by: Mark Allwood
July 1998
New York City's upscale Club N.V. is buzzing harder than an alcoholic at an all night open bar. It's the album
release party for Noreaga's debut solo project, N.O.R.E.
This is far from your average industry event. Rather
than just playing the wall, exchanging business cards or
eating fancy hors d' oeuvres, people are working up a
sweat. Forget about the politics and pretentious two step,
folks are dancing in here. The DJ is relentlessly spinning
new Nore material as well as a slew of bouncy hits from
below the Mason Dixon line.
In just over a year, Noreaga has gone from hungry underground rapper to International
"Super Thug." Victor Santiago Jr. didn't let his partner Capone's incarceration discourage him
as he kept shit locked down for the summer of '98. His newfound fame was evidenced as soon as
Noreaga made his grand entrance decked out in a black on white Versace suit and black Iraq
(slang for the LeFrak City, Queens neighborhood where he grew up) hat to match. Q-Borough's
favorite thug made his way through the packed club like any other partygoer, except his star status was quite obvious from
the amount of pounds, handshakes and congrats he received. N.O.R.E. may have went gold, but Noreaga never lost touch with
the thugs, drug dealers and hardcore hip hop heads that relate to his music.
June 1999
Noreaga has returned to the rap arena and is once again poised to reclaim that thug shit. While other rappers have since abandoned
the thug aesthetic, Nore's quick to tell you that it ain't dead yet, and unfortunately, clubs realize that too. "Clubs are scared of me
right now," Noreaga says through a thick cloud of blunt smoke while lounging at Manhattan's Sound On Sound recording studios.
"Clubs is like, 'that nigga comes with a thousand muthafuckas and tear da club up.' Hopefully by the time my album drops my
reputation dies down." That shouldn't be a problem since his sophomore solo album, Melvin Flynt the Hustler, has been
pushed back from June to August. Nore's now got a long, hot summer to let his rep cool off. Named after Jack Nicholson's character Melvin Udall in As
Good As It Gets and Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, Melvin Flynt the Hustler features Missy Elliott, Juvenile and the entire Thugged Out camp (Musolini, Maze, Final Chapter, Gold Fingers, Trey Outlaw, Scarlet the First Lady and Imam Thug). The album, which takes a step away from N.O.R.E.'s full length roster of guest appearances, was pushed back because Nore was waiting on the extremely busy Hype Williams to direct the video to his first single, "Oh No." The video has since been completed.
Debuting in 1997 with The War Report, Capone and Noreaga were slept on for way too long, but their freshman effort is now considered a hip hop classic. One of rap music's unwritten rules is to always expect the unexpected, but even Nore wasn't ready for the load he was left to carry alone shortly after the duo's debut release. Capone, Noreaga's partner in rhyme and best friend, was forced to serve a 2-and-a-half year bid for
violating his parole on a weapons possession charge. Thus Noreaga was forced to carry the CNN flag solo and declare war on the rap industry himself with his gold thug opus, N.O.R.E. But even in the worst situations, true dogs never abandon each other and always come through in the clutch. Nore constantly went to visit Capone and even made him executive producer of N.O.R.E. through several phone calls. "My mans in jail, (so) there's only one way I can make my nigga happy, and that's paper. That's my right hand nigga besides all this business shit," Nore says emphatically. "That's a nigga I used to share deodorant with up North and shit. So [for him to come home], it's a blessing. He come home to a mink coat, twelve bottles of Cristal, bottles of Dom Perignon, bottles of fuckin' Moet and white Benzes and shit. Just to see him shine, that make me feel good, cause I know I made all this happen."
While his man Capone was on lock down in upstate New York, Nore rode his album's success all the way to Fort Knox. But success usually makes the biters flock like a pack of hungry wolves that sense blood. "I felt like I brung the ebonics to the game, ya smell me? Niggaz was waiting for my slang to come out, he says. "Like jump off, and they be like jump off. Ya heard was everybody's shit, but I was sayin' that from Rikers Island? I say ya smell me, niggaz got onto that." Unlike his peers though, Noreaga readily admits to occasionally borrowing from the latest style, which right now happens to be the rapid-fire rhythms of the Dirty South (he's collaborated with everyone from P.A. and Project Pat to Three 6 Mafia and Skull Duggery).
"For years, L.A. and the South been bitin' off of us. Till now, we bitin' off of everybody son," he says. "We bouncin' now, that's what Cam said, 'when the fuck New York start bouncin'? I'ma keep it real. I say a little bounce sometimes. I'm aware that I'm tappin' into the South, cause the South is the shit right now! So this is the first time New York is bitin', and I'm the first to tell it."
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