Photos by Jared Soares | The Roanoke Times

Roanoke singer Range da Messenga (Wayne Hancock II) cuddles his daughter Zion, 3. He plans to follow his dream of success to California.

Range whispers to his girlfriend, Terrina Edwards, on Wednesday night at 202 Market in Roanoke as she visits from San Diego.

Range pauses during a sound check before being the opening act for Grammy Award-winning rapper Lupe Fiasco at Ferrum College in April.

Range chats with Cameron McLaughlin before opening for Grammy Award-winning rapper Lupe Fiasco at Ferrum College at an April performance. Range said at first he was disappointed in the cool reception he got from the crowd, but then he realized that Fiasco fared little better.

Range walks his daughter Zion, 3, home from Eureka Park on Friday morning. Because he works nights, Range is only able to spend mornings with his daughter. He said the hardest part of his trip will be leaving Zion behind, but he sees the move as an investment in her future — in his ability to take care of her — as well as an investment in his dream of having a career in the music industry.

Range, in his role as Mr. Hancock at Hurt Park Elementary, asks third-grader Lamar Lemon if he is prepared for after-school tutoring. Hancock has worked in the Roanoke City Public Schools' after-school program for the past few years.

Range joins hands with his mother, Joyce, and father, Wayne Hancock, and his daughter Zion, 3, in prayer before breakfast. Range says his family has been completely supportive of his plans. In fact, his father was the one who suggested that Range head west to join his new girlfriend and find out for sure if he has the makings of a professional singer.

Track 1: Intro

A man needs to leave this city if he wants to succeed. For school, for a glimpse of what he can do, for a little while anyway.

That is the conclusion of Wayne Hancock II -- singer, emcee and dreadlocked philosopher, known to audiences as Range da Messenga -- and he is on his way.

Range is leaving Roanoke, where he was born and sang a thousand hymns. He is leaving his daughter, Zion, the 3-year-old whose name is tattooed on his chest. He is leaving the tidy brick house on Rugby Boulevard in Northwest where he grew up.

He has judged his options and, simple as a haiku, decided against a day job.

"Most people go to work. Pay bills. Have a few drinks. Have a few kids. Live with regrets and die," Range said. "I refuse for my life to be that way."

So he is going to California, that land of big dreams. His girlfriend is there. So are the stages of a new city, where the right person might hear him sing.

That is the story. A man with music and a desire, seeking his fortune on the West Coast.

All messengers, including da Messenga, bring a message. This is his: Let me sing and get paid to do it.

Track 2: Give me a chance

"Vocally, he's a beast."

This is a young producer named Ben Hazelgrove on a recent afternoon. He stands on the deck of a house overlooking Smith Mountain Lake. Speedboats cross the water below.

Inside, Range sits in front of a huge flat-screen TV with a friend, Monte Gill, the two fiddling with a pair of Xbox controllers. One of Hazelgrove's concoctions, a futuristic rhythm and blues beat, pumps out of a bank of electronics.

Shortly, Hazelgrove steps up to a synthesizer and taps out a flute part. Range and Gill have been battling over a basketball game for a half-hour. But they like the flute. Their teasing turns to singing:

"I will do all the things you like."

"Baby."

"I will do all the things you like."

"Baby."

"Give me a chance."

This is not a sing-along. Range and Gill's voices twist out perfect harmonies at tight intervals and it looks effortless. Their eyes never leave the TV screen.

And know this: There are people in the room who have sold music to singers you may have heard of for tens of thousands of dollars.

Range da Roanoker is not one of them.

When he flies out of here it will be on a Wednesday, he said, one of these Wednesdays. Flights are the cheapest on Wednesday.

Track 3: The early days

Range often says, "We are products of our environment."

He is 31 years old, natural baritone-bass, single father, self-promoter and general skeptic with a few dorky pastimes -- chess, "Star Wars," Greek mythology -- all put together like a welterweight boxer.

"You're not from here, are you?" people ask him. In fact, he is. A product of the Roanoke Valley.

Wayne Hancock II was born at Lewis-Gale Hospital, where his mother worked on the nursing staff. He can trace the first 27 years of his life through some typical institutions.

There was Deliverance Church of Christ -- Kingdom Life Ministries, today -- the training ground for a young musician. He sang in the children's choir until his voice dropped when he was 11.

There was Patrick Henry High, where he sang with the gospel group Men of Distinction and played basketball, but struggled with his grades.

There was the U.S. Army Reserves, after he gave up on college. He served an eight-year stint and finished in 2003, just shy of the war in Iraq.

As it happens, Range moved away from Roanoke once before, when he was fresh out of the Reserves. He went to Greensboro, N.C., fell in love with a woman from his band and had a baby girl. The relationship fell apart, a friend totaled his car and there was Zion. ("Her mother's not physically in the picture," Range said, though mother and child talk regularly.)

He was back two years later, depressed and determined. He wanted to make it on music, not the old jobs telemarketing or McDonald's. He played shows, hosted open mikes, networked over the Internet.

"Talent is talent, whether you're in a big market or a small market," Range once observed. But another time, he complained that music is hard in a city where most of the culture is piped in on cable TV.

His tally in Roanoke? About 30 years, 10 bands and he is still hosting karaoke night.

This winter, Range's girlfriend, Terrina Edwards, visited town from San Diego (the two met on the Web site, MySpace). It was his father, Wayne Hancock I, who suggested it: Go west with her, young man.

"I don't think I'm better than Roanoke," Range said. "It's hard to grow unless you leave."

Track 4: The crowd cheers

On April 9, Range da Messenga's band, Duality, opens for Lupe Fiasco in a stuffy gymnasium at Ferrum College.

For someone who doesn't listen to rap music, that may mean nothing.

