THE INTERVIEW WITH DANIELLE SANTIAGO!

THE
SPECIAL DANIELLE SANTIAGO INSTALLMENT OF
LITERARY HOOD
Let’s call this one Grindin’ Dirty. Written by your friendly neighborhood author,
Brandon McCalla


Salutations ladies n germs and welcome to another installment of the almighty literary hood column. In the last installment of i.b Concept Magazine I touched on the whole book groupie and book club situation. I told you that I was gonna tell you one of my personal stories involving book hoochies and I told you to cop that next issue of i.b for the nasty details. Alas peoples I cannot do that. Why can’t I do that you ask?
Well for starters the story I was gonna tell you is from a book I’ve written titled The Book Club and as we speak it’s in the process of getting published. Ergo, I was informed to keep things associated with the book in question hush, hush till its release. We have thought up a few good marketing schemes and well, I’ve decided to keep things suspenseful till things are completely underway. The Book Club is a true story about a series of situations yours truly had with a few of the more dastardly scalawags in the urban literary game. So be patient and prepare yourselves for one of the most interesting reads in your shallow existences. Till then I got something equally great for you to quench your thirst with.
This is a special literary hood and if you’ve followed my column within the pages of i.b Concept since the beginning you’ll know why. First off not since K’wan have I conducted an interview within literary hood. You know how I winded up doing things; I started making the author interviews an individual entity. Now I have another column in this magazine and I’m interviewing music industry people and entertainers, I upped the ante. Nevertheless, I got the opportunity to chat with Danielle Santiago and well, I decided to bring literary hood back to its original grind. Not since Tu Shonda Whitaker have I ever done an interview over the phone. Remember I hate doing interviews over the phone. I prefer them in person utilizing my digital voice recorder for so many reasons I won’t even bore you with one of them. Just bare in mind that I’m only doing this because the interview is with Danielle Santiago. I like this broad and I would accommodate her anyway possible.
Let me give you the run down. Boom! I called Danielle about a month ago and her number was changed so I couldn’t reach her. I just wanted to shoot the breeze a bit since her new book Grindin’ is out and now she’s on a bigger publishing house [Atria]. Danielle originally pressed her first novel Little Ghetto Girl independently.
I met Danielle in the latter part of 2004 and we both were in the urban fiction hustle. We shared the same publicist and crossed paths in a dozen or more functions and events. We both, I would imagine have a very different interpretation of the industry now then we did back then. You guys know how I feel about various situations in this business from the book clubs to those nasty African book vendors. I wanted to know what Danielle thought. So I called up our mutual publicist and asked her for Danielle’s new number. She gave me those digits and I called Danielle. Danielle and I played phone tag for a minute then we scheduled something and of course I didn’t follow up. And then I didn’t follow up again. Just when Danielle was like “this nigga Brandon is a big loser and a cornball” I called her up, apologized and redeemed myself. I aint never gonna be a loser or a cornball people. I started the interview.
BMc: Remember Danielle, I hate having to type while someone talks via phone conversation. This is not the way an interview should be conducted. Sometimes you just gotta make due though. Just talk real slow when you say shit. I just smoked a blunt so I’m thinking in slow motion anyway. But it’s all good… I just read you the column’s monologue, has your interpretation or attitude about the urban literary circuit changed or do you feel the same way you felt about it back when I met you in 2004, in Philly.
Danielle: How did I feel back then? Do you remember… it’s changed I turned back into a bitch again, like back in the streets. When we met back in 2004, I knew the whole shady situation with the book distributors so that didn’t startle me the way it did a few other authors. But I was affected by it just like a lot of other people.
BMc: Right the whole Culture Plus thing, I used to think they were the shadiest thing going down but there is a lot of shade in this industry more shade than sunshine. But you hustle hard. I see you so I know. But now you don’t have to hustle as hard I would imagine because now you are on Atria. What’s the difference between the major and minor publishing situation.
