How Not to Be a Rap Star

Mussan walks through the doors of Chapman Studios in downtown Kansas City wearing a lush, cream-colored hoodie. A thick dude who goes by the name Donta Slusha is eating potato chips in the studio's luxurious kitchen area, all exposed brick, rock counters and glass. Donta Slusha hands Mussan a CD in a plastic sleeve, and Mussan goes to another room, with a wall full of audio equipment, to play the beats.

Lounging around the studio are several other artists, including Big Ben, a rapper, and S.G., a producer. Everyone is here because a formidable Kansas City rapper called the Popper asked them to be guests on his upcoming mixtape.

"Slush, who made these?" Mussan calls out after a few minutes.

"My lil' cousin," Slusha calls back.

"How much he charge?"

"Fifty."

Mussan wanders back in, disc in hand. "I guess I wanna be a rapper again."

Suddenly, the Popper bursts into the room from behind double soundproof doors. "You ready?" he asks Mussan.

Mussan tells the Popper that his verse isn't ready yet.

"He ain't got his verse for me. See how they do me?" the Popper says loudly. He sighs theatrically and goes back through the double doors.

"Is he for real?" Mussan asks, wondering if he has really pissed off their host.

"Nah," Slusha says.

In the recording room, a sound engineer sits behind several monitors and a soundboard covered in knobs. A monitor above the engineer's head shows a live camera feed from the studio's front door in order to see who's coming and going at all times. A glass window separates the recording equipment from the booth. The Popper's allotted studio time ticks down in red LED numbers on a screen.

Big Ben is in the booth, attacking the microphone's pop screen with a barrage of quick-spit lyrics. When he's finished, Mussan is up. The Popper lounges, wide-legged on a black-leather couch, and looks at Mussan expectantly.

Mussan steps into the booth and smoothes a crumpled piece of paper on which he has inked a verse in less than an hour.

The engineer presses "play" on the beat, and Mussan's head starts bobbing. He runs through his sheet of lyrics almost flawlessly on the first take — no stumbles.

The lines are metaphorical, their meaning veiled, but it's clear by the end that Mussan is rapping about being a pimp. By the time he's halfway finished, his audience has grown — everyone in the building has crowded into the studio to hear Mussan's perfect pronunciation.

"I can't rap that clear," the Popper marvels.

Mussan has been in the studio ever since. His new mixtape, KC Landmarks and Final Track Records Present Bad News Volume II, comes out this month, and he'll release a compilation, Two Cities, One State, on Final Track Records shortly after.