Chapter 18
The bass pumped through the speakers in the studio. The booth lights were dim, and a soft glow shone against the glass while Malik adjusted his headphones and nodded to the beat.
“That was a good run.” I spoke through the mic on the soundboard. “You rode that smooth. I like that.”
“’Preciate you, bro,” Malik responded.
“I see you starting to learn.”
“Yeah, I’m starting to see what you mean by not leaning too much on the beat. Just let it flow.”
“Right, right. Trust yourself to do what need to be done. It’ll come naturally.”
Just then, my phone lit up on the table with Yana’s name across the screen. I stared at it for a second. “Give me a minute,” I said. I picked it up and stepped away from the board. I walked out into the hallway. The music muffled as the door shut behind me. “Hey,” I answered the phone.
“Hey,” she replied. Her voice was soft and low. Once I realized she wasn’t upset, or it wasn’t anything that immediately alerted me, I leaned with my back against the wall.
“You good?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “Are you busy?”
“I’m at the studio,” I replied, glancing back through the small window in the door. “But I can talk.”
There was a short pause before she began. “I didn’t realize how big your life was,” she said finally.
“Big how?” I asked carefully.
“Like . . . big-big,” she continued. “People at school were talking about the baby stuff again. They said test results said it wasn’t yours. They were just saying how crazy it is that your name trends over stuff like that.”
I ran my thumb across the edge of my phone. I wanted to be the one to break that kind of news to her. I hadn’t even had Kam or my public relations rep put out a statement. The media always found a way, somehow.
“They bothering you?” I asked.
“No,” she said quickly. “Not like that. It’s just weird.”
“Weird how? What you mean?”
“It’s like . . . I thought you were just my dad,” she said. “But other people think they know you.”
I could hear the wind as it blew faintly in the background. A car horn beeped, and then a dog barked. It sounded like a normal neighborhood for a girl who deserved a normal life.
“I am just your dad,” I said.
“You’re not though,” she replied gently. “Not to everybody else.”
I looked down the hallway at the framed plaques from albums I’d produced over the years. Some were platinum, and some were double. They used to feel like proof of something. In that moment, they felt like reminders of how loud things had gotten.
“You’re right,” I admitted. “This situation got bigger than I expected.”
“How have you handled all of this over the years? Like, people being all in your business and stuff?” she asked.
That question caught me off guard. I didn’t think I’d ever sat with the weight of what it meant to be a celebrity—definitely not one with a family or a life that felt worth protecting. I thought about it before answering.
“It was just something that came with the life. And I loved that life when I was younger,” I said. “When I was in my twenties. Touring every week. Rapping about stuff I was actually doing.”
“And now?”
“Now . . .” I paused. “I don’t really want to live like that no more,” I said honestly. “I’m not in clubs every night. I’m not chasing the same things. Half the stuff I used to rap about don’t even fit me now.”
She was quiet.
“I been working on shifting that,” I added.
“Shifting it how?”
“I started my own label,” I said. “Signed my first artist, developing him. Doing more brand deals so I don’t have to tour as much.”
“You don’t like to tour?” she asked.
“I don’t want to,” I corrected. “Not like before.”
“Why?”
I smiled faintly, even though she couldn’t see me. “Because I don’t need to be the loudest person in the room anymore,” I said. “I can build something steady behind the scenes.”
“So you’re trying to be less out there?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “More at home and not working so much.” There was another pause.
“I just didn’t want to feel like I had to compete with your world,” she admitted.
I pushed off the wall and stood straight. “You’re not competing,” I said.
“It feels like it sometimes. When your name pops up. When rumors spread. When people look at me like I’m part of a headline.” That cut me deep.
“You don’t owe nobody access to you,” I said. “You don’t have to explain me to anybody. That’s not your job.”
“I just needed to know if it was going to keep getting bigger.” She sighed.
I looked back through the window to the studio again. Malik was scrolling on his phone, waiting. “It might grow,” I said honestly. “But all we can do is choose how we respond to it. That’s all we have control over.”
“How do we do that when everything is everywhere, all the time?”
“By not feeding into the bullshit,” I answered swiftly.
“By not reacting loud. By building stuff that don’t require me to be everywhere all the time.
” I could tell she was listening closely.
“I don’t need to rap about the same stuff I did at twenty-two,” I continued.
“That ain’t my life. My life now is making sure I’m present. ”
“For who?” she asked.
“For you,” I said without hesitation. There was silence again.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“I like this version better.” My chest tightened. “You sound calmer,” she continued.
“I am calmer.”
“You didn’t freak out about the baby thing when we were talking in the hotel room,” she said.
“I wanted to,” I admitted.
“But you didn’t.”
“Nah.”
“Okay,” she said finally. “Well, that made me feel better.”
“About what?”
“About where I fit.”
“You don’t fit,” I said gently. “You the anchor, baby girl.” I swore I heard her roll her eyes at that.
“That was dramatic,” she joked.
I laughed. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” she replied. “I do.”
I glanced at the studio door again. “I gotta finish this session,” I told her. “But I’m calling you tonight. We’ll talk more.”
“Okay.”
“And if somebody at school brings it up again—”
“I’ll ignore it.” She cut me off. “I don’t feel weird about it now.”
“Good.”
After we hung up, I stood in that hallway for another minute. The bass thumped faintly through the door. My phone felt warm in my hand. The plaques on the wall didn’t look as shiny as they used to.
When I finally walked back into the studio, Malik looked up. “You good?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Let’s work.”
I sat in the chair and pressed a button on the soundboard to play the music back.
The beat dropped and thudded to the rhythm of my heart as it beat in my chest. For the first time in a long time, I understood that metaphor.
That was how every musician balanced family and their career. It was a part of me.
I finally understood that I didn’t have to choose one or the other.