Rare Heat is officially over.
I just got off the phone with Kim Q and she ended it by telling me "Never call me the fuck again"
This officially ended a very promising rap group that really has not been operating for almost a year. This culminates a very frustrating and annoying professional relationship with Kim DuMont aka Kim Q.
I met Kim at a Starbucks in New Rochelle through a friend. She told me that she would like to do a couple of features in my songs. I thought of a couple of things that she could do.
I even gave her the name Kim Q.
The talent of Rare Heat was never in question. Both in the studio and on stage we got crowds moving. It was everything else that went sour very quickly.
I wrote all of the songs, booked all of the gigs, paid for all of the studio time, and did all of the publicity for our shows. Out of all the shows we had, Kim only managed to bring one person total to any show.
I never minded doing any of those things. It was a labor of love, and I really believed in Rare Heat's music. I was also comfortable in the role of the producer writer and manager of the group.
But in addition to me doing all of the above things, Kim also began having the demands of a multi-million dollar diva. She demanded to be picked up and taken home by car. Even when I lived in the city, she demanded that I should pick her up.
Not only that, but even after I had made the gig and picked her up, she demanded to be taken home whenever she wanted. It didn't matter if I was talking to people or having fun after a show. She made her demands and wouldn't stop complaining until she got what she wanted. After one show, even though I was drunk, she insisted on being taken home right away. I told her that i couldn't and wouldn't drive, and she began making a scene. My friend Sebastian, who works at Starbucks, lent her $20 to take a cab home, because he didn't want me to drive. Kim told him she would pay him back, and never did.
She acted like she was doing me a favor just by coming out to the show. Kim would talk on and on about how she wanted to "get paid" but I tried to tell her many times that to even think of getting paid off of our music, we would need to work very hard. We needed to hit the pavement and play shows, and be able to do things quickly. Kim's need to be escorted by car door to door prevented me from making those key spontaneous off the cuff gigs.
Also, even though I paid for every single studio hour, and even though Kim never offered to pay a dime of the gas money, she insisted on splitting all of our show money 50/50. When I suggested a more fair arrangement to help me pay for my expenses, she threatened to quit the group - this was the day of one of our shows. Her threat worked, and I caved. I would never bring that up again. I learned quickly that for me to be involved with Kim, I would just have to accept her wacked-out brand of logic.
I did this all because I believed in Rare Heat's music.
Kim began to resent the fact that I was running everything. I told her by all means, please do some of this hard work that I'm doing. I would love for you to make some shows, and get some people at our shows, or book us time with a good studio.
But each time she tried to set something up, it either fell through, or I never heard about it again. She would begin discussing gigs and photo shoots and studio time with her cousin that never happened. Not one.
And when she would call me with information about something, I would ask her simple questions like "how much does it cost?" (considering I was paying for it). But if I asked her anything, Kim would say "Don't question me!" and get extremely defensive until I agreed to meet the photographer she knew. I finally would agree to anything she wanted to do. I would schedule my weekend around her plans. But none of them were realized.
So I kept doing everything, and Kim kept complaining.
And I was okay with it - as long as the music kept happening. It was actually pretty funny and humorous. My friends and family would laugh about all the different ways Kim was rude.
When her cell phone used to ring in Starbucks, Kim would answer her phone and talk
extremely loud for extremely long, clueing everyone in to her conversation. She was oblivious to others around her.
At a Starbucks where we met, there were a couple of workers who used to give us free drinks - of course very discreetly to avoid detection. Kim would go up to the counter and yell, Ay yo! Where my free drink?"
And why couldn't Kim get any friends or family members to come to any of our shows?
I can guess at this one - the way she acted toward me is probably the way she acts to other people.
That's probably why I never met any of her friends. And maybe that's why every time I talked to her, she had a different job, and never wanted to talk about the last job. Maybe that's why all of our mutual friends had encounters with Kim that were nearly identical to the ones we had.
And through all of this, Kim always feels like she's the victim. That she's been wronged by a friend, family member or by an employer. She's never been able to admit to any mistakes. This has prevented her from growing and learning as a person, and it will keep happening.
Even in this case, with Rare Heat breaking up, I don't think Kim will ever look back and see the major mistakes and opportunities she gave up. She'll look back and see me as the enemy and herself as an angel. She won't think about all of the shows i made, or all of the songs I wrote, or the money I spent, or even the fact that I gave her the name Kim Q.
She'll just see herself as a victim. And because of this, she'll never learn or grow. She'll just keep leaving unpleasant and challenging situations, moving to a new place - all the while escaping and trying to avoid her severe character flaws. It'll always be somebody else's fault.
And why did she just tell me a few minutes ago never to call her? It's because she wanted me to come to Philly next weekend to plan at an open mic at a Church. She told me about it a month ago, and i was willing to go. The only thing was that we weren't allowed to curse. I said that I would play the show - but that we would have to ge together beforehand and practice, so we could work on cleaning up our songs.
We had a scheduled rehearsal last Sunday. Kim never called and never showed up. After four days, she called me up with a convoluted cell phone/car excuse. I told her that I didn't want to do the show. We hadn't played or seen each other in about a year, and for us to do new, clean versions of our songs, we needed to practice. I told her that I wasn't going to go all the way to Philly with all of these question marks. She told me that we could practice on the telephone. I told her that I didn't want to play this show. We really needed this practice.
That's when she told me never to "fucking call" her again.
Like i said before, Rare Heat has been effectively done for a few months now. Kim moved to Philly which made it even harder to get together.
One of the only times I heard from her was a couple of months ago, when Kim called me and asked to borrow $60. I lied and told her that I didn't have it. I told her that I could lend her $40. This was becasue I knew I was never going to get this $ back. I didn't.
It's fitting that the end of Rare Heat would come when Kim Q couldn't understand why I wouldn't want to drive 2 hours to play an open mic at a church - with Rare Heat out of practice and unprepared.
But then, Kim never really could understand...
responsible for every single person
