Do Black People Matter?

July 6, 2012 

By Chanda Causer, former community organizer,

Over the past few months I have been asking myself, “Do Black people matter?”  On the surface the answer is obviously yes; I couldn’t imagine how dull the entertainment industry would be without the presence of African Americans.  From rhythmic dance tunes to fancy footwork on the ball field, to witty catch phrases on countless reality shows, Black folks absolutely matter across all color lines. What’s trending in the Black community today will surely sweep the nation in the months and years to come.

 

However, when it comes to more substantive matters that affect the lives of Black people; those issues fail to garner the same level of global attention. We have all heard the statistics: low attainment of education, high levels of incarceration, and third world nation-like rates of HIV/AIDS in the U.S. Besides the occasional rally, I don’t see any real intent to forge a new course of action against the peril that exists.  I wonder if this is largely due to how others perceive Blacks externally and how Blacks identify themselves collectively.

 

I had been an effective organizer for many years; I had worked across various states, within poor, wealthy, rural and urban communities. I had built campaigns on matters of health disparities, gender inequality, voter education and a host of other community issues, all with the goal of improving the lives of underprivileged Black folk. At the local level I understood self-interest and I was unapologetic when pushing forward the agenda of my constituents and not ashamed to discuss what motivated me in simple, clear language. However, at the national level, things aren’t that cut and dry – the basic rules of organizing no longer apply when it comes to matters of race and racial disparities. Even the word “African American” or “Black” can come across as a loaded term, as it has a tendency to make people feel uneasy or even guilty in certain funding circles.

 

While attending a national HIV/AIDS Conference, I had the pleasure of viewing an amazing outreach and awareness video, which targeted African American women. The video was comprehensive and stated that, “1 in 30 African American women will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime,” underscoring the urgency to build awareness among a group of people, who have been largely been disconnected and unaware of this epidemic.  However, at the conclusion of the video a middle-aged, white male advocate stood up in contempt for the awareness piece. He stated, “We should not be divisive and segment ourselves around race,” insinuating that he had been discriminated against for not being represented in the video.

 

I was agitated by his comments, but not at all surprised, for I had encountered the same sort of reaction to countless campaign strategies I have recommended in my career.  I’ve built campaigns to specifically target African Americans, only to be met with suspicion; I have even had someone accuse me of being “a race person.”  I’ve recommended strategies to engage low-income communities (rural and urban), only to have key decision makers interpret “low-income” as code for Black.

 

These sorts of reactions, caused me great anxiety to fathom that a demographic of people were being underserved on a variety of different socioeconomic factors, and the mere suggestion of developing strategies to combat some of these tragedies were a non-starter. This could have been due to a variety of reasons, but to some degree, I think that the adverse reaction was largely due to the fact that the idea to discuss racial inequities was introduced by an African American woman, and with that comes along a fair number of connotations.  Almost every black woman organizer I know has recounted stories of being perceived as angry or becoming angry due to the reactions of others, which makes negating conversation about race nearly impossible.

 

Working with “Black” leadership at the national level is also marred with its own share of setbacks. I’ve learned that Black people impede progress for themselves by finding ways to fragment within the community based solely on identity. On a variety of issues, I have mistakenly used the word Black as a way to include all people of darker skin.  However, I am often met with reactions such as, “I’m not Black, I’m Jamaican.” “I’m not Black, I’m Colombian.” “I’m not Black, my mother is Irish, and therefore I am mocha” – It’s as silly as saying “I’m not Black, I’m North Carolinian.”

 

I jest, but I do understand, to some degree that they are trying to convey that they don’t identify with the image of blackness in the U.S. Who could blame them for wanting to place some distance between themselves and the tragic images that exists within the black community. The images often include the disease-infected single mother, the unemployable ex-con, the twenty-something aspiring rapper with a eighth grade education, or the highly educated person that tries so desperately hard to assimilate … then cracks. These images are largely exaggerated, but the problem is that people believe them wholeheartedly. This belief makes it challenging for Blacks to organize among themselves, which bifurcate the process. By the time a campaign is presented externally, it is a glimmer of the original goal.

 

Perhaps the question isn’t whether or not Black people matter, but whether or not black people have an image problem. African Americans have been ingrained in the minds of all people as “entertainers” for so long, that when someone tries to discuss important issues on the national level, it almost seems counterintuitive and boring. The “consumerization” of pieces of Black culture would lead you to believe that we live in a post-racial society; but by believing this illusion, we would be accepting the problems that affect the Black community as shear happenstance. Black people do matter, they just matter less in the American Caste system. However, just as infectious as the rhythmic sounds of Black culture has transcended across all communities, so too will the epidemics that permeate within the Black community.

Can African People

Save Themselves?

 

By John Henrik Clarke

Sep - 07 | Posted by: admin

 

Dr. John Henrik Clarke

The question can be answered in many ways, in both the negative and the positive. I have chosen to answer it in the positive, because I am an African person and I have hope for a commitment to every African on the face of the earth.

My commitment to mankind comes through African people. If African people are to save themselves, they must first know themselves. They must first know where they have been and what they have been, where they are, and the significance of what they are.

By knowing this, they will get some idea of what they still must be. African people must stop being the market and the dumping ground for shoddy consumer goods of other people. We must, on an international basis, begin to produce the things we wear, the food we eat, the cars we drive, and then train our children to follow our footsteps and complete the mission. The mission will be to be a self-sustained and contained people. At least a third of the Africans in the world can be employed providing goods and services for other Africans.

Once we create an internal economic system, we can relate to any external economic system in the world. No African State can be truly independent when it does not produce the bread it eats nor the safety pin that holds a child’s diaper together. No nation can call itself free and self-sustaining when it must order its toilet paper from another nation. Africans must begin to produce every item essential to their survival. Education must be geared to produce the large number of technically trained Africans needed for this task, and the trained must in turn produce other Africans to replace them. No African nation in the world should beg for the skills of another nation or people to sustain itself.

Africans can save themselves by having the will to do so until the job of self-protection and true independence has been achieved.

The salvation of Africa by African people will contribute to the peace and the salvation of the world. This salvation should be the mission of every African on the face of the earth. The completion of the mission and the benefits that will accrue from it will be the legacy that African people can leave for the whole world.

 

 

OTIS REDDING

(September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967)

 

Web Sites:
Official Web Site

Biography

Known the world over as "Big O," Otis Redding remains one of music's most influential and important voices, resonating through the almost four decades since his untimely passing at the age of 26 in a 1967 tragic plane crash. Coupling his passionate, emotive, raw and supremely soulful vocal style with the ability to write songs (such as "Respect," "I've Been Loving You Too Long" and "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay") that spoke to audiences the world over, Otis Redding was peerless, a creative talent whose recorded output ended way too soon.

Born in Macon, Georgia, Otis was influenced early on by another pioneer, Little Richard and his earliest recordings(as "Otis & The Shouters") reflected his admiration for the rock'n'soul icon. It was two years after Otis began working with Johnny Jenkins & The Pinetoppers in 1960 that he got his recording ‘break.' At the Memphis studios of burgeoning Stax Records, Otis got the chance to cut a self-composition, "These Arms Of Mine" at the tail-end of a Johnny Jenkins session: the rest, as is often said, is history! Stax co-owner Jim Stewart and the assembled musicians (including Steve Cropper and Booker T. Jones who would both subsequently co-write with Otis) recognized his unique and distinctive talent; by the spring of 1963, the Redding name had appeared on the R&B charts with that initial recording, the first of what would ultimately be over thirty charted singles and over a dozen classic albums.

