I came across this old cormega article in a old issue of the source (Oct 2001), thought it was a good read with alotta back ground on him for those who arent familiar...so check it out..
Cormega - Speed Bumps
ONCE ON THE WAY TO SUPERSTARDOM, CORMEGA GOT LOST IN TRAFFIC, WITH NEW RELEASES AND GOOD OL FASHIONED SKILLS, CAN THEY FIND THEIR WAY BACK?
Words by Jerry Barrow and Dee Tee
Cormega
"I was born into this thug shit," begins a frustrated, yet earnest, Cormega. Five years after drawing his first breath at Brooklyn's St. John hospital, Corey McKay saw his mother, Dorothy, brutally shot and killed with his own eyes. But it didn't phase him then. "When you're a kid they don't teach you how to approach death," he says pensively. "When my mom died I didn't take it seriously. I was thinking it was like a cartoon and she'll be back."
But she never did come back. His family moved him from Brooklyn to Co-op City in the Bronx to shield him from violence. He became a Boy Scout, got skipped in school and took art classes - typical kid stuff. But when he moved to Far Rockaway, he started visiting his cousins in Queensbridge. He learned quickly that their culture was different from his guarded existence in Co-op City. "I saw a crack bottle on the floor and didn't know what it was. I didn't know what it was. I didn't know about getting jumped. I thought it was all fair ones."
After moving to QB, the honor student got a fast lesson in chemistry and distribution while dabbling in rhymes under the name MC Core, after hood legend MC Shan. He later became Cormega, "the center of greatness." But before he could blesas the world with his skills he got sent to Midstate Penitentiary for three and a half years in 1992. Heads waited patiently for his return, but as he said, he was born into this thug shit, and things are never that simple.
While locked down, Cormega was surprised with a shout out from his boy, Nas, in his prison letter, "One Love." The two had grown up on the same block in Queensbridge. Nas was in the 40-16 building, Mega in the 40-15. Nas was a "cool nigga" by Mega's own admission. They ran in the same circles with Ill Will and Cormega's cousin, Oogie. But things weren't quite right between them when Cormega was released. "Nas was showing me love when i first came home, but when he saw how niggas felt about me on the streets and that he could make money off of me things started to change. It went from the 'I'ma help you get this deal' to 'Yo son, I want you to sign these papers and shit. I ain't even gonna be in your pocket that much.'"
Things got worse when Nas's then manager, Steve Stout, flexed his muscle. "Steve Stout came to me and said he wanted $50,000 and 3 points to be Executive Producer of my album," says Cormega. "You can't have an industry nigga tell a street nigga who just came home from jail that shit. That sounds like extortion!"
Mega didn't go for either offer, but he and Nas joined forces with Foxy Brown, AZ, and Dr. Dre to create The Firm. The super group was to be an unprecedented fusion of East Coast rhymes with West Coast beats. The crew was so tight Mega recalls writing rhymes for his lyrically proficient partner during sessions. "I wrote 'Life's a bitch/God forbid the bitch divorce me/I'll be flooded with ice, so hell fire can't scorch me.' That's one of Nas's most prolific lines. I did that for love. I ain't ask for no money for that. I know someone who got that line tattooed on hish arm thinking Nas wrote it. If he knew the truth he'd probably cut his arm off."
But it was what he considers betrayal, not sales, that ultimately caused Cormega to leave the group. "They left me out of a cover shoot for YSB magazine, and when I asked Nas why, he tried to make it seem like I wasn't there and there was no way they could stop the shoot. I said 'Nas you have the #1 album out right now. You don't think you can get another photo shoot?!" Cormega was convinced that this was retaliation from Steve Stout for not signing with him. This, coupled with his verse disappearing from a track called "La Familia," promopted Cormega to bounce. Nature, who was signed to a production deal with the Trackmasters, who were managed by Stout was ushered in.
Subsequent friction between Cormega and Nature spawned the underground diss "Never Personal" (renamed Fuck Nas" by the streets) which documented a violent yet brief, confrontation between the two MCs where Mega pulled a Roy Jones. But according to Cormega, it had little to do with the roster changes in The Firm. "Nature dissed me on a Clue tape," Cormega begins. "Clue knew it was gonna be some shit, cause that tape got Mike Tyson on the cover!" In retrospect, Mega manages to muster some sympathy for the young MC. "I felt sorry for Nature. He deserved more love from Nas cause he got fucked up for that nigga. He was a sacrificial lamb for him."
