WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.030 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.030 --> 00:00:03.530 align:middle line:90% "Trumpets Up in Here." 00:00:03.530 --> 00:00:06.730 align:middle line:84% The sprawl and broken crawl on the back of Basquiat's paints, 00:00:06.730 --> 00:00:10.720 align:middle line:84% the thin cleft of villainous pigments wrapping each frame 00:00:10.720 --> 00:00:14.350 align:middle line:84% like the syntax in somebody else's relaxed explanation 00:00:14.350 --> 00:00:15.340 align:middle line:90% of lateness. 00:00:15.340 --> 00:00:18.070 align:middle line:84% What had happened was below blackened crowns, 00:00:18.070 --> 00:00:19.990 align:middle line:84% below words crossed out to remind 00:00:19.990 --> 00:00:23.470 align:middle line:84% what is underneath-- potholes, ashy elbows, and breath 00:00:23.470 --> 00:00:27.040 align:middle line:84% that, in the cold, comes out in red light and complaint shapes. 00:00:27.040 --> 00:00:30.820 align:middle line:84% Three lines from miles mouth, three lines in the habit 00:00:30.820 --> 00:00:32.350 align:middle line:90% of tardy renumerations. 00:00:32.350 --> 00:00:34.360 align:middle line:84% All that three triggered agitation, 00:00:34.360 --> 00:00:36.460 align:middle line:84% all that angry-fingered fruition, 00:00:36.460 --> 00:00:40.030 align:middle line:84% like Indianapolis's three skyscrapered smile. 00:00:40.030 --> 00:00:42.400 align:middle line:84% When the sun goes down, and even the colors themselves 00:00:42.400 --> 00:00:44.830 align:middle line:84% start talking in the same suspicious idioms 00:00:44.830 --> 00:00:46.540 align:middle line:90% as a brass instrument. 00:00:46.540 --> 00:00:49.420 align:middle line:84% Thin throat like a fist, flat declarations 00:00:49.420 --> 00:00:52.600 align:middle line:84% of pastors and teachers at Christmas in the inner city. 00:00:52.600 --> 00:00:55.750 align:middle line:84% Shoulders back and heads up while playing in the holiday 00:00:55.750 --> 00:00:59.762 align:middle line:84% choir of hungry paints, chins covered in red scribbles 00:00:59.762 --> 00:01:00.595 align:middle line:90% in all of the songs. 00:01:00.595 --> 00:01:04.257 align:middle line:90% 00:01:04.257 --> 00:01:05.340 align:middle line:90% So let me start with this. 00:01:05.340 --> 00:01:08.910 align:middle line:84% I spent eight years researching and writing "The Big Smoke." 00:01:08.910 --> 00:01:12.450 align:middle line:84% And during that time, I also conceived and completed 00:01:12.450 --> 00:01:14.260 align:middle line:84% the book that preceded it, "Mixology," 00:01:14.260 --> 00:01:16.260 align:middle line:84% and I really like that you were holding them up. 00:01:16.260 --> 00:01:17.160 align:middle line:90% Thank you for that. 00:01:17.160 --> 00:01:19.340 align:middle line:84% That's it, we're representing, right? 00:01:19.340 --> 00:01:22.230 align:middle line:90% 00:01:22.230 --> 00:01:25.350 align:middle line:84% It was part a way for me to manage my own needs 00:01:25.350 --> 00:01:29.370 align:middle line:84% in the poems while staying on some level true to the work 00:01:29.370 --> 00:01:32.880 align:middle line:84% that I wanted to do for Jack Johnson. 00:01:32.880 --> 00:01:35.430 align:middle line:84% But really, what I learned from writing 00:01:35.430 --> 00:01:37.260 align:middle line:84% "Mixology" is that all my biographies, 00:01:37.260 --> 00:01:40.050 align:middle line:84% all my autobiographies are small things, right? 00:01:40.050 --> 00:01:43.650 align:middle line:84% And so, "Mixology" includes a great deal 00:01:43.650 --> 00:01:45.060 align:middle line:90% of smaller autobiography. 00:01:45.060 --> 00:01:47.580 align:middle line:84% But it's all lived experience in the poems. 00:01:47.580 --> 00:01:49.740 align:middle line:84% And they're frequently connected to pop 00:01:49.740 --> 00:01:53.520 align:middle line:84% culture, Fela Kuti and Bob Coffin, for example, 00:01:53.520 --> 00:01:55.260 align:middle line:84% or as in the poem I'm about to read, 00:01:55.260 --> 00:01:58.480 align:middle line:84% "Tyndall Armory," where I got to see Public Enemy. 