No Photos - Just Read About My Week - Well, a couple photos

I’m a loner. A rebel. I prefer to work by myself, on projects I want to work and I don’t generally need too much help or outside influence to make things happen. When I work by myself I can’t blame anyone for anything but myself and I prefer to keep it that way. However in this past week, I have had to step outside the box a bit and work in a whole ‘nother way.

(Most names in this story have been omitted to protect the innocent and the guilty. There were actually some good people involved in this shit, but story-wise, they are gonna get overshadowed by the shit heads I’m sorry.)

A couple weeks back I got an email from a friend of mine in Vancouver asking about a show he saw advertised that was to feature Devin and Scarface (and Trina actually). I do all of Devin’s international booking, so I was a little bit confused as to who might have done this. I called Devin and he knew nothing about the show. I called his manager and he knew nothing about the show.

About a week later, the same guy calls me and says “Matt, this show is being promoted pretty big, what is up with this shit?” So I call Devin and his manager again and neither of them had heard anything about a show in Vancouver, so to be honest I just let it go.

Then last week, DJ Rapid Ric was in Vancouver and was handed a flyer for the show. So I said o.k. lemme see what’s up. I call Devin, I call his manager, neither of them knows anything about a show in Vancouver. So I ask Devin’s manager is he wants me to do some research and find out who these promoters are. He says yes so I go and make some calls.

Thing is, this type of shit happens in the music biz everyday. Someone is always trying to get over on someone, it’s nothing new. But I can’t personally have promoters in Canada thinking that Devin doesn’t show up to his gigs. Since this show was promoted on flyers, on the web and on the radio, I felt like it was pretty important to get Devin up there. Nuff rappers have bad reps for not showing up to shows and Devin does not need that stigma attached to him. He’s worked too long, too hard and too honestly to have that shit.

So anyway, I made a couple calls and got the promoters number who then informed me that an agent in Houston promised him this show and that they had contracts and had already paid deposits and bought plane tickets (two tickets in the Devin party for people who can’t leave the country!). At this point I called Devin and his manager to ask if they knew anything about this. Deposits paid, flights booked and we know nothing about it.

Both still maintained that they knew nothing about it. So we found the guy down here who was booking the show and asked him about it. I’m not sure what the hell transpired between Devin’s manager and this agent, but all of a sudden we each had plane tickets and were going up to Vancouver to get the rest of the money.

So that’s all good. The show was this past Wednesday, but come to find out they had paid an extra amount of money to get Devin and Scarface there early to promote. O.K. fine, two days in Vancouver in the summer time sure ain’t no bad thang, so we talked it over and decided to go.

So we get into town Tuesday afternoon, no hassles at customs, sun was shining and everyone we met at first was really cool. The actual promoter was happy as can be to see us, his folks were all real cool, they had incredible weed, we were in a super nice hotel, everything was great.

We met the guys who put up the money for the show. Dudes were alright at the time, but come to find out they are extremely rich kids who have a penchant for cocaine and steroids and well, if you know me, the cocaine vibe already doesn’t really fit my steez. Add steroids on top of that and I’m really needing to get away from you right now.

One of their boys gave us a bunch of great green so we headed back out on the day early promo run and basically just saw the city, Devin met people and it was all quite normal. Fine day.

Then that evening, we’re at the hotel and Devin wanted to go to sleep rather than hit up some clubs. I told the promoter that and he was cool with it. But 15 minutes later he’s at my door informing me that there’s an appearance Devin is scheduled to make and if he doesn’t show up the promoters money men are gonna look bad and they really want us to come down there. I told him I would try to wake Devin up and call him in a few.

Five minutes later someone starts banging on my door. I look out and it’s the rich steroid addled guys. I open the door and they bust in my room like amped out cops YELLING “Where is Devin? He’s asleep I’ll go wake him up fuck this shit. FUCK THIS SHIT HE NEEDS TO WAKE UP WHERE IS HE? We are looking really bad right now in front of one of the biggest Asian gangstas in Vancouver. This guy has his club and is expecting an appearance from Devin the Dude. We paid $XXXX for this appearance (they paid half the amount they told me) and he is majorly fucking us.”

