Queen of Urban Prophecy

by Aya de León

Genres: Hispanic & Latino; Political Thrillers

Synopsis

Stardom crashed like an avalanche onto this female rap artist. Now getting justice, real power, and true respect will be the hardest fight of her life …
20-year-old Deza was supposed to be just another hot girl emcee, but when a bonus track strikes a surprising social chord, it rockets her album to the top of the charts—and her record label promotes her to headline their first-ever all-female
national tour. As Deza attempts to live up to her new reputation, her inexperience generates tour drama. And when her female DJ quits, the label replaces her with the last thing Deza needs: the sexy guy DJ she flirted with at a club.
But in battling to prove she deserves her success and embracing her power as an activist for Black Lives, Deza starts to feel she can face anything that comes her way—until her label prepares to undermine the all-female lineup in the name of mega-profits.
Now, up against brutal industry misogyny and corporate big money, Deza will need the drive of that scrappy emcee from the South Side of Chicago and the bulletproof cool of a seasoned music professional if she wants to claim a space of
respect in hip hop, not just for herself, but for everyone and everything she believes in …

Release date: December 28, 2021

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

Manhattan

“We’ll be starting in thirty seconds,” the producer’s voice came through clearly in Deza’s ear. She was sitting across from Dell Ballard, the host of CNN’s National Current. She had on a plain black cotton top, but she was sweating. She sometimes did a Hands-Up-Don’t-Shoot gesture when she talked about police violence, but with the massive rings of moisture under her arms, she would not be doing that today.

Every media outlet wanted her as a guest right now. First there was the New York Times arts section article. That interview was nothing like being on camera. She had been able to stumble through it. The reporter had noted in the article that she had been a little awkward, but he smoothed out all the quotes.

She had done in-person radio interviews—two of them on New York’s Power 105.1. She spoke with “The Voice of New York,” Angie Martinez, and was also on The Break fast Club. On New York’s Hot 97, she had done Ebro in the Morning. She had called in to the LA station REAL 92.3 on Big Boy’s Neighborhood, and The Sana G Morning Show on KMEL in the Bay Area. But those were hip hop shows where the DJs spoke her language.

As for TV, she had initially only agreed to do interviews with Black journalists. Folks like Joy-Ann Reid, who understood politics and hip hop. She turned down The View because there was too much arguing and too many white women.

Her promo team agreed that she should warm up with Trevor Noah. His format would not only include the interview, he would let her perform the song first. Deza was a rapper. That was what she knew how to do. It gave her the chance to loosen up before she did her first TV interview since the girl had been shot and killed.

She had done plenty of interviews before—print, radio, and TV—but up until now it had always been about the music. She knew how to talk about her work in a way that sounded both humble and confident. She knew how to deflect the attempts to pit her against other female rap artists or to box her in to one style. But now she was suddenly out of her depth. How was she, a rap artist, supposed to know the answer to police brutality in the US, a problem that had arguably been going on since before slavery? Deza knew that the name of the girl in her song was, more than anything, a coincidence. But she also knew that the label had gotten this prophecy thing in its jaws and was locked down on it like a pit bull. She would need to play along.

The Trevor Noah interview had gone great. He was warm and had cracked jokes with her at the break. He could probably see she was scared shitless. He did everything possible to put her at ease. He started with the music and basically fed her the cues for her talking points.

She felt great after The Daily Show. She had green-lighted CNN with the publicist at Paperclip.

“This will be amazing,” the publicist said. “It’ll get you in front of a whole new demographic.”

CNN had its New York studios in the Time Warner Center. On the way in, Deza had gone live on Instagram. She stood in front of the bright globe and gleaming buildings that rose out of the ground like stalagmites of platinum. She had started with her signature salutation: “Bring it to me, y’all.” It was the title and hook of an early rhyme of hers. “This is ya girl, Deza,” she continued. “Walking into the studios at CNN. I’m news, y’all!”

But now, she was in a cavernous CNN studio with a huge camera in her face, far from the host, Dell Ballard, who was in a studio in Atlanta. She could see his pale, square-jawed profile on a monitor. He was paying her no attention, rather ordering an assistant to get him a new jacket because he had spilled water on his lapel.

The producer counted “Three, two, one,” in her ear. In a split second, the host went from adjusting the fresh jacket to talking.

“Our next guest is Deza Starling,” Ballard began. “Whose debut album took an unexpected turn when . . .”

In the end, it all came down to the name Shaquana.

As a writer of rhymes, Deza wanted to use an economy of words. She didn’t want to say, “the girl shot by the cop was Black.” She wanted it to be implied in the name. Clear. Undeniable. Only an African American girl would be named Shaquana. She had toyed with Neisha and Kimani and Za’Niya, but landed on Shaquana. Later, she would wonder if she’d picked it partly for the sound. The alliteration of “shot” and “Shaquana,” or the way she could rhyme it with “grieving mama.” Whatever the reason, that choice was the direct cause and effect of her becoming the Queen of Urban Prophecy.

