By noon, the city felt different – charged with an electric anticipation I remembered from my first life, but sharper now, more focused. We sat in Rico's car outside the radio station, watching his Sidekick blow up with messages. Each chirp represented a thread of destiny rewoven, a new path forking from the one I'd lived before.
"Atlantic, Def Jam, Sony..." Rico scrolled through the messages with trembling fingers. "Man, your phone must be worse."
It was. Seventeen missed calls already, numbers I recognized from contracts I wouldn't sign for years. Wouldn't sign at all, this time around. The Nokia's tiny screen flickered with each new message like a morse code from the future I was busy dismantling.
*They're calling earlier than before
Destiny's knocking at a different door
Every ring a choice to make
Every answer a new path to take*
I'd scribbled these lyrics in the studio bathroom earlier, hand shaking as I tried to capture the vertigo of watching my timeline accelerate. The track was spreading faster than it had in my original life – viral before viral was even a thing. Someone had already ripped it from the radio broadcast and uploaded it to the early internet forums. By tomorrow, it would be on mixtapes across the city.
"We need to be smart about this," I said, watching a group of teenagers pass by the car, one of them already humming the hook. "The first offer isn't always the best offer."
Rico turned to me, his expression caught between excitement and suspicion. "How you know there's gonna be more than one?"
Because I'd lived it. Because in my first life, I'd jumped at the first contract wave and spent five years locked in a deal that stifled my innovation. Because somewhere across town, Beyoncé was probably hearing my track for the first time – again – and this time, I needed to be free to move when the moment came.
"Trust me," I said, the words heavy with unspoken prophecy. "This is bigger than they realize."
My phone buzzed again. A text from Mother: "The bodega, the hair salon, even the church – everyone's talking about your song. Fr. Rodriguez says it sounds like angels speaking in tongues."
I smiled. In my first lifetime, it had taken years to get Mother's full support. Now she was my biggest promoter, time compressed like a master track, everything happening faster, cleaner, brighter.
A black Escalade crawled past Rico's car for the third time, and I recognized the record executive inside – younger now, but with the same hungry look he'd wear in 2019 when he'd try to buy my catalog. The vultures were circling earlier this time, drawn by the scent of future profits they could sense but not yet understand.
"We need a lawyer," Rico said, still scrolling through messages. "Like, yesterday."
"I know someone," I replied, thinking of the entertainment attorney who'd helped me navigate my divorce in 2022. In this timeline, she was still a hungry associate at a midtown firm, probably listening to my track right now on her office computer. "But first, we need to build something they can't buy."
Rico finally put down his Sidekick. "You talk like you've seen how this all plays out."
If he only knew.
The afternoon sun caught the Bronx skyline, painting it in shades of possibility. Somewhere in Brooklyn, a young Jay-Z was probably getting calls about the track. In my original timeline, we wouldn't work together until 2013. Now... well, time was becoming more fluid by the minute.
"The game's changing," I said, watching another car roll by with my bass line thumping through its speakers. "We just need to make sure we're the ones changing it."
Rico nodded slowly, but his eyes were sharp. "You knew this would happen. Somehow, you knew."
I thought about telling him then – about the years ahead, about the changes coming to the industry, about how we were sitting at the fulcrum of a revolution we could now shape instead of just ride. But some futures are better lived than told.
Instead, I pulled out my notebook and started writing, letting the weight of two timelines flow through my pen:
*Standing at the crossroads where tomorrow meets today
Every choice a door that leads two ways
But this time around, I'm holding all the keys
Rewriting history one melody at a time
While destiny watches and keeps the beat*
"Come on," I said, closing the notebook. "We've got work to do before sunset."
The future was calling, and this time, I knew exactly how to answer.