Once self ostracized from The Firm, Cormega signed with Chris Lighty's Violator label, which was then distributed by Def Jam. One of the most celebrated MCs in Queensbridge was finally getting his shot. Or so he thought. "Chris is the reason why my album never came out. When I dropped 'Testament' he coulda pushed the button then, but he only thought the single was 'aight'. He had my shit on the shelf intentionally."
Mega became more suspicious of Lighty's reluctance to release his project after returning from Def Jam's Survival of the Fittest Tour in 1999. "I thought Chris didn't feel me as an artist, but I'm sitting in the office listening to people from Def Jam tell him that I killed the tour even though I didn't have a record out. So I left. I'm still cool with people at Def Jam. But it was that nigga Chris. He just didn't like me."
"We had to do what was good for the logo," Chris Lighty counters. "If Def Jam thought the album was so hot, they would have made me put it out. I wouldn't have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars just to hold him back."
When Cormega left Def Jam in 1999, the execs wanted $250,000 for the masters to his Testament album, which was generous considering that they had spent twice that amount to make it. (The price has since ballooned to $350,000). "But you know what that says?" Cormega challenges. "They knew they fucked up. I'm hot right now. Even Nas's lawyer came at me with a bullshit production deal after I ripped QB's Finest."
Instead, he opted for his own label, Legal Hustle, distributed through Landspeed. The Realness, his long awaited LP, couples his thug syllabus with production from Havoc, Ayatollah and Alchemist. Speaking upon everything from "clips that go through bricks and whips customized" to his deceased mother ("Throughout my adolescence I was missing you, wishing you would appear in the physical..."), Cormega is set to prove that he is as great as his legend. Chris Lighty even gives up the goods on the new project. "The stuff i'm hearing now is the best I've heard from Cormega."
"Other artists had they chance." Cormega concludes. "I've never had an album out. I'm supposed to be faded right now. But the public still wants me. If they made a movie about my life, rappers would get mad and say they exaggerated the story. But its real."
Cormega - Speed Bumps
ONCE ON THE WAY TO SUPERSTARDOM, CORMEGA GOT LOST IN TRAFFIC, WITH NEW RELEASES AND GOOD OL FASHIONED SKILLS, CAN THEY FIND THEIR WAY BACK?
Words by Jerry Barrow and Dee Tee
Cormega
"I was born into this thug shit," begins a frustrated, yet earnest, Cormega. Five years after drawing his first breath at Brooklyn's St. John hospital, Corey McKay saw his mother, Dorothy, brutally shot and killed with his own eyes. But it didn't phase him then. "When you're a kid they don't teach you how to approach death," he says pensively. "When my mom died I didn't take it seriously. I was thinking it was like a cartoon and she'll be back."
But she never did come back. His family moved him from Brooklyn to Co-op City in the Bronx to shield him from violence. He became a Boy Scout, got skipped in school and took art classes - typical kid stuff. But when he moved to Far Rockaway, he started visiting his cousins in Queensbridge. He learned quickly that their culture was different from his guarded existence in Co-op City. "I saw a crack bottle on the floor and didn't know what it was. I didn't know what it was. I didn't know about getting jumped. I thought it was all fair ones."
After moving to QB, the honor student got a fast lesson in chemistry and distribution while dabbling in rhymes under the name MC Core, after hood legend MC Shan. He later became Cormega, "the center of greatness." But before he could blesas the world with his skills he got sent to Midstate Penitentiary for three and a half years in 1992. Heads waited patiently for his return, but as he said, he was born into this thug shit, and things are never that simple.
While locked down, Cormega was surprised with a shout out from his boy, Nas, in his prison letter, "One Love." The two had grown up on the same block in Queensbridge. Nas was in the 40-16 building, Mega in the 40-15. Nas was a "cool nigga" by Mega's own admission. They ran in the same circles with Ill Will and Cormega's cousin, Oogie. But things weren't quite right between them when Cormega was released. "Nas was showing me love when i first came home, but when he saw how niggas felt about me on the streets and that he could make money off of me things started to change. It went from the 'I'ma help you get this deal' to 'Yo son, I want you to sign these papers and shit. I ain't even gonna be in your pocket that much.'"
