On the Come Up(51)

Miles sounds like it’s not code-switching for him. It sounds like how he naturally talks, like he belongs in the suburbs. I mean, he is from the suburbs, but in the Ring a few weeks back, he sounded extremely hood.

I shake his hand. “It’s fine. No more hard feelings.”

“No more?”

“Hey, you had to know there were some. That’s why you apologized, right?”

“Accurate,” he says. “It wasn’t personal. I wasn’t prepared for you to come back as hard as you did though.”

“What? Surprised that a girl beat you?”

“No, it had nothing to do with you being a girl,” he says. “Trust me, my playlists are full of Nicki and Cardi.”

“Wow, you’re one of the rare people who love both?” I am too. They may have beef, but just because they don’t like each other doesn’t mean I can’t like them both. Besides, I refuse to ever “choose” between two women. It’s so few of us in hip-hop as it is.

“Hell yeah.” Miles sits forward a little. “But let’s be real: Lil’ Kim is the ultimate queen bee.”

“Um, of course.” Jay’s a fool for Lil’ Kim. I grew up on her. Hearing Kim told me that not only can girls rap, but they can hold their own with the boys.

“The Hard Core cover alone is iconic,” says Miles. “From a visual standpoint, the aesthetic—”

“Boy,” Supreme says. Even though it’s all he says, Miles slinks back and quietly messes around with his phone, as if we weren’t just having a conversation. Weird.

“Where we going, Bri?” Supreme asks.

I give him my address, and he puts it in his GPS. He pulls off. “What happened with you and your aunt back there?” he asks.

“You saw that?”

“Yep. Saw that mini show you put on, too. You know how to work a crowd. That viral life treating you well, huh?”

I rest my head back. Damn. Even the headrest is warm. “It’s surreal. I can’t thank you enough for what you did.”

“Don’t even mention it,” he says. “If it wasn’t for your pops, I wouldn’t have a career. It’s the least I could do. So what’s the plan now? You gotta take advantage of the moment.”

“I know. That’s why I was at the Ring.”

“Aw, that? Ain’t big enough,” Supreme says. “Although what happened tonight is gonna have people talking. Every phone in the parking lot was pointed at y’all. I can see the headlines now. ‘Ghetto Rapper Has Ghetto Encounter.’” He laughs.

“Hold on. I was just speaking up for—”

“Calm down, baby girl. I know you were,” Supreme says. “They’re still gonna run with it though. It’s what they do. The key for you is to play the role, whatever that role is.”

I’m confused. “Play the role?”

“Play the role,” he repeats. “Look at me. I show up to meetings with these execs, right? In expensive suits that I get tailored, designer shoes that cost what my momma used to make in a year. They still think I’m a hood nigga. But guess what? I don’t walk outta there a broke nigga, I bet you that. ’Cause I play the role that they think I am. That’s how we make this game work for us. Use whatever they think of us to our advantage. You know who the biggest consumers of hip-hop are?”

“White kids in the suburbs,” Miles answers dryly, as if he’s heard this before.

“Exactly! White kids in the suburbs,” Supreme says. “You know what white kids in the suburbs love? Listening to shit that scares their parents. You scare the hell outta their folks, they’ll flock to you like birds. The videos from tonight? Gonna scare the hell outta them. Watch your numbers shoot up.”

It actually makes sense that white kids in the suburbs will love the videos. But Long and Tate called me a “hoodlum,” and I can’t seem to shake that word. Now people are gonna call me ghetto? One word. Two syllables.

Just ’cause I wasn’t mellow,

They’re gonna think I’m ghetto.

“I don’t want people thinking that’s who I am,” I say to Supreme.

“Like I said, it doesn’t matter,” he says. “Let them call you whatever the hell they want, baby girl. Just make sure you getting paid when they do it. You getting paid, right?”

Paid? “From what?” I ask.

“Somebody should be booking performances for you,” he says. “Getting you verses on other artists’ songs. Your aunt ain’t handling that?”

I don’t know. Aunt Pooh’s never talked about stuff like that.

“Now look, I ain’t trying to get in the middle of family business,” Supreme says, “but you sure she the best person to be your manager?”

“She’s been there from jump,” I tell him and myself. “When nobody else cared that I wanted to rap, Aunt Pooh did.”

“Ah, you loyal. I can respect that. She a GD, ain’t she?”

It wasn’t long after my dad died that Aunt Pooh started wearing green all the time. “Yeah. Been one for most of my life.”

“That mess is a distraction of the worst kind,” he says. “I know so many folks who’d go far if they left the streets alone. But it’s like my pops used to say—‘Never let yourself drown while trying to save somebody that don’t wanna be saved.’”