Fireworks 1 and 2

Jungle: Chapter Fifty-Seven

    Leaving another successful performance in their wake, Mia, Drake and his crew were off to New York City. New York City was beautiful chaos - so many people packed into a tight space. Mia and Drake couldn't walk anywhere without being recognized, not even when they were wearing shades. There was a lot of autograph signing, a lot of short conversations held with fans, a lot of picture taking. The paparazzi were all over them, snapping photos no matter where they went.

    Their first stop in New York City, after settling into their hotel room and stopping for lunch, was an interview with one of the best: Angie Martinez. Drake didn't participate in as many interviews these days as he had in the earlier years of his career.

    "I realized rather quickly that interview show hosts often have an agenda," he'd explained. "They often walk into an interview with the goal of getting out a piece of dirt, or a piece of juice on you that they can exploit as an exclusive story. Especially when it comes to radio. Most night talk shows are standup shows, and most of them will clear with you ahead of time what they will and won't ask about. When you go on air, most of them stick to that. But radio...radio is different. Radio is going through all sorts of competition right now with streaming apps and streaming websites and satellite radio...people are getting their radio listening elsewhere which gives broadcast radio something to fear. Because of this threat to their complete existence, the stations tend to wild out every once in awhile, just to give their listeners a reason to keep listening. They've gone a little too wild with me on more than one occasion."

    Through a deal with Apple Music, he now hosted his own radio show every few weeks, when he wasn't touring. The show was a platform where he could inform his fans as to what was going on with him, promote whatever he had to promote, debut his own new music, and play the music that he listened to from other artists. Once he gained this show, he had even less reason to conduct interviews - but Angie Martinez was different. She was a powerhouse, a living legend, and someone who was genuinely fun to talk to - even when she was trying to get him to slip up and divulge personal information. She vouched for him early on in his career, which was something he'd never forgotten. As such, whenever he was in town, he took the time to meet with her, and when she asked for it, usually granted her an interview.

    Drake and Mia entered the radio station studio holding hands and whispering to each other.

    Angie, seated behind a mobilized microphone, looked up from her paperwork and grinned at them. "Look at this!" she exclaimed in an accent that blended Puerto Rican and New York dialect. "Look who just walked into my studio!"

    He walked over to her and leaned down to hug her. "It has been awhile, how have you been?"

    "I've been good, I've been good," she told him. "But so have you, look who you brought with you." She pulled back from the hug and greeted Mia warmly. "You didn't tell me I'd get a two-for-one deal today," she told Drake.

    Mia smiled and hugged Angie. "It's good to see you again."

    "She was recently added to the tour," he explained. "I didn't know I'd be lucky enough to have her here with me."

    "Well, Tony's going to test out both of the microphones for you, so we can talk," Angie said, adjusting her own microphone. "We have a lot of ground to cover, including a little bit of drama that you ran into with an NBA player who is currently on his come-up."

    Mia turned and looked at Drake. She didn't speak, but the look in her eyes asked if he knew Angie was going to ask about the situation with Zach LaVine.

    Drake grabbed her hand again and squeezed it, leading her around the square-shaped table, to the bench seating reserved for show guests. He continued to hold her hand as she seated herself, and only then did he sit down.

    A dark-haired middle-aged man with an olive complexion approached him and tested the connection of the mobilized microphone in front of him. He did the same for the microphone in front of Mia.

    "I wish you could see how gentlemanly Drake was just now," Angie said into her microphone.

    Drake threw his head back and laughed. "You're so extra."

    "Do we have any bottled waters for them?" Angie called over her shoulder. "Get Mia and Drake some bottled waters, please. So unprepared, so unprofessional." She laughed. "So, everyone, we not only have Drake in the studio, we also have his girlfriend Mia Thomas in the studio. Many of you know Mia from her YouTube channel, where she sings covers of other artists and material that she's written herself. More of you would know her from her performance with Drake during OVOFest, or her guest spot on his latest CD. And, I mean, at this point you two have been together for a while. It has been more than a year at this point, hasn't it?"

    Drake scratched his temple. "It's been longer than a year, yeah. A little over a year and a half, actually."

    "And you're still going strong, still in love?" Angie asked them.

    Drake grinned. Mia could tell he was trying not to laugh. "We are still together, still in love, yes."

    "Speak for yourself," Angie told him. "I want to hear Mia, too."

    "I still love this man," Mia said, hugging onto his left arm and beaming up at him. "And we are still together, yes."

    Angie nodded her head. "Good, good. I'll...get to the drama. I'll save that for later. First, I want to talk about the important stuff. It's been a while, Drake, so for a little recap, your newest album went double-platinum. 'Soul Cry' has been a huge hit. I can't tell you how many requests we get for that song. Most recently, you are currently on tour. First of all, the double-platinum album...how does that make you feel?"

    "I mean...of course, it makes me feel good," he said. "I'm glad that people are still listening, still relating to my music. Anyone around me will tell you that I don't care about the numbers. The only importance in the numbers, to me, is that they let me know how many people are listening."

    "Whenever artists say that, I always feel like it's bullshit, though," Angie told him. "How can an artist not care about numbers when ultimately, that plays into their net worth, how much money they get paid?"

    He shrugged his shoulders. "On some level, yeah, I guess. But I don't obsess over the numbers. I don't put out an album and say, 'Okay this album needs to go double platinum.' You know? I put out an album and I say, to myself, 'I hope everyone likes this. I hope everyone can relate to this. I hope they feel the music as much as I was feeling it when I was creating it.'"

    "Fair enough," Angie said with a nod.

    "And you know I'd never bullshit you," Drake added into the mic, turning on his seductive voice.

    Mia laughed.

    "Do I?" Angie asked him, leveling a gaze across the room at him. "Do I know you'd never bullshit me? We'll find out about that later."

    "Uh-oh, you're in trouble," Mia taunted him.

    He rolled his eyes.

    "Yeah, he is in trouble," Angie cosigned. "Because he always likes to try to dodge the fun questions, the interesting questions. But I have something for him, and we'll find out in a little bit whether or not he'd bullshit me."