24th street
Where you held me, grabbed my arm
What a mental fire alarm
'Cause a lot of that felt wrong
Like I miss you
But when I kissed you back, I lied
You don’t know how hard I tried
Had to fake the longest time
Tagging → Kid Grantwood (featuring Orion Grantwood and a vague mention of Gwyn Woods)
Time Frame → 07/08/2014
Location → Kid's dad studio
Notes → Kid gets some much needed perspective.
The home studio was empty aside from Kid at a keyboard recording some piano instrumentals when the man himself, Orion Grantwood walked in silently not wanting to ruin his son's take. When Kid was done, Orion made his presence known to Kid (who was in his own world, something that made Orion's heart swell with pride) by clapping while making his way further into the studio. Kid had told his dad a long time ago that he wanted to make music, and with his son being so young he had no idea if he really had a passion for it or if he had a passion for being like his father. He had the talent, that was no question, the boy could sing, but the rapping had for Orion at least had been a recent development that made him skeptical, it seemingly came out of nowhere, and hip hop was something in order to be successful in a person had to have several components that lined up in perfect synchronization, things like the flow, the ability to express yourself beyond the cliche's, and most of all the passion, and Orion knew by now that his son had all of that and more. So much so that he wanted to sign Kid to his record label, and if he was anyone else, a stranger whose music he just came across he would have, but he recognized the fire in his son's heart, and he was dead set on making it on his own, something that Orion had to respect.
"Play that back for me, I like that little riff, did you make that?" Orion said as he flopped down on one of the couches in the studio, and reclined with one leg sprawled out on the couch while the other was planted firmly on the ground. Kid wordlessly obliged his father and played the recording back, he was going to anyway and Orion nodded slowly, "What do you have to go over that?" He asked and Kid turned around, Ipad in his lap, and an actual notebook on top of it, scribbles visible all over the paper from where Orion stood, "Nothin' yet. I was working on something else, and I had to stop when that melody popped into my head, you know how it is." For some reason Kid found it hard to look his dad in his eyes, his confidence in general hadn't been all that genuine, more like a front of the bravado he was expected to display on a daily basis, he hadn't even been all that happy with the last couple of songs he had made and put out into the world, and he knew exactly when he had lost that confidence -- a few months back when he foolishly started reading the comments on the hip-hop blogs where he'd post his music. It was after Spring Break when he and T.O.P. had pulled the MTVU stage crashing stunts, it garnered more attention, but the attention wasn't exclusively positive, not by a long shot.
Kid had spent years getting his head gassed up with the idea that he was amazing at what he did, first with singing, and then rapping in the last year and a half, Rosewood loved him, there were times when he felt damn near famous, the go to dude for a gig when you wanted your party to be hot, he even took over a protege' in Gwyn, but now all of that felt like that was his peak, the world was bigger than Rosewood, and they weren't as receptive to the music of Orion Grantwood's son, and that notion was made all the more terrifying with the reality that he was venturing off without a safety net to win over that world.
"A'ight then." Orion urged, "Let me hear something, Kid. You've been in here for hours I know you have something."
Kid turned around and queued up a beat, it was what felt like a throwback hip hip beat, he liked it, he waited for lyrics but none came, there was just another instrumental. As if his son could read his mind, Kid explained, "I'm not a producer, it took me a long time to make that beat, I have bars though." Kid got up and went into the booth with his notebook, leaving his Ipad on the soundboard. While he got himself set up, Orion moved from the couch to where Kid was sitting, when Kid was ready he made a spinning motion with his finger, signaling that he wanted his father to play the beat back .
Kid could have easily rapped the lyrics in his seat, but he preferred the booth because it somehow made him feel more worthy, it gave him just a bit more confidence than he would have otherwise had.
Sleeping in my bed at night
Tell her, turn the lights down low
Trying to figure out my mind
She always wonder where I go.
Tell her, Good music, coming home with a pocket full of tulips.
She want to point a finger at me, no excuses.
Trying end up in that pussy like two lips.
She want it off, my head.
Want it off, my head, my head
Can we both, forget
Baby I don't know.
Want me more or less
Want me more or less, or less
Is it all for sex?
Baby, I hope so.
So tell me what you want, what you really really want.
I ain't got time, if you think that you're in love, with me.
So tell me what you want from me. oh
I ain't got time, if you really wanna fuck.
You're bitching all the time, that you never get enough from me.
So tell me what you want from me. ohh...
Orion cut the music, the song wasn't bad per se, but it was lacking, it felt off, and most of all it sounded like his son wasn't connecting with the words, just reciting them with a nice flow.
