July 28, 2006 @ 1:23 pm

Derrick Parker: Notorious C.O.P.

by: Mark Lelinwalla

Derrick Parker wasn’t just any police officer in the New York Police Department. He was the Hip Hop Cop, who was put on assignment to monitor and keep tab on all of moves that MCs in the city were making. Now, the retired hip hop cop is telling all via his Black and Blue: Legends of the Hip Hop Cop DVD and impending book, the Notorious C.O.P.. Woop Woop, Vibe.com hears da sound of police.

How did there become an absolute need for a hip hop intelligence unit?

Parker: What happened was the Biggie Smalls murder. That really dropped the bomb on everything. When his murder happened in Cali, I told my bosses that this is just going to come back to New York. My bosses were like, ‘What does this L.A. incident have to do with New York?’ I told them that this guy is from New York and this is coming back to Brooklyn. At first they wanted me to stay out of it. But what happened was that when we got back to New York (from Biggie’s murder scene), they received a lot of death threats at Biggie’s funeral. So the Chief said, ‘Derrick you have to come down.’ That’s when I became the hip hop cop because they knew I had all the hip hop knowledge.

Did Mayor Giuliani have anything to do with the creation of the hip hop intelligence unit?

Parker: I don’t know if Guliani was the one who created it. He probably noticed the violence and said okay. He gave it the go.

How did you start compiling MC profiles in your now infamous binder?

right Parker: The Lil’ Kim/Hot 97 case was the cause of that. The chief was very upset about that shooting incident because in the Hot 97 surveillance video, there was a woman with baby carriage running for cover, as they were shooting around. That made the police commissioner very, very upset. It was terrible and he said, ‘I don’t care how long it takes you … you will go upstairs and you will do this thing. Make this list of all these guys in the industry.’ And that’s what happened.

What kinds of words would need to be exchanged between two MCs for you to start really paying attention?

Parker: You would probably monitor it, pay attention to it and see how far it goes. Like, Cam’ron and Jay-Z were dissing each other. That’s something you would look into to. Things could happen. It could blow up. The R. Kelly and Jay-Z situation- Look what happened there.

How about blatant lines like Tru Life telling Cam’ron that he has people that would put one in his head?

Parker: And he probably does, but we look at that, we look at the list and we say okay, but we don’t really react on it just like that. A lot of guys talk and they’re not tough. So, you have to take it for what it’s worth. We’ll listen to the lyrics- You got cats that would put one in his head? Okay, and we don’t know what people he’s talking about. I know the Lower East Side guys. I know mostly all of them that come up because they all come out.

How come a majority of the time when a rapper is slain, his murder is never solved?

Parker: Well, the biggest thing in hip hop is that there’s not a lot of cooperation between the artist and the police. Some hip hop people just don’t like cops. As an artist, you can’t go and say, ‘hey this guy killed someone’ because it will ruin your street credibility and then you become a snitch. So, as an artist you are quiet and I think that’s the wrong approach, but that’s just how the streets are. Law enforcement is another aspect, they don’t know how to deal with the hip hop community and how to get the right answers to the right problems.

Busta Rhymes didn’t speak to authorities, following the vicious murder of his bodyguard. Did you guys think of doing anything to make sure he would speak to y’all?

Parker: Well, here’s the problem. Busta is a high-profiled artist, so he has an attorney. To go after Busta to force him, to compel him into doing something is only going to cause problems. Busta then will be back like, ‘You want to force me with this, now I’m not going to say nothing.’ So, you really don’t want him to get his back against the wall like that.

Now that you’re retired, has anyone taken over your position as the Hip Hop Cop?

Parker: A couple of guys are doing it right now. I can’t say if they have the entire industry, but I probably know more than the police do about the industry. I follow what goes on in hip hop so they could be in certain places.

Were you ever in danger because of an investigation into an MC?

Parker: I actually earned respect from a lot of them. I had a guy from Cam’s crew tell me, ‘I respect you, I really respect you. You don’t treat people like they’re assholes.’

What can people expect from your book?

Parker: It’s about me growing up as a youth, going into the police department, going through different units and eventually how I became a hip hop cop. Also, it gives some great detail about the murders of Tupac, Biggie and Jam Master Jay and why they’re not solved.

Read more vibe.com online exclusives.

Article tags: The Notorious B.I.G., The Notorious C.O.P., Derrick Parker, Lil Kim, Suge Knight, Tupac, Jam Master Jay, New York Police Department 

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