Keep in mind they are yelling this shit in my face.

They also kept talking about The Triad and the Hells Angels. They didn’t get it when I yelled “ALTAMONT.”

An old man comes out of his room to see what the problem is. One of the steroid addled dudes runs at him in the hall and I had to literally grab him and stop him from confronting the old man. Note – All these dudes were huge and could have probably fucked me up bad.

So of course a few minutes later, as I am knocking on Devin’s door and calling him, security comes up. Devin wakes up, I shuffle all the freaks out of my room and we go downstairs where the craziest of the bunch starts telling me how he has “Tied someone to a bed post and made him sing Kumbaya.” As if he is no stranger to torturing fools. Keep in mind these are extremely rich, huge, white, Canadian guys in Armani Exchange t-shirts. The type of people I really don’t fuckin’ kick it with. And I ain’t prejudiced…

Also keep in mind that none of these dudes touched us and were actually appreciative that we showed up for the show. In the end, when everyone sobered up a bit, everything was cool, but this was some heavy shit….

So Devin comes down, they calm down and we go to the club for the appearance. We get there and there’s 10 people there. We get some beers and sit down in the VIP and all of a sudden the power goes out. So we are sitting there with no music, hardly any people, and just like a little security light on behind us. Whatever, we really weren’t trippin’.

So 10 minutes later our dude decides that we need to go somewhere else. One club is 20 minutes away the other is around the corner. We opt for the one around the corner.

When we get there it’s cool. Typical mainstream club night with club music and more Armani shirts and people dancing, etc. A couple cats take us up to a “smoking room” and we go there and watch the folks dancing while we smoked. At some point, one of the tweakers comes in the room and starts yelling about “I DON’T KNOW WHY WE ARE AT THIS CLUB THIS IS FUCKED UP THIS CLUB DOES NOTHING FOR US FUCK THIS PLACE WE SHOULD BE AT…” whatever fuckin’ other club he was yelling about. Then he starts punching the wall in this really small room. So a girl walks in and says “What is wrong with you?” He gets in the girls face and screams “DON’T YOU EVEN TALK TO ME DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHO I AM? I’M NOT TO BE TALKED TO LIKE THAT.”

O.K. Tony Mont-Canada, it’s time to go. So I get in the middle of them and say “Look, we are just here man, we don’t know what is poppin’. You tell us where to go and it’s all good man just calm down.”

So dude goes downstairs as do we and at some point in the walk down it is decided that we don’t have to go to another club, we can just go back to the hotel. Great. So as we are walking back to the car, about eight deep, one of the steroid boys comes running through our crowd and checks one of his boys. Basically he kind of pseudo tackled him. Well, as he did this he knocked over a totally innocent dude. A regular Canadian guy just standing on the street eating a pretzel or some shit talking to two girls.

The dude who was knocked down didn’t even talk shit he just kind of said “What the hell?,” as he was getting back up. Well when he gets back up the dude who got tackled punches him hard in the face and knocks him to the ground again. Then as he is getting up the other dude runs over like a gorilla and kicks him in the chest and kicks the shit out of him. Me and Devin start telling them to cut the bullshit and Devin helps the dude who was beat down collect his things. And I basically try to stop the madness when all of a sudden another innocent dude just trying to get past the melee bumps into our promoter guy who hesitates for a second but then gets amped up and starts screaming on the dude. Then the biggest of the drug addled motherfuckers runs up and punches dude into a wall and just beats him senseless, breaking his own wrist in the process. At this point one of the girls tells him to stop and the big dude slaps the shit out of the girl. At this point I am dragging Devin the opposite way trying to hail a taxi.

Promoter guy stops us and gets us in the car and away from the mess. The promoter apologizes for the actions of his boys but I fucking start yelling about how he started the shit with the second guy who was attacked. You see, these dudes did not get into a fight on the street, they straight up attacked innocent people for no reason. Assaulted them. Promoter guy did not touch anyone but he did get mouthy with someone.

We get out of the car, go up to the rooms and all I can think is that it’s only a matter of time before the white boys are beating my door down.

