Chapter One

Malik
It was time to return to reality. That day after Sugar’s writing binge and meltdown, I drove back to my own place in Virginia. Her mother was with her so I knew that she would be fine. Sometimes I needed a moment to breathe, away from her. I had my own responsibilities.
I hit the remote for the garage door when I pulled up to my house, and I could see my older brother Maurice tinkering with a Mustang. He leaned over and shook his head at me when we made eye contact.
“How are you working in here with the door closed?” I asked as I stepped out of my Benz.
He shrugged. “I see you found ya way home though,” he snorted.
“I know where I live.”
“I don’t know why y’all just don’t get a place together.”
“You just tryna kick me out my own house.”
“Nope. Wherever you go, I’m comin too. I mean really, you-you need to just stay right here and leave that crazy girl alone. But you grown. Do you.”
“If Ima do me, you can’t come with me if I move out.”
“Yeah, see Mommy won’t-won’t like that.”
We both laughed.
Maurice had Down Syndrome. Our parents took care of him until he put his foot down and demanded that they let him go. He was the oldest of our parents’ three children. I spent a lot of time on my own on the road with managers, and my little sister went away to college. With that Maurice felt a way about being the oldest but still home. The compromise was that he lived with me. It worked out for everyone because we were really close.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
I shrugged my shoulders and sighed. “She’s a lot, man.”
“Can’t be worse than living wit me.”
I shook my head. “It’s totally different man. It’s her brain, it’s her moods. She needs her meds to keep her in control. If she doesn’t take her meds it’s like everything she’s feeling bubbles up and spills out like lava.”
Maurice stretched his eyes.
“You would have to come with me if I got another place big bro.” I grinned. “You’re the only one that can help me deal.”
Maurice grinned. He knew I would never leave him.
After a quick shower and a long nap, I awoke to Maurice standing over me adjusting a button down shirt.
“Hey,” I said to him groggily.
He smiled. “I just wanted to know what you think of this look.” He stepped back a little so that I could see the full outfit.
“Looks good,” I said as I eyed him from head to toe. “Where you goin?”
“I have a date,” he announced.
That woke me all the way up. Maurice went on dates every once in a while, and each date put me on edge. Although he was older than me, I felt like the big brother. I felt like I had to protect him. He met women around his age at social programs that he sometimes joined for high functioning adults with special needs. Most recently though, he had started using a dating site. It took a lot for me to completely release the reins when it came to that. I helped him create his profile and downloaded the app to my phone so that I would get his alerts, and I could monitor his activity. I completely bypassed the free version of the site, as well as the lower end memberships, and paid for platinum membership. I needed profiles to be completely available and to have access to background checks.
“With who?” I asked.
Maurice grinned a little harder. “I met her on the site.”
“Okay.” I waited for more details.
Maurice looked around like he didn’t know what I was waiting for.
“Tell me more Moe. What do you know about her? Why didn’t you tell me earlier you had a date tonight? Where y’all going?”
He shuffled his feet a little before answering. “Well,” he scratched his head, “her name is Mercedes. She’s the same age as me. She has a job, she works with kids like me, like us… like with special needs.”
“Mercedes huh?”
Maurice nodded his head.
“She’s special needs too?”
He nodded again.
“How long you been talking to her? And why didn’t you tell me about her before?”
“I been talking to her for about a month. I thought you knew, since you log into my account.”
I realized I hadn’t been keeping up with the notifications coming in from the dating site. He looked excited and confident about his night. I thought about the few details he had given me. She was the same age as him and although she was special needs as well, she was high functioning enough to have a job with children. “So where y’all going?”
“The movies.”
“How you gettin there?”
“I’m gonna get a Uber and pick her up.”
I looked him over once more and sighed. “See you later man.”
He almost always took women to the movies on first dates. Thats what made him comfortable. We had two home attendants, one of which only worked part-time at home during the day, and the other who accompanied Maurice when he went out or traveled. Both of them knew how to keep an eye on him without making him feel like he had lost his independence.
I dozed off for another hour, and when I finally fully awoke, I decided to eat something. The way my stomach rumbled as I reheated a pasta dinner left in the fridge by one of my rotating chefs, I realized I hadn’t eaten all day. When Sugar was wired, she didn’t eat, and I found myself operating on the same emptiness because I couldn’t focus on anything for myself when she was having a manic episode. Halfway through my stuffed shells, lobster, and steamed vegetables, I noticed the missed calls and texts on my phone. The majority were from Sugar. I wanted to read the messages. I wanted to call her back and talk to her, but she drained my energy in ways that when in silence, I questioned my love for her. I also had my own work to do.
