Page 24 of Love U Down II

“This is Shade.” He hit the dude in the chest with the back of his hand before he introduced us.. “Shade, this is my boy, Drix.”

“What’s up?” I shook Shade’s hand and dapped the other men in the circle. “Let’s take a walk.”

“A walk?” he repeated.

“Yeah.” I nudged my head toward the gate and he nodded.

“I’ll be back.” He dusted himself off and we headed out of the back gate and toward the street.

“Dashawn passed me some of your music.”

“And that shit was good, right?”

“It was cool.”

“So, what? You got notes?”

“Nah, but I got questions.”

“Alright.”

“What do you know about me?”

“That you grew up around here, started rapping, and blew up. I know you never switched up on the hood and people say everything you touch turns into a hit.”

“Something like that.” I paused and he and Dashawn stopped. “I grew up right here.” I gestured to the house beside us. “I’m from where you’re from and I don’t rep shit but I know enough about the life to know it’s swallowed up better men and spit them back out,” I deadpanned.

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“That if we go into business together, I’ll hone your rap skills and music but I ain’t gon’ be bailing you out of bullshit or covering for you. You’re a grown ass man and you gon’ do what you want to do, but I ain’t move my whole family away from this shit to bring it to their front doors.”

“I hear you.”

“Good because I also ain’t the type of nigga to repeat myself.”

“A’ight. I said I hear you.”

“Cool. How’d you start rapping?”

“I used to just freestyle on the block and people started telling me I was good and I believed them, kinda like you.”

“I feel that.” I nodded. “You write your own shit?”

“Yeah.”

“Let me hear something.”

“Right now?” He looked from me to Dashawn and back.

“You got performance anxiety?”

“Nah. I can rap whenever wherever.”

Shade rubbed his hands together and slowly bobbed his head while he settled on a rhythm. He closed his eyes while he found it. A few seconds later they opened and he started rapping. I bobbed my head to his flow and lyrics, and honestly, the kid wasn’t bad. He was actually better in person than he’d sounded on his track.

When he finished, I nodded and clapped four times.

“Not bad.”