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August 24, 2022
Toya Wolfe's Playlist for Her Novel "Last Summer on State Street"
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Toya Wolfe's novel Last Summer on State Street is a compassionately written ode to friendship and family, one of the year's most striking debuts.
Booklist wrote of the book:
"First-time novelist Wolfe writes with lacerating precision and authenticity…. In a fictional counterpart to Dawn Turner’s memoir, Three Girls from Bronzeville, Wolfe’s deeply compelling characters, sharply wrought settings, and tightly choreographed plot create a concentrated, significant, and unforgettable tale of family, home, racism, trauma, compassion, and transcendence."
In her own words, here is Toya Wolfe's Book Notes music playlist for her debut novel Last Summer on State Street:
I knew that coming up with a few songs for this playlist would be a difficult task, mostly because I’ve been surrounded by music since I left the womb! In my home, as a child, it was seventies R&B, “dusties” we’d soon start calling this music. As a tween, I still listened to R&B, but I traded in my mama’s music for my own: girl groups--like TLC, SWV and Xscape--that my friends and I could impersonate during Show & Tell and back in the building, but then, a strange passion for East Coast rap emerged. It was in direct conflict with my brother’s love of N.W.A. and MC Eiht.
When, at fourteen years old, I heard Nas’s Illmatic, suddenly, I realized that New Yorkers have projects too. That though I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, the Queensbridge Projects had the same strife, pungent scents, poverty and tight-knit community that I had experienced as a child.
A nineteen-year-old had recorded proof and slapped a pic of himself as a child with the block of projects in the background. This album would motivate me to tell my story of living in the Robert Taylor Homes someday. The album cover of Illmatic is a visual reminder that we grow up in places like this, and that some of us survive and grow up to actually live! While Nas didn’t make this playlist and “Nolia Clap” written about the Magnolia Projects in New Orleans didn’t either, I list them here in the intro because they were major influences that encouraged me to lay down my tracks about a building and its people, from a girl’s perspective. What follows are the eleven songs that I heard constantly as I drafted, then revised Last Summer on State Street.
"Bomb Intro/Pass That Dutch": Missy Elliott
The tick-tick-tick-tick sounds like plastic Double Dutch ropes slapping concrete. The song repeats “pass that Dutch” which is not referring to a rope, but rather, something that an adult can smoke, but the rhythm has always taken me back to fast feet jumping rope. And when I hear the word “Dutch” it makes me think of the rope game that I grew up playing nearly every day after school. Missy Elliott’s music was such an important soundtrack of my youth; we choreographed pep rally routines to her music, foot- worked, and of course danced. But I hear this song, and it is the opening song for this story.
“The Corner”: Common (produced by and featuring Kanye West)
This song, written and performed by Common, a Chicagoan, a South Sider to be specific, was a bit of an anthem for those of us who grew up in the city, and know what it’s like to navigate dudes draped around every inch of the block. Not only does this song conjure a sea of white tees and saggy-jeaned guys, it’s a song about a community, its problems, but also, its culture. When Kanye sings “I wish I could give you this feeling, I wish I could give you this feeling,” I know what he means. I wrote a whole novel set mostly outdoors, on corners, and I still can do only so much to give you this feeling.
“Golden Time of Day”: Maze, Frankie Beverly
This is the kind of song that my mama would play while I sat on the floor, clamped between her legs as she braided my hair. It was blast V103, a station in Chicago that played “dusties” from our stereo. This is a lovely song about sunset, so later, while I worked on draft after draft of Last Summer on State Street, and I realized there was this theme of sunset: the ending of an era, a neighborhood, friendships, a family dynasty, “Golden Time of Day” became a song that I associated with what happened to the Robert Taylor Homes and its residents.
“Where My Girls At”: 702
This is both an anthem of girlhood and also hints at something troubling: young Fe Fe, the narrator and protagonist of Last Summer on State Street spends the entire novel looking for her friends. Sometimes, they pop up and they play, but in other instances, she is not so successful at locating them. This song, written by Missy Elliott, also has such high energy and reminds me of the pacing of Fe Fe, Precious, Stacia, and Tonya, as they snap around the block in neon colors like a school of tropical fish.
“Children’s Story”: Slick Rick
This song reminds me of all of the oral storytelling that happened in my childhood but also, in my novel. I grew up singing this song, which later would remind me of Bigger, Richard Wright’s protagonist from Native Son, a Chicago literary classic. In my novel, an unlikely booklover tells bedtime stories to his younger siblings and there’s a bit of a spotlight on children’s books and a reference to Fahrenheit 451 and Madeline---see if you can find them!
“Makeda”: Les Nubians
I loved this song as a young adult; I still can’t speak French, but the mellow vibe in this song makes it a perfect tune for adult Fe Fe to play in her car as she travels up the gorgeous Lake Shore Drive [delete from] on her trip back home for the holidays. The song is actually about rekindling memories, so it’s quite on topic.
“Brighter Days”: Cajmere, Dajaé
This song, and others like it blasted from cars in the parking lot, apartment windows, and house parties. You felt the bass in your chest. You didn’t really understand what was being repeated, but it wasn’t about the lyrics. This song’s main purpose is to provide music that will make you dance until you sweat. No matter where you were: in your apartment, on the porch, walking to school, when you heard this song, you had to move something. More specifically, we did the Percolator to this song.
“The Crossroads”: Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
This is a song that, for most people, was the closest they would get to closure for the grief they felt for the friends and family they’d lost unexpectedly to gun and gang violence. For me, it is a song about a theological belief that there is a heaven and for the first time, we were having a dialog about it in a pretty secular format. An unlikely sermon on life after death from a group of rappers from Cleveland. When this song came out in 1999 it was a hit amongst the people in my community. It was a balm for their wounds.
“U.N.I.T.Y.”: Queen Latifah
I am so fortunate to live in a country that, for a time, encouraged female rappers and their positive messages. I grew up with Queen, MC Lyte, and Roxanne Shanté. When I was thirteen years old and living in a hypersexual community, this song gave me the weapon of language to tell people who made me uncomfortable that it wasn’t okay to make me feel this way. The adult protagonist in Last Summer on State Street talks about Name Calling…
“Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)”
Before Jay Z’s version of this song, this “anthem” was all about little, white orphan Annie. When Jay Z sampled it, slowing it down a bit and adding so much bass, it became a song for inner city folks. Being from “the school of the hard knocks” is a unifying experience. Jay Z grew up in the Marcy Housing Projects in Brooklyn and I imagine he experienced some of the same …. in the Robert Taylor Homes.
“U Got Me Up”: Dajaé
Once upon a time, in early August, there was a large African American parade. At this parade, you’d see marching bands, gymnasts, dance groups “footworking” and most importantly, my friends and I couldn’t wait to see the South Shore drill team. Half of the group twirled these faux rifles -they were in the front- and the other half, shiny flags. This song takes me back to one specific Bud Billiken Day Parade when the South Shore Drill Team used it for their performance. It would forever remind us of an incredible performance.
Toya Wolfe grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes on Chicago's South Side. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago. Her writing has appeared in African Voices, Chicago Journal, Chicago Reader, Hair Trigger 27, and WarpLand. She is the recipient of the Zora Neale Hurston-Bessie Head Fiction Award, the Union League Civic & Arts Foundation Short Story Competition, and the Betty Shifflett/John Schultz Short Story Award. She currently resides in Chicago. Last Summer on State Street is her debut novel. Visit her website: www.toyawolfe.com.
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