ON THOSE LONG TRIPS PROMOTING MY FIRST ALBUMS, Trina’s cousin Joy would tag along. If you let her tell it, Joy, my wife to be, will say she was offended that I even contemplated hitting on her. The woman was a mahogany queen. I used to see her with Trina all the time, but I was too busy in the streets to try my hand at holding down a relationship. Besides, Joy wouldn’t have tolerated my large appetite for the ladies.
But she was a chocolate sundae this brother had to go add a banana to. Joy had the Miami attitude, but with a more laid-back round-the-way-girl aura. She was the kind of girl you could just kick back with at the beach. She wasn’t trying to be a diva. I knew if I was going to continue in the rap game, I needed an anchor. More important, I needed somebody that was levelheaded enough to cope with the pressures that come with dating a rapper. Joy never got insecure and jealous when we were promoting in strip clubs. She even befriended the strippers when they came over to hang all over us. Joy realized it was part of the game plan we came up with. She was a team player. Now don’t get me wrong. My wife isn’t a pushover. She’s won’t lose her cool often, but when she does, you better run for cover.
I could teach folks a thing or two about love. Love is about friendship. It isn’t about who’s wrong or right, to gain power or control over the other person. It’s about two people getting together to make something sane happen in this crazy, messed-up place we call earth. The first thing anyone who wants to love someone must come to terms with is that no one’s perfect. We all got flaws. Even your beloved pastor got some skeletons in his dusty closet. When you realize that, everything else in the relationship can be worked out. Once the other person’s flaws aren’t things that will make you throw him or her over a bridge, wedding bells will soon be around the corner. Our wedding ceremony was interrupted by me having to whup one dude’s ass, but you get the point. It was hot, the food was running late, and folks got to acting up. Besides the beatdown, the wedding was a beautiful ceremony.
At first, I wasn’t particularly Joy’s type. She liked the college, suit-and-tie-wearing brothers. Joy didn’t like ex-cons. Not in a million years did Joy see herself dating a guy with my track record. For that reason I liked her. She was innocent to my world. But like the old saying goes, opposites do attract, especially when one of those opposites was as persistent as I was. Every time I told Trina to set me up with Joy, she gave me the whole “Negro, please” look. I kept at it though. Finally, Joy got to know me for the person I was beyond the prison rap sheet. We’ve been best friends ever since.