Camay

It is the mid 80’s. A young musical genius in the making , around the age of six months old , sits quietly, swaying in her baby swing. She stares intently at a television screen, playing the video for Gloria Estefan’s “Bad Boy”. Her young mother, busy chasing after another child, a few years older, sings the song along with Gloria.
“My mother had me at the age of 19.” a preoccupied Camay states. “I don’t know if she knew what she was doing, but she would sit me in front of MTV if she had something to do around the house. It would keep my attention for hours.”
Camay, nee Yteka Moore, puts fire to the cigar she’s just rolled. She stares at the lit end for a second, as if she can see the video replaying in the bright ambers of the weed. When she snaps out of her daze a couple seconds later, she almost whispers,
“I‘ve loved music for as long as I can remember.”
Flash forward with me a few years later, seven and a half to be exact. The little baby in the swing has grown into a very slim, slanted eyed young girl. She sits Indian style in front of yet another television. This time on the small screen, she watches a young Nas read an imaginary letter to his friend behind bars on “One Love”. The young girl stares at the emcee in awe, the words coming out of his mouth painting a vivid image of the ills of life in Queens, NY
Her older brother joins her, along with two younger additions to her mothers pack. “Both of my parents were workaholics” present day Camay says. “me and my brothers were home by ourselves a lot. We watched mad TV.” She also read plenty of books as an escape from being indoors for the good part of the day, after school of course.
After her first encounter with Nas, the young girl experimented with writing rhymes. “They were probably as corny as a lot of rapper’s music is today” Camay chuckles. But her Mother Goose like skills would soon turn into the savage beast-like prose we here from today’s Camay. “The first music I heard, like your Marvin Gayes, your Michael Jacksons, your Al Greens,” Camay explains, “They planted the seed for my love of music, my passion. The Rappers I heard, your Nasir Joneses, your Shawn Carters, your Christopher Wallaces, they planted my passion for hip hop. I wanted to do what they were doing.”
Female rappers being far and few in the early 90’s, Yteka held on to every rap lyric her ears soaked up. The music she heard from female rappers was limited to what she heard on the radio, but she managed to get her hands on Illmatic, Ready to Die, and Reasonable doubt through her older brother, who had both the freedom and means to borrow and dub tapes from his friends.
We flash forward once again to the present day Yteka, who is known by both friends and family now as Camay. “The Ghostface song is the whole reasoning behind my name.” She sits in a full service studio in, Brooklyn Ny, writing lyrics onto her sidekick as they pop in her head. She passes the blunt to a female in the room, no doubt part of her clique, The Krazy 88’s. Camay is putting the finishing touches on her first solo mixtape, entitled “A Drug Dealers Dream”. Full of the ambitious genes she inhabited from both of her parents, her need for the finer things in life has lead her down the path so many before her traveled, some with no success.
“God just paired me up with the right people in life, people that complete my cipher and vice versa. I got good people behind me, and as long as I maintain the passion I got Ima be aiight. The talent is given.”
Listening to the tracks from her coming project, I’m reminded of the smoothness we heard from Jay-Z during Reasonable Doubt. She is so sure of herself, which is obvious in the music. “This is a male dominated game, and to be a successful player you gotta stand on your own two.” She says seriously. “ Here I am, no male entourage, no male cosigner, nothing. Camay. I don’t need no nigga to validate my hotness, you judge for yourself.”
Flash Forward with me once more. The amount of time we are ahead is unsure, but the young girl has transformed once more, this time looking more like the Camay we see in present day. She sits in front of a plasma screen flat TV, in a lounge chair. This time the video is her own, and she watches with the very same intensity she watched the very first video she remembers. She watches for mistakes that she will undoubtedly not make again in her next video. She turns the television off abruptly and heads off to complete her conquest of the world. When will these events take place? Turn on your television and see.
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