Chapter 2

Apollo Knight is the most talented producer nobody's heard of — and he prefers it that way. Raised by his jazz-legend grandmother in Berkeley after his mother abandoned him at age five, Apollo poured everything he couldn't say out loud into his music. Now twenty-five, he runs BeatBoxx Studios out of his grandmother's garage, producing hits for street rappers while quietly dreaming of something bigger. His partner, Grimey, is everything Apollo isn't — loud, ambitious, and willing to cut any corner to get paid. When Grimey starts pushing Apollo toward Street Lyfe Records, a label with a reputation for stealing beats and dodging the IRS, Apollo's instincts tell him to walk. But walking away from Grimey was never simple. Set against the gritty, soulful backdrop of Oakland's music scene — from the recording booths of Berkeley to the jazz clubs of West Oakland's Seventh Street — Bullets & Ballads is a story about talent versus hustle, loyalty versus survival, and one man trying to protect the only thing nobody can take from him: his music.