A Road Less Travelled
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The Life & Times of Greg “Puntin” Cooks Volume I
It’s not every day I get an all
access pass with an internationally known music artist. That’s exactly what
happen when I sat down with Greg “Puntin” Cooks this summer in downtown Bryan,
Texas. As we conversed outside on the patio of the Village Café, Texas sun
beaming, wind blowing, Puntin revealed to me the road he has traveled on his
way to early musical success.
Cooks recently travelled to New
Zealand for an electric 14 day tour along with San Antonio artist Boston; their
message: “Jesus saves.” This is not always the message Cooks sought to relay in
his music. Although he is the fruit of a family reared in musical excellence,
he once used his talents for another type of message, a different aura of fame,
and he was good at that too.
His mother, Gloria Cooks has
worked for a local radio station over 25 years. His father, 40 years of
experience at a local printing press. His sister, Sherica taught herself how to
play the piano at the age of nine. “A gift from God,” his mother calls it.
In
the early 90s with strong encouragement from their mother, Cooks and his two
sisters, Erica and Sherica formed the Gospel Aires. Puntin found his home on
the drums after studying a short while under local drumming legend, Bobby Williams. After one lesson, Williams told him, “You do not
need lessons, you’ve got it.” And so it began.
“At the age of 16, I started
making beats with my PlayStation beat maker. Later, when I was a pizza delivery
driver, I would dissect the beats to songs while driving, and then go back and
create beats on my MTV Music Creator software.”
Transforming
from Church Boy to Play Boy
It was not long after this
happened, Cooks would become a leading Hip Hop beat maker in Central Texas.
Rather it be creating sound waves from banging on coke machines before class at
Bryan High School, or ripping software from his Sony machine, Cooks took a special
liking to beat making.
In the late 90s it became more
and more popular to seek a career as a rap artist. As a result, Cooks abandoned
his family group and Christian roots in favor of what he called, “the fast
life.”
“I stop playing drums for my
mother’s group when I began to see what the world had,” Puntin explains. “I
started dibbling and dabbling with the fast life.”
Slow or fast, Cooks along with
cousins, Colby Cooks, Derrick Cooks, Jonathan Denmond, and life-long friend,
Author Cooper found stardom. They called themselves, the Play Boy Click; plenty
drugs, plenty women, and a relentless pursuit of the dollar bill.
The group hooked up with local
DJ JQ who at the time was a leading figure in Bryan/College Station radio (now
with Houston’s 97.9 The Beat). They got into the radio rotation, and eventually
went on to open up for such renown artists of the time as Ludacris, Mystikal,
Juvenile, and Paul Wall to name a few.Before long, the name, “Play
Boy Click” landed on the radar of a New York based attorney who happen to
represent Hip Hop mogul Sean “P. Diddy” Combs.
“We gave our CD to Diddy’s
attorney, and his people sent for us to come to New York. It was an all-expense
paid trip,” Puntin announced.
While this start-up rap group
was killing it on the local level, New York proved to be a dream shattering
experience. Play Boy Click thought they would ride into the Big Apple, be
presented with an offer, and ride off with racks, on racks, on racks, but it
wasn’t to be. They needed more of a buzz for Sean Combs to attach the Bad Boy
Records label to this up and coming group.
“We were not ready made. We had
the talent, and that was it, and it was not enough,” said Cooks.
They don’t call it the Big
Leagues for nothing! The group was told they needed to go back to Texas, and
come back when they’d sold more albums. By this time, Puntin was all in on the
deal. Although his new lifestyle was contrary to his roots, he bought into the
allure of super stardom like so many young men of this generation.
Upon their return, the group
continued to enjoy local celebrity, hosting parties, doing shows, and making
music for their local fan base. Cooks had almost completely abandoned the
conservative middle-class upbringing he enjoyed as a youth. Similarly, despite his
6’4’’ frame, he’d quit the high school basketball team and frowned upon school
work in favor of his new more desirable lifestyle. Everything about this phase
of his life was conflicting with the foundation his parents built for him as a
youth.
“I love how my parents raised
me. My father taught me how to take care of things at the house. Being there.
My mother taught me more of my spiritual side, getting to know God and who
Jesus is, “The now Houston-based artist explained.
