by Nako
Mahogany made it back home at four thirty from ripping and running around, grabbing things that they both would need for their vacation. Genesis didn’t text her back when she asked him if he wanted to go and that was fine with her. As long as he made it back home before six forty-five like she asked him to do, she was good. She laid down to catch a nap, since she hadn’t really slept in the past twenty-four hours but made sure to set her alarm because she could not miss the studio session.
η
This studio was totally different from the basement ones she was used to. It was bright, she was used to dark, smoked out ass studios. The chairs weren’t tattered or raggedy. Everything looked brand new. She was thinking that she should’ve put real clothes on versus the joggers, Jordan’s and an oversized jean jacket that she decided to wear. Even the producer and engineer…looked stylish.
“I need to smoke,” she mumbled under her breath.
Juice was shocked to hear that she burned trees. She was such a pretty girl, but shit, everybody smoked these days.
“You wanna go out back?”
She nodded her head. “Wait, we can’t smoke in here?”
He motioned for her to get up, so she obliged.
“I never know what the vibe is, so normally I wait until I see somebody else roll up before I smoke.”
“You work for P though, you damn near the boss.”
He didn’t say anything, instead, he sparked the blunt.
“Nervous?”
She was jittery. “Yeah, I am…is he coming?”
Juice never knew what Mr. Bavay was doing. He did his own thing.
“Who knows.”
She had one song she wanted to focus on, it was a hit if you asked her. As they smoked, she hummed the lyrics in her head. Juice was familiar with her and when he told P that she was considered a D-List celeb, he busted out laughing and said, “Well damn,” before walking off.
Shorty was stacked though, so that was a plus already.
They smoked in silence and when they finished the blunt, her eyes were low and glossy, and she was relaxed.
“Okay, let’s do this,” she pumped herself up as they walked back inside the building and into Studio C.
“Hi, I’m Mahogany,” she introduced herself to the new people that had arrived. In total, it was two producers, an engineer, plus Juice and a nigga with a camera.
She looked confused and Juice explained, “P, wanted us to collect some footage just in case you blow up.” He quickly said, “When you blow up.”
“Do you freestyle or write?”
“I can kinda do both, but I have some songs written down and I can play a song I had been working on with another producer.”
They all sat down in a circle and she handed over her cell, so they could connect it to the Bluetooth speaker.
Juice remained neutral as it played. One of the guys cut it off mid-way.
“Wait…it wasn’t done,” she explained.
They all looked at each other thinking to themselves, “What in the hell is P on…”
He normally had a good ear for music, but this was garbage. She literally screamed into the microphone and couldn’t rap with the beat for shit.
Juice was thinking, “The pussy gotta be fire.” She sounded horrible.
“Who are you top five female artists?”
Mahogany didn’t have to think too hard. “Beyoncé, Nikki Minaj, I’m a Fantasia fan, she’s underrated. Lauryn Hill & Patti.”
“You don’t sound like any of them. What direction are you trying to go into?”
Juice saw where this was going. “Aye, that’s not what P told y’all to do. Mahogany, get in the booth. We’ll scratch this song for now and come back to it.”
She wanted to run out of the studio. Where was Porter? She needed him.
“Juice, can I talk to you outside for two seconds?”
They went to the hallway and she asked him, “What did I sound like?”
She had a problem with accepting constructive criticism, but she did want to hear his opinion.
“Real shit?”
She nodded her head.
“Like a hungry cat in an alley uptown.”
That hurt big time.
Juice softened the blow, “But I do think that you have potential. Let’s get started. We got the room for six hours.” He was going to help her in any way that he could.
Her confidence had been attacked and she was praying that she killed it in the booth because right now, she wasn’t so sure.
She picked up her phone where the song was written down in her Notes and walked into the booth. There were two pair of headphones, she chose the rose gold ones and slid them over her ears.
“Wait, we don’t have a beat?” she remembered.
“Let us hear the song acapella and we’ll cook something up.”
They were stressing her out tonight.
She had an idea of a beat that she wanted to go with the song, so she bobbed her head and they signaled to her that the record button was on.
After she did the first beat and chorus, she stepped back and looked at them for feedback. Juice told her to keep going, so that’s what she did. Once she was done recording, she removed the headphones and came out the booth.
“Was it bad? I wrote it myself.”
Juice’s phone rang, so he stepped out of the studio.
“Hello?”
“How is she doing so far?”
He closed the door behind him, so he could talk to him in private.
“She fine as fuck, so I don’t know…”
“Excuse me?”
Porter couldn’t have heard him correctly. Did this lil country nigga just say his woman was fine as fuck?
“I’m saying, we can spin this. Do you know any ghostwriters?”
“She told me she had tons of songs. Y’all don’t like any of em?”
He was trying his hardest to let her do this on her own.
“We only heard one and then she recorded another one that she had in her phone.”
“Okay, so no, start over. Let her play y’all everything that she has and whatever she has written, y’all go through those too. It’s a hit in there and if it isn’t, then we pull in writers and shit.” He hung up after that.
