Saturday, January 7, 1978 Los Angeles, CA
About four hours ago, I sat down in this hard black swivel chair to get my hair braided. Four hours later, I got a sore butt, a headache but some awesome braids. The braids are super heavy because of the massive amount of beads there are but it's all good. I really want to go for a look that is symbolic to African American culture with the braids and the beads. Not only that, but this hairstyle is real fly, if I do say so myself. I get up from the chair and look in the small, dirty, oval mirror on the wall in the bathroom. I gotta say, I am impressed with the outcome. She shocks me every time.
Yes, this is all my hair. After the Afro I was rocking for about, a good ten years, I had to change it up a little bit.
It is now about noon-ish and I want to hang out at the studio for a bit. I give Niki—she has been my hairstylist for about a month now—her money for the hair and swing my bright, blue nap sack over my shoulder. We give our hugs and say our goodbyes before I exit. I go out the front door of Niki's cute little LA apartment and head to my car. I have a black 4 door sedan amc concord. It is a bit rundown but regardless of its looks, it gets me where I need to be so I'm good with this 'junkie' car. I put my bag in the leather passenger seat and put on my seatbelt. I drive the 15 minutes to The Sound Factory Recording Studio.
When I finally get there, I park the car in the parking lot. I grab my bag and head towards the entrance of the building. I know exactly where to go when it comes to my band. They go to the biggest studio that there is. I have a pretty big band.
I walk into studio room six and everyone stops and looks at me. Then they all say their 'hey' and 'hey short stuff' before going back to what they were doing before. I hate for my band to be doing nothing. We do not have anytime to be doing nothing so they have to be working as much as possible.
A quick break down of my band. There is James, Charles, Al, Marlo, Freddie, Abraham, Ray, Oscar, Bill R., Bill S., Bill G., George, Paulinho, Jeff, Valarie, Clay, David, Ken, Maurice, Larry, Ted and Kim. Jazz bands tend to have way more musicians than non jazz bands do because of the multiple instruments that jazz music use. Sometimes I feel like a one women band because my band is always screwing up and I have to fix their problems myself. Then, there is the background singers. That group is made up of Roy, Jim, Oren, Pauline, Syreeta, Stephanie, Sheree, Charles, Reggie and Maxine. They don't do much. They just harmonize and sing backing vocals behind me.
I put my bag down on the beige stool by the drum set and grab my green composition notebook from out of my bag. James says "Come here real quick, short stuff!"
It isn't a cat call. Him and Kim have been calling me that since '76 because I'm only 4'10. It use to bother me but now I'm kind of over it. "What's going on?" I say as I walk the short distance to the drums.
"Listen to this right here, P." James exclaims before playing a short piece on the drums. As much as I like it, I need to make the slightest bit of a change in the sound. I walk behind the drum set where James is sitting and scoot him over a bit. Then, he gets up and walks around so he could see what I'm about to play.
"I really did dig that beat but next time, make it a 3-part overdub. Like this." I say before I proceed to show James the way that I want the drums to be played on this single. This is the first song to be on the album. "You got it?" I ask James as I get up from the seat behind the drums. James nods as he sits back down in the seat. "Y'all do that while I go to the restroom. I will be right back." I say as I exit the big, instrument filled studio. I walk to the bathroom, do my business and leave.
As I'm walking back to the studio, I hear a hypnotic and funky beat. After about 30 seconds of the amazing beat, I hear a dreamy falsetto. As I'm walking down the hall, the music starts to grow louder and louder. I start to realize that the music is coming from studio four, which is the studio right across from mine. After a while, I find my self listening to the mystery person record this amazing song. When the song came to an end, I wanted to know who is the face behind that voice. Who are the musicians behind that backing band? Being that I'm not a very shy person but more outgoing and friendly, I boldly knock on the door. I could faintly hear heels clicking as the person walks towards the door. When the door opens, I see a lightskin guy with hypnotic eyes, a massive Afro, wearing a black button up shirt(that isn't buttoned all the way, might I add), black pants, and matching heels.
"Yes?" The guy says sounding quite irritated that I interrupted whatever it was that he was doing. Ignoring his attitude, I continue on with my compliment.
"I was just coming over to say that I can hear the song that was just playing and it is really good. I didn't mean to bother you or anything and I'm sorry if I did." I say with an apologetic tone.
"You work here or something?" He asks.
"No. My band and I rehearse over there in studio six." I say as I point to the studio six door. "My name is Patrice Rushen." I say while sticking my hand out.
"Prince." He says simply as he firmly shakes my hand. "Your band is pretty good too. And I heard some of your last albums. You are pretty big in the jazz genre, right?" He questions with a slight smile.
I shrug my shoulders slightly with a smirk. "I guess a little bit."
"I couldn't recognize you because of the braids. I'm used to seeing your huge Afro from your album covers." He says. We both laugh slightly before I end the conversation.
"I have to go back to my band but it was nice meeting you. Oh, and if you ever want to work on some music or just want to have a jam session one day, here's my card." I say while handing him one of my cards from my blue, denim back pocket. He takes it and analyzes it.
"I will take you up on that offer. Thanks." He says with a smile. I smile back and walk towards my studio.
As cute as he was, a man is not one of my priorities at the moment. It's my music that is. My friends always say "Your 23 and single. What are you so busy doing that you can't get a man?" I always answer by saying 'nothing but music'.