This fact, was not evident in
his actions during this time period, but that does not mean God’s plan was any
different for the now well-acclaimed Gospel artist. Everything he experienced
during the latter part of his high school career and early adulthood was
preparing Mr. Cooks for his assignment.
“In the process of getting the
buzz we needed to get the rap deal, I started seeing the routes I was taking
were not too solid,” he told me.
Amazing
Grace, I once was blind, but now I see
These thoughts came to a climax
one evening while driving a friend home after a night of beat making with a
special mix of Red Bull and Hennessey. About this same time, he’d began
dibbling into a shift in his message for music.
“I made a song, kinda’ just
putting some things together. On this night, I played it for my friend for some
feedback. After I played the track, I look over at him, and his eyes were
welling up with tears. He looked me directly in the eyes and told me the song
touched him,” Puntin revealed. “That was a turning point for me, because after
I dropped him off, I heard the still voice within tell me this is what I am
supposed to be doing, touching souls with my music.”
That moment proved to be vital
in the resurrection of Greg “Puntin” Cooks as the world knows him now. Soon
thereafter, he made the decision to rededicate his life to Christ.
Notwithstanding, within weeks, there was a distribution deal on the table for
Play Boy Click with BCD, the largest Hip Hop distribution company in the state
of Texas at the time. Cooks would have a decision to make, that in his words
was between continuing to do what he was doing and investing into what he was
supposed to be doing.
“Chamillionaire and Flip were
BCD’s top clients at the time, and soon thereafter, they got their big break.
The CEO of BCD wanted Play Boy Click as a client. He told me he could make us
the biggest thing in Texas,” Cooks recalls. “That crib I want to buy my mom,
that would have been the deal for that, but I’d just given my life to Christ,
and now this.”
As I sat listening attentively
to Puntin’s heartfelt testimony, I was reminded of the book of Matthew where
for 40 days and 40 nights Jesus fasted. Later Satan tempted him by taking him
to the highest point of the city; telling him he could have all the riches,
money, and fame of that time if he would bow down and worship him. Evenmoreso,
the caption in the book of Mark, which asks, “What does it profit a man to
gain the whole world, yet lose his soul.?”
Cooks certainly was facing a
dilemma many young professionals encounter on the road to prosperity. His
response to this quagmire proved to set the stage for an even greater increase
some of it yet to even be realized. So, after some negotiating, the day finally
arrived to sign the deal with BCD and eventually report back to P. Diddy for
what seemed to be a sure thing of a deal with Bad Boy.
“I remember that day vividly. I
am telling the guys, I can’t do it. I just gave my life to God. They tried to
convince me otherwise by telling me I could do the PBC albums, and then I could
branch off and do my own things. I knew I could not do that, I had to do what
God wants me to do,” he boldly proclaimed.
Naturally, there was push back
not only from the distribution executive whose eyes were glossed over with
dollar signs, but also the other PBD group members who’d worked so hard to get
to this point. Puntin, the producer, beat maker, and bonafide voice of the group was a deal breaker for BCD. Either he would sign or the group would have
to come up with a plan B to reach the next level.
“I knew this would be a turning
point in my life, so I walked in the back room in the middle of our meeting
with BCD, and called my mother for confirmation. She reminded me I’d been
moving in that same lane for six years, and not even a month after giving my
life to Christ this happens. She told me that was the devil tempting me,”
Puntin recalls.
Soon thereafter, Play Boy Click
signed a deal with BCD, and went on to add Terrell Johnson aka Play Boy T to
the group to replace Puntin. Their first album was not successful, and was sent
back from stores.
With that one decision on that
one dreary night in Texas, Greg “Puntin” Cooks opened the door for him to
become a married man, world renowned music artist with a message of hope, and
social media phenom with faithful fans from New Zealand to England and even New
York. He decided to take his talents to the one true King eight years ago.
Greg and I planned to divulge
deep into his recent successes, but as fate would have it, his testimony proved
to be the power outlet for sharing this road less travelled experience with the world.
To learn more about Greg
“Puntin” Cooks, his music, or Lean on God clothing line, visit www.yaboypuntin.com. His latest album, “Back to the Basics” is
available on Amazon.com
Ethan Brisby is a Renaissance Man with a social conscious and global perspecitve reporting on small business, personal success stories, education,
and real estate. Follow him everywhere @ethanbrisby IG: ComfortablyLiving1
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