JA RULE....THANKS GOD!

[Crenshaw_blvd]

September 6, 2001: Five days from now, thousands will be dead, victims of an onslaught of terrorism involving four fuel-laden commercial airliners and a coordinated band of suicidal hijackers. The World Trade Center's twin towers will be reduced to rubble, and the charred Pentagon will struggle to keep its bearings, while footage of impoverished Palestinians reveling in the misfortune flashes across television sets worldwide, the words "America Under Attack" blaring at the bottom of the screens. President Bush will pledge retaliation. Radical Muslim fundamentalist Osama bin Laden will be declared Public Enemy No. 1. And the world as we know it will be forever changed.

But all of that won't happen for another five days -- an eternity from now. Tonight, New York City is ready to rock till the break of dawn. And there's no better place to do it than Def Jam's "The Reunion" party at Manhattan's swanky B-Bar & Grill. Make it past the velvet rope, and you'll find celebrities like Chris Rock mixing it up with anonymous models, in town for Fashion Week, happily draping their lithe frames over martini-swilling music moguls. It's a fabulous, jam-packed madhouse -- a Dave Meyers music video come to life -- and the evening's VIP is none other than Jeffrey Atkins, 25, aka Ja Rule.

"Ja Rule, Ja Rule, over here, Ja Rule," an encroaching army of paparazzi cries, as the 5'6" rapper saunters into the joint, his Murder Inc. entourage in tow. The rapid-fire flashes could trigger an epileptic seizure. "Look this way!" they shout. "Smile. Please. Ja, just one more shot." Rule obliges, mugging for a brief moment. And then he's off to soak up the scene, deftly navigating through throngs of well-wishers hell-bent on shaking his hand or scoring an autograph. "I love your music," coos a statuesque blonde in Frankie B. jeans, her perfume as thick as her Eastern European accent. "I'm working on a project that would be perfect for you," a fiftyish woman slurs in the rapper's ear. Before making a break for the exit, Girlfight star Michelle Rodriguez urges Rule to give her a call "when you feel like hanging out with some real people, dude." "No doubt," Ja says, before giving a pound to Jon Bon Jovi, exchanging pleasantries with Gwen Stefani, and shooting the proverbial breeze with Island Def Jam head Lyor "Lansky" Cohen. Then, faster than you can say "holla, holla," Ja Rule is off to the next star-studded soiree. "This is living it up," he declares, taking a swig of Dom P for emphasis. "This is fucking living it up!"

Fame has been a long time coming for this little fella from Hollis, Queens, who's been slept on more than Wilt Chamberlain's Craftmatic Adjustable. First, there were the questions (who does this bandanna-wearing kid think he is?) and the answers (oh, he thinks he's Tupac), followed by the comparisons (fake-ass DMX) and the misspellings (that's Ja, without an 'h'). All of which was followed by a general lack of enthusiasm, even after Rule's 1999 debut, Venni Vetti Vecci, went platinum. Naysayers pegged him a one-hit wonder, the Craig Mack of the late '90s, they predicted. "People were saying I got lucky with 'Holla Holla,'" Rule says. "I was getting a lot of disrespect." Frustrated and eager to prove that he wasn't some no-talent hack riding on the coattails of a dead man or a dark man, Ja took it back to the studio, and in four months banged out Rule 3:36, a high-spirited, radio-friendly album that featured club favorites like "Between Me and You" and "Put It on Me" and the weepy "I Cry." On the strength of those three singles, 3:36 went triple platinum. Successfully dodging the sophomore jinx, Rule transformed himself overnight from the Rodney Dangerfield of rap to the Nelly of the East Coast.

Now, with roles in The Fast and the Furious and major ad campaigns for Coca-Cola and Calvin Klein Jeans, and high-profile collaborations with the likes of Metallica, Bono, and J-to-the-izz-Lo all under his belt, there's absolutely no denying that Ja Rule is a bona fide superstar. And upon the release of his third album, Pain Is Love, a more polished extension of 3:36, he's only going to get bigger -- at least according to Murder Inc. founder Irv Gotti, Rule's right-hand man. "He's gonna be a huge, huge star, a household name. Everybody's gonna know who the fuck he is," the animated Gotti predicts.

