Brecheen starts laughing again. “C’mon, man,” he says. “Won’t you chill out? You gettin’ water all over ya self!”
“Lyrical Warfare.”
It’s the phrase that rolls off of everybody’s lips as they stand in line waiting to be summoned through for callouts. Still, very few of them understand the term like Lil Chris does. He stands in line with the hoodlums and hooligans, engulfed in his own thoughts.
It’s not about being scared to move, Chris thinks. Sometimes you gotta let go and back out of what you’ve accomplished in one pocket. In order to get farther up the path. To win is to negotiate the passes in times of decision. With this, Lil Chris steadies himself. Much-needed balance.
Rise thinks to himself, Don’t play with me, mayne. Dammit, I’m fly for real. You all are really not on my level.
He is the very picture of confidence. He’s in his element.
The one thing that nags him is the white envelope folded in his back pocket. He picked it up from legal mail on his way up to the A Building. He knows it’s the court decision back from his court order and appeal.
It always happens like this. He puts in all those long hours studying. Sees the sense and logic in his argument. Recognizes that it is in concert with standing precedence recorded in the relevant case law. He has a budding hope that a ruling will be granted in his favor. And, slowly, that hope solidifies into concrete faith. So many long nights writing into the morning without sleep, with faith in his purpose. Faith that makes his actions, his sacrifices, his commitment make sense. Only to have that same faith crushed by one sheet on typed stationary. Abbreviated text that culminates in one word: Denied. Stamped on it.
No. Not tonight. He won’t play their head game tonight. Tonight, his thoughts are of what needs to be accomplished for the whole of his people. He pushes his own issue to the back of his mind. He goes about contemplating the business of the night with a single-minded focus.
The people begin pouring into the A Building. Mostly hardheads. Younguns, penitentiary sharp. Booted and suited up to come get with their homies. Vibe with them. Kick around some game or something. Above all, brothers is anticipating what’s going down tonight. Every man in the room feels like it’s a big thing to be in the building. Yeah, they sweating the microphone. Ain’t nothing but penitentiary legends on the roster of performers tonight. Most notable are No Love, Poison, J-Rocc, Shady House, Heroin. Rise, of course. And young Lil Chris.
Mansa Musa and them mob past the check-in counter at the entrance looking like, “And what?” If you don’t know who they are, you don’t notice them. They’ve perfected the art of blending in. Invisibility even. Da One is not a name that’s spoken by everyone. If you know about it, you know to keep it low, though. They ain’t playing.
Even more mystic are the suns of the Skies Over Gaza. S.O.G. These are the older cats. Oldheads. The majority of which you’d never even assume had any stakes in the events of the night. But, oh—they’re definitely paying attention.
In an instant, a memory unbidden siezes Rise. Déjà vu, even. A right brain feedback triggered by the scene unfolding before him.
There was a night much like this one a few years back. An open callout that had pulled him to the chapel for its promise of live music. The place had been packed with an older crowd. Dudes from an era of eight-tracks and guitar gods. They had billed it as a “gospel explosion.” A line-up of convict bands from all over the prison farm, featuring a Who’s Who of legendary bassists, drummers, and singers. Supermen who otherwise posed as Clark Kents in the law library, the laundry, or in the bowels of the kitchen. It had been their night to revisit their passion. To get a fix of that crowd adulation and hero worship that is every performer’s secret drug of choice.
His eyes search and rest on Lil Chris and Gary Law where they stand at the other end of the building, but his mind vividly recalls that night so long ago. Those gray-headed performers, the colors faded in their t-shirts, their jeans threadbare, but their outfits starched and pressed all the same. In cowboy boots and big rodeo prize buckles, they gyrated and worked that pulpit like a stage at Woodstock. Moved flawlessly through a playlist of gospel standards. Musical passages they each had taken 20 to 30 years to perfect on this prison farm. Beautiful melodies that the crowd—just as aged and weathered as the performers—cheered and sang along to.