Juice took a deep breath, they were going to be there all night. He went on and texted his girl to let her know they wouldn’t make it to the movies tonight and he would make it up to her soon. She read the message and didn’t bother responding. He knew that he needed to let her go, but he was selfish and wanted her to himself. She was a good girl and women like her were a rare breed. However, he had no time for her and he knew that.
“Change of plans. Mahogany, we’re going to listen to everything you that you’ve previously recorded.”
One of the producers groaned, “Man, hell nah we ain’t.”
“This came from P.” He waved his phone as if it was the magic wand.
The guy with the big ass mouth said, “Nigga, I don’t work for P. This girl can’t rap. I’m not wasting my time.” He packed up his things and left.
Mahogany knew she was a work in progress because the old her would’ve cursed his hippopotamus looking ass clean the fuck out.
“Gotta have tough skin in this industry,” Juice told her with a sympathetic look on his face.
She was a soldier. “I’ve heard worse. Do y’all want to leave too?” she asked the two remaining people.
“Actually, I’m going to slide too, but it’s not because you don’t have any talent. It’s because my job is to master the beat, and this is more of a brainstorming session. So, Juice, text me when y’all start recording.”
The other producer decided to stay and introduced himself as Muncho.
“Pleasure to meet you.” He shook her hand.
They spent the next four hours listening to the songs that she had recorded in that basement studio over the past five years while Juice went through what she had wrote down. Out of the almost seventy
songs she had, he only really liked nine. But it was something. From those nine songs they chose five that had potential to be spruced up.
“I got the perfect beat for this song. I finished it last week,” the producer told them.
She clapped her hands together, happily. “Yay! Finally.” She was excited about what they were going to come up with.
Muncho played the beat and it was a vibe.
“This is hard.” She nodded her head and moved her shoulders.
“…Got my legs up in the air. Peace sign…the way he fucks me, I know he love me. I’m the one. Got all y’all hoes mad, y’all see me, turn around. Break they neck. Whiplash.”
That was off the dome and Juice said, “WRITE THAT SHIT DOWN!”
She was hype. “For real?”
“Heck yeah, that’s that Cardi B shit. The young girls love her right now…”
In that moment, a light bulb went off in his head. He had a vision clear as day.
“Let me call P.”
“No, wait. I want us to at least get a song recorded so he can have something to listen to.”
“Okay, hop in there then.”
She got up and took the song that was already written.
“Mahogany, say what you just said and that’ll be the intro. Then we’ll bring the beat in and go into what you already wrote down. If we need to fill in, we’ll come up with something once we hear it.”
That sounded like a plan and she was able to do that.
The only thing was the song was hot, but she didn’t sound good recording it.
Muncho looked at Juice. “Now what?”
He shook his head. “It’s like she’s got it, but she don’t.”
“Gotta pull it out of her.”
How long had Porter been there?
He dapped Juice and Muncho up. Mahogany was deep in the zone, so she didn’t even see him. When he entered the booth, her face lit up.
“Turn the mic off,” he told Juice and then closed the door.
“Song’s hot baby,” he praised her first, knowing how important that was to women or people that were focusing on something in general.
“You like it for real?”
He nodded his head.
“Check it though. I want you to take a deep breath.”
She did as he asked. Porter came behind her and placed his hand on her back and then another on her stomach. “Out.”
She exhaled loudly.
“Gotta start drinking tea too, with a lot of lemon,” he coached her.
She soaked it up like a sponge.
“I want you to close your eyes and record the introduction again. It’s popping, but your delivery is off. Don’t scream into the microphone.”
“I wasn’t screaming.”
“Listen to me, I’ll never steer you wrong.”
She rolled her eyes.
“If you’re not good at listening, I can tell you now that this isn’t the industry for you, baby,” he forewarned her. He wanted to add that he wasn’t going to be the nigga for her either.
She checked her attitude and he continued, “Rap it cool and sexy. Give me Foxy Brown, Mary J. Blige vibes. Less Trina. Okay?”
“I’ll try.”
That wasn’t good enough for him. “No, make it happen.”
They’d probably be here all night, but he was cool with that. They could catch up on sleep during the nine-hour flight to France.
He tapped the window.
“Muncho, she’s ready.”
“Remember what I told you,” he whispered in her ear and then stepped back so she could record again.
She wanted so bad to get this right…
“…Got my legs up in the air. Peace sign…the way he fucks me, I know he love me. I’m the one. Got all y’all hoes mad, y’all see me, turn around. Break they neck. Whiplash.”
“Again.”
“…Got my legs up in the air. Peace sign…the way he fucks me, I know he love me. I’m the one. Got all y’all hoes mad, y’all see me, turn around. Break they neck. Whiplash.”
“Again.”
He made her record those three little lines over and over again until she got it right.
When he told her that they were good to start the first verse, she interrupted.
“I need a break.”
Porter told her, “Five minutes.”