Danielle: It’s better on the major level but it’s different because you can’t go out and grab like three cases of books and sell them on 125th street like I used to with Little Ghetto Girl. The majors still aint quite sure how to promote urban books. The only reason my independent publishing situation had problems was because distributors tend to jerk the small publishing companies. They send you post dated checks and if you’re lucky they won’t bounce. That can really urge you to seek major publishing representation [if you can get it] but then once on a major you loose a bit of control. You can’t hustle the way you used to because your books aint as easily accessible as they used to be. The street literary game is all about the Grind. You gotta go out and mix it up with the people and do all the events. That’s how you survive and sell books. Books don’t sell themselves in this genre.
BMc: When did Grindin come out exactly?
Danielle: April 11th. 2006
BMc: I had two problems with your book initially, the fact that Grindin’ was released as a hardcover. I know how hard it is to sell hardcover in our genre.
Danielle: Ok. I know what you mean by hardcover but Grindin’ was received extremely well. I know hardcover in urban lit has always been a problem but if your product is good and the product is properly promoted you can move over that hump. It’s only a small set back and you can get [Grindin’] for 14.95 on amazon.com after all the money they take off. And major publishers generally release the paperback version a year after the hardcover is released. What’s the second problem you had?
BMc: The second problem isn’t actually a problem. What I should have said was now you’re a problem. You’re a problem because I enjoyed your sophomore book. And that’s only a problem because though they call the bulk of these urban and street books hip hop fiction most of them don’t have anything to do with hip hop or the music industry per say. Hip hop isn’t gold digging hoochies and Niggas just getting out of jail, going back to the block and eventually getting seduced by the hustling racket. Hip hop isn’t some raunchy scenario about a married dame running around getting banged out by every dude on her block or at the office either. And it definitely aint these books with all of these characters killing and murdering at random and getting away with it. Hip hop isn’t these authors’ street books with the blaxploitated covers and cliché titles and rap song titles. Hip hop is beyond all of that but this interview isn’t about hip hop, it’s about you. You represented the music industry highs and lows for a woman in Grindin’ and kept it gangsta and made the pages between the cover and the back of the book interesting. I know only a handful of urban books that can truly be called hip hop fiction. Your book is one, my diamond series another and a couple of other books like Bling, though Bling was wack. You’re a problem now because I never though of you as competition till now. Now I gotta keep an eye on you.
Danielle: So I’m a problem now Brandon (laughing)?
BMc: Yup. Grindin’ is a very good look. I even love the cover. Now I’m forced to praise another urban author, you. There are only a handful of us who are true writers and I’m convinced you are one of them. Now you have officially become a peer and equal. Danielle I couldn’t get past the first couple of chapters in half of the urban books that hit my desk this year. What inspired you to write something I actually enjoyed [Grindin’]?
Danielle: Maybe the same thing that inspired you to write the diamond series. I dabbled in the music industry just like you. I interned at a record label during the time where things were getting slow for them and I might have dated a rapper or two (laughing). Most people don’t realize that these entertainers have lives beyond what the paparazzi snap pictures of and Grindin’ is about the life of an inspiring rapper. The main character in Grindin’ lived a crazy street life and when she gets her chance to become what she always wanted to become [rapper] and she moves away from the streets she realizes that the music business is just as if not more so of a hustle and just as dangerous and crazy as the streets.
BMc: The book is crazy. There are a few things that I wanna talk to you about but at the same time I don’t wanna reveal anything about the book to the readers. So now I’m in a bit of a quagmire.
Danielle: (laughing)
BMc: How about this though. Kisa, who’s the main character in your Essence bestselling Little Ghetto Girl, makes a cameo appearance in Grindin’. Anyone who knows me knows I love cameos and Grindin’ has similarities to the diamond series because of that. I liked the fact that Kisa showed up. Touch on that.
Danielle: Actually Grindin’ is apart of my Harlem Story Series and Kisa is related to Kennedy. In the third Harlem Story installment both of them will play a part.
BMc: That’s cool because so many people enjoyed Little Ghetto Girl. I like the way you did it because now the last book in your series won’t actually be a damn sequel; It is gonna be a new story involving the same characters. Not exactly some where we left off shit but more like here is another tale involving the characters you read and loved… but don’t get it twisted the saga continues. I got a synopsis of Grindin’ in my Words of Art segment in i.b C; let’s talk about your book cover. Book covers are so damn important they can make or break your book. They always say don’t judge a book by its cover but in the urban lit world a lot of consumers purchase books on the way the cover looks alone. Are you happy with the Grindin’ cover?
