Lock 'Em Down, Lock 'Em Up

Shortly thereafter, Beano (given name: Joe Vence) recorded "Money Snap," a song ostensibly about going clubbing after receiving an income-tax refund. As its title indicates, "Money Snap" fits squarely in the genre of snap, a downtempo style of Southern hip-hop that's tailor-made for dance clubs, which is where the song quickly became popular.

"You can do a dance to it. Everybody can sing along. He's not rappin' too hard, he's understandable. You can relate to what he's saying, I mean everybody trying to get that money. It just works," sums up DJ Charlie Chan Soprano of Hot 104.1, who spins at several area nightspots. "You can still play it now [in the club] and they love it. It's a classic record."

L.E.D. paid several thousand dollars for Beano and another L.E.D. rapper, Dun Deal, to appear on the cover of inBox Magazine and DVD, an East St. Louis-based pay-for-coverage magazine. They booked concerts throughout the region and rented out the now-defunct downtown club Dreams for a record-release party.

"They'd give me two or three hundred dollars to throw out into the crowd when I performed 'Money Snap,'" Beano says. "I'd never really traveled with my music, I was basically just in St. Louis," he adds. "What I owe them for was taking my music to different cities and getting new fans."

Says Singleton: "I'm hands-on. I'm involved with everything except for production. I promote, I look for talent, I finance. Starting off [Lock 'Em Down] was basically trying to help family members. The more involved I got in it, the more attached I got to it. I got to love it."

According to DJ Sir Thurl of 100.3 The Beat, at its peak "Money Snap" received nearly 50 plays per week on his radio station. L.E.D. produced two remixes of the song, one featuring members of Nelly's crew, the St. Lunatics. Eventually, major record labels came calling.

"They had a record that was bubbling. It was huge regionally in St. Louis and it spread a little bit outside of St. Louis. I thought the record had a shot," says Al Lindstrom, the CEO of ALMG, a national promotions and management group that works with several major labels and represents artists R. Kelly and Timbaland, among others. "I offered to work the record nationally for them. And they just disappeared. They just never came back. I told them what the cost would be to do the project, and it never happened. They just disappeared."

Ask anyone involved with L.E.D. what happened to Beano and they're quick to blame the DEA investigation.

"That hurts Beano," says Shondale "Diesel" Rounds, L.E.D.'s president. "They say, 'I don't want to fuck with him because he's got all that going on.' Other artists, like T.I. for example, he has a criminal history in his past. It's behind him. People in the industry see this and say, 'He's got it in front of him and we don't want anything to do with it.'"

Singleton admits that he suspected Martin Caldwell was involved in some sort of criminal activity but says he thought it best to keep his head down and not ask questions when he and LaKeith Cross visited Chicago.

"I noticed he had a lot going on," Singleton elaborates. "We'd party all the time. But like I say, you don't just go and ask people [that]. That's not normal. I knew somewhat [that he was a gang leader], but Chicago's west side is known for Vice Lords. But I'm not the type of guy to ask questions. Stuff like that can get you in trouble."

Though Singleton may have been unaware of it at the time, trouble is precisely what he got.

On the afternoon of September 21, 2002, DEA agent William Warren was listening in on Martin Caldwell's phone calls, several of which involved Dewanzel Singleton. According to court documents, Warren heard Singleton tell Caldwell that he wanted to "go an extra one," which Warren took to mean "purchase an additional quantity of cocaine." Singleton asked Caldwell if "it was lovely," which Warren interpreted as "asking if the cocaine [Caldwell] had was of good quality."

Three days after that, agents picked up on another call from Singleton to Caldwell. "I know they know what's up with that lick, man," Singleton said. "The girls all look alike...we ain't found no new girls yet," Caldwell replied. Warren again inferred that the two were arguing about the quality of cocaine.

On October 4, Singleton called again. "Singleton related the last time they had lunch, that 'One of them steaks was medium rare' or 'at least his was,'" Warren's statement reads. "[Caldwell] asked Singleton what happened to it and if he 'put an eat on it.' Singleton related that he still had 'a bite' just to let [Caldwell] 'fuck with it and see it.'

"[Caldwell] and Singleton were discussing the poor quality of a kilogram of cocaine," Warren notes. "Singleton was talking in coded conversation with [Caldwell] and referring to cocaine as steak."