How Heavy D. Changed My Life
Saturday, July 14, 1990.
The Pavilion at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Public Enemy’s “Fear of a Black Planet” tour.
“The overweight lover’s in the hooouse! The overweight lover’s in the hooouse!” Thousands of people screaming that chant was all you could hear.
“THE OVERWEIGHT LOVER” was written in lights above the stage and I was in Heaven. The sold-out venue was rocking and Heavy D. and the Boyz were putting on one hell of a show.
Heavy D. — my idol — was moving and grooving, dressed in sunglasses and a purple suit that only he could pull off, backed by his DJ and dancers. On the concert bill were Atlanta’s Silk Tymes Leather, NYC’s up-and-coming duo Kid-N-Play, Oakland’s Digital Underground, headliners Public Enemy, also from NYC, and the guy I’d really come to see, from “Money-Earnin’” Mount Vernon, New York: Heavy D.
Heavy D. danced and rapped across the stage with DJ Eddie F. on the wheels of steel. His dancers, Trouble T-Roy and Gary G-Wiz, grooved alongside the big man. Strobe lights flashed, the bass thumped hard to James Brown’s “Pass the Peas” sample, the ladies screamed and the guys pumped their fists.
It was incredible, but the moment I was having had actually begun three years previous.
During the summer of 1987, I was sitting on the blue-green carpet of our family basement. I was 16 years old and a brand new video had just come on BET.
Suddenly, my mouth was agape. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
Uptown Records CEO Andre Harrell — a hip-hop and r&b mogul-in-the-making — had appeared with a concert promoter — a little person — and they were both awaiting the arrival of rapper Heavy D., who, until now, I’d neither seen nor heard of.
Up pulled “The Boyz” in a limo, but no Heavy D. Behind them, a gold truck — it looked alot like a Ford Bronco — pulled up. Out comes 6'2" Dwight “Heavy D.” Myers, who seems to be all business.
In my mind, this was a miracle. Somehow, some way, someone who could be described just like me — black, light-skinned, overweight and nimble on his feet — was on my television, rapping, dancing, moving and grooving.
No other way to say it: I freaked.
I jumped up and started dancing myself, trying to copy the moves of this guy and his back-up dancers. Moving side-to-side, spinning around and staring intently at the screen, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
Truth be told, I was a pretty regular kid. That rarely makes for a good start to a story, but the truth is that the cool kids kinda saw me as a nerd, the nerds kinda thought of me as being reasonably cool, I was a B/C student on my best day, I played sports, but wasn’t a jock — I was mostly normal, by any standard.
Now, for the purposes of this story, this little detail will be important: I’ve been somewhere along the pudgy-chubby-fat scale my whole life, but never so much in my youth that it disqualified me from dating, chasing girls (to mixed results) and interacting with the opposite sex. Quite the opposite really — I always had a girlfriend or girl friend, as necessary.
What it did stop me from doing was feeling cool.
Today, I am a middle-aged man — “cool” isn’t what I worry about. But at 16? Cool was everything, as any red-blooded, American kid knows, race be damned. If you’ve never done the Goth, Emo, outsider, rebel, etc. thing, you probably were cool, cool-affiliated or a cool wannabe. That’s just high school for you. Cool is currency.
But this guy on my television screen was big and cool at the same time in a way I’d never seen. Seriously cool. His white, snap-back ball cap, casual-but-not-too-street attire and blindingly white shoes screamed that he was a big deal — large, in charge and def, which was an ‘80s way of saying cool, sprinkled with hip-hop attitude.
A little bit of investigation on my end via a trip to the local record store revealed what I needed to know: Heavy D and the Boyz’s debut album, Livin’ Large, was coming out soon.
The album dropped and it only reaffirmed what I thought was true: this guy was unbelievable. Heavy D. was a ladies man, the life of the party, he made money and did it all while being who he was — a teddy bear of a man, smiling, but nobody’s chump.
His music was danceable — surprisingly so — and filled with unabashed, unapologetic references to being a big guy. Song titles like “Chunky But Funky,” “Overweighter,” and “Mr. Big Stuff” dotted the album. All missives that shouted to the world that a big guy could be cool, be attractive to the ladies and exist proudly in his own skin.
I drove my parents crazy. I couldn’t get enough of the cassette. I played it over and over and…well, you get the point. Then, finally, one day, I heard Doug Banks on Chicago’s WGCI-FM announce that Heavy D. would be touring with Salt-N-Pepa and the Fat Boys, and the tour was coming to town.
I nearly hyperventilated. Not just because because they were coming, but because of the venue. I’d just started working at Star Plaza Theater in Merrillville, Indiana as an usher. I was going to see Heavy D. and get paid to do it!
The night finally came in June 1987. They were so new that Heavy D. and the Boyz were actually the opening act. The house lights went down and Heavy screamed, “Merrillville, Indiana, make some nooooooise!” Of course, I suddenly forgot I was working and had to remind myself to get people quickly to their seats.
I was mesmerized. This guy and his crew, dressed in a red, white and yellow Nike outfits commanded the stage, but he was, just as he said in a rap, a “lovable” dude. He was great. He prowled with full ownership of the room and charisma to spare. After a great, but far too short set — he was the opener, after all — they ended the show with everyone screaming and cheering.
That’s when I decided to make my move.
I felt I had to meet him, so I proceeded to break every rule in the Star Plaza Theater employee handbook, full-blown stalker-style.
I left my post to go stand by the artist exit door and saw Heavy and his entourage leave. Unfortunately, I could not approach or follow them, so I bolted across the street to the other side of the property — the hotel where acts were known to occasionally stop and meet fans en route to their rooms.
