The Touchlight Website had my bio and picture were online. Seeing that made my entire mood change. Even though I wasn’t really feeling the style, I looked great.
The next day the studio was crowded when I arrived. There was a rapper named Eliminate finishing up his recording. All his people were being loud and smoking weed. They also had a pole dancer in their studio; they said it was for inspiration. But all the guys in the studio were always respectful to me. Beazie made sure of it. It was like a miniature party. It was loud and they were playing the music that Eliminate had just recorded. In the middle of all of that, I picked up my phone without looking at the screen.
“Where you at?” Marcus asked.
“I’m in the studio. I’ll call you when I get out of here,” I said.
“What time is that going to be?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Why can’t you talk to me now?” he questioned.
“Baby, give me until about eleven. I have to get back to what I was doing.”
“It don’t sound like you’re working! It sounds like a big party, like there’s a bunch of niggas in there with you. What, you don’t want to talk to me?”
“No,” I said, lying. He wouldn’t understand that I was just one of the boys and nobody was thinking about me. He was tripping on me for no reason. I didn’t have time for this. “I’m laying down my vocals again. I’m almost done. I will call you when I get out of here.” Beazie and Davis were laughing and being extra loud. I was trying to cover the telephone and muffle the sound but he still heard them.
“Man, that’s bullshit,” he said. “Who are those niggas? I hear them in the background.”
“You ready? Baby, come on. We ain’t got all night,” Beazie yelled.
“I have to lay down my vocals one more time. Baby, I love you but I have to go.”
I put my phone in my bag and instantly it began to ring again. Marcus was calling right back.
“You hanging up on me now, baby?”
“No, Marcus, as soon as I leave here I will call you.”
I was singing and singing. My throat was becoming hoarse, but Beazie said I had to get it right. He kept me in the studio all night.
I called Marcus as soon as I got home and he didn’t pick up. So I left him a message.
“Marcus, it is six in the morning. I just got in. I was working all night long. Have a good day. I’m going to turn my ringer off. I don’t want anyone to wake me. Call me at your lunch. Love you.” I disconnected the call. I knew he would be mad, but just like he had to go to work, so did I.
Chapter 16
My next photo shoot went so well. I got to wear this diamond bracelet and diamond necklace, with this slit silver shirt. I had just came back from a photo shoot. I was tired and ready to take a nap when I heard a knock on my door. I opened it and my mother said, “Surprise.”
“What are doing here?” I asked as my mother, Bilal, and Bubbles came walking in my apartment.
“We just wanted to come and see you. Where are you going looking all stylish.”
“Nowhere. I just came back from a photo shoot.” I said as I yawned.
“Oh you look tired. We wanted you to go out with us.”
“I’m too tired, but I’ll give y’all some money to go out with.”
“We wanted to spend some time with you,” my mother said, disappointed. Bilal and Bubbles came and were hugging me. Bilal just came and just leaned on me. “What, y’all missed me or something?” I said as I hugged them back.
“Yeah I miss you. I need someone to rescue me from our neighborhood,” Bilal said.
“What are you talking about.”
“He hates the kids in the neighborhood. He said one of them called him a real black boy,” my mother said.
“Those kids get on my nerves. They act too suburban. I wish I was back in my old neighborhood.”
“No you don’t,” I said shaking my head.
“Kendra, I want to know can you get me a new car for my graduation?” Bubbles asked.
“No.”
“Your sister can’t afford to buy you a car Amira. Plus you don’t deserve one. You know she barely graduating and she have to go to a summer program just so they will let her in.”
“You have to get your college grades up Bub. Oh let me show you the pictures I took today,” I said, showing my mother.
My mom put her glasses on and said, “You look beautiful, but why do they have you looking all light skin?” I did look four shades lighter than I actually was.
“I don’t know. It probably was the flash from the camera.”
“No, they probably trying to make you look light skin. They do it all the time.”
“That’s not it. Here take this. Have fun and I’m going to get some rest.” I said as I gave my mom three hundred out of my hand bag to take the kids shopping and they left.
“You must be Kendra Michelle,” said the short, forty-something, dark-haired, green-eyed white man who stood in front of me when I walked out of the elevator at the studio.
“Thomas has said so many great things about you. I just wanted to come in and see for myself what all the hype was about,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said, smiling and playing it off as best as I could. I had no idea who I was talking to.
“You are a gorgeous young woman,” he added.
“Thank you,” I said again.
Beazie introduced us and said, “This is the vice president of Touchlight Records, Peter Sutton.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Sutton,” I said.
“It is my pleasure. Call me Peter. I would love to have you sing at my party next week. If you’re available, come. I’ll send an invitation over to you.”
I thanked him again, and as soon as he left Beazie said, “How nice is that? The vice president is coming to the studio just to see you. He don’t come to the studio for everyone. You the next big thing. You’re Thomas’s little gem and Peter wants you to sing at his party.”
“You think so?” I asked, blushing.
“Definitely. The whole label is talking about you.”
He made me smile again. I was excited that everyone was interested and believed in me. I opened the studio door, and in the first hallway I saw all these people. It was crowded. Beazie came up behind me.