As it turned out, the spelling wasn’t the same. The girl’s mother had spelled it without the u. But ultimately, it didn’t matter that much. It is not the writing, but the speaking of the names of the dead that carries the most power.

The difference was negligible. Because it was an undeniable fact, later corroborated by the footage from the officer’s own body camera, that Shaqana was walking home from school with just one friend, when Officer Bob O’Brian, who was in pursuit of a suspect, shot and killed her.

A bystander had pulled out his phone to film the chase when the officer unholstered his weapon. The bystander later said in an interview that he was afraid the suspect, a young Black man who was never identified, would be shot. The clip of his video, which went viral, was the unsteady view of the running officer, with the sound of the shot, and the friend screaming her name, “Shaqana!” as the camera swerved to capture the young woman who had fallen onto the sidewalk.

In the final analysis, no one could deny that a girl named Shaqana had been shot on the way home from school by a white police officer chasing someone else. An officer who had so little regard for any of the Black residents of that neighborhood that he would run, gun drawn, down a busy block, and shoot while running, heedless of who else he might hit.

And there it was, Deza’s album, the latest ode to hot girls, a debut album by Paperclip Records’ new female rapper. Twelve tracks about money, sex, love, and heartbreak, and living that sexy rapper girl life. And a thirteenth that didn’t quite fit called “Almost Home.” About police brutality, and the story of a girl named “Shaquana” who got shot by a cop on the way back to her neighborhood from school.

A week after the album debuted and the first single, “Deza Daze Ya,” was getting airplay, Shaqana was killed by police in Shelton, a small town outside Oklahoma City.

Chance the Rapper had been the first one to use the word “prophet.” In a tweet claiming Deza as one of many prophets to come out of their shared hometown, Chicago. #AlmostHome.

And Deza suddenly rocketed to the top of the charts.

CNN’s Dell Ballard tossed his first question to Deza.

“What was it like for you to realize that you had literally predicted a police shooting, right down to the girl’s name, and the fact that she was walking home from school?” Ballard asked.

“It was like, horrifying,” Deza said. “I’m scared to name any names in a rap again.”

The host raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying you think it could happen again?”

“No!” Deza said quickly. “I just—I wouldn’t want anyone with the same name to feel some kind of way about it. To worry, you know? From now on, my rhymes will contain anonymous victims of police brutality or whatever.”

“So you don’t think you predicted anything here?”

Deza said the line she had rehearsed, the line that would satisfy the camera and make a great sound bite. “I think that the Bay Area hip hop journalist Davey D said it best on KPFA’s Hard Knock Radio yesterday, ‘it’s a shame that police violence is so prevalent in this country that eventually a rapper would write a rhyme about a young Black person getting shot, and the name and circumstances would coincide with reality.’ That rapper just happened to be me. But it shows that decades of trying to reform the police have failed, and like the Movement for Black Lives has been demanding, we need to defund the police.”

There it was. Perfect.

“So you favor the complete elimination of the police as an institution?” Ballard asked.

“I think a lot of that money needs to go to other services,” she said. “If not all of it. For the simple fact that for me, as a Black woman, I’ve never been in a situation that I thought a police officer would make it better. There have been lots of times I’ve been in dangerous situations and wished I had someone to help me out. But when I thought about who I wished would show up, it was never the police.”

“Isn’t it true that members of your family have found themselves on the wrong side of the law?” Ballard went on. “Isn’t it true that you have relatives in prison?”

“I’m not here to talk about my family,” Deza said. “I’m here to talk about police violence.”

“But you have a bias against police,” he said. “Don’t you?”

“Where did you even hear that?” Deza asked.

“It’s part of the public record,” Ballard said.

“You dug into police records?” Deza asked.

“Your own words,” he insisted. “As a rap artist.”

“I’ve never recorded anything about my family,” she pushed back.

“Not in a studio,” he said. “Can we roll the clip?”

Deza saw an image of herself, grainy and dark, on a stage in Brooklyn.

She was battling a male emcee who had accused her of not being “real.” Of being an out-of-towner, who was soft compared to New York.

Ballard went on. “So my producers assure me that ‘caught up in the game,’ refers to illegal activity and the legal system. Are you referring here to the fact that two of your brothers are incarcerated?” Ballard asked.

“No,” Deza said. “I’m—I’m just—just referring to the general situation of my neighborhood in Chicago. Where police brutality is an epidemic.” Which was a lie. Not about police brutality. That was definitely true. She was referring to the fact that her father was a known drug dealer in Chicago. But of course, there was no way she was going to say that on national TV.

“And my family has had a whole—a whole lot of different negative experiences with the police,” she said. “Like my aunt was killed in a drive-by shooting in Chicago,” she said. “And the police never solved the case. So you can see why I have no use for police.”

