I've been listening to our new president read his autobiography, and hearing his moving speeches, and again I am reminded of the power of the spoken word. Even more so, at a spoken word event the other night here in DC, I was once again reminded of the tongues-on-fire passion that can kindle individuals and masses of people to aspire for progress. And finally, as the hard-won festivities die down and the immensity of the work looms, and as the powers that (continue to) be keep on with the same business as usual (at which they make a killing), I see the need to bring some pressure on the new administration and give the new man in charge the political capital needed to invest in real change.
So here's an old spoken word piece from back in my days of anger and surety - whose all-over-the-place attack works a bit better for the ear than for the scrutinizing eye, but that's okay, since passion and immediacy is really the point:
they don’t lock you up till you utter the word.
ideas get deferred until you get heard
write, publish, cite and study it:
immediately forget it, even if you might stutter it
you gotta shout to get it out,
if you flout their restrictions on vocal dignified diction.
people will remember, recite, revive your thoughts,
just put it to a beat and the streets will leap alive and hot
but watch out for the mediocre power-mad sots’ shot
in the back so think slick jack or you’ll be quick knocked flat,
watch for CIA foul play if y’ask me
or he or she that knows bout the troubles you meet
if you rhyme in time to a beat,
(specially talk to those inspired by blows
to dark forgotten bodies that even in death
have begotten bumpin like procreative humpin
like global e-motion wired to tired peeps
mired in the sleep and sweat o’ their ghettos)
that creepin sooth seepin in music
will make truthless fists ruthless and lose it
cuz they know that fine minds find time to grind
to sly rhyme and bring shoddy bodies to the boogie ring
to sing for the gents and the ladies
but not that safe, sorry, sissy bling-bling,
just that pissed fist power of words whacked with zeal for tomorrow
and reeling with sorrow, careering for movement
on the real-world pavement yet searing into memory
the scent of the earth’s worth and the sound
of her howling anger’s hound getting loud
bout being treated like a cheap whore’s bleeding sore.
So I ain’t got time for that half-ass ringside romance, lady.
You got the full-force crash-course freefall flash-dance?
Or are you just gonna make me crazy with your asspants?
We got no time for lazy people or intellectual preachers steeples
¬or that hazy, fuzzy-thought heap of
hedonistic solipsistic whoreshit
Unless we jus get down in the congregation
get down to the ignant part of this hell-bent nation
get down and dirty, loud and wordy,
raising smog-sent yellin tarnation
get down to the (amphi)theaters, to amplify demystify the crime
that millions do time underneath our amusement
(you know it was a PR ruse when Ali’s smooth moves
made Mobutu’s palace-plighted jail-packed
Congolese screams sound like cheers).
So who here hears me?
Steer clear of booty-call crass classless rap crap
Rap at me so I can get down like in those oldschool bop bars
that wildly revolutioned Harlem while most white-washed writin
couldn’t hear em maybe cuz they feared em or couldn’t steer em
through insulated cellophane window-panes
all high and mighty but too penthouse-flighty
unable to feel the bent cuz they pay high rent
to remove themselves from the rant of the radicals,
the slant of the offbeat poet.
But you know it ain’t too late to recant
And hit the streets like a Panther in heat
ready to procreate or devastate,
depending on the current state
Howling in rage at the cage brothers and sisters live in
Scowling at those who squeak our livin’ anger reeks
of an immature phase… Man, we’ve been raised
in sleepy fright and awake scared sight
on the blaze of gun-craze night and day
So here’s Hampton’s worth-dying-for question:
how many kids’ graves till we organize
our gang lives into ways that pay
down our debt to the driver for his lashing “aid,”
pay off our guilt at squandering our heritage of ancestors’ blisters
as their brothers and sisters came through slaughter,
not wandering lost like most of us, but chained into gangs –
why do we forget that cost and spend what change they left us
on crack and talk smack instead of back?
So what’s the deal? Why do so many feel
the need to repeal the oaths to common, constant action
when the satisfaction of success lies so close?
Are we too verbose for those used to soundbites to stand and fight
for mere words and clear morals here?
Or do the deaths of our prophets, revolutionaries
make us wary, make us wanna drop it,
stop this evolution maybe cuz we’re afraid
those with power intimidate, pay to segregate,
to fill with hate those that they manipulate,
to push them to shove us to final fate before our time?
Our time is now, to climb to the bow,
seize control and roll with the punches of waves,
be they pay-offs, nightstick lay-offs,
or simply play-off passive aggression junkfood-induced soft scoffs.
Cuz media-prized hypnotized ignorant eyes
fear progression from comfort and don’t realize
they participate of their own volition
in the safe pass-the-crushing-buck exploitation
that looks the other way and runs this nation
and darkly crushes opposition or the slightest expression
of the brightest digression.
Some say They’ve left us dead, deaf and dumb,
our sensibil-ity numbed, bereft us of the best of us,
generations forced to feed on corporate-run
city crumbs as bums or convicts
Some say that those that remain
walk sick or in pain and stick to the talk
we been taught in white-washed schools where fool’s rules slosh
cruel hot memory into cooled-calmed consumable slop
I say they close their memory’s shop
to all hot bop that don’t sit still and swig that swill
without a shout of get-real steel
feelin that’s so substantive you can make of it a meal
and learn to stand and live on what’s at stake in what shakes
in such brawlin batter and if you can just swallow
bitter medicine, you’ll follow what’s the matter
for god’s sake and we’ll make the earth quake
That ain’t to claim we ain’t been maimed
but we gotta rename the greats,
reseat their feats in the justice hall of fame
and recognize their blooming flower flame
that never did wait inactive, we got millions that live
that the powers-that-be-always-the-same can’t ever placate
till we create equality and
a just social reality.
