Grip Trilogy Box Set

There are smiles, snickers, various expressions of amusement from everyone at the conference table.

“But it’ll be worth it.” Bristol’s eyes land on me. “Grip will be one of the best albums of the year, and we’re damn well gonna treat it that way.”

I knew she believed in me, but the sincere passion resonating from her is deeper than I even thought. I wish she’d direct some of that passion to me, instead of my work.

“And that starts with positioning it for the best possible opportunities.” Bristol’s eyes shift from mine and touch on each person at the table. “This is something we can’t let get away. I promise you we can do it.”

“I say let’s go for it,” Rhyson says.

And if he says it, we’re going for it. Rhyson and Bristol often disagree loudly and vehemently, but when they agree, it’s done.

“Well, that’s settled.” Bristol shares a brief smile with her brother but then snaps her fingers. “I almost forgot. Grip?”

She turns to me, and we look straight at each other. I barely catch the flash of vulnerable uncertainty before she shutters it.

“Yeah?” It’s the first word I’ve spoken since the meeting officially started, even though it’s all about my album. It isn’t that I don’t care about this stuff, but I’m much more interested in actually getting the music to listeners, for them to connect with what I created.

“Target wants you to film a spot next week.” She taps the iPad, her eyes roaming over the screen. “They sent over a treatment for the commercial. I have it here somewhere.”

“Lemme guess,” I say. “There’s lots of red and big dots.”

“Smart ass.” She shoots me her first natural smile of the morn- ing. “I’ll show you later. Let’s listen to these tracks. My contact is wait- ing. Grip and Rhys, you guys walk us through our options.”

Rhyson dips his head to defer to me. Right.

“So this first song,” I say, pulling up the file sharing where we’ve stored the bonus tracks. “It’s called ‘Bruise.’”

There’s so much I could say to set up this song. I tell them bits and pieces of it. How personal it is. How cathartic it was to write about the tension and fear that marked my relationship with cops growing up. Before black lives or blue was preceded by hashtags, the debate dividing our nation, divided my family. There’s so much more I could say to make them know what this song means to me, but I don’t say any of it. I just play the song and hope it speaks for me. And while it plays, I can’t help but remember the day that inspired it.

Chapter 4

GRIP

12 years old

“SEXUAL CHOCOLATE!”

I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve watched Coming to America. My cousin Jade, my boy Amir, and I know just about every line by heart. Every week, we watch this bootleg copy Ma bought at the barber shop, and not even the shadows of people’s heads in the shots or the sometimes-unsteady camera work make Eddie Murphy as Randy Watson and his band Sexual Chocolate less funny.

“’That boy good,’” Amir quotes when Eddie Murphy does the infamous mic drop and leaves the stage.

“’Good and terrible,’” Jade and I finish the quote. We all crack up laughing like it’s the first time.

“Y’all and this movie.” Jade’s older brother Chaz walks through the living room in his jeans, no shirt.

His body is like one of the graffiti walls off Largo Avenue, inked with five-pointed stars declaring his Bloods gang affiliation, “186” scrawled on his chest signifying the code for first-degree murder. His other passion, the Raiders, vie for equal space on his arms and back. Ink stains every available inch of skin, but he left his face clear. Ma says thank God the boy is vain, otherwise he would have ruined that handsome face of his with tattoos. A teardrop or something.

Everyone says we look alike, Chaz and me. Ma and his father were brother and sister, but my uncle died before I was even born, so I never met him. Ma sometimes looks at Chaz with sad eyes and says if you’ve seen Chaz, you’ve seen his daddy. You’ve seen her brother.

“How many times y’all gon’ watch this movie?” Chaz’s bright smile flashes before he pulls his Raiders T-shirt over the muscular framework of his upper body. “If it ain’t this, it’s Martin.”

“Wasssssup!” Amir, Jade, and I parrot Martin’s signature phrase on cue, laughing while Chaz rolls his eyes.

“Y’all little niggas a trip.” The pager on Chaz’s hip beeps, and he plucks it off his waistband to read the message. I love that we made him laugh before we lost his attention.

Jade’s other brother Greg is LAPD, but we don’t trust cops, so they aren’t our heroes. Chaz is our hero. He may be a gangbanger, and he slings, but he’s cool. He always has the latest Jordans, the freshest clothes, and the sound system you hear before you see his car bouncing around the corner, hydraulics on point. His mom, my Aunt Celia, doesn’t ask where the money comes from when he pays her rent every month. She turns a blind eye, but Ma won’t take Chaz’s money, no matter how tight it gets at our house.

“Shit,” Chaz mutters, a frown puckering his eyebrows. He usually walks slowly so everyone can see his fresh kicks, to make it easy for what Ma calls “fast tail girls” to catch him, but he runs to the back of the house like someone’s chasing him.