In the three years that followed, Otis was a regular hitmaker thanks for such recordings as "Pain In My Heart," "Mr. Pitiful," "That's How Strong My Love Is," the above-mentioned "I've Been Loving Too Long" (co-written with R&B Foundation longtime Board member and Chairman Emeritus Jerry Butler) and of course, "Respect" which went on to become Aretha Franklin's everlasting anthem. Through unforgettable Stax/Volt albums such as "Otis Blue," "The Soul Album" and "The Dictionary Of Soul" and further hits (a definitive version of the standard "Try A Little Tenderness," "My Lover's Prayer" and "The Happy Song (Dum-Dum)," Otis gained the reverence of European music lovers who embraced his heartfelt vocal style and British groups like The Rolling Stones in particular were quick to express their admiration for Redding's artistry.

A 1967 duet album with labelmate Carla Thomas ("The King & The Queen") and an acclaimed appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival (before thousands of music lovers who had never been exposed to his work until that momentous show) were further highlights of the year and in early November, Otis could be found in the Stax studios where his journey to fame had begun putting the finishing touches to a new recording. Within a matter of three days, the news of his passing - while still in his mid-twenties - reverberated throughout the world and posthumously, that November recording would ironically become Otis Redding's biggest hit. Poignant, personal and reflective, "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay" assured "Big O's" place in music history: for true soul fans the world over, it was another reminder of Otis Redding's timeless legacy.

Contributed by David Nathan

http://www.soulmusic.com/

Angela Winbush

 

 

Web Sites:
YouTube Channel

 

Biography

One of the most talented singers, songwriters and producers of the past three decades, Angela Winbush never received either the across the board commercial success she deserved, nor sufficient credit for her pioneering work as a top tier female producer in the male dominated R&B music world. But years have been kind to her legacy and to the popular recognition of her contribution to soul music.

St. Louis-born Angela Winbush worked as a backup musician in the 70s, most notably as part Stevie Wonder's Wonderlove, when she met singer/songwriter Rene Moore, a church organist.  The two began writing together and soon became an "A-list" songwriting team, providing melodic, lyrically interesting compositions such as Stephanie Mills' hit "I've Learned to Respect the Power of Love" and the wonderful Tavares cut "Love Uprising."  They also became a rising singing duo known as Rene and Angela

The two were signed as a singing act by Capitol Records and recorded three moderately successful albums for the label.  They had a minor hit with the single "I Love You More" but began amassing more of a following in 1983 with the terrific ballad, "My First Love."  The duo's move to Mercury Records in 1985 turned out to be career-changing. Their label debut, Streetcar Named Desire, yielded three chart-topping hits with "Save Your Love (for #1)" and the muscular ballads "Smile" and "You Don't Have to Cry."  Then, surprisingly, at the height of their popularity, the duo had a very public falling out, with Winbush leaving the duo after an alleged physical altercation with Moore.  While Rene and Angela were no more, the two stayed sadly bound through a series of lawsuits over the next 7 years.

Moore went solo and released Destination Love in 1988, but it went nowhere.  He continued to work with other artists as a producer or musician, most notably on Michael Jackson's Dangerous.  But he never again achieved a notable level of success after the group's break-up

Around the time of the group's split, Winbush began writing and producing the Isley Brothers, and developed a personal relationship with Ron Isley that led to them becoming husband and wife. She also picked up with a solo career right where her duo career left off. She hit #1 in 1987 with "Angel" and two years later with "It's the Real Thing." Confounding a sexist music establishment that doubted that a woman could be so talented, Winbush became a much sought-after writer/producer, working most notably with Lalah Hathaway and Klymaxx and successfully revamping the sound of the legendary Isley Brothers. In fact, her focus on her husband's career in the 90s was so complete that it left her own performing career on the sidelines.  She managed a 1994 solo hit with "Treat You Right,"  but was largely out of the spotlight for the remainder of the decade.

Winbush's marriage to Isley ended, and she worked to rescusitate her career with the unlikely help of a #1 remake of "My First Love" by Avant and KeKe Wyatt. Her comeback was stalled by ovarian cancer, but she ultimately beat long odds and achieved full remission of the illness. She now tours often, performing for fans around the world and working to raise cancer awareness.  She remains both physically beautiful and a fantastic performer well into her fifties, and stands as an inspiration to a new generation of female artists and producers.

by Chris Rizik

<<

 

 

Available Music

 

Angela Winbush

Click on CD cover to listen or purchase

 

 

 

Video

 

__________________________

• Post-Dispatch Pop Music Critic kjohnson@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8191

0

R&B singer-producer Angela Winbush initially had qualms about taking part in the documentary series "Unsung" for cable network TV One.

The show, a "Behind the Music"-type series for classic R&B acts, profiles musicians who did not get their full due. Past subjects have included DeBarge, Teddy Pendergrass, Tammi Terrell, Shalamar, Sylvester, Heatwave and the Bar-Kays.

The stories often have sad endings, and St. Louis native Winbush, half of hit '80s duo Rene & Angela and known for her work with the Isley Brothers and her solo music, wasn't sure it was for her.

Her story is full of typical "Unsung" material: her ugly split with musical partner Rene Moore, her marriage and divorce from Isley Brothers' lead singer Ron Isley and her bout with cancer.

"I had my reservations," Winbush says. "I'm pretty honest and a straight shooter, and I didn't know if I wanted all of that on film for everyone to see."

She also took exception to how the subjects for "Unsung" are selected.

"There's a connotation there that you're an unsung hero, or that you've done something in life that wasn't noted or worthy," Winbush says.

On the contrary, Winbush has had a long list of career accomplishments. She is the rare female African-American producer-writer and has worked with Janet Jackson, Sheena Easton and Stephanie Mills.

Winbush also scored top 10 hits with "Your Smile," "You Don't Have to Cry," "My First Love" and "Save Your Love (for #1)." Acts including Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, Nas, Foxy Brown and Avant have embraced her music.

"I don't feel like I'm 'Unsung,'" she says. "And I talked to other people, other artists, and they said, 'I'm not doing that (show)' for the same reason."

But she had "Unsung" producers send her installments of the show, and she reconsidered, deciding it was time to tell her side of the story.

"People have misquoted and misstated things, like that Rene and I were lovers or that we were married," Winbush says. "That's one of the most outrageous things you could imagine. This was an opportunity to state things that are factual."

The special includes segments filmed at the Ambassador and in front of the St. Louis home where she grew up, clips from "Soul Train" and music videos, including one with a young Don Cheadle, and interviews with family members and musicians Richard Smallwood, Avant, Lalah Hathaway and Tawatha Agee.

Both ex-husband Isley and former partner Moore declined to be interviewed. She wasn't surprised Moore didn't participate.

She says of Isley: "He agreed and then he backpedaled, maybe because of surrounding issues and his new wife." (Isley was convicted of tax evasion in 2006.)