What the public didn’t know about me was that I wrote songs for a lot of artists. Although I was on the scene, performing and dropping albums through my teen years, I didn’t have strong mainstream popularity. The songs I wrote, a lot of times hit for others though, and that’s what kept me around and paid. I went down to my mini studio to tune out the world, and tune into my work. A few hours later I could hear Maurice arriving back home. He didn’t come down to look for me, so I figured we could talk about his date later. I stayed focused on laying down some of the ideas brewing in my head that only made it as far as the Note app on my phone. When I was finally done, I had one song written that I could shop around, and two ideas that needed work. That satisfied me, and I went back up to my room to call it a night.
I couldn’t sleep without knowing that Sugar was okay though, and I needed her to know that it mattered to me that she was okay, regardless of how much she stressed me out.
I hit the FaceTime button next to her name and waited for her to answer. “Where are you?” she asked, surrounded by the darkness of her bedroom.
“Home.”
“Oh… I need you Malik, why did you go?”
“You don’t need me Sug.”
“Yes I do,” she was on the brink of tears. The brink is where she lived. Sugar never cried.
“You’re fine Sugar.”
“I’m not fine. I’m not okay. I need you here with me.”
“You don’t remember telling me to get out?”
There was silence.
“Early this morning, you told me to get out Sugar. So I left. I had work to do anyway.”
“When are you coming back?” Sugar didn’t apologize either.
“I don’t know.”
“Then I’m coming out there.”
“We both have work to do and we can’t work in my studio together at the same time. Stay there, work on your album. I’ll stay here and write.”
“You know what I need to work better though, don’t you?”
I already knew what was coming. She turned on her bedside lamp so that I could see her naked bronze skin, her nipples peeking out between her locs.
“Did you finish your songs?” I asked, not falling for the bullshit.
“Malik, don’t play with me,” she barked.
“I’m not.”
“Then stop talking about work and songs…”
“Sugar, we’re artists. Thats what we do.”
She sighed and shut the light back off. “You got somebody over there with you?”
“What?” I laughed. “Sugar why would I call you on FaceTime if somebody was over here?”
“Wow…”
“Wow what?”
“Its not that you wouldn’t have anybody over there, but you just wouldn’t call me on Facetime if there was.”
“Sugarbird, I know you don’t need it as much as I do, but I need to get some rest, so that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Calling me Sugarbird won’t get you over.”
“Get me over what?” I laughed. I knew that all of what was happening was a result of her not taking her meds, and I could’ve been angry at her for that, but I wasn’t. I didn’t have enough energy to be mad. So I laughed.
“It’s not funny Malik. You think calling me Sugarbird, I’m just gonna let you hang up without telling me when you’ll be back or why I can’t come over there.”
“I told you, it doesn’t make sense for you to be here. My studio is too small. It’s not like we haven’t tried to work like that before. Lemme get some sleep. I’ll let you know tomorrow what I’m gonna do.”
“You know I can’t sleep without knowing.”
She wouldn’t sleep even if I was there. She was manic. “You’ll be fine. I don’t want to be rude, so I’m telling you, I’m hanging up.”
“Alright Malik.”
“I love you Sugarbird.”
“You don’t, but okay…”
“You don’t love me back?”
“I love you more.”
“I’m hanging up. Talk to you in the morning.”
“Bye.”
*****
The next morning my manager was on the phone. “Aye Malik, where you at man?”
“In my bed…”
“You’re supposed to be—”
“Shit!” I jumped out of bed and raced around the room grabbing things to get ready. “I’m supposed to be at the station, I know.”
“Well you have a few minutes, there’s some other folks here doing interviews. But that doesn’t mean take your time.”
“I’m not, I’m not, I’m on my way.”
I took a thirty-second shower, barely lotioned my skin, and jumped into a brand new tracksuit. I grabbed my jewels and rushed out the door, without the chance to talk to Maurice about his date. I was at the station within fifteen minutes, and went straight into the studio. I didn’t have time to prepare for this interview, so when the dating questions hit I didn’t have a rehearsed answer.
“So Malik, when you and Sugar Evans just gon come right out and say y’all a couple?” asked the obnoxious male host.
