Release Me

by Olivia Longott

Genres: African American; African American Urban

Synopsis

This is not a game . . . this is life! From the day she discovered she had a voice that could touch millions, Olivia Longott put in long, hard hours in the studio, trying to achieve her dreams of R&B superstardom. With such royal talents, she fully deserved the title she was given as First Lady of J, the legendary Clive Davis's label, and then First Lady of G-Unit, when she landed a second deal with G Unit/Interscope Records. Olivia quickly made it clear that she is nobody's number two. With dual recording deals in hand, Olivia thought her dream had manifested—until she left both labels in what felt like a nightmare. Being the fighter her daddy taught her to be, Olivia would not let these challenges hold her back from the industry. Instead, she used the experiences as a setup for something new. The world saw her jump back into the ring swinging on the Love & Hip Hop reality show. Sometimes, though, reality isn't always what it seems. That's why Olivia has taken the time to sit down and pen what it truly is. During her unfolding journey in the music industry, Olivia has seen, heard, and experienced a lot. Now it's time to bring you into her world.

Release date: July 1, 2014

Publisher: Urban Renaissance

Print pages: 288

Sample

Taking care of people has always made me happy. It’s like it soothed my soul. If everybody else around me is feeling and doing good, then so am I. There is something about putting a smile on someone’s face with the simplest gesture that makes my day. On the low, I am a bit emotional, but you wouldn’t know that unless you were in my inner circle. I can recall when I was around five years old, wanting to always help my mother in any way possible just to make her happy. She worked for a real estate company in Long Island, New York, and to me it felt like she was there all day. I would miss her so much all day that I couldn’t wait for her to come waltzing through that door.

My older brother, Christopher, would be upstairs somewhere playing music and watching karate movies, while I was anxiously waiting to hear the sound of her car pull up in the driveway. I’d already rehearsed in my head a thousand times all I was going to tell her about my day. The majority of the time my dad got in at later hours because he was a manager at JFK Airport, so it would just be me waiting there at the door to try my best to wipe away that tired, drained look on my mother’s face or give her more joy, depending on what kind of day she’d had.

“Hi, Mommy.” I’d wrap my arms around her waist, squeezing my eyes closed just as tightly as I was squeezing her. She could barely even make it in the door.

“Hey, my Livy,” she would reply, the exhaustion in her tone not undetected by even a five-year-old.

“Can I get you anything, Mommy?”

“No, my baby. I’m good.” She sighed and then made her way over to the couch, dropping her purse and keys on the coffee table.

“How ’bout a pillow to put your feet on top of?” I eagerly suggested, grabbing one of the throw pillows from the couch. Trying to fluff up the pillow, I said, “I saw this daddy on a television show I was watching do it for the mommy. It made her smile.”

I sat there impatiently waiting for her to give me an order, any order, that my accomplishing would please her. Then it happened. A smile crept across her face as she rubbed my cheek with the back of her hand.

“Yes, dear, you know I love when you do that, but I’m going to make us both some tea first.” She knew I loved hot tea, but of course I was too young to make it by myself. I always felt like such a grown-up sitting there sipping tea with my mom like I had me some business.

“Can I help you make the tea, Mommy? Please.”

“Sure, Livy.” Just as tired as all get out, she slowly lifted herself from the couch.

I tossed that pillow right back on the couch, and with a matching smile now on my face, I took my mother by the hand and led her downstairs into the kitchen.

We lived in a two-family home that had three levels. The kitchen was in the basement, along with the dining room. I released her hand to do my famous slide across the kitchen floor. I always loved sliding across the tiles in my socks. The tiles were beige to offset the matte white cabinets. Most of the décor in our home was lighter colors. That always made our home feel so open and bright.

Once my mother assisted me in getting the tea prepared, I made her sit at the kitchen table, and as if I were the adult, I tried to tend to her by putting sugar in her cup. “One lump or two?” I would mimic everything I heard on TV—and I would try to say it with a British accent. Don’t ask me why; I was just different.

My mother would sit there watching me. I would just be talking my head off like she was one of my classmates who understood the language of a kindergartner.

