Grip Trilogy Box Set

“Where’d you read that? The Player’s Guide to Catching Bees?”

“No, I learned it the way I learn most things.” His eyes dim the tiniest bit. “The hard way.”

I’m not sure what to say, so I don’t say anything for a few seconds, and neither does he. It should be awkward, but it isn’t. Our eyes lock in the comfortable silence.

“So before Darla buzzed through,” I pause for effect, waiting for his quickly-becoming-familiar grin, “you were telling me about the School of the Arts. You’re a musician?”

“I write and rap.”

“As in you’re a rapper?”

“Wow, they said you were quick,” he answers with a grin.

“Oh, sarcasm. My second language.” I find myself smiling even though it’s been a crappy day with too many complications and not enough food. “So you rap. Like hoes, bitches, and bling?” I joke.

“At least you’re open-minded about it,” he deadpans.

“Okay. I admit I don’t listen to much hip-hop. So convince me there’s more to it.”

“And it’s my responsibility to convince you … why?” he asks with a grin.

“Don’t you want a new fan?” I’m smiling back again. “I just doubt it’s your type of music.”

“We’ve known each other all of an hour, and already you’re assigning me ‘types’. Well, I’m glad you have an open mind about me,” I say, echoing his smart-ass comment.

I halfway expect him to volley another reply at me, but he just smiles. I didn’t anticipate conversation this stimulating. His body, yes. Conversation, no.

“So are you any good?” I ask. “At rapping, I mean.”

“Would you know if I were good?” he counters, a skeptical look on his face.

“Probably not.” My laugh comes easier than most things have today. “But I might know if you were bad.”

“I’m not bad.” He chuckles. “I think my flow’s pretty decent.” “Sorry,” I interject. “For the rap remedial in the audience, define flow.”

“Define it?” He looks at me as if I asked him to saddle a unicorn. “Wow. You ever assume you know something so well, that it’s so basic, you can’t think of how to explain it?”

“Let me guess. That’s how it is with flow.”

“Well, now that you asked me to define it, yeah.”

“Just speak really slowly and use stick figures if you need to.” Rich laughter warms his eyes. “Okay. Here goes.”

He leans forward, resting those coppery-colored, muscle-corded arms on the table, distracting me. I think I really may need stick figures if he keeps looking this good.

“A rapper’s flow is like . . .” He chews his full bottom lip, jiggling it back and forth, as if the action might loosen his thoughts. “It’s like the rhythmic current of the song. Think of it as a relationship between the music and the rapper’s phrasing or rhythmic vocabulary, so to speak. You make choices about how many phrases you place in a measure. Maybe you want an urgent feeling, so you squeeze a lot of phrasing into a measure. Maybe you want a laid-back feel, and you leave space; you hesitate. Come in later than the listener expects.”

“Okay. That makes sense.”

“And the choices a rapper makes, how well the current of that music and his phrasing, his rhythmic vocabulary, work together, that’s his flow. Cats like Nas, Biggie, Pac—they’re in this rarefied cate- gory where their flow is so sick, so complex, but it seems easy. That’s when you know a flow is exceptional. When it seems effortless.”

“Now I get that.” I give him a straight face, but teasing eyes. “I can see how you won your rap scholarship.”

“Rap scholarship! It sounds so weird when you say it.” He sits back in his seat, a smile crooking his lips. “I actually went for writing. Rapping was kind of Rhyson’s idea.”

“Rhyson?” Shock propels a quick breath out of me. “What does he know about rap?”

“I’m guessing more than you do.” His smile lingers for a second before falling away. “I wrote poetry. That’s how I got in. Rhyson was looking for a way to translate his classical piano sound to a more modern audience, so I helped him. And he convinced me that all these poems I had could be raps. The rest is history.”