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Summary
Chapter Eight
Jay is hosting a check-in meeting for recovering drug addicts, as she does every Saturday. Malik and Sonny’s mothers, whom Bri calls Aunt Gina and Aunt ‘Chelle, are there to help. Bri overhears Jay telling the group that her in-laws made it very difficult for her to get Trey and Bri back when she was in recovery. The group also talks about how hard it is for Black people in recovery to get their lives back, while white people with drug addictions are treated much more leniently. Bri lets Jay cuddle her.
Excited and nervous about the studio visit, Bri is unsure what song she wants to record. Aunt Pooh picks Bri up and takes her to Doc’s studio, which is rundown but serviceable. The people in the studio are skeptical of Bri’s abilities because she's a girl and because she’s so young, but Bri breaks the tension by verbally sparring with them. As Bri starts to write the song she is going to record, Aunt Pooh unexpectedly says she has somewhere to go. Bri begs her to stay, but Aunt Pooh insists, leaving Bri alone with Scrap and the strangers at the studio.
Doc encourages Bri to think about how the world has treated her lately and to put those feelings into her lyrics. Bri thinks about Long and Tate and what she would have done to them if she was as powerful as Aunt Pooh. She thinks about how no one listens to the Black people in the neighborhood, and remembers the Black boy who was killed by the police the previous year. She writes and records a song about how the world sees her as a hoodlum, but that won’t stop her from succeeding. The song is called “On the Come Up.”
Chapter Nine
After the recording session, Aunt Pooh goes missing for days, and Bri isn’t sure what to do with the song. She is too nervous to upload it herself, and she feels unnerved after seeing a Youtube video of Long and Tate assaulting her. Though not many people have viewed the video, Bri still feels uncomfortable that it exists.
At church, Bri’s grandfather recognizes that Jay and the kids are struggling financially and gives Jay some money. Bri’s grandmother openly criticizes Jay and expresses concern for Bri and Trey’s wellbeing. Bri sits with Jay and her grandparents on alternating Sundays to help keep the peace.
Curtis’s grandmother tells Bri’s grandmother about Bri’s suspension. The two grandmothers speculate in front of Bri that Jay lost her job because she started using drugs again. Bri speaks up and defends Jay, but privately she too worries that Jay might be using again. Bri confronts Curtis for telling his grandmother her business, and they end up flirting with each other.
Chapter Ten
On the bus, Bri lets Sonny listen to the recording of her song, “On the Come Up.” He plays it loud enough for everyone on the bus to hear, and they love it. They profusely compliment Bri, especially for taking on Tate and Long in her song. Bri feels wonderful until she gets to school, where she fears she’ll have to face the security guards. Sonny tells her that Tate and Long haven’t been at school during her suspension. Apparently, they have been suspended as well, and new guards have taken their place. Sonny also tells her about Rapid, the boy he’s been flirting with online. Malik asks her to go to lunch with him, just the two of them.
Analysis
Jay’s check-in meeting further explores the racial inequities that have surfaced earlier in the novel. Aunt ‘Chelle, who works at the courthouse, calls out the double standard that seems to apply to rich white people and poor Black people who wind up in court because of drug addiction. Whereas white addicts are treated leniently and given second chances, Black addicts are, according to Jay, “ruined for life.” Racial biases inherent in the court system and the job market make it difficult if not impossible for recovering addicts of color to find employment and support themselves. Despite her efforts, Jay faces an ongoing struggle to find steady work. Throughout the book, she is portrayed as a strong, earnest mother determined to make a better life for herself and her children through legitimate means. However, the conversation at the check-in meeting shows that Jay is also acutely aware of the systemic racism that seems designed to prevent her and other addicts of color from thriving in their post-addiction lives.
These chapters also continue to explore Bri’s fear of abandonment through her interactions with Jay and Aunt Pooh. When Bri overhears Jay talking about how hard she worked to get Bri and Trey back, it alters Bri’s perspective about the time when Jay left her. Immediately afterward, Bri lets Jay cuddle her, but she finds such moments of intimacy confusing and hard to accept. Even years after being reunited with Jay, Bri is still learning to trust her mother’s love. Later, when Aunt Pooh leaves Bri in the studio, Bri once again feels that someone she loves is casting her aside to follow the pull of drugs. Bri, who has known since age seven that Aunt Pooh sells drugs, has become accustomed to Aunt Pooh disappearing. But she still feels betrayed, having allowed herself to hope that, during this important moment in her rap career, Aunt Pooh would choose her over drugs.
Bri’s song “On the Come Up,” is born out of her anger and frustration with the racial stereotypes and prejudices that society has forced upon her, as well as the weakness and insecurity she feels due to her abandonment issues and her assault by Long and Tate. Just before writing the song, Bri decides that if people want to unfairly call her a hoodlum, she might as well “be a g—damn hoodlum.” In the song, Bri challenges the unfair assumptions of people in authority, who look at her as if she is a thug and a threat. But she also claims that she is armed with a Glock (a handgun) and won’t hesitate to use it on the cops if they come after her. In Bri’s mind, the song satirizes how she and other Black people are villainized by racist police and other authority figures, claiming that they might as well become what society expects anyway. But Bri’s classmates on the bus from Garden Heights immediately assume that the violent lyrics are a verbal takedown of Long and Tate, whom they too despise. Bri finds her classmates’ positive response to the song empowering, and at least for the moment, it seems like her decision to adopt the persona of a hoodlum may indeed lead to her come up.
