The Dead Emcee Scrolls (18 page)

Future slave narrative

Comparative literature

Sketches of an undeveloped picture

Charcoal star soul

I Ching detected from a bar code

Download mad niggas by the carload

A brief history of timelessness borrowed

King of sorrow/ King pleasure

Buried treasure

Twelfth Night/ Measure for Measure

Paranoid Android

Listen at your leisure

Or beat it, Michael Jackson

Red leather

Disfigured nigga

Inbred communion

Remnants of a resurrected ruin

Pray with your eyes closed

Sleep with your door closed

We want to see those truths that you're hiding

Bride in a white dress

Cried in her white dress

Salt-water moon daughter

Bled at her ritual

Communion

Same blood

Different visual

Digital ritual

Ritual digital

Binary star

Some cats in a car

Rollin on dubs

Do you know where your kids are?

Rollin with thugs

Drinkin that good shit

Smokin dem drugs

We got you tied up

Brain sleazed and fried up

Eyelids are pried up

You see what I see?

White mothafuckas tryin to be what I be

Black mothafuckas tryin to shop to feel free

I'm waiting to board an airplane in Atlanta when I spot Hype Williams. We greet each other and begin catching up. I ask him if he knows about the long list of songs that was sent to radio programmers, suggesting that those songs not be played. He was unaware. I tell him that no rap songs were on the list, primarily because the vast majority of mainstream rappers are not talking about anything of any political relevance, nothing that might counter the system in any way. In fact, rap radio feeds the economy. He tells me that the rap game is like fast food and that people will always want fast food. He asks me if I listen to hip-hop. I tell him that I study it, but that I cannot listen to it in most cases for the same reason I don't eat meat: I
don't like how it feels in my system. I tell him that I can't listen to it because it seems to betray the hip-hop that molded me. He wants to know if I remember Public Enemy, KRS, Rakim … I tell him that I have difficulty listening to contemporary hip-hop because I can't forget.

“Maybe you should search reality and / stop wishing for beats and steady bass / and lyrics said in haste / if its meaning doesn't manifest / put it to rest”

“POETRY” KRS-ONE 1987

Hype and I seem to symbolize different worlds with the same last name. He is in first class and I am in economy, in the back (keeping it real?). We are balancing the plane by sitting in our respective seats. Our respective films
Slam
and
Belly
came out the same October day three years ago. We are both playing our roles in doing what we feel we were put here to do. The pilot has just announced that we are at 10,000 feet and that the movie will be
Cats & Dogs.
Funny. This makes me think of the magazine cover I just read that says “DMX: Hip-hop's Hardest Rapper.” DMX was the star of
Belly.
If I were to figure into the rap equation, I'd probably be the softest. To most dogs I'm probably a pussy. Back to Hype. Hype is not a rapper, yet I feel he has contributed greatly to what now is represented as hip-hop culture through the media. And I guess even more importantly, young black culture. The question I am posed, as an artist who is very much a critic of hip-hop and popular culture, is whether I am most comfortable preaching to the converted
or, more accurately, what would I say if I had the opportunity to sit and talk with a Jay-Z, a DMX, or a rap entity who reaches the mainstream on a regular basis?

One might ask, well, who the fuck am I to criticize, especially when I'm on some poetry shit. Well, actually my love of poetry didn't happen because I grew up reading poetry but because I grew up with very strong doses of hip-hop and that is the poetry that shaped me and molded me. Through hip-hop I gained my biggest appreciation of myself and my culture. Hip-hop made me proud to be black in ways that my parents could never do by forcing me to read a Langston Hughes poem. And even when I began writing poems in the mid-'90s, while everyone started going on and on about who was producing what (Dre's beats, Premier's hooks, etc.), I stepped into the poetry arena, which at the time was synonymous with the underground hip-hop scene, because it felt like lyricism was getting the short end of the stick. I wasn't being fulfilled lyrically. Thus, the poetry that I began writing was to fill the void between what I was hearing and what I wanted to hear from hip-hop. I simply decided to take the beat away and focus solely on lyricism. And much of my current dissatisfaction comes from the fact that if I now had to look at hip-hop for inspiration or guidance, I feel as if I might be misled. I don't doubt for a minute that these emcees, with their bandannas and ice, are soldiers. That's exactly what they are. But I can't figure out who's giving the orders, or whether there is any actual order.

So the question remains, what would I say if mainstream rappers were listening? Perhaps I would begin by asking them
what would they say, if the whole world were listening? Then I would question whether they were aware of the fact that the world was listening and responding to all that they said….

We are defined by our ability to resonate and shape sounds. Word. Therefore what we say is of the utmost importance. What we say matters (becomes matter). That is why the spiritual communities have always had people recite prayers and mantras aloud, because they know that they will affect global consciousness and reality itself. We seem to have once, subconsciously, known that in hip-hop as well. Our earliest slang, “word,” “word up,” “word life,” “word is bond,” all seemed to revel in this knowledge. As Guru said, “These are the words that I manifest.” We nodded our heads in affirmation and then when Biggie named his first album
Ready to Die
we all acted surprised when it happened. Word is bond, son. Plain and simple.

How much senseless violence have we spoken of without taking into account the possibility of our calling these things into existence? Emcees, there is a power in words. There is a power in sound vibration. It affects reality. In fact, it determines it. Hip-hop is much more powerful than mere party music. I don't mean to bring no hateration to the dancerie, but hip-hop, because of its hard drumbeats and conversational chants and rhymes, has the power of any sacred ritual. It is no coincidence that it has reshaped and redefined youth culture, globally. I am not suggesting that we not aim to depict our realities through our music, but we should also realize that we shape our realities as we depict them.

