Meet Jesse Jaymes from Roslyn, L.I., a young white kid whose real name is Jesse Itzler. "Yeah, a lot people who hear that 'Go New York Go' assume that I must be black," he said.

For me, the twist is a rapper living in an East Side high-rise apartment. It goes against the grain of images portrayed by BET, MTV videos: glass-sprinkled vacant lots, alleys cluttered with graffiti. "Yeah, a lot of these guys are middle-class kids, went to college, the whole thing," Itzler said. "But they don't want you to know that. That's not part of the image. Face it, there's a lot of money to be made from this stuff, but you have to play a certain role. Tough guys, that sort of thing. I don't have a problem with that. They're trying to make a living."

While talking, Itzler popped into his VCR the "Go New York Go" video that Knicks fans associate with the team. The jingle became so popular that the Washington Bullets and the Charlotte Hornets asked Itzler and his partner, Dana Mozie, to customize a theme for them as well. For the Bullets, Itzler came up with "You the Man," and for Charlotte, "The Bugs are Back"

Outside the rap world and Knicks officials, few know who Jesse Jaymes is. "I was at a club last week and wanted to get in," Itzler recalled. "The bouncer had a Knicks' cap on, and I said, 'I wrote the Knicks' theme song.' He knew the names Jesse Jaymes but didn't think I was the guy. The bouncer told me to go catch a cab."

Itzler, 26, is the youngest of three children. His father is an entrepreneur, and his mother is president of the Roslyn board of education. "Everyone else is a lawyer or a doctor," he said about his neighbors. "We were sort of outcasts."