A Sour Taste From South of the Border : Controversy: Rapper Trick is happy to be alive and home again after a close call in Tijuana.

A recent fiasco involving local rap artist-entrepreneur Neil (Trick) Westbrooks and a Tijuana nightclub has left Westbrooks thousands of dollars poorer and more than a little miffed. But, in this week of Thanksgiving, the 28-year-old rapper’s overriding emotion is extreme gratitude that he was able to get out of Mexico alive.

In an interview earlier this week, Westbrooks said his troubles began not long after he agreed to promote an eight-week series of Saturday-night rap concerts at The Club XS, in Tijuana’s Viva Tijuana shopping center.

On Nov. 7, Westbrooks--who has produced other big-name shows on this side of the border--promoted his first rap concert at the Baja venue. Notorious rapper Ice T headlined a bill that featured Rhyme Syndicate members Hengee and Evil-E, and the evening’s fare included dancers from the “Soul Train” television program, other exotic dancers, a wet T-shirt contest and an open-mike segment that gave aspiring rappers a few minutes in the spotlight.

Nearly 600 reportedly well-behaved fans paid a modest $10 each to attend the show. Ice T hung out at the club for several hours after his performance, and the series appeared to have gotten off to a promising start. But a week later, things went sour.

“Part of my agreement with the owners of the club stipulated that they wouldn’t try to promote any concerts there during my series,” Westbrooks said. “But on Friday (Nov. 13), the night before our second show, they brought a rapper in who’d released only one single, and he made a brief appearance and split without really performing.”

Westbrooks said he thinks the owners lost money on that show, which might have led to the events of the next night.

Westbrooks alleges that, on the night of Nov. 14, at the midway point of the series’ second concert, Club XS’ owners refused to advance Westbrooks’ business manager the promoter’s share of the door receipts, from which he was supposed to pre-pay the headliner, female rapper Yo Yo. Westbrooks claims that when he demanded the payment, one of the club’s owners, Oswaldo Casares, “went spastic” and began yelling for everyone to leave the club.

“I went to the microphone and told the audience what the situation was, because I felt we had a responsibility to those who had paid to see Yo Yo,” Westbrooks said. “Some people started demanding their money back, and that’s when (the owners) called the police.

“At that point, I tried to make sure that all our people--artists, dancers, my own employees--were accounted for, so that we could get out of the club and into the tour bus. When the police got there, they huddled with the owners, and then came outside after us.”

Westbrooks alleges that the Mexican police singled him out, got him up against a car and began leveling phony charges against him.

“First they told me they were charging me with possession of marijuana. Then they decided (the charge) would be tax evasion. And finally they settled on possession of cocaine,” Westbrooks said. “Now, I don’t mess with any of that stuff, so I didn’t have anything like that on me. But they took me and my bodyguard in the police car and threatened to beat us up right there in the car. We offered to be tested for drugs, but they said--in very good English--that even if we passed that test, they’d charge us with drug trafficking.”

Westbrooks says the two were taken to the squalid Division 8 jail, where they were subjected to electric shock torture, among other scare tactics. At one point, Westbrooks said, a team of Mexican reporters showed up, stuck microphones in the arrestees’ faces and tried to get them to admit on the record that they smoke marijuana.

After two days, Westbrooks and his bodyguard were able to collect $1,000 from friends in the United States to pay their way out of jail. When added to the $3,500 he says he is owed by the Club XS owners (which includes the $1,500 still owed to Yo Yo), Westbrooks computes his net loss at about $4,500. But the money remains a secondary consideration, he said.

“To tell you the truth, I thought we were going to be sent to the Mexican pen, because these (policemen) were really worked up,” Westbrooks said. “At first I wasn’t worried, because I knew we hadn’t done anything wrong. But as time went on, I realized we were in serious trouble. I prayed and prayed, and we even contemplated trying to break out, ‘cause I knew if they sent us to a Mexican prison, we wouldn’t live long.”

Two weeks removed from the experience, Westbrooks says he paid heavily for a hard-learned lesson.

“I will never, ever get into another club contract down there,” he said.

Repeated phone calls to the owners of The Club XS were not returned.