I laughed.
“You don’t have to answer that,” said the female host.
“Yes he does,” said the male host, “no stipulations were put on this interview. Whassup with you and Sugar Evans man?”
I glanced at my manager who only shrugged. At this point, it really didn’t matter. People had seen us together in a number of places. We never confirmed nor denied a relationship, we just ignored the questions. I was following Sugar’s lead on it initially, but somehow I knew it didn’t matter to her what I said. Just as my mind said her name, the buzzed my phone.
“Oooh that’s her right now!” said the male host.
I hoped that my chuckle didn’t come off like I was blushing. I declined her call and quickly texted her that I was on the radio.
“Y’all together,” the male host went on. “Ain’t no denying it now. She just called your phone!”
“Whatchu want me to say?” I asked. “Why y’all ask the obvious?”
“Wait is this an admission?” asked the female host.
I threw up my hands.
“We have a caller,” she said.
“Good morning,” I heard Sugar’s voice coming through.
The male host laughed loud and hard. “This can’t be really happening right now! Is this happening? Is this Sugar Evans on the phone?”
“The one and only,” said Sugar.
“Sugar did you call to clarify your status with Malik?” asked the female host.
“I called to let him know that he was free to clarify it himself. G’head Malik,” said Sugar.
I laughed. “You givin me permission?”
“Naw, naw nuthin like that,” she laughed.
“Get to it man!” said the male host.
“Yes,” I said, “yes we’re a couple. Sugar Evans is my lady…”
The studio roared with cheers.
I shook my head laughing.
“I gotta go,” said Sugar, “I was just calling to say good morning, and tell Malik on air, ‘I love you sweetheart. It is what it is.’”
“It is what it is,” I repeated our saying back to her.
Sugar hung up and the interview continued.
“So,” said the male host, “not to be a jerk or nuthin, but now that Sugar is off the phone. Whassup wit her man? Is she crazy like they say?”
This was exactly what I didn’t want. “I don’t know. I don’t know what ‘they’ say and it doesn’t matter what ‘they’ say.”
“Yeah but the word is that she’s a diva,” the male host probed.
“Crazy and a diva are two different things and there are very few women who are not considered divas in this business.” I nodded towards the female host. “I just heard you give very precise details on how you like your coffee to the new intern. Is that diva behavior, or are you just being specific about your wants and needs? I don’t subscribe to the idea of a woman being crazy, a diva, a bitch, or difficult because she’s straightforward about what works for her and won’t just settle for whats handed to her. Sugar is my lady… I don’t know anything about the crazy or diva part.”

Taylor
​While my father met with his executives in a board room, I waited patiently in his office to discuss the urgent matter that he called me for, which I was sure was the song I had recently recorded with Q-Note. Waiting in his office was like waiting to be chastised by the principal. No one, not even anyone at the label knew that Max Silverstein of Silver Records was Taylor Thompson’s father, my father. No one knew of his dissolved marriage to my mother. To the public my mother and I were buried like the rest of his mysterious past. My family had been sworn to secrecy, and I barely had any involvement with the Silversteins. I think they liked it that way. In real life, Max Silverstein was Dad to me, but to the rest of the world he was a Jewish music mogul who kept a close watch and tight rein on his artists; particularly Sugar and mines. I didn’t know what the rest of the world saw when it came to me versus Sugar, but I knew for a fact, Sugar was doted on, way more than I was. Sugar’s one on ones with Max Silverstein were meant to calm her down, keep her on track, and make her feel cared for. Taylor’s one on one’s were meant to keep her in her place as a child performer.
After walking several unconscious laps around the office, I stretched out on the plush leather couch that was off to the side. I closed my eyes and imagined what it would be like to break away from Silver Records, and be an independent artist. I wanted nothing to do with the pink and purple bubble gum image they had created for me. I wanted to be free and sophisticated with room for a little ratchet. I tried to think of female artists that I could emulate, but only Jill Scott came to mind, and she wasn’t necessarily ratchet, but she had a really free sexual side to her.
My eyes popped open at the sound of Dad clearing his voice. “Napping?” he asked.
“Daydreaming, fantasizing, imagining,” I admitted.
He walked over to his desk and hit a button. The sounds of my recent cut filled the room. I winced a little at the sound of my own voice saying the word pussy. Dad couldn’t take it either. He hit the button again.
