Jordan got the DM on a Tuesday night.
He was in the studio with Ron and Xavier, not really doing anything, just listening back to a beat he had pulled up. The message was short. Her name was Imani. She said she had been following him since the Breakfast Club clip dropped and that she had always wanted to make music but did not know how to get started. She asked if she could just talk to him sometime.
He read it twice. Then he sent it to June.
June called him back in about four minutes. "She have a following?"
"I don't know. I didn't check."
"Check."
He clicked over to her page. Eight thousand followers. Most of her posts were just her face, a couple videos of her singing over beats, nothing produced. The comments were there though. People telling her she was good. She never replied to any of them.
"Like eight thousand."
"That's nothing."
"I know."
"So why are you calling me about it?"
He did not have a good answer for that. He just said, "I kind of want to meet her."
June was quiet for a second.
"Fine. Bring her in for a day, see what she's about. Don't sign anything, don't promise anything, don't put her on a track until you know what you're working with. And run it by me before you post anything with her face in it."
"Obviously."
"I mean it, Jordan."
"I got it, June."
He went back to the DM and typed back. He told her to come through for a day, just to hang, see if they vibed. No promises. She responded in about thirty seconds.
Ok.
* * *
She showed up to the studio on Friday afternoon.
Her name was Imani Clarke. She was eighteen, she told him that right away, like she wanted to get it out of the way before he could ask. She had platinum blonde hair that fell straight past her shoulders, dark eyes, a small nose ring, and a little hoop in her left ear. She was wearing a mini skirt and a cropped top and she moved like she already knew she was going to be somebody.
She sat across from him at the couch in Studio B, the smaller room he used when he was working alone or keeping something low-key. She looked around at the walls like she was memorizing it.
"You been in a studio before?" he asked.
"No." She said it without embarrassment. "I recorded stuff in my room. My phone mostly."
"How long you been singing?"
"Since I was like eight. My mom used to play a lot of music around the house." She paused. "She's the one who told me to reach out to you, actually. She saw the Breakfast Club thing."
"Your mom told you to DM me."
"Yeah." She shrugged. "She's not like other moms."
Jordan pulled the beat back up on his laptop and let it run. It was something he had started the week before and never finished, mid-tempo, piano-heavy. He watched her face while it played. She started nodding without realizing she was doing it.
"What do you want from this?" he asked. "Like actually. Not the answer you practiced."
She looked at him. "I want people to know who I am. Not famous famous, I don't care about that. I just want people to hear my name and know what it means."
"What does it mean?"
"I don't know yet." She looked at the floor for a second. "That's why I want to make music. To figure it out."
Jordan did not say anything. He turned back to the screen.
* * *
They talked for about an hour before he started working.
She told him about her family. Single mom, a younger brother named Marcus who was twelve and already taller than her, a younger sister named Deja who was nine and who Imani basically helped raise while their mom worked doubles at the hospital. She said it without self-pity, just laid it out like it was facts.
"What does your mom think about you trying to do this seriously?"
"She's the one paying for my voice lessons." She picked at the edge of her nail. "She wants me to go to school for it though. Get a music degree."
"What do you think?"
"I think I want to make a record before I turn twenty." She said it flat, like she had already decided. "I don't think you learn that in school."
Jordan nodded. He started adjusting the beat, bringing the piano up a little, pulling back on the kick. She watched him work without asking questions, which he appreciated. Most people who came into the studio for the first time talked too much when he was in the middle of something.
After a while he said, "Sing something."
"Right now?"
"Yeah."
She did not make a thing of it. She just sat up a little, looked at a spot on the wall, and started singing. No setup, no warm-up runs. It was a melody he did not recognize, something she made up on the spot or had been carrying around for a while. Her voice was clean and real, the kind that made you stop what you were doing.
Jordan stopped what he was doing.
She stopped after about a minute. She looked back at him.
"Okay," he said.
"Okay good or okay whatever."
"Okay good."
She looked at the wall again. He could tell she was trying not to smile.
* * *
By seven o'clock he had a clear picture of what he was working with.
She could not write, she had told him that straight up, no embarrassment about it. But the voice was there and she had taste, which was harder to teach. She knew what she liked and what she did not like and she could tell the difference between something that was built for her and something that was just built. That mattered.
He asked her if she had anything she did not want to do. She thought about it.
"I'll know when I see it," she said. "I can't list it all out right now. But I'll say no if it comes up and I hope you'd respect that."
"Of course," he said.
She nodded once like that settled it.
He leaned back and looked at her for a second. "Your mom still in town?"
"Yeah, we're at a hotel down the street. She drove me out here."
"I want to meet her."
Imani looked at him. "Why?"
"Because I'm not doing anything with you without her knowing exactly what it is." He kept it simple. "She drove you out here, she's paying for your voice lessons, she's in it whether we make it official or not. I want her in the room."
Imani was quiet for a second. Then she picked up her phone.
* * *
Her mom's name was Diane.
She was petite, showed up in a cardigan and jeans like she had been sitting in a hotel room all day waiting for her daughter to text her, which she probably had. She shook Jordan's hand and looked around the studio the same way Imani had, taking it in without saying much about it.
They sat in the lounge area outside the main room. Jordan had the engineer bring out water and left it at that.
"So," Diane said. She had her hands folded in her lap. "What are you thinking?"
"Honestly? I don't know yet." He was not going to oversell it. "She has a real voice. She has taste. She can't write but that's solvable. What I need to figure out is whether she can handle the work part, the consistency, showing up and doing it even when it's not exciting." He looked at Diane. "That's what I can't tell from one day."
"So what are you proposing?"
"I want her to come back a few more times. Record some stuff, nothing released, just see what we can build. If it goes somewhere real, we talk about the next step with lawyers in the room. If it doesn't, she goes home with some good recordings and a better idea of what she wants."
Diane looked at her daughter, then back at Jordan. "She's my kid."
"I know."
"She's talented and she knows it and that makes her easier to take advantage of."
"I know that too."
"So why should I trust you?"
Jordan thought about it for a real second before he answered. "Because I didn't have to invite you here. I could've just kept working with her and told her whatever she wanted to hear. I'm asking you to be in it because it doesn't work right if you're not."
Diane looked at him for a long moment. Then she looked at Imani.
Imani looked back at her and gave a small shrug, like,
I told you.
Diane turned back to Jordan. "I want to be copied on everything. Any agreement, any session schedule, anything in writing."
"Done."
"And if I tell her to stop, she stops. No pressure, no guilt trip, no contract language that says otherwise."
"Agreed."
Diane nodded once, slow, like she was still deciding whether she believed him. "Okay," she said. "Let's see what happens."
Imani exhaled quietly beside her. Jordan kept his face straight.
He already knew she was going to be good. Now he just had to prove it to both of them.