Fireworks 1 and 2

Jungle: Chapter Sixty-One

    "No, no, no...can you rewind that back?" Nicki leaned a hip against the audio engineering board. She bobbed her head with her eyes closed and a hand firmly planted on her hip. She was dressed in a plum purple velour tracksuit with the hoodie pulled up.

    The brown-skinned, heavyset producer nodded and rewound the track.

    Kenneth sat on the couch in the back of the studio, staring down at his phone.

    Drake hesitated just inside of the studio door, but watched Mia walk up to Nicki. The two women embraced, and they resembled each other so much that they could have been twins. If it weren't for their outfits or different hairstyles, he would have had trouble telling the two of them apart.

    He was a lot slower to approach, because his relationship with Nicki was strained these days. A rift was caused in their friendship when her ex-boyfriend Meek Mill, for reasons still unknown to Drake, declared war on him and his camp. While they were working to repair this rift, these days they were nowhere near as close as they used to be. 

    A few years before Drake met Mia, Meek took to Twitter to complain about the fact that Drake didn't promote or Tweet about the release of his last album. Then he proceeded to make claims that Drake didn't write his own music. For several days, Drake didn't respond to Meek's emotional tweets, which were incidentally posted a week before Meek was scheduled to perform in Toronto as a part of Nicki's PinkPrint tour. Even if Drake had considered responding, there wasn't really a need for him to. His crew and his fans immediately took up to bat for him, with a barrage of comical memes and commentary, pointing out Meek's irrelevancy. The entire situation would have probably died down, if the flames weren't fanned by DJ and veteran hip hop head, Funkmaster Flex.

    When Drake finally decided to respond to Meek's preposterous and misguided claims, it wasn't via Twitter or Instagram; it was via song. Lyrics. Written and recited word laid out over a very simple beat. This track aired on the second episode of his OvOSoundRadio show, on Apple Music. He took a few hours to write the song - himself, without any assistance whatsoever - and a good thirty to forty minutes recording the track. The recording of the track took place during the beginning of his radio show, which he had longtime friend and managing/marketing genius Oliver El-Khatib host for him.

    Meek hadn't responded to the song with a track, but with another series of tweets, and even some of his own fans took to ridiculing him for taking his beef to the Twitterverse instead of laying down a track.

    Drake didn't wait for a diss song from Meek before laying down yet another song. Music industry heavyweights leapt to his defense and some of his biggest haters in the industry stepped forward to say, "We've called Drake soft for all of these years and yet he's the one who kept it the most hip hop this week."

    When Meek got offended by something, he tended to lean towards the emotional or impulsive side of things. Drake didn't really give a damn about Meek or his emotions. It was obvious that publicity was at least one of the reasons why Meek decided to fly off the handle. The main reason why Drake made response tracks is because the weight of a ghostwriting allegation, no matter who the allegation was made by, could potentially have a huge negative impact on a rapper's career. It was the type of rumor that could quite possibly linger throughout the remainder of the rapper's career. If a rapper didn't come out to dispute those rumors and kill them right away, those rumors would result in the loss of a lot of fans. Drake was lucky that there was a lot of recorded footage of him in the studio with Noah writing music. These days, he was a lot more private, but back then he was an open book. There were videos galore posted to YouTube, videos that can still be viewed, showing Drake in the studio writing lyrics on his BlackBerry. Songwriters, including his friend Hush and the alleged ghostwriter, Quentin Miller, both made statements supporting Drake. Quentin explicitly made it known that while he had collaborated with Drake, he was in no way Drake's ghostwriter. He went so far as to praise Drake for even seeing talent in him and helping him on the come-up.

    It was never a secret that Drake used co-writers from time to time. They were always credited, and whenever he accepted songwriting awards, other writers were often on the stage accepting the awards with him. The buzz and talk that stemmed from Meek's emotional tweets mainly came from the fact that Meek, along with the rest of the country, immediately confused the terms "ghostwriting" and "co-writing." A "ghostwriter" is a writer who agrees to offer their work without being credited. From the jump, Meek's allegation was inaccurate. Any writer who ever helped Drake with lines, or a hook, or an idea, was always credited. Drake was so confused as to why so many people in the industry were acting brand new about the fact that most, if not all, rappers worked with co-writers. Some co-writing setups were even accidental. Whenever a rapper was spitting a few lines out loud, it was way too easy for one of his crew to shout out a line that finished the verse, a line that was too perfect to pass up. That was common. And Drake was smart. If someone threw out a line that was gold, he used it.

    So many debates were started from the entire debacle. Fans were quick to throw out the names Biggie and Tupac as having written all of their verses, as if they'd personally sat down with Biggie and Tupac throughout the writing and creation of each and every one of their songs. If Twitter and Instagram had been a normal way of life when Tupac and Biggie were in their prime, there's no telling what information about them would have come out. This is something that everyone failed to realize. Social media wasn't just shedding light on the behind-the-scenes processes of the entertainment industry. It was also shedding light on just how forceful and aggressive police officers were being, even during routine traffic stops. It was also shedding light on teachers who were involved in inappropriate relationships with their students. With everything being reported at once, it gives the impression that there has been a sudden spike in this activity; the truth of the matter was, there wasn't a sudden spike in indecency...technology and social media just weren't at a place where people were getting caught. Times were changing...

    Meek was a pesky mosquito that didn't take much effort to swat away. But what had hurt most through the duration of that unnecessary, drawn out, and strangely-timed beef was that Nicki didn't make any statements defending Drake. Granted, she was dating Meek at the time and was perceived as not wanting to get in between two men that she cared for. But early in Nicki's career when anyone came at her, Lil Kim, anyone...he defended her. He stuck his neck out for her. She was family. That's what you did for family. Not only did she fail to have his back, but she tossed a bit of shade his way also.

    After the situation blew over, Drake and Nicki had a long conversation, where she sounded off on all of the issues she had with him. He did the same. While they agreed to set their differences aside, their friendship was never the same after that. There was no way it could be. He no longer trusted her. There were many rumors circling around that she was the one who was whispering into Meek's ear to get him riled up enough to take to Twitter with his grievances. So as much as he hated to, these days he had to keep her at arm's length. He didn't trust her with information that was sensitive. Nicki reached out to him after her relationship with Meek ended and since then, he and Meek had even come to a point of becoming civil with each other. They hung out once in a blue moon, when they were in the same city, but he never felt fully comfortable around her. 

    She chattered a mile a minute with Mia, then she turned her head and looked at Drake.

    He met her gaze, but didn't smile. "What's up?" he asked her.

    She gestured towards the soundboard. "Just work."

    Kenneth didn't take his eyes off of his phone, didn't say a word.

    Just as well, Drake thought, glancing around the studio for a place to sit that was also out of Kenneth's way.

    Mia jogged over to him and slid her arms around his waist. "We're going to work for a few hours, then break. Are you good with staying here?"

    Nicki's crew was scattered around the studio, talking to each other or looking at their cell phones. For once, Drake hadn't brought an entire posse with him - just the security he had posted just outside of the studio door. Inside of the studio, he just had Mia with him. Looking down at her, though, he knew that was all he needed. The question he had to ask himself was, Am I willing to walk through a lion's den just to be close to her? He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. "Yeah, I'm good," he told her.

    She beamed up at him, and that pretty smile was everything.