Thinking of a Master Plan

By Kayona Ebony Brown

Washington, DC might be the gayest place in America. It’s the city with the highest number of same-sex relationships, but the lowest (straight) marriage rate in the country.

Now, imagine being a young, single, straight woman, trying to play as an obvious underdog in DC’s dating game, while also struggling to build a business in music in a town that’s setup for legislation and politics, not entertainment.

Of Music & Men is an episodic novella series created by Kayona Ebony Brown that takes you into the lives of a diverse ensemble of interconnected millennials navigating the country’s bleakest dating scene, while delving intimately into the life of Kenya Shaw, an aspiring music mogul whose big dreams may outweigh her ability to fulfill them.

In episode one, Thinking of a Master Plan, for Kenya Shaw, it’s been four years now trying to establish her independent record label from the basement of her father’s house, but when opportunities for commercial success finally appear tangible, she decides to detour from her original course with the hopes of getting her company to the next level. She soon discovers that planning success is futile.

Throughout the series, you get to see the inner-workings of the independent music scene, and how a unique millennial and her single friends try to find love within the bleakest dating scene in the country.

No money, no support, no connections, not to mention she’s in the “wrong town” for this kind of thing, right? With an unforgettable cast of characters, Of Music and Men is the story of what it’s like for relatively new adults struggling to understand these new rules of life, love, and independence.

Kenya takes you on her journey through the early years of entrepreneurship, and you experience the indelible impression her family, friendships and relationships have on her maturation... both with music and with men.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kayona Ebony Brown
• Release date: Sep 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9780978672577

Kayona Ebony Brown

Kayona Ebony Brown is a multi-hyphenate artist and entrepreneur whose mission is fueled by one desire—to tell great stories. As a filmmaker, writer, and actor, Kayona is building the foundation for an independent conglomerate that not only helps the career of other artists, but also creates jobs and offers philanthropic support through the messages of wealth, health, and wellness. Launching her career as a DJ put her on a path to expand upon her talents in the arts, which started with the publishing of her first novel, Tenth Letter.Now, in addition to her work as an artist/entertainer, she hosts events, is a speaker on topics in business, entertainment, and personal development, and uses her voice in branding and broadcasting arenas. From training with major networks to having her work seen and recognized internationally, Kayona is just getting started. In 2017, she was recognized as Filmmaker of the Month by DC’s Office of Cable, TV, Film, Music and Entertainment. You can find more info about her work on her website: kayonaebonybrown.com.Kayona currently lives in her native Washington, DC where she’s building her media and entertainment empire, Siingle, a company she models after those built by two of her greatest influences, Oprah Winfrey and Sir Richard Branson.

Book preview

Kayona Ebony Brown

Thinking of a

Master Plan

Episode one of the novella series:

Of Music and Men

Contents

Title page

Contents

Author’s note

You like funny stories?

The Blueprint

Victims. Perps. And me.

And men…

Take Taj Kamal, for instance

That brown box

The fair weather bachelor

Good hair

A LoveHate Thing

Never Say Never

Little Miss Nobody

About the Author

Copyright

Greatness is the sum of all the years,

all the months,

all the days,

all the hours,

all the minutes and the seconds

that you didn’t give up.

You like funny stories?

Picture a brown box, unassuming and unpretentious in its presentation, yet massive and statuesque sitting on the corner of V and 9th streets Northwest. You would never know what goes on inside unless you already know what’s going on inside.

That’s what you get from this DC landmark. A building: no signage, no windows, no impression that it even wants anything to do with you… Until it opens up and lets you in.

Now on the inside… well, that’s another story. Because inside is a story, decades in the making. It’s history, romance, drama, and action all packed into a big brown box. Today, it’s a Washington monument, right up there with the original Ben’s Chili Bowl and The White House.

It’s the place Alanis Morisette rocked when she was testing songs that ended up becoming Jagged Little Pill. Where Dave Grohl wasn’t the Dave Grohl yet when he first blessed the stage, but just another kid from down the street who eventually got his shot with Dain Bramage, which was before Foo Fighters, before Nirvana, hell, even before his Scream days. The place where Public Enemy felt compelled to give a preview of their eventual hit, 9-1-1 Is A Joke (because, you know, only in 1989 was that the case).

So there I was, standing in front of the general manager of this epic place, putting forth my best effort to try and become a part of this history. What better way to get on a person’s good side than to tell them a story, especially one that contained something in it for them at the end? People in power always like it when there’s something in it for them.

And so that’s why I asked: You like funny stories?

I didn’t wait for her to reply before I went on: I don’t mean funny ha ha. I mean funny like serendipitous, meant-to-be type funny. The kind of funny that makes you believe that someone somewhere is looking out for you.

She gave me her attention through squinted eyes that actually kind of made me a bit nervous. If she was older than 50, then she was very active for her age. She was tall, although not awkwardly so, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out that she’d been a decent basketball player at one point in her life. The music geek in me naturally thought of Sue Sylvester from Glee, which didn’t help the intimidation factor. But I took a quick breath and refocused on my story. It was a good story—one with the kind of ending that might earn me a lifelong friend in this woman!

I proceeded with confidence—head up, shoulders back… So last night, an old mid-sized luxury sedan that had aged pretty well considering the mileage, was cruising along Lime Kiln Road in Leesburg, Virginia when suddenly it smashed right into a deer. Or a deer smashed into it. Either way, there was an accident. The driver wasn’t hurt though. Thank goodness. In fact, he got out of the car when he realized that it wasn’t going to move because of the carcass trapped, literally stuck to the frame, underneath it…

I felt her impatience looming as she started to take a deep sigh.

Wait, it gets better, I interrupted. So apparently someone called the cops, because they got there in minutes, and they immediately caught the stench of alcohol emanating from him with every breath. He was less than a mile away from his house and they arrested him for driving under the influence. Can you believe that? By the way, the deer didn’t die from the hit, but the cop had to put it out of its misery—

Got about 90 seconds, she cut in.

The driver… was 23-year-old Jim Nightengale, I revealed, fighting the urge to smile as she stared at me for a moment before dropping her head with another exasperated deep breath.

She obviously already knew what I was telling her, but now she knew that I knew. But I finished anyway, you know, for good measure:

"Oh yeah, he was also driving on a suspended license. So. Can’t leave the state of Virginia anytime soon. Now here’s the funny part. Not ha ha, but the other funny. Gavin Degraw is going to be here this weekend—"

And without warning, she just walked away from me. But I felt like I had her on the ropes now! I was this close to getting what I came for, so I followed, walking closely behind her, still talking.

"And since Jim Nightengale is obviously going to