Her friend Jalen sent a file — a voice memo captured under a streetlight, low and hesitant. He wanted to be part of the piece, to leave a mark that wasn’t polished into something else. Mara imported it and, rather than bury it in reverb or autotune it into a sheen, she placed it front and center. She trimmed, nudged, then looped a fragment: his syllables fractured into a rhythm that sounded like footsteps. The process felt like translation more than production; she was not correcting him, just re-reading his breath.