17. Sonny
Sonny
Morgan is already seated at the table when I arrive for our meeting. She’s sitting on the booth side of the table, her tablet attached to a keyboard as she types away.
“Here I was thinking I was getting here early,” I joke as I walk up to the table and take my seat across from her.
Morgan looks up at me and smiles. “Not this time. I got here a little bit ago to work on some things before our meeting.”
A waiter comes and takes our order and when he leaves Morgan gets right to business.
“So your interests have shifted to working with small beauty brands now?” Morgan asks.
“I’ve always been interested in working with businesses I align with. Nothing’s changed, it just happened to be skin care.”
“Interesting.”
“Weren’t you one of the people telling me to diversify?”
“I was, I just didn’t think we’d end up here, but I’m not mad at it.”
“So everything’s set with that?”
“I made a few suggested changes, but I sent it over to the lawyers to look at it as well. Once they send it back you’ll be all set.”
“Good, I’m looking forward to it.”
Morgan gives me a skeptical look but doesn’t press any further with her thoughts and instead changes topics.
“The response to you doing that performance has been great. People still really enjoy you and Dez, and have been asking for more of it.”
Our food is delivered to our table and we both shift some of our focus to eating. We talk over the usual things of our check ins, upcoming obligations, new opportunities, and so on. We have just about wrapped up when Morgan gets serious and folds her hands together.
“Last thing.”
The way Morgan says it, I know I’m not going to like whatever she says next. I lean back in my chair and nod my head, telling her to go on.
“A record label owner has been reaching out to me to get a meeting with you. His name is Langston St. James with Silver Spoon Records.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“You probably wouldn't, it's newer and only has about a dozen artists signed. He’s called me everyday for the past two weeks trying to get a meeting with you.”
“So he’s desperate,” I say.
“Or persistent.”
Over the years I’ve had a lot of offers to meet with record labels, especially those first few months after leaving my last one.
I didn’t want to play the game of the industry, the song and dance of begging for a company to care more about you as a person than the hypothetical money they would be losing for having a conscience.
Morgan knows my stance and she agrees so for her to even be bringing this topic up to me is a surprise.
“Why this one?”
“Because we can’t do the same thing and expect a different outcome.
You love music more than most people love anything.
I’ve witnessed it first hand, and so I know how much of a block it must have been to not create for years while you healed and found yourself again.
But for the first time in three years you’re recording again, and I’ll be damned if I don’t put a potentially great opportunity in front of you.
Not only because that’s what you pay me to do, but also because I care about you , Sonny. ”
This time it’s Morgan who sits back in her seat.
I soak in her words, really taking them in and digesting them before I respond.
“Fine. Set it up and I’ll be there, but I’m not making any promises.”
“I’m not asking you to,” Morgan says. “He could be full of shit and I would fully expect you to tell him to kick rocks, respectfully.”
***
Three days later I’m walking into Silver Spoon Records to have a meeting with Langston St. James himself. Normally, Morgan would have been a part of a meeting like this but she had a family emergency come up and I opted to take the meeting myself to get it out of the way instead of rescheduling.
When his assistant sees Xavier and I approaching, she immediately stands and gives me an eager smile, welcoming me to the office. Xavier takes a seat on a nearby couch to wait. She walks me to the office door, tapping her knuckles two times on the door before opening it.
“Sonny is here to see you, sir,” the assistant says.
Langston stands from his seat behind his desk, shaking my hand with a firm grip.
He stands a few inches shorter than me and is younger than I expected, in his late thirties.
He’s dressed in a black suit, something expensive by the looks of it and sharply contrasting the casual clothes I decided on for this meeting.
“Is there anything I can get for the two of you, Mr. St. James?” his assistant asks. “Sparkling water, tea, coffee?”
Langston looks at me, silently asking if I’m interested in anything. I shake my head.
“No, Michaela, we're fine here,” he replies.
Michaela leaves the office, closing the door behind her.
Langston gestures for me to sit in one of the brown leather chairs opposite his desk while he retakes his own seat.
“I must say I’m surprised that your manager finally put us in touch,” Langston says. “It seemed like she was really trying to give me the run around.”
“What gave you that impression?”
“She refused for weeks to tell you about my interest in speaking with you.”
“Morgan always has my best interests at heart. It’s her job to be in between me and everyone who wants to get to me. She knows when to filter unimportant things out and when to bring the others to me. So I guess you should feel lucky you finally made the cut.”
