Page 1

End of May

The headphones were too tight, but the weed had him floating. Lunar sat back in the chair, hood over his head, gold tooth flashing every time he cracked a smirk and those dimples sinking deeper into his face.

The studio lights were low and the walls were covered in neon graffiti and old vinyl covers. It was aesthetically pleasing and he understood why other artists took pictures posted up against the wall.

Across from him, the hosts were setting up for a show they clearly thought would be light work. Trell and Yoni moved around with ease like everything was second nature. They barely talked to him and that was okay with Lunar. Interviews weren’t really his thing but Dejanay told him it helped keep the buzz going in between drops.

“Alright, alright, we live in 3… 2…” The red light blinked on.

“You’re locked in with CaliWave Radio, it’s your boy Trell on the mic…”

“And I’m Yani, aka your favorite hood intellectual,” she laughed into the mic, “And today, we got Nar in the building!”

“Nar himself,” Trell added, leaning forward. “What’s good with you, man?”

Lunar scratched his jaw, voice smooth. “Cooling, appreciate y’all having me.”

Yani leaned in, twisting her lip. “So, let’s get into it. You been everywhere lately. Collabs, Rolling Loud, and a couple gossip headlines. But it’s your lyrics people keep debating. Love, grief, gang politics, Black Lives Matter, street struggle…real weighty stuff, but let’s talk context.”

Lunar lifted an eyebrow. “Go ‘head.”

She nodded. “Your stepdad is a retired NBA vet. Your Mama’s one of the top brokers in Atlanta. Let’s not talk about your aunts and uncles… You were flying private before you hit puberty. Which has folks asking…how you rapping like you ducking bullets when you was really dodging tennis lessons?”

Trell laughed…a little too loud.

Lunar’s jaw ticked. “Y’all rehearsed that?”

“Nah, just keeping it real,” Trell said. “People feel like you cosplaying a struggle you ain’t never lived.”

Lunar leaned forward, eyes low, voice colder now. “And who the fuck is people?”

“Fans, Listeners, Social?—”

“Nah. Who exactly ? You? ‘Cause I ain’t never seen none of them tweets come from nobody who actually know me.”

Yani raised both brows. “So, it’s not true?”

“What’s not true? That I had a bed to sleep in while half my friends was posted in the Jig all summer? That my Mama made millions but still made me walk through our old block so I never forgot who fed her when she was broke? That my daddy—my real daddy—got shot in that same neighborhood before I ever got to meet him?”

The room went still. Even the intern by the door stopped typing.

“I talk about grief ‘cause I grew up watching my uncles keep his name alive like a second religion,” Lunar continued, tone clipped. “I talk about love ‘cause my mom ain’t raise no robot. I talk about bloods ‘cause half my LA fam is affiliated and I spent summers out there learning the game between flights. That mic ain’t for make believe.”

Trell shifted, trying to recover. “We not saying you can’t speak your truth. We just?—”

“You just trying to get a clip out of me,” Lunar cut in. “But y’all got me twisted. Just ‘cause my family made it out don’t mean I ain’t come from what made them.”

Yani tilted her head, watching him, her red skin flushing crimson. “You always this mad about people asking questions?”

He leaned back. “Only when they asking like I’m guilty of being alive. That’s why with my next album you gon’ see who I really am…what goes on inside my head and why I rap about the shit I rap about.”

Trell snorted under his breath. “Aight, man. But the math don’t always add up. It’s hard for some folks to see that luxury and the loyalty co-exist. You might know about the streets but you ain’t from it so I think you’re doing us a disservice by pretending.”

And that was the moment where Lunar lost himself.

That click in Lunar’s chest-- the one that moved before he could catch it sounded off.

He stood up slowly, pulling off the headphones, and before the producers even registered what was happening, before Pimp could make his way inside the room, all hell had broken loose.

Lunar threw a fist, landing on Trell’s jaw. He wanted to follow it up with another but he wasn’t one to keep hitting someone who wasn’t throwing punches back.

The mic hit the floor. Yani screamed. The sound tech scrambled. Chairs crashed. It all blew up in ten seconds flat.

Lunar could only see red. This was why he hated interviews with people who didn’t really rock with him or what he stood for. He made it his business to tell stories that he felt in his heart. So, of course he saw negativity when he was questioned about his why.

