Before Tupac and Biggie

The music stays the same.

The way it makes Dad remember.

The way it makes him smile, tell the stories

about the songs

that he’s always told me.

Before there was Tupac or Biggie or even Public Enemy,

my daddy said,

there was the Sugarhill Gang. When they rapped,

people understood all the words.

There was this one part in a Sugarhill song

where this dude talked

about another kid’s mama’s cooking.

Back in the day you’d lose a tooth talking trash

about someone’s mama, but

we just laughed every time that part came on.

We’d all been there.

Been where? I asked.

At that table where you sat down hungry and

the minute the food landed,

your stomach turned to stone.

I remember my friend’s mama putting a plate

of liver in front of me. With onions and plantains

and I don’t know what all else.

But don’t you dare not eat it and embarrass your friend and insult his mama, my daddy said.

So I slid that liver and onions into the pocket of my coat.

Grease stains on that coat forever.

Write that down, ZJ, my daddy said.

Sounds like the beginning of one of our songs.

It’s just about some food, though, I said.

Nah. It’s about everything, my dad said back.

That’s where these great songs

are coming from. The simple stuff, like

what you see and what you eat and what you

hide in your pocket to throw away.

And how something

you thought wasn’t even worth remembering

gets remembered anyway.

Our Songs

There’s a bunch of notebooks full of our songs.

My scrubby handwriting and mostly

Daddy’s words.

I leaf through one of the books and find this:

Grease stains on my pocket forever,

Mama tryna get the truth out of me—never.

Liver in the pocket? Nah, son.

Tell my mama that? Be ready to run.

But ain’t nobody cook like you, Mama.

So let me off the hook with this drama, Mama.

Liver in my pocket gotta be

a story for when I’m grown—trust me.

I remember how much fun we had rapping that,

my daddy’s voice strong and me,

I’m singing the backup echo parts,

never and nah, son and Mama

and gotta be and trust me.

And some nights, after my own mom went to bed,

we’d put on some music—old-school groups like

Digable Planets and Arrested Development

and even sometimes

Menudo and Boyz II Men. And we’d drop our lyrics

over theirs.

Ours are way better, I’d tell Dad.

Used to be I could go to my daddy anytime, say

Let’s put down some music.

And he’d stop whatever thing he was doing or turn off

whatever show he was watching,

smile at me and say Yeah, let’s go drop some real beats.