Music Meets Literature: Nick Brooks’ ‘Up in Smoke’
The book and album are out now.
When you’re a multidisciplinary artist, there are infinite ways to integrate different passions, talents, and careers. Nick Brooks combined media that may have never been done before: music and literature. In his new book, Up in Smoke, Brooks created a realistic yet edge-of-your-seat thriller about a young Black man in Washington, D.C. named Cooper King, whose activism becomes a love story.
King and his friend Jason, whom he sees as a big brother, looted a store during a march. Everything was going smoothly until four teens wearing ski masks started shooting in the store they’re looting, and someone died. While the guys in the ski masks got away, Jason, who was not involved, was arrested as a suspect.
King and Jason’s sister, Monique, team up to clear Jason’s name and find the killers. However, throughout this mission, King falls even harder for Monique, his longtime crush. It gets even more complicated: King hides the fact that he was at the crime scene. King knows that if he reveals his being there, Monique will never forgive him, and he and Jason can face time for a crime they didn’t commit.
Brooks, an award-winning author, filmmaker, and musician, accompanied the book with a 12-track album also titled Up in Smoke. With features including D Smoke, Boldy James, and Fat Trel, the Up in Smoke album tells the story of the novel, as well as gives readers clues as to who the murderer really was. Both the novel and the album tell stories of close-to-home themes, such as self-identity, problem-solving, resilience, ambition, and the harsh reality of the police state.
Brooks spoke with 1202 MAGAZINE on his devotion to his many facets as an artist, the feedback he’s received since fusing a novel with an album, and how he continues to tell Black stories, whether it be our hardships or achievements.
What is Up in Smoke about?
It’s a young adult murder-mystery about two friends, Cooper and Monique, who are solving a murder that happens at a Black Lives Matter protest. The protest happened on Eighth Street in D.C., which is one of the main thoroughfares in the city. Monique’s big brother had been arrested for the murder, which is one of Cooper’s best friends in the neighborhood. Jason also implicates Cooper, so that’s why he needs to figure out what’s going on, because he could potentially go down as an accessory to murder.
Jason swears he’s being framed, and in the midst of that, they’re uncovering corrupt police, a revolutionary group beneath the surface of the city, and love for one another. There’s romance at the center of the story between Cooper and Monique. It’s a dope story with great thrills and a lot of twists.
Unfortunately, these situations are common between the police and the Black community. Is this based on a true story?
Loosely. For example, at the beginning of the book, the protest is for a young kid named Samir, who was killed, which is a call to Tamir Rice, who was 12 years old when the police killed him. There were also a few people who died under suspicious circumstances during the Mike Brown protests, like DeAndre Joshua. That’s also mentioned in the book, but for the most part, it was fictionalized.
What inspired you to write a book about this?
I was on tour for one of my previous books, Promise Boys. While I was in Chicago, a young lady stood up in the crowd. I go to a lot of high schools, so I was in the auditorium. She stood up and said, ‘How do we combat systemic oppression?’ There were chuckles from the kids, and the adults were horrified because it was crazy that she even had to ask that, but it was also really powerful that that was on her mind.
Seeing and hearing that and trying to have a dialogue with her about it inspired me to write this story. Kids are ready to talk about this. They’re ready to talk about what it means to be a young activist and revolutionary. You see the political climate. A four-year-old boy with stage-four cancer got deported. The political climate is crazy right now, so this is about the idea of revolution, togetherness, unity, and activism.
You accompanied the book with a hip-hop album. How did that come to life? Did you know you wanted to combine the two, or was it an afterthought?
It definitely wasn’t something I conceived of at the same time as the book. It was something that grew out of the writing. When traveling around for my different books, kids always ask me to rap because it’s part of my introduction. Kids are always much more interested in that initially, until they read the book. I grew up idolizing hip-hop artists; for me, it’s about making that connection. How do we open a door for kids to want to read, and think that literacy is for them, and that it’s cool? One way is to pair it with this hip-hop album. They often want to read the book when they hear the music, and it connects. Outside of trying to bring kids into the world of literacy, it’s also trying to cut through the noise. I was thinking about what’s never been done and what’s unique.
Are there any other creative mediums you want to explore and combine?
We wrote my last book for Netflix, and the Obamas produced it. For most authors, adaptations of their work are the gold standard. Adapting books into long-form TV or film is always a goal. Once you get there, it also makes sense to do the music.
How did you get into all these creative facets, and how do you keep them cohesive?
I came up rapping, thinking that was gonna be the thing. When that didn’t happen, I went to film school for the sake of time. After college, I started teaching. While I was teaching elementary school, I began writing children’s books. The kids connected with books where the characters looked like them. When my school noticed that, they gave me money to have my books officially illustrated and self-published. That’s when I formally started writing books. Before that, I grew up writing lyrics and telling stories through music.
That took me on a journey to go beyond writing books for classrooms. Ryan Coogler wrote Fruitvale Station, and I thought it was so dope. It was my first time learning about him, and I’ve always been a huge movie buff. I have a wall of DVDs in my garage. Ryan was the first director who made me feel like I could also be a director, so I followed the path, applied to film school, made a short film, and it got me a full scholarship from George Lucas to USC. I left when the pandemic hit and everything was shut down.
That’s how I got into writing books and music. By 2020, I will have put out my first EP. By 2022, I had secured a publishing deal for four novels. Between 2020 and 2022, I wrote two novels, one becoming a three-book deal: Promise Boys. I published those as Hollywood was opening back up, and then I got a job on The Mandalorian. I’m constantly trying different things. At this point, Up in Smoke is my fifth novel, and this is my first official album. I also did music for They Cloned Tyrone and The Cypher on HBO. As far as keeping it cohesive, it’s knocking out projects by project to make sure I complete something.
Finishing projects can be so difficult.
It is tough. Luckily, I’ve had a lot of practice with music and making mixtapes. It’s how my brain’s wired. Being an independent hip-hop artist gives you the most experience at being a creative because you’re writing and recording music, shooting photos for album covers, and shooting music videos. You’re really touching on it all, and you have to complete it.
Is there anyone you want to work with regarding any creative medium?
There are so many different capacities in TV and film, so even somebody like Ryan (Coogler), with whom I’ve had the pleasure of working. When I interned at Spring Hill, which is LeBron’s company, he produced Space Jam, and I got to work with and assist him. He’s somebody I would look to to do an EP on something I’m doing. Schoolboy Q is also somebody I want to work with, as well as Brent Faiyaz and Pusha T.
When it comes to feedback on the book and album, would you say one has led to the other?
I’m more known as an author and have a bigger fan base for that. There are also people who know me as a rapper. More people know me as the author, which is dope because it introduces them to the music. People who don’t know who I am, my hope is that once people like parents, teachers, and librarians hear that there’s an author with a book and album, it will make people want to read it. They feed into each other.
How do you want to convey Black experiences to non-Black readers?
Hopefully, the books clarify many of these things for them. I hope they walk away with a better understanding of policing and police brutality.