Aggrandizing rhetoric? Maybe. But how many MCs can say they've penned entire songs -- "entire" being the operative word here -- for Top 40 acts like Mariah Carey and Macy Gray? Only one. Sure, ghostwriter extraordinaire Hova has crafted lyrics for everyone from Foxy Brown to Dr. Dre; Jermaine Dupri has done the same for Kris Kross, and Da Brat for Lil' Bow Wow; and let's not forget how Nas helped bring the Fresh Prince into the new Willennium. But Ja Rule is the first rapper to step outside the confines of hip hop and write pure R&B and pop hits. "You can give me any track, and I'll give you a song," he states, confident in his newfound niche. "It may not be a song for me, but I can give you something somebody can use."

Right now, those somebodies are Shorty 101, Island Records' newest project, an all-white-girl, hip-pop quartet that makes Bad Boy's Dream look like a gang of 'hood rats. Emily, Stephanie, Blyth, and Christiana -- no doubt kidnapped from the food court of a suburban mall -- are taking turns laying down vocals for Rule's song "My Sweet Baby," a track that has "Watch out, Carson -- here we come!" scribbled all over it. "I've just got to make sure everything's going smoothly," Rule says, dropping in on 101's studio session at The Hit Factory for a quick sec, before dashing home to put the finishing touches on "Rainy Days," the song he's writing for Mary J. Blige. He is an admitted workaholic ("I'll sleep when I die"), a man who, according to his wife of close to a year, Aisha Atkins, can't stand to be idle. "He gets annoyed and starts climbing the walls if he's at home for more than two days," Atkins says. "He always has to find something to do."

September 20: The city that never sleeps has come to an abrupt standstill. Estimated damage to the Big Apple: $105 billion. Pearl Harbor comparisons abound. Talk of biochemical attacks fills the pages of the local papers as Mayor Giuliani insists we return to a normal way of life, as if that is at all possible. Far from the stench of smoldering buildings and bodies burnt beyond recognition, at the Atkinses' peaceful mansionette in West Orange, N.J., 5-year-old Britney, Ja Rule's precocious daughter, is feeding corn bread from Boston Market to her baby brother, Jeffrey, aka Lil' Rule. "Is it cool having a rapper for a daddy?" I ask Britney, as she chews on an apple and wipes crumbs from Lil' Rule's mouth. "Yes, because I get to watch him on TV." Do you like doing that? "Uh huh," she offers coyly.

If only it were that easy for mommy. "Sometimes the videos do get to me," confesses Aisha, a buxom, fair-skinned woman with authentic curly brown hair that hangs down her back. "But I'm starting to get used to it. If I'm going to be with him, I have to learn how to deal with it." Makeup-free and casually dressed in a gray T-shirt and matching sweats, Mrs. Atkins, a 5'2" beauty, looks a decade younger than her 24 years. She giggles a lot, especially when talk turns to Jeff, the man she's been with since ninth grade at John Adams High School in Queens. "He was always so cute and so suave. I've loved him forever," she says, her eyes misting up. "My friends look at my life and say it's like a Cinderella story. It is, kind of. He's like my Prince Charming." Next month, the young couple will move into their dream home, a five-bedroom, 7,000-square-foot expanse that sits on 2.1 acres in New Jersey.

But new luxury digs mean that Rule will have to work even harder, a fact that doesn't sit too well with Aisha, who rarely sees her husband as it is. "My friends joke that it's like having a man that's doing a bid," she says. Beautiful homes, state-of-the-art automobiles, and four-figure shopping allowances aside, being the wife of a hot young rapper does have its drawbacks.

[Crenshaw_blvd]

Soon after Rule emerges from the basement studio he's been holed up in for an hour, a playful discussion about the high concentration of shiksa goddesses in his "Livin' It Up" video begins to escalate into a full-fledged argument. Trying to head it off, Rule halfheartedly vows never to put another girl in his videos.

"Good," his wife says.

"That's not good," Ja retorts, "because there will be a whole bunch of girls not getting any work."