I walk in the studio and take a seat by the front of the room on the black stool and grab my black strata caster guitar. "Let's go from the top of 'Music of The Earth'. One, two, three, hit it!" I shout. Then the band starts playing and Sierra, the engineer, hits record.
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I walk into my apartment complex. Oh, how much LA apartments have changed from way back when I was a little kid. I drop my bag in the messy corner of my medium sized room and take off my coat. I hang it up on the back of the ivory door. I strip of my clothes and throw on some pajamas. I put my hair in to a loose ponytail with a green hair tie and take a seat in my ivory love seat by my small window that shows the busy streets of la. It's late at night, and the beautiful bright street lights are the only things making it clear for the pedestrians to walk without bumping heads. This is when I write. Wether what I'm writing is about my day or a song, I write.
After writing for about a good 40 minutes and squeezing three songs out of me before falling asleep in this here seat, I pick up the purple phone sitting on my nightstand and call my sister, Angela. She is four years younger than me but she swears up and down that I'm her little sister because of my height and people believe her. After a few rings, she picks up. "Hello?"
"Hey, Pumpkin! What's going on?" I ask her.
"Nothing really. You know how college life is." Angela says with a sigh. I was in college for about year but then I was signed to Prestige, a huge jazz record label so I took night classes. I still do, just not on the weekends so that days like today, I am free. It was amazing being signed to Prestige because I got control over everything. It was just that I didn't feel like they cared about what it was that I was doing. I want control but I still want them to give me feedback when it comes to my music, (even though the three albums I released were in the top ten on the best jazz albums charts but still). That's why I switched to Elektra Records.
"You are putting to much pressure on yourself, Angela." I say with worry in my voice. I only call her Angela when I'm serious. She is a double major, working two jobs and is in a major sorority. She really needs to slow down with these things. "You really need to slow down with these things." I tell her.
"Yeah, I know, P but it's just that having all these credentials is going to be great for me in the long run. Just wait and you will see. If I want to be a nurse, I'm qualified because I majored in medical science. If I want to be a lawyer, I'm qualified because I majored in law as well. All this work is worth it in the long run." She says matter of factly. This girl is a workaholic. So am I. We must get it from our dad because our mom is not like that. At all.
Our dad left when she was two and I was six. The memories of our father are very vague. Sometimes I think about the one or two memories that I can still remember of him but he is really just an old shadow in the back of my mind. I'm sure Angela can't remember anything about him being that she was only two. Music is really occupying my mind at the moment. People always say that I should care about other things than music but I can't do that at the moment. If it's not about my sister than music is the main thing, ya feel me? "How are things going with you and Jackson?" I ask, growing more sleepy.
Jackson is Angela's boyfriend of about three months. I got to meet him two times. He is 18 and is such a cutie pie. He has nice manners and is very knowledgeable on a few things. He is majoring in business and engineering. I know all of this because I am not going to let my little sister run around with some guy I don't know anything about. I had to get every detail about him. And let me tell you, literally two seconds after I grilled him, he spilled all the beans on his whole life story. That made Angela a bit mad (more than a bit mad, she was furious) for a while but whatever. I am just looking out for her and she knows that.
"I'm really happy with him. He is truly a romantic and he is such a sweetheart. He treats me like a queen. I am so sure that this is love. I think I wanna marry him." Angela gushes through the phone. I swear that this girl has to slow down in almost every aspect of her life.
"Don't you think that the both of you are moving a bit too fast? I mean the two of you just started dating like two days ago." I say sarcastically.
"Seriously, Pat? It has been over three months and you know that. Besides, I was just joking with you. I do like him though. I like him a whole lot, actually." Angela says as she try's to hold back her yawn.
I love that my sister has love in her life but I need sleep in mine. "Don't you have some big test tomorrow or something? A party tonight, maybe?" I ask.
"No. Why you ask?" Angela replies.
"I ask because I want to go to sleep but you are stopping me from doing that at the moment. Are you not tired even though it is 12 something in the morning?" I ask while rubbing my eyes.
"No, not really but since you are, I will let you go and sleep peacefully, Ms. Patrice." Angela says with a fake attitude. I roll my eyes.
"And I appreciate that, sis. I swear I heard you yawn a while ago so go to sleep. Love you, Pumpkin." I say as I try to stay awake for a few more seconds. I have never been one to stay awake until the early morning. If I did attempt to do so, I would fall asleep at like one or two. Sometimes, earlier times, like tonight. And when I'm tired, it is best you let me sleep. Angela knows that.
"Love you too, Pat. Goodnight." Angela says finally letting her tiredness show with a long yawn.
"Goodnight." I say before hanging up the phone. I walk over to my bed and crawl under the blue covers and into the warm comfort of my blue satin sheets. Satin sheets and pillowcases are best for the hair. Within a few seconds, I'm asleep and thoughts of music are running through my head.
So this is my first chapter. I didn't want a prologue so I went right into it. Thank you PurplePyramid for encouraging me to continue trying to write stories. I truly do appreciate it. I know that Prince was in this chapter for like two seconds but don't worry. He will be back later on. I learned from a story that I am reading to develop the characters without Prince before bringing him into the cast fully. I know that sounds like gibberish but yeah. Anyway, please enjoy, comment, and vote. Thanks! ❤️✌🏾
Q-How do you guys like Patrice as a person so far?
A-She seems really sweet and genuine so I'm excited to write for this character.