It was only mid-October, but the scope of his reach in the female cohort of the ACS was already impressively wide—more than your regular tall, dark, and handsome headache could hope to achieve in six months. There was something about him, a different kick to his sauce. Our girls weren’t fools; they were wary, tough. Sure, Malakai was fresh meat but if they found him unpalatable, they would have spat him out pretty fast. But this boy remained undragged on social media, managing to fly under my radar, somehow safely untethered, despite having some sort of link to a spice from every female Blackwellian clique. No other boy on campus could have got away with it. Somehow, he was turning our girls on each other. Like an infection, he had to be drawn out.
I passed the tablet back. “I’m gonna deal with this. He’s messing with our girls. Plus, they’re our core demographic. We’re a space of peace and truth and if he’s causing discord within them that’s an issue for me.”
Aminah cackled and threw a plantain chip at me, which was mainly annoying because I hadn’t managed to catch it with my mouth. A waste. “Yeah. I’m sure you want him to cause discord in your core demographic—”
I wheeled myself back to the desk. “Okay. Well, I see you’re not taking this seriously enough. Also, that doesn’t even make sense—”
Aminah shrugged. “I thought it was poetic.”
“Can we start the show?”
I smiled into the mic and adjusted the headphones on my ears, slid a knob on the mixing desk down, and switched to a soft neo-soul instrumental, turning it down low.
Whitewell College Radio, 9:30—11:00 p.m. slot, Thursday
Brown Sugar Show
“Good evening, fam, that was D’Angelo and you already know what it is, kickin’ it with Keeks and throwing it all the way back this Thursday night, giving you the finest, smoothest, sexiest tunes to vibe to—as always, because I care about you guys. I want you to have the best in all things. Now, with that being said, tonight I have something in particular I wanna discuss with my sisters. Fellas, stay if you want but if you’re easily rattled by women acknowledging their power, then, please, to the left, to the left. Take this as a health warning. If you start beating your chest so hard it becomes concave, my guy, you will only have yourself to blame.”
I smiled and glanced back at Aminah as she smirked, gave me a thumbs-up in encouragement. I turned back to the mic. “Now, with all health and safety concerns addressed I think I’m clear to tell you that I wanna talk about the concept introduced by tonight’s theme song by our patron saint D’Angelo, with ‘Playa Playa.’ That’s right. We’re talking about The Player. Did you like how I said it? Like it was a monster or some shit.”
“Kiki,” Aminah admonished within her capacity of producer and person who had to make sure I adhered to university broadcast guidelines so we didn’t risk our show being taken off the air.
I grinned. “Sorry. What I’m about to issue is a PSA. A warning. It is crucial for our well-being, sisters. Now see, many people think of ‘player’ as a gender-exclusive term. It’s a guy smooth with his tongue . . . in a couple different ways. Don’t act shy, you know what I mean. This is a safe space, girls. Let your savagery unleash. We are red-blooded women and we have needs, okay?”
Aminah laughed as she clicked her fingers above her head like she was at a spoken word recital. “Go ahead, sis. Tell it.”
I allowed my voice to slip into an exaggerated spoken word cadence, low and silken. “It’s a guy with so much sauce he has you swimming in it. Has your head spinning in it so you don’t know which way is up and which way is down—so you don’t even realize when he has you trippin’ for him.”
Aminah let out a loud hum as if she was in church, and I turned to see her, eyes closed, hand on heart, shaking her head as if she was receiving the word.
I stifled a laugh, rolled my eyes, and turned back to my mic, my voice becoming somber now, morphing into my ten-o’clock-news-bulletin voice, “But allow me to ask a question, my sisters. If he is a player, are we games? Or are we consoles to be used to help a guy navigate his way to being a man? Our buttons being pressed, being turned this way and that for his progression?”
Aminah hummed louder and raised her hands in praise.
I leaned closer to the mic even though no one could see me, because I knew the effect would be felt, the punctuation would ripple through the airwaves. “Aren’t you tired of mandem using your hearts for sport? I ask this now because I heard there’s a new player in town. And I won’t lie, he’s kind of cute too. A snack. A beverage. But you guys know that too much coffee is bad for you, right? Keeps you up all night, bad for your heart, makes you thirsty, and occasionally, if you’re extra sensitive, gives you the shits. This analogy went left, but you catch my drift.