hard-ass as my aunt is, her hugs are the best. They somehow say “I love you” and “I’ll do whatever for you” all at once.
“It’ll be a’ight,” Aunt Pooh murmurs. “I’m gon’ help y’all out, okay?”
“You know Jay won’t let you.” Jay never takes money from Aunt Pooh, since she knows where she gets it from. I understand. If drugs almost destroyed me, I wouldn’t take money that’s made from them either.
“Her stubborn ass,” Aunt Pooh mumbles. “I know this shit is probably scary as hell right now, but one day you gon’ look back, and this gon’ feel like a lifetime ago. This a temporary setback for a major comeback. We ain’t letting it stop the come up.”
That’s what we call our goal, the come up. It’s when we finally make it with this rap stuff. I’m talking get-out-the-Garden-and-have-enough-money-to-never-worry-again make it.
“I gotta do something, Aunty,” I say. “I know Jay’s looking for a job, and Trey’s working, but I don’t wanna be deadweight.”
“What you talking ’bout? You ain’t deadweight.”
Yeah, I am. My mom and my brother bust their butts so I can eat and have somewhere to lay my head, and what do I do? Absolutely nothing. Jay doesn’t want me to get a job—she wants me fully focused on school. I picked up candy dealing. I figured if I handled some stuff for myself, that would help.
I need to do more, and the only thing I know to do is rap.
Now, let me be real: I know not every rapper out there is rich. A whole lot of them fake for the cameras, but even the fakers have more money than me. Then you got folks like Dee-Nice who don’t have to fake thanks to that million-dollar deal. He played his cards right and got his come up.
“We gotta make this rap stuff happen,” I tell Aunt Pooh. “Like now.”
“I got you, okay? I was gon’ call you anyway. I’ve had all kinds of folks hitting me up because of the battle. I made some stuff happen for you a li’l while ago.”
“For real?”
“Uh-huh. For one, we getting you back in the Ring. That’ll help make a name for you.”
A name? “Yeah, but it won’t make me any money.”
“Just trust me, a’ight?” she says. “Besides, that ain’t the only thing I arranged.”
“What else then?”
She rubs her chin. “I don’t know if you can handle this one yet.”
Oh my God. This is not the time to drag me along. “Just tell me, dang!”
Aunt Pooh laughs. “A’ight, a’ight. Last night, a producer came up to me after the battle and gave me his card. I called him earlier, and we arranged for him to make a beat and for you to go into his studio tomorrow.”
I blink. “I . . . I’m going in a studio?”
Aunt Pooh grins. “Yep.”
“And I’m making a song?”
“You damn right.”
“Yooooooo!” I put my fist at my mouth. “For real? For real?”
“Hell yeah! Told you I was gon’ make something happen!”
Damn. I’ve dreamed of going into a studio since I was like ten. I would stand in front of my bathroom mirror with my headphones on my ears and a brush in my hand like it was a mic, as I rapped along with Nicki Minaj. Now I’m gonna make my own song.
“Shit.” There’s a slight problem. “Which song will I do though?”
I’ve got tons in my notebook. Plus, a hell of a lot more ideas that I haven’t written down. But this is my first real song. It’s gotta be the right one.
“Look, whatever you do is gon’ be a banger,” Aunt Pooh says. “Don’t sweat it.”
Scrap shoves a spoonful of cereal into his mouth. “You need to do something like that song ol’ boy you battled got.”
“That ‘Swagerific’ trash?” Aunt Pooh asks. “Man, get outta here! That shit ain’t got no substance.”
“It ain’t gotta have substance,” Scrap says. “Milez lost last night, yet that song so catchy, he got even more folks talking ’bout it. Shit was trending this morning.”
“Hold up,” I say. “You mean to tell me that I won the battle, am clearly the better rapper, and yet he’s getting all the buzz?”
“So basically,” Scrap says, “you won the popular vote ’cause everybody loved you in the Ring, but you still lost the election since he the one getting fame?”
I shake my head. “Too soon.”
“Touché,” he says, because he’s Scrap, and sometimes he says touché.
“Look, don’t worry ’bout that, Bri,” Aunt Pooh says. “If that fool can blow up ’cause of some