You know you hit, so your mind frame is-you pumped, your adrenaline is going. It’s not like, when you get shot, ‘Oh, I got shot here.’ Nah. “The only thing I remember is falling, and knowing that I’m shot-just don’t know where. “Then, after I got a sandwich and came out of the store-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da- da! ” Gravy told me later, mimicking the sound of gunfire. Gravy went around the corner to get something to eat.Ī couple of hours passed. Punctuality is unusual in the rap world, but Gravy and his crew arrived early for his session, and when he presented himself at the Hot 97 studio, on Hudson Street in the West Village, at a quarter to seven, Flex sent him away and told him not to return until ten. who wields a kingmaking power in the hip-hop industry, to perform in an improvisatory freestyle session with a couple of other rappers, Joell Ortiz and Saigon.įor moral support, Gravy had assembled a sizable entourage-three or four dozen men-and outfitted them with extra-large blue T-shirts that read “Gravy” on the front and, on the back, “Brooklyn ‘Get Up,’ ” a reference to the first single from his forthcoming album. He’d been invited by Flex, a veteran d.j. That Wednesday night, he was due to make an appearance on “Riding with Funkmaster Flex,” a popular radio show on WQHT, otherwise known as Hot 97. A year and a half ago, he signed a major-label recording deal, with Warner Bros., but outside the bootleg market on Canal Street, where you can collect the latest rap demos and mix tapes (CDs, actually) for five dollars apiece, Gravy remained an unknown. Woolard, whose hip-hop name is Gravy and whose songs include “Drugs, Drugs, Drugs,” “Get Wet, Get Wet,” “I Know, I Know,” and “Murder, Murder,” has for several years been a figure on the Brooklyn underground circuit, cutting mix tapes with better-known performers like Busta Rhymes, Foxy Brown, and 50 Cent.

On the last Wednesday in April, a former drug dealer named Jamal Woolard, from the Lafayette Garden housing projects, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, was preparing for his big break. After the shooting, Gravy slipped inside and freestyled on Funkmaster Flex's show.

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