"Unsung" starts with Winbush's beginnings in St. Louis, where as a child she sang in church. It follows her move to Washington, where she attended Howard University and performed in a group called Hot Tea, and her start in the music industry that came when Stevie Wonder received her demo and flew her out to Los Angeles.

It was there where Winbush met singer-musician Moore. The duo was signed to a major record deal in 1979 and became Rene & Angela. They enjoyed a run of hits, although it was tough for her during that period being a woman who could write and produce.

"The forerunners never get the credit. I was one of the first," she says. "But when I came through, it was during a time when men got all the credit. Nobody wanted to trust me alone, and that's why there is a Rene & Angela. I wrote a lot of the stuff by myself but had to split it to get it out there."

That struggle is detailed in the special, along with Winbush's move to singing more leads. When "Your Smile," with Winbush on lead, went to No. 1, Moore was angry and tensions mounted, she says.

Winbush claims that Moore became violent and that she suffered a concussion and bruised ribs. Another musician interviewed in the program backs Winbush's claims.

"Most business partners will kill another business partner over money, and that's what he threatened me over," Winbush says. "I wasn't going to write songs and put his name on it anymore."

Despite the trauma that came with the Rene & Angela breakup, including lengthy court battles over songwriting credit, Winbush has no regrets. The experience made her more cautious.

"I learned how to assess situations quicker," she says. "I came from a church background, where you think everyone is who they say they are. But in the music business, you can't do that. You start from distrust, and they have to earn your trust."

The special moves on to her years with Isley, as a producer-songwriter for the Isley Brothers, then as his wife. She filed for divorce in 2001. She says that most of her adult life involved Isley and that she let him be at the front, at the expense of her career.

"What I did wasn't the right thing for my career, but it was right for my marriage," she says. She and Isley are still friends, she says.

Also included is Winbush's battle with ovarian cancer, which was diagnosed in 2002 and is in remission.

Winbush wanted the program to run footage of her nearly bald in a room at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

"For me, the only reason I think I'm alive is so I could save other lives," she says. "It's not about me looking cute all the time. It's about my life being spared so I can show people they can make it through a tough situation."

Looking back over her life and career, the choices made and the circumstances she faced, she sums it all up at the top of the special:

"I wouldn't trade my journey. But I would not have picked that journey."

Magazine Submissions

The Savage Consortium is seeking the confession you are finally ready to purge. We want your raw body and naked imagination. We want your emotional, intelligent, visceral, and psychological confession that derives from the sexual.

Above all, we want your most intimate experiences written and represented as they truly are: Pure, Intense, and Without Restraint. Your submission/s should endeavor to push every conventional facet of language and thematic structure. This includes innovative content, syntax, margins, white space, plot structure, etc. (Do not rely on obscenity alone.) If nothing is at stake in your submission/s, if there is no risk, do not submit. Nothing safe will be published in The Savage Consortium.

 

Submission Guidelines

Prose:

1. 1,000-3,000 words (applies as a collective number if submitting more than one piece of work).

2. Double-spaced

3. Numbered pages

4. Font = Times New Roman, 12pt.

5. Electronic submissions should be sent to: monkeypuzzlepress.prose@gmail.com
   (include “The Savage Consortium” in subject line of email)

6. Hardcopy submissions not accepted.

Poetry:

1. 3-5 poems, each starting on its own page

2. Numbered pages

3. Contact information on each poem (ie. poet’s name, mailing address, email address, and phone number)

4. Electronic submissions should be sent to: monkeypuzzlepress.poetry@gmail.com
   (include “The Savage Consortium” in subject line of email)

5. Hardcopy submissions not accepted.

(Click here for a PDF flyer)

DEADLINE

November 15, 2012

Upon publication, all contributors will receive a complimentary issue.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

4th ANNUAL FLASH FICTION CONTEST!

First Prize: $300.00 plus publication

Second Prize: $150.00 plus publication

Third Prize: $50.00 plus publication

10$ entry fee

RULES

Submit one story per entry, 1000 words or less.

We won’t be judging stories based on any particular content or context, just send your best piece of flash fiction! Please keep in mind that we do appreciate work exhibiting socio-political-cultural awareness and humor. To get an idea for the kind of work we like, check out our Magazine page for free downloads of past issues of Monkey Puzzle.

All submissions must include the writer’s contact information on the first page: name, address, phone number, and e-mail address. Include a SASE if you would like a reply via USPS.

To submit via e-mail:

1. Send your submission to: monkeypuzzlepress.prose@gmail.com (put “Flash Fiction Contest” in the subject line)

2. Pay entry fee via PayPal

To submit via snail-mail:

1. Mail your submission and entry fee (check or money order payable to Monkey Puzzle Press) to:

Monkey Puzzle Press
PO Box 20804
Boulder, CO   80308
Attn: Flash Fiction Contest

Winners will be published in our next literary journal project:

THE SAVAGE CONSORTIUM

All entries will be considered for publication.

Contest Judge: Nicholas B. Morris, author of Tapeworm

(Click here for a PDF flyer)

 

DEADLINE
November 15, 2012 (postmarked)

The Orphic Prize for

Poetry book prize
 

 

Guidelines & Information for 2012

The postmark deadline for entries to the 2012 Orphic Prize for Poetry is Deadline Extended: October 1, 2012. To enter, submit 48-80 paginated pages of poetry, table of contents, acknowledgments, bio, email address for results (No SASE; manuscripts will be recycled), and a $27.00 non-refundable fee for each manuscript entered. The winner is awarded $1000 and publication, plus 20 author copies. All entries will be considered for publication.All styles are welcome. Multiple submissions are acceptable. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, but if your manuscript is accepted for publication elsewhere you must notify Dream Horse Press immediately. Fees are non-refundable. Judging will be anonymous; writers' names should not appear anywhere on the manuscript. Please include your name and biographical information in a separate cover letter. Please be sure to include your email address.  The winner is chosen by the owner, J.P. Dancing Bear. Close friends, students (former or present), and relatives of the the press owner are NOT eligible for the contest; their entry fees will be refunded.

The Orphic Prize for Poetry entries may be sent, following the guidelines above, to:

Dream Horse Press
P. O. Box 2080
Aptos, California 95001-2080

Make checks payable to: Dream Horse Press

Or, you can now submit your manuscript in email, save on postage, paper, envelopes AND MONEY (reduced entry fee) by paying online:

Red Hen Press Poetry Award

For publication in the Los Angeles Review
$1000 Award
Deadline: September 30, 2012

Established in 2003, the Red Hen Press Poetry Award is for an unpublished poem. Awarded poem is selected through an annual submission process which is open to all poets. This year’s final judge is Cynthia Hogue.

Award is $1000 and publication of the awarded poem in the Los Angeles Review published by Red Hen Press. Entry fee $20 for up to 3 poems, maximum 120 lines each. Name on cover sheet only. Send SASE for notification. Entries must be postmarked by September 30.

Guidelines

Eligibility: The award is open to all writers with the following exceptions:

A) Authors who have had a full length work published by Red Hen Press, or a full length work currently under consideration by Red Hen Press;

B) Employees, interns, or contractors of Red Hen Press;

C) Relatives of employees or members of the executive board of directors;

D) Relatives or individuals having a personal or professional relationship with any of the final judges where they have taken any part whatsoever in shaping the manuscript, or where, for whatever reason, selecting a particular manuscript might have the appearance of impropriety.

