Lamar Giles

Guest Blog Post from Lamar Giles

Check out this guest post from Lamar Giles, author of Spin, about his experience writing a book rooted in music! 

As I write this, I’m listening to Drake’s classic mixtape So Far Gone, freshly available on all streaming platforms for the first time since its 2009 release, a whole decade ago. This is the music that blew Drizzy up. He’s now a household name. When I first heard this mixtape—a decade ago—I remember thinking, “Who’s this new kid?”

Yes, I’m that old school. (I refuse to leave it at just “old.”)

If I’m being honest with you, the years that have passed since I first began head nodding to beats and rhymes in my childhood bedroom went by so fast it feels like time travel. I never thought much about how my playlists had fewer new additions each season. Or that the rappers and singers who still got play in my car were either retired, focusing on their acting careers, or, sadly, no longer with us. I felt a slight twinge of alarm that year I tuned into the Grammys and wasn’t quite certain which of those guys was 2 Chainz. So it goes. There was nothing to panic about. It wasn’t that serious. Until I wrote a book called Spin.

Maybe you’ve heard this part: 

One murdered DJ. Two sworn enemies. An obsessive fandom. A crusade for justice that turns deadly. Get ready for a dark and deadly thriller about life & death & hip-hop. 

That’s my book. It was fun and terrifying to write. Fun because I write mystery/thrillers … I’m pretty good at it. Terrifying because this was a mystery/thriller rooted in black music and I wasn’t sure which guy was 2 Chainz! Or if 2 Chainz was even still a thing. Sorry, 2 Chainz, no disrespect intended.

What to do?

When creating my doomed producer/DJ ParSec and her equally talented friends Kya and Fuse, I felt it important to remember this fact: good music is good music. That doesn’t change with time. It’s the reason hip-hop artists sample classic records. DJ ParSec would certainly know the music of my youth and hers. She’d have done her homework, which meant I had to do mine. I turned to my target audience, asked the right questions (Who’s hot right now?) figured out what I’d been missing and gave a lot of new artists a chance. 

Now J. Cole is one of my favorites. I added Cardi B to my playlists—she’s got bars. And, a side note, I can now identify 2 Chainz. That’s only surface level stuff. Most importantly, I had to write to the characters’ loves, tastes, and choices. Justify the old school references and give appropriate props to the new artists killing the game. I hope I pulled it off, but you’ll decide that, won’t you?

I just reached the end of So Far Gone. I’ll probably run it back. I guess it’s old school now, but it’s never old. #Goals

To quote Champagne Papi on arguably one of his hardest tracks, “Tuscan Leather” from 2013’s Nothing Was the Same: “I’m tired of hearing ’bout who you checking for now / Just give it time, we’ll see who’s still around a decade from now.”

Ticktock.