Share My Life

Grammy Award-nominated artist Kem shares his life in this revealing and remarkable memoir tracing his transformative journey from homelessness to gold-selling artist.

Autorentext
For all of his life, Kem has been driven by music and the emotions involved in bringing it to life. Today, the internationally renowned R&B singer/songwriter has to his credit: one platinum-selling album (Kem: Album II); two gold-selling albums (Kemistry; Intimacy); three Grammy nominations; five #1 hit singles (Love Calls, I Can't Stop Loving You, Why Would You Stay, It's You, and Nobody), along with several sold-out national tours and international shows. He is the author of Share My Life. David Ritz is a songwriter who has collaborated with stars like Janet Jackson and Marvin Gaye, as well as a renowned ghostwriter who has authored more than fifty books for some of the biggest stars in music: Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles, Lenny Kravitz, Joe Perry, Smokey Robinson, Don Rickles, and Willie Nelson, to name a few. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Essence, People, Art Connoisseur, and elsewhere. He lives in Los Angeles with Roberta, his wife of nearly fifty years.

Klappentext
Grammy Award–nominated artist Kem shares his life in this revealing and remarkable memoir tracing his transformative journey from homelessness to gold-selling artist.
 

Leseprobe
Chapter 1: Nineteen 1 NINETEEN
I had dropped out of high school. After I had disappeared for weeks, my father wouldn't let me return. He was permanently kicking me out to protect my mother, who was a recovering alcoholic. My presence would only make her worse. She didn't want to see me. That was hard to hear, but it was even harder to argue with-so I didn't. I stayed silent. I had no defense. I was drinking and drugging and had no intention to stop.

My friend Sam slipped me into the basement of his house, where he said I could sleep in a crawl space under the stairs, so that if his folks came down, they wouldn't see me. The basement had a beige linoleum floor. On the walls were family pictures, including Sam's dad in an army uniform. On the rear wall was a large mirror, the perfect backdrop to their neatly arranged full-service bar. Glass shelves were stocked with brand names like Johnnie Walker and Jack Daniel's. There were multicolored glasses that suggested another era. Sitting on the bar itself was an oversized bottle of Canadian Club.

I went right for it. Hard liquor was a rare treat. I was usually stoned on cheap wine and malt liquor. I downed the whiskey in no time and headed for the crawl space. My small frame adjusted to the tight quarters. The booze flooded me with warmth. I had to rearrange some boxes to squeeze into the space. My brain was barely functioning. That was my aim. Quiet the confusion in my head. Descend into darkness. Numb out. Get through the night so the next day I could find something-beer, wine, or weed-to beat back the monotony of doing nothing and going nowhere.

As much as I appreciated the space Sam provided, survival meant going somewhere else. Since I was broke, the next step up from the crawl space was a rescue shelter. Over the vast landscape of urban and suburban Detroit, I lived in a dozen such places. Even there, I managed to mess things up. No one was willing to put up with my unruly behavior. Forced out of one shelter, I flopped to another.

My spirit had been drained dry by defeat. I hadn't graduated from high school. My senior year had been an emotional, alcoholic fog. I'd gotten nowhere with the one talent I seemed to have: music. The only thing I excelled at was undercutting myself at every turn. My relationship with my parents was in ruins and my only friends were pretty much like me-outliers living on the edge. My social life consisted of nothing more than hanging out with winos and potheads. I couldn't imagine having a girlfriend. I was in absolutely no condition to maintain a romantic relationship. I stole. I lied. I'd become a full-time conniver, sinking into a quicksand of self-loathing.

One morning in early spring, I woke up in a park with the hope of getting high. I went to see a guy I'll call Fletch, a fellow addict I had met at a shelter who had managed to move back into his folks' home. He was a friendly man, mentally challenged and hooked on crack. Our mission was to cop. To do so, he took the keys to his mother's New Yorker. He knew a blood bank where our blood would yield enough cash to satisfy his dealer. We were joined in this effort by one of Fletch's associates-another crackhead. As we drove through the city streets to the blood bank, I realized I had a problem. I had no driver's license. I had lost it because of DWIs. In fact, I had no ID at all. That meant no giving blood. And no giving blood meant no dope.

"No worries," said Fletch. "Stay in the car while we cop. We'll get enough for you."

He and his buddy entered the blood bank and sold their blood. I waited for them to return. Ten minutes. Thirty minutes. An hour. Clearly, they weren't coming ba