He hated when muthafuckas played on his top. That and no one saw what was really going on inside his beautiful mind. It was like being black only came with struggle. But what about those that wanted to tell the story of their heritage? What about the black boys that could walk into any room anywhere and still hold court…the ones that could advocate for the voices that came before him? Lunar hated the monologue of blackness being ghetto with a passion because he was all the things he rapped about. It was the blood in his veins, the reality that yes - he was blessed but he was also cursed because Big Lunar had been taken away from him before he even took his first breath. Now, they would feel him. Whether with his fists or his words but he was going to be felt.

* * *

His phone vibrated across the table, reminding him that she wasn’t giving up until he answered.

Tiny - his mama.

The one woman who could drag him through the mud and feed him in the same breath.

He hadn’t even said hello before her voice exploded through the speaker.

“Boy what the hell done jumped out of your soul and possessed you this time?”

Tiny was so country. If he wasn’t already in the hot seat, Lunar would’ve laughed but nothing about his situation was laughable. And he knew his mama was tired of hearing about him in the blogs every other week. He didn’t care what others wrote about him. The way he saw it, it came with the fame.

Lunar winced and pulled the phone from his ear, mumbling, “Mama chill?—”

“Chill?! CHILL?! You done knocked that boy clean off the airwaves like this a ‘96 Source Awards fight, and you talking ‘bout some damn chill?”

He stayed silent, dragging slow on the blunt.

“Don’t you sit there breathing all casual like the world ain’t watchin’ you spiral in 4K,” she snapped. “It hit KenBarbie Lunar. And you know how I feel about that hoe…why you keep giving the world something negative to say about you when you the best there is?”

“Mama—”

“I raised you better than this, Lunar. You are NOT some wild-ass kid with no fuckin’ home training.”

“I didn’t swing first,” he lied, a ghost of a smile hanging on his face as the weed swarmed his body. Talking to his mama always made him feel like a kid again - a time when lies rolled off so easily.

“I ain’t talking ‘bout who swung first, with yo’ lying ass. I’m talking ‘bout who knows better,” Tiny fussed, voice breaking just slightly. “And that’s supposed to be you.” Her anger simmered knowing her baby wasn’t a baby anymore and his heart had some dark spots that she couldn’t get to no matter how hard she tried.

“Something’s off with you,” she added, her voice lower now. “You snapping too fast, son… too fuckin’ impulsive. This ain’t about no interview. This ain’t even about that boy and what he did or didn’t say. I know my child. You not okay.”

Lunar stayed quiet, letting her words hang.

“Hello?” she called out. “Little Lunar what are you doing?”

“I’m listening to you,” he muttered.

“And what else?”

“Smoking.”

Tiny sucked her teeth. “I don’t know what I’m gon’ do with you.”

His throat tightened. He took another drag, held it longer than he should’ve.

“Talk to me, baby,” she said. “You get quiet like this when you about to run from yourself.”

“I ain’t running,” he said, even though he was.

He was ready to curl up in the bed and let his thoughts consume him. That was the cycle—do something stupid then replay it over and over in his head.

“You got everything you said you wanted, but I can still hear the ache in you. That’s not fame…that’s grief, baby. That’s grief that never got named right.”

He looked up at the ceiling like it could save him. It had been damn near twenty-five years, he didn’t feel like he should’ve been grieving a man he didn’t know. But Big Lunar’s legacy was so big, it was hard not to wish for pieces of him in real time.

“I just snapped. That’s it.”

“No, that’s not it,” she said. “You tired, you angry. You carrying something that ain’t got nowhere to land, and it’s gon’ tear you up if you don’t put it down soon.”

He pressed his lips together.

“I don’t care ‘bout no blogs,” she continued. “I don’t care ‘bout what Twitter say, or them fake-deep think pieces, or the brand. I care about you. My baby…my first son.”

Lunar exhaled smoke, eyes glossy now. “I ain’t no baby.”

“You mine,” she added, he could hear the smile in her voice. “So that means I’m always gon’ worry, even when you think you got it all together.”

He closed his eyes. “It’s loud in my head sometimes.”

“I know,” she whispered. “But you ain’t gotta live in the noise…your name getting louder, and the spotlight don’t come with no shade. That shit is cooking you from the inside, out.”

Lunar squeezed his eyes together, exhaling a deep sigh. “So, what you think I should do?”

“I’m saying you might need to leave Cali for a minute,” she said. “Get out the noise…step outside your ego. Go be around people who ain’t gon’ ask you for nothing but your time.”

His brow raised. “Who that even supposed to be?”

“Your family, Lunar...come to Emerald City and be with your family.”

He sighed.

* * *