Page 10 of Omar

"Yeah?" His face lit up. Twenty-five years old and he still needed his big brother's approval. That hit me somewhere I didn't expect.

"The verse about Pops," I said carefully. "You sure you wanna put that out there?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Because it's personal. And once it's out, people are gonna ask questions you might not wanna answer."

Rashid leaned back in his chair. "People already ask questions, O. Every interview, every show, somebody wants to know about the Baptiste name. About Pops. About what Kadeem does. I been dodging that shit for years. Maybe it's time I stop dodging and start telling my own version."

"There's a difference between telling your version and putting your family's business in a track."

"I ain't putting family business out there. I'm putting my feelings out there. There's a difference." He paused. "You and Kadeem been keeping me at arm's length since the Flatbush thing. Like one fuckup means I'm benched forever."

"That wasn't one fuckup, RB. You shot up a building with civilians on the next block. Kadeem had to clean that up for three weeks."

"I know what I did. I also know I was right about who was in that building."

"Being right doesn't mean being reckless." I looked at him across the studio. He'd been spiraling since Pops disappeared, drinking more, fighting more, picking battles he couldn't win. Kadeem had pulled him back from the operational side after the Flatbush incident, told him to focus on the music, give himself space to breathe. Rashid had taken it as exile. "You got something, Rashid. Something real. The music, the talent, the future. Use this time to build that. The other stuff ain't going anywhere."

Rashid was quiet for a moment. Tre kept his eyes on the monitors, pretending to work, giving us space.

"I don't want a way out," Rashid said quietly. "I want to be part of it. Part of the family. All of it. The music is mine, yeah. But so is the Baptiste name. So is Pops. So is whatever happened to him." He looked at me. "You find anything new?"

"Devon's working on some things."

"That's what you said last time."

"Because Devon's still working on them."

"O." Rashid leaned forward. "You can talk to me. I ain't gonna fall apart."

I looked at my little brother. He had Pops' eyes. Same shape, same intensity, same way of looking at you that made you feel like he could see past whatever you were showing him to what was underneath.

"When there's something solid, you'll be the first to know," I said. "That's a promise."

"Aight." He didn't push it. He knew how I operated well enough to know that when I said I'd tell him, I'd tell him. "You wanna hear the second track? Tre just finished the mix."

"Play it."

He hit play. The studio filled with music again. I sat in the spare chair and listened to my little brother rap about Brooklyn streets, family loyalty, the weight of a name you didn't choose. He sounded like Pops when he talked about things that mattered.

The second track was harder than the first. More drums, more aggression, Rashid's voice cutting through the bass with a delivery that sounded like he was arguing with someone who wasn't in the room. The lyrics were about the Flatbush incident without naming it directly. About doing the wrong thing for the right reason. About a family that asked you to sit down when all you wanted to do was stand up.

"That one's raw," I told him when it finished.

"Too raw?"

"For the album? Maybe. For you? Nah. That's real."

"Tre thinks I should save it. Put it out as a single later, when people know me better."

"Tre's smart." I looked at the producer, who was adjusting levels on his board without reacting to the compliment. "What else you got?"

Rashid pulled up a third track. This one was different again, something with a R&B hook underneath the rap verses, a melody that stuck in your head after three bars. He rapped about a girl who left, about watching her car disappear down a Brooklyn street, about calling a number that stopped working. The details were fiction but the feeling underneath them was real. Rashid had been through his own version of loss and he was turning every piece of it into music.

"That hook is good," I said.

"Tre's girl sang it. She came in last week and laid it down in one take. I almost cried, O. It was that good."