“Taylor, what the fuck was that?”
Initially, when I got his call for this meeting, I had all the balls in the world. I was gonna march up in his office and tell it like it was. I was not a child. I was a woman. I had a few experiences under my belt, and I wanted to express that. The feeling that came over me as I sat on the couch in my Dad’s office though was not one of courage. I was nauseous. I cleared my throat. “It’s a song I did with Q-Note.”
“No shit. Since when do you do this kind of shit?”
I clasped my lips together, praying for my balls to drop.
“You know what the deal is here. You know how this business works. What I don’t think you understand though, is how stunts like this are looked at in the business, and how this affects the label.” He carried on and on and I was lost, no longer really hearing the words clearly.
I gritted my teeth, and forced myself back into the frame of mind that I had left the house in. “Let me do my own thing or I tell everyone I’m your daughter.”
Dad froze in the middle of the office before slowly turning to look at me. “You’ll what?”
“Let me do what I want to do or I will tell everyone, I will make a public statement that you are my father.”
“We have an agreement Taylor.”
“Well I don’t agree anymore. It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.”
“What is this woman’s prerogative shit your spouting? Did your mother put you up to this?”
“She didn’t hear the song either, so no.”
Dad huffed. “But she’s putting some kind of shit in your head. I should call Q-Note up here for recording the song in the first place. I knew letting you work with him frequently would be a problem. Lance Mack would never do anything as dumb as this.”
“You have male artists on this label talking about murdering whole families in cold blood and I can’t talk about the joys of sex? Does that even make sense?”
“It makes sense because it’s what makes me money. Little girls in pink barrettes giggling over crushes and having sleepovers, gangster rappers causing mayhem, and soulful female r&b voices going on and on about how badly men treat them. That’s the business here at Silver Records. That’s the business you were born into by default. Don’t come in here threatening me with some empowerment speech you stole from your mother. This is why we couldn’t stay together. She was more worried about being empowered than the bottom line.”
“You couldn’t stay together cuz she’s Black, your family hated her, and nobody thought it would be good for your image in the business.”
Seconds of silence lingered, pretending to be minutes.
Finally, “Taylor, record whatever you want.”
“And you’ll release it.”
My father’s face twitched. He didn’t expect that response. He thought I was a fool. “We’ll talk about it,” he said.
“I’ll be talking to social media about who my daddy is then.”
“I’ll release the material Taylor.”
“Under my name, as my song.”
Max Silverstein was defeated.
I stuck my hand out for a shake. I wasn’t even sure if that solidified the agreement, but since I had come to the office half-cocked without a written agreement, I had to use other avenues for him to see that I meant business.
My father shook my hand, and I left the office ready to create more raucous in the studio. But first, I had to do some other shit.
*****
A high pitched shriek escaped my lips as Sekani pulled my hair and simultaneously smacked my ass from behind. He thrusted into me, propelling me forward, and then snatched me back again by my hips. This man was a whole beast, and I enjoyed every detail of our sex. Our situation was a secret that would not only piss off both my parents, but Q-Note as well. Although it happened frequently, my father was not a fan of fraternization amongst label mates. It certainly didn’t help that Sekani was a nerd turned street kid when his parents split up. No one knows what he felt he had to prove, but his teen years were spent sticking up unsuspecting middle class workers until Q-Note found out he had a flow like none other. Lance Mack was skeptical about signing him, but my father jumped on the opportunity. My mother always warned me to stay away from all those “lil street niggas.” Q-Note saw the gleam in my eye at Mack’s Lab and tried to shut it all down, but I had my ways of finding out what I needed to know, and doing what I wanted to do.
Sekani flipped me over on my back, but when he leaned down for a kiss, I turned the tables on him and pinned him to the bed. I had some tension to release, and I was going to ride him until I let it all go. I could tell by the focused look on his face that he was trying to hold out and not cum before I did. For that reason, I slowed down just enough. When I was ready though, I let go, and so did he shortly after. Minutes later we lay sprawled across his bed, passing a joint back and forth. Sekani’s phone rang. Someone was trying to FaceTime him, but he ignored the call. My paranoia kicked in.
“Not gonna pick that up?” I asked.
The phone started to ring again, and Sekani held it up for me to see that it was Q-Note calling.
I twisted my lips. “He’s not gonna stop calling till he gets through either. Call him back regular.”