(Incidentally I have never been called a “white boy” so many times in my life. The people who started all this shit and booked Devin without him knowing are telling people that the “white boy messed up their business and all this is (his) fault.” The promoter kept telling me to quit “acting like a white boy” when I would yell at him and freak out that we had to go through the bullshit he was putting us through. Yes, I am a white boy, have been all my life, and I am not here to take any of your janky shit. Sorry. Some white boys are, I’m not.)

So I finally fell asleep at about 4 a.m., woke up as usual, at 7 a.m. and couldn’t go back to sleep. No one beat our doors down and later everyone was very apologetic. One of the promoters boys even came to my room to talk and make sure everything was o.k. and was very, very apologetic and told us that at least one of the dudes was arrested. Though he was out, first thing in the morning.

That was my problem with the whole thing. One, neither Devin nor I was impressed with them beating down innocent people. That shit made both of our stomachs turn cuz it was just completely fucked up. Two, what if one of the bystanders had ten dudes inside the shop buying food and all them would have run out and had Devin caught up in a meaningless melee? Three, what if the cops would have been right there and arrested all of us. Two Americans running with a gang of dope fiends beating people on the streets? Canada don’t play with us like that. We would at least be banned from the country for a year if not forever and have to go through a lot of red tape. Shit, we been to Canada four times in the past year! We can’t give that shit up!

So anyway, dude leaves my room and I go downstairs to the hot tub to try and chill out enough to go back to sleep. When I get back to my room I get a call from the front desk informing me that Devin and I have been kicked out of the hotel. Kicked out of the hotel? Devin the Dude doesn’t get kicked out of hotels. Neither does Matt SoReal. We may have smoked out a couple of non smoking rooms in our lives, but we don’t get loud and break things. We’re not Motley Crue. We’re two guys who like to sit and chill.

So we pack up and go downstairs and are told that we can’t have the money back, that goes to the promoter. So we went and had lunch and met the promoter back at the hotel in an hour and got cash for the next hotel. Luckily our boys were around and they took us to their office where we got a room on Hotwire and didn’t tell anyone where we were. Which sounds simple, but we still had to get the rest of the money for the show, and well, we decided that we would not be leaving the hotel unless the money was placed cash in hand.

And it was. I told the money dudes to meet me at another hotel down the street, they had their dude bring us the money, we went to the venue and well, the shit was DOPE!

The show itself was off the hook. No of course Scarface and Trina were not there, but shit, the crowd didn’t seem to trip. I mean, I am sure there were some people who were disappointed but they sure didn’t show that to Devin. They were going nuts for the Dude and the Dude gave it to them how he gives it. Everyone was so happy at the end of the night (even the biggest of the steroid dudes who after the show was walking around outside totally casually like nothing happened – blood dripping from his face and all over his hands. He was happy.).

Devin did all the usual gems and even busted out a couple bonus cuts in the end, to make the show a little longer to make up for the absence of the other rappers. So in the end, we got the bulk of the money, had a fantastic show in Vancouver, and Devin’s and my reps are still in tact in the eyes of the Canadians. Only really bad thing is I left the camera back at the super secret hotel hide-a-way cuz I figured that I didn’t need to have a backpack on if anything jumped off with these fools again or if the club ends up in a riot situation when their two headliners don’t show up. Tickets we’re $40 in advance and $60 at the door!

So let me end by saying this.

To the promoter – I am sorry you had to go through all of this. That shit was bananas and yes you did get ripped off. Glad we connected so Devin could hold up his end of the bargain that he had nothing to do with.

To the steroid dudes – Calm down. You seem like nice enough Canadians when sober. Calm down, you don’t need that shit.

To our friends in Canada – Thank you for rolling with us. I don’t want to put your names in here cuz I don’t want none of the above-mentioned people bothering you about shit. Just know we appreciate you.

To the agent here – Please don’t do that again. Thanks.

Here’s the few pictures I took even at all. None are related to the story above except that they were taken at the super secret hotel hide-a-way.


Josh and Devin at the super secret spot


View from the super secret spot