While she sipped the tea, I would sometimes read a book to her. Other times, I would make up these grand stories off the top of my head to tell her.

When I was actually reading to her from one of my favorite books, I can remember glancing up in between pauses to stare at her. My mother always looked so pretty. I admired her grace and beauty. She wore the prettiest long, silk skirts and tops, and she always had a belt around her small waist. No one could tell my mother she wasn’t styling. Oh, and when her hair was flipped like Farrah Fawcett, that was a whole other story. I paid attention to every detail.

I know that’s where I get my love of hairstyles from. Whenever I’m sitting in the mirror doing my hair, it’s almost as if I’m looking at my mother in the mirror. I looked just like my mom when she was my age. That’s why when I see myself, I can’t help but see her.

Although I had lots of friends, I enjoyed spending time with my mother the most. She and I used to go for walks. To this day I can still hear her singing, “Skip to my Lou, My Darling,” as I pranced down the block in my little pink jelly shoes.

“Freeze!” she would yell out.

That’s when I would stop and pose. I held that pose so hard, with my hands on my hips and a Zoolander facial expression. Oh my gosh, she loved that. She would just clap and smile up to the heavens. Not me. I’d be concentrating hard, with a fierce look on my face, while striking a pose like I was in a Madonna video or something.

I loved to dress up, and once I got older, I always switched my style up. I remember these one pair of shorts distinctively. I think I wore those little blue short shorts with white trim on the bottom to the park every week. My hair was braided back all fly, and I wore a blue T-shirt to match and of course some jellies. I was the jelly shoes princess. Back in the 1980s those were what was up, and nobody could tell me that I wasn’t the freshest kid on the playground.

We would pull up on our bikes at the park. It was like six of us: my brother and his friend, two girls from my neighborhood, and me and my bestie. I liked wearing my hair braided all back in eight cornrows, looking like Queen Latifah in the movie Set It Off. Even rolling on my bike, while everyone else had on their kicks, I still had on those damn pink jellies. I just had to be different, even then.

There were days where I felt like being extra fancy, so my mom would put me in knee-length dresses and would have my hair in a high ponytail to the side with a bow in it. Match that with my white lace ruffled socks and shiny black shoes, and ooh wee! I was sharp enough to cut the sidewalk!

When I look back at our family photos, my mom had me in an awful lot of dresses. I feel like every dress was white or had white in it and had some type of lace frills on it. She always had me looking right, I must admit. In almost every picture I was doing this one pose that my mom still does to this day. Everyone in my family knows there is only one way my mother takes a picture. I would have one hand on my hip and the other straight down to my side, with my foot pointing out. Y’all know that pose. It’s that “Ta-dah! Look at me!” pose. I was so girlie. So how ironic is it that I turned out to be a tomboy?

I used to always chill with my crew on Springfield Boulevard. I hung with these guys that called themselves “Crum Corp.” Don’t even ask me what the hell that meant. I didn’t choose the name. Anyway, we used to kick it in front of my boy Bubba Smith’s house, or over at my favorite crazy guy Tank’s house.

Bubba was the rapper of the crew, and so was my best friend Bingo. Bingo is still my boy to this day. Man, he used to get me in so much trouble; I can’t even believe I still mess with that fool. Bingo and I hung around each other so much that people used to think we were brother and sister. If someone was looking for either of us, they knew where to find us: his house or my house. I don’t know how we didn’t drive Bingo’s parents and grandparents crazy. I would sometimes be over his house at the crack of dawn. Bingo always got up early, which meant he called me to come over early to write and record or to cause trouble.

It was cool for us to hang out at each other’s houses until late at night or until the wee hours in the morning, but if it got too late, our parents were there to remind us. All we’d be doing was rapping and singing and cooking—which reminds me of his grandma’s slammin’ turkey burgers. She loved making us those darn burgers, and we’d be sitting at the kitchen table ready to devour them. Bingo had built a home studio in the basement. We had sheets on the walls to try to stop sound from coming in. The mic was cheap, but hey, it could record. Bingo also had an MPC machine to make beats. We were always serious about our craft, even way back then.