Procedures and Ethical Considerations

To be certain that every manuscript finalist receives the fairest evaluation, all manuscripts shall be submitted to the judges without any identifying material.

Bios, acknowledgments, and other identifying material shall be removed from judged manuscripts until the conclusion of the competition.

Red Hen Press shall not use students or interns as readers at any stage of its competitions.

Red Hen Press is committed to maintaining the utmost integrity of our awards. Judges shall recuse themselves from considering any manuscript where they recognize the work. In the event of recusal, a manuscript score previously assigned by the managing editor of the press will be substituted.

Please submit materials to:

Attn: Red Hen Press Poetry Award
Red Hen Press
P.O. Box 40820
Pasadena, CA 91114
www.redhen.org

Red Hen Press will only accept submissions that have been mailed to the above address; please no email attachments or faxes.

The Winner of the 2012 Red Hen Press Poetry Award will be announced in 2013.

SONIA SANCHEZ

• September 9, 1934 Sonia Sanchez, poet and playwright, was born Wilsonia Benita Driver in Birmingham, Alabama. In 1943, Sanchez moved to Harlem, New York to live with her father. In 1955, she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Hunter College. Sanchez has authored over a dozen books of poetry, including “Love Poems” (1973), “Homegirls and Handgrenades” (1985), “Does Your House Have Lions” (1997), and “Morning Haiku” (2010), and six plays, including “The Bronx is Next” (1970) and “I’m Black When I’m Singing, I’m Blue when I Ain’t” (1982). She has also edited two anthologies on black literature, “We Be Word Sorcerers: 25 Stories by Black Americans” (1974) and “360 Degrees of Blackness Coming at You” (1999). Sanchez has taught at eight universities and has lectured at over 500 college campuses. She was the first Presidential Fellow at Temple University where she began working in 1977 and held the Laura Carnell chair until her retirement in 1999. In 1969, she was awarded the P. E. N. Writing Award. She also won the National Academy and Arts Award and the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Award in 1978-1979.

>via: http://thewright.org/explore/blog/entry/today-in-black-history-992012

__________________________

Sonia Sanchez speaks to students, faculty and staff on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2006, in Price Auditorium at Lock Haven University in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.

A poet's journey:

Sanchez relays her experiences as a writer

LOCK HAVEN, Pa. - On Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2006, the famous poet and activist Sonia Sanchez visited Lock Haven University and was the speaker for the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration, hosted by the university's department of social equity in Price Auditorium.

Sanchez, the author of over 16 books and a Robert Frost Medalist, Ford Freedom Scholar and Otto Award winner, spoke to students, faculty and staff about her experiences growing up, her activist years and her influences.

Before the event, the poet took some time to answer questions from the university public relations department on advice to young writers. The following is an excerpt from that interview:

Q. In an interview on New York's QBR Radio a few years ago, you mentioned how a school teacher had discouraged you from becoming a writer. You said she believed that black Americans weren't meant to be writers, ignoring great black writers such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Langston Hughes, who was publishing a lot during your childhood years. What advice would you have to our college-age students who have faced discouragement in their own lives?

A. I always tell young students in universities and high schools -- I go to a lot of high schools and junior high schools -- that there is a great tradition of black writing, which means part of American writing, in this country. And, you must never let anyone discourage you. The problem, quite often, in high school and junior high school, and even on the university level, is students don't encounter black writers or the Latino writers, or the Cuban writers. They don't encounter writers "that perhaps might look like themselves." But I always say to them that there are people who teach some of these courses and they should try to gravitate to a course that will have African American or a Latino or a Native American or Chicano classes. And that way they begin to see there are different voices and other voices there. The person who said this to me was not a teacher, but she was an advisor. And she asked me... I was really having difficulty, I had gone to Hunter (College, New York City) at 16, and now I was 18, and I just never saw anything that even looked like me. I was getting very discouraged and I started cutting my classes. And I was called down to her, and she said, "What do you want to be?" And, you know, Hunter was a place for women and encouraged blacks and what I call "people of color" to be nurses, teachers and social workers -- always those kinds of things. And I said to her, because she looked like someone's grandmother, white-haired... "You know, I'd like to be a writer." And she laughed. She leaned back and she laughed. She said, "There are no Negro…" -- at the time, the word Negro was used -- "There are no Negro writers. You have to be realistic. We bring you people here to be… You can be a social worker, a teacher or a nurse." And at that point when she said that, a part of me knew there was something wrong because I had heard of black writers. So, I knew they existed, you see. We just were not learning them, and they weren't being taught in the universities. And at that point, when she started asking me other questions, I just sat there and looked at her. I was so, utterly amazed and upset that I did not answer any other things. She was very annoyed at me. But, that's what I talked about on the radio station.

Q. So, it sounds like you didn't take that as something to be discouraged about in your life and you went and sought things on your own?

A. Well, I did, but it meant that I had to go seek out those things, so I went and I sought out the poetry readings that black writers were doing. When I got out of school, I was blessed to meet someone by the name of Jean Hudson who was the curator there at the library and she gave me books by black writers… I went to used bookstores at this point… Ms. Hudson sent me there… Mr. Mashow's bookstore on 125th Street… and there, they gave me books, and I began to read all of these books -- not only poetry -- but all of the history and "herstory" of black people, and it gave me a sense of myself, finally, in this country.

Q. Do you think that taking African American literature classes is important to learn the style of people like Langston Hughes?

A. One takes African lit courses not to just celebrate writers, but also to say to people, "This is within the milieu of American literature." You really will never understand Ben Franklin's autobiography unless you do Frederick Douglass' autobiography, because they are closely linked. You really don't understand what happens in the South, the reconstruction, until you read Dubois' "Black Reconstruction." Du Bois' great epic book, "Black Reconstruction," gives us what happened economically in the South and so we learn what really happened in the South and the reasons why that you had to have years later with MLK (Martin Luther King Jr.), or Rosa Parks, or those four brothers who went and sat down at the counter and waited to be served… If people had begun to deal with this, then you would not have had this kind of massive movement in the country, but also, as it extended in the world. When those Chinese students stood up against tanks, they were singing, "We shall not be moved. We shall overcome." The history of Martin Luther King moves out around the world. And so, today what I'm going to talk about my life as it relates Martin Luther King, and the impact he's had, not only on me, but on the world, and the impact that he should be having today too if people were not just celebrating just one speech, "Going to the Mountain Top," but also his speeches that he gave near the end of his life at Riverside Church that talk about economics, and also, empowerment, and also, an understanding about what was going on in the world with the Vietnam War. I'm so happy to be a part of a movement that introduced black literature to the university, and it's a thing that the black, the white, the Latino, the Asian students come into my class to learn. And you see them open up their eyes. You turn to the students in the class and then they have a better sense of the black students who are on those campuses. This is the kind of empowerment that we are talking about, finally.