Danielle: Yes. Grindin’ has an excellent cover. Shannon Holmes [B More Careful, Bad Girls] put me on to the whole cover situation a while back. When I just started hustling Little Ghetto Girl he told me, “I got your book. You gotta change your cover.” Covers are so damn important. Atria is gonna release Little Ghetto Girl again with a new beautiful cover.
BMc: You sent me a jpeg of that cover and I love it.
Danielle: Thanks Bee, I’m proud of it.
BMc: You should be. Shannon Holmes put my first book’s cover [Diamond Drought] on blast also. He said something along the lines of, “Someone told me that you are one of the better urban writers, but your cover is bad, but I’ve seen worse.” I frowned at him but he was right. I upped the ante on my book covers thanks to Shannon.
Danielle: Sometimes your graphical options are quite limited when you start out independently published. Better book covers is a major publishing representation perk. There are good points and bad points no matter how you turn, whether with a major or doing it on your own. You gotta know your strengths and weaknesses and work with them till something better presents itself. And keep hustling regardless of all of that. It’s just like the street game. Everyone gotta have there angle. I know a lot of writers that can’t write better than you or me but they got in the game earlier or were simply represented more thoroughly. So consumers will follow the hype though at the end of it all, talent will shine though. It just takes time.
BMc: You’re right, especially about me being one of the best and you two. And your right about the whole cover situation being so damn important.
Danielle: (laughing) the urban fiction genre may not be hip hop but it’s definitely like the rap game and the drug game, representation is so important.
BMc: You are right. It is so close to the music industry [urban fiction]. Like take Jay-Z for instance. He was the underdog once upon a time. No one wanted to sign him when he was shopping the Reasonable Doubt album. He had to do it himself. He was out in Brooklyn putting up his own posters and fliers n shit… I feel like early Jay-Z dude right now. My next book Blackout is gonna be just like Reasonable Doubt.
Danielle: That’s true about Jay. A lot of publishers don’t know how to push books properly. They will push an urban book like a chic lit book or try to move a hip hop based storyline like a Triple Crown book. Every genre has its own outlet and own moving space. African American literature is so big now, so deep we got multiple genres within the urban genre now much less all the others.
BMc: My publisher didn’t handle the diamond series properly. The diamond books should have been promoted in hip hop magazines. Bling was pushed in hip hop magazines but it didn’t make a dent because it was a weak and corny representation of the hip hop culture. Grindin’ is a strong representation. I want everyone to know that.
Danielle: Thanks Brandon.
BMc: Naw, thank you. I was beginning to give up on the whole urban fiction situation. You just sparked some of the charcoal under my grill. People need to realize that when your publishing house hasn’t the money or doesn’t wanna push your book promotionally in a big way, it will stay small. But enough about the business any last words lovely lady.
Danielle: I want everyone to go out and cop Grindin’. I know everyone is gonna enjoy it. I put some hard work in.
BMc: True story.
Danielle: I wanna let everybody know that Little Ghetto Girl has gotten a makeover, new cover and better editing. It’s completely and utterly revamped courtesies of Atria. It looks and reads like a brand new book. Look for that in January 2007.
BMc: Danielle I was gonna get into your ghost writing career but I wanna fall back on that till I interview you again. Then we can put a few authors on blast. We gotta save some heat for future installments of the column. I guess I’ll see you at the Harlem Book Fair this year and then shit when Little Ghetto Girl drops, I’ll see you again.
Danielle: Yeah, let’s save a little bit for later. Peace literary hooderz…

Make sure you check out the Words of Art segment where both Danielle’s first book Little Ghetto Girl (well it’s like her third book now since it’s the revised major published version of her first book) and her latest book cover are displayed for your viewing pleasure (covers buddy, not naked flicks of Danielle. You got enough thighs and booty in i.b C as is).
You guys know the magic word,

UNO