door and handed him the phone. I was screaming and crying, “You busted my face…” While he was on the phone, I found myself wandering the street in his bloody T-shirt, screaming at the top of my lungs. It was late, maybe after eleven at night. Before anyone could see me, he ran out, threw me over his shoulder, and placed an ice pack on my lip.
A few months later, G packed his bags and was on his way to the East Coast for a promotional tour to support his new independent album, Roots of Evil. About a week or so before he was to leave, I made the decision to have my breasts augmented to reverse the effects of breast-feeding my son; one had significantly changed and was very different from the other. G would tell me they were fine, but I knew it was lie. By this time I had lost all the weight I gained during my pregnancy. I was 96 pounds before getting pregnant and 140 pounds after giving birth. By the time my son was six months old, I was back down to about 100 pounds.
I was determined to leave G very soon and was slowly preparing myself. I knew that with no formal education or training of any kind, I would have to resort to stripping to take care of my son and me. G showed little interest in supporting his two oldest children, one of whom suffers with cerebral palsy. I knew what he was capable of (or not capable of), but I also knew what I was capable of. I was getting stronger and would be leaving for good.
The day G left for the promotional tour was the same day that I had my surgery. He took me to the doctor and picked me up after the procedure. If he hadn’t been so preoccupied with his tour at the time, I never would have been able to get away with having the surgery. As soon as we got to the house, G was on his way to the airport. He assigned one of his friends to stay with me and the baby since I was still feeling the effects of the anesthesia.
The baby remained in the bed with me for the first two weeks as I recuperated. Under heavy medication, I managed to make bottles and change diapers. Initially, not having G around was a good thing. It gave me the freedom I needed to heal and grow into the woman I wanted to be, without him.
During this time, not only did I get my body back in order, but I also learned how to drive and acquired a driver’s license. I bought new clothes to fit my new body and experimented with makeup and different hairstyles and colors. I also began to experiment with music. One of the rules of G’s house was that I was not allowed to listen to the music of other male artists. He would get jealous and assume that I wanted to be with that person. On one occasion, earlier in our relationship, I had become a fan of a song that Boyz II Men performed for the soundtrack of the movie Soul Food. The song was a sweet ode to mothers, and I would listen to it and imagine that my son (not yet conceived) would feel that way about me. However, G saw it another way. He forbade me to listen to that song, insinuating that I would want to have an affair with at least one of the members of Boyz II Men.
He was the same way about a lot of other artists. So, when he left, I went hip hop crazy. At this time I discovered DMX, Nas, AZ, and The Firm. It’s also when I began to see the genius in Jay-Z, Biggie, and Tupac. I began to feel like Lauryn Hill knew my pain during my separation with G, and like she was a big sister. She made me stronger with her words. Her album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill spoke to me and helped build me back up to where I was before I knew G. I listened to hip hop’s men talk about “bad bitches,” and I wanted to be one. They gave me a vision to strive for. Soon I was ready and waited for G to return so I could finally leave. But G had one more trick up his sleeve.
The time flew. Without my realizing it, G had been gone for three months. He stopped sending money for food and bills. The baby began to run out of diapers and formula. G had cleaned out our accounts, moved in, unbeknownst to me, with an ex-girlfriend in New York, and had given her all the money from our accounts. He stopped taking my calls, and no matter how much I begged for assistance, he would not comply. One night I had a dream. I called his name, in my dream, begging him to come home with me, but he turned his back and walked toward another woman. That’s how I knew. I asked him if he was with someone and he denied it. I asked, quietly, for him to tell me and we would work it out. Still, he denied me. I began my own investigation, calling the girlfriend of one of his best friends in New Jersey, and before long, I had my answers. I called G at her house at one in the morning.
“Hi, Ashley, this is Yizette. Can I speak to G, please?”
He got on the phone and I asked him, “Why didn’t you tell me? I asked you and you lied to me.” I asked him to please send some money for us and we would talk about everything else when he returned.
His response was typical of the man I had known: “Fuck you, you stupid bitch! I don’t give a fuck! I’m not sending you shit! You’ll just have to suffer.”
On and on, he went, and with every word, my strength diminished. Everything was my fault again, and I would be made to pay. Eventually, a friend of G’s came over and brought some money for food and expenses. Because of the stress, I continued to lose weight. By the time G made it back, my son was a year old. He had missed his first birthday, his first step, and his first word—“Mommy.”
True to form, G brought gifts when he arrived home from his escapades. Yet when our son saw his face and heard his voice, Naiim cried. Anytime G entered the room, my son cried. We both knew that our relationship was over. He decided that he would give me the money I needed to leave—thirty-five hundred dollars. That would have been enough to get an apartment and a car. I waited for him to give me the money he’d promised, during which time G continued to torture me. He moved his ex, who hated me, into the house. Although there were two empty bedrooms upstairs, she and their son slept on the living-room floor, and I was trapped upstairs unless I wanted some sort of confrontation. She and G had never gotten along, until right then, which was just for his convenience and spitefulness. All of a sudden they were the best of friends, hanging out all day, laughing and carrying on. I was an outsider in my own home and had to sneak around to avoid confrontations with either or both of them.
G was not beating me physically at this time, but inside, I was bruised and battered. He also never missed a moment to tell me how ugly and skinny I was, how he was disgusted just looking at me. G spent hours upon hours on the phone with his girlfriend in New York, Ashley. The phone and other bills of the household were in my name and all I wanted to do was to cut everything off, but I knew I would only be asking for more problems if I did. My strategy was to get through and get out.
I waited three long weeks for the thirty-five hundred dollars. In the end, all he gave me was a thousand. Toward the end of the three-week period, I began to realize that he was never going to give me what I needed in order to leave. He needed me to need him, even if he wanted nothing to do with me. He enjoyed seeing my bony frame and lifeless eyes because he knew that not only was he the reason for my state, he also controlled it. Just as he had explained why he’d wanted a child—just to see what he could create—so now he wanted to see what he could destroy. I began to pack. Many of my belongings I would leave behind, but I packed most of the baby’s things. Anything big or heavy would have to be left behind. I had eight hundred dollars left after buying luggage and basic necessities.
I hid my bags and made no references to my leaving. G had gotten me an apartment in the same neighborhood we lived in, which was about an hour away from the city. I had no car and no resources; I could not be staying there.
I hit the wall the day G was on the phone in our loft with Ashley for more than six hours and finally went to bed around two in the morning. I had already called a friend of mine who worked for an airline on G’s cell phone, being sure to erase the number after I hung up. I lay in bed with my son, pretending to be asleep. I waited for the sound of the phone hanging up. Finally, he threw himself into bed, and within minutes, began to snore. I slid out of bed, called my friend from the loft phone, and placed my bags at the door. I snuggled my one-year-old son in his winter coat as he slept. Without a hitch, my son and I quietly walked out and closed the door on a painful chapter. It was January 1999, and I was finally leaving Kool G Rap for good.