“Who are all these people?” I asked.
“They’re here with Tashay.”
“Who is Tashay?”
“This other singer they just signed. They all about to leave, though. Kendra, this is Tashay.”
I said, “Hello.”
She said, “What’s up? You Kendra right?”
She did not look like a singer, but more like a stripper. Her waist was a size four but her ass belonged on a woman wearing a tight size sixteen pants. Her pants were literally hugging every curve. Her weave was straight and black and covering her eyes, so she had to give a seductive squint to see. Standing next to her I looked like a boy with boobs.
“Yeah, how you doing? Nice to meet you. I heard all about you. Well, let us get out your way. Come on, y’all. It’s time to go,” Tashay announced to her squad, and they all jumped up and began following her out the door. I had counted about seven people with her. Davis’s eyes followed her as she sashayed down the hall. She was gone, but her presence was still being felt in the room.
“That’s a star right there,” Davis said loudly clapping, being silly.
Beazie told me all about Tashay, how she was a video girl and she was in King magazine. Her boyfriend played ball for the Detroit Pistons and his industry connects got her a deal.
“What’s up, Core?” Beazie said as Corey walked into the room. They shook hands. “You just missed Tashay.”
“Oh? The chick they just signed from Detroit?”
“Yo, dude, she is so major. Her body is sick,” Davis said.
They spent a few more minutes harking over her and how fly she was.
“I’m supposed to be doing some work on her
project,” Corey said.
“Well, man, don’t bring your girl when she come. ’Cause your lady is going to be like, ‘hell, no.’ She would be at every session getting on your nerves,” Davis said.
“Man, I’m good. I love my lady,” Corey said. Then he turned his attention to me. “What’s good, Miss Kendra? You ready?” he asked as he came in and began to set everything up. His laptop was very small and silver. He played a beat with a girl singing on it and without. I listened and nodded my head to the beat. The song was called “Tell Me Why.” It was a love ballad.
“You like? Listen, with me nothing is set in stone. I’m open to comments and criticism.”
With him saying that, I was able to open up.
“I like the track but I’m not really feeling the lyrics,” I said as I looked down at them.
“What would you have it say instead of ‘let me go there’?”
“I would maybe say ‘let me love you,’” I said.
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
We started rewriting the song and talking about my music industry experience so far. I told him it was not exactly what I’d thought it was going to be, how everybody I’d met was about chasing checks and phony.
“Let me hurry up and get in the booth before your girlfriend come,” I said playfully.
“She is not coming today.”
“You sure you won’t be leaving early?”
“No interruption this time.”
“I’m sorry about the last time. My chick wants me to take her out all the time for her stuff but can’t sit still a minute when I need to work. She is never satisfied. I’m even paying for her to go to fashion design school. She wants to start her own fashion line and she wants me to fund it and gets mad at me when I’m working”
“Wow! Aren’t you the good boyfriend,” I said.
“At times. I just try to make her happy. We’ve been together two years and she still learning. She only twenty-two, she’ll mature eventually.”
“That’s real nice,” I said.
“What about your boyfriend? What does he do? He live in the city?” he asked.
“No, we from Philly. He work for UPS.”
Corey started laughing. “UPS wow.”
“What’s so funny?” I asked, not finding anything amusing.
“Nothing, I just thought of that song ‘Nigga, Please, You Work for UPS,’ or what Biggie said, ‘Don’t get mad, UPS is hiring.’ I can’t believe your dude just got a regular job. How can he afford to take care of you?” he asked.
“I take care of myself,” I said, feeling a little intimidated. I know Corey was getting money and all that, but he still didn’t have the right to laugh at anyone if they didn’t make as much money as he did. I was done talking personal with him. He was an asshole.
I quickly changed and said, “So are we going to get back to the song?”
“Yeah, the song. Okay, so we are going change the hook?” Corey started laughing again. Now I was getting annoyed.
“What’s so damn funny?” I asked.
“Nothing. I just like that you with dude and he got a regular job. You must really love him.”
“I do.”
He could see in my face that I wasn’t appreciating his disrespect. He turned to me and said, “That is so good you with your man for him.”
“Well, we been together through everything for just about seven years.”
“Damn, how old are you?”
“Twenty-five.”
“So he trust you out here by yourself?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t he? So far I’m just in the studio or home on the phone with him. Soon as I finish my album, I’m going home, so we will be okay.”
“I don’t know I wouldn’t trust my beautiful woman alone in another city.”
He was being smart, but his one little comment made me smile. Corey was a nice-looking guy and he had money. He had been producing songs for the last three years, he had made hundreds of thousands, and he was trying to get his own label. Him saying I was beautiful was a major compliment to little ol’ me. After he said that, it was hard to work on the song. After the session I thought about what he had said about staying with Marcus no matter what. But that’s what I was supposed to do. It didn’t matter that I made more money than him—he was still my baby. He had my back and I would never leave him.
The blaring cell phone ring awoke me.
I sat up and searched and searched for it, and finally found it under the bed cover. I snapped it open and said, “Hello?”
