CAGE INTERVIEW

One morning in 2004, Chris Palko woke up in Middletown, New York's Elizabeth A. Horton Memorial Hospital, terrified that he would be committed again. Six hours earlier, depressed over his stalled career, his Volkswagen's busted engine, and a recent breakup, the rapper known as Cage had eaten half an ounce of psychedelic mushrooms (typically, two people would split an eighth of an ounce). Now, at 8 A.M., he was lying next to a guy in a partial body cast who was groaning in pain.
Cage's left arm was bandaged to cover self-inflicted cigarette burns and slash marks. But he was more concerned with doctors discovering that as a teenager he'd spent 18 months in a psychiatric ward at Westchester's Stony Lodge Hospital. After this latest episode, doctors were likely to recommend that he again be institutionalized.
So he got dressed and fled. When he returned to his Middletown apartment, Cage was horrified. His own blood covered the walls. A photo of him and his ex-girlfriend was tacked to the ceiling, her eyes scratched out, devil horns framing her skull. His phone rang; it was the producer El-P, calling from a Brooklyn studio where recording time had been scheduled. "You're not gonna make it, right?" Eventually, Cage did attend the session, but he wasn't his usual arrogant self, worried that he'd blown his shot at signing to El's respected Definitive Jux label.
"I'm going into business with this dude, and I showed up like a basket case," Cage, 35, says today. "I had a very sobering moment with El. He was like, 'Dude, what are you doing?' It was the first time I was embarrassed because of my behavior. I took a step back, looked at myself, and realized I had to change."

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