It's lame reasoning, and Aisha pounces. "You sound really stupid right now, Jeff," she says. "All these rappers coming out with the same damn videos? There's plenty of work."

"But they're losing work if I don't put them in my videos," Rule continues.

"So, that's their problem," Aisha says. "Go tell them to shake their butts in the stripper clubs."

Rule's voice begins to rise. "Let me tell you something," he says. "That's what gets the money. So stop complaining all the time."

Aisha turns away, looking for some support. "He acts like it's not hard to deal with," she says. "My husband popping champagne bottles, getting drunk with a whole bunch of half-naked bitches in L.A."

"I know it's hard," Rule concedes, a bottle of Moet in one hand, a simmering blunt in the other. "I know the position you're in. But you don't see my position, and that's what hurts me. Last night, I came in here and tried to tell you the good news about my movie, but you didn't care. [Rule landed a role in the prison flick Half Past Dead, which will take him to Berlin for two months.] You didn't even say congratulations or ask what the movie's about. Your whole thing was, 'Oh great, you're not going to be here for my birthday.' "We both have our pains," Rule continues. "Sometimes I feel like I don't have anybody to share what I love to do with. Because you hate what I do."

"No I don't," Aisha says.

A pained expression clouds her husband's face. "Yes, you do. You love Jeffrey Atkins, but you hate Ja Rule, and that's a problem. You can't hate Ja Rule. You've got to love him a little bit."

If ever there were a man in touch with his emotions, it's Jeffrey Atkins. In fact, he's managed to fashion an entire career out of being a "thug nigga" with a sensitive side that rivals Ralph Tresvant's. And it's not an act. The passion that burns in-side him is palpable; there's nothing lukewarm about this guy. "I feel immensely, therefore I am" is the sentiment that drives his every gesture, his every lyric. "Will you kill for me like you comfort me?" he asks on "Down A** B**ch," a guitar-driven track on Pain Is Love. "Will you die for me like you cry for me?"

Born February 29, 1976, the rapper has always had a flair for the dramatic, says his mother, Debra Atkins, an attractive, Rubenesque health-care worker in her early 40s. Mother and son bear a striking resemblence -- the puffy, puppy-dog eyes, the small chin, the pouty bottom lip, the endearing smile. Ms. Debra even has a deep voice. "Sometimes people call me sir on the phone if they catch me early in the morning when I'm just getting up," she says with a chuckle.

Sitting in her quaint living room in Queens, surrounded by framed photos of her only child, she delights in recounting one of Rule's first forays into acting. "He played Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol in sixth grade. They had two Scrooges, because there were too many lines for them to remember at that age. Jeff was supposed to be the Scrooge for Part 1, but the other boy got cold feet, so Jeff had to do his part, too. At the end of the play, they brought him onstage and said, 'We want to give Jeffrey Atkins a special applause because he did such a wonderful job of filling in at the last minute.'"

He has always liked the pressure. It's what fuels him, he says. "I love fourth quarter, down by two, three seconds on the clock. That's the best to me." Why? Because he is sure that he'll be the one to hit the three-pointer at the buzzer. "Anything I ever did, I thought I was going to be the best. When I was boxing, I thought I was going to be the next middleweight champion of the world." And when he began selling drugs as a teenager, young Rule sincerely believed he was going to be the biggest hustler. Watch him in motion. He walks with the inimitable swagger of a person who has never doubted himself a day in his life. "Looking back on it now, he was destined to be doing what he is doing," says Aisha. "He was always the center of attention. If there was a crowd, he was always the one walking in the middle." His mother says he has no hang-ups, but according to Gotti, the diminutive MC does have a Napoleon complex. "That's what makes Ja who he is. He's a little nigga that just wants to bring the ruckus to everybody. He wants to take on the giants and beat 'em." And like most lil' guys, he's also very big on respect. "Ja can be an asshole," Gotti admits. "He raises hell if he thinks Murder Inc. or Ja Rule isn't getting the respect they need to get. Raises hell."

