At 7 PM, accompanied by Phil, Leon drove to the Belmont area of the Bronx.
Over eighty percent of the residents here were Black. Even in the Bronx, which had the worst public security in New York, this place was unique.
"Fxxk... are we in Nigeria?" Phil complained while driving, his mouth never stopping along the way.
Leon joked, "Just focus on driving. Don't stop until we reach the destination! An old white man in a suit like you would be stripped naked the moment you got out of the car."
Hearing them talk like this, Cardi B couldn't sit still.
She tried to explain that Black people living in the Bronx were an honest, friendly, trustworthy, and united group.
In short, they had a gentle nature deep in their bones.
The current situation in the Bronx was caused by the Manhattan capitalists not far to the south.
Leon and Phil looked at each other and smiled, only able to perfunctorily reply with "Ah yes, yes, yes."
The purpose of their trip was to discuss the acquisition of Lion's Den Radio.
At Leon's signal, Aisha offered a generous sum of $300,000. In the 90s, this amount of money certainly couldn't have bought a radio station of Lion's Den's size.
After the new millennium, the gangsta rap market increasingly withered, and Lion's Den Radio, which relied on gang members as its base, shrank day by day.
In its heyday in the 90s, it was one of the top community radio stations in the Bronx, with over 200,000 active listeners per week.
Cardi B also grew up listening to Lion's Den Radio.
According to her, the owner of Lion's Den Radio and its head DJ, "Wizard" Marcus, was a gentle man.
He had participated in the production of Biggie's albums and was also a battle MC.
It's just that he really had no talent as a rapper. In 2002, he confidently participated in a TV show called Freestyle Friday, but was utterly humiliated by a young Chinese guy wearing his hat backward.
Even now, he didn't allow anyone to mention the name of that Chinese kid, MC Jin, in front of him.
The "office building" of Lion's Den Radio looked very large, if it could be called an office building.
This place was actually a huge abandoned factory.
During the wave of industrialization in the 19th century, under the guidance of the New York City government, the Bronx transformed from an agricultural area to an industrial area.
It attracted a large number of workers and illegal immigrants.
Now, with the decline of American manufacturing, most factories here have long been abandoned, becoming drawing boards for street graffiti enthusiasts.
As soon as he entered Lion's Den Radio, the first thing that caught Leon's eye was the huge gang graffiti covering the walls.
A huge red five-pointed star was particularly dazzling.
Cardi B excitedly let out a strange cry: "This is the exclusive mark of our Bloods. The five points of the star represent love, truth, peace, freedom, and justice."
Hearing this explanation, Leon almost laughed out loud. "Exclusive to you? This mark isn't something just anyone can interpret casually..."
He wanted to tell Cardi that the final right to interpret this mark didn't lie in the Bronx, or even in the United States.
But thinking about Cardi's education level, which was barely above prenatal education, he decided against it.
After climbing an old concrete staircase, they met DJ Marcus.
Inside the wasteland-style broadcasting room, Marcus was wearing headphones and passionately spraying into the microphone.
"Bullshxt! West Coast rap is all Bullshxt!"
"Do you dare stand in front of me and say Tupac is greater than Biggie? You'll eat bullets, ngga!"
"Suge Knight is a venomous snake! A villain who only shoots from the dark!"
DJ Marcus didn't notice Leon's group at all; he seemed to be arguing with a West Coast music fan.
"What?"
"You say you're a white guy?"
"Are you copying us Black people like a clown, wearing oversized jerseys just because you learned from Eminem?"
"Shxt, don't waste my time, get lost!"
Marcus angrily cut off the connection with the listener. Only then did he notice Leon and the others.
"You are..." He was just about to speak when he was hugged by Cardi.
"Marcus~ Aha~ long time no see..."
"Wait..." Faced with the girl's enthusiasm, Marcus seemed at a loss. It took him more than ten seconds to react. "Are you Little Cardi?"
"Last time I saw you, you were just a little girl. Now you're a [big] girl."
When saying "big," Marcus intentionally looked at Cardi's butt a couple more times. "You're already a mature Black woman!"
Sure enough, they knew each other. Then the next things would be easy to handle.
Leon came up behind Cardi and whispered, "Mr. Marcus is still broadcasting. Let's talk after his show ends."
"No need, the ones calling in today are all idiots!"
After speaking, Marcus cut off the radio signal.
"You are Leon, the boss of Apocalypse Music? I've heard your songs. Let's sit down and talk."
Everyone sat around on the sofa. Marcus poured everyone a glass of whiskey and chatted while drinking.
Phil looked at Marcus's record collection on the bookshelf and exclaimed repeatedly, "WTF... you have so many out-of-print records of Grandmaster Caz?"
Marcus's eyes lit up. "A white guy like you actually knows this?"
"Do you think I'm a layman? These records should be worth a lot of money now."
There are many theories about the origin of hip-hop music, but there is almost no dispute about who promoted this niche music popular in the Bronx to the whole of America.
On the evening of July 13, 1977, two thunderbolts fell from the sky.
One hit a substation near the Hudson River, and the second damaged a transmission line.
Circuit breakers tripping caused a main transmission line to be cut off as well.
To reduce the load, the power company decided to protect itself by cutting power.
An hour later, New York's largest generator set shut down, and the entire city plunged into its darkest hour.
Just in this endless darkness, the grandmaster of hip-hop music was born.
Americans, in the abyss of the seventh financial crisis, had their evil factors ignited by the darkness.
Bankrupt civilians, homeless people, and thugs took to the streets, looting, smashing, and burning unscrupulously.
This blackout thoroughly stimulated the Black people's "zero-dollar shopping" gene. In this incident, surprisingly, more than 550 police officers were injured, and as many as 3,776 suspects were arrested.
1,616 stores were robbed, more than 1,000 fires occurred in the city, and economic losses reached as high as 300 million dollars.
In this super-large-scale zero-dollar shopping event, there was a Black man who always adhered to his musical original intention.
He didn't rob stores of tobacco, alcohol, and electronic products, nor did he even take a single cent of money.
He robbed a large batch of music equipment.
This man was Curtis Fisher, "Grandmaster Caz," who created the hip-hop music that swept the world.
Listening to Phil's emotional description, Cardi squeezed a tear from the corner of her eye. "What did he do wrong? He just robbed some music equipment for his ideals..."
"He didn't hurt anyone..."
Marcus also showed a shocked expression. He didn't expect the old white man in front of him to know the history of Bronx hip-hop music better than himself.
Leon also secretly gave a thumbs-up.
Although Phil was greedy and lecherous, a typical scumbag old white man...
He had one advantage, which was an extremely academic spirit of exploration.
His knowledge of music history was on par with his understanding of female anatomy.