I don’t remember any of the guys having steady girlfriends, so I didn’t have to deal with catty girls being mad that their boyfriends were always around me. Besides, everyone knew we were all just friends. We were like the Junior Mafia of Queens. I loved those guys. They would refer to me as “Queen” all the time. They always had my back.

I can’t forget my boy Bundy. We used to chill at his spot on occasion as well. Bundy and I went to high school together, and he was part of the crew too. Bundy actually became my hype man on stage when I really got into the music and started having bigger shows. Bundy would be on stage dancing and back-flipping. When I tell y’all he used to be turnt-up on them stages . . . Man! Not only was this the crew I got into trouble with, but they also taught me how to shoot my first gun. More trouble!

One day we were all at Bubba’s crib just talking about school, parties and whatnot. Sometimes we would rap in a cypher (I was nice as hell) and occasionally sip some Patrón. Now that I think back, I suppose Patrón has always been my drink of choice, not that I had any business sipping anything besides iced tea back then. I was around sixteen or seventeen at the time.

“Yo, wassup? Anybody down for target practice?” Bubba asked as he came downstairs, where we were all hanging out, with his chest all puffed up, ready for a little show and tell.

“Man, what the hell are you talking about now?” Tank said while sipping on some Hennessy, his drink of choice. Tank was the oldest of the crew; two years older than the rest of us.

Tank was the one who got us liquor. Don’t ask me how, but when he was around, a bottle of Hennessy would always magically appear. Tank was also the one who loved to start trouble. His nickname was Tank for a reason: he was built like one and dared anyone to step to him. He was so amusing to watch. He was one of those guys who talked all the crap in the world but could back up every word. Yeah, that was Tank.

“I got a little ounish you guys might want to check out,” Bubba said.

We called everything and everyone an “ounish.” It was our own made-up word. We’d be like, “Wassup, Oun Oun,” or “I got the ounish wit’ me.” You know; our own language.

“Yo, this guy is crazy.” I laughed. “He always got some new stuff he wanna show us.” I looked to Bubba. “Yeah, we wanna see, Bub.”

Bubba turned and pulled from behind him a Mack 10.

“Holy crap! This guy wasn’t joking,” Tank said as he spit out his sip of Hennessy in shock. “Man, put that cannon away.”

“No, let me see, man,” I asked curiously.

“You sure you can handle this much steel?” Bubba said, raising his eyebrows. He used to do that thing with his eyebrow long before The Rock made the facial expression famous.

“Boy, if you don’t give me that damn gun . . .” I said.

“All right, all right.” Bubba handed me the gun.

I held it up in a shooting position, like I was Angelina Jolie in that movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith. I wasn’t a stranger to or afraid of guns. My father had a gun, but he never let me see or handle it. It was locked away in his closet, so I was way too excited to get my paws on this one. “Where the hell did you get this from? Better question: where can we go to try it out?” I said, intrigued by the deadly weapon. I was always too dayum hype to get into some trouble.

“What? Liv wanna pop off the steel too?” Bubba joked as I sucked my teeth. “All right, I’m done messing with you. No problem.”

“You gon’ let her play wit’ it for real?” Tank asked Bubba with his eyebrows now raised.

“Liv? Hell yeah. She one of the boys.” Bubba shrugged.

“All right then,” Tank said, shaking his head. “But hold up.”

Tank headed up the steps and called for Bingo to come with him. Within seconds they had both disappeared up the steps. When they returned, I think they had collected every phone book Bubba had in the house.

“Help us set these up, y’all,” Tank ordered.

Bubba, Bingo, Tank, and I set up the phone books, one on top of the other, for our bootleg target practice. What made this even worse was that we were shooting right next to the boiler, so if we had missed the books and hit the boiler, I would not be writing this book right now. Thank God Bubba’s mom wasn’t home from work yet. Then again, maybe she could have stopped our dumb asses from what we were about to try.