Sekani looked at me.
“He doesn’t have to know I’m here.” I lowered my voice as if they were already on the phone.
Sekani swiped, and jumped into a conversation with Q-Note about ad-libs.
I dozed off, but was awakened by the sound of my own phone buzzing nearby. It was Q-Note. I looked over at Sekani and nudged him as he too had fallen asleep. “Why is he calling me?” I asked.
Sekani shrugged.
I picked up on the last ring. “Hey, whassup?”
“You’re late.”
Time had clearly flown by faster than I realized. I jumped up and scrambled around for my clothes.
Sekani sat up. “What?” he half yelled, half whispered.
Without answering, I continued my conversation with Q-Note. “I’m on my way. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” I lied knowing I was double the amount of time away.
“Yeah aight,” said Q-Note. “Don’t waste that Silver Records money. Mack’s Lab is taking in a check regardless.”
I sucked my teeth. “I’ll see you in a minute.”
“Damn, I forgot you had a session today,” said Sekani.
“I almost did too,” I admitted.
“I didn’t even get to hear that controversial track.”
“Its okay,” I said thinking of how I forced my way into his apartment, in need of the things he did to my body.
Sekani stopped me just as I closed his apartment behind me. “I really wanna do a track with you,” he said.
I snickered. “They don’t even want us to speak to each other.”
He shrugged. “It has to happen one day.”
“The teeny-bopper and the gangster rapper on a track?” I put my hand to my chin and rolled my eyes upward.
“You not gon be a teeny-bopper forever.”
“Its not that easy to change the minds of Silver Records,” I said.
Sekani dropped his head for a kiss.
I pecked him on the lips and dashed down the hall.
*****
“Where you been?” Q-Note asked me, twenty-five minutes after I scurried out of Sekani’s apartment.
I pouted.
“I don’t care about that,” said Q-Note. “We got work to do. I spoke to Max. I got a plan.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah. He’s not happy about your transition, but somehow you convinced him. I don’t think it’s wise to just drop a track like that out of the sky though. It needs a strong foundation. It needs to be a full story.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I admitted.
“We’re not gonna record anything today,” he said.
“We gonna write?”
Q-Note shook his head, no. He queued up something on YouTube on the big flat screen mounted on the wall to the right. “When Janet Jackson decided to break away from her father and take some control of her music career, she made a whole presentation of it.”
“You want me to do the same things as Janet Jackson.”
Q-Note shook his head no again. “I just want you to watch and learn and get inspired youngin.” He pointed at a seat and told me to get comfortable. He handed me a notepad. “Take notes. Pay attention to everything. The music, the lyrics, her look, the videography. I really mean everything. Write down everything that strikes you.”
Q-Note sometimes irked my nerves with his big-brother stance. I had actually been in the industry longer than him, but I had to give it to him. The man knew what he was talking about. It made all the sense in the world why he was Lance Mack’s protege. We sat through the six videos produced for the Control album, and I was getting an idea of where Q wanted to go with his idea. He said he wasn’t trying to control the situation though. He had me watch the videos for inspiration. The execution was on me.

Sugar
Malik insisted on not coming back for a few days. As agitated as I was, I couldn’t be mad. He was right. We both had work to do, and I worked better off my meds. However, nobody liked how I worked when I was off my meds. It was a little unorthodox. Being manic was almost like being in a dream. I often felt like I was having an out of body experience and watching myself. I liked what I saw Manic Sugar do though. Manic Sugar didn’t give a fuck. She took charge and didn’t let anything stop her, regardless of people pleading and begging, regardless of them whispering amongst themselves that she was a diva. She just didn’t give a fuck, and that worked. It always yielded the results I wanted.
I knew Silver Records expected my album in progress to flop. I also knew that they were wrong, and the idea of their shock is what fueled my pace in writing and composing songs as fast as I did. I couldn’t wait to see the looks on their faces. There were timelines to adhere to though. Just because an album was finished, didn’t mean it was ready for release. There had to be promotion, and release dates were based on current events, as well as whatever was happening in the music industry. My plan, that I had not discussed with my mother or Malik, was to go back on my meds after the album was complete. I didn’t care about being doped up during promotion and appearances. I was okay with making everyone else feel better when I had to be out in public. I just couldn’t do it while I created. It blocked me from feeling me and an unadulterated me was what this album needed because it was coming from the bottom of my heart.
