In the underground battle rap circuit of Atlanta, they call it the Frequency - a force that lives inside the bars, something older than hip hop, older than the blues, older than anyone can name. When a rapper locks into it, the room changes. The air changes. People collapse. People seize. People die. Isaiah "Prophet" Drummond doesn't want to rap. But the Frequency lives in him, and every time he steps into the cipher, someone hits the floor. He can't control it. He can't explain it. And when the bodies start adding up and the wrong people start paying attention, he can't outrun it either. From the rust-and-religion warehouses of East Point to a secret summit where the truth about the old sound is finally spoken, Dead Bars is a dark, propulsive novel about the supernatural weight of Black musical tradition, the price of a gift you never asked for, and what happens when the thing that makes you great is the same thing that kills. Book One of The Frequency.

Darryl Wayne Townsend Jr. is the author of seventeen books spanning literary fiction, thrillers, novellas, and nonfiction. His work lives in the spaces between people ? the things they can't say, the things they won't say, and the things they say to the wrong person. His novels include Still Water, Rare Pull, Taylor, Glass Empire, and Heavy Load. His nonfiction includes The Catalog Mindset and Don't Blow the Bag. He is the founder of Polymath Portfolio Group LLC and hosts the podcast Wait a Minute, Bitch on Spotify. He lives in Seattle. He is not done.