For someone who listens to rap music, the night is a big league call-up: Range sharing the stage with a rising rap star, getting the kind of attention he likes. The audience is counted at 500.

Duality takes the stage at 8 p.m. sharp. A smoke machine has been running for hours and the air is thick with blue fog. Range wears a cap, like always, this one gold with a flat brim. If this were basketball -- a game Range still plays -- Duality is running a 1-3-1 zone, Range da Showman at the point.

Opening bands always have a hard night. They play unfamiliar music to an audience who didn't come to hear them. Duality's playlist goes something like this: A song about "respecting everyone's belief structure," a Stevie Wonder cover, a song for Range's daughter, "Zion's Song." Some heads in the front start to bob.

On stage, Range looks relaxed, like he is playing the usual stages in downtown Roanoke. One hand holds the microphone, the other he uses to casually pat his stomach. His name came from an earlier group, Versez, when he was known for his harmony arrangements. But Range could just as easily refer to his flexibility as a vocalist: Bass to falsetto, rapper to singer.

"You suck!" a man shouts. There's a pause. Range smiles.

"I love you, too, homeboy," he says. The crowd chuckles.

At 8:50, the stage is cleared. Lupe Fiasco races onstage, dancing in through a side door. The Chicago rapper wears all black, looking like the Johnny Cash of hip-hop. Two months earlier, he won a Grammy. The crowd cheers.

Range steps outside the gym for a moment, disappointed by the crowd. "What really got me are dudes walking around," he says. Especially when he's singing the songs that matter, about the "most high" or his daughter. Back inside, a few fans shake his hand. Range leaves his sunglasses on.

Then this: The audience is cool to Lupe Fiasco, too. Range notices. "If this were anywhere else, they'd be like ..." he trails off. He looks relieved. Lupe Fiasco ends his set, and seconds later, he disappears into a waiting van. He doesn't stop to speak to the opening act.

Range has brought a stack of his music to give this man. He taps on the driver's window and passes the CDs into the darkened van. Seconds later, it speeds away without a thank you.

It is hard to imagine a life on the West Coast that won't bring new disappointments to an aspiring musician. But the biggest disappointment -- what "terrifies me," Range said once -- is coming back to Roanoke no different than he left it. He is 31, almost 32, he wants to try.

"Let me find my coalition and go," he says.

Track 5: Give and take

Out Salem Avenue, west of downtown Roanoke, is Hurt Park Elementary School. Most weekday afternoons last school year, Mr. Hancock was in the gym.

"When I was a shorty, they didn't have programs like this," he said at the start of one session in April, setting snacks and juice boxes around the tables. "That's why I'm here."

His title was activity assistant, though he saw himself as a mentor to the 70 or so students who came. That meant counting on his fingers with a first-grader or instructing a group of rowdy boys to do push-ups to calm down.

At Hurt Park, he earned a reputation for his touch with the tough kids. "All we have to say is, 'You need to talk to Mr. Hancock,' " said Latisha Pomales, a co-worker. "Whatever it is that he does, he does well."

But the school year ended, and so did the paychecks. He was living off a few weekly gigs, including a popular Sunday open mike downtown.

Range mentioned money more. He dreamed of a future where he could walk up to a car dealership wearing sweatpants, his hat turned to the side, and just pointing, say, "I want that." Though at the moment, Range doesn't own a car.

Moving to California is his business decision. Better chances at more money. He has a wish list. He wants to make enough that he can come back to Roanoke and call himself an entrepreneur. Enough to open a club in his hometown. Enough that he can come home and not feel trapped. He would like to see Europe.

He considered this future over a plate of chicken fingers, sitting in a restaurant in downtown Roanoke. It was late May. A silver Jaguar drove past the table.

"That's what I want. Doesn't even have to be new," he said.

Track 6: The porch swing

The word for today, a hot July day, is "reciprocate."

Zion is crawling on her father like he's a jungle gym, the two in front of the family house on Rugby Boulevard. Zion has been gardening with her grandmother this morning and wears pink rain boots.

"Reciprocating means giving something back," Range says. He takes a direct tone with his daughter, making it a point to talk to her like she is an adult.

Leaving Zion is the hard part about going to California. Women tell him it's cute to be Range da Single Father, but he doesn't want to glorify the role. He is counting on his parents while he is gone. He is making an investment, that months away from his daughter will equal a better future.

"She could see me every day and not see me do a damn thing," he once reasoned. "Or I could miss her for a little while and then be able to take care of her."

Now, to his daughter, he says: "If I say I love you and you say you love me, too, you're reciprocating my love. So if you're reciprocating, what does that mean?"

Zion continues climbing. It takes some coaxing. Finally, she says, "Give it back."

The news this morning is good. Ben Hazelgrove, the producer at the lake, is headed to New York to shop some tracks to two major music labels. He is taking a few of the songs he worked on with Range.

On this end of the line, Range cannot reciprocate much enthusiasm, or at least he's not showing it.

"I just can't get excited about it. I've had hot prospects before. I'm 31, I've been doing music a long time," he says. "I'm not interested in getting signed, I'm interested in getting paid."

Range takes a seat on the porch swing of his parents' house. He shouts a greeting -- "What's good!" -- to people passing on the sidewalk.

"To me, Roanoke is like family. You love certain things and you hate it," he says. "It made me who I am for better or worse and I can't deny it."

His parents join him on the porch. They are the source of Range's wit and sarcasm (his mother, Joyce) and his outgoing personality (his father), he said. Talk turns to the impending move.

"He goes with our blessings," his mom says. "The mother eagle is pushing the little person."

Zion appears with a bottle of bubbles and begins waving the wand.

"Give me the bubble juice," Range says. He winds up, swings his arm and fills the air with bubbles. Some pop and some float.