I looked at the list of sixteen songs that I had written. The contract said fifteen. I liked sixteen though, so sixteen is what it would be. I recorded melodies for each. Now I sat planning out which producers I wanted to work with for each one. For the moment a reveled in the control I had been given over this album. I had never been given such an opportunity before, but I fought hard for it, and I was gonna show the label how hard they had been sleeping on me for years.
I heard my front door open and close, which meant my mother had shown up. Nobody came and went freely from my home except for her and Malik. I had cleaned up my music room and rearranged the furniture so that I could always see who was coming into the room.   My mother Sharon, the ever composed elegant lady. She was the true diva. She entered the music room, knowing that is where she would find me. What she didn’t know was that I had finally cleaned the space up, and it was in much better shape than when she was last here. It’s not that I didn’t know the room was a mess, its just that at the time when everyone was looking at the mess, I had more important things to worry about.
“You cleaned up,” was the first thing she said, her voice saturated with relief.
I nodded.
“Oh… hi.” She smiled realizing she hadn’t even greeted me.
“Hi Mom.”
“What are you working on now?”
I swiveled the iPad and its keyboard for her view.
“Booking studio time?”
“Well, choosing producers for certain songs. I figured I might have to go out of state to some of their studios to work.”
“Q-Note? I thought you hated working with him.”
“I hate communicating with him, but he’s good and somehow there’s chemistry once we start working.”
My mother nodded. I knew she was fighting with herself not to ask questions, not to walk into every room of the apartment, and poke around. She understood that I needed my space, still it was hard for her to act accordingly. She was a momager at heart and for good reason. Everyone wasn’t going to know how to treat her bipolar daughter. Still there was a thin line between mother and manager. In my mid twenties, I needed more of a manager and less of a mother. Even with Bipolar I, she needed to back off a little.
“Do you need anything?” she asked.
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Well are you hungry?” she asked. This was her way of finding out if I had eaten. Which I hadn’t.
“Yes,” I lied.
“Okay,” she said, glad to have something to do for me. “I’ll see what I can do with what you have.”
I watched her make her way out of the room knowing I felt no hunger at all. She was frustrated with me though, and I didn’t want to make things worse. I would make an effort to eat whatever she cooked.
*****
A week later, I was sitting in a studio in Mack’s Lab in the little dingy borough called The Bronx, in New York. I loved Manhattan. I didn’t care for The Bronx, but I had to admit that was where the best producers were from, and Q-Note was one of them. He was the epitome of a Bronx nigga. He was aggressive, rugged, a soft-spoken word never left his tongue, but he was smart and talented as shit. That was the thing about those guys from The Bronx. It’s like they were secret nerds, as if they thought there was something wrong with just being their nerdy-selves.
My eyes scanned the list of artist names on the sign-in sheet. Apparently Taylor Thompson had been there quite a bit in recent hours. “Working with Taylor again,” I blurted out.
Q chuckled. “Yeah. Whatchu got against shawty?”
“Nothing. I just don’t see what the big deal is about her.”
“Is it about her as an artist or is it about the fact that she did a remix track with your boyfriend a while back?”
I squinted my eyes at Q. “Be careful.”
“You called me,” he said. “So whatchu wanna do?”
“I wanna know if you listened to the tracks I sent you.”
He nodded.
“So, did you get any ideas? Is there anything you could do with them?”
“You know I can always take things up a notch.”
“Okay?”
“You’re not gonna wanna hear my ideas.”
“Did I come up here for nothing Q?”
“You tell me.”
I sucked my teeth as I fought the urge to throw my bag at him.
“I’m just sayin,” he went on, “you tend to shut certain things down before I even make my point. I was surprised to see you hit me up, and I’m even more surprised to see that you’re actually here.”
“We’ve worked together before.”
“Yeah because Silver Records said so. But you took control of this album. You’re here on your own. You can’t fault me for being surprised when it’s no secret that you can’t stand me.”
“Its not that I can’t stand you—”
“Well you dislike me or whatever. Anyway, I’m never at the top of your list to work with. And when we do work together you shoot a lot of my shit down. So you tell me Sugar, did you come up here for nothing?”
I could feel myself firing up.
“Nobody cares about that diva shit up in here and you know it. I always keep shit a hunnid with you just like I do everybody else. I’m just asking that you do the same with me.”
