See Bri’s first time in the studio in an excerpt from ON THE COME UP!
Angie Thomas‘ second novel On the Come Up hits bookshelves in a month and while there’s plenty of hype, readers haven’t actually seen too much of the book previewed so far. We simply know that the story is a love letter to hip hop, told through the eyes of a 16-year-old girl who’s desperate to make it as a rapper and raise her family out of poverty.
Thankfully, Entertainment Weekly unveiling some of Bri’s story via a short excerpt!
The passage follows Bri into the studio of the first time, where she’s doubted by the people around her, nervous to perform, and soon finds the support structure she brought with her evaporating as well. Still, Bri has plenty to say and nothing is going to stop her.
Take a look below:
Aunt Pooh knocks on the side door. Feet shuffle and someone hollers out, “Who
is it?”“P” is all Aunt Pooh says.
Several locks click, and when the door opens, it’s like that moment in Black Panther when they go through the hologram and enter the real Wakanda.
It’s like we just stepped through a hologram that showed everyone else a trap house and into a studio.
It’s not the fanciest, but it’s better than I expected. The walls are covered in those cardboard cup holders that restaurants give when you have multiple drinks to carry. Soundproofing. There are several computer monitors at a table, with drum pads, keyboards, and speakers nearby. A mic sits on a stand over in a corner.
A potbellied bearded guy in a wife beater sits at the table.
“Whaddup, P?” he says with a mouthful of gold. His words come out slow, like somebody turned down the tempo on his voice.
“Whaddup, Doc?” Aunt Pooh slaps palms with him and the other guys. There are about six or seven of them. “Bri, this is Doc, the producer,” Aunt Pooh says. Doc nods at me. “Doc, this is Bri, my niece. She ’bout to murder this beat you got for her.”
“Hold up, you made that for this li’l girl?” some guy on the couch asks. “What she gon’ do, spit some nursery rhymes?”
There go the smirks and snickers.
READ THE FULL EXCERPT VIA EW
On The Come Up is out on February 5, 2018. You can preorder it now via Amazon.
Sixteen-year-old Bri wants to be one of the greatest rappers of all time. Or at least make it out of her neighborhood one day. As the daughter of an underground rap legend who died before he hit big, Bri’s got big shoes to fill. But now that her mom has unexpectedly lost her job, food banks and shutoff notices are as much a part of Bri’s life as beats and rhymes. With bills piling up and homelessness staring her family down, Bri no longer just wants to make it—she has to make it.
On the Come Up is Angie Thomas’s homage to hip-hop, the art that sparked her passion for storytelling and continues to inspire her to this day. It is the story of fighting for your dreams, even as the odds are stacked against you; of the struggle to become who you are and not who everyone expects you to be; and of the desperate realities of poor and working-class black families.