CHAPTER 1: 'DON'T YOU HAVE A MAN'

(Originally Posted Monday November 10, 2014)

I remember the first time I heard a Drake song. It was 2008 and I was living in Brampton’s East-end with my mom and little brother (the tinier of the two wasn’t conceived yet) in a basement apartment in the middle of nowhere. I was proof-reading the novel I had started in 2005 and was formulating the idea for my second when my good friend at the time mentioned a new and upcoming Canadian rapper over MSN Messenger. “Who?” I asked, slightly sceptical but interested because my friend had more "timely" tastes than I did (I think I was into Coldplay and Radiohead at the time), and since he taught me everything I knew about football, I often listened to what he had to say. “Drake! The light-skinned dude from Degrassi!” he told me this explicitly; but being that I barely watched TV, even then, and hardly listened to the radio, I had no idea who he was talking about.

            Then he sent me the song that would open my eyes forever: “Don’t U Have a Man” featuring Dwele and Little Brother. I knew who Dwele was at the time, but Little Brother was new to me and I didn’t know exactly who was who on the track. I liked the song as a whole, feeling its smooth, Neo-Soul vibe and melodic lyrics, but for some reason I took to the guy starting off the song the most. His unpretentious realism on the song’s topic, as well as the line “Well/I’ma give it to you honey bunches/You feel it all under ribs like some tummy crunches…” instantly appealed to me and I remember being so entertained! I thought, “Wow… What a way to put it! Who would think of that? So clever!” And it stuck! My friend quickly explained that Drake was the first rapper on the song while I simultaneously added it to my MP3 player, and after that, I listened to the track over and over again as I slowly fell in love …

            That was the beginning, and I had no idea then what would become Drake now. All I knew then was that, if he had them, I had to find more Drake songs!

Where were you when you heard Drake for the first time?

Chapter 1: Don’t You Have a Man? 

Written By: Jae Antoinette

KENDRA:

“Don’t you have a man?” He asks me sideways, head bent and leering. I don’t know why he always has to do this. He knows my situation and last time I checked he was okay with it.

Still, he does this every so often, I think to annoy me, but I could be wrong. We’ve been seeing each other on the sly for how long now? And he always finds a way to ever so subtly put me on blast. “Don’t you already have a man, boo?” or “My bad, I thought you already had a man” have become his favourite lines when he gets like this, but he knows that I know that in a perfect world he’d want to be my man. And why? Because I’ve got everything he likes. I’m the perfect package; I’m just not single. And though it would seem like I’m trying to make him my man, that couldn’t be further from the fact: which is only that I like the things he provides that my actual man doesn’t. And I’m honest about that. It would just seem, to me, that he doesn’t know how to handle it.

Wanting to get busy after a nightcap and possibly spend the night does not a girlfriend make! And I curse the ears that would hear so and tell the mind otherwise! I mean, a girl has the right to have sexual expectations from a guy who could pretty much be described as her Boyfriend #2 if we’re going by Pleasure P’s standards—but, for whatever reason, it reflects poorly upon me and then I have to deal with this guy thinking I want to be his girl, which is, frankly, and given the circumstances, impossible!

In reality, though, he has been getting comfortable with having me around lately—I can tell. Calling me to find out when I’m coming over, cuddling up to me when we’re lying together on the sofa: it just seems a little odd that he would make such statements and then hold my hand when he’s walking me from his apartment to my car. Sure everything starts off copacetic, but even a guy who knows his role tends to get emotionally attached. And I’m not saying that that’s the case, but then why would he ask me a question he already knows the answer to?

TO BE CONTINUED ...