Q. When you were at Temple University, did you enjoy teaching college-age students?

A. Teaching 18-, 19-, 20-year old students, they say, will keep you alive, will keep you young. But what was important to me was that I saw students come into a classroom who had never, ever had a black teacher, you know, and they'd be very uneasy as they sat there. And then, by two or three weeks, we're like coming in the class and they say, "Hey, prof… How are you doing, Professor Sanchez? I saw you on television last night. Yeah, you know, like. I said to my parents, like, that's my teacher, Professor Sanchez. She really told them what this country was all about." And these are white, male students -- the football players, you know, who walk across campus and say, "Yo, pro… Professor Sanchez." And you say, "Yo, how you be?" What I'm saying, finally, is that, you see, this thing called education, this thing called teaching, will transform, will make people reach out to one another, will open up people's hearts and eyes and minds with each other. But, you've got to be there to do it. And it is important that we must do it.

Q. It appears that you started publishing in your thirties.

A. You know, because we got out of school and began that long, slow process... my long, slow process of publishing came through small journals, the "Minnesota Review," the "New England Review," the "Transatlantic Review," all these little journals that were happening. And so you get a reputation of being a writer. You know. So it was no quick kind of… Because actually, to be frank, many people still do not think that black people can write poetry. Even though I was publishing in small journals, none of the big publishing companies thought about publishing black writers. Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks were the people who had contracts with big publishing companies. We didn't, so therefore a great press called Broadside Press cam about. Dudley Randall, out of Detroit, Mich., published a book called "For Malcolm" with a woman by the name of Dr. Margaret Burroughs, after the assassination of Malcolm (X) in this country. And he called on all blacks and whites in America to send poems for this book and we all did. Well, that book was so successful. If you could ever find it, get it. It's worth a lot of money. He decided, "I am going to establish a publishing company called Broadside Press." And in that press was Gwendolyn Brooks, Dudley Randall, Haki Madhubuti, Etheridge Knight… we were publishing and our books sold in the hundreds of thousands because our books were affordable to people. Because, when we went on trips, we would take our books with us, like Langston. Langston would travel from New York to the South and he had suitcases. In those suitcases were his books, because he said the big publishing companies would publish him, but they wouldn't promote his books. And when I went South again for the first time for a reading and I went into people's homes, I saw two books in their houses. Guess what they were? The Bible and a collection of Langston Hughes' poetry, and we all went, "Whoa… Got it, Langston. This is what you do." As you travel around the country, make sure you bring your books with you. When you finish reading, people want your books. Langston could then go from city to city because he sold his books. It was an amazing moment for us. So, we were the group of poets -- Broadside poets -- and when we had meetings and readings, we came with a suitcase full of books. We'd finish and we'd set up and we'd sign our books, but I'd go back years later to people's homes… People would come out to my readings now, and they would say, "Look, Professor Sanchez, I have your first book. I have your second book. I have your Broadside Press book." I said hold on to them, because I had set out a display once and someone picked up my first editions of "Homecoming" and "We a BaddDDD People." And I told sister Gwendolyn Brooks some years before she died, and luckily enough she saved me some first editions. But you go on the Net and get the first edition of "Homecoming" and they are going to charge you $100 for a book that first cost $1. Hold on to all those books.

Q. It takes a lot of confidence to get as far as you've gotten. Did it take a while for you to find a voice, or is that something that you've always had?

A. You know, I always tell my students as I teach my workshops that that voice comes. It takes time. Initially, you might imitate other writers who are writing out there. But if you are willing to continue and struggle and read, above all, and get in workshops -- workshop your works as well, too. And, above all, be willing to stand in front of people and share your work with people. Your voice comes… that voice, that intrinsic voice that is yours, that wonderful voice. One day, you look up and you know it's your voice. You know, it's no one else's voice but your own. You know that you finally have gotten a voice that will speak to not only your own soul, your own heart, and your own spirit, but a voice that will speak to other people, too. So, it takes time. You are not going to, all of a sudden, start writing and all of a sudden say, "Gosh, I have my voice." That voice takes time to develop because you are talking about having ideas about the world, looking at the world in a different way, perhaps the way other people haven't looked at the world. You use your words in a different sense that perhaps other people look at you and say, "You know, I haven't heard that voice before. I haven't heard those words before." So, it takes a minute to find your voice, but by golly, by gee, you know when you find it, it is yours. And you kind of like start running, and you are smiling and you are saying, "I know I have my own voice now. This is my voice that will speak to people, at some point." It is a lovely feeling.

Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania is a member of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE), the largest provider of higher education in the commonwealth. Its 14 universities offer more than 250 degree and certificate programs in more than 120 areas of study. Nearly 375,000 system alumni live and work in Pennsylvania.

###

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  <p>Her Word As Witness: Sonia Sanchez speaks. from Hanif Abdur-Rahim on Vimeo.</p>

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Sonia Sanchez performs her poem "Middle Passage" accompanied by guitarist Gerry De Mol. September 11, 2008 at the Interdependence Day Celebration and Forum in Brussels, Belgium

Video Premiere:

Jean Grae

“I Don’t Camouflage”

Interview

by Eddie "STATS" on August 7, 2012    

A lot of times, we in the webisode game shy away from interviews where the format involves pointing a camera at somebody’s head and letting them talk for 10 minutes–because a lot of times those interviews are really boring. The I Don’t Camouflage series, however, kinda makes you realize that a lot of times it’s not the format that made those people sound boring. If, by contrast, you point your camera at somebody with some interesting sh*t to say–let’s take Jean Grae for example–you end up with a dope interview. In this particular IDC segment, Jean Greasy puts on her psychological SCUBA gear and goes in on a wide (and deep) range of topics from a) life as the child of South African jazz legend Abdullah Ibrahim AKA Dollar Brand b) good and bad hair and c) her (failed) attempts to blend in and how they shaped the person she is today. Along the way she firmly establishes why she is not only one of our favorite rappers but also one of the most grounded, self-aware human bein’s we have ever had the pleasure of watching talk into a camera for 11 minutes and 57 seconds. Suit up and dive in below.

Jean Grae 

– You Don't Like It

(So What)

Lyrics 

How it works

• Click the orange lyrics for explanations of Jean Grae – You Don't Like It (So What) lyrics
• Highlight white lyrics and explain them to get Rap IQ™ (help)

VERIFIED EXPLANATIONS FROM JEAN GRAE

Jeannie Jeannie
I hear them screamin', want me back, oh
I thought you didn't believe in me, I was wack, oh
You want the in between Fellini, white and black, umm
Well I don't know I feel a way, about your ac-tions
What can you offer me, apologies
Security, amazing publicity
Or cult-status obscurity
Cause I do nothin' for the purity, the love
Get the fuck on with that, this ain't nothin' but maturity
Don't go get your white gloves to deal with it
Grown ass woman who's no prone to fearin' shit
Piss up in your snow cone jackass, so here's a tip
Don't eat the Grae snow, go fix your face bro
I swing my mace low, I don't mean mace, no
Gogo Yubari that Crazy 88 flow
No folks, your army brats made in a place so
I'm really not afraid of them, I'm Project Mayhem
I'm complex, based on abominable case study
Based on phenomenon in space, buddy
Take that, take that, Diddy
In yo face, Eddie, turn the lights off, Teddy
You are not a beautiful snowflake, Chuck
When the goin' gets weird the weird turn pro, Hunt
If we gonna use quotes then step your quote game up
Hit the sample, Hit Girl, ok you cunts

