Back in the 1990s, when the Chicago Bulls were a dynasty rather than a laughingstock, I remember overhearing a conversation at a diner between two twenty-something women. Apparently, one of them had bumped into Scottie Pippen at a restaurant and asked him for an autograph. As the guy was sucking down a plateful of pasta, he declined. "And you know what I said to him?" the lady telling the story said. "I said, 'I don't care about yo' autograph anyway. You'll never be Michael Jordan.'"
Welcome to Chicago, where Playa Hating is elevated to an artform that only crusty pimps and musical vagabonds just one week of radioplay away from being Bigger Than Kanye can appreciate.
Two years ago, I had this crazy idea to put together a tribute story to Armando, one of House Music's most influential figures, probably most famous internationally for his tracks "Land of Confusion", "151" and "100% of Disin' You". Armando was everywhere when I was first getting into electronic music. He was throwing parties on the Southside for a primarily black audience. He was playing at raves for a primarily white audience. He was throwing his own parties at the legendary Northside spot, Medusa's, for an audience that was a little bit of both. He was dumpster diving in back of Trax Records with Paul Johnson for irregular copies of "Move Your Body" to sell at high schools.
And then this phenomenal talent passed on, at just 26 years of age, and I really don't think Chicago ever really recovered. Following in the footsteps of the movers and shakers of the 1st Wave of Chicago House, many people from the 2nd Wave left town (prompted, of course, for many of the same reasons. And given the level of fame and success many have achieved, it's hard to fault them.)
The music scene became terribly segregated again (not that this had substantially changed, but it seemed that few were even trying anymore).
All of these things might have happened anyway, and who knows - Armando might be living in Amsterdam himself right now, playing to predominantly white-or-green-or-Martian audiences. But it seemed like that center was no longer there, holding things together. To blow the dust off the old cliché, you didn't even realize it was there until it was gone.
The response to the article was overwhelming. It was reprinted overseas by Faith Fanzine and to this day remains one of our most popular features.
But the really overwhelming part was the openness of the people I interviewed. I fully expected the sort of "He was a great guy, helped my career, great records" sort of resumé responses, and to be sure I got some of those.
But Terry Hunter sat in a hotel talking with me on the phone until my tape batteries died, telling me stories about a near-riot in New York City between himself, Armando, Kenny Dope and Todd Terry.
Mike Dunn bared his soul to recount the last days. I have to tell you, Mike Dunn didn't know me from anyone at that point, but he opened up and trusted me to get it down exactly as he put it.
And listening to the tape again later, I could hear my voice crack as Paul Johnson related this to me:
PAUL: Yeah. I'm going to tell you about this. Nobody knows this but one person - DJ Emanuel.
Me and Armando were extremely close when he got sick. But I couldn't handle that. The whole time he was in the hospital - months - everyone was going to see him. He kept saying, "Where's Paul at? Tell Paul to come." I feel so sorry and ashamed, man, but I never went to see him. I couldn't see him. And I was already in a wheelchair myself. See what I'm saying?
I knew he was going to die. I couldn't look at his face because I knew. I knew it'd be the last time I'd see him. I didn't want to remember him that way. I wanted to remember him as the man I'd always known - smiling, laughing, cracking jokes with each other. And that's how I kept it. He was so close to me and trusted me that the 707 that he used to mix with? The reel-to-reels? He left those with me and those were his most prized possessions in the world. With nobody else. I felt pretty good about that, that he felt that good about our friendship, because everybody was his friend by this time.
I just feel bad because I didn't go see my friend. I couldn't see him that way. And I understand why half of my friends never come see me in hospitals. They never come. And I always say, "Why don't you guys come?" They never really give me a straight answer but I get it. I couldn't see him, either. So I finally get it. At his funeral I just sat there and cried, grabbing his arm. Nobody touched me and they let me stay up there. That was my boy...
In the end, with something like 15 hours of interviews, I decided to write myself out of the story entirely and just let Paul, Terry, Farley, Eric Martin, Kevin Starke and others talk. I was aware that I hadn't been able to get in touch with some people who were close to Armando, so I added that I would still be interested in talking to them, but this was something I wanted to get out while I had it and didn't want to delay it for years and years to cover every possible angle. It needed to get out. And I'm glad it did.
And because this is Chicago, and because this is the music industry, that's when the parasites, hangers-on and outright scum moved in.
One of the first comments I received about the story came via an anonymous, moronic email claiming the people we interviewed "didn't give a fuck about him[,] they want to steal from him", and we should talk to a local figure whose name I'm redacting now because I have no proof he was behind this goofy slander campaign, though I have my suspicions.
The tone was basically like this: "Everyone you interviewed is bullshit, you should really talk to Producer X (who hasn't released a record in like 5 years, and a hit record in about 15), and I'll be glad to set that up for you. He's really great and you should interview him anyway because he's a legend and all of these guys wouldn't be shit without him."
Several emails, probably all from the same source, followed, culminating in a threat to kick my ass. About a year later, we received a drunken voicemail - undoubtedly from the same source as it cites the same individuals - threatening to burn our office down.
All of this over someone who had passed on. Tacky? I'm not sure if grave robbing would be more disrespectful to the dead.
I'm bringing this up now as we just re-posted a classic mix in tribute to Armando, with Eric Martin's annual party featuring Paul Johnson, Eric Martin and DJ Urban scheduled for this coming Thursday. This February 12 would have been Armando's 40th birthday, and every year his friends and fans get together to remember this amazing man and his music.
Possibly, the usual suspects will crawl out of the discarded bag of Cheetos they live in to engage in the usual hatefest, which has never been about Armando and all about their own insecurities.
In their desire to have their picture on the front of a magazine, they'll literally crawl over departed friends and try to assassinate the reputation of a dozen people whose main crime is that they're more successful.
But that's Playa Hating for you, and no town excels in this quite like Sweet Home Chicago.
