“Red and them.”
“Bet. I’ll get him in here before we leave.”
“Still rushing to get your ass back to the house, huh?” He was laughing but wasn’t shit funny to me.
“Damn right, if you had a girl you’d feel the same.”
A look came across his face before he smirked. “Maybe, but we’ll never know will we?”
I started to say something but there was a knock on the door. Trav’s gun was out and to his side out of habit and I couldn’t blame him. My shit was right by my leg in a special holder I made sure this desk had.
“Yeah?”
The girl that Lyric hired to work reception peeked in the door. She was timid with us but kept shit completely organized and handled the acts that came in like a pro. Her name was something weird like Rue or Atlas or some shit I was never going to remember.
“The groups are ready Mr. Chambers and Mr. Pettiway.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you.”
I glanced up sparing a look at Trav before I acknowledged the words of the person who spoke.
“Oh, for real?”
“Yeah, both of y’all. Y’all legends around Atlanta.” This goofy muthafucka that had come in here trying his damndest to rap and failed really thought he was going to impress us by bringing up some street shit. His first mistake was walking in here dressed like he’d made it. I was never one to look for a man to take advantage of and exploit, but I damn sure wanted someone that was hungry. A nigga who already felt like he had an image to uphold with icy chains and designer clothes was one who wasn’t serious about music. He was only serious about fame, which wasn’t going to work for us.
“You hear that, City? We legends and shit.”
I looked at Travis and the smile on his face was one that people often mistook as friendly. In reality, that fool was trying to see which house we could shut down for a few days and not take too much of a loss so he could start a foundation renovation to bury this nigga’s body in.
“Heard that.”
I was doing my best to dead the conversation before this fool got Travis’ ass spooked and ended up on a slab on Pryor Street.But he seemed to be ready to get sliced up cause he kept fucking talking.
“Yeah this music shit is just one way I’m trying to get to the money, feel me? Y’all andFinessemaking way for other folks to come up. Show they can be an asset to the hood.”
“An asset. And how you wanna do that? You starting a breakfast program and helping to police our streets so that we can get rid of the boys in blue who’d rather do us in than see us win? You the next Black Panther party?” Travis had leaned all the way up and now I could see I was gone have to put a bullet in this innocent receptionist's head because Trav was pissed.
This nigga was rhyming his words and shit and I knew he was getting worked up.
“Nah, you know what I’m saying.” That glance around the room was the dead giveaway that he was on bullshit and now I was getting angry. We’d just spent money to add the sound system to this room for playing back demos and records and everything was going to need to be stripped out when we killed this boy.
“We don’t play around with shit like that. You throw out accusations and that’s how rumors and shit get started. I don’t know what you heard but you need to be deaf dumb and blind to bullshit when it comes to us, feel me?”
He, I think this fool’s name was T-Lo or some shit, nodded like he finally understood he’d crossed lines. It was already too late for him because now he put himself on my radar for some shit other than not being able to find a word that rhymed with street instead of neat.
“So what y’all think about my sound? I played it for my niggas and they feeling it.” His hopes were raising and I was about to reach two generations back and three layers up in the atmosphere to smack them down.
“Gotta be real, we gone pass on this.” I interlaced my hands and that had Trav grinning. He knew I was doing it to keep myself occupied from reacting. T-Lo or whatever the fuck his name was needed to get out of my space real fast.
“Okay. And the other shit?”
And he was back to pressing us about some shit he shouldn’t even know about.
“Where you working at now?” My brow quirked and I moved my chair side to side slowly while I watched him.
“What you mean where?”
“You gotta be doing something to pay for this demo.”