Rise can remember sitting alone in the pews at the very back of the chapel. Tears streamed down his face, his shoulders heaved as he took in the scene. Inconsolable, as the callout’s organizer came angrily upon him and asked, “Man, what’s wrong wit’ you?” Demanded that he, “Get yo’self together!”
He couldn’t, though. Rise had been traumatized. He had felt like nothing so much as a child. A child who had stayed up past his bedtime and happened across a movie he shouldn’t have been allowed to watch.
A weak moment. He’s had his share.
As Rise pulls himself free of the memory, he looks up and spots who but Mansa approaching.
“What’s going on, Brother Rise?” Mansa greets.
“Brother?” Rise frowns. ”Is that what you calling me, these days?”
Mansa steps closer. Lowers his voice. “You just as conscious as the rest of my brothers. You know I’ve always tried to embrace you. I’ve always acknowledged your potential.”
“Yeah, when you wasn’t busy tryna assassinate my character.”
“Hey,” Mansa leans back a little. “That was unfortunate. What you thought would happen? You accepted all that information from us, then turned away from the fold.”
Rise scoffs a bit. Faces him eye to eye. “I guess I was homesick.”
“Uh-huh. Sick for a home that don’t want you,” Mansa derides him. “You still see yourself as part of a people that have rejected you. I mean, smarten up, Rise. We da ones the world chose to forget.”
“And therein is the gist of our signifying.” Rise gathers himself to break their engagement. “You willfully see yourself as an outsider. That perspective is dated. Me, I’m simply an outlier. I won’t be here for long.”
Da Hit Squad is the front group for Da One. Vanguard serves the same purpose for S.O.G. Each one will be pushing their respective team’s message through creativity and heat rocks. Although there is no seating arrangement, representatives from each camp split the room right down the middle. Most are at least a little familiar with what type of vibe will be coming from where. There are those who have their favorites. They make it their business to support them when the cyphers kick off on the yard. But, tonight is different in that usually if you ain’t feeling the cat you ’on’t listen. In here, every man will have his say. He’ll be amplified by the house system. Speakers lining every area in the building. The stage area is so hot the dudes in the back of the building can hear what Gary Law and Lil Chris are whispering about. G will be MCing tonight.
“Say, ah, Lil Chris. Since you the only one don’t have a click, you go ’head and do you first. So, you’ll be back before the shots start poppin’ back and forth.”
“Oh, nawl, big brother. I’m straight. I just came to check these cats out. I ain’t go’n spit,” Lil Chris answers.
“Hold up, youngster. They got dudes here that came to hear what you sayin’, too. I’ll call you in a few minutes.”
“Man …”
Boom!… Doom-doom, Doom-doom!
Before Lil Chris can respond, the system is crunk up. Somebody done dropped that instrumental to Master P. and Scarface’s “Homies & Thugs.” The old-school “Friends” sample is pushing a bass kick so hard that when it hits, his shirt sleeve vibrates.
G starts in, “Alright, alright, ain’t no sense in waiting. We got a big night in store for you. My name is Gary Law. My cut-’em-up days was really back in the 70s. But I can still relate. So, I’m go’n be drivin’ tonight.”
Lil Chris is getting amped up. When they said they would be using instrumentals, he didn’t believe they would sound this clear. Not to mention the house mixer is doing
a good job on the board of blending in what’s being said on the microphone.
Oh, I gotta get wit’ this! he thinks.
“Anyway,” Gary closes. “With no further ado. The first man up is Lil Chris. Y’all give him a hand.”
Claps spark up all over the room. They all feeling the youngster. His reputation is above reproach. Not only is he solid, he’s one of the hottest lyricists on the river. The kind of G that everybody knows.
As he steps to the mic, the soundman momentarily fades the music out to cue up the CD player. A few seconds later, the music behind Jay-Z’s “Hard Knock Life” flows into the room.
Heads are bobbin’ as if in a trance as the C’ster grabs the mic.
