"Can you hold me down?" Devante
From the luxury of producing some of the hottest tracks in the R&B genre, to living out his rockstar dream, young and ambitious Donald 'Devante Swing' DeGrate thought he had it all; the career, the notoriety, the f...
(Yes, "The Best Man" by Tyrese, Ginuwine, Case, & R.L. just popped into my head lol, but it describes Devante and Dalvin's life to the 'T'. Both they butts need to man up!)
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(Dallas, TX...3:30pm...Therapy session)
Dalvin
Seeing my brother again in years is...weird. I mean, my brother still looks the same but he ain't got that spark in his eye that he always had growing up. He looks...sick. Depressed. Stressed. Devante ain't Devante. I don't know who this cat is taking my brother place. My brother would never stoop this low.
"Where to start?" I questioned, focusing my attention on the scenery outside. Dallas is different; different from New York, North Carolina, and Georgia. It ain't home, but it's cool.
"Anywhere." The therapist responds. "Start with your relationship growing up. How was your relationship with your brother before the fame?"
It took me a while to register to question. I can write an entire book on my life before the fame. Before the fame, I had a normal life; normal friends, normal girlfriends, and two supportive parents. "Before the fame, my brother and I shared a normal brotherhood. Once we blew up, it's like my brother changed. I know I did too, but he changed in a sense of, I had to sneak and do shit only because he was my older brother and I didn't want or need him judging me."
"Was it like that before the fame?" The therapist questions.
"Nah. We were straight. We never hid nothing from each other. We talked through our problems and kept it pushing."
"What about now? What changed over the years?"
Drifting back off towards the window, I felt like shrugging my shoulders and walking out. Our relationship ain't gon' change. The moment it will change is that very moment my brother comes to his senses. Ever since we were forced to sign with Death Row Records, shit ain't been the same. "Everything changed. Before we even moved to New York, I had my own life. Ya know, Devante moved with K-Ci and JoJo. I was living at home with our parents. Him and JoJo were off doing their thang while K-Ci and I were doin' our thang. People see me as ya know, a background singer for Jodeci. They don't know the real Dalvin. The real Dalvin gave up an academic scholarship to play ball, just to go to New York. Singing really wasn't my strong suit, but being the supportive brother, I didn't want to see my brother's dreams blow into flames all because of my actions."
"You pushed your dreams aside to occupancy your brother and friends? How did you know that you've made the right decision?"
"I knew based off fate. Me being the younger brother looking up at my older brother with admiration in my eyes, I knew that Devante had fate in us. We went to New York with absolutely nothing to our names. We walked out the label with smiles on our faces. I'll never forget that day. All while we were coming up as Jodeci, I thought about college and how college would've changed my life. I wanted to go to school. That's all I ever thought about."
