"Bliss" (Episode 2: More Than a Faze)

7:28 pm

Charmayne paced her room. Her rap notebooks were scattered all over the floor, as she had gone through each one page by page- reciting every lyric. Her older writings always evoked emotions in her. She could remember the exact moment she wrote each verse. She could recall what she was thinking at that moment, and the thoughts that provoked her to write what she had written. Today, for some reason- none of these lyrics seemed to be “the right one”.

“Too hardcore,” she thought after the 14^th bar of “Treachery”.

“Too sexy,” was her response after she recited the first line of “Diva”. It just didn’t seem appropriate to spit a rhyme that began “..my ass so mean, I make niggas cook and clean..” to a hip hop legend. This was MC Shadow for God’s sake. This was the man that said “..it don’t matter if you run for office or slang rocks/ when the game stops/ the king and the pawn end up in the same box..” This was the man that showed up at the Grammy’s wearing a shirt with the picture of Elderidge Cleaver on it. She had to come correct. She was officially frustrated. The thought of calling Tae and telling him to forget the whole thing crossed her mind several times. How much easier would this night be if she could just chill at the house and watch a couple reruns of “Martin”, maybe talk to her boyfriend Kurt on the phone, write some raps—a normal night. Granted she would have the guilt of knowing that she could’ve rapped for the most famous rapper in the world, but at least she wouldn’t have to deal with the anxiety of actually rapping for the most famous rapper in the world. The thought of bailing out sounded like music to her ears, music that was accompanied by the percussion of her mother knocking at her bedroom door.

“Come in,” Charmayne cleared the frustration and uneasiness from her throat and attempted to sound like nothing was up.

Her mother opened the door very slowly, as if the amount of floor clutter made her fear for her safety. “What the hell happened in here?” was the only logical thing for her to say as she entered what appeared to be notebook Armageddon. “What are you doing?”

“Practicing.”

“Practicing for what? The world’s sloppiest room contest?” she chuckled at her own corny joke, but abruptly stopped when she realized Charmayne was dead serious. “I mean, what’s going on?”

Charmayne paused with indecision. On one hand, she really needed to vent her confusion and anxiety about tonight’s meeting. But on the other hand, the last thing she needed was one of her mother’s anti- hip hop speeches. She could totally picture her mother going off about how “her music” was so much more positive. About how Marvin and Curtis and Stevie wrote songs for the betterment of The People, not for the sake of running around with saggy pants and funny hair styles. But then again, this was her mother. Who else could she seek inspiration from? This was do or die time. Charmayne took a deep breath.

“Do you know who MC Shadow is?” she reluctantly asked.

“No, but judging by his name, I can guess he’s a saggy pants rapper of some sort,” she replied- half joking.

“Forget it Ma”

“Okay, okay! Lighten up. MC Shadow, yes. What’s going on with MC Shadow?”

“I have a meeting with him at eleven. He’s gon listen to me spit”

Ms. Alexander looked confused.

“I’m going to rap for him. If he likes it, I may get a contract,” just saying that out loud gave Charmayne goose bumps.

“Wow,” Ms. Alexander was too shocked for words.

Charmayne went on to explain: “That’s why I been going through my books. I’m trying to figure out what to spit, um, recite for him.”

Ms. Alexander’s eyes slowly scanned the room. There were at least 15 notebooks spread out on the floor. Each of them full of what appeared to be well calculated chicken scratch. There were cassette tapes and CD’s everywhere. Numerous posters of rappers and dancers were on the walls. It suddenly became clear to her that this was not a faze her daughter was going through. This was worlds away from Charmayne’s short lived “Cabbage Patch Kids” fascination. This was much more substantial than her brief “I wanna help injured animals” endeavor. This was real. It was always real. This moment was the first moment Ms. Alexander realized it.

“You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?” she unknowingly squinted her eyes as she asked.

“About what?” Charmayne was as intrigued by her mother’s interest as her mother was by her daughter’s passion.

“This rapping thing. All of these books are filled with raps?”

“Mostly”

“I thought.. um.. I just figured..” Ms. Alexander usually stammered when she felt as though she was dead wrong.

“You thought what? That this was just some kind of faze I was going through?” the teenage angst began to leak from Charmayne’s lips.

“Not a faze.. I just feel a bit dumb because I didn’t know you had something in your life that you did this much. Let me hear something.”

“Ma, you’re buggin’.” Charmayne laughed off her mother’s request.

“Is buggin’ good or bad?”

“That means get out of my room,” at this point Charmayne was cracking up laughing at her mother’s ridiculousness.

“Come on. Spit for me. Act like I’m MC Shadow,” Ms. Alexander was now moving her hands in a manner mimicking a rapper.

“You’re not gon’ like it,” Charmayne couldn’t believe her mother was actually asking to hear her rap. What was more unbelievable than that was the fact that she was genuinely nervous to grant her request.

“Boooooo! Bring out the next girl. This girl is obviously scared. She ain’t got the juice. She’s buggin’,” Ms. Alexander was doing a horrible hip hop impersonation, which was doing a great job of getting under Charmayne’s skin.

“A’ight. I’m gon’ spit. Never mind the cuss words though,” Charmayne’s blood was boiling.

“I’m MC Shadow right now. I’m not your mother.”

Charmayne threw on the instrumental to “I Got Five On It”. And let loose...

Ms. Alexander was astonished. After nine months of pregnancy, 8 hours of labor and almost 18 years of nurturing- she was still clueless that her daughter was a prolific (if not ingenious) writer. She had no idea that the voice she created had the ability to captivate the imagination and stimulate thought. An uncontrollable tear dropped down her cheek. Her mind quickly raced as she imagined that this must be what it feels like to watch your son win the Super Bowl- except in this case the son is a daughter and the “Super Bowl” is an absolute mastery of the English language. Wow.

“So how was it?” Charmayne asked in a way as if she was waiting to get scolded.

Ms. Alexander slowly stood up and walked over to her and kissed her on the forehead. She stared into her daughter’s eyes and attempted to say “Words cannot express how proud I am of you. This is the happiest day of my life,” Instead her lips would not move. It was always simple for her to yell “Wash these damn dishes”, or “Stay away from these nappy head boys”, or “Get a job!”, but now her tongue was stiffer than the drinks at an after hour joint. She stared at Charmayne for a few moments, then walked away and said nothing.

To be continued.... Monday July, 26