Things got worse when Nas's then manager, Steve Stout, flexed his muscle. "Steve Stout came to me and said he wanted $50,000 and 3 points to be Executive Producer of my album," says Cormega. "You can't have an industry nigga tell a street nigga who just came home from jail that shit. That sounds like extortion!"
Mega didn't go for either offer, but he and Nas joined forces with Foxy Brown, AZ, and Dr. Dre to create The Firm. The super group was to be an unprecedented fusion of East Coast rhymes with West Coast beats. The crew was so tight Mega recalls writing rhymes for his lyrically proficient partner during sessions. "I wrote 'Life's a bitch/God forbid the bitch divorce me/I'll be flooded with ice, so hell fire can't scorch me.' That's one of Nas's most prolific lines. I did that for love. I ain't ask for no money for that. I know someone who got that line tattooed on hish arm thinking Nas wrote it. If he knew the truth he'd probably cut his arm off."
But it was what he considers betrayal, not sales, that ultimately caused Cormega to leave the group. "They left me out of a cover shoot for YSB magazine, and when I asked Nas why, he tried to make it seem like I wasn't there and there was no way they could stop the shoot. I said 'Nas you have the #1 album out right now. You don't think you can get another photo shoot?!" Cormega was convinced that this was retaliation from Steve Stout for not signing with him. This, coupled with his verse disappearing from a track called "La Familia," promopted Cormega to bounce. Nature, who was signed to a production deal with the Trackmasters, who were managed by Stout was ushered in.
Subsequent friction between Cormega and Nature spawned the underground diss "Never Personal" (renamed Fuck Nas" by the streets) which documented a violent yet brief, confrontation between the two MCs where Mega pulled a Roy Jones. But according to Cormega, it had little to do with the roster changes in The Firm. "Nature dissed me on a Clue tape," Cormega begins. "Clue knew it was gonna be some shit, cause that tape got Mike Tyson on the cover!" In retrospect, Mega manages to muster some sympathy for the young MC. "I felt sorry for Nature. He deserved more love from Nas cause he got fucked up for that nigga. He was a sacrificial lamb for him."
Once self ostracized from The Firm, Cormega signed with Chris Lighty's Violator label, which was then distributed by Def Jam. One of the most celebrated MCs in Queensbridge was finally getting his shot. Or so he thought. "Chris is the reason why my album never came out. When I dropped 'Testament' he coulda pushed the button then, but he only thought the single was 'aight'. He had my shit on the shelf intentionally."
Mega became more suspicious of Lighty's reluctance to release his project after returning from Def Jam's Survival of the Fittest Tour in 1999. "I thought Chris didn't feel me as an artist, but I'm sitting in the office listening to people from Def Jam tell him that I killed the tour even though I didn't have a record out. So I left. I'm still cool with people at Def Jam. But it was that nigga Chris. He just didn't like me."
"We had to do what was good for the logo," Chris Lighty counters. "If Def Jam thought the album was so hot, they would have made me put it out. I wouldn't have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars just to hold him back."
When Cormega left Def Jam in 1999, the execs wanted $250,000 for the masters to his Testament album, which was generous considering that they had spent twice that amount to make it. (The price has since ballooned to $350,000). "But you know what that says?" Cormega challenges. "They knew they fucked up. I'm hot right now. Even Nas's lawyer came at me with a bullshit production deal after I ripped QB's Finest."
Instead, he opted for his own label, Legal Hustle, distributed through Landspeed. The Realness, his long awaited LP, couples his thug syllabus with production from Havoc, Ayatollah and Alchemist. Speaking upon everything from "clips that go through bricks and whips customized" to his deceased mother ("Throughout my adolescence I was missing you, wishing you would appear in the physical..."), Cormega is set to prove that he is as great as his legend. Chris Lighty even gives up the goods on the new project. "The stuff i'm hearing now is the best I've heard from Cormega."
"Other artists had they chance." Cormega concludes. "I've never had an album out. I'm supposed to be faded right now. But the public still wants me. If they made a movie about my life, rappers would get mad and say they exaggerated the story. But its real."
