Tag: poetry

A revolutionary love will free us!

Enough police terror!

Along with the Panthers visionary activism, they wrote and performed poetry. Panther poets “(un)consciously” recited language with body gestures to influence and inspire social change.

Big Mouth Productions is presenting a cultural event for everyone in the community to come together and have a pleasurable time. A recent First Tuesdays Spoken Word event I attended was filled with an abundance of positive energy and great people. The event takes place this evening and every first Tuesday of the month at 7:30 p.m. at the Radio Africa Kitchen restaurant, located on the corner of Third and Oakdale in the heart of Bayview Hunters Point.

Do Black lives matter? I challenge everybody on planet earth to retrace their roots; you will find that the more you go back, the more you get Black! Because Mama Af Ra Ka gave birth to humanity. And Africa is the only continent rooted in the earth, that doesn’t float and oscillate. Afrika is the breadbasket of the world. Free Afreeka, for humanity’s sake! Black lives gave birth to civilization, science, mathematics, music, art, poetry and medicine.

I’ve seen Khoree the Poet perform at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle in Oakland, at the Historic Bal Theater in San Leandro and in venues around the Bay with D’Wayne Wiggins of Tony, Toni, Tone! The Bay has launched the careers of many great poets. Khoree the Poet is next in line to bust out of the Bay onto the national and world scene. Check him out in this exclusive Q&A for the Bay View.

I introduce this manifesto to all New Afrikans (i.e. Blacks) and any human beings who are SERIOUS about changing the inhumane living conditions that we see the people being subjected to in oppressed, impoverished communities throughout Amerika. It is crucial that we assess our conditions based on what is in our power to do, opposed to what someone can do for us.

Growing up with an older brother like Sean was really a very special gift. Seven years of wisdom separated us. When I was still interested in Barbie and Ken, Sean had long been interested in music. Indeed, you could hardly escape him and his body-popping, breakdancing dance moves on the living room space any time there was company around.

Historically, heroes – super-powered or not – come in all shapes and sizes. But what about colors? If we allow your standard history book and Hollywood small and silver screen productions to answer that question, the overall answer would be that the color is only one – white. Black heroes, it seems, do not exist.

On Feb. 18, 7 p.m., at Modern Times Bookstore, Krip-Hop Nation will present an author panel of new books by Black disabled writers and friends, including Toni Hickman of Texas, Adarro Minton of New York, Allen Jones of San Francisco and friends of Krip-Hop Nation, DC Curtis and Bones Kendall of Los Angeles.

A good MC is a song writer, a poet, a storyteller etc. So when we take the talent and passion of our craft and apply it to other forms of creative writing, we shine. The more you can master the language and break words up and down, the more ammunition and intelligence you have. The more intelligence you have, the more power. Look at what happened to Malcolm after reading the dictionary.

Ayo the Wordslanger is one of the most intense poets that I have ever met in Oakland. She is not just somebody who can rhyme – she can do that. She is somebody with the life experiences to back up her lyrical passion. She doesn’t do cafe poetry; she does street poetry for the masses. There’s nothing Afro-bourgeois about her lyrical content; it’s straight hood. Check her out in her own words.