“We fall down
Lord have mercy
This ole livin’ shol hurt me
I speak about it every day that
They work me
I swear the sun’s beamin’
Scorchin’ me down. It’s so hot
Pushin’ myself to give it all that I got
To get up and get on
Principles I stand on won’t let me quit
Trus’ that I’m tired and afflicted
I’ve seen life at high speed
My youth passin’ me by
What if I told you
I’m a luminary
I make my home in the stars.
You know who we are
The God-sent!
Show me my nation
If I’m to be the guiding light of
The lost
Soak me in flames
Publish my name
Lil Chris!”
While Lil Chris is spitting, Mansa walks over to No Love, who’s standing off to the side. He asks, “Did you just hear that?”
“What?” No Love is irritated. He really wants to hear what the lil homie is saying.
“They got him. They finally got ’im.”
“They got who?”
“Come on, Love. You heard him. He said he’s a luminary. Soaked in flames—that’s a sun! Think about it: the guiding light of the lost. He’s tellin’ you he’s choosin’. He’s a sun in the Skies Over Gaza.”
“You trippin’, Mansa. Don’t jump to conclusions. The homie still standing in the middle.” No Love is sure of this.
“Look, if he ain’t chose, he got the charge.” Mansa has already begun to scheme. He returns to his seat amongst his cohorts.
Meanwhile, the C’ster still has the mic.
“Authors of my demise
Are politickin’
Plottin’ my destruction, but my
Weary eyes have peep the play
I will survive
My strong network of resources labor
Unearthing my recourses
From the dirt and the grime
In the bottom of the pit of struggle
I know y’all feel, now!
My vessel is bound
For the higher grounds of Spookville
Quit whistlin’ dixie, boy!
This life we livin’ got
Hard qualifications, Lord!
Livin’ like a fugitive … Burnt!
My indignation
Come and peep the play
Here’s what I learnt
My obligation to shine
And be a symbol of hope
For this population
Stay on top of my situation
And stop fakin’
It is time for some decision makin’
Akkhum …”
As Lil Chris pauses to clear his throat, the crowd erupts. He couldn’t get a word in if he wanted to. Mansa is just further convinced. Everybody knows how close he and Rise are anyway.
The thing that is so disquieting about a court trip is that the beauty of the commute doesn’t pass. It stays. It sustains and nourishes. Not like a blanketing or coating of the sense. More like a reveal. It feels, to Rise, like a shade has been lifted. Like the scales have been taken from his eyes and everything is so vivid. So striking, intense, and provocative. The world around him has more volume, is expansive. And the nature of it all is more defined and detailed, having been where he’s been, seen what he’s experienced.
Regrettably, Lyrical Warfare begins to take on another context for him. The effect for Rise is jarring, almost shameful, as he watches the program unfold, courting that blasphemy that his circle so frequently wards off. Their whispered warning.
Gary Law calls another rapper to the stage. Presides over the opening arguments. Rise’s heightened sense of awareness pierces the whole exercise. This isn’t industry. It’s not about how many records these dudes could sell, given the opportunity, or the value their skills would have under different circumstances. It’s about these circumstances. About the fact that when they imported the men to these rural surroundings, they also imported their culture. About them refusing to surrender who they are in the face of the court’s dictates and security’s containment strategies. This is hip-hop leveraging culture to answer the demands of the moment. This collective moment.
Still, the truth is they’re not a collective, even if they’re all subjected to the same reality, the same depraved, barren existence. Rise looks over the soundstage and the crowd, matches many of the faces to the atrocities he’s had to stomach during years of case law research. Admittedly, research that has found its way into several of the appeals he’s pursued while fighting his own conviction. Including the petition that led to the ruling in the unopened letter presently in his back pocket. As if he’s somehow complicit in their acts, having leveraged their case law in his own defense.