Kid had already been anxious the entire time he rapped, his hands had been moving erratically, and as he stood waiting for his dad to say something, his leg bounced, "What's up?" He asked, whatever the answer to the question would be, Kid thought it would have to be better than the silence.
"Get out here, man, come holla at me." Kid felt like throwing a tantrum, just fling his notebook across the studio and hell maybe even trash it, just out of the anticipation of what Kid knew was coming, Orion trashing the song, he'd be another person to add to the ever growing list. But he left the studio as calmly as he could, hiding his anxiousness and he sat in the chair next to Orion's, "What's up?"
"How'd come up with those bars?"
"What do you mean?" Kid asked, he didn't know what he expected Orion to say, but it wasn't that.
"It wasn't a trick question, Kiddo, what place did that come from where you pulled those lyrics from?" Orion asked.
Kid wracked his brain to come up with an answer, well he knew the answer, but it wasn't anything he wanted to admit to his music legend father, so he went on the defensive, "I don't know, man. What are you tryin' to say? Just say it."
"Alright first," Orion said his voice somehow slightly menacing while at the same time calm and soft spoken, "Watch the way you're talking to me, check the hostility and breathe. Kid was acting the way Orion hadn't seen him act in a while, there had been times when he knew that his son was off his meds, he'd be hyper as all hell, but back before he was diagnosed with his ADHD, Kid would act out in school and before he'd get in trouble he would go on the defensive the way he was now.
Kid didn't say a word, his knee just bounced up and down erratically, still in anticipation of Orion telling him that his song was garbage.
"Do you know what I think, son? I think you didn't say a damn thing in that song that you cared about, so what did you write it for? No muse?"
Again, Kid didn't say anything, but the tapping of his thumbs together with his hands folded on his lap was included to the knee bouncing, and Orion continued.
"I'm not saying every song has to be some deep philosophical track, but that, that wasn't even fun for you, Kid, what's up? Be real with me." The older Grantwood man urged.
Eyes glued to his lap, Kid mumbled, "You wouldn't get it."
"What?"
"You wouldn't get it." Kid dragged his eyes up to meet his dad's for the first time since he entered the studio, "Didn't you just come from touring sold out shows for two years? Aren't you the dude whose name is dropped as a living legend every five minutes?"
"So?" Orion saw himself in Kid in that moment, the angry delinquent that he used to be, the delinquent artist he used to be.
"So you want to know the dude that I am?" Kid grabbed his Ipad and pulled up one of the many bookmarked websites and read out loud, "Garbage. Orion probably wrote this for him. Another flop spawn of a rapper's kid thinking talent runs in the family, it doesn't. He might as well call himself first world problems. No talent. Song sucks, the girl on the track sounds good though. It goes on and on and on."
Orion took the Ipad and scrolled through the comments, "So you're just skipping the good ones huh? That's the game we're playin' right now?"
Kid sucked his teeth in response, and his dad actually chuckled, "What do you think you were never going to get hate? Do you think having talent gives you a pass? And you do have talent so stop don't even doubt that. Come on, Kiddo you act like you didn't know the haters were going to come at you that much harder because of who you are."
His dad was right, but Kid only prepared himself in theory, putting it into practice was a lot harder,
"And I know how it is, I've been in the game since I was younger than you and I still get haters, that never ends. I hear 'his old shit is way better' constantly but I don't make songs to please the people who want to hate me, I make it for me and the people who get me, now who was that song for. I know what you were doing, you're trying to make something that you're hoping they'll like, to convert, I made a whole album like that in '02 I'm telling you that's not going to get you anywhere."
"It's easier for you, pop. You have...street cred and shit, I ain't never been where you've been, I don't have that place to write from." Kid felt like a whiny kid, but he couldn't help it.
"I didn't know you wanted to be my carbon copy. I made damn sure you didn't have to deal with the shit I had to growing up, don't play me with that being from the hood is cool shit. You have a voice, one that people will relate to if you use it, don't go out to Los Angeles being what you think the streets is going to like and pretending that you're being you. Say the things you want to say, keep pushing yourself, and do what you want to do, express yourself the way you want to and you'll get there, you'll find an audience, a'ight?" Orion held his fist out, and Kid let the words sink in, his dad was right of course, but he hadn't even realized he'd veered off the course of just making music for himself. He pounded his dad's fist with his own, and found himself pulled into a hug,
"You know I'm proud of you right?"
Kid hugged Orion back and nodded before pulling away and ran his hands over his face quickly,
"A'ight." The older Grantwood took a pen and tossed Kid a pen and turned back to the soundboard and pulled up the keyboard instrumental from when he had first come into the studio, "Time to go to work. Let's figure out what you want to say."