Mahogany damn near ran out the booth. He followed her out and took a seat to hear it through the speakers.
“You must really like her?” Muncho questioned.
Porter ignored his question and asked his own, “Do you believe that she has what it takes?”
Juice did.
“With a lot of work, yeah.”
He felt the same way… so he told him, “Let’s focus on that then.”
He wasn’t into discussing his personal business with niggas that he had no personal connection to. Muncho didn’t know him well enough to ask him anything about his girl.
He checked the time on his watch.
“Juice, go get her. We got a hit to create.”
C H A P T E R 13
I ain’t go this hard to lose – Tammy Rivera
“Sooooo, when Bey be like I’m good on any MLK Boulevard, is she talking about this street too?” Mahogany asked Porter.
He reached for his phone. “Want me to call and ask?”
The look on her pretty ass face was priceless. He chose a condo on the corner of MLK, a popular street in Paris. It was near all the good food spots, yet it wasn’t too far from the main attractions that Paris had to offer. Porter rented a truck and driver to make it easier for them to migrate through the city.
“I’m kidding baby.” He pulled her in for a hug and kissed her forehead. It was their first day in Paris, France and they decided to get all the touristy things out the way. They were going to take Kareem to Disneyland Paris in the morning. After that, they would chill, shop, and pig out on Parisian food. The plan worked for her and she was happy to be here.
Kareem ate the chocolate croissant and then asked for another one. His mouth was covered in powder and his hands were sticky. He hadn’t been around kids in two years and quickly had forgotten how messy they could be. Mahogany didn’t seem to be fazed at all. They were matching today with their Vans on and denim. He thought it was adorable and took a few pictures of them for her before they left out the condo. She Facetimed her brother, but he never picked up.
“He’s mad at me,” she shared with P, but left it at that.
“No, drink your cocoa so we can go.” They stopped inside of this quaint eatery for breakfast.
Porter shared with her that breakfast wasn’t a big deal as it was in the States. A bagel or croissant with coffee was suitable for many. She wasn’t hungry anyway but needed Kareem to eat.
“You really grew up here?” She was still in awe. They partook in some slow and nasty sex up in the clouds, and it was heavenly. She was so loud that she hoped Kareem didn’t hear her. When they finished, she went to check on him and he was knocked out in the chair. Porter then took her down for her another round. He wondered was the glow on her face from the dick or Paris. Perhaps, it was the perfect mixture of both.
“Yeah, until I was eighteen.”
“If your mother hadn’t passed, would you have stayed here?”
He thought about her question. “Wow, I don’t even know…” That was something to think about.
“Probably. I don’t know.” He shrugged his shoulders.
“Mama, I’m done.”
Porter handed him a napkin, so he could wipe his hands and mouth. He was a respectful kid and she kept him stylish. He asked him, “What would you like to do next?”
Kareem was shy but talkative at the same time. His mom said that it was because he wasn’t used to sharing her with anyone. He gave Porter a toothless smile. “Disneyland!” he roared, loudly.
Mahogany laughed, she lit up every time her son did. They were a pair, although they looked nothing alike.
Kareem’s skin was dark and chocolate like Porter’s. He resembled him more than he did Mahogany, that’s what was crazy. They hadn’t been in Paris a whole twenty-four and people were already stopping them to say, “Beautiful family.”
“We’re going tomorrow. I already told you that, so don’t ask again,” she hissed.
Stern mama…he thought to himself.
Kim was the opposite. His children were spoiled and prissy. They were smart and well-behaved, but Jill often told him that they were raising brats. Porter’s response was always, “Good, that means I don’t have to worry about no chumps chasing after my daughters.”
“Aww man. Well, I want to play with my toys.”
“Don’t listen to him, we’re with whatever. This is your hometown. Show me everything,” she gleamed.
He ran his hands through her hair, wishing she’d take the weave out.
“Let’s go gang.” He knew exactly where they would start their day.
The Eiffel Tower…
Mahogany helped Kareem into the sprinter and then P helped her up, rubbing all on her voluptuous booty.
“…Gotta give you some rules Mr.,” she teased.
“I know how to be on my best behavior, no rules needed.” He would never openly grope her in front of her child. However, when his eyes weren’t looking, he was sure to get a feel. Porter was never one to be so affectionate, but it was seriously something special about Mahogany Sinclair.
η
“We’re in Paris. Somewhere you’ve never been. I dropped thirty thou easily in two hours while you shopped. Your son hugged me and told me that this was the best day of his life, and he’s only five. Now you’re asking me-”
“P.” She was now regretting her question. Mahogany planned on blaming it on the weed and alcohol later.
He patted her exposed thigh. “Nah, let me finish.”
Cocky bastard.
“You been cumming back to back since we boarded the plane. Private at that… and you’re asking me, what are we?” He shook his head as he moved her off of him and got out of the bed.
Was this their first argument?
“Don’t throw all that shit in my face.” She didn’t like the tone he was using.