Paid in Full Foundation's gala honors Nile Rodgers, The DOC., and more

[Stephan Bobb]

Paid in Full Foundation's gala honors Nile Rodgers, The DOC., and more

Story by Kyle Eustice

• 17h •

6 min read

With its Elvis impersonators, countless wedding chapels, intoxicating neon lights, the Sphere, and all-night casinos, Las Vegas is a sensory overload. It's the same city Hunter S. Thompson once described as a "garish, surreal, Greek-Roman-Visigothic playground." When a small army of hip-hop legends descends on the desert metropolis, it's even harder to believe it's real.

But at 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning (Oct. 24), the DaVinci convention room inside the Bellagio Casino and Resort is buzzing as a swarm of people prepares for the Paid in Full Foundation's Hip-Hop Grandmaster Awards. In a matter of hours, The D.O.C. and Kurtis Blow - two foundational hip-hop artists who helped shape the culture - will be honored with a substantial grant donated by philanthropists Ben and Felicia Horowitz, while CHIC's Nile Rodgers will receive the Quincy Jones Achievement Award and Video Music Box trailblazer Ralph McDaniels will be given the Contributor Award.

It's become an annual destination for the pillars of the culture. This year, Ice Cube, Nas, E-40, Grandmaster Caz, Scarface of the Geto Boys, co-host Roxanne Shanté, Rakim, Kool G Rap, Grand Puba of Brand Nubian and Rev Run of Run-DMC were just a sliver of famous faces that peppered a crowd of more than 500 people.

Speaking to VIBE ahead of the evening's festivities, The D.O.C. expressed immense gratitude. Though his rap career was cut short in 1989, when a tragic car accident robbed him of his voice, he pivoted to pen lyrics for N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton, Dr. Dre's solo debut, The Chronic, Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle, and other West Coast classics.

"I'm just happy and thankful that I’m getting some acknowledgment," he said. "It feels like it’s time. It feels like there’s a change in the wind, if you will, and in my life-period. Things are beginning to blow a different way, and this is just confirmation that it must be my turn."

The D.O.C. has waited decades for this, but over time, his priorities have shifted. He's more focused on building a school in Dallas, the Dream Experience Academy (DEA). When asked whether he felt he wasn't given proper recognition at the height of the West Coast gangsta rap explosion, he doesn't mince words.

"That’s a tough question because the simple answer is hell no," he said. "I don’t want to be a whiner because everything happens for a purpose, and so if it wasn’t my turn, it just wasn’t my turn. It's difficult because sometimes you’re standing up in front of these people and they’re saying all this stuff, but nobody said this stuff for all this time. I don’t care as much as I used to. I’m trying to get my school built."

Those feelings likely evaporated, at least temporarily, when The D.O.C. became the event’s central focus. Whispers that Ice Cube would present him with his award had been floating around for hours, but the black carpet was shut down with no sign of the rap titan. Then, as if by magic, he was spotted at a nearby table, having snuck in through the back.

"He's my brother from another mother," Cube said. "I wouldn't be here without him. Without his greatness pushing me to make me great, I wouldn't be as good as I am. I owe everything to The D.O.C. He was so much better than me when we first met; I had to get on my horse. I had to get on my game to try to catch up. He's a great guy. I always look at him as a member of N.W.A because he was close and he helped so much in making those records."

After handing The D.O.C. his trophy, the Dallas native thanked Cube for his kind words, then quipped, "I would have teared up, but I'm hard," which elicited a roar of laughter from the audience.

The D.O.C. and Blow join past honorees Rakim, Caz, Shanté, Scarface, Kool Moe Dee, and Grand Puba. Nas, who's also co-founder and board member of the Paid in Full Foundation, stressed the importance of taking care of the pioneers who laid the blueprint for hip-hop to eventually become the biggest genre in the world.

"It was just a thing that I think a lot of people dreamed about doing that’s within the hip-hop world," he said. "It's something I talked about a very long time ago in a magazine, maybe the Source magazine. I was asked about what I'd want to be doing in the future, and it was exactly this thing that we came up with. It’s just been in the hearts of many true fans who have witnessed this business's ups and downs. And Ben Horowitz cares deeply about hip-hop. He grew up on it, so it's only right. I think what hip-hop has done for both our lives is really life-changing."

Coincidentally, Nas' classic Illmatic "If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)" played over the overhead speakers, and the Paid In Full Foundation's vision could have easily slid into the lyrics. It wasn't lost on Nas, who chuckled at the serendipitous timing.

McDaniels, who played Nas' first-ever music video "It Ain't Hard to Tell" on Video Music Box in 1994, became the first non-artist to be recognized at the Grandmaster Hip Hop Awards.

"It's important we acknowledge some of the other players other than the artists," McDaniels said. "I'm one of those. Like Nas says, ‘You opened the door. You knew us before we were superstars, and you showed us love like we were superstars.' Grand Puba, who nominated me, said, ‘Without you, there’d be no us,' so it felt good to hear that, because we don’t get that kind of love in not just hip-hop but life. We've been doing this for 43 years, since 1983, and to get this recognition now is a blessing. Thank God I’m here."

Kurtis Blow was the last honoree to take the stage. After an introduction from Rev Run and a highlight reel of all of Blow's accomplishments, which include being the first rapper signed to a major label and "The Breaks" becoming the first rap song to go gold, he snapped into minister mode and took the crowd to church.

"It feels amazing," he told us of the honor. "It's unbelievable, nearly indescribable. It’s bigger than me receiving this Grandmaster Award. It’s a good look for hip-hop, and even more so for humanity. It lets people know that there is still good in this world.

"We fight evil every day-trauma, violence, racism, you name it. Every system seems corrupt, from the government down to the hospitals. This is a shot of joy. It’s a shot of fresh air. It's a great inspirational moment to shed some light on the positivity that is needed."

The night closed with Nile Rodgers and Grandmaster Caz performing The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight," a track Ben Horowitz called hip-hop's "first original sin." Some of the lyrics were stolen from Caz, and the music was a rip-off of CHIC's "Good Times." Ahead of the performance, Rodgers talked about the moment he found out The Sugarhill Gang had used his songs.

"My initial reaction was, ‘You’re taking my sh*t!'" he said with a smirk. "Then I hung out with the Shocklee brothers [Keith and Hank] because I was a huge Public Enemy fan. They had explained to me that all the programs that I was the beneficiary of, like where I learned to write symphonies and full scores, they said they don’t teach music in school anymore.

"At that point, I started to understand the talent that they had, especially because they were doing compound sampling. I started to call it collage music. The end product was the work of other people who did their thing, but you took it and turned it into something else. Then I was able to really understand it and feel like it was its own unique art form."

Watching Gayle King dance next to Rakim and The D.O.C. to Rodgers' music and Ice Cube hug Rev Run as Eddie Griffin and Fab 5 Freddy looked on was a potent reminder of how special the Paid in Full Foundation gala is.

"They all deserve their flowers," Run concluded. "When I first heard about it, and I saw Grandmaster Caz, who I look up to, and Nas put this together, it blew my mind. It's much deserved."