“Let me go first.” I held onto that gun like I knew what the hell I was doing. I closed my left eye tightly while squinting my right eye, trying to focus so that I could get a good aim; then I squeezed the trigger. The force of the gun shifted my body back a bit, but once the bullet was released, I was still standing. Come to think of it, no matter what them fools got me caught up in, I was always still standing. And when I say I was always caught up in something with the crew, that’s exactly what I mean.

Them dudes always had me up to no good. There was this one time when it was just me and Bingo and his boy Devi. Bingo and I left Devi upstairs while we went to make sandwiches downstairs. Bingo must have left his gun out in plain sight, because needless to say, we heard the gun go off. Bingo and I immediately went into our crazy, silly panic mode.

“Holy shit! Was that what I think it was, Batman?” Bingo said, nervous as hell, looking at me.

“Why, yes. Yes it was, Robin!” I responded. We dropped the plates on the table and flew up the stairs. Bingo and I joked all the time; we couldn’t help it. We pulled lines from different movies and used it in our everyday conversations.

Although we heard the gun go off, we didn’t hear Devi screaming, so we pretty much knew he hadn’t foolishly shot himself. The question was what or where did he shoot at? God forbid he aimed at a window and an innocent bystander was walking by. High dudes and guns definitely don’t mix.

“What the hell happened? We heard the gun go off,” I said to Devi, all out of breath.

Devi was just sitting there staring up at the ceiling with this dumb smile on his face. Devi always, I mean always, had a smile on his face. It didn’t matter what time of day it was or what was going on around him; that boy kept a smile on his face. I’m sure it was partly because he always smoked weed, but hey, at least he always smiled. We didn’t know if he was in shock or what.

Next thing I knew, Bingo went over to Devi and started patting him down. “You all right, man? You hit?”

Devi started shoving Bingo’s hands off of him. When I say these two Negroes looked like they were having a fly-swatting contest, I am not exaggerating.

“Man, get off of me. I’m good,” Devi tried to tell Bingo to no avail.

By this time, I was cracking up looking at Ren and Stimpy. Even Devi busted out laughing. All the while Bingo was as serious as a heart attack, still patting down his boy to see if he came across blood or anything.

“Man, the bullet ain’t in me. It’s up there.” Devi pointed up to the ceiling where he had been staring, while at the same time managing to slap Bingo’s hands away. Those two were classic.

We were all looking up at the ceiling where the bullet sat lodged in the drywall.

“See, I’m cool, man,” Devi assured Bingo, still laughing.

Now Bingo’s concern turned to anger. “How the hell you gon’ shoot a gun off in the crib and not warn anybody? What if Liv and me were walking up the stairs and ya aim was off?” He stopped to take a breather and calm down. “You know what? It’s my fault, ’cause I shouldn’t have left the gun out for you to see anyway,” Bingo said. “I know your ass likes guns. I should have known better with your happy high ass,” he continued.

“Shit, I didn’t know the safety was off. I was just messing around. When I pulled the trigger I didn’t expect a bullet to go flying.”

Bingo shook his head and snatched the gun from him, putting the safety back on.

“Damn, man, my bad,” Devi said. “I would have never shot it had I known it—”

“Wasn’t on safety. We know, we know,” I said, finishing Devi’s sentence for him.

“No,” he said, “if I had known I was going to get felt up by your boy.”

Devi and I laughed our butts off. Even Bingo had to laugh at that one. Man, I wish camera phones and YouTube were in then. That scene would have gone viral.

“Oh my God, we can’t leave you alone for a second.” I shook my head

“Man, you could have killed yourself . . . or shot your eye out, kid,” Bingo added.

Man, we all held our stomachs laughing so hard after Bingo’s line from that movie, A Christmas Story.

I loved hanging with those fools, though. Never a dull moment. Even when I was younger I had more fun with boys. The majority of my cousins were boys, and they were always at the house romping around. Rory and Kurt are my mom’s closest sister’s kids. They lived at the opposite end of the block from us. You can best believe that play dates were daily; from video games to playing with Mask and GI Joe to riding our bikes. Uncle Courtney, who is my mom’s sister’s husband, used. . .