I'm like Judy Blume with uzi's
You're like Jacques Costeau exploring in jacuzzis
Oh wow you really got deep there
Three feet, whoah what a fuckin' reach, yeah
OMG can you even come back up for air
ROFLMAO, no one really cares
I'm at Waffle House, deep, picking Cher "Do You Believe"
On the jukebox and dancin' on a chair
My sleeves rolled up, I dont give a fuck fam
I'm me so what, me Jeanius, damn
Fire bad, rap good
I'm the entire back row of the class
Would you please stop trying to teach me
I'm past it, advanced Regents smashed it
Peed on it Kelly, Kelly, Regis, Justin, Kelly, Kelly, Zacked it
You might not get it, rewind it, get active
I spin spit different, hipster arachnid
Specifically classics, but consider me average if
I'm mentioned in public, cause you bound to be clowned
For includin' me in your rap list of
The top motherfuckas who ass kick
Not that the statements not accurate
Just that motherfuckas need to face the facts a bit
Your favorite rapper's favorite rapper, nigga, handle it
NY, west side in the 20's, Chelsea Handler shit

Looooooord have mercy
Yup, just wasted four bars there
You dont like it, so what, I don't care
I can afford to waste bars like it's healthcare
In Amer- oh fuck it, I failed, yeah
All hail the prevailin' queen of fuckery here
Crown tilted to the side, finger fuckin' the air
Upchuckin' a beer, and leg humpin' a stud
Gun tucked in the rear pocket, duckin' the fuzz
Wait, no, I don't carry no guns, double negative

>via: http://rapgenius.com/Jean-grae-you-dont-like-it-so-what-lyrics

__________________________

 

Jean Grae a.k.a. What? What? + DJ Mr. Len live @ Hip Hop Kemp 2012/08/18
video by Mad (UGW)
http://ugw.ru
http://vk.com/ugwru

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Sunday, November 27, 2011

Rap Music Analysis #7 -

The Jeanius of

Ms. Jean Grae

And…we’re back. I’d first like to apologize for taking so much time in between this post and my last one, but I’ve been pretty busy with other musical projects. (The nature of those projects will be addressed elsewhere.) But let’s not waste any more time, shall we? 

This time, we’re back with another rap analysis, not a rap production analysis of Dr. Dre (although that idea has been shelved for another time.) This time, we will be taking a look at a rapper that, quite simply, everyone should know about. The fact that this girl has to struggle to eat (figuratively) blows my mind when you consider some of the trash out there (Drake, current Lil Wayne…yeah, I went there.) She has a really interesting history, personal and professional (she once made a craigslist post offering 16 bars for $800 cold), and I encourage you to look it up if her rap grabs and amazes you like it should. But without any further delay, introducing: Miss Jean Grae. 

Jean comes from NYC (actually raised/lived in the historic Chelsea hotel), and she reps the city well. Currently, she’s on Talib Kweli’s label, and you’ll notice that many of the songs we look at either have Talib on them or came from a Talib album (“Gutter Rainbows.) We’ll do a short review of concepts we’ve addressed earlier for the newbies, but I’d really like to get to new material as quickly as possible, so I’ll only gloss over concepts like accent and address them insofar as they are relevant here. If you’re looking for a more in-depth discussion of these things, check out my Nas post. 

The first transcription we’ll look at (there will be 3) comes from the song “Imagine”, from her mixtape “Cookies or Death”, at about 0:58. You can hear the verse we'll be looking at here. This is its transcription:

We’ll use techniques and tools that we’ve used in the past to analyze the music. For instance, if you count, you’ll notice that in this rap of about 6 bars there are 63 notes. However, the amazing thing here is that a full 49 of those notes are accented. That means about 78% of the notes are accented, which over the 23 beats included here, works out to about 2.1 accents per bar. Now, this is amazing. Consider that there are only 4 sixteenth notes per beat; this means that on average, half of them are accented. Compared to what we’ve seen before, in my Eminem analysis, we saw that Eminem, over 8 bars, averaged a little over 1 accent per beat, which in itself is amazing. Well, Jean does twice that (although over a shorter time span, and on more than one syllable, unlike Eminem.) I really would like to impress on the reader just how impressive this is. I have a pretty extensive rap listening background, and I can say that no one else who I’ve heard tops this high concentration of accents, and very, very few even come close. I’ve termed this phenomenon, a hallmark of Jean Grae’s style as we shall see, “hyper-intense accenting.” She fits as many syllables as possible into an incredibly short time span. 

Side bar/backstory/explanation: What exactly do I mean when I say that Jean is “accenting” a note? It is my theory, a theory that I have put forward in previous posts, that rappers emphasize certain words over others, and that these emphasized notes (or accented notes) are what define’s a rappers musical flow. They are what pushes the rap (here again referred to as a strictly musical phenomenon) forward. A rapper creates these accents poetically: I theorize that any word that is rhymed (for example) stands out in the listener’s ear, and so can be considered accented. However, rhyming is not the only tool in the rapper’s bag; they can also use alliteration, or assonance, to make words stand out, which again can be considered accent. (Again, for a fuller discussion of accent, see my Nas post. This is all that I’ll say about it here.) 

But let’s take a look at the nature of Jean’s rhymes. Are they based on single syllables? Based on whole words? Here, in “Imagine”, they are based on a large, rather hard and fast order of vowel sounds that recur over and over, so I have termed them “block rhymes.” The meaning of this term will be made clear. Look at one of the first words Jean says : “homeostasis” (side bar: seriously, who even attempts to make a rhyme on the word homeostasis? How many rappers could define homeostasis? But moving on). Jean rhymes off this word repeatedly: starting with homeostasis, we then have “chromeo bass riffs”, “homie don’t play this”, “no we won’t play this”, and so on. Because these 5 syllables always occur together, and because they are almost always rhymes on the same vowel sound (oh – ee – oh – ay – ih, ex: homeostasis), I have termed them “block rhymes”. This will be placed in contrast to another way of rhyming, as we shall see in a following example. Here then, by rhyming off a ridiculous word like homeostasis, Jean shows that she does more than just throw in a ridiculous amount of accents; she’s got very good rhyming chops as well. We shouldn’t overlook the importance of the fact that Jean can make so many accents while at the same time still making sense. It is easy to rhyme words. Off the top of my head: me, see, he, she, flee, flea, tee, etc. But to make these words make sense is a more difficult task (indeed, some rappers just throw in a whole lot of rhymes, but don’t really make sense cough MF Doom cough… but we’ll come back to him. I have a lot to say about his particular, unique case.) 

But this idea can be understood in a different way. When one chooses a word to rhyme off of, one immediately and by necessity restricts the number of different things one can say. For instance, if you say, “I’m the best rapper ever”, you’ve already limited yourself to saying things that only end in rhymes with “ever.” 

Or so you’d think. 

Because this limitation doesn’t seem to exist for Jean. She seems to always locate the exact words with the maximum amount of accents to say what she’s trying to say. There are an infinite amount of ways to express the same idea as “I define my place as homeostasis”, but she comes up with the one way that fits in the most amount of accents. The entwining between what she wants to expresses and the exact words she uses is flawless. It should be very, very clear that this is not true for all rappers. 

