With 96 buildings encompassing a six-block radius, Queensbridge has been described as six projects in one, each its own micro city, which led to beef between different blocks. “Each block in Queensbridge has its own mentality, it’s own movement,” Capone says. “I could see someone from Vernon, and they might not get along with someone from my block, 12th Street, and that’s because Vernon and 12th Street always had beef.” Tribalism, ego and machismo were already present in the hood, then hip-hop added the spirit of competition to the mix. It was a recipe for disaster. As Nas said, there’s one life, one love, so there can only be one king.
Queensbridge rap in the ’90s was defined by beef, and no one was involved with more beef at the time—both on and off the streets of Queensbridge—than Cormega, who isn’t from Queensbridge. Born Cory McKay in Brooklyn, Cormega moved at an early age from Bedford-Stuyvesant to Co-Op City in the Bronx where he lived on a 22nd floor apartment with a balcony. Life was good until his father discovered crack cocaine.
Mega moved to Far Rockaway, Queens, and then he began dealing drugs in Brooklyn. By that point crack had overtaken America’s inner cities, none more so than Queensbridge. Sensing a business opportunity, Mega moved into the hood. “It was craziness,” Cormega says. With scores of fiends stalking the open market, he could sell a “five-pack” ($500 worth of crack) in an afternoon. Most teenagers looked up to Marley and Shan, but Mega admired Trent and Rodney, the two biggest drug dealers on his block.
“I can say I sold more drugs than other rappers from Queensbridge,” Cormega says, an odd grin on his face. “That’s a fact. That’s not up for debate.”
The rest of Cormega’s story is now part of industry lore: Jailed for armed robbery, shouted out on “One Love,” came home to “paper in hand” as Nas rapped on “Success” (or not, “Son, you gave me a hundred dollars when I came home,” Mega stated on 2002’s “Love in Love Out”), joined the Firm, the supergroup also consisting of Nas, AZ, and Foxy Brown, booted from the Firm for not signing a production deal, replaced by Nature in the Firm, went to war with Nas and Nature, signed with Def Jam, got shelved, went independent, and is now a respected veteran.
Sitting in an office in Union Square, Mega reflects on how beef plagued his generation of Queensbridge rappers. “Too much aspiration and ambition and inner bickering, the crab mentality,” he says from behind his tortoise shell sunglasses. “The most popular rapper in Queensbridge is Nas—straight up and down—and if you can’t accept that, you’re not being real with yourself. After Nas, it’s Mobb Deep. Accept it. There was so much inner bickering and bullshyt. I’m not saying I’m not guilty of it, but mine was different. Me and Nas were from the same block. I knew his mom. Our differences were business, not bullshyt.”
A brief truce among all the rappers brokered by the late Killa Sha resulted in Nas & Ill Will Presents QB’s Finest, a compilation released on Columbia in December 2000. But it was soon war again: Cormega vs. Nas; Nas vs. Prodigy; Nas vs. Nature; Capone N Noreaga vs. Tragedy; Capone N Noreaga vs. Mobb Deep. The watershed moment was “Destroy and Rebuild,” Nas’s diss record on 2001’s Stillmatic, which aired the Bridge’s dirty laundry specifically targeting Cormega, Nature, and Prodigy. I ask Cormega about the record. “I don’t want to revisit that era.” He then deflects a follow-up question regarding the neighborhood’s response to the record. “To not revisit it means I don’t want to revisit it.”
Cormega made peace with Nas years ago; he had reconciled with Nature in the late ’90s and collaborated with him on his most recent album, Mega Philosophy. “I try to work with everyone from my hood and show love, but everyone isn’t on that. That’s what brought the hood down,” Cormega says. “As long as this repetitive cycle of animosity and bullshyt goes on, we’re hurting each other.” Perhaps the battles did hurt what was supposed to be the next generation of Queensbridge rappers like Big Noyd, Infamous Mobb, Bravehearts, Nashawn, Lakey the Kid, and Screwball—there’s collateral damage in every war.
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