“I started my own label,” I said. “Signed my first artist, developing him. Doing more brand deals so I don’t have to tour as much.”
“You don’t like to tour?” she asked.
“I don’t want to,” I corrected. “Not like before.”
“Why?”
I smiled faintly, even though she couldn’t see me. “Because I don’t need to be the loudest person in the room anymore,” I said. “I can build something steady behind the scenes.”
“So you’re trying to be less out there?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “More at home and not working so much.” There was another pause.
“I just didn’t want to feel like I had to compete with your world,” she admitted.
I pushed off the wall and stood straight. “You’re not competing,” I said.
“It feels like it sometimes. When your name pops up. When rumors spread. When people look at me like I’m part of a headline.” That cut me deep.
“You don’t owe nobody access to you,” I said. “You don’t have to explain me to anybody. That’s not your job.”
“I just needed to know if it was going to keep getting bigger.” She sighed.
I looked back through the window to thestudio again. Malik was scrolling on his phone, waiting. “It might grow,” I said honestly. “But all we can do is choose how we respond to it. That’s all we have control over.”
“How do we do that when everything iseverywhere, all the time?”
“By not feeding into the bullshit,” I answered swiftly. “By not reacting loud. By building stuff that don’t require me to be everywhere all the time.” I could tell she was listening closely. “I don’t need to rap about the same stuff I did at twenty-two,” I continued. “That ain’t my life. My life now is making sure I’m present.”
“For who?” she asked.
“For you,” I said without hesitation. There was silence again.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“I like this version better.” My chest tightened. “You sound calmer,” she continued.
“I am calmer.”
“You didn’t freak out about the baby thing when we were talking in the hotel room,” she said.
“I wanted to,” I admitted.
“But you didn’t.”
“Nah.”
“Okay,” she said finally. “Well, that made me feel better.”
“About what?”
“About where I fit.”
“You don’t fit,” I said gently. “You the anchor, baby girl.” I swore I heard her roll her eyes at that.
“That was dramatic,” she joked.
