Bri as a trouble-maker
Bri is a good kid, but her home life is difficult. She is young, but yet, she is the responsible one in her home: her mother is barely functional and spends all her energy trying not to relapse back into her crack cocaine addiction, and the only other adult is Aunty Pooh who is a drug dealer. But, that doesn't stop the authorities at school from calling Bri a standard trouble-maker. In the public eye, she receives the same treatment, but of course she is not a trouble-maker, she is the victim of systemic issues.
The issue of guns
When Bri tries to make art about guns and violence, which she abhors, she casts herself in the role of a gun-toting gangster, in the same artistic style her father used. But, the issue of gun control quickly takes precedence, and the media paints her as a gun-supporter and hoodlum. The whole dilemma symbolizes the drama of guns in the public eye, but it also symbolizes the idea that society believes (in this novel) that of course Bri supports gun usage—she's a Black person from the Hood, and she's a rapper. She realizes that she doesn't really have a lot of power over how her art is perceived.
The fights
Bri's difficult life is painted in symbols. When she gets in fights at school, that can be seen as a symbolic portrayal of the brokenness in her culture, and also it shows the stakes of her daily life. How many people really understand what it's like to be forced into violent combat, just to go to school? But in her community, the fights are an everyday part of life. They symbolize the Darwinism of the ghetto.
Bri as an archetype
Bri serves the narrative by becoming an archetypal character over time. Through empathizing with Bri, the reader begins to understand the systemic issues around fame and the historical disenfranchisement of Black people in popular media. Her story shows that the culture is really only interested in Bri's story if they can cast her as a trouble-making menace to society.
The death of the 'gangster' father
In this story, Bri loses her father in a horrific instance of gang violence. The public treats him as a kind of menace, suggesting that perhaps he earned his execution, but Bri knows the true sorrow of his death, and she sees the truth about his death. He is not a martyr for hoodlum nonsense, as the public depicts. He is a martyr of the systemic injustice of his community. Her music is an attempt to capture that martyrdom, but she ends up martyring herself too, in different ways.