“Kendra, you haven’t called me in two days,” Marcus yelled from the other end of the phone. I sat up and tried to get my thoughts together. I looked over at the time. It was eleven thirty-two.
“Marcus, I have been so busy. I’m really trying to handle all these things at once. I’m in the studio every day, trying to choose songs, getting no rest and a bunch of other shit. Leave the studio at four back in by noon.”
“There is no excuse, Kendra. You need to call me to let me know what’s going on with you. You haven’t even called your mom. She calling me like, ‘Is Kendra okay? Have you talked to her?’ And I’m like, ‘Miss Joanne, I haven’t heard from her.’ How come I didn’t talk to my woman in a couple of days?”
“Baby, it is not like that at all. I just been real busy.”
“Tell me what it is like, then,” he said.
I got out of the bed and turned on the shower so I could get dressed. I was trying to listen to him but he was acting like it was the end of the damn world. He was whining like a baby. I wasn’t really for it.
“You sitting back, neglecting me and shit.”
“I’m working around other people’s schedules. If they say, ‘come meet me at this time,’ I have to go and get it done. Like right now I have to get out of here.”
“Here we go again. You got to go, right?” he asked
“Here we go’ what? I’m working. What the fuck you want me to do?”
“I want you to call me. You know what? Fuck it, Kendra. Screw you,” he said as the phone went silent. I took a breath and put my phone down. I tried calling him back when I got out of the shower but he didn’t answer.
Corey was waiting in the studio when I arrived. He looked down at his watch and said, “You late.” I playfully shrugged my shoulders as to say “so what?”
“Ms. Kendra Michelle, you better be honored. You know I get sixty thousand a track. I’m giving Thomas a heavy discount, but I know you are about to blow. So you better respect me,” he joked.
I so didn’t care. I just kept thinking about my cozy bed and how I should be asleep in it. I grabbed the headphones, placed them on my head and sang. The song was called “Amnesia.” The beat was fast with heavy bass and drums. It was about a woman going back to her boyfriend, and forgetting about all the wrong he did to her. I liked the song.
“I must have forgot, how you did me wrong. I must have forgot how you didn’t answer your phone. I must have forgot. I must have forgot.”
Corey came across the speaker, “Give me some emotion. You love this dude and you want to go back to him but you can’t. I want you to close your eyes. I want you to think about your man. Now sing.”
He came into the booth with me and sang the song to show me how he wanted me to sing it. He was wearing Sean John cologne and it was smelling so good. I had just bought Marcus some and for some reason he hadn’t put it on yet. I shook off the feeling. But damn, he was sexy and I felt a real connection. I guess he was like that with everybody. Our eyes kept locking, though. Was it me? It was very uncomfortable. If I didn’t have a boyfriend I would talk to him. But I knew I shouldn’t. I’d already heard that you can’t mess with anybody in the industry without running the risk of getting a reputation.
“Come on, girl, sing. Don’t scream,” Corey said.
I was damn frustrated and tired.
“You want to take a break?” he asked.
“No.”
He started the music over and
I kept messing up. I was so tired and not feeling up to it. This shit was getting to me. This was like the sixtieth time.
“Take a break,” he said. I took a sip of water and looked over the lyrics. I had to get myself together. I wanted to go home and it wasn’t going to happen if I didn’t get it right. I told him to start the music, and I sang it straight through without hesitation. I looked at him through the glass, and he gave me a thumbs-up.
“You got it!”
“That’s it,” I said.
“Yup. I knew you had it in you,” he said over the speaker.
“Thanks, now I am going home and going to sleep,” I said as I hung up my headphones and walked out of the booth.
The next day I had to meet up with another producer from the west coast named BayRon. He was from the San Francisco Bay area. Talk about gorgeous, all his features were. From his fawn-brown eyes to his golden-brown skin, to his six-three stature. He introduced himself by bending over and kissing my hand. He had a song for me called “The Side Chick.” I liked him, but not the song. I studied the dumb lyrics. Then he played the track.
“ The Side Chick’ song—I’m not singing this. Who is happy about being the side chick?” I asked.
“Thomas wants you to sing this,” BayRon said. Thomas was fucking up. Who wants to sing about how they are happy about being the woman on the side? I looked over at BayRon, and he looked like he was getting frustrated. I didn’t want to get a reputation for being hard to work with, so I said, “Okay, okay. I’ll sing it.” The music started and it was a sample of the beat from the D.O.C.’s “It’s Funky Enough” but instead of saying, “It’s Compton” somebody would be singing. “I’m the side chick, side chick. When you at work I’m gonna come and see your man, because I’m the side chick. I’m the side chick.” I was singing it but the song was awful. You could tell a man wrote the song. But I was being a trouper and just hoped that song didn’t make my album. The session went okay. I didn’t know if BayRon thought I was a bitch or not, but I still thanked him and started getting ready to leave. Corey came into the studio, gave BayRon a pound and asked him if he wanted to go get a drink and something to eat. BayRon said he would go and then Corey asked me.
All I Want is Everything Page 13
