Actually doing a song, going to the studio, and just getting out

Host: The night was thick with heat, the kind that clings to your skin like an unshed emotion. A single streetlight hummed above the cracked sidewalk, its pale halo flickering through the drifting smoke of a nearby food cart. The city was restless — cars growled, sirens cried, and a faint bass rumbled from a recording studio tucked between two forgotten buildings.

Inside, the air smelled of sweat, cables, and electric dreams. A microphone hung like a suspended confession.

Jack leaned against the mixing board, his grey eyes sharp but tired, while Jeeny, her hair loose and damp from the humidity, sat on a stool, a notepad on her lap, a quiet fire behind her gaze.

Jeeny: “Prodigy once said, ‘Actually doing a song, going to the studio, and just getting out on paper your anger makes you feel a little better sometimes.’”

Jack: “Yeah, and he wasn’t lying. But you notice he said ‘a little better,’ not ‘fixed.’ Anger doesn’t disappear when you write it down. It just takes a different shape.”

Host: The soundboard lights blinked, red and green, like a heartbeat pulsing in machine rhythm. The room hummed with the faint echo of unfinished beats.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s enough though, Jack. Maybe that little bit — that release — is all we can ask for. Music doesn’t cure pain; it gives it language.”

Jack: “Language doesn’t stop pain, Jeeny. It just names it. You think writing a verse makes the world kinder? It doesn’t. It just makes you tired enough to sleep for one night.”

Jeeny: “No — it makes you awake enough to live. You ever listen to Mobb Deep’s ‘Shook Ones’? That wasn’t sleep — that was survival turned into sound.”

Jack: “And yet, the streets stayed the same. Same fear, same poverty, same cycles. What did that song change?”

Jeeny: “It changed them. It changed us. You think the point was to save the world? Sometimes the point is to save yourself — one track at a time.”

Host: The beat from the studio’s monitors began to play faintly — low, gritty, the kind of rhythm that feels like a bruise healing from the inside out.

Jack lit a cigarette, the smoke curling around his face like a slow confession.

Jack: “You always talk like art’s this holy thing. But music’s business, Jeeny. Half these rappers don’t record because they want to heal. They do it because rent’s due.”

Jeeny: “And yet, in trying to pay rent, they end up paying attention to their pain. Isn’t that the irony? The system sells rebellion, but the rebellion still bleeds truth.”

Jack: “Truth wrapped in beats doesn’t stop bullets. It just sounds good over them.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it doesn’t stop them, but it remembers them. That’s the point. Every verse is a memorial — for every kid who never got to write one.”

Host: Her voice shook, not from weakness but from too much feeling contained in too small a body. The studio lights flickered, casting shadows that moved like ghosts keeping time.

Jack: “You talk like creation is therapy. But what if it’s just another illusion? You vent your rage into a mic, feel better for a few hours, then step outside and it’s all still there. The same demons — poverty, injustice, loss. What’s the use?”

Jeeny: “The use is that you survive it. That you don’t let it eat you alive. That’s what Prodigy meant — you record the anger before it records you.”

Jack: “That’s poetic. But you can’t record every fight.”

Jeeny: “No, but you can record your truth. That’s enough. Look at Tupac. Every song was a war between fury and hope. He didn’t escape it — but he gave the rest of us a map.”

Host: A faint rumble of thunder rolled outside. The room flickered with brief light, catching the silver rings on Jeeny’s fingers as she gripped the pen harder.

Jack: “So anger’s your muse now?”

Jeeny: “It always was. For all of us. We just hide it better. Society tells women not to show rage, tells men not to show pain — and then music becomes the only place we can bleed in color.”

Jack: “And you think that’s healthy?”

Jeeny: “It’s human.”

Host: The beat stopped. A sudden silence filled the room, heavy as humidity. Jack crushed his cigarette, the smoke rising, soft and bitter.

Jack: “You know what bothers me? Everyone treats anger like art’s raw material — but it’s still anger. It corrodes. I’ve seen people get trapped in it, chasing pain like it’s their only proof of existence.”

Jeeny: “That’s because they never finish the song. You have to turn it into something. You have to give it a frame, or it eats the artist alive.”

Jack: “So creation’s your cure?”

Jeeny: “No — it’s a confession. You don’t cure pain. You testify to it.”

Host: She looked at the microphone, then back at him. There was a long pause — the kind that stretches between two hearts that have stopped pretending not to understand each other.

Jeeny: “When Prodigy rapped, he wasn’t glorifying pain — he was documenting it. That’s what makes it sacred. He was saying, I’ve been through it. I’m still here. That’s more powerful than peace.”

Jack: “Still here… that’s the part no one respects. Everyone hears the rhythm, but not the endurance behind it.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Anger is just energy with nowhere to go — until you make it sing.”

Host: The clock on the wall blinked 2:14 AM. Outside, the rain began again, steady, rhythmic — like a drummer refusing to quit. The studio was bathed in soft, amber light, the air heavy with unspoken history.

Jack: “You ever think about what he was really saying? That making music was the only place he could be honest. Out there — on the streets, in interviews — you gotta wear armor. But here… you can be soft without dying for it.”

Jeeny: “Yes. That’s what music is — softness disguised as fire.”

Jack: “And maybe anger’s not destruction. Maybe it’s just emotion that refuses to be quiet.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Anger isn’t violence; it’s awareness. It’s the body’s way of saying, This hurts, but I’m still alive.”

Host: Jack reached out, adjusting one of the knobs on the board. The bassline returned — deep, slow, hypnotic. The kind that crawls through the chest and lingers in the ribs.

Jack: “You think it’s worth it? All this… pouring your soul out just to feel a little better?”

Jeeny: “Every time. Because sometimes a little better is all you need to make it to tomorrow.”

Host: The microphone swayed gently in the air, waiting. Jeeny stood, slipping the headphones on. Her breath steadied. The red light on the console glowed — recording.

She closed her eyes, and her voice rose — not singing, not speaking, but somewhere in between. A sound raw enough to bleed, soft enough to heal.

Jack watched her, his expression changing — something between awe and sorrow. The beat carried her words like waves carrying broken glass, reshaping it into light.

When she finished, the room fell quiet. The only sound was the soft hum of the equipment cooling down.

Jeeny: “You feel that?”

Jack: “Yeah. It’s strange… it hurts, but it helps.”

Jeeny: “That’s the point. Pain doesn’t leave — it just learns to rhyme.”

Host: Outside, the rain began to fade, replaced by the sound of the city breathing again. Neon signs flickered, puddles reflected fragments of light.

Inside the studio, the last of the smoke curled toward the ceiling, slow and silver, like a prayer unspoken.

Jack turned off the board. Jeeny placed her notebook down, her hands trembling but steady in spirit.

Jack: “So, you still think it’s therapy?”

Jeeny: “No. It’s testimony.”

Jack: “Then sing it louder.”

Jeeny: “Always.”

Host: And as they stepped out into the night, the faint echo of her song lingered — a pulse against the dark, proof that even in anger, there can be music, and in music, a way to stay human.

The camera would have pulled back, showing the city below, alive, aching, breathing — and somewhere in that breath, a rhythm that never dies.