Initially, I could not find them and, after a few minutes, I figured I should go home. Of course, that’s when I saw them: Heavy D., the Boyz, a few hangers-on, security and girls — lots of girls — all headed somewhere with the crew.
I decided to take my chance. I yelled, “Heavy! Heavy!” I didn’t care who was with him or if they made fun of me. That man could’ve been with Jesus Christ himself and I would’ve still tried to slow him down.
He actually stopped — something I hadn’t thought he would do. I said, stuttering, “Can I…can I talk to you for a second?”
He responded to me in a jovial, laid-back manner. He said, “Yeah, man, what’s up?” His entourage, to a person it seemed, were all making comments that amounted to “Come on!” But he gave me his attention.
I very nervously said, “I just wanted to tell you, man, I love what you do. I’m a big guy and I never really felt cool about it ‘til I saw you. For real. So, I just wanted you to know, man, we never met before or nothing, but it’s like you my big brother or something, man. For real.”
That’s pretty much an exact quote. I remember it and the nervous feeling of saying it like it happened 10 minutes ago. As a man, I look back at the risk my teenage self took. It was ineloquent and inelegant, but it was my most honest teenage self, laid bare. Had me rejected me or made a fool of me, I would’ve been crushed.
Thank God, he didn’t.
What he said back to me was incredibly kind. “Look, B,” he said, “You have to love you first. Forget everybody else. Love you. You naahmean? YOU. FIRST! And don’t never let anybody tell you that you ain’t cool because you’re a big dude. Man, I’m bigger than you and I’m cool as hell, baby!”
He laughed and asked, “What’s your name?”
I replied, “Steve Mayberry.”
He said, “Steve Mayberry. My little brother. Aight, man, take care of yourself.” He walked off, laughing and talking, everyone anxious to get moving.
That moment changed me. I stood there, happy. I watched this guy walk off and loved him the way a kid who loves basketball would love Michael Jordan or the way a kid who loves music would love Michael Jackson.
I carried that moment with me for a long time. In short order, I became more confident with girls. I saw myself as attractive, no matter what size I was. My confidence went through the roof on the strength of a single conversation.
I’d changed. So much so, that in my junior year of high school, I danced on stage — just like Heavy D.
I took theater as an elective that year and the class was known for hosting a big show at the end of every term. Other students came and would enjoy it — or not. But that year was all about hip-hop.
As I noted earlier, I wasn’t really known for anything special, but I had a secret: I could dance really well. It was hip-hop dancing, a skill I’d honed from the first day I’d seen that Heavy D. video.
As the class was deciding what people would do, I didn’t say a word. The dancing thing was my little secret. In fact, only my parents and best friend knew about it. Two guys who wanted to rap asked the teacher to turn on a tape they’d brought with some beats. The teacher turned it on and the guys began to sound out their raps.
I figured I would get laughed out of the room if I said, “Hey, I want to dance!,” so I did the only thing that made sense.
Right then, right there, I started dancing.
I wasn’t nervous. I felt free. I knew I was good, so I wasn’t embarrassed about it. In fact, I felt like, for the first time in my teenage years, I was being me — the real me — in public. About a minute later, I came out of my euphoria and noticed something. My classmates were staring at me. I stopped out of embarrassment (the looks were those of astonishment), but two girls told me to keep going. They weren’t making fun of me at all — they even got on either side of me and started dancing along. The teacher smiled in pleasant surprise. One guy said, “I didn’t know Mayberry could dance like that! Go ‘head, big man!”
“Big man.”
It was confirmed: a big man could groove. Not just on stage. Not just on television. Not just in a video, but right here, in real life.
Even me.
We did two shows and I enjoyed both, dressed in a blue, white and green Nike top, biker’s shorts and white Nikes, just like Heavy D. I became a kid known to dance well and, yes, if only in my head, I felt cool.
By 1990, I’d graduated high school and was in my second year at DePauw University, where I majored in communications. During my freshman year, an extracurricular activity of mine was deejaying hip-hop and R&B at WGRE-FM, our campus radio station. I hustled at the station to increase the number of contacts we had in the industry and made connections easily. Among them were record industry promotions people and concert promoters.
One day, someone at Uptown Records said they could get me a ticket and a backstage pass for the Public Enemy tour because Heavy D. was an artist of theirs and they knew I was a fan — which brings us back where all this started.
The pass guaranteed I could go to media events, but it wasn’t all-access, so I was not guaranteed to meet Heavy D. again.
After Heavy D. completed his set and left the stage, I raced from my seat, around the back of the venue and just wanted to see him again, up close. I was about 10 feet away and yelled, “Ay yo, Heavy! You remember me? I bet you don’t!”
He stopped and told his security guard to stop for a second. He said, “Naah, man. I’m sorry.” He was clearly tired from the show.
I said, “No big deal. You are still my favorite artist, man. I met you in Indiana.”
He said, “Oh, word? Okay.”
I replied, “Yeah, man. Steve Mayberry. I was an ush…”
He yelled, “Oh, wait! My little brother, right?!”
I couldn’t believe it.
I smiled and said, “Yep! That’s me!” And I started to cry, right then, right there.
He looked very concerned. “What’s wrong, man? You good?” He put both his hands on my shoulders.
I composed myself quickly, wiped my face and said, “Yeah, I’m cool. I just appreciate you, man. You changed my whole life. My WHOLE life.”
He took one hand off my shoulder and said, “You good, man! You good! If I showed you love and that made you love yourself more, that’s what I’m talking about, man!”
He laughed, I smiled and he told one of his crew to bring him a poster. We talked for a moment about the tour and how much I loved the show. He signed the poster, “To my little brother Steve — Keep loving yourself! Heavy D.”
I never stopped loving myself or my favorite rapper, who helped me find and love myself a little bit more.
RIP, Hev.