The harsh tone of my words is purposeful.
Not because I want him to believe I’m an asshole but because I need him to know that I am not the naive teenager I once was.
The one who was so excited and starry eyed to have an opportunity that I took the first one that was presented to me.
The opportunity that was toxic and exploitative and gave me all that I dreamed of, but at a price so high I nearly lost myself.
That naive 19 year old boy was chewed up and spit out and what is left is a 29 year old man who won’t make the same mistakes of the past.
Langston’s jaw clenches at my words but he quickly covers his annoyance with a smirk.
“So let’s not waste any more time and get right to the chase. I’ve followed you since the beginning of your career and you’re extremely talented, which is why I want you to join us here at Silver Spoon.”
Langston leans forward placing his elbows on his desk and interlocks his fingers before he continues speaking.
“I know why you didn't resign with that other label and I want to do things differently.”
I raise my eyebrows in surprise at his statement because I never publicly said why I didn’t renew my contract, instead deciding to separate as amicably as possible by not airing out all of my grievances and frustrations.
“Really?” I say slowly. “And why is that?”
“Because they were holding you back from your full potential.”
Langston speaks as if he knows me, as if less than an hour ago I wouldn’t have walked past him on the street without a single clue who he was. To him, he’s saying all the right things about wanting to make me more successful and more famous but in reality it’s all wrong.
“You have the raw talent of someone that should be the face of the industry. Billboards, commercials, tours, you name it, it can all be yours. Women love your voice and persona. You’re still in good shape. We can play up the sex appeal and they won’t be able to get enough of you.”
Langston continues on, outlining his plan for me with his label, pitching me all the ways I can be more successful and have more money and more opportunities.
More. More. More.
“But what if that isn’t what I want?,” I ask, cutting him off. “The fame and the fortune and the women. What if I want to do something different?”
I pose the question as a hypothetical, but it's more accurate than anything Langston has said this entire meeting. I don’t want to be the Sonny that I was before, placed in the box and forced to portray myself in the way the label thought would benefit themselves the most regardless of what I wanted.
“Of course you want it,” he says chuckling. “You made it. You got yourself and your family out the hood which was always the goal, right? You’ve done well but it's time to aim higher, bigger. It’s what everyone wants and with my help you can have it.”
And there it is.
Men like Langston think that they know best and prey on young aspiring artists claiming that they can give them the world and everything they’ve ever dreamed of. But in reality they just want to serve their own best interests and everything else is secondary.
“Listen Langston,” I say. “I appreciate the interest, but this isn’t going to work between us.”
His surprise from my words is evident by the expression on his face. I stand from my seat, done with the conversation. My hand is on the doorknob poised to leave this room when Langston’s voice stops me.
“What would your father want of you?”
I pause and turn back to him “The fuck did you say?”
He’s standing, facing me while he leans back against his desk with his arms crossed over his chest.
“From what I hear you were close with your father, and it was truly tragic how you lost him.”
Langston pauses to give what is supposed to be a sympathetic smile and nod.
“He wouldn’t want his only son to do something so stupid as to walk away from a deal as good as this one would he?”
I wiggle my fingers and take a deep breath using every last shred of my willpower to stop myself from punching him straight in the nose for having the audacity to bring up my father.
Langston must take my pause as contemplation because he continues speaking, unaware of the rage coursing through me.
“Sonny, be smart about this. You’ve been on hiatus for years now, offers aren’t going to keep coming in. This is the best deal you’re going to receive and if you walk out that door, it’s off the table.”
“You really think you have me all figured out huh,” I scoff. “But see if I really needed you, you wouldn’t have been begging my manager to even have the ability to have a meeting with me. I don’t need a partnership with a lowlife like you who just wants to exploit me.”
I yank the door open but stop and turn back to Langston. “ Oh, and since you know my father so well, you should thank him for being the only reason you aren’t laid out on the floor right now. He taught me to pick my battles and you’re not worth the fight.”
I walk out the door and don’t even say a word to Xavier. He just follows my lead walking a few steps behind me as we walk back to the car.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and when I pull it out and look at it I see it's a message from Morgan asking for an update on the meeting when it's finished. I start to type out an angry message telling her that I knew this meeting would be a waste of time. I hit backspace and delete it all in favor of echoing Morgan’s words from a few days ago back to her.
me
You can’t keep doing the same thingsand expect a different outcome.