GET YOUR READ ON WITH AN EXCERPT FROM AUTHOR DERRICK "D.D." TURNER'S NEW BOOK "CHRONICLES OF A HIP HOP LEGEND."
CHAPTER 1
“Cold Cold Crush! Cold Cold Crush!” The in-sync recitation of the legendary hip-hop crew’s name, along with the stomach-pinching depth of the accompanying drum patterns, appeared as though they had sparked a sense of fear in all inanimate objects in the cobweb ridden walkway. “Cold Cold Crush! Cold Cold Crush!” The nail hole-riddled doorframes and paint-flaking walls bounced. Cipher had never heard TR808 drum kicks reach such peaks. His progression down the mildewed corridor brought him closer to a wretched mildew stench and a progressively increasing decibel. With the planting of his next step, the corner sprung forth with life and bellowed a cringing hiss. Cipher’s attention quickly focused on the corner, and with his eyes, he made out the faint distinction of a strayed black cat. The dark-hued coat of the feline subtly leapt from the darkened corner as it scurried past Cipher’s white-on-white Air Force 1 sneakers.
“Stupid cat,” he remarked under his breath while regaining the little composure that remained. With each step toward the aged door that hid the focus of his attention, the splintered floorboards buckled and released a characteristic cracking noise.
“A yo, Cipher, releasing a knowledge orb will reveal the secrets of the hidden,” a voice spoke from the general area of his left wrist.
Cipher deciphered the telling statement that bounced from the odd-shaped mechanism that wrapped his wrist and immediately reached for the gold relic that hung around his neck. The relic was dreadfully scary to anyone who saw it for the first time, but this would eventually be superseded by the intuitive understanding that it represented something big and quite possibly masked something magical. The two awkward faces represented on the relic differed in their expressions, but found a sense of mutuality in a shared crown and rod. The moveable on/off switch on the rod confirmed without question that it was in fact an MC’s microphone. Perched upon a solid gold sphere, it was high profiled as it adorned patterns of clustering black, red, and traditional-colored diamonds. Cipher grabbed hold of the draped relic and maneuvered it in a counterclockwise manner, causing it to release a greenish orb that hovered and morphed into several visual panels, all depicting what appeared to be a cache of obscured instructions. The drag-and-drop interaction between young Cipher’s hands and the panels broke the principles of secrecy when a couple of seconds of image shuffling brought forth a sense of clarity and direction.
“I’ve got it! The door . . . Son is telling me to check behind the door!” young Cipher concluded.
The recent transaction of images revealed that something big was happening behind the door, and his inquiry into such matters was required. As he stepped into position and grabbed hold of the doorknob, the blaring Cold Crush chant quickly evolved into a high-pitch screeching noise that was accompanied by a devilish cackle.
“Die, you B-boy suckas! Die!” An angry voice seeped from behind the confines of the door by way of the one-fourth inch of space between the splintered floorboards and door’s bottom.
Cipher remained steadfast and rotated the doorknob and pushed slightly, causing the rusted, friction-ridden door hinges to produce an additional caterwauling noise—this suggested that the door hadn’t been opened in quite some time. With an aggressive shoulder, he forcefully charged into the door to find an empty room. In the center of the room rested a graffiti-ridden wooden chair that held a five-speaker, dual deck, traditional B-boy’s boom box radio.
“A radio?” Cipher asked oddly over the maximum-leveled radio while lowering its volume and equalizer levels.
“Somebody is buggin’ out,” he remarked unto himself as he continued to examine the awkward emptiness of the room.
His attention eventually found its way back to the chair where he examined the skillful graffiti writing on its seat and back support. On the seat portion of the chair under the radio, he took special notice to the written statement Hip-Hop You Don’t Stop. For Cipher, the concerning part of the discovery wasn’t the reference of the statement but the banning symbol that placed some sort of inhibition over its clear and symbolic expression.
Blam! The door violently slammed shut.
“Who’s that?!” Cipher vigilantly inquired.
The closing of the door revealed a covered pile that was placed in the recesses of a dim corner. He carefully made his way over to the corner and judged the covered pile’s contents by giving it several slight taps with his foot. The produced noise suggested that it was nothing more than a couple of metal objects. Cipher took a single knee and pulled back the mildewed black canvas cover to reveal a corded microphone and several other discarded items. On its side, the microphone brandished the very same statement that was represented on the old chair, Hip-Hop You Don’t Stop, as well as a miniature noose that found itself attached to the apparatus just below its crown.
“Someone must really hate microphones or hip-hop,” he plainly stated while attempting to make sense of the awkwardness granted by the situation.
Suddenly, the sound of buckling wood overtook the eerie sanctity of the room.
“Not again,” he remarked dryly as if the presentation of obstacles was all too familiar.
He looked at the most distant corner of the room and witnessed the very floor in which he stood upon progressively becoming nonexistent as it rapidly approached his position. Aware that he needed to think quickly to escape the full encompassing clutch of the bottomless abyss which lay underneath the depleting floorboards, he spoke into the mechanism that wrapped his wrist, “A yo, fam . . . I could use a little bit of help on this end!”
“The window on the other side of the room! Just jump for the ledge! The window locks can be released. That’s your exit! Hurry!” the voice franticly answered.
“Jump?! Like it’s that simple! Dog, you’re bugging! It’s like the distance from the top of the key to the basket!” Cipher angrily reasoned while confirming the length of the proposed leap to safety.
“Listen, anything is better than you just chillin’ in the confines of this dismal corner! You better stop playing and get to know that ledge!” the voice responded seriously.
“And it looks like you have exactly seven seconds,” the voice continued as its humanlike hologram apparition escaped from the confines of the mechanism’s screen to gauge the amount of time remaining before a state of nothingness existed under the white soles of Cipher’s sneakers.
“Six, five, four!” the voice counted down as the erasing floor closed in on the position of Cipher.
“Three, two, one . . . ahhhhhhhh!” Cipher finished counting down as he scurried across what was left of the aged wooden floor and jumped.
With arms stretched forward, desperation caused him to create a swimlike motion as if midair offered a level of density. With the gap between his body and the window ledge closing, his fingertips were stretched to their physical limits. Very close to grabbing the window’s ledge. He’s got it, he’s got it, he’s . . .
For more info on author D.D. Turner's new book "The Chronicles Of A Hip Hop Legend" visit: www.chroniclesofahiphoplegend.net also to contact him do so at: ddturner@chroniclesofahiphoplegend.net
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