Generally, 16-year-olds don't get advice from five-year-olds, but since Lil' Robert Ludlow popped up pretty much whenever and wherever he wanted in the homes of his neighbors the Trents, and since the Trents' cousin Tom Stepforth III was there, perplexed, things happened.
“Melvin,” Tom was saying to his 21-year-old cousin Melvin Trent, “I don't get it. I'm still doing all my high school work and keeping up and working, and I thought I had friends who would be supportive and understanding!”
“Join the club, man,” Melvin said as he opened the door to the home studio. “You have friends as long as everybody feels you are at their level – but when you level up, they start acting funny style, so, they get to do that and you get to keep leveling up.”
“But what do you even say to them?” Tom said.
“Even I don't always have the answer to that one, so I've learned to say less,” Melvin said, and then had to act fast as Lil' Robert came running off the porch and had to be picked up before he could knock both Tom and Melvin's legs out from under them.
“But I have it!” Lil' Robert said.
“You do?” Tom and Melvin said.
“Yes, I do!” Lil' Robert said, “because, see, this one time my brother George was picking on me for being too small for basketball, so I blocked all the rest of his shots and told him, 'Beat that!' So that's what you gotta do: you gotta do your thing and tell folks to beat that!”
Melvin and Tom looked at each other, and then Melvin smiled.
“That deserves a beat, though,” he said, and went to his board and picked one out he thought would work, and it did, because Lil' Robert grinned and freestyled it.
“Beat that – beat that!
Talkin' all tough
Beat that – beat that!
While I do stuff
Beat that – beat that!
Trying to down me
Beat that – beat that!
But you gon' see!
Beat that – beat that – yeah – beat that – beat that!”
And thus began another hit that would crack up the Trents, the Stepforths, the Ludlows, and the Lees for years to come.
But...
“We can't even tell him how you can have the attitude but you'll get shot in these streets for saying all that,” Tom said.
“Nope, that's not Lil' Robert's burden for at least a decade,” Melvin said. “But you have the right idea because he absolutely has the right attitude. Say less and do more, Tom. That's the grown man's answer.”