Why is it that if you flipped to BET during the World Trade
Center incident it was showing videos when every other station was showing news? It stood out like a metaphoric commentary on the relevance of contemporary black music. Is the latest and most important news in the black community that Jay-Z and Puffy have gotten off free while we remain enslaved to their senseless ideas and lack of ideals. In the latest Bad Boy release there is a lyric that says, “Bad Boy ain't going nowhere until Tibet is free.” Why would anyone align himself with the type of oppression that keeps the Dalai Lama from being able to return to his homeland? You may ask why I am calling the names of a few rappers, as if they are to blame, I am not placing blame, I am simply raising questions. The fact of the matter is that there are no famous philosophers or thinkers in this day and age. There are merely famous entertainers. Yet we associate with them by their philosophy. If you believe that “bitches ain't shit,” you know who to listen to. If you're a hustler or a playa, you know who to listen to. But when we sing along with a song, are we operating off of our highest principles, or are we saying things that we would take back if we thought seriously about it? And what if you don't take it back? Is word still bond? Are these the words we manifest? Are these the prayers and mantras of our community? Are we determining an unchanging reality by focusing on keeping it real? We are not powerless. We do live and speak with the power of determining our realities and affecting our environment both positively and negatively. Hip-hop at its best was strategic, and the strategy at that time was about a bit more than getting paid. The problem is that we are ignoring the lessons that we learned from KRS,
Public Enemy, Rakim, Jungle Brothers, Queen Latifah and other golden age rap groups that revolutionized hip-hop. It has been said that those who do not know their history are bound to repeat it. It seems that hip-hop is in the midst of either relearning or forgetting lessons that have already been taught. But don't get me wrong. This is not a plea to rappers or whomever to become more conscious of what they say; this is not someone trying to enlighten minds. This is a prediction. If you are in some way affiliated with any of these emcees getting airplay, or polluting your airspace with their lack of insight, I would advise you to begin reading aloud. Your shit will not last. You will manifest your truths and die in the face of them. These are your last days. We are growing tired of you. We love women for more than you have ever seen in them. We love hip-hop for more than you have ever used it for. We love ourselves, not for our possessions, but for the spirit that possesses us. We honor your existence. We honor your freedom. But a freedom that costs, obviously, is not free. Watch what you say. Watch what you value. Planes crash. Bank vaults are airtight, you will suffocate in them. Cars crash. Word life. Word death. Your hit songs hit and run. We are wounded but not dead. And we are coming to reclaim what is ours. The main stream: the ocean. The current. Our time is now. Word is bond.

I acknowledge that I am a vessel pressed against the lips of the Faceless. I am an instrument in a symphony orchestrated by the hands of an electrifying conductor. I am thankful to play my part. I am a part of the plan. Just like you. I acknowledge your presence, kiss your eyes and thank you for being. It's going to be fun getting to know each other. Let's have an open relationship. Just kidding. Never more than you and I.

I also acknowledge the hands, hearts, and minds that graced the trail from my hands to yours. They have been instrumental. All parts are equal. We give and take. But those who give of themselves in the name of another are of the highest rank. I thank you with all of my heart. Your devotion to your work and craft has intensified my devotion to my own. Thank you for planning, proofing, laying out, marketing, researching, and outlining a dream now manifest.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge that I am neither here nor there. I am not what you think. Only what you know in your heart. I believe in you and trust you can feel me. But, truly, I'm just that NGH you may cross the street to avoid, invested with love and a nurturing family. Some are not as lucky. All are blessed. Feel me? We use what we got …

My man Kwam told me, “Ain't no use. NGHs are broken.” Nah man, NGHs ain't broken. NGHs are broken-hearted. Ain't no love in the promise land. Ain't that a BCH! My love told me that she had to learn how to surrender to love again after her divorce. But first she had to allow herself time to heal. NGHs are healin. That's why some of ‘em be wearin
Band-Aids, buying themselves diamonds and speaking of their worth. We were once worthless. Never forget, regardless of how much it breaks your heart or strains your imagination to remember. We served life as if trialed by God: slavery. Capital punishment. Got way too many emcees serving sentences. Word is bond. The source and power of your wordplay is no game. Playas beware. Game recognize truth. I love y'all more than words. I can't say it enough. Shit, so much I've made expressing that love my hustle, my daily bread. And, nah, NGHs may not be broken, but I've sure been broke (Big shout out to the heads that be helping me manage my scrilla!). And I acknowledge the wit and savvy of all you hustlers that had to do what you had to do to not be broke. Now, let's do what we got to do to not be broken. Let's learn to love again: our mothers, our children, ourselves. And let's let that love resonate through our music (That doesn't mean I ain't goin to check out Three6Mafia tonight, ‘cause I am. Believe it. If Project Pat is there I'm gonna lose it!). Balance. We walk the fine line between now and the eternal. Our journey has the makings of scripture. Which ain't much more than souped up poetry (yes, of course, inspired by the divine).

What is a poem's worth? You decide. Recite me off page or know me by heart. I am written. So be it. I acknowledge that I am not the first, nor will I be the last, but I am here and now. And in this moment I acknowledge that we are all much more than ourselves. We are each other. And together we are part of a universe. One verse of a poem that extends beyond before and after. I know nothing of the author except that I love her. I feel kissed by language, let alone by my love.