She also didn’t say that everyone in the neighborhood suspected that the police might have been behind the shooting. Since her aunt was an activist fighting against police corruption. But she wasn’t going to say that on national TV, either. In this land mine of things she couldn’t say, she stammered her way through the rest of the interview, wishing she had stuck to her original resolve only to do interviews with Black hosts.

Brooklyn

Wearing shades in the club was corny, Deza knew that. But she needed the anonymity. She needed a break from being an urban prophet. It had been six weeks since the disastrous CNN interview.

Paperclip Records had put together a tour of their women artists, and the headliner had pulled out at the height of the Shaqana news cycle. Deza was contracted to tour to support her album, and they had a dozen appearances set up in midsized venues around the country. But they canceled those dates and replaced the other headliner with Deza. She wasn’t sure she wanted to go on this thirty-city stadium tour. But the label didn’t really ask. They informed her.

“This is an incredible opportunity,” her manager said.

“I know,” Deza said. “But . . .” How could she put it into words? These people were coming to see some urban mystic. But the label also wanted her to promote her album. Which was mostly songs about sex and romance. How was this going to work out?

With her manager’s encouragement, she sent a fake-enthusiastic email to the label with lots of exclamation points! And then sank into a funk for the next week.

Now the tour bus would leave in the morning, and this was her last night in New York. Her last chance to really hear music. She grabbed her widest shades and went to her favorite club from back in the day.

Her driver walked to the front and told the doorman who she was. She took a selfie in front of the place and promised she’d post it on Instagram if they let her in. All the folks in the line gawked to see who was the nondescript brown girl in the shades with the big ass in the leggings and the Chicago T-shirt. Who was that bitch getting in all special? She wore no makeup. Nails not even polished. Had her hair cornrowed back in about thirty slender braids with no special style. They would dismiss her as the owner’s daughter or niece and go back to their phone calls and conversations. No one would be tweeting “Deza just walked up to the club!!” because Deza was sexy and glamorous and now also sort of deep and magical. This year, Dilani Mara had created a Red Chocolate lipstick shade just for her. And these days there were people who counted the number of words and letters in Deza’s Instagram posts and used them to predict lottery numbers. Deza had long, human hair weaves down to her ass, not cornrows that barely touched her shoulders. This girl was basic.

Deza danced alone. Sipped a few cocktails and drank in the music. An hour later, she was drenched in sweat. Yes! This was how it used to be. She would perform, then stay for the DJ set to burn off all that adrenaline. She missed the days when the music was something to make her feel elated and sexy. Some of her friends took Ecstasy to recapture the feeling, but the one time Deza took it, she ended up crying on the couch for three hours. No more Molly for her.

A good DJ could give her that all-over, sexy body sense if the music was mixed right. A good DJ knew how to work women with music. Her ex was a DJ. She caught him working some other chick after he’d moved in with her. She came home early to a remix of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get it On.” Fool that she was, she had assumed it was for her, that somehow he had known she would be home early. She had stripped off her clothes on the way into the bedroom, turning her own self on. And then she had appeared in the doorway, ready to see him licking his lips in anticipation. But his tongue was occupied in the mouth of some girl, his hips between her thighs, deep on the upstroke.

Deza froze. Her smile fell. The rain forest between her thighs abruptly turned to desert.

That’s why she’d had three rum and gingers in the club tonight. She didn’t want to remember his cheating ass. On the night that would have been their first wedding anniversary. If she had married him on the date they’d set. If she hadn’t thrown that pathetic little girl out of their house in a dress with one shoe and no drawers. If she hadn’t pulled off the ring and thrown it at him, along with all his clothes.

And the records. Every. Single. One. He mostly used Serato Scratch, but at home he had a single turntable and two crates of vinyl. She had peeled the records out of their sleeves and dust jackets and thrown them out the window. With him standing there saying, “Fuck! Deza! Not the original Wu-Tang twelve-inch!”

The record was precious to him. A pristine copy that he could never replace.

As it sailed out past him onto the Chicago street, the cab containing the irrelevant little girl also pulled away.

Deza tossed all his stuff down two stories of the apartment building. Other than the records, it wasn’t much. She tossed the turntable as well. It burst on the sidewalk like a bomb.

Sexy. That was what everyone had wanted from her for the last few years. Back in the beginning, she had felt it when she performed. Had felt sexy. First with her ex. Then when she was single. She spent night after night in the club dancing with different guys, getting heated, and would maybe perform once a week. Sometimes, she would look out at a hot guy in the audience and fantasize. Maybe he would end up being her man.

But she never did anything about it. She had sworn off fuckboys to focus on her artistry. The performance was her chance to get off in the music, feel the surge of the audience’s attention on her. Prowling around the stage, rapping, singing, gyrating. It was magnificent. Her streams did well, but for the first couple years, everyone said she was even better as a live performer.

Deza stayed focused on her career. But then she got so well-known in Chicago that she couldn’t go to clubs anymore. She burned out on the performing. All those nights giving everyone else a show. . . .