Even without questioning to what extent he truly believes a man can be redeemed from his past, Rise considers what he knows of these men today. Their tendencies and values. Their characters and demons. The make of the men. Even if they are guilty as charged, like he is. Or even guilty of the many things he’s gotten away with. How much does he really have in common with the worst of them? Rise remembers the man he’d known and befriended for five years before discovering that he was in prison for raping his 11-year-old stepdaughter. Remembers, too, how reluctant he was, even after finding out, to turn his back on a man that had been such a close friend for all those years. How most of his closest friends in here are someone else’s nightmare. How he is someone else’s nightmare. None of them are here for being choir boys. To what degree can he still identify with them once they no longer have incarceration in common?
Mortified by this realization and its implications, Rise looks up and notices Lil Chris heading towards him.
Up front, Gary Law stands in and calls for a break in the action so security can get the head count out of the way.
Lil Chris is lightheaded. Breathes deeply, his steps sure, he is blanketed in this sense of finally becoming. Finally being able to put the pieces of the whole picture together. How this life came to be. What’s possible. He’s energized by the notion that the choice is his to make. Where he stands. It doesn’t really matter to him that he’s had to come to prison to finally grasp these mechanics. Because his new and hard-won consciousness affords vision. He can begin to sense what he’s capable of. Kwame Nkrumah! Mandela! He’s aware of the infinite potential of one constantly evolving lifespan. At the moment, his life sentence is the last thing on his mind. Hard to convince a sane man in his early 20s that he’ll die of old age in prison. Too much livin’ to do.
He senses Rise’s mood as he steps up, but he thinks nothing of it. This is Rise. He always got it together.
“Wuz up?”
“Nice showing, young man,” Rise answers. They share a man hug and a fist bump. “I hadn’t heard that one before,” he notes.
“You know I never stop writing,” Lil Chris shoots back. What’s with this Kool-Aid grin on Rise’s face?
“Yeah, I know the score,” Rise chuckles. Tryin’ to tuck this nagging sense of being held up. Like he’s missing an event somewhere else. “Hey, heads up. Don’t miss your unit, mayne.”
“Ye
ah, yeah, yeah,” Lil Chris drifts away, realizes Rise seems barely aware of him.
Anticipation is high. As the prisoners walk back and forth to the security counter, Mansa gets with each of the rappers in Da Hit Squad. Tells them to aim shots at Lil Chris. To destroy his credibility.
His team starts to balk on him, though. There is division in the ranks. Lil Chris is highly respected among the hip-hop heads. Plus, he subject to bug up if the wrong thing is said about him. Mansa manages to convince his team to make the hit. Out of obligation to the cause.
No Love seethes. He ain’t about to cross the lil homie. He tryna think of what to do about it, though. Time is runnin’ out. Count is almost over.
“Okay, y’all. Let’s crank this thing back up,” Gary says as the “Friends” sample kicks back in. This time, Scarface’s vocals murmur in the background. “We got some artists comin’ up from Da Hit Squad. Y’all let ’em have it!”
The crowd applauds.
“Friends” fades, and seconds later a molasses-slow groove with a thick bassline filters through the thick speakers. It’s that old-school “High Powered” instrumental from Dr. Dre’s The Chronic. The beat is so familiar that everybody in the crowd is mumbling, “Seven execution style murders …”
Da Hit Squad representers, Osiris and Horus, grab the mic and start chanting.
“Can … you …
Recognize
Who I be and what I’m off into
Can you
Recognize …”
Damn, what was up with that fake-ass smile the big homie just gimme? Lil Chris posts up off to the side. Rise just scrambled his circuits. Not to mention, No Love is posted up over there by his crew, Da One. He’s been pickin’ up bad vibes from those numbers ever since they called count. And not once has No Love came over and holla’d. Something’s gotta be up.
Lil Chris’s impulse is to go over and get at Rise. See what’s what. He must think I’m leaning toward rockin’ with Da One. The thought makes Lil Chris grit his teeth. If that’s the case, knowin’ Rise, he wouldn’t tryta talk me out of it. Pro’ly wouldn’t change nothin’ between us, either. Mayne, Rise trippin’. His present line of thought is more than makin’ him angry.
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