I hate to pick on him, because usually I like what he does, but let’s consider a rhyme from Busta Rhymes that displays the limitation we were just previously discussing. In “Get You Some”, again from “The Big Bang” (just like the song “Don’t Get Carried Away” that we analyzed”), Busta begins the following verse like so: (no sheet music transcription is necessary, because we’re concerned only with his words) 

“A lot of niggas shit sounds dated / 

I’m like Shaq, the franchise player just got traded / 

To the number one team in the league, I ain’t on 

Jay records, I’m on Dre records, Aftermath bitch!” 

If you look at this whole rhyme, what I said before starts to make sense. It’s pretty easy to see that the main idea of the rhyme, the purpose of the rhyme, is to express how Busta feels about leaving one record label for another. Busta started with the idea that he wanted to talk about that. With that, he started with what could be called the “hook” of the rhyme, what he started with: that he (Busta) is like Shaq, who left the Orlando Magic for the very good LA Lakers, just like Busta left Jay records for the industry leading Aftermath Records. The first line Busta started writing these 4 lines with was “I’m like Shaq, the franchise player just got traded.” We know this because the first line of the rap is only extremely tangentially related to the topic at hand that Busta is discussing. He says, “A lot of niggas shit sounds dated.” Excuse me, but what the hell does that have to do with Busta leaving Jay records for Aftermath? Unfortunately, nothing. We can see that all of the verbal material is not tightly related. It comes in bits and pieces. He started with the line “I’m like Shaq, the franchise player just got traded,” then looked around for anything that rhymes with the word “traded.” He found dated and made the line given above. Furthermore, I have also included what comes in the lines after just to show that Busta doesn’t return to the “a lot of niggas shit sounds dated” idea as well. 

Again, I regret mentioning Busta in a negative context. This might not be the most glaring example, but it illustrates what we were talking about before from the opposite point of view. Busta immediately limited his options when he started with the line “I’m like Shaq, the franchise player just got traded,” and then worked from there. This exact thing just doesn’t seem to happen for JG. All of her lines in these examples are related, they all lead clearly in their ideas from one to the other, and they always make sense. 

Finally, we should mention that Jean manages an astounding 14 accents in a row, from “phony oasisis” to “chrome to yo faces.” Not bad. Also, note that the 5 syllable block rhyme (a rather large block to try and pull off, speaking to her rhyming skills) doesn’t always occur in the same place metrically. Most occur on the full 4 sixteenth notes of the beat and then has the final syllable on the 2nd sixteenth note of the next beat, such as in “no we won’t play this”, but she varies this; for example, “homeostasis” (that opens the verse) and “chrome to yo faces” are different. They start off the beat, on the final 16th note of the beat, and then ends differently as well. It is laborious to describe such things verbally; the reader is encouraged to observe how “homeostasis” and “chrome to yo faces” differ from the other instances of the same 5-syllable block rhyme. This variation keeps the rhyme sounding fresh in our ear; alternatively, it places emphasis on the final message of the verse, sounding different from what surrounds it as it does. 

This next example comes from Jean’s mixtape as well, from the song “Casebasket”, which opens the mixtape. Here it here. See the sheet music here:

It occurs at about 0:51. In this section, there are 71 notes, with 54 accents. That means about 75% of the notes are accented; again, another amazing percentage. That means that, over 4 bars, there are about 2.1 accents per beat. Again, half of the sixteenth notes every beat are accented. Here, though, she manages to start the verse off with 20 (yes, 20) straight accents, starting with the syllable “mis-“ from the word “misconstrued”, and ending on the word “fools.” Here, though, Jean doesn’t rhyme in block rhymes. Her rhyming style here tends to be syllabic. That is, a block of vowel sounds like “homeostasis” isn’t repeated. Instead, she mixes vowels such as “ih”, “uh, “oo”, in different orders. Observe the order of vowel sounds starting at “click:” 

“ih” “ih” “oo” “uh” “ih” “ih” “uh” “ih” (“click is fools…jiggaboos”) 

“ih” “uh” “uh” “oo” “uh” “ih” “ih” “uh” “ih” “ih” “uh” “oo” (“sick of…”coons”) 

By comparing the two and observing their parallel structural positions (for instance, beat 1 of the 2nd line above to beat 1 of the 1st line above, beat 2 of the 2nd line to beat 2 of the 1st line, and so on), you can see that there is no hard and fast pattern of vowel sounds that recurs (although “oo” “uh” “ih” “ih” “uh” “ih” does occur in both lines, I believe there is sufficient variation to warrant a different term to describe what she is doing here.) She is making rhymes syllable by syllable, not by blocks, as she did before. Also, Jean displays her sense of humor here. She also displays her ability to nest rhymes inside other ones. That is, the rhyme penning/venting occurs inside the rhyme between “tune” and “booze.” Furthermore, the same principles at work in the example from “Imagine” are at play here. There is the ridiculous amount of accents in a very short amount of time, while all of the verbal material is tightly related (again, the hyper-intense accentuation.) 

However, I have saved the best for last. Study these 4 bars from the song “Uh Oh”, featuring Talib Kweli (although it is really off Talib’s album “Gutter Rainbows.” It occurs at about 0:53. You can hear it here. This is its transcription:

There are 58 notes in these 4 bars. And there are 48 accents. That works out to saying that about 83% of the syllables are accented. And, occurring over 16 beats, there are 3 accents per beat. 3. With 4 sixteenth notes per beat, that means that 3 out of every 4 sixteenth notes per beats are accented, which is the metric level to which most rap is reduced to (most rappers rap at the level of the 16th note.) (I’ve also erred on the side of accenting too few notes rather than too many notes, just so that the effect of what exactly Jean is doing comes across as strongly as possible. For instance, one could argue for an accent on the syllable “con” from the word “convertible”, because of it’s repetition in “confirm” and because of alliteration with the word “cardio”, but I decided against it to guard against inflated accent numbers. Like with most things, there is an amount of interpretation that goes into choosing what notes are accented and which aren’t.) Compare this rate to others: look at rappers who are considered all-time greats going back, to the early 90s era, the so called Golden Age of rap. On average, their raps all had rhymes only at the end of lines; that means 1 rhyme (1 accent, same thing for our purposes here) every 4 beats. That’s .25 accents per beats. Jeanie raps at a rate that’s 12 times that, by placing 3 accents per beat. What’s more is, as we’ve mentioned before, it always makes sense. Not bad, but it makes us look differently at rappers like Guru, who is important for his lyrical content, but not necessarily for his musical contribution (although one could argue that these greats were important because they built the foundation for what would come later.) And here is where we need to step back a bit. 

The reader should realize by now that when you read these “How To Appreciate Rap Music” articles, you are getting a very specific flavor of rap analysis. We aren’t looking at rap as a poetical phenomenon, like the author does in Adam Bradley’s, “Book in Rhymes”, which is very appropriately subtitled “ The poetics of hip-hop.” Rarely, if ever, do I discuss what the rappers are saying verbally, and if I do, usually it’s only as their verbal message pertains to their musical message. I don’t really discuss rapper’s puns, wordplay, or anything like that. For this reason, I don’t really discuss rappers like Kanye West, who’s jokes/puns/punchlines/whatever you want to call them are absolutely off the charts (just check any song “College Dropout”: “Oh my gawd, is that a black card? / I turned around, and replied why yes, but I prefer the term African American express”…”Killin y’all niggas on that lyrical shit/Mayonnaise colored benz, I push miracle whips”…we could do this all day.) Because although he is amazingly clever, he is not amazing musically. But I make no qualms about it. My rap heroes are rappers like Jean Grae, rappers like Nas, like Mos Def, like Talib Kweli (“consider me the entity within the industry without a history of spittin the epitome of stupidity”…just wow). They are the ones I believe who are taking rap higher and higher as an art form, and I won’t apologize for taking this stance. And that’s why we won’t be talking about great story-tellers like 2pac, or discussing the ethical and philosophical messages of Guru. I feel like that only ever glosses over what rap is really about, and is only one half of the message (only the poetics, and not the music.) 