My lips tightened. “I just think you’re a little aggressive,” I said carefully choosing my words. “You are talented though. So I am willing to hear what you have in mind.”
Q-Note shrugged and clasped his hands together as he looked directly into my eyes. “I think the track Its All Mine should feature Taylor Thompson.”
I knew there was gonna be some bullshit. “Nah. Hell no. You suckered Malik into working with the little bitch but you won’t get me.”
“Why is she a little bitch? What the hell did that girl do to you?”
“Nothing. I’d never let her get close enough. Am I not allowed to just dislike someone?”
“You can’t fault me, or anybody else for wondering why though.”
“She’s whack. She’s corny. Her music is lackluster and the only reason Giggle was a hit is because that stupid hiphop-pop crossover shit hasn’t lost fuel yet. The song is dumb. Most of her songs are dumb. But everybody goes hard for her.”
“Lemme ask you something,” Q proposed leaning back in his chair.
I impatiently awaited his question.
“Do you think every thing she does is her idea?”
“No. I don’t know. Maybe. Does that even matter?”
“Yeah. Didn’t you have to fight the label for full control of this album?”
“Yeah.”
“Y’all are on the same damn label. Don’t you think she experiences the same shit?”
“She’s younger, it’s not the same.”
“She’s really not that much younger than you.”
I sighed. I was ready to storm out of the meeting regardless of the fact that he was the only producer I had a meeting with in New York, therefore my only reason for being there in the first place. “So I hand you one of my tracks for review and a feature with Taylor Thompson comes to mind? You got me questioning your talent now. How about you stick to production?”
“This is a part of production. It’s all about concepts and what I hear.”
“How does Taylor Thompson’s music fit into the concept of anything that I am doing or would ever do?”
“Cuz y’all going through the same shit. Open your fuckin eyes Sugar. You’re not the first, won’t be the last, and have never been the only woman to fight a label or a fight the heads in any industry for control of her own shit. You think Taylor Thompson wants to maintain the image of pink bubble gum, and giggling, and roller-skates for the rest of her life? She’s fuckin twenty-one years old. She’s over it. Who’s to say she was ever into it?”
“I don’t know what any of that has to do with me,” I barked back.
“Ain’t nobody arguing with you. You came here. I’m telling you what I wanna do. It’s All Mine ain’t gon be right without Taylor, and I’m not putting my name on no flops.”
“Wow.” I was literally flabbergasted. “Fuck this,” I said and stood to leave.
Q said nothing. He didn’t try to stop me either.
I rushed downstairs to the lobby and started to call my car, but Malik was already calling at the same time. “I swiped answer, but did not say anything.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked knowingly.
“I don’t know why I came up here.”
“Cuz Q-Note is that nigga. But what’s wrong?”
“He is insisting that I work with Taylor Thompson on a track.”
“So?”
“So you know I don’t like that lil girl.”
“What did she ever do to you?”
“Why does everybody keep asking me that? I just don’t like her.”
“Well you don’t like Q-Note that much but you’re willing to work with him so what’s the difference?”
“It’s overkill. Working with one person I dislike is enough.”
“Okay.”
I sighed heavily trying to control my emotions, but I could feel a screaming tantrum bubbling to the brim. “I’m about to just get out of here and head straight back to the airport.”
“Didn’t you book a room?”
“Yeah, but I only came here to meet with Q.”
“You walked out of the meeting?”
“Yeah.”
Malik was quiet for a few seconds before saying, “Don’t leave yet. Send me the track he’s talking about.”
“Lemme call you back,” exasperation led my words.
I went and sat on one of the lobby couches and took my iPad out. I scrolled around for the track and immediately sent it to Malik then texted him, “sent.”
“Don’t leave yet,” he wrote back.
So I waited. I waited for twenty minutes.
Finally Malik called me back.
I picked up on the first ring. “So?”
“I think you should go back upstairs and talk to Q-Note.”
“Malik—”
“Sugar, I don’t really take this tone with you. I don’t try to be the man in your life that runs things. But I think you need to hear him out. I listened to the track. I can see what he means… especially since I just hung up from him.”
“So you called him to talk about me?”
“Yeah. Sugarbird—”
“Uh uh fuck that Sugarbird-shit—”
“Sugarbird, the track could be fire if y’all work this thing out. Believe me. Just go see what he has in mind and call me back. You still got time. Just go.”
I fought the urge to literally growl and headed back up on the elevator.