00:01:58.480 --> 00:02:01.710 align:middle line:84% It was my favorite rap group when I was in high school. 00:02:01.710 --> 00:02:04.170 align:middle line:84% The truest, most performative moments of the poems 00:02:04.170 --> 00:02:06.990 align:middle line:84% are the give and take between the speaker and the object, 00:02:06.990 --> 00:02:11.360 align:middle line:84% neither is a true spectacle by itself. 00:02:11.360 --> 00:02:13.440 align:middle line:90% "Tyndall Armory." 00:02:13.440 --> 00:02:17.950 align:middle line:84% Public Enemy had no idea of what to do on stage in 1987. 00:02:17.950 --> 00:02:20.760 align:middle line:84% But we didn't know what to do as a rap crowd, either. 00:02:20.760 --> 00:02:24.030 align:middle line:84% Attendance was mandatory, jammed into the Tyndall Armory, one 00:02:24.030 --> 00:02:27.330 align:middle line:84% night before amateur boxing and one night after bingo. 00:02:27.330 --> 00:02:29.010 align:middle line:84% A bunch of homeboys kenti-ed together 00:02:29.010 --> 00:02:32.160 align:middle line:84% with African medallions, and graffiti spray-painted jeans, 00:02:32.160 --> 00:02:34.950 align:middle line:84% all of us mad at the conspiracy of conspiracy, 00:02:34.950 --> 00:02:38.160 align:middle line:84% staring each other down with a circular anger only Black men 00:02:38.160 --> 00:02:39.510 align:middle line:90% can justify. 00:02:39.510 --> 00:02:42.780 align:middle line:84% Terminator X, his one-handed power fist cut and scratch, 00:02:42.780 --> 00:02:44.820 align:middle line:84% was the only thing keeping the revolution 00:02:44.820 --> 00:02:46.290 align:middle line:90% from starting right there. 00:02:46.290 --> 00:02:48.780 align:middle line:84% Bass lines and warning sirens transformed 00:02:48.780 --> 00:02:51.840 align:middle line:84% into samples refusing The Wop like the Black maitre d' 00:02:51.840 --> 00:02:53.370 align:middle line:84% at the Highlands Country Club, he 00:02:53.370 --> 00:02:55.680 align:middle line:90% refused to seat Black people. 00:02:55.680 --> 00:02:57.270 align:middle line:84% My friend, Richard, was determined 00:02:57.270 --> 00:02:59.100 align:middle line:90% to be the first Black president. 00:02:59.100 --> 00:03:01.053 align:middle line:84% He refused wine coolers and weed, white women 00:03:01.053 --> 00:03:03.720 align:middle line:84% and white lines, because the man could hold anything against him 00:03:03.720 --> 00:03:05.340 align:middle line:90% during a campaign. 00:03:05.340 --> 00:03:06.900 align:middle line:84% As president, he would buy Highlands 00:03:06.900 --> 00:03:08.940 align:middle line:90% and turn it into a Black thing. 00:03:08.940 --> 00:03:11.550 align:middle line:90% Terminator X had Rich ready to-- 00:03:11.550 --> 00:03:13.830 align:middle line:84% Nat Turner, the first patch of white he saw. 00:03:13.830 --> 00:03:16.770 align:middle line:84% And when Chuck D mugged the stage, his African medallion 00:03:16.770 --> 00:03:19.080 align:middle line:84% swinging like left hooks, his baseball cap 00:03:19.080 --> 00:03:21.720 align:middle line:84% pulled down so low his eyes were the idea of eyes. 00:03:21.720 --> 00:03:24.570 align:middle line:84% The heat in that room was enough to make any Tom reconsider 00:03:24.570 --> 00:03:25.590 align:middle line:90% his friendships. 00:03:25.590 --> 00:03:28.420 align:middle line:90% 00:03:28.420 --> 00:03:30.245 align:middle line:84% I just-- I just messed up for a second 00:03:30.245 --> 00:03:32.370 align:middle line:84% because I started thinking about my friend Richard. 00:03:32.370 --> 00:03:34.200 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:34.200 --> 00:03:37.140 align:middle line:84% And I was thinking about how he was so serious about being 00:03:37.140 --> 00:03:38.820 align:middle line:90% the president, you know? 00:03:38.820 --> 00:03:42.540 align:middle line:84% And at some point, he was like, you know, now, it's cool. 00:03:42.540 --> 00:03:45.010 align:middle line:90% He can keep that. 00:03:45.010 --> 00:03:46.710 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:46.710 --> 00:03:49.250 align:middle line:90% I'll let him have that.