But back to Jean Grae. It should be noted that these examples aren’t isolated ones, either. I chose only what I thought were the best ones, although they can be found all over her work (for instance, in “You Don’t Want It”, from her album “This Week,” or “Rock On”, from the mixtape “Cookies or Death.”) It really is amazing (and kind of disheartening) that an MC who is this good isn’t universally recognized. Just from what I’ve seen, Jean will be in the top 3 of the greatest musical rappers of all time (again, considering her musically), if she can keep this up (it should be noted that her skills have only improved from her mix tape “Attack of the Attacking Things”, to “This Week”, and now onto “Cookies or Death”… I can’t wait to see what she has in store on her upcoming album, “Cake or Death”.) But please, please, please support her. You can find her mixtape online, and she’s coming out with the album “Cake Or Death” soon. Go buy it! And check out her album “This Week.” 

Thanks! Hope you enjoyed it!

Posted by Martin Connor 

 

 

GEORGE THE POET

INTERVIEW

We had the opportunity to interview up and coming writer George The Poet, with an amazing year George has appeared on Hackney 2012 Launch Film, LinkupTV, Business in the Community’s Awards Dinner 2012 and numerous High profile events. We discussed topics such as education, writing, music, Debut EP and more.

 

What inspires you to write?

Everyday experiences, anything, the only thing about writing is putting it in a format other than just simply thoughts and trying to arrange it in an artistically impressive way.

Your older brother was an influence to start rapping, what made you shift to poetry?

I feel in the world of grime, there wasn’t much room for me to say the things I wanted to say, there are a lot of egos and at the time a lot of negative energy. To an extent that’s changed with people like Wretch who have made a name by being generally positive.

What made you choose a socially conscious approach rather than a mainstream commercial appeal?

When you know yourself you know where your heart is. I go back to the endz and I see madness and I get vex, the angrier or more passionate I am the better it comes out. It’s not in me to speak that fake stuff, there’s certain prominent artist not going to call no names I feel how you can look in the mirror?

US artist or UK artist?

US

Do you think UK is changing because you have people like Mic Righteous, Wretch?

I feel as Drake “The real is on the rise” that’s beautiful to see but there is also a counter current, whereby people are just trying to be hard like all the youngers, as opposed to back in my day when all the youngers are trying to be good, as good as the movement.

With a message?

Before the message, this is what I was saying about grime, I don’t feel people really cared about the message but now there is a proper focus on being the biggest trapper, a trap star, everyone thinks there that.

Being at Cambridge studying Politics, Psychology and Sociology how has that influenced your poetry?

That just immerses me deeper in to all of this, it’s mad because I love my degree. I’ll sit in a lecture and the lecturer will quote a mad and interesting statistic and I’ll be twitting about it, like did you hear what he said, then I’ll go home and I’ll sit on that and think to myself my God, then I write something based on that.

What advice would you give to youth regarding education?

Make it matter to you because, trust me it matters the stuff in the classroom is not what your teacher just thought up and is trying to piss you off with. Its real life and when you start approaching your education as real life you are going to start to make more use of it.

What was it like being recognised by the BBC and doing the Hackney 2012 Launch Film advert?

That was really flattering, at the time I hadn’t done anything on that level, so when I went back to the hood, even people who I didn’t really get along with were saying they were proud, every time the advert came on I got 100 tweets, I just left my phone, it’s a myth.

Can you say a bit about your performance at Business in the Community’s Awards Dinner 2012?

Prince Charles’charity Business in the Community, they give big companies like M&S, awards for responsible business and business with a conscious, they commissioned me to do a poem about responsible business and giving back to the community. Like really and truly when you do business are you just trying to tick boxes and receive rewards or do you truly care about people?

When writing ‘Mother Tongue’ why do you think it’s so important to know your native language?

It comes back to Cambridge and people don’t perceive me as posh, it is really important to tap into the entire world and what’s available to you because that makes you a more rounded person. With Mother tongue, I don’t know the language that my parents speak and that language is like a bridge back where my story proper stated. I wasn’t born there but I will be able to slot back in and feel like I’ve come full circle, if I could just go there and talk to everyone. Its calm anyway I can be there for months and I get on around on my own.

Which poem of yours is your favourite and why?

I have new stuff that my favourite, I can’t give away yet but out of my current stuff, ‘The Olders’ is my favourite poem, because it’s just my heart laid out there.

Are there any poems you feel that you regret or think you could have done better?

Most poems I feel I could of done better, like’ Mother tongue’ I feel I got the message across but at the time when I wrote I wasn’t writing out of hunger, passion or anger but more of something on my mind and me trying to get it out, I wasn’t 100% happy with the finish result but if you are devoted to your craft like I am, more times you think you can do better.

Have you started to learn your mother tongue?

Yeah, most time when I’m around Ugandan people it will come, most of my friends can speak it and I’ll start saying words and phrases I forgot, but I need to be in Uganda for a year to soak it all up.

Why the name ‘George The Poet’?

Coming out of grime and rap I got tired of gimmickry and there are a lot of gimmicks in music and jumping through hoops, and I thought keep it 100%. Also it involves people, who aren’t familiar with tag names like older or middle class, it’s not intimidating or alienating.

What’s your motivation for doing workshops and working with youth organisations like The Hackney Pirates?

If what you’re doing doesn’t leave behind something positive for the future, you need to question what you are doing because the future is just the present later. If you’re not improving the present for someone else later on what are you doing?

What does the future hold for George The Poet?

I haven’t been promoting this because I’ve just been writing but there’s an EP coming, haven’t decided on the title or date but will come out later on in this year. More music collaborating with prominent artist, I got stuff in the bag.

‘Blame Game’ and ‘The Olders’ both are over Hip Hop beats, what do you think the state of Hip Hop now?

The state of Hip Hop, as usual there is a lot of aspects to Hip Hop, there some things going on that is good that make me happy like Drake’s music, I feel it’s just pure him, proper Hip Hop and RnB., J. Cole is real but obviously there is always other stuff were you can tell money is the motive but to each his own.

What is your favourite Hip Hop Album?

Marshal Mather LP, it was amazing right now he’s not the same but I’m happy for him, because that’s a tortured soul if you listen to him, I’m getting goose bumps just thinking about him, I am happy he’s in calm place.

Top five Hip Hop artists?

Eminem, 2Pac, Nas, Jay-Z and people might be angry for me George. I got to be real, who always been there for me you know what Will Smith, you know Will smith is not easy he does his thing, hes serious.

Top five Grime Artists?

Ghetts, Wretch, Wiley, Skepta and Bashy.

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Text:  James Childs – @jaimz

Images: Jehan Hamze and Mark Dear 

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