Life Told Through Rap - The Score
A heist of the heart (comic book script)
Author’s note: This is a work of fiction. The only thing real about this story is the music.
“It was hateful, it was happiness, it was sadness, it was bitterness, it was lust…it was everything” – Prakazrel Samuel Michel on The Score
“We wear the mask that grins and lies / It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes / This debt we pay to human guile / With torn and bleeding hearts we smile” – Paul Laurence Dunbar, “We Wear The Mask”
Panel 1 (Full Page)
CHARACTERS
THE PREACHER’S SON
THE GHETTO SUPASTAR
LADY SOUL
A flashback sequence. Three teenagers: two men, one woman. Playing out their adolescent fantasies of cops and robbers.
The eldest of them, and de-facto leader of their burgeoning crew, sporting a silver chain around his neck. The chain is adorned with two pendants: one being a cross from his father and the other being a talisman from his grandfather. A makeshift heirloom highlighting his shared legacy: the son of a preacher and grandson of a Voodoo priest.
Dismissively called ‘The Preacher’s Son’ by his peers, this rambunctious young man puts his arm around the only woman in the crew, shapes his fingers in the form of a gun and aggressively stakes his claim to the future.
THE PREACHER’S SON (Dialogue)
Caption 1: “I’mma get mine. Me and my girl, we gonna go out together.”
Caption 2: “When I go out, she go out. And we gonna make what we believe manifest.”
Panel 2 (Full Page)
Back to the present timeline, the page opens up to a woman applying lotion to her skin.
Only visible from her shoulders and above, we see the woman softly sing the words of an old Roberta Flack tune. The title of the comic (The Score) modestly written in bold white lettering at the bottom right of the page.
LADY SOUL (Singing Dialogue)
Caption 1: “Strumming my pain with his fingers”
Caption 2: “Singing my life with his words”
Panel 3 (Full Page)
Wearing a white suit, with a supermodel for a wife linked to his arm, The Preacher’s Son has grown up and traded in his silver chain for a diamond one. He walks up to a podium perched outside the front steps of his mansion and announces a concert to commence this year’s masquerade festival.
THE PREACHER’S SON (Dialogue)
Caption 1: “Tonight is a dedication to all the refugees worldwide”
Caption 2: “Every crew on the Isle, bring your mask”
Caption 3: “So we can all face the next day”
Panels 4-8 (Horizontally-Split Page)
Wearing a black sleeveless vest, some dark camouflage pants and combat boots, Lady Soul throws a grappling hook to the top of The Preacher’s Son’s mansion and starts climbing alongside its walls. With each step, she slowly sings the lyrics of another song from the past while a silver key-shaped chain dangles from her neck. Each panel capturing her determined upward motion and a half-lyric from the record.
LADY SOUL (Singing Dialogue)
Panel 4 (Caption): “Ready or not…”
Panel 5 (Caption): “…here I come...”
Panel 6 (Caption): “…you can’t hide.”
Panel 7 (Caption): “Gonna find you...”
Panel 8 (Caption): “…and take it slowly.”
Panels 9-11 (Vertically-Split Page)
Donning a white fabric hat, The Preacher’s Son saunters onto a stage hastily erected in the middle of the island’s busiest street. Hundreds of people looking for space wherever they can find it: rooftops, balconies, the barely stable sills of top-floor windows.
Amidst all this commotion, The Preacher’s Son stabs at his bass guitar and starts things off with one of the most controversial songs in his catalogue. Each panel portraying an array of vibrant faces, alternating between laughter and scorn in equal measure, punctuated by a couplet of lines from the track.
THE PREACHER’S SON (Singing Dialogue)
Panel 9 (Caption): “To all the girls I loved before. To all the girls I cheated on before.”
Panel 10 (Caption): “Here’s what happened, it wasn’t my intention. To fall into seduction while playing in temptation.”
Panel 11 (Caption): “Went with my feelings even though it wasn’t right. Creeping with my secret lover in the middle of the night.”
Panels 12-20 (Nine-Panel Grid Layout)
Lady Soul walks through the study of The Preacher’s Son’s mansion, her hand gently gliding across the mahogany table before reaching the reason for her mission: a honey-brown acoustic guitar enclosed in a glass case.
She approaches it with caution and takes the key from her necklace to unlock it. As she caresses her most-cherished possession, she reminisces about what could have been. The words softly falling out of her lips as her eyes start to glisten with tears of resignation and regret.
The last three panels show her about to escape through an opened window, until an unexpected visitor suddenly stops her in her tracks.
The Ghetto Supastar, forever the peaceful middleman stuck within the midst of a lovers’ quarrel, silently places Lady Soul’s head upon his chest, giving her the quiet reassurance she needs that somebody in their crew still cares about her. She softly smiles and waves goodbye, making her way back to her new home.
LADY SOUL (Singing Dialogue)
Panel 15 (Caption): “It could all be so simple…but you’d rather make it hard.”
Panel 16 (Caption): “Loving you is like a battle…and we both end up with scars.”
Panel 17 (Caption): “Tell me who I have to be…to get some reciprocity.”
Panels 21-25 (Horizontally-Split Page)
Having traded in his first mask for something less extravagant, The Preacher’s Son signals for everyone to clap their hands together and follow his call with a response.
The chants alternate as The Preacher’s Son basks in the success of his impromptu concert. Before he can repeat the call for a third time, he is stunned to silence when he catches Lady Soul wading through the crowd with her guitar.
A knowing glance passes between them across the last two panels as they inaudibly agree to move on and go their separate ways. A tumultuous affair brought to a tender end.
THE PREACHER’S SON & AUDIENCE (Singing Dialogue)
Panel 21 (Caption):
PREACHER’S SON: “Oh!”
AUDIENCE: “Ah!”
Panel 22 (Caption):
PREACHER’S SON: “Oh!”
AUDIENCE: “Ah!”
Panel 23 (Caption):
PREACHER’S SON: “O-”
Panels 26-28 (Vertically-Split Page)
Lady Soul arrives back home and places the guitar next to her baby’s crib.
She carries her son out of bed, cradling him between panels so that he can go back to sleep. As she does this, she cheerfully tells him about the importance of tonight’s events.
Ending the comic with a laugh, Lady Soul affectionately points down to the face that brings her the most joy. Her heart finally healed and filled with a new set of songs to sing.
LADY SOUL (Dialogue)
Panel 27:
Caption 1: “You see I loved hard once, but the love wasn’t returned.”
Caption 2: “I found out the man I’d die for, wasn’t even concerned.”
Caption 3: “Nothing left, he stole the heart from my chest.”
Caption 4: “But no man is ever worth the paradise, manifest.”
Panel 28:
Caption: “Except you, Zion.”
END
Further Reading
[1] Gavin Edwards, Wyclef Jean: Renaissance Man, Rolling Stone
[2] Jeff Weiss, Liner Notes: The Indescribable, Unlikely Magic Of The Score And The Fugees, Vinyl Me, Please
[3] Musa Okwonga, In ‘The Score,’ The Fugees Made Refugees The Heroes Of An Epic Tale, The Ringer
[4] Touré, Lauryn Hill: Lady Soul, Rolling Stone
Further Watching
[1] The Fugees In Haiti (1997)
[2] Guava Island (2019)
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I love this so much.
🔥🔥🔥🔥 - this is so clever and gripping! So damn good John!!!