In the relatively short time that he's known Rule, even U2 front man Bono has observed the rapper's moxie. "He's tough, but he can get out of the way of his ego. And that's hard. You have to be really tough to do that," says the rock activist, who, at the behest of his 13-year-old daughter, Jordan, asked Rule to participate in a remake of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On," a project designed to raise awareness of the AIDS crisis in Africa and benefit victims of the WTC tragedy. Bono believes Ja Rule is blessed with supreme self-confidence. "He's not looking over his shoulder at who else is coming in the room," Bono says.

September 25: It's the evening before Ja Rule embarks upon his 12-city Pain Is Love promo tour, and he's trying to squeeze a week's worth of work into the next few hours. First stop, DVD's Palace, to stock up on entertainment for the long bus rides. In light of recent events, Rule refuses to fly unless absolutely necessary. Should knife-wielding commandos decide to hijack a few more American planes, he doesn't want to be the hapless soul making that final call from his cell phone, he says. "But the realness of it is that, if I was on one of those planes, we wasn't going down," he announces in Lyor Cohen's office.

Struck with a sudden case of jingo fever, Rule jumps out of his chair and begins to talk about what would have transpired had he been flying the not-so-friendly skies on September 11. "We would've been fighting them niggas. They would've had to pop me before I went down into one of those buildings. You ain't just killing no nigga without him putting up a fight," he says, dripping machismo. But when asked if he's willing to go to war, to run through the hills of Afghanistan "fighting them niggas," Rambo Rule turns into G.I. Jane. "Take Lil' Zane and them. They're 18," he pleads as the room erupts in laughter. "I'm almost 26 years old. I'm an old man. Y'all don't want me. I can't run too good. I smoke a lot of weed."

That he does. Sinking into the plush seat of his chauffeur-driven Suburban, Rule sparks his umpteenth blunt of the day and watches the brightly lit streets of Manhattan blur into one long dash. DVDs secured, he's headed to The Crackhouse, Murder Inc.'s studio/clubhouse in SoHo, where he will work into the wee hours of the morning on a track for Fat Joe. He can scarcely believe his own good fortune. "When I first came in the game, I just wanted to go gold," he says.

Rule has learned some hard lessons in his seven-year rise. After signing what he terms a "bullshit deal" with TVT Records in the mid-'90s, he was stuck with no prospects and, worse yet, no publishing. "I signed with blinders on. I was 18, and I didn't give a fuck," he admits. "I just wanted them to give me something so I could get my foot in the game." He got that, and in exchange, TVT helped itself to all of the publishing on Rule's first two albums. "I used to call my publishing Slavery Music. Now I think I'm going to change it to 1863, the year of the Emancipation Proclamation," says Rule, who is now free from any legal obligation to his old label. "It's a beautiful thing to own your own publishing. Not a lot of rappers can say that."

And now that he has finally arrived, Rule claims he'll soon be ready to call it curtains on his career. "The Last Temptation and Venni Vetti Vecci [to show he's come full circle] are my next two albums, and then I'm done," he states resolutely. Sensing skepticism, he continues, "I'm serious. Five albums and that's it. I don't want to do this forever." But that finale, if it comes, won't happen for another two albums -- an eternity from now. Tonight, tucked away in a back room at The Crackhouse, he's ready to do battle. Jay and X are releasing CDs within weeks of Rule's. It's the face-off of the year, a SoundScan-judged fight for East Coast supremacy -- but Rule, the perennial underdog, remains undaunted. "I'm not scared to bet on me," the rapper states matter-of-factly. "I do it all the time, and I'm going to keep on doing it." Now that's a rule to live by.
FROM WWW.VIBE.COM
*****************
THANKS GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Antonio]

That's easly the best news of the year!
Thanx Elia, now i feel better!

[bez]

how long....zzzzzzzz

[Nosak]

okayyyy  

[infinite59]

I'm not going to hate..... ahhhh then again.. he's a sell-out shallow muthafucka, pop music, clown.

[Jome]

Sellout hell yeah. I'm real myass.

[AlerG]

am i the only one who read the first paragraph and then skipped to last?

peace.

[Antonio]

Naw, u aint! LOL!

Man.. next time make a summary or something like that!! LOL! I mean.. post full interesting interviews if u want, but.. just cut